mhd's page

Thanks for the extensive reply, Inspectre. I'm currently reading through your gaming reports for inspiration anyway ;)

As for the general approach to improvisation and how to tackle campaigns, I really like to prep individual and locations but leave the events open enough. So situations and encounters are more fluid. I can't go totally in that direction, as Pathfinder and similar games require some more work there, but I do what I can. That usually means my backstory is more defined than I have it right now, to be fair, as most events evolve out of what happens before and during the campaign. This time it's a bit of a "Schrödinger's Cat" situation, as there were a few more external variables -- playing it online, two new players, unsure how the strong local focus works out. But now's the time to really write down my version of the details of the world and what the NPCs planned, seeing how we go from there.

Literally starting from a final boss battle isn't the best choice for me, as I don't really want to force a final confrontation, but that's nitpicking the semantics a bit, the "whodunnit" part should definitely be set in stone and not dependent on whose door the PCs kick down.

In the end, you could say that I consider the "Curse of the Crimson Throne" to be the real culprit. Metaphorically or maybe even literally, it creates a tangled mess of conspiracies and catastrophes. The prophecy theme of the game works well with this, fate drawing up a bunch of enemies together, without a single mind behind it, no Dark Lord who controls everything.

Going through your list of Big Bads:

1) Ileosa - I'm leaving it open how tragic her story will turn out. As it is, everything is set up in her disfavor. She starts out well-meaning, if a bit incompetent, with a good set of allies - mainly Cressida & Sabina, with Zenobia as a maternal grey eminence. But bit by bit she will lose those allies and gain more enemies. But also some power, which could easily corrupt her. The only way out I see for her would be direct & active help from the PCs, which I *won't* prompt them to do.

2) Kazavon - I've got several ways planned how this will turn out. Right now there's a rather undirected dragon cult in town. Rather conspiratorial, but without a strong leading hand and really knowing what they want. Once the spirit of Kazavon is more manifested, they will play a leading role. Maybe I can even tie in one of the other baddies with them. Depending on things are going, I can either see Ileosa using some/all the artifacts for her own goals (thus ending up close to the original story) or Kazavon manifesting and taking things into his own claws -- I got this image of Ileosa, after all good intentions and trying to do things her own way ending up as a helpless bride again. I've got a Dragon Disciple in my group, so I guess the PCs will influence this more directly than getting more involved in courtly politics.
The Crown being placed into the hands of Abadar means that they're now targeted by the "menace". This is one thing I'm pondering right now, whether to go more with corruption (ending up with Darb Tuttle taking the crown) or a big fight agaisnt the church.

3) Sorshen - Didn't have her as an active entity on my radar at all. Something to consider.

4) Domina/Eodred - I thought about this, but I felt that "we're not really dead" was a rather tired trope. But now that you mention it, a small theme of ghosts did emerge in play, so I might use them for this, either once or as a lasting presence. But definitely not in a Big Bad manner.

5) Lorthract - Another entity I didn't consider. And to be honest, I want to stick with less black/white themes here, so I prefer to stick with mortals.

The "doom" of the city that Zellara and other pawns of prophecy try to prevent will be mostly a culmination of several strains. Kazavons relics will be a major one, and problem the most supernatural. The cult of Urgathoa is obviously another major player -- disease being a very urban theme. To be honest, the main reason why I'm currently veering away from that (and writing these posts) is because of our current situation. Disease is a rather tired theme by now ;)

Ileosa's predicament is the most humane. Everything is arrayed against her, but she's got a pretty strong core, so she'll try to hold on for quite a while, but once she loses enough support, this very core will make her a much dangerous enemy. It's quite likely that she'll remain the final enemy of the campaign, but we'll see whether she's a more "draconic" individual enemy or whether fighting her will be a much more political and warlike endeavor.

I don't want to be too overt about this in the game, but this conflict between mortal politics and emotions with the supernatural threats and "fate" itself working against some people is a central theme for me.

