llaletin's page

A triumvirate would be nice, especially if they could then work to throw the scent off of one another, especially if people thought they hated each other.

I will need to read up on all the captains again - the Halfling anti-slavers was my initial first thought but their stance against slavery is a strong characteristic that I don't think I want to tamper with.

A little bit of threadomancy...

Am I right in thinking that once purchased, an imposition is constantly usable unless it states otherwise (ie. 'Besmara's Blessings!' can be used to cast the stated spells whenever they like from that point on, every round, every day if they wish, for the rest of the PCs lives, as long as they are on the ship)?

My players have just completed the first adventure and it looks as though they have decided to return the Man's Promise back to Harrigan in Port Peril (I was in the loo at the time of these brief discussions, after the session ended, so it was all down to the players' decisions based on their adventures so far). Unfortunately I may have done too good a job impressing on them the deadly nature of the Captain with his killing of the Giant Octopus and stories of him hunting down former crew members.

At the start of the next session I will have Fishguts pointedly ask if the PCs are simply returning to Harrigan out of fear, and that the old cook understands after having done the same thing several times because of his own self-loathing, but I'm not going to press them into going against the decision if they feel strongly enough about it.

To roll with this, what I am think is having a slight turn around and Harrigan becoming an invisible patron to the PCs; with a quick story change he has tried many times to join the council in order to give it a bold, decisive level of steering, being aware of the stagnant nature of its lead, but someone has always blocked/foiled his attempts and even set Harrigan up to get captured by Cheliax. Luckily Harrigan managed to escape, but lost most of his crew in the process and now wants to find out who could be playing with him and curtailing his ability to become a bigger player in the Shackles (giving Harrigan a smaller fleet and only a humble abode later in the path)

Meeting discreetly, Harrigan could quickly push the PCs on their way to get their ship squibbed and become faux captains so they can carry on with the next few adventures, build themselves up and possible gain a position on the council which Harrigan was never able to do. Once there they might then be able to find out who the traitor is on the council. In a way Harrigan will replace Tessa Fairwind, keeping his distance and communicating via spells until he gets hit by the mysterious foe at the end of the fourth adventure and the PCs then have to fend off this foe in the fifth adventure, storm their abode and rescue Harrigan or his crew.

To this end, does anyone have any suggestions with either the handling of trying to discreetly get the players back on track at the beginning of the second adventure, or have any suggestions on how and who to build up as the bad 'guy' for the fifth adventure? Is Tessa too obvious a replacement - having her try to recruit and influence the PCs in the third adventure but with darker hidden agendas? I would prefer to keep Arronax as a red herring would could turn against the PCs if they accuse him of treachery and become recruited by their enemy. It might also be worth my while setting up a rival new group who are also rising stars and trying to become Free Captains who can compete against them in the regatta.

Any comments, suggestions and ideas for changing set pieces to keep in line with the possible upcoming change would be gratefully appreciated.

Terribly sorry but can I please cancel my Starfinder Adventure Path subscription, taking effect after the Dead Suns path has ended?
Thank-you in advance,
Luke

also No.
The paragraph on Page 554 in the Core Rulebook addresses Supernatural Abilities.

Out of Character Time-Frame
Be aware of how long the campaign may take to run and consider if that is what you want. After two years, my group are just about to start adventure 5 - we play once a month for about 8 hours at a time and have had 24 gaming sessions.

In Character Time-Frame
Some Kingmaker games might span the course of a couple of years, a couple of decades or a couple of generations. it fully depends on how you want to run Kingmaker. I have added several extra adventures and large time gaps between adventures 2-3 and 3-4 so that nearly twenty years have passed since the PCs first started out in Adventure 1. The PCs all have teenage children who may participate in a couple of fights in Adventure 5 (getting into Pitax) and 6 (assisting against Blooms). Some games might have the players retiring characters and using offspring whilst others might have the original characters complete the whole path in just three of four years. It depends on how you want to run and how the players would like to play.

