A few years ago, when a long campaign ended, my group decided to run some PFS adventures. It was definitely "disorganized play", but a rich supply of one-shots at a variety of levels allowed us to rotate game masters before the next campaign.
The adventures were fun, well designed and served our purpose, but it always feels like I am missing a big part of the story. I've read the Player's Guide to PFS and a fair amount of Golarion lore, but it feels incomplete.
The Meta:
From the marketing blurbs, forum posts etc., I know that there is an over-arching story for a season. Some of the adventures are marked as being part of the meta story. How many of the "marked meta" adventures do you need to play to see the arc? Should you or do you have to run them in order?
Character arsenal:
As a player, do you need multiple characters at different tiers to be able to play enough adventures to see the arc?
Past meta:
Is there a place to read up on the history of past seasons without reading all of the adventures? Each adventure feels like I am starting Breaking Bad halfway through Season 4 and nobody wants to explain what is going on.
Role-playing opportunities:
For obvious reasons, the railroad is very rigid or else you wouldn't be able to reliably run sessions in four hours. As a player, do you feel like your character still has personality, agency and room for growth? Or do you have to sacrifice a lot of that so the format works?
"A person's greatest strength and biggest weakness are often the same attribute."
The strength of an adventure path is a well designed story arc building in significance and magnitude as the party gains in power and status.
The weakness of an adventure PATH is the story LINE which can decrease the party's autonomy and character growth.
Session 0: "Write up a backstory for your character including motivations for adventure and people/places/things important to you."
Session 1: "You wake up on the Plane of Narrative with no memory of who you were."
Session 13: "Your memories come flooding back to you, but there is no time to dwell on them. You only have fourteen days to defeat the Omniturbulent Hambasticor!"
The typical response is "A good game master can weave the two together". So, I would like to invite people to tell stories of how they or their GM made the adventure path feel personal. Such as:
- Familiar faces in unusual places ("Hey Mom! What are you doing in the Alushinyrra?")
- Bending the AP arc ("Launching a coup could ensure you more resources on the quest!")
- Customize encounters for characters. ("The mayor's dog reminds you of the feral mutt who killed your baby brother.")
Spoilers are probably unavoidable, but I would love to hear good examples that I can model my story telling on.
I really like the "tight math" (TM) of Pathfinder 2E. My party just hit seventh level and it is nice to see how Attack Bonus and Armor Class track each other. However, damage doesn't seem to track with hit points for my party (the monsters appear to be doing better).
My nephew is my DM and I run four characters. They are a fun foursome of goblins wreaking havoc in Outlaws of Alkenstar, but combat against a moderate or severe encounter can feel like Andy Dufresne carving a hole in the prison wall with his rock hammer. Maybe it is the class arrangement, maybe it is my choices or maybe it is working as designed.
Asimov the Inventor does Weapon Die + Strength (+ Intelligence if overdrive), which hasn't really changed since level 1. I can buy him a striking weapon when we get back to town, but that is still a small boost.
Dumas the Gunslinger is very swingy. If he crits, it is 2d10 + d10 + 1. Other hits are 1d6 + 1. He crits a little more often now, thanks to learned party synergy and powers, but not much more often.
Wells the Alchemist is very versatile, but unless he is attacking a weakness the damage is few d6. Being strategic about persistent damage is the only way to start it adding up.
Shakespeare the Bard primarily does buff and debuff. I could switch some spells to attack but that feels like a trap. Three times a day, he could do third level spell damage but at the cost of battlefield control.
The last BBEG was a ********* with resistance to all physical damage unless ******** with a time limit on the battle. Fortunately, my nephew is a great DM and he supported my creative idea to eliminate the resistance and Dumas rolled four critical hits in seven shots. I don't want to think about what was about to happen otherwise, since we needed a lot of damage in a hurry.
My party killed a Denizen of Leng in an encounter. We now find out that they don't really die, just go back to Leng. The denizen then hired a Leng bounty hunter to chase us down across the planes.
