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Glad to see all the replies!

I'm still confused to the mechanics of nonlethal attacks & damage. What's the difference between using a sword edge for lethal and using the flat of the sword for nonlethal? Especially on a fire elemental, water elemental, air elemental, etc. (It's a little easier to see it on an earth elemental.)

Hello players,

Running a group through Legacy of Fire here, and we came across an Elder Fire Elemental. The fighter wanted to subdue the fire elemental, rather than kill it, because it had an INT of 10 and was reportedly very rare by its' size and age.

The problem is, I can not find anywhere in the elemental subtype or PRD where it says you can do subdual damage on an elemental. Any elemental. The traits say "cannot be stunned" and "does not sleep", but as another player pointed out, elves and dragons do not sleep, but you can knock them unconscious.

So what's a mundane fighter to do? Kill or be killed? The various summoning rules state that a fire elemental only cowers around, or is afraid of, or cannot cross, open water. So barring a specialist spellcaster making a new spell called water chains of binding or somesuch, or using decanters of endless water all round the fire elemental, I'm at a loss as to how to stop a fire elemental but not kill it.

Of course, even if you could subdue a fire elemental, would you then use Handle Animal or Diplomacy on it?

Cold. Iron. Caltrops.

Best area control item ever for dealing with fey that don't fly. And they're cheap, too!

Also, be sure to keep an eye out for other fey that may be fed up with the garbage that the antisocial ones are pulling on you, they may just be willing to ally with your team.

Had something similar happen with lycanthropes. At the next major city our party outfitted everyone with "masterwork cold iron spiked gauntlets" on one fist and "masterwork silvered spiked gauntlets" on the other fist. Not only were they cheap ((5gp + 300gp)*2=610gp), (5 gp + 300 gp + 20 gp=325 gp), but now the players were covered for fey, demon, and weres. Getting them up to magical weapons cost extra (+2,000 gp for the cold iron), but my character kept them throughout the adventure.

Can't go wrong with the abovementioned Teleport, Life Bubble, and Overland Flight.

Also consider that these popular spells are also going to be in virtually any evil spellcaster's spell tome that you, ah, "liberate" at the end of a battle with said evil spellcaster. If your GM is the "Monty Haul" type, get the APG/special spells "for free", knowing that in a game or two you'll be able to inscribe the standard Core 5th level spells from a liberated tome. If not, go for the must-have short-list above.

On the other hand, if you are a crafter, this is the time to pick up Secret Chest and make that bag of holding Type IV you've been begging for since Level 4 to no avail. Sending is the ultimate "talk to the expert you met back in town" spell. Or to contact a team member who just got kidnapped/captured/teleported away. (Dream is a 5th-level backup for this, with no word limit, compared to Sending.) Passwall is on your short-list if you are a utility spellcaster for the team, and you spend so much time underground you qualify for a discount at the dwarven taverns in town. Wall of Stone is the ultimate "I've got this!" when retreating from superior foes underground in a dungeon.

In conclusion, welcome to 9th Level! Now the fun begins.

You're all missing the point of the anime: to introduce Golarion. Which Adventure Path would be used? Rise of the Runelords (Anniversary Edition, please)? Iron Gods? Legacy of Fire? And six Adventure Path books would be a minimum of 24 anime episodes + 2 "ending" OVAs or an ending "movie", unless you want to go the "really short, crammed-in movie vs. 24 episodes" route.

I'm not saying it can't be done, there's plenty of "medieval + magic" anime out there. Sometimes the characters start off at Level One, sometimes they're already Level Eighteen.

There's also getting good Japanese voices in addition to the studio, good music directors, sponsors, promoting the characters as figurine models (and we're not talking 25mm here), someone on staff for referencing the magic system, etc. Pools of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor was a good representation, in my own opinion.

Do you want everyone as adventurers in their mid-twenties, or do we get the "chibi" version, with Seoni the nine-year-old sorceress? These are questions the studio needs answered first.

Quintain & Moonrunner, thanks for the replies.

Quintrain, I agree with the Extend Power on Inertial Armor. This is my first attempt at playing a Psychic Warrior, and yes, I'm getting teased about being "only" a D8 instead of D10 or D12. For game reasons I couldn't choose Half-Giant or Forgeborn, so I'm doing the best I can. Things like the Psionic Body feat help with hit points.

Moonrunner, scenario #2 is turning into 100% of the time. But I think I have a system for that now - see the above on priorities.

And yes, my PW had armor, but it turns out efreeti on the Plane of Fire #1 like taking humans as slaves, and #2 they sell confiscated weapons and armor in the City of Brass faster than a Massachusetts gun buy-back program...

My PW is saving up for some MW breastplate again, or even heavy armor. In the meantime, Inertial Armor (max power points spent) is doing the job.

Thanks for all the replies.

master_marshmallow, my PW tank is STR18/DEX13/CON13/INT10/WIS15/CHA0 (Don't forget, WIS is important to a PW, not INT. I do take a hit for my Intimidate checks, but I can live with low CHA.) Derrick Winters, we're not using the duel rules, but thanks for the reach weapon advice. I had not thought of the PW Maneuver that way.