Preparation
I go over the top in preparation. It's a fault of mine, but I made sure to read and re-read all of the adventures before I ran the campaign and had extra notes (pages and pages) in place for the first three adventures before the first gaming session had taken place. It allowed me to consider what events to remove/addamend, I had a good idea of the Big Bad's involvement in virtually everything and was able to add little touches to events to hint at someone else's hand being in play. When the reveals come in the last two adventurers hopefully my players will quickly put it all together and see how things deflty knit together from the very beginning.

Extra Adventures
Because the players and their characters were happy to go long-term and relished the world around them and their kingdom I added the following adventures to the campaign:
Feast of Ravenmoor - I had the tiny village of Ravenmoor exist in the North-West corner of the PCs new domain, which they encountered in Adventure 1. They hated the place immediately. They were then sent a note in Adventure 2 that lured them back to it and then I used the adventure as it was laid out and by the end of it the PCs ended up with another tiny village that they had to support and govern. Tatzelford ended up growing too big to be used in the start of Adventure 4's attack, so Ravenmoor was an ideal substitute (and had been my back-up plan all along).
Realm of the Fellnight Queen - used the latter half of the adventure (the realm), taking place after Adventure 2, as the PCs had to stop the invasion of this fey queen. The whole event had been triggered by a Mite that escaped in Adventure 1 and then stumbled into this realm and wanted revenge on the PCs. This queen has strong links to Nyrissa which the PCs still don't know about...
The Harrowing, took place after Adventure 3. Had a member of the PCs council (The Old Beldame) pass away from age, leaving behind this artefact which sucked in the King's youngest child - the PCs then had to go in to this odd fairytale realm. I hope to use some of the NPCs in the adventures in conjunction with a new bloom I'll add in Adventure 6 which will be fairytale based (not yet considered the full details).

As you can see, you can add in more adventures or strip some elements out. As you progress, you can easily link things together, having them born out of consequences from the PCs actions or have elements return later on to haunt or aid the PCs.

Handouts
I recommend reviewing and printing out the mini quests in each adventure, physically giving the appropriate quest handout to the players when they encounter the quest giver. Review the quests after each adventure so that you can amend the NPC quest giver to one that the PCs have encountered (or one you want them to get to know) and tailor the rewards to more useful things for your PCs.

Kingdom Building
Another GM wrote up rules on bidding for Build Points after Adventure 1, in order to gather together the funds and equipment for the PCs to start to build their kingdom. This is an excellent way to get the PCs involved with various groups, decide who they want to support, spurn or become beholdened to and can set up a number of plot ideas and links for the future. I heartily recommend using this option unless your players aren't interested at all in the kingdom building aspect. I had various Brevoy factions, each Brevoy noble house, numerous temples and other miscellaneous factions all making offers to the PCs. The players spent a good while mulling over all the offers and they enjoyed decided on who they would have supporting their kingdom. In the end it helped them choose which elements of Brevoy they liked and disliked, which temples had a stronger presence in their kingdom and some of the laws that they put in place.

Tailor NPCs involvement
In Adventure 4 I completely removed Irovetti's involvement with the barbarians and Drelev. There was no way that my PCs would trust Irovetti or go near the Tournament in Adv. 5 if he had been involved with taking Drelev. Likewise you'll need to consider how your players will react to events and NPCs. I had Armag being supported by Clerics of Gyronna (whom the PCs hated after several earlier encounters) and a mercenary army to take Drelev and imprison the Count (the PCs had gotten on with Count Drelev and I wanted to keep him as an amiable NPC but one under the thumb of Brevoy, hence why he gave his land over to the PCs after realising his failures as a ruler). After rescuing the Count, the PCs recruited the mercenary army and made allies out of its leaders who now sit on their council! As you can see, resourceful PCs can easily amend how the campaign and NPCs play out. Go with it, where possible. The kingdom's council is comprised of all sorts of odd-balls such as a bogeyman, Kobold Chief, mercenary captain, a bard spy from another kingdom that the PCs 'converted', etc. Have fun introducing wildcards and fun elements and sometime roll with the weird choices that your players will make.

I'll leave my ramblings there for now =)

Superb and utterly timely - I'm running the Rushlight Games for my group next week, but most of the characters are magic-based and I have been stuggling to find a spellcaster-based contest to include for them. I was going to use Spell Duelling from one of the core books (which would have been a logistical nightmare) but this is a far more elegant option and its flashy nature is more in keeping with Irovetti's whims.