Thanks for the hints towards the relics, I'm trying to map out the "vectors" of those right now.

I definitely want to head out to Scarwall. The Kazavonian threat will be strong enough to guide the players in this direction. It might even happen a bit sooner. I've already got some Belkzenian influence in the background, dormant right now, but it'll get more important and provide enough hints towards that direction.

Going outside of Korvosa isn't a big hindrance, too, we had some fun just "questing" around in the back country, as it provided a needed respite from the disease -- and allowed me to progress that a bit more while they were away, as the timeline before was a bit short for it to spread too fast.

I'm not sure at all about Part 3 of A History of Ashes, but the rest will stand. The Cinderlands will play a role. My Ileosa will turn a bit warlike soon, and the Shoanti are a good distraction for the battered people of Korvosa. If they PCs are somewhat on her side by then, this will lead to scouting the lands and following some trails there. If they're against her, open or not, they can support the Shoanti -- either by strengthening them or by trying to prevent battles.

Part 6 is mostly location anyway, so definitely will find some use at the very end.

I think as it's going right now, I'll probably add a few things to the AP, but won't have to remove too much. Escape from Old Korvosa will probably be one of the bigger changes, as it's not really a big series of events -- Vencarlo will play a role, but it won't force the players to clean up the whole mess. Ileosas re-strengthening of the rest of the city can run in parallel with whatever the Arkonas do in Old Korvosa. Depending on where the players go, we would go into politics (prevent war), street-level heroics (keep Old Korvosa in check) or even the players participating in the war efforts.

Oh, I forgot to talk about one of the central pieces of the story. "My" Ileosa not being the Evil Queen from the start made me refactor the murder plot quite a bit. I just threw together some existing plot elements. Zenobia is both very "law & order" and a big Domina fangirl - not happy with Eodred, not happy with not being able to punish those who evade the law. So she had ties with the Red Mantis for years and years, but they couldn't help her get the queen she basically picked in power. But one of the king's harem (something she despised), an elf, got a child which he didn't want to recognize. And she had contacts with Treerazer, who enabled her to poison the king, this way also preventing resurrection magic from working. (She paid the price and now lies deathly sick, cared for by Zenobia)
Her main source to smuggle in Red Mantis and their equipment were the Arkonas, so this is the most likely way the PCs will hear about this. This way they also won't know whether the queen had something to do with it. Zenobia is a regular human, no weird vampire.

This can lead to interestin consequences. If the players get on Zenobias trail, this is another ally that's not supporting Ileosa anymore, leading her one step further on her downfall. Or the Arkona could blackmail her, bringing in the Red Mantis as some support. And if it really all comes together and the PCs manage to eliminate both Kazavon and the queen as a threat, I could bring in Treerazer into play if we really need a Kaiju showdown. Hope it doesn't come to that.

My GMing style is quite improvisational, which can have interesting interaction with the more rigidly structured parts of APs. I generally try to stick with the story, while keeping in mind some changes and opinions about things, then see what develops at the table. Sometimes just throwing things out there, see what sticks, or integrating elements from the main plot in seemingly unrelated places.

But I usually try to take stock of my changes and to plan the stuff that needs planning at some stage, and I think I arrived at this point. The players (6) are about to enter the Urgathoan temple (they alerted the whole bunch while scouting the hospice, so I can skip all three levels of that and head straight to the final confrontation).

Now this means we're heading towards Escape From Old-Korvosa, which I didn't particularly like. The Arkonas seem a bit artificially inserted there, just as a mid-range "boss", and the whole Emperor/Blood Pig scenario doesn't seem too exciting, either. So this is the time where I will deviate from the plot a bit more, see what I can salvage and try to reinforce existing trends.