Philo Pharynx hit the nail on the head - I need to prioritize. I can forget force screen, because with hidden ambush/overwhelming monster conditions hitting our flat-footed AC or doing AC 38 attacks, AC doesn't matter as much. Hit points do matter, so vigor is my most important self-buff. If I do get the Extend Power feat, I can buff myself with biofeedback for double the min/lvl, which might last a single level through a dungeon crawl. biofeedback doesn't get "used up" like vigor might with a single multi-attack.

So I'm still buffing a single round with vigor when the arrows hit from concealment or the monster lands in front of our party. Then I either get a free expansion on my first hit or acquire a reach weapon to strike from 10 ft away. If I'm rear guard (again), then dimension swap lets me grab the Swashbuckler from the front line and replace her with me.

In case you were wondering, we do have a "blaster" Kineticist 7 and a Cleric 7 in our party, in addition to our Psychic Warrior 6 and Swashbuckler 6. The Cleric is usually rolling out the Bless-Magic Circle Against Evil-Prayer buffs in those "3 rounds". After which she complains all she is doing is Channel Energy for the PW and the Swashbuckler for the rest of the fight. The Kineticist plays the energy wall/energy bolt "guess what the weakness is" game with the Monster of the Day. With the Combat Manifestation feat, I can manifest a new set of temporary hit points with vigor in the middle of battle.

Time to look for a Ring of Regeneration for the Swashbuckler...

Alright, I'm not going to sugarcoat this, here's the situation.

I'm currently playing a Dreamscarred Press Psychic Warrior 6 with the Interceptor Path. To the non-psionic readers that means I'm the party tank with speed built-in. My human hit die is D8, I have my own buff psionic powers like biofeedback (DR 2/-), force screen (shield, +4 to AC), and vigor (temp hp, like false life). My AC is usually 17 with a breastplate or maximized inertial armor (mage armor), or 21 full-out. I use burst (think expeditous retreat) to get to the enemy at the front line fast, and hit hard with a two-handed sword, getting a free expansion (enlarge person) when I hit on that first attack. (See how easy I made it for the non-psionics to understand?) But I have a major problem.

My Psychic Warrior needs 1-3 rounds to buff himself up. With the DR, temp hp, and invisible shield, he's a decent tank with 84 hp. But by then, it's been 3 rounds after the ambush has started and the point fighter (currently a Swashbuckler 6) is screaming she's on her last hit point. Our GM, of course, finds ambushes the primary means of battle in our storyline. It's inevitable that our party is going to get ambushed, and I have a choice of going into battle without the 30 temp hit points, without the damage reduction, without the additional +4 to AC - or listening to the Swashbuckler start swearing about my lack of masculinity as she's taking the brunt of the damage from the bandits and/or monsters. The buffs I can do as a Psychic Warrior are all min./level, so there's not much I can do except wait for actual combat, which is going to be a full-out assault ambush by our GM.

I've already taken the Combat Manifestation feat to manifest my buff powers in combat, do I need the Extend Power feat as well? Extend Power would double the time length of min/level for my buffs, but I would lose my psionic focus each time (losing all of my Psychic Warrior bonuses until I re-focus for a full round). I'm at a loss here to think how to get time to buff without using the Swashbuckler as a tank, which she is not. (And lets me know about it, each time.)

The mundane answer would be to "suck it up", and get heavy armor and a heavy shield to carry around 100% of the day. Yes, my Psychic Warrior has a STR of 18. As an alternative, I do have dimension swap, which lets you "instantly swap positions between your current position and that of a designated ally in range", which makes the tank the meatshield getting beat up, but the Swashbuckler's already taken heavy damage for multiple rounds at that point.

What can I do to get that buff time, or should I start handing the Swashbuckler all the magical defense items and buff amulets we come across?

(I'm asking for generalized advice here, not just Dreamscarred Press players. Think of a pure fighter with similar problems buffing from another player or magic items, and you have my situation.)

Hajar checks the man for life [dice=Heal] 1d20-1

Hajar says Did I not say that I would take this man alive if possible?

GM, Are you certain that you used the nonlethal rules correctly? Hajar did quite a bit of nonlethal damage and the giant should have collapsed unconscious before dying....

(Lazrul was at 0 hp when Round Six began. 15+25 nonlethal would have left him with 2 nonlethal, but Tempest's cold damage (5) plus Khayal's lethal (12) plus Bartan's damage/cold (4+2) equaled 23. 23-2= minus 21, Lazurl's CON already took a massive hit from that snake poisoned arrow, minus 21 was waaaayy past the CON limit on Pathfinder death. IF, and I do mean IF, everyone after Hajar had gone nonlethal or made Perception checks or just held action, then Lazurl would have lived at -3 hp. But I'm not going to stop people in mid-round unless they make those checks. It's more realistic, a heat-of-the-battle kind of realism.)

(But no, no special feats.)

This thread stood out to me when I saw the title, because my gaming table GM and I recently had a conversation about my character chosen. I have a Dreamscarred Psion (Kineticist) majoring in the Rogue skills and powers. Perception, Disable Device, Breach (psionic equivalent of Knock), Locate Secret Doors, etc. I thought I was doing fine as the party Rogue until the GM brought up an issue via private e-mail with me: the Rogue-only ability of Trapfinding.

Trapfinding: A rogue adds 1/2 her level to Perception skill checks made to locate traps and to Disable Device skill checks (minimum +1). A rogue can use Disable Device to disarm magic traps.

So if my roleplaying adventurers run into a purely magical trap, yes, we can Perception it, but no, we can't Disable Device it. Period. End of story. We'll have to Dispell it or set it off and hope the magical trap is not Fireball of Save vs. Death.