What I might amend how points are scored. One 'judging' point will be awarded for every 5 made in the Spellcraft check and for every 10 made in the accompanying skill (so a contestant that gets a Spellcraft of 27 and Perform result of 23 would be judged for seven points), with up to two bonus points being awarded based on the flashy/innovative nature of the performance.

As per other events, once all the judging points are accrued the first-place winner gets four points for the tournament, 2 points go to second-place and 1 point for third-place.

Thank-you very much for this Tinalles =)

Like many others, my first reaction was to either have the characters come back in alternate forms or that they come back without any magical abilities (unfettered).

Instead, how about their wish brings about an incredible powerful creature; the characters' magic items are returned, but drained of all magic. Characters temporarily lose any magical and supernatural abilities for 24 hours, and each has lost a tiny sliver of their soul.
The end result is a 'creature' born of magical energies and living spells, with extremely high SR, resistances, powerful magical attacks (can either use one powerful spell a round or mulitple lower-levelled spells) and needs to be attacked by mundane weapons, it has no damage reduction against these mundane attacks. An extremely large and nebulous creation, it appears on the surface, near a small village and wipes it out as it seeks magical energies to add to it -think of it as an enormous magical battery that uses its own energy to attack and must consume more to survive- The thing moves on to destroy more villages and then moves on to attack towns and cities. It takes a while for the PCs hear about it and the damage left its wake, but will soon learn that they are also linked to it; everytime it takes 10 hit points of damage, all the PCs also take 1 single hit point of damage (it'll soon add up). Might be that the PCs have to deal with their current adventure and then deal with the wake of the creature, try and figure out a weakness that doesnt rely on magic and then take the fight to the creature (gives you more time to find or design such a creature). Their selfish wishes means that the creature cannot truly die (like the terrasque) Maybe the only way that the creature can fully die is if the PCs risk the remainder of their souls to fell a creature born from them!

Good luck =)

Hypothetical question: If a big bad Boss has Shield Other cast on him by an Ally before battle with the PCs commences and then the Boss also successfully casts Unwilling Shield on one of the PCs, what would the end result be when the Boss is hit for damage?
- Ally takes 50%, PC takes 50%, Boss takes 0%? Would be ideal, but doesn't seem right...
- Ally takes 25%, PC takes 25%, Boss takes 50%? Would be a waste of time casting Unwilling Shield.
- Ally takes 25%, PC takes 50%, Boss takes 25%, because Unwilling Shield is the more powerful spell and comes into effect first and then Shield Other halves it again?
- Ally takes 0%, PC takes 50%, Boss takes 50%, because Unwilling Shield is the more powerful spell and overrides Shield Other whilst it is active? (This, I suspect is the mostly likely outcome)

Thank-you in advance for any rules clarifications on the above scenario.

I was always under the impression that you could use another spellcaster in conjunction with a Contingency spell; at some point your Wizard had a cleric companion, or kidnapped a cleric, and got them to cast Heal when he used Contingency - a quick and simple solution to get a spell you want on a bad guy without having to put in an expensive item that you don't want your party to have.

Or find a way to use a bonded item to get it. A Wizard can use item creation feats on the bonded item and when they die it loses all abilities and reverts to a masterwork version of itself, so maybe a spellstoring quarterstaff or a powerful staff that suits you will suffice.

You dont always have to justify how an opponent has a specific spell or ability - it could have been a gift from the gods or through some powerful unearthed spell or one-off magic item they researched and crafted...

It's going to depend on the interpretation of the situation by the players and the GM, there is no clear cut answer here. Some other factors that might influence this are; has one of the confused characters already been attacked? If so then they'll retaliate regardless of the door. Otherwise it'll be down to the confusion effects, percentage roll and interpretation of the situation by others..... If you explain your rational, the GM might be inclined to agree and let the effect ride out without too much violence coming into play...