So let me recapitulate what I changed and some of the likes/dislikes:

- Gaedren escaped, and there was not that much effort chasing him. Devargo might have him, but the PCs never bothered him too much (they did free the pseudodragon, but mostly via summoned monsters/spells).
- I didn't like Ileaso's Evil Queen story. Currently I'm aiming to go into a more paranoid direction: She's not in league with the Urgathoans, but being manipulated will bring out her worst side.
- In line with that, she doesn't have the crown, but the PCs found that in some old ruins while freeing some of the king's harem turned into otyughs. They deposited at the church of Abadar. (I smiled a lot when they did this)
- The kidnapping was done by some Belkzen spies in league with a dragon cult. First hints at a draconic menace.
- Vencarlo mentioned to the PCs that it would be great if Black Jack would unite the citizens and thwart the execution of Trinia. He might even get his hands on a costume... So the PCs impersonated the hero (two of them). I just loved this.
- We did the random "Seven days" anti-plague events, and I found them a bit too disjointed. I want to keep the "main quest" more streamlined, with some "side quests" being clearly unrelated.
- Just to get some "fresh air", the PCs left the city for a while, trying to get rid of a trio of Medusae. The "mother" of this snake hive apparently fathered an amnesiac half-celestial stone giant, because of some prophecy regarding dragons and ways to kill them. He's literally missing parts of his "heart" and "brain".
- They also got a Holy Avenger (no paladin in the group; I generally don't do regular magic item trading). Potentially connecting them to Iomedae.
- There's also some random ice dwarves and their quest to fetch their third brother from the Acadamae, to free a lost dwarven citadel in the outmost north, now conquered by a shamanistic fire giant. Just because.

Now I want to pull some threads together. Some ideas:
- No surviving a headshot and killing the Sable Company commander. The heel turn will be delayed a bit.
- Isolated Old Korvosa sounds fun, but I want to draw that out a bit more and give the Arkonas some more face time. My current plans are them convincing the Queen to let them rule over this prison city. Possibly even involving some slavery. And then something darker, which would further Ileosas paranoid delusions.
- The crown in the temple of Abadar won't lie still. The rest of the artefacts will be drawn into the city. I'm looking for good places for all of them. Once more of them will be in play, we're progressing towards finding out more about the dragon and will be closer to the plot as given starting with A History of Ashes.

So this is the big "transitional" phase. Turning Old Korvosa into some semi-lawless town, whereas regular Korvosa gets more Big Brother-y. Seeing how Devargo, Gaedren and Vencarlo play into this. Maybe even bringing in the "Emperor" here. Fleshing out the Arkonas more, before we end up confronting them.

Any good ideas or inspiration from your very own changes? I'm always willing to bring in more Golarion lore.

While it may be more practical to have a bounty on the heads of giants and ogres, it doesn't solve the metagme problem of removing magic unusable by the party from the system and replacing it with cash that IS.

Which is one of the problems of the 3E item economy. Way too much metagaming involved.

That's not min maxing to the hilt, that's simply refusing to take blatantly obvious trap options

So, two of the three basic eidolon types are "trap options"? As are 15 of the 17 basic druid companion animal types?

Money is always a good reason. Buy-back programs are a *very* civilized approach, so you'd need a very rich, very peace-loving church for something like this. And even then, paying 4000 gp for a +2 weapon seems a bit ludicrous, compared to the base price of the weapon and what little more the magical enhancements bring. Churches have spending limits, too. Someone has to pay for all that diamond dust… I'd understand it for clearly evil artifacts, which are a blight upon the earth yadda yaddah.

What's more likely to happen is bounties on the evil creatures themselves. Much cheaper and you solve it at the root of the problem. Ogre hooks don't kill people, ogres do.