How are we supposed to permanently rid ourselves of this pursuer? The rules say that the fast healing and the *BAMF* home upon death are block "on Leng or in areas where planar connections do not function." I have spent a good amount of time trying to figure out an example of "where planar connections do not function" but can't find one. Short of hunting the hunter on Leng, what options do we have?
I could tell a good story about using a binding spell to summon it and kill it, but the body might just wait until the binding expires before returning home. The rules don't seem definitive.
I have a great idea for a dungeon adventure for my group. I would love to get advice and insights from the brilliant folks on this board, especially in making the encounters feel interesting and fresh.
The Party
Five or six level 7 characters: Fighter, Ranger, Rogue, Cleric, Wizard and Cavalier. They aren’t very optimized except maybe the cavalier. They haven’t really been challenged in a while and I want to give them a chance to stretch themselves without killing them.
The Hook/Railroad:
Ten thousand years ago, powerful spellcasters hid and protected the McGuffin to save the world. Now, the situation has changed and the party has to retrieve it to save the world.
The Twist:
The spellcasters bound a powerful Devil to protect the McGuffin. It turns out that ten thousand years of solitary confinement is not healthy, even for immortal beings like a devil. As the party descends into the dungeon, it will see evidence of the devil’s descent into madness. The devil desperately wishes to return to the Plane of Hell but is bound to secure the McGuffin in this plane; its insanity is the key for the party to achieve its goal against a foe it could never face in combat.
The Flavor:
There are five sequential rooms. The devil was tasked with designing the defenses, but after setting up triggered summonings in the rooms, he got bored. He attempted to hold boredom at bay by taking up art; both painting and sculpture. It was effective for some time, but not for this long.
Room One has beautiful stark landscapes painted on the walls with such verisimilitude that observers momentarily think they are standing in a broad plain. The terrain is bleak and foreboding with a winding river leading to a towering and intimidating city in the hills. Despite the austerity, the view is beautiful; think of Ansel Adams’ photographs of the desert. The homesickness of the artist permeates the work.
Room Two captures the view in front of the city gates that were in the distance of the previous room’s picture. The devil has taken up sculpture in this room. The city gates are wrought from iron and twisted into gruesome shapes warning the arriving souls of what awaits. A staggering mob of damned souls are arrayed before the gates, their faces capturing their agony and fear of their fate. A self-portrait statue of the devil towers over the march of the damned, swinging a barbed whip over its head. Think of Rodin’s Gates of Hell and similar works, except the statues have been painted to look lifelike. It takes an inspection by the party to determine that they are all wrought from iron and stone. The pride the devil takes in inflicting damnation permeates the scene.
Room Three represents a room inside the first level of Hell and gives the first indications of the artist’s diminishing sanity. The floor is riddled with real boiling pools of sulphured water. The walls are covered in images of damned souls performing their pointless eternal tasks, from smashing rocks to carrying loads. The realism of the previous rooms has begun to fade. The dimensions of the caverns seem warped and disorienting, which is only augmented by the distortion of the steam from the pools. Think of Salvador Dali painting the Guernica. The artist appears to have some sympathy for the mortals trapped in a place they cannot escape and tied to a task they resent.
Room Four is a ruined mess. In places on the wall, the party can see images of deeper levels of Hell painted in the Dali-esque style of the previous room, but burn marks sear the walls erasing most of the painting. The statues that were once carved in the room have been smashed into pieces or melted into blobs. A line of permanent flames swoop over the wall behind the party’s entrance writing ‘F**K ASMODEUS” in Infernal.
Room Five is where the devil has withdrawn permanently. He can’t bring himself to enter the first three rooms, lest he destroy that artwork in a fit of madness and the fourth room only escalates the madness. The walls of this room are covered in sketches of the earlier works and half made statues litter the ground. Graffiti covers everything, saying in Infernal, “Why am I here?”, “Why must I keep what I don’t want?”, “How do I go home?” If the party gets the chance to inspect, they will also find investigations into the spells which bind the devil, maybe offering a way to break them.