I'd prefer more adventures that are somewhere between 7-13. 1-6 is often too low to be able to take on anything of consequence and characters dont have the options and power to take on anything too meaningful. After lvl 12 I always find that combat starts to slow down and takes a lot longer, adding to this the stat block for NPCs starts to get unwieldy in a published adventure and takes up a lot of room.

As for adventures, I'd love more urban, with urban exploration, deceit, investigation, mystery and less combat. One of my favourite things about Eberron was that a good number of adventures were based in the city of Sharn. Paizo published three great linked adventures that had the Pcs first meeting a Sherlock-esque character and then eventually clashing with him and foiling his schemes and again having him return, asylum-bound but no less dangerous. And whilst it was still quite combat heavy, the extra investigative elements, skill focus and interesting urban locations gave it a huge lift. Something that isn't tavern bound or a quest that sends the PCs to explore sewers. I think thats why a lot of gamers particularly liked Curse of the Crimson Throne, because of how the city of Korvosa was used.

With a Cloak of the Manta Ray, just about any class is viable.
Maybe a Rogue, that way this item allows you to have all your attacks, position yourself for sneak attacks, survive if grappled underwater, escape from and tactically move around land based enemies near a body of water, etc.

Good Morning,
Apologies but please can you cancel my Pathfinder Adventure Path subscription so that adventure path #114 is the last one I will receive.

Many Thanks, Luke

Its going to depend on how the GM interprets Invisibility's wording; causing harm indirectly is not an attack and thus does not break the spell. As a GM, I would rule that casting Reverse Gravity wouldnt break Invisibilty, even if the caster ended RG when a foe was floating up in the air, as that would be no different to an invisible creature cutting the ropes on a rope bridge filled with foes (an example given in Invisibility's description).

Of course in casting RG, the caster will need to use verbal and somatic components, so a GM is within their right to say that the caster is only getting a +20 bonus to stealth vs the perception of foes, though said foes may soon find themselves distracted by other matters... :-)

Thanks for the prompt reply Neil =)

Threadomancy!
Quick question, how many barbarians/creatures did Armag gather for the invasion and how many now reside waiting for his return in camps to the east and north of the tomb?

I can envisage my players trying to gather their forces and either attacking Fort Drelev en-mass (even though I will express that a lot of innocents may lose their lives in this attempt), or more likely they will have their armies ready to attack once the PCs have liberated the city and will march on where the barbarian forces are camped to end any future threat they might pose.

The PCs' kingdom has had a sizeable army since the second adventure, as I pitted them against Hargulka's kingdom and his troll incursions and then they had to fend off attacks from fey armies from The Fellnight Realm (which took place in between adventure 2 and 3). They currently have a large army of humans (Fighter2), a Kobold Draconic Squad (the sootscale kobolds using a forest drake as a land mount) and a medium army of Halfling scouts (Rogue2) from Tatzleford.

DJEternaDarkness is banned, because such darkness makes it more difficult to type away on the keyboard. "Let there be light"

As with the Sunburst spell I would treat the target who failed their save as being permanently Blinded.

The Secret Diaries of Snarf

Am still running RotRL (currently in the 5th adventure) but am looking ahead and wondering which path to go with next.
Am really liking how the first two adventures in SD read. The 2nd Adventure is probably my favourite out of all of the Pathfinder modules thus far but like many other people I am worried about the flow of the adventure after this one, especially after the PCs get to know Riddleport, experiencing and investigating the meteorite crash, gaining rare starmetals and combating cool alien creatures. Then it takes the PCs away from the region and the feel of the campaign definately seems to change, and not for the better.

Thanks for the response and info, much appreciated.

After 9 Saturday sessions (approx. 10-12hrs at a time), the party are just embarking on the 5th adventure. The 4 characters have remained constant throughout although there has been the occasional death from which they were brought back.

Tessa - Comely Half-Elf Sorceress of Fey Bloodline who's big on blasting and support, but not illusion. Looks to the others to provide her with protection when its needed in battle but is an overtly caring soul

Zolar - The all-round good guy Human Cleric of Sarenrae, tends to hang back and support with spells but also has some competance with his cold-iron Glaive to provide some melee support unless their AC starts to prove a challenge.