I think the Kreegs would've done that, given enough time. The dam isn't their plan, and risking a fight against the resident trolls is prone to cause more casualties and fewer skull trophies than straight (or guerilla) attacks on Turtleback Ferry. So it has to be seen, how independent they are, if left to their own devices. I think that Lucrecia, Barl and Jaagrath have quite different views on the situation and how to proceed…

I think what made this a bit worse, is the odd time frame of the adventure's events. There haven't been news from FR to Magnimar for "quite some time", and given the 450 miles distance, news probably doesn't travel that fast anyway. And now the players went those 450 miles, maybe not too much in a hurry (i.e. afoot). So given that, the ogres had a few weeks, maybe two months to enjoy their victory, both the description of the fort (ogres still playing with the bodies of the defeated rangers, Graul captives still alive) and the relative sedentary mood of the ogres doesn't quite fit.

The first draft of the adventure still contained the Paradise, and if it being burnt down and taking over the fort would coincide, then everything seems a bit more reasonable. This seems a somewhat popular option on this board, and so I went for that. As of now, it went pretty smooth (apart from the fact that power-attacking ogres are bad shut-your-mouths in Pathfinder)

If that's not an option, just go with the extended party and the fact that Barl doesn't want it and Lucrecia is there to prevent such outbursts. And she's can be quite charming…

This isn't an issue for belts and such, is it? Mammy Graul's "amulet of health" would normally exist as a belt of mighty constitution under PFRPG, but that'd be a really long belt.

Well, if I remember correctly, the rules say that it shouldn't be a problems, as magic items are adjustable, either by their natural properties (folding etc.) or by magic. Doesn't say that it happens automatically, though, which is where my rat bastard DM nature comes into play…

I made it a belt, so now the players got a looong "sash" made out of some tacky flowery fabric…

As for item "bounties", I did that for some of the skinsaw stuff, as the players made contact with a church during those events (Pholtus). But I don't see a reason why – or any other institution I can come up with – would bay for the ogre arms & armor. I don't like that handwavey stuff, just to keep the silly 3E item economy alive (never mind that even within the rules, we'd be way above spending limits for most cities). I'd much rather have the players destroy it, and maybe give them enough other stuff in turn, or – as mentioned above – let them use it to make their own items, e.g. giant-bane weapons made from actual giant weapons…

Being an old-school "Wizards should be like Raistlin" type of guy, I've never been fond of the high-Con 3E builds, which probably goes double for gnomes. But having said that, it's not too hard to find a justification for it. Considering that your Wisdom ain't too shabby either, you can just jot it down to a copious amount of willpower. He just won't give up. Doesn't even need to be very "fit" for that, it's just a simple case of mind over matter.

Or take a hint from the Discworld, where wizards etc. are the best runners anyway, both long and short distance. Real-life marathon guys most of the time aren't muscly beasts, and it doesn't require undue amounts of coordination, either.

I'm getting bad flashbacks to the WotC boards. Just hope that Paizo won't bring back the Ur-Priest in their next books…

That being said, I don't see a big problem in allowing a shield bash as a sole attack, rules or not. If your bard can switch from a longsword in his right hand to the whip in his left hand without a problem, doing a single shield bash (spikes or not) definitely sounds feasible from a common sense perspective and doesn't look too powergamey to me.

Generally I would've preferred if shield bashes were handled as some combat maneuvers (or providing bonuses to the same), instead of being thrown in with two-weapon fighting – which always struck me as eminently silly, especially at higher levels. And it would get rid of the occasional "can I use two shields" post, from whatever anime people are getting that…

Speaking of selling treasure, who would buy large magical weapons and armor you take of ogres and giants? As far as I know there's no decent way to "shrink" them, and there aren't exactly many good-/neutral-aligned creatures close to the major cities, with ready cash.

After reading this thread, I feel mighty tempted to play a (un-optimized) shadowdancer. Someone cursed by fey, and then using their own powers against them. Favored enemy (fey), Aspect of the Beast *and* shadowdancer. This probably would give the people on the WotC optimization board conniptions…

Now I only have to keep myself from singing Mike Oldfield tunes.

A Shadowdancer is pretty good if you don't care too much about the progression of your primary class(es) anyway, i.e. if you already got most of what you wanted out of it.