The devil is former Duke of Hell who discovered how fickle was the loyalty to him when he was yanked into the Material Plane and bound to these five rooms. Asmodeus has declined to reward the former Duke’s service by organizing a rescue and the creatures he could summon weren’t powerful enough. The key to this encounter is that the devil has been sooooo bored for so long that he wants to toy with the party rather than kill them. He might show them the McGuffin to taunt them. His binding is tied to chains that he wears. His insanity will allow him to accidentally drop hints to the party about how to break the chain despite being commanded otherwise by the ancient spellcasters that captured him.
The Game Flow:
The party loves to do the “one battle a day” routine. I want to push them by design, so that I will be impervious to their machinations to camp and rest. For this reason, the sequence in each room will be:
*Entry door stays opens for 10 minutes
*Entry door closes. If there are any living beings in the room, summoned creatures/beings appear.
*Both doors closed for 10 minutes. (Combat likely)
*Exit door opens and stays open for 10 minutes (this is also the entry door the next room)
*Exit door closes
*Both doors closed for minutes
*Repeat
If the party stays in the room to rest, the summoned creatures will re-appear. If the creatures are intelligent, they remember the party and can adjust tactics accordingly. If the party retreats back out, they have to go through all the fights again.
Request For Help
I am most eager for guidance on designing the encounters in each room. I am looking for suggestions on what could be summoned that would make interesting opposition and keep the infernal theme.
In an ideal world, I would put lesser devils accompanied by some imps in the first rooms, but the party is too low level. They can probably survive a Bearded Devil or two, but a Bone Devil or a Fury would probably be too much. Maybe I can apply templates to Imps to make them a better challenge to level 7 characters? Or interesting tactics?
My friends and I are coming up with a second party, more lighthearted than the main campaign for a change of pace and for those days when the main GM hasn't finished the final touches on the boss battle. As is usual with roleplayers, it was an opportunity to propose crazy ideas.
I suggested starting with a Village of Hommlet "won't someone please save our poor town" style adventure except all the characters are all locals who in varying levels of sobriety volunteer to do it themselves. They would all be 1st level Brawlers who discover their destinies as they pummel kobolds.
Another player suggested an "All Bard" party.
It made me realize that some of you may have actually followed through on your wacky ideas and have stories to tell. I've opened my beer and the popcorn is popping ... please share.
My strangest actual adventuring party was an all-dwarf group. It really improved the group cohesion and never worrying about lamps was a real plus, but I don't have any funny tales.
I was looking into 1 level dips for a prospective fighter and realized that the martial classes are somewhat front loaded. Which led to ...
Dipso was a Barbarian out of the north when he arrived in so-called civilization and fell in with a band of adventurers.
In between the kobold killing that is required by all first level characters, he drank a little too much of the too strong city-booze and found himself in a lot of fist fights. His second level came in Brawler.
Freed from the restrictions of first level, the party delved underground in search of treasure and glory. Dipso found that his rage resonated in the deep caverns. His third level came in Bloodrager (Earth Elemental Bloodline - Blood Conduit).
The party's quest carried them into the wilderness where Dipso's affinity for animals awakened. His fourth level came in Ranger (Wild Hunter)
A near TPK in the final boss fight revealed how Dipso felt about his comrades. The discovery of mithril plate in the hoard only reinforced his desire to protect the party. His fifth level came in Cavalier (Order of the Dragon - Standard Bearer).
All this dabbling still left Dipso unfulfilled and he finally followed his natural affinity with sixth and later levels in fighter.
I did a sixth level build for Dipso using a 20 point buy and the Unchained Automatic Bonus Progression.
Human 1 Barb/ 1 Brawl / 1 Bloodrager / 1 Cav / 1 Rang / 1 Fighter
Str 19, Dex/Con 14, Int/Wis/Cha 10
HP 55, AC 23, Move 40, Fort +15, Ref +7, Will +1 (Yikes!)
Lots of class skills
Threatens out to 10' with reach weapon and unarmed strike
Optional abilities:
Animal Focus 1 min/day (+2 Str usually)
Rage/Bloodrage 8 times/day
Elemental Strike ( +1d6 damage) 3 times/day
Dragon's Challenge 1 time/day
Martial Flexibility (pick a feat for a minute) 4 times/day
Tactician Outflank (+4 flank bonus 1/day)
Plus the usual feats of weapon focus, power attack, combat reflexes etc.