Meena - A young Shoanti Barbarian Girl wielding an Earthbreaker; very protective of 'big sis' Tessa, she hopes to see and learn much from the countries, peoples and monsters of Golarian so she can better lead her tribe when she becomes the Tribal Leader.

Nimble - The greedy backstabbing Human Rogue of the party, usually moves into combat with Meena to get optimum combat positioning. Would sell off the party for a huge pile of gold if they didn't have such a knack for finding rare treasures, and the fact that most enemies would later stab him in the back isn't wasted on him. Recently behaved himself enough that Zolar finally removed the Mark of Justice that was placed on him to keep him in check.

Afternoon,
I received notification that my order had arrived in the UK, but unfortunately Royal Mail were unable to deliver it due to requiring a Customs charge of £12.83.
I have since paid this and collected the parcel to ensure that it was from yourselves and was wondering if there was anything that could be done to try and cover this unexpected additional cost as am unsure of the process involved here.

The sticker which details the charge reads as follows:
Date: 13/01/2010
Charge No.: ZA002087058GB
Customs/Postal Charges...
VAT £4.83
Royal Mail International Handling Fee £8.00
Total £12.83

I do have the receipt for this fee paid available to send via email if needs be.

Best Regards,
Luke

Would have to agree with some that the Summoner class itself needs a bigger variety of skills, more specifically knowledge-based ones. I have to admit to being surprised that he didn't have K.Planes and K.Dungeoneering at the very least so as to learn more about the creatures that he summons, deals with and using knowledge of the wierd creatures out there to have an effect on the Eidolon's form when it 'levels'.

Rogue: "Wow! There are 10 beholders and 2 dragons in the room ahead of us!"

Summoner: "Hmm... Give me a few minutes."
Summoner casts Summon Monster IX 10 times.

Summoner: "Okay, lets go give it a go!"

Beholders: *turns around to face the party*

Got to agree that the Summoner does seem more powerful than most other classes in combat, however he's not omnipotent, there are some combats where I can see him being a complete spare wheel especially if the BBEG knows there's a summoner coming and can prep for it.

Never the less as much as I do like the class (and I really do) it does need a bit of defanging.

I think the change that I liked the most is a little bit of fluff found in the Cockatrice and Basilisk text; Ferrets and Weasels being immune to their petrification, such a minor addition but a neat little one never the less.

CRs of course have been re-jigged a little.
A couple of monster thrown in, taken out, and some have been reclassified like the Bebilith and Retriever.

The new bestiary doesn't appear as a huge overhaul but has modifications, tweaks of of course heavy fluff change to give it a slightly different feeling.

The only downside to the book is the artwork for the mephit (who look like disney rejects) and the awful awful picture of the Zombie which is a shame is it is the last creature entry in the book.

/.-./.-./.-./.com

Of course you'd have to get the 28th level Wizard and Druid to agree to this in the first place.

Don't forget that these things don't work on their own initiative, so would say that they would have to be directed every step of the way which has got to be an exhausting process for just looking after 2 of these things, and they certainly aren't able to command others that they create which means that the original is going to have to find some way to do it otherwise all these copies will just be standing there and not doing anything.

Same thing with Amazon.co.uk
Heck they haven't even sent out the Pathfinder Core Book which was preordered many months ago....

Flamberge
Pyre-Bone
Sati (depending on creature origins and ecology...)

Spell Weavers.

There's just something incredibly funny about a party being torn apart by 30 Magic Missiles each round. Even better when the Advanced Spell Weaver can create a Simulacrum and get it to do this for him so the original can focus on more powerful spells.

So much destructive arcane potential, yummy.

For me the biggest problem with regards to the Spiked Chain were the attacks of opportunity that the wielder would often gain.
Whilst reach weapons often get in more AoO then usual melee weapons they are offset by the fact that they cannot hit adjacent foes, but of course the Spiked Chain did not have that problem at all, making it a pleb killer when combined with Combat Reflexes.

Another suggestion to nerf but not kill off the flavour of the Spiked Chain would be to leave it stat-wise and reach-wise the same as it was in 3.5 but because it needs momentum, time and more work to use in combat, rule that it cannot be used to make any attacks of opportunity; solving it's biggest problem (AoO) but still allowing the reach for those that like it as it was.