Any solutions? Any obscure, third-party-feats that any character can take to get around this Achilles Heel?

Rogues can save the party, especially at higher levels with things like Glyph of Warding, Greater.

#8"When in doubt, add more +0 templates."

8.1 "And if spellcasting templates don't increase your brokenness, add psionics."

8.2 "When you run out of templates and archtypes, go for the prestige classes."

Now wait just a blasted minute. I've played a few online PbP games here on Pazio, and one elsewhere, where "Psionics is Different", or "Magic/Psionic Transparency" was, at best, 20%. At 3.5 and Pathfinder campaigns.

Let me put in a plug for "Psionics is Different". Sure, GMs can hate it. I think they're not allowing the players to fully immerse themselves in psionics, if that is the case. Full transparency means the Magic Shop (tm) is still available, players can mix and match their magic items and psionic items freely, and there really isn't much call for high-level psionics at all. By making psionics opaque, players have to think up which crafting feats to take to do more than just their power points per day, but be on the lookout for enemy spellcasters at the same time. It's more of a challenge, and really depends upon the maturity and desirability of the players to fully embrace a new system, even if set in an old world.

Some GMs only want to "dip their toes in the water". They go for partial Magic/Psionics Transparency. I'm a game like that right now. Detect psionics can also detect magic after the 3rd round of effort with a headache aftereffect. High-level magic (Level 7+) is capable of being "transparent" to psionic effects. But my character has already disabled a few magical traps by using only psionics instead of magic. Partial M/P Transparency could be argued to just be "as the GM wishes", but it's also a challenge for the players to find out just where that borderline is located at on the scale. It also means magic items are almost worthless to psionics, and vice-versa. But players can have fun bluffing their enemies with non-psionic items like jewels and sticks that "look" psionic.

Full Transparency just makes me go "why?".

Online here on Pazio, there are not that many DP psionic games:
1.) Phaeselis: the City of Psionics
2.) Atalantia - Scourge of Magic
3.) Kyesa, Land of Psionics and Abberant Things

And elsewhere.
JingoBingo's Legacy of Fire (the addition of my psionic character starts halfway through the 3rd book)

Thanks, Cort. It was a random "add special attack after damage, and add a die roll to it" post, so I don't think I'll be doing that often. :)

Hello sysadmins, (attention: Cort!)
Firefox 31.1.1
Windows XP 64-bit

I was doing the usual PbP today, when I had an error occur. I nested an URL inside a DICE inside an OOC comment (not the original, but fixed text here. It's the "plus grab with constrict" line.). I hit "Preview", and that's when it got screwy.

I couldn't edit the text, and hovering the mouse pointer over it caused all the text to act like it was a picture, like a JPG. I could "hold" the left mouse button-click and "move" the text off-window, just like a picture. Actually clicking anywhere on the text made it open a new Tab on Firefox to the last URL in the text. I was really in a quandary, with multiple tabs popping up on Firefox, but fortunately the "Preview" and "Submit" buttons still worked, so I hit "Submit" and started analyzing the problem.

Once I hit "Submit" and did NOT hover the mouse pointer over the text, I was able to get an edit "straight line" at the beginning of the text. So I could edit by just using the arrow keys on my keyboard go to to the offending "plus grab with constrict" line and start un-nesting the URL from the DICE from the OOC until the problem stopped. My players in my PbP did notice the problem, and at least one got concerned enough to private message me about it before I could fix it in time.

I was unaware that the URL would "run off the page" and cause this problem to the entire text in the edit window. Is this a bug to be fixed, or just something to avoid in the future?

(Cort's name give to me by player!)

If you relinquish your grip on the item you called for 2 or more consecutive rounds, it automatically returns to wherever it originally came from.

I totally want to do this for my toilet paper needs.

I had though of it as a particular "dirty" way of using up consumable items - sunrods, torches, etc. But if you want to "aim for the bottom" (ahem), go right ahead.

If you're willing to go third-party with psionics, The Mind's Eye from Wizards of the Coast had a power called "Call Item". It let you teleport any 10 gp or less item from the Equipment List to your hand for a few minutes. The power scaled up to 1,000 gp, allowing you to get common, not masterwork, items all the way up to a spyglass.

Call Item was never translated to Dreamscarred Press because of copyright issues, but the third-party data remains in cyberspace for psionic characters. I've used the power for the last 3 psionic characters that I've played, and it's interesting roleplaying a power that lets you get common thieves' tools, a compass, sunrods, pickaxes, shovels, etc. any time you need them.

There's also the fact that the adventurers may not be the first ones to explore the Underground Road. Say there were three, six, or eleven such parties across the ages that tried to explore with varying degrees of success. The adventurers may find clues of clothing with decipherable markings of ancient kingdoms, old weapons lost in previous battles with the denizens of the Underground Road, corpses left behind after ambushes, with journals in ancient lettering depicting their reason for journeying into the ancient Road.

The best part of an "Us vs. Them" plot is that the players eventually discover that the other parties were way, way more prepared and higher-level than they were, and yet they all died too. It's one thing to know you're out-EL'ed or CR'ed with your party against the dozens of types of monsters. It's another to realize that there's monsters in here that took out Level 15+ parties. So that means they've been fighting the "vermin" of the Underground Road, and eventually Something woke up and took out the ones that made it past the easy monsters...