The bloodrager gives him Improved Trip without the feat tax of Combat Expertise.
I chose the archetypes for these reasons:
Blood Conduit - move bonus shouldn't stack (Hero Lab messed that up), so traded for free feat
Wild Hunter - I dislike favored enemy for rangers. A versatile bonus to strength, climb, darkvision etc. seems much nicer.
Standard Bearer - I don't want to add the complication of a mount. This gives something in its place.
Questions:
Other than the abyssmal will save, what other deficiencies does he have relative to 6th level fighter or 5/1 fighter/X?
Do you have recommendations for other archetypes or class choices?
Do you agree that this would be much more fun than a vanilla fighter?
I also looked into Dispo's Lawful Good cousin Diparino, with Unchained Monk and Paladin in place of the barbarian/bloodrager, but the low mental stats were much more limiting.
I am making a new character and looking at the Advanced Race Guide. I realized that I don't really roleplay my character's race very much.
My dwarves feel like humans who took potion of Darkvision with a chaser of Slow Person (and a few other buffs/nerfs). Their personalities are set mostly by class and the background I wrote up.
"I am dwarf, I am gruff!"
"I am a halfling/gnome, I am short!"
"I am a half-orc, I am ugly"
"I am an elf, I am like a human but prettier"
In some campaigns, playing a Core race can affect the plot if you run across a group of elves/gnomes/etc. But this seems exceedingly unlikely with the Advanced Races. Playing a catfolk seems like it would mostly cause a few tavern owners to say "you look a little strange" as they hand you your beverage.
How do you use your race to influence your role-playing?
Alternately, as a GM, what do you do differently if a player is an uncommon race?
I remember running an adventure where the flavor text said "a small 20x30 room" and one of my players pointed out that it was larger than the apartment we were playing in.
Most real buildings have 5 foot corridors and 10x10 rooms but adventure maps have 10 foot corridors and 40x40 rooms. A lived in room would have lots of furniture, yet multiple people would feel comfortable being in it together. An adventure room is going to have little clutter and few beings.
Do you ever have your door-kicking party open up a 10x10 barracks with four opponents, two bunk beds, a bench, a table, some boxes used as chairs, a heating brazier, a storage cabinet and a parakeet cage? Or any similar situation which is 'realistically' proportioned but plays havoc with the 5' standards?
If so, why did you do it and how did it go?
There are at least an infinite number of threads on this board on the legendary martial-caster disparity. A common refrain is "If you want low-magic, go play a game designed for it". The problem is that all the well-supported games are high-fantasy.
I like the idea of a campaign where there are no magic wielding PCs. There are still dragons, demons and sorcerous liches ... just no PC wizards, clerics, etc. (Remember, there is no "wrong fun". This is just a flavor of ice cream I would like to try).
I did run an Iron Heroes campaign for a few sessions. While the philosophy of the rules matched my ideas fairly well, the campaign failed for two reasons:
1) The Iron Heroes rules are in need of a massive rewrite and player options are fairly constrained.
2) I didn't do a good job of getting the players in the right mindset for the game.
There is so much richness in the Pathfinder rules and world, heavily play tested and over-analyzed. Even limited to fighters, rogues, barbarians, cavaliers, monks and all their archetypes there is an ability to customize that Iron Heroes never had (7 classes, three of which were useless).
If anyone has run a campaign like this, I would love to hear about your particular house rules and how it went.
Thanks to some of the discussions on these boards, I think you can make an IronFinder without major surgery.
Healing: Adopt the heroic healing from Iron Heroes. [fuzzy memory] Characters have a reserve of hit points based on CON which can be moved into normal HP out of combat and recover quickly with rest [/fuzzy memory]. This isn't "realistic", but it is heroic; it is analogous to John McLain pulling glass out of his feet and then being ready to keep kicking ass.