1. Eberron
2. Gaia et al. (Anima: Beyond Fantasy)
3. Rokugan (Legend of Five Rings)

Wonderfalls

To play, you'll just need this book.
If running, you'll probably need the 3.5 monster manual for the short while until the Beastiary comes out next month.

Dungeon #135, Page 55. It is only a very brief and slightly vague mention however.

Anima: Beyond Fantasy
A recently released title from FFG, using D10 and %Dice

I would really like it to do well so they'll bring out more material for it.
Anima's up-side (which pretty much everyone agrees on) is that it looks great, the style and content is excellent.
The biggest down-side is it's character sheet. There is so much flexibility and options regarding character creation that they've had to create a 4-page character sheet that can incorporate everything available to a player, and it's pretty weighed down in black ink.
I suppose another downside might be GMs feeling that they have to buy a second copy of the handbook so that they'll always have a perfect untouched(by players) version as well as the copy that players will paw through and drool over.

Anima Site
FFG's Anima Section

Must admit that I was thinking of doing something similar: Firstly, elongate Dragotha's chamber so it is deeper, with the Monolith towards the back of it as well as the treasure (harder for the PCs and Dragotha to get to it when the below occurs).
Have Lashonna contact the PCs before they assualt Dragotha to let them know that she is scrying them so that when they commence battle she may be able to aid them in someway against their foe.

During the battle see how things go: If the party are keeping up with Dragotha then have the monolith emit even more negative energy to slow them down.
A round or 2 in Lashonna, under whatever guise, illusion or method of invisibility you wish to use, arrives and uses the *perfect* distraction that the PCs are providing to set up a teleportation circle around the monolith and then apparate it away. If the party are having a hard time then this could give you a reason to weaken Dragotha a touch and make it look like Lashonna's done them a favour (for now), or negate any increases in negative energy/damage that you might have added in due to the monolith's presence. Of course Dragotha should be enraged at this point and have more reasons to make more mistakes and/or become far more potent/deadly in his attacks and strategy.

Wait until the battle's done, the treasure is won and the party has healed and is relaxing before Manzorian contacts them with the news about Alhaster. Perhaps allow them to think the adventure's over, that they've saved the day and give them some time in game to wrap up any other loose ends before dropping the last adventure on them.

Got it a couple of weeks ago here in the UK, it's called 'The Last Watch'. Had ordered it from Amazon but they never delivered so got it from another site instead.

I have been contemplating playing a Bard that uses puppets for his visual performances. Am also contemplating buying a few basic puppets OOC to represent monsters and heroes so as to enhance the experience for the other players and GM =)

Just for clarification, is the ability to grant part of the Ranger's Favored Enemy bonuses to allies an "At Will" ability, as I am unable seem to see any mention of limitations/uses in the description?
Or perhaps better still; a number of times per day equal to the number of levels that the PC has in the ranger class, so it's not constantly in use?

Is it possible we could get the pdf file early??

Seconded. Well, thirded, but not sure if that would be grammatically correct.

Adventures showcase only combat.

all across the Underdark.

As a GM I've ran a couple of adventures with the Delve Format and still cannot stand it. I preferred the previous format.

Fireborn by Fantasy Flight Games

For me, Pathfinder reading online stinks. I can't even get through the next pathfinder PDF, but will just store it for the maps and wait for the hardcopy with anticipation.

I'm glad to find that I'm not the only one like this. I want to read the stuff online, but find my attention peeling away after a minute or two. So in the case of Pathfinder I just sit back and wait a week or so for the hardcopy.

In the case of Wizard's online stuff, I've glanced at the adventures and some of the articles and then gone on to do other things. The only exception is 'Hell's Heart', an adventure that I had been looking forward to for sometime, so I saved and printed and read it in good 'ole paper format (whilst in the comfort of my bed).

James Masters' character did play out a bit too much like Spike.
Also too much Male on Male action for my liking, and no Woman on woman... go figure....

The episode was considerable better for its pacing. I hated previous episodes where they had thirty seconds to wrap everything up.
Acting still feels a bit clunky and storyline could have been better, but definately an improvement on the first series.