Fighter 2 / Ranger 3 / Shadowdancer X can be quite interesting. Favored Enemy (human), Favored Environment (urban) and you get a pretty decent city adventurer who doesn't have to rely on situation that would grant him sneak attacks. The aforementioned Batman comes to mind.

Straight Fighter works, too. Strangely enough, the class that would seem most appropriate (rogue) would be better of continuing instead of switching to Shadowdancer. You could get most of the benefits out of some decent application of UMD and a cool cape.

Last time I actually played myself, I had stats almost as good, and went for a monk/druid. This used the old 3.5E shapechange variant, that's pretty close to the current wild shape PF rules… I'm not sure how much synergy there is within the current rules (i.e. what remains from your monk bonuses/feats), but it certainly was fun.

I'd recommend some multi-role character, instead of going for a straight fighter or full-caster.

Build your own PF hexblade, with a Witch/Ranger multiclass.

Go back to the old figher/magic-user/thief with a Fighter/Wizard/EK (thief role is done with your many skill points, possibly with the help of a focus feat or some neat traits).

Go straight paladin. A clever fighter for justice and leader of man has a need for all attributes.

Definitely do something where you stand in front of the party, to showboat your epic heroic-tude. No archers or (de-)buffers…

I recently remembered this old gallery, from the early days of 3E. And now I wonder, given PF and the APG, how you would build some of those characters nowadays…

I just cringe at the thought that someone probably will suggest that He-Man is an alchemist/summoner…

This, the bare-chest barbarian, it comes mostly from Conan, the iconic barbarian. I'm reading the Complete Chronicles of Conan (from Robert E. Howard) right now and I can tell you that, even as a barbarian, Conan is wearing an armor most of the time.

The "iconic" bare-chested barbarian would be Tarzan. It got worse after the whole body-building wave arrived, and peplum movies and "beefcake" pinups became popular. Then you had Vallejo, Frazetta and the hedonistic 80s, and the damage was done. That's why Elmore got popular for a while, at least some of his characters had an reasonable amount of armor (well, if they were male).

After a few disappointments with Amazon's delivery here in Germany, I finally got the crit and fumble decks. And they look awfully delicious…

Now I'd be interested in your experiences with the products and what (optional) rules you apply. Right now, I'm tempted to use the "damage as listed + (crit mult. - 1)", as just picking more cards would make the big damage weapons seem more precise, never mind that more damage equals more fun.

Not as sure about who can draw cards. Major NPCs definitely, but whether it's anything with a name/class levels or just the "end bosses" is still open for discussion. Let's see what the rest of the group (and you guys) think about this…

Threads like this make me yearn for the good ol' days of AD&D. Yes, you had to look up tables or learn silly THAC0 rules, but back then a flying dwarf usually meant that some wizard's head would be rollin' in the near future. (Or that your DM just saw the Ring and came up with singing dwarven valkyries on miniature - and stout - pegasi.)

And I don't even like AD&D.

I'm not sure whether it has been mentioned in this thread, but one of the main reasons for all the "monk hate" isn't about DPR or comparisons to the other classes, it's about the inflexibility of the archetype. The spectrum of characters one wants to build with the Monk is pretty huge (mystical martial arts), but the mechanics are centered about one pretty narrow aspect of it (the enlightenment-seeking Shaoling monk). And neither multi-classing with Fighter nor one of the options that the APG offer are that much better…

What the monk desperately needs is some diversity beyond its feat selection. Actually, eliminate the bonus feats entirely and roll them in with some system similar to the rogue talents. Power more of them with ki points.

There's two problems with this approach, though: First, it's a big departure from the D&D monk, both 3E and its AD&D "grand lotus master of the four dragon winds" origin. If I remember correctly, this was the main reason why the PF monks still looks like it does now, with only minor adjustments.

Second, it'd a friggin' nightmare to balance. If a player would hand me rules like this in a 3rd party PDF ("Beyond Monks, PF editon"), I'd be very suspicious as a DM.