Magic Items, particularly the Big 6: Use Kolokotroni and Brodiggan Gale's idea for avoiding the dependence on magic items. Special magic items which help deal with the lack of flying/teleporting etc will still exist, but should feel special.
Damage Reduction: Replace DR/magic with DR/<silver, cold iron, adamantine> as deemed appropriate.
Combat Manouvers: I would be inclined to make these more rewarding in order for martials to have more interesting options in combat. I don't have a firm suggestion (easier feat acquisition?), so I consider this optional for now.
It seems like with those changes a party would be CR equivalent to a Pathfinder Society Party until level 5. Maybe CR-1 levels 5 to 10. After that, it probably gets bigger.
There are lots of web videos of gaming groups in action. While I find these to be great inspirations for gameplay, each one is rather long, so it is hard to watch a large number.
Does anyone have any recommendations for a particular video with a good demonstration of a wizard being a "battlefield controller"? I don't feel like I am doing a good job at it and would appreciate some role-models to follow.
Our party has made it to level 5 with simplistic overnight rituals, "Fighter first watch, Rogue second, Cavalier third ... casters rest"
Now that we are pissing off more powerful foes than kobolds, I feel like we should be smarter but am not sure what to do. As the wizard, it feels like my responsibility to be the brains of the group.
What actions would you recommend when resting in perilous territory without any specific threats?
- Rope trick seems useful to make sure the wizard gets his rest and protects the occupants from a fireball in the dark, but also reduces the party's perception of potential danger. Would you put everyone inside, leave one guard outside, split the party?
- Alarm seems like a good standard daily spell. I assume that the mental trigger wouldn't operate into the rope trick space, so an audible alarm would be needed, which would alert the intruder that they were spotted.
- How to protect from scrying?
What additional actions would you take if you knew someone was actively searching for you?
I am specifically thinking of levitate here, but there are other spells which could also fall into this category.
Spell range is 25 ft + 5/2 levels or 35 for my 5th level wizard.
Wizard casts levitate on an adjacent willing other party member. (No need for save. Range is fine.)
Wizard uses a move action to levitate the party member at 20' per round. Is 35' the highest he can lift him or is the range only about the initial casting?
After levitating him, the wizard walks away. If he gets further than 35' does the party member fall down? Is the wizard still able to adjust the party members altitude?
TL;DR Is range only about the distance at the time of casting or is it also about the wizard's ability to maintain or alter the spell?
My opinion is that the rules for Sense Motive vs. Bluff are at best incomplete and probably in need of a massive rewrite. (I am not talking about the "hunch" rules for Sense Motive. That is probably best for another thread.")
Situation: A scruffy fighter in mud-caked armor rushes up to the Captain of the Guard. "I need to see the King! The orc army is over that hill and will be here by nightfall!"
How this situation is handled by the rules and how the rules feel to the players depends a great deal on which one is the PC and whether the fighter is telling the truth.
Fighter is the PC and is bluffing
This is clearly the case for which the rules were written. PC is trying to pull a fast one on a no-name NPC, GM judges the difficulty, makes a roll and the game proceeds.
If the fighter wins the bluff vs. sense motive check, the Captain believes him. Interestingly, the rules are unclear on what happens if the fighter fails. Does the Captain know the fighter is bluffing or does he just not believe the information?
Fighter is the PC and is telling the truth
The rules (as I understand them) are silent on how to persuade an NPC of something the PC believes. It is not unreasonable to do a bluff vs. sense motive check, but what does a failed bluff mean when the PC isn't really bluffing?
Captain is the PC and the fighter is bluffing
The opposed check rules would seem to apply here, but I know a lot of players who would be upset to be told by the GM, "You believe him. You are convinced he is telling the truth." claiming that they get to decide what their character believes. (#NotAllPlayers, but many).
Captain is the PC and the fighter is telling the truth
Again, the rules are unclear on what it means to sense motive on someone who is telling the truth.
I have some ideas for how to modify this, but I would love to hear about house rules that have already been play tested.
I have this dream of a gnome cavalier. At low levels, I see him riding a dog. But, at level 4 or so, I would like to upgrade him to something more interesting, such as a gecko (for the climb speed).