With tattered journals and Last Will and Testaments (heh) left behind by other parties, you give yourself the GM an easy way of narrating the goals of the other parties, and what magic might be found at the end of the Underground Road. You can also increase the reward of making it back out alive, as some governments might pay to learn what happened to their previous teams. If the governments still exist in today's world, that is.

I haven't been able to read the book yet, nor has the PRD been updated, but while I'm reading familiar words like "Kineticist" and "Psychic", it appears from the boards that it is labeled Occult, and would be closer to witch-like ESP than Dreamscarred Press psionics.

Feel free to blow raspberries if I'm totally off on this, but that's my first impression. "Occult" is NOT Dreamscarred psionics-compatible.

Don't forget the infamous Advance Player's Guide Magical Trait: Hedge Wizard, which lets you take off 5% of the crafting material cost. There is also Cooperative Crafting in the APG, which is awesome if you get Leadership with a crafting cohort. Cooperative Crafting lets you craft double the amount of gp value of the item each day. (You both must have the same crafting feats to qualify.) So with Cooperative Crafting and Accelerated crafting, you can make 2x the gp value in half the time.

You'll find my comments on Call Item being dropped here and here on the DSP boards.

jimibones83, are you going for the discipline-specific talents, or the Automatic Talents option - pick 3 1st-level talents instead of discipline talents?

Edit:
Second Question: I'm usually playing self-sufficient Jack-of-all-Trades characters. To that end, I usually use Call Item, a power once found on The Mind's Eye in D&D 3.0, but never again, not even in Dreamscarred Press.

Would you allow my character to have Call Item? Being a Nomad, the "call a tindertwig or rope out of thin air" makes sense for a planes-traveler.

Dotting for interest.

I would love to play an Elan Psion (Nomad) going to Elocator again. The party transporter. I also have a crafting bent. What I'm thinking about is dipping into one level of Soulbolt since guns are so prevalent in this world.

We've got a Cryptic Brutal Disruptor in our game who's trying to out-ray the Psychic Warrior Martial Kineticist. So far the results have been...unsatisfying to say the least. Then I learn after my Psion (Shaper) has taken a skill rank into Disable Device and become the party Rogue that Cryptics get Kinetic Legerdemain and other Rogue-like benefits I have to bend over backwards for. What is going on? The Cryptic wants to ray, not do Rogue stuff.

So the best I can do is up his to-hit with Inevitable Strike power stones and let him play as he wishes.

If you want to see a comic-book version of a high-level Psionist (Nomad) fighting magic users, you could pop in on Order of the Stick #910 through #935.

Points matter. The Pathfinder "slot" system of magic powers is different than the points system. A high-level sorcerer might have 4 Teleports, more if he or she sacrifices a higher-level slot for a lower-level Teleport. A Wizard might memorize it once or twice per day. A psion can manifest Psychoport as many times as he or she has the points to pay for it. At 10th Level with 100 power points Psychoport (4th Level power, 7 pp) can be manifested 14 times!

Going Nova. In the 1st and 2nd Edition D&D days a psion could use all their power points on a single power, "augmenting" it to levels beyond what anyone could counter. That no longer exists. You can't "go nova" with the Dreamscarred Press psionics. Even Wilders can only bump-up their manifester level a single-digit number at high levels. No more "blow them all away in one round" tactics. A more balanced system.

In my opinion Psionics Unleashed (with Expanded) and Ultimate Psionics (available in PDF here) are fairly straightforward. I have not read "Paths of War" or the "Psionic Bestiary" or "Ashitic Mysteries"(sp). I have played Dreamscarred Press' psionic characters for the last 5 years, and I'm still finding new combinations and realities vs. what is in the book(s).

Just like with Pathfinder, it's important to start with a "Core" psionic class - Psion, Psychic Warrior, Soulknife, Wilder. Make some character sheets. Read up on the psionic powers available at each level, and each blade skill. Then look how the additional Core classes - Tactician, Vitalist, Aegis, Cryptic, Dread - change the basic Core into an expanded Core. Many classes are "front-loaded", with all of their abilities and powers up-front, while some are "rear-loaded". Just like with a PRD Wizard, Sorcerer, or pure Fighter, many classes "come into their own" around about the time you qualify for a prestige class, or Level 6-9.

The psionic prestige classes are also few in number, mostly available on the PFSRD.

Online here on Pazio, there are not that many DP psionic games:
1.) Phaeselis: the City of Psionics
2.) Atalantia - Scourge of Magic

But if you do a search for "psionics" on Pazio here you can get several people dabbling in psionics; actual games, not so much. I haven't seen a single DP module or Adventure Path using psionics. Everything's been homebrew to this point. I dread how it might be similar to playing Magic The Gathering card game vs. reading the official published novels based upon the card game - i.e., no similarity whatsoever. But several of the real-life gaming table and Pazio online homebrews have been very good.

KABOOM

If you're at a gaming table (as opposed to PbP), then yes, a one-on-one session at Level 1 is the best way to teach a person all the new rules in Pathfinder. I'd even be tempted to use a Beginner's Box session.

If the new player is being added to a high-level (12+ game), then have the person sit down and completely, utterly write out their character sheet. From scratch. Bring a calculator if they don't have a PDF/fillable version on their smartphone. Be able to cross-reference skills, feats, and multiple attacks with them using books during this second one-on-one session.