And THAT said, there's obviously room in the game for familiars that are Small sized instead of Tiny sized. I'm relatively sure there'll be rules for Small sized familiars like dogs, goats, and pigs in Ultimate Magic.

Speaking of magical pigs, will there be any rules for familiar-specific skills or feats? I've always missed that a bit, especially considering that they're intelligent. Yes, the potential for abuse is high, so there probably has to be some kind of counter balance beyond "it might die"…

It's all ok for wizards, but no witch would want a mangy dog.

lso, your claim that domesticated animals are somehow inappropriate as familiars is neither stated nor implied in the rules. You're free to have it work that way in your own campaign, but it isn't required. Besides, the archetypal familiar is a cat, which in my book at least counts as a domesticated animal.

I'm talking about the historical reasons for witches familiars, which clearly are the source of the magic-user familiar. The original list was cat (black), crow, hawk, owl, toad and weasel, if I remember correctly (not sure about the hawk).

Size (and thus balance) is the major reason why there's no (proper) dog in the rules. If it weren't, you might find some kind of "hell hound" in there, too.

A cleric's channel ability affects 96 squares; since they're not in combat, there can be 4 soldiers per square. Therefore, a cleric can easily heal 384 soldiers per round, and at level 6 he should have 7 or 8 channel per day (that's more than 2 500 soldiers per day, without nasty tricks like a platform system to get soldiers in the area above and below the cleric)...

Group hug!

If you're a cleric of Calistria, you can easily increase that number, assuming that every soldier is above the age of consent.

I got the feeling that the timeline of the adventure was a bit stretched out, due to the events on the Paradise in Turtleback Ferry being cut. It shouldn't really matter a lot, as the Storval Deep is about 100 miles long. Yes, the adventure says that the covey made sure that the water level "near to the Storval side of the dam are properly swollen". Which looks to me like someone didn't put any points in Knowledge (fluid mechanics)…

Personally, I'd make it perpetually rain for the whole time, i.e. since before the ogres attacked the fort (Actually, shortly after Paradise was burnt down). This already creates a pretty high water level in the rivers, kinda preparing the waterways for the real flood that will follow. Also, rain helps the ogres attack the fort. They're more the melee guys, so decreased accuracy of the ranger's bows (-4 in rain, IIRC) really helps. Wet eagles don't fly that well, too.

It's also somewhat foreboding. The people in Turtleback Ferry are already worried about floods as it is when the players arrive. It's also a good reason why (almost) every member of the Graul familiy is at home all the time. And when they're riding towards Fort Rannick, they ride to the edge of the worst storm, always a nice picture. It's gonna be a muddy fight…

And yes, I don't think my players will take over Fort Rannick, too. Sandpoint is supposed to be the base for a long time, now there's already the lure of Magnimar, and now lordship? (Right when they reach "name level", by the way. Nice touch, Paizo.) Them being nice guys, I think they will stay for the winter, though. There's gonna be a lot of refugees from Turtleback Ferry and other villages and they need help.

I regard the rains more as flavor, and a way to make sure that the water level is sufficiently high. The real flood is caused by the ogres busting the dam (which, by the way, makes me regret not having a sound system in play). The worse second flood would come if the dam can't regulate the water flow, thus bursting totally.

The torrential rain above the mountain makes it harder for travelers, thus making sure that no pesky hunters (or black arrow rangers) notice what's going on. That the mountain range is perpetually shrouded in storms will be visible from Turtleback Ferry, and it will definitely make the weather and the water level worse, even at that range.

Considering that the players will have to decrease the pressure by opening the flood gates, the water level of the immediate area will remain like that for a while. And then the frost will come. It won't be an easy winter for the people of Turtleback Ferry, so I hope that the new management of Fort Rannick knows what they're doing…

(Ceterum censeo: The distances in HMM seem a bit off anyway. Magnimar has a minor fort as a dependent 450 miles away? Definitely written by a male American…)

Apart from the statistics, a dog just isn't a traditional familiar, being a domesticated animal. What's next, sheep? (Probably in the Mabinogion)

Familiars are often animals the more superstitious populace wouldn't trust, and what's more trustful than a dog? As a companion, sure.