In an individual campaign, I would beg the GM. How do such things work in PFS?
In the Missing Tropes thread, posited the following action movie cliche that is hard to recreate in d20:
Quote:
Don't move or I'll shoot! AKA One false move and the elf gets it.
Think of all the movies where one character holds a blade to another chacter's throat, or where one group is held at gun/arrow point.
Dramatic dialogue & intense pressure ensues.
Yet in d20, if you have the drop on an opponent, your only good choice is to attack hard or lose the advantage.
The OP of that thread asked that if an idea takes off, to make a new thread for it and leave that one for listing more missing ideas.
These are some of the comments:
Goth Guru wrote:
Combat manuver: Hostage. You roll to hit, then stop just short. Add the potential damage to your bluff. If your hostage has initiative on you they can grapple.
Epic Meepo wrote:
Withholding an Attack: Whenever you perform a standard action that lets you make a single weapon attack against a single target, you may choose to retroactively withhold that attack after seeing the results of your attack roll and weapon damage roll. If you withhold your attack, you can apply the results of your withheld attack at any time as an immediate action. You lose your withheld attack if you perform any standard or full-round action, or if you become unable to make your attack against your intended target for any reason.
Smilo Dan wrote:
How about, if you catch an opponent when it is flat-footed or denied its Dexterity modifier to AC, you threaten a critical hit (but need to confirm it normally).
To which Umbral Reaver pointed out:
Quote:
Improved invisibility for unlimited crits?
Stringburka wrote:
Readied Coup-de-Grace: As a full-round action you can ready to make a single attack against a single target that is standing still. You must designate the target and the intended attack when you take the action.
If you get to make the attack and the target is within melee range (or, if you're using a bow, gun or crossbow, adjacent), you automatically threaten. In addition, if the target takes damage from the attack it must make a fortitude save (DC10+damage taken) or die.
You cannot do a readied coup-de-grace if threatened, and if you're at any time threatened between when you take the action and when the attack occurs, treat it as a normal attack instead.
Okay, not technically a swarm and not technically pseudo-dragons. That was my original vision, but then I read the rules and realized that neither was quite what I envisioned. Now it is “A Flock of DragonHawks”, where dragonhawks are essentially fire breathing birds.
Background:
The heroes have completed their first adventure and are returning to the big city to a glorious welcome. They are currently 3rd level, but the next big adventure I have planned for them needs them at 4th. Plus the adventure has a strong need for ranged attacks, which the party is lacking. So, I wanted a mini-adventure that would help them gain a level and point out their range deficiency. In addition to the combat described below, there will be lots of opportunities for them to gain XP through roleplaying as they navigate the complex politics.
The event:
The bad guy throws a McGuffin into the fountain of the city square. Within an hour, the square is filled with dragonhawks and chaos reigns. Hundreds of hawks are circling, squawking and flaming. The people in the square are panicking. Some are running away. Others are throwing or shooting into the air, which often misses the hawks and returns to earth adding to the chaos. Buildings are beginning to burn.
The party comes upon this scene and immediately the citizenry is asking them to make the hawks go away. The idea in my mind is that the problem is too big to solve on their own. If they go in alone to save the day, they will end up as fried bird food. It is an opportunity for the cavalier to take charge and start giving orders, for the dwarf to utilize his knowledge of the tunnels under the city and the monk... well, I don’t know what the monk should be doing.
They face the threefold problem of getting people out of the square, stopping or minimizing the burning of buildings and figuring out how to drive off the hawks.
I am picturing 100 or so basic dragonhawks, 30 advanced ones and 5 giant advanced ones. Unless antagonized, they will stay within 200’ of the fountain. If the McGuffin is destroyed, they will fly away. Several people saw the bad guy throw it in the fountain, but the party will have to inquire. The party will have available a large number of common folk, a few dozen town guards who show up but don’t know what to do and a couple of clerics who come out from a nearby temple. There are other sources of water besides the fountain.
That’s the basic idea. I am open to any suggestions or refinements you might suggest.