What I have found helps new-ish players is 3x5 notecards. For spells, attacks-with-effects, and general actions. They're a buffer? Make "Buff1", "Buff2", "Buff3" cards. They're a summoner? Make "Summon Meatshield", "Summon Resistance", "Summon Flanker" cards. The same for Druid spells, Wildshape, Save vs. Suck debuffs, Counterspelling. Or ranged attacks vs. melee attacks - "Bow1" and "Sword1". It will speed up the player during battle, which is when everything slows down at the table anyway. You can also make "Lockpicking1" cards and "Perception1" cards for skills.

Keep the dice to a minimum for new players. They should only have the basic seven - D20, D8, D12, D6, D4, D10, and D100 (percentage). Even if they're rolling 6D6 damage by themselves, they will see the need for more dice and not get confused by the boyfriend's/others' bag(s) of 1,000 dice when it gets handed to them.

Gift them with their own Players' Corebook. Pricey, but this will encourage them to read it and to carry it with them to the games.

Before the Oracle there was the Bard class, which with a high CHA bonus was uber on all kinds of things - gather information, sleep spells, earning coin on downtime, etc. Throw in a few Cloaks of Charisma and masterwork instruments, and the Bard looked +2 levels above all their teammates, permanently. Especially in skill-and-save games vs. combat-heavy modules. Forgotten Realms has a couple of books where the Bard is the main character.

Funny thing is, I've never had a long-lasting game with a Bard on the team. I've tried to play a Bard once or twice, including a Sorcerer/Bard multiclass, but that was just to get arcane healing in a spell. Oracles use CHA for healing even more than Paladins, and without all the Paladin restrictions and limits on their healing. It was a niche to be filled, and now it's filled.

I've had to make my own Excel spreadsheet on the Summon Monster lists because I've got a good Celestial bloodline Sorcerer as well as a good conjuration school Wizard, both with the Augment Summoning feat. So the hit points and attacks are different than the Bestiary. I took an Excel spreadsheet that was already out there from 3.0, and modified it as necessary. Lots and lots of typing, unfortunately.

I'll see if I can't post it later.

I've played Legacy of Fire, and I'm GM-ing it now, and yes, treasure is low, uneven, and there are loooonnng stretches of no treasure whatsoever.

It's going to be really rough on the players unless as a GM you give the Moldspeaker prophetic dreams or GM hints, or you have a sufficiently paranoid and/or Jack-of-All-Trades PC. The plot twists from the first and second book to the third and fourth books are really heavy, even worse than Rise of the Runelords.

I mean, you go from the boonies, the sticks, with equipment in the first book, to a major capital city in the third, to the boonies again, plus an unique dungeon crawl before coming back to your roots in the boonies, but this time as a 12th-to-14th-Level player.

So my advice: save every copper, be prepared to sell everything and re-Wealth by Level on a single day's notice, and go for the Big Six and weapons/armor and extradimensional storage at the drop of a pin. Being "lean and mean" as a PC will hurt, not help you, and may even kill you unless you have a very self-sufficient team (food, water, healing, materials).

And a lot of your loot is going to be barter or sell-at-half-price. Not that much actual gold pieces.

Crafting other than on-the-go will really not be possible after the second book. Book 2 to 6, you're a nomad. If your character can pull it off, more power to you. But in my opinion a high Diplomacy check and Appraise skill will be worth more than Craft or Profession.

Hello! Welcome to the "Wealth by Level" discussion by any other name here on the messageboards. Where players, starting with Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path, complain that WBL compared to what actual treasure is in an Adventure Path, or randomly rolled up, is totally out of wrack. You've joined a long, long line of other characters and GMs that drool with envy over what a Level 15 character has on their stat sheet, only to look at the various Adventure Paths or even the homebrews and wonder just how that PC got to have that equipment.

Yes, I've played the crafter in nearly every game I've ever played in since 3.0 first came out. And now the rules say WBL is +50% if you craft it yourself. What they don't tell you is, your WBL will be -80% standard if you just wait for "monster drops" and normal village magic-shop limits. Once your character gets that first leather armor, or +1 longsword, you will wait a dragon's age before getting anywhere near a +4 keen longsword or +3 full plate armor. And all those special abilities for weapons and/or armor in the back of the Core rulebook or Adventurers' Guide or Ultimate Equipment? They are only found in dreams, not games!

So yes, as a GM you basically have to look your players in the eye and go "Give me a shopping list, by level, please." and tailor your monsters and towns and cities to it, or else become a player crafter. A crafter with Create Wondrous Item and Craft Magical Arms & Armor and Brew Potion and Craft Wand and Forge Ring and maybe, just maybe, by Level 13 you've got what it takes to deck out your character with what they really need/want.

And then there's the whole "you have to have the spell, and the caster level to cast it" problem. Take a Handy Haversack, one of the most necessary items in the game, and not too expensive at 2,000 gp. Of course, the Caster Level for that wondrous item is NINE, and there are no "stepping-ladder" spells to get to it, so your stickler of a GM can laugh at you behind the GM screen as your STR 10 Wizard struggles with a 100-lb pack until 9th Level. (Dreamscarred Press made the spell a 1st-level power, so at least you can make Belt Pouches of Storage before 9th Level.)