Gilfalas wrote:

Note that CDG is not used in our games by any good aligned character. Slaughtering a helpless foe is definately not a good act in our games.

That's also debatable, not every creature is worthy of "fair play", nor is it tactically sound to let certain creatures regain full combat effectiveness, just so you can continue beating them to death the slow and painful way.

Or letting them painfully bleed to death. I mean, it's a friggin' "blow of mercy".

A player in my current group just told me that he would like to run Kingmaker. Haven't read that myself, so at least I'm "unspoilt" in that regard. But reading the Player's Guide for it, it seems to be all about carving out your own kingdom (duh).

My first idea was some Henry V. (play/movie) type of character, but encouraging my natural ham tendencies might drive me into the realms of showboating. It's good if you're doing the BBEG, but as a player…

So having recently watched "The Thief of Bagdad" again, I thought about making some kind of "anti-Jaffar", giving good advice to the leader. Not the one doing most of the talking, though. Sensible advice, common sense and Sense Motive…

I think we'll already got a cleric, so that's out. A diviner or other wizard would be an obvious choice, but I'm looking for other options. A monk might be okay. Skills would be okay, and I could use the Wisdom bonus for class features, too. This might also allow me to do some moderate bodyguard duty ("Look, an assassin!" *swoosh* "Hi-keeba!"). This obviously won't be the str-focused build, so I wonder how well I'd do on actual adventure duty… Multi-classing into bard and rogue could be an option. (Of course, I might as well just play a pure bard or rogue, but I kinda like the "mystical advisor" role, and it would finally give me the option of playing a semi-interesting monk)

Any ideas on how to make this work, or other suggestions for this archetype?

In my opinion, there would be a few things to consider:

• Would the bad guy do it? This really depends on his personality and the general mood of the campaign.
  
• Did the players "deserve" it? If it's just a few unlucky saving throws or a high-CR encounter that went awry, I'd probably find a way around doing it. If it's the end result of a chain of bad decisions, it's thumbs down.
  
• Would the players do it? This comes back to the general mood of the campaign. Karma.
  
• Would your players forgive you? This trumps the rest. No amount of "it was fair" or "that's what the demonic ninjas would do" is worth players walking home dejectedly or not turning up again.
  

Imprisonment, ransom, maiming would be decent long-term options, but quite often it just takes a few rounds/minutes until reinforcements arrive, in which term some gloating and an improvised death trap are some of the tropes to grasp for.

1) Yes but only by the target of the spell ; nearby people don't hear anything.

From what do your derive this?

2)the spell is from the illusion school and it's a phantasm. So I don't see why you couldn't appear with any look that you want.

Considering that you can definitely shape the reverse of this spell (nightmare), it seems to be the case. Of course, the usual Bluff and Disguise rules would apply, but for fooling stupid Paladins into thinking that their god sent them visions, this might be quite handy…

Two short questions about my second least favored group of spells (long-range comm):

1) Sending is evocation and not mind-affecting. So I assume that and the end point, the actual message is heard, right?

2) Dream. In what form does the dream messenger appear? Some ideal astral form (true self yadda yadda), or in whatever guise he or she currently is in? Or in other words: Could I do the "I'm Darth Vader from the planet Vulcan!" trick?

I don't know why I never noticed this before, but lamia matriarchs have the dream spell, thus it's quite easy for Lucrecia to send lengthy sitreps to Mokmurian. In reverse, he has to use Sending, as lamia matriarchs are immune to mind-affecting spells…
Although, under Pathfinder rules he wouldn't be totally prohibited from using dream himself, and a slumbering Stone Giant passing down his plans is a pretty cool image. He would have to address Barl then, which might be one of the reasons why Lucrecia is a bit out of the loop. The only thing she gets are short (25 word) orders…

So basically, if you try maneuvers against any enemy that is weaker than you, who does not pose any threat to the party then the maneuvers work fine? That just seems a little anti climactic.