DragonHawk:
CR 1
XP 400
N Tiny Magic Beast
Init +3; Senses low-light vision; Perception +14
DEFENSE
AC 15, touch 15, flat-footed 12 (+3 Dex, +2 size)
hp 6 (1d10)
Fort +2, Ref +5, Will +2
Immune fire;
OFFENSE
Speed 10 ft., fly 60 ft. (good)
Melee talons +5 (1d4-2)
Space 2-1/2 ft.; Reach 0 ft.
STATISTICS
Str 6, Dex 17, Con 11, Int 2, Wis 14, Cha 7
Base Atk +0, CMB +1; CMD 9
Special Attacks breath weapon (15-ft. ray, Reflex DC 12 to avoid, 1d6 fire) Once every four rounds.
Feats Flyby Attack
Skills Fly +10, Perception +14,
Special: Up to five Draco-Hawks can fly in formation in a single square and simultaneously use their breath weapons. This requires a single save to avoid, but the DC is increased by 2 for each hawk over 1. (2 hawks = DC 14, 3 hawks = DC 16, etc.)
Advanced DragonHawk:
CR 2
XP 400
N Tiny Magical Beast
Init +3; Senses low-light vision; Perception +14
DEFENSE
AC 19, touch 19, flat-footed 16 (+3 Dex, +4 template, +2 size)
hp 10 (1d10)
Fort +4, Ref +7, Will +4
Immune fire;
OFFENSE
Speed 10 ft., fly 60 ft. (good)
Melee talons +7 (1d4)
Space 2-1/2 ft.; Reach 0 ft.
STATISTICS
Str 6, Dex 17, Con 11, Int 2, Wis 14, Cha 7
Base Atk +0, CMB +1; CMD 9
Special Attacks breath weapon (15-ft. ray, Reflex DC 14 to avoid, 1d6 fire) Once every four rounds.
Feats Flyby Attack
Skills Fly +10, Perception +14,
Special: Advanced Draco-Hawks can fly in formation with normal ones. Use the Advanced Hawk DC and damage adjusted by the number of normal hawks. Additional Advanced Hawks add +3 to the DC instead of 2.
Giant Advanced DragonHawk:
CR 3
XP 800
N Small Magical Beast
Init +2; Senses low-light vision; Perception +14
DEFENSE
AC 18, touch 18, flat-footed 15 (+3 Dex, +4 template, +1 size)
hp 16 (1d10 + template)
Fort +4, Ref +7, Will +4
Immune fire;
OFFENSE
Speed 10 ft., fly 60 ft. (good)
Melee talons +9 (1d4+2)
Space 2-1/2 ft.; Reach 0 ft.
STATISTICS
Str 8, Dex 15, Con 13, Int 2, Wis 14, Cha 7
Base Atk +0, CMB +1; CMD 9
Special Attacks breath weapon (15-ft. ray, Reflex DC 18 to avoid, 1d6 fire) Once every four rounds.
Feats Flyby Attack
Skills Fly +10, Perception +14,
Special: Giant Advanced Draco-Hawks can fly in formation with normal ones but count as two hawks. Use the Giant Advanced Hawk DC and damage adjusted by the number of normal hawks. An additional Giant Advanced Hawk adds +4 to the DC instead of 2.
You can also find it under the "Extras" section of the d20pfsrd.
I put "complete" in quotes because that is a moving target and I am only promising to update it about once a month. Also, there are a few publishers from whom I have not received permission to list their work.
Publishers: For modules that I missed, new ones that are created or information which needs correction, please post the information in this thread.
Gamers: Let me know if this information is useful and any ideas on how it could be more useful.
The information for each module will be:
Module Name
Module Description (likely the flavor text verbiage from the online store)
Minimum Recommended Level
Maximum Recommended Level
Publisher
Hyperlink to the module on the Paizo webstore
Other notes (Any additional information that seems important, such as "PFS Approved", "roleplay focused" or "Part 3 of The Gods Must Be Crazy series".)
I plan on sorting the list from lowest level to highest, but there is a hyperlink to download the list in Excel format so viewers can sort by whatever criteria they choose.