Which is why most PCs go "hog wild" crafting things at 7th-13th level, and GMs start to complain on the board that they can't motivate their players with loot anymore. Because once you get to the level where you can craft things that sell for some substantial coin to other players, why adventure? There's also lots of money-making loopholes in the rules, just search the messageboards here for them.

As a GM if I was starting a homebrew I would be inclined to start each character off with a "fund" of necessary, but expensive, magical items. The Fighter can have a "legacy sword". The Wizard can get a "Guildsman's Handy Haversack". The thief can get "Guildsman's Lockpicking Tools", etc. Probably a 5,000 gp limit, but it beats your standard 1st-level character bleeding out in the bear cave because they couldn't afford a single potion of Cure Light Wounds.

Give the PCs a major city say, a week from their normal adventuring location. Just far enough away that there's no competition, but close enough they can level up with their gold pieces without too much hassle. Put a magic shop in the small village that can buy things "on order" from the big city. And has occasional sales that will help PCs when they need a particular item(s) that game.

If you read between the lines on their forum pages, Dreamscarred Press is approaching psionics from a "personal" level, pre-17th Century. So while you have psionic equivalencies of rings, wands, scrolls, boots, etc, there's not much in the way of the scientific method.

Notice that if you go beyond "duplicating a power with a psionic item" you quickly reach "artifact level" in DSP. It's much like a sword in 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, Pathfinder, etc becoming "Intelligent" instead of "artificially intelligent" like a computer. Psionic characters wouldn't be looking for a Babbage Machine; they would instead be making clockwork golems.

Where I see psionics in modern sci-fi is what I call the "gestalt" technology. That is where the power of the mind is augmented with electrical generators and such. A telepath becomes a world-class telepath; a telekinetic becomes a world-class telekinetic. You see the most obvious application of "gestalt" with Anne McCaffery's Rowan novels.

So most psionics in Dreamscarred Press are not "psionic but useless" as in some sci-fi (see Babylon 5). So like some people getting martial arts training in feudal Japan/China, or nobility having armor and swords in feudal England/Europe, there's not much for "the common people" to relate to with psionics. You either have it, in which case you are a class onto yourself, or you don't.

Teleport and a Handy Haversack to keep the ink vials from clinking together. You could literally Teleport to Magnimar, Korvosa, Riddleport, Kaer Maga, and Janderhoff on different days in the same week and it would take mundane merchants' guilds weeks to find out the market had been flooded. Then get Greater Teleport and Absalom, Katapesh, Egorian, and Eleder open up for market saturation.

So they researched the Revelation Quill and found out its powers, so what did they do?

1) Made a bench sized wooden box that could hold 160 glass ink vials safely.
2) Made a small animated object (craft construct feat)
3) Put both 1,2 and the Revelation Quill in their overly protected vault.
4) Commanded the little construct to leave the Revelation Quill in each vial for 1 hour and then move it to the next vial. When all the vials were full wait for further instructions.

An ink vial costs 8gp, so you can sell it for 4gp. Cost of a glass vial is 1 gp. 4-1=3gp profit. 3*160=480gp.

Every week they plan to teleport to another city and sell their ink vials for 480gp.

Five 13th level characters using an artifact to make 480gp/week. Mind you they know they can make money much easier a hundred different ways... but "Every copper counts!"

Gotta love PCs!

Don't forget the rules say "Vial, ink or potion" costs 1 gp, and "Ink in colors other than black costs twice as much".

So 160 ink vials = 160 gp.
50% black = 4-1 = 3gp profit
any color = 8-1 = 7gp profit
160 gp in, 240gp + 560 gp = 800 gp out, 640 gp profit.

Use Fabricate with the "junk" thrown out by the Kaijitsu Glassworks in Sandpoint, and your profit goes up to 800 gp! (160 oz of glass equals 10 lbs, you don't even need a wheelbarrow!)

160 oz = 160 hours = 6.66 days, by the way.

Unless you're playing Kingfinder, I can't think of a single AP that lends to the "occasional" playing team. Most assume you've got 4-6 hard-core players willing to play once a week for eight hours until the entire AP is done.

I've never been at a table with those kinds of people.

I will agree to use "xp-less" playing, leveling when the book says to. For players gone more than one month (2-3 games), I tend to drop them behind one level compared to the regular players. They want to level faster? They'll make every game.

As for treasure, it's based on the battle, not the team. The APs are sporadic on Wealth By Level, even though I am now told they make the attempt to stay standard. Not that most don't. (I'm looking at you, Rise of the Runelords.) So to the winners go the spoils.

What I've had to do is set up a "base" for the non-playing characters to be at while the others are beating down the bad guy(s) in the dungeon/city/castle. They get their downtime benefits, like crafting, skills, spell research, etc. This lets them earn a little coin while the regular players do the grunt work. They might get a +1 to Knowledge: Local, or +1 to Diplomacy in the local area.

As for becoming the party pack animal with your first Bag of Holding, we've been there, Thoranin, and we feel your pain. I've been the one with the Google spreadsheet tracking every ounce of encumbrance so the Bag of Holding Type I doesn't go "kablooey" on the GM's direction, and I've got fighters and rangers making me their sword caddy, holding their bedrolls and copper pieces for them, clothing, etc.

The only thing you can do, since it was party treasure, is sell what you have and get your own, passing on the "party backpack" to somebody else. And make a big stint about it at the table when you do it. That could be what the Bottle of Air gets you. As for the refuse in the list, I'd chuck it. You're not a wizardly crafter looking for components for your spellcaster's pouch.

Let the big beefy fighter deal with carrying the "party backpack". Make everybody on the team get their own extradimensional storage. The same goes for healing, if there's no dedicated healer/cleric/oracle on the team. Nobody should be dependent upon a "lesser" class having to hold all the potions of CLW, holy water vials, tanglefoot bags, etc.

You might want to go Psionic instead of Summoner. Astral Construct can solve many of your problems, and some constructs could have the "one permanent" clause, depending upon the user. Dio's Time Stop is a little like the Elocator's Accelerated Action. But Time Stop itself is Sor/Wiz 9, not a psionic power.

I think Ultimate Magic came out with arcane duplicates of many 3.5 psionic powers. You might want to look there.

I have no problem whatsoever with switching out AP treasure for treasure the PCs can actually use. I made the weapon/armor/equipment resizing clause expensive but doable for them (10% of the market price, 3-day turnaround), so Giant-sized and halfling-sized treasure isn't worthless.

Since I'm the second GM in this game (we switched off), my GMPC stayed "home" at Thistletop and became a party crafter, who can do all that resizing for free once he got the Shrink Spell (Enlarge Person/Reduce Person can also roleplay into resizing stuff, 3-day turnaround). The party didn't take the bait I left at Jorgenfist for them and take all those broken, unfinished weapons back home to be finished and sold off - they just destroyed them where they were. Oh well.

At higher levels (12+) most PCs at our table are more interested in augmenting an existing weapon or armor, not selling everything and going for new stuff. Most want to keep the sword they started out with, or the leather armor. They just want to make it better. :)

If nobody in your party wants to become a crafter I would use Magimar in the beginning of the AP and a side trek to Riddlepoint in Book 5 to re-WBL the party. At Level 14+ most party members are rich enough to just order their own crafting done or purchase items from the marketplace in Magimar.

As a GM:

The party is Level 1-6: battles are 8-12 rounds, the Fighter is down to single hit points, the Wizard is running around trying to not get caught by a stray arrow, the Rogue is attempting to use the shade from a nearby bush to qualify her "hide in shadows" requirement for Sneak Attack, and the Ranger is missing the target's AC by 1 each time.

The party is Level 7-11: battles are less than 6 rounds, without exception. The Fighter is singing Conan songs, the Rogue knows how to flank the Fighter effectively, the Wizard can cast Fireball and NOT hit his compatriots, and the Ranger is switching from cold iron masterwork arrows to "slaying ______" arrows now that he has successfully identified the target. He can also shoot around anything in his line-of-sight.

The party is Level 12-16: the Fighter is complaining that he doesn't have the "right" sword if the battle rounds go past 3 (he has 6 swords, one for each Resistance/DR), the Rogue is complaining the monster has more than 100 hp, since her first Sneak Attack should have killed it on the first round, the Wizard is cursing the SR of the monster, and the Ranger is wondering why his arrows can't do as much damage as the Fighter's sword, since he became an Arcane Archer.

The party is Level 18+: the party wants bigger monsters that last more than 1 round.

From the APG: Smelling Salts.
"These sharply scented gray crystals cause people inhaling them to regain consciousness. Smelling salts grant you a new saving throw to resist any spell or effect that has already rendered you unconscious or staggered. If exposed to smelling salts while dying, you immediately become conscious and staggered, but must still make stabilization checks each round; if you perform any standard action (or any other strenuous action) you take 1 point of damage after completing the act and fall unconscious again. A container of smelling salts has dozens of uses if stoppered after each use, but depletes in a matter of hours if left opened."

This recently saved my character's life when he fell to -8 hp too far away from the party for others to get to him, but he had a psicrystal (psion familiar, change as needed per your situation) that could get this to him in order to wake him up and get the healing needed. Also works if you can only heal to -1 hp on a person and they still won't wake up. The best part? Smelling salts are reusable; buy once for 25 gp, use forever.

If you're going for pure manifester, then you want to look at Metamind or Psicrystal Imprinter. One gives you more points, which is the psion's bread and butter, while the other gives you more powers and crafting bonuses, along with a few extra psionic power points.

I will agree the three manifester levels you lose in Elocator (and other prestige classes, like Metamind) is hard for most to swallow, since it means no 9th-level powers. But the Nomad/Elocator fit has so many other advantages, that it is still one of the top 5 prestige combos in my book.

I'm currently in a game where all the players are psionic, and magic is opaque, not transparent...kind of. It's a homebrew Pathfinder/DSP. The GM offered a psionics-heavy, magic-light campaign by making "wild magic storms" literally explode any magic items in the vicinity. Detect Psionics will not detect magic items, until you concentrate past the third round and then all you get is a "yes/no" headache effect for the player. Said players are now off the floating islands where magic explodes and on the Surface, doing missions.

Roleplaying a character who has been taught from birth that all magic is to be treated somewhere between a live fragmentation hand grenade with the pin taken out and a bottle of nitroglycerine has been interesting. Most, if not all, magic items in the dungeon crawl have been shunned as a result, because even if we can use them now we can't take the items home. The GM has also had magic affect psionics occasionally, but only when a 9th-level magic trap was triggered. So the transparency is "high level magic affects all, even psionics, but not middle and low magic". We can't even walk into a local city and spend our WBL because everything beneficial that was magical would be confiscated by Customs on the way back. So my character is going to go the crafting route to get the "Big Six" items that he, and the rest of the party, need. Psionic variations of everything from extradimensional storage to weapons.