The link above should continue to work as I add real information. I will keep posting in this thread as I make changes.
What I would like from publishers (3rd party or Paizo) is:
- Permission to put your adventures in my list
- A list of the Pathfinder RPG compatible modules you would like listed.
- (optionally) What information you would like in the other fields. Otherwise, I will use my best guess.
You can provide this either in this thread or emailing me at (my user name above)@yahoo.com.
What I would like from other players is feedback on the format and information. Does this sound useful to you? What would make it more useful?
Disclaimer: I am doing this for free and I do have a full time job, so my hope is to get this built and then keep it "up-to-the-month" until such a time as the Paizo web store makes my work obsolete.
I can get to the list of Paizo modules very easily.
However, 3rd party Pathfinder compatible stuff is segregated by publisher, so I have to do a lot of sorting through alternate rules, advice books, campaign settings and other wicked cool stuff that isn't what I am looking for.
What I would like is the ability to search 3rd party stuff by product type independent of publisher.
Am I missing something?
(Duplicating my post in 3rd party products, since this is probably the right forum)
I can get to the list of Paizo modules very easily.
However, 3rd party stuff is segregated by publisher, so I have to do a lot of sorting through alternate rules, advice books, campaign settings and other wicked cool stuff that isn't what I am looking for.
What I would like is the ability to search 3rd party stuff by product type independent of publisher.
I am running a purchased adventure which has a large number of secret doors and traps in it. Unfortunately, while the description of difficulty and damage is complete, the ambiance is lacking.
Last week's adventure session went something like this:
Rogue: I check the door for traps.
GM: (Rolls secretly) There is a trap.
Rogue: I disarm it.
GM: (Rolls secretly) You have disarmed it.
I would like next week's session to go more like:
Rogue: I check for traps.
GM: You notice one of the boards on the door frame is loose and will move when you open the door.
Rogue: I disarm it.
GM: After further examination, you find that you can slide the board upward half an inch, where it locks in place with a satisfying click.
My creativity seems to be at a low ebb. I will be grateful for any help in thinking up interesting triggers and disabling methods.
Similarly for secret doors. Rather than, "You notice a secret door to your right", I want to say "You notice a small discolored stone on the right wall." Pressing it causes the door to swing open.
My idea would be to have a fighter wielding a guisarme. When an opponent is charging him, he gets an attack of opportunity which he will use to trip the opponent. This prevents the opponent from getting an attack (prone 10 feet away) and lets the fighter attack at +4 on his next turn. Plus an attack of opportunity the next round when the opponent stands up.
How does using a trip attack with a reach weapon work if the fighter doesn't have improved trip yet? (If he isn't human, Combat Expertise and Combat Reflexes would be the first level feats.)
My reading is that the fighter wouldn't provoke an attack of opportunity from the charging opponent (assuming it doesn't have reach), but would provoke one if there is an opponent threatening him.
Greater trip provokes an attack of opportunity on the tripped opponent. I presume this includes one from the tripping fighter, provided he still has one?
I think that AoOs refresh at the beginning of the characters turn.
Is there a party balance issue if the only fighter is built this way?
Since the fighter would be standing back from the combat, he wouldn't be filling the role of "willing target" for the party. This would be somewhat mitigated by his increased threatening range.
Also, he doesn't have the spare feats to get Power Attack and Cleave as early as a proto-typical fighter would. Does the party suffer for not having someone who can bring the thunder?
(We will be running published adventures that often have implicit assumptions about party power.)
For some reason, the idea of a guisarme wielding halfling amuses me, so I think that is what I am going to go with.
Str: 16, Dex: 16
Feats(Level): Combat Expertise(1), Combat Reflexes(1), Improved Trip(2), Weapon Focus(3), Weapon Specialization(4), Improved Feint(5), Greater Trip(6)
[I haven't thought ahead further than that.]
Any comments or advice not related to my questions are still appreciated.
Wishlists and Lists
Wishlists allow you to track products you'd like to buy, or—if you make a wishlist public—to have others buy for you.