As a follow-up question, if the Nomad really can zip around the battlefield that many times a day with no repercussions...is that overpowered?

Unless you have all 18s in your stats you're still going to be limited as you teleport. Teleporters' bane is weight and STR checks. So start getting some extradimensional storage with your WBL like Handy Haversacks and Bags of Holding (although those can be heavy too). A Heavyload Belt (Ant Haul spell from APG, Ultimate Equipment) is fine at low levels to change your encumbrance, but you still can't carry much with you until you change your STR modifier.

I actually prefer Inertial Armor over Mage Armor or even a suit of half-plate, because of the weight factor. Inertial Armor is pumpable, Mage Armor is not (until you are Level 16 with crafting). The same goes for Force Screen vs. Shield. One lucky AoO from a bad guy and you're going to be losing a lot of hit points while you've been stopped in your tracks.

If you're going with Psion (Nomad) you have got to, and I mean really got to, look at the Elocator prestige class. It's really one of the best prestige classes in the game. Not only does it give you some free teleporting and less-cost teleporting, you can walk on air with it. All day long. It's better than Boots of Levitation because it's not just straight up-and-down, it's at any angle you want to be at, even upside-down and carrying somebody. All your battles become 3-dimensional so you don't get in the way of the sword-and-board trying to get that flank around the BBEG.

Mine was a variation on the "Need Gold?" thread above. Lesser Planar Binding with a Lantern Archon to put Continual Flame on ten thousand masterwork arrows and then selling them at the highest-population cities in Varisia. Man, the market got saturated quick. On the other hand, my fort and mansion will be well-lit in every room forever.

The Hound Archon didn't, he relied upon his Aura of Menace and Magic Circle Against Evil to prevent any attacks for that first round before his teleport ended and he could get in a swing. A Cloak of Displacement (Minor or Major) would help with a miss chance, and I might just get that for him.

Conjuring Wizard or Sorcerer with the Celestial bloodline (bloodline gets Heal skill and a heal/harm ray). Don't forget the spell (Summon) Mount (Sor/Wiz1), which gets you a horse. A horse you don't have to pay for is a big deal at low beginner levels. There's also Unseen Servant, which can only carry 20 lbs, but still, to a Wiz/Sor whose dump stat is Strength, every little bit helps. Floating Disk is another Sor/Wiz spell to carry stuff. Make scrolls of the non-combat spells and keep your daily spells for Magic Missile, Summon Monster, etc. Mage Armor (Sor/Wiz1) lasts long enough to make a scroll from it, rather than have it on your daily spell list.

Various tattoos and traits can get your caster level +1, which make your Summon Monster durations longer. You won't be able to cast Summon Monster to get a creature that can heal you until 10th Level (Azata Bralani), so you'll have to maximize your Use Magic Device skill to use wands of CLW. Taking Leadership at Level 7 gets you a cohort, flip-flop your class with another Sor/Wiz (you're the Sor, the cohort's the Wiz, or vice-versa), and craft wands like crazy.

You won't be truly autonomous until you get your cohort and can tag-team any enemies, but you won't need a full 6-player team, either. A 2 or 3-person team, with one meatshield or sword-and-board and a Cleric/Oracle or Rogue with your conjuring arcane caster is very doable at the gaming table. Once you start popping out summoned creatures with 5-round durations the battlefield fills up pretty quickly.

Because Prestige Classes are the devil.

Now here's a question, how do you make something like dimensional agility work for a Hound Archon? CR 4 leaves a lot of room for character levels for the DM with a cruel mind and evil players.

Hound Archons have the self-teleport (plus 50 lbs.) spell-like ability. When I took one as a companion (modified male Healer from Miniatures 3.5 book ), I gave him levels of Ranger followed by Paladin. So now the dimensional greatsword fighter had tracking, Favored Enemy, and Smite Evil. In our Epic tabletop campaign the Hound Archon was always our "first strike" NPC against any enemy at range. He would teleport in, hit, and teleport out repeatedly. A Holy Avenger greatsword with the Ranger Favored Enemy bonus and the Smite Evil bonus and Power Attack with the Vital Strike bonus really, really, hurts at higher levels.

Said player is looking for a "power play" over other people's characters at the gaming table. "Join me, do what I say, or I kill you." Generally not a good idea.

"Persuade" the player to play nicely, even re-write his character, or ask him to leave. If he doesn't, you will, and others will. A player doesn't get to make a psionic vampire character and Dominate the rest of the gaming table "just because they can". This is Pathfinder, not Vampire the Masquerade, where one-upmanship is worse than Magic: The Gathering ever was.

The Elocator prestige class from Dreamscarred Press' Psionics Unleashed or Ultimate Psionics. Start out as a Psion (Nomad) and get Nomad's Step at 2nd Level (probably 7th-9th level in your overall Level). By 9th level of the Elocator you have "Dimension Spring Attack", allowing you to teleport, attack, and teleport in one round, 3/day. By Level 16 or so.

You haven't stated your level, nor the level of your companions. There are crafting "loopholes" to generate cash with, Brew Potion is rather limited. Unless you plan on starting a back-alley Fight Club and sell potions of Haste and Heroism for the combatants.