If you're not trained how to do the maneuvers, and there's nothing major on the line, it might not be worth the risks. It's just like running in the midst of melee when you've got a lot less hit points than anyone else.

That's the basic point of feats: If you have them, you either can do things that no one else can or you're at least a lot better than people without them. So yes, it is a bit of a gamble if you're not very good at a combat maneuver. Which just makes it so much more interesting when life is on the line and there's a last ditch effort…

So no, in my campaign they're not just reserved for inferior combatants (which by the way doesn't imply that they don't threaten the party), it's just that in this situation it's less of a risk.

Making everything too easy is anti-climactic.

It has been my experience that very few enemies are equipped in ways that do not allow them an AO. Most things that are unarmed have improved unarmed and most things that are using ranged attacks switch to some form of melee attack when you get close.

Monsters usually have natural attacks, but Improved Unarmed is rare outside of monks and brawlers. And if you give it to anyone but those, they might get their AoO, but that's not a huge hit.

And yes, you might just get one unopposed CM when you moved close, but isn't that enough? Do you want people to trip/disarm all the time?

If your sorcerer is a typical sorcerer build (dumped strength, possibly small size), he probably won't succeed at disarming the ogre even without an AoO.

Well, I'd say that most parties won't ever get in a situation where the sorcerer has run out of spells and thus wants to dirty his robes… Having said that, we've got a nordic sorcerer in our midst, who might even succeed at the odd combat maneuver. Gnomes and elves on the other hand…

I guess more likely candidates are the more feat-deprived combat characters, barbarians, rangers, clerics, paladins… One has to consider that feats is what powers the fighter, even in PF. So if one wants to change CM rules, the advantage of a feat still has to be there, or else the poor ol' fightey-dude gets the shaft once again. Considering that a lot of other classes have comparable attack bonuses, they'd be likely to succeed in combat maneuvers quite often (especially if there's no damage penalty anymore). So a CM feat devolves into a "CM focus" feat with a measly +2 bonus.

Does anyone have good sources for a wider variety of historical weapons for the game? Preferably of earlier periods, not as interested in yet another slew of polearms or renaissance sideswords/foils/etc.

Getting a bit bored by the usual longsword/battleaxe/rapier options. I remember that "From Stone to Steel" had a quite a few of that, but suffered from the usual disease of house-ruling every alleged ability of a weapon into the game. I'd be perfectly fine with "here's list of 10 items that could be considered short-swords", no need for special rules for damascene steel or (gods forbid) swordbreakers.

Bonus points if someone has a good medieval finesse weapon to replace the rapier entirely…

Have you noticed that the damage from the AO generally makes it basically require a natural 20 to succeed at the maneuver?

No, that hasn't been the experience in my group at all. This would assume that there's a high chance of getting hit on AoOs and that the average damage equals the CMB. This far, the sorcerer in our group doesn't try to disarm ogres…

First of all, quite often combat maneuvers are attempted against inferior foes anyway. Overrun to get past henchman and to the Big Bad in the background. Grapples, trip & disarm to restrain. Then, it happens quite frequently that the opponent doesn't even have the option of counter-attacking, if they're unarmed or already made on AoO (without Combat Reflexes, of course). You might even do that intentionally, if you have someone with a high AC and Mobility. Distract the opponent while setting up flaning, then disarm/sunder/trip.

Yes, for an evenly-matched combat, it's probably too risky. But unless you're really sure of your abilities, you shouldn't risk too much against opponents on the same skill level as yours anyway, so I'm perfectly fine with that. They're usually pretty great for last acts of desperation, though. If it's likely that he finishes you on his next round, you might as well risk the AoO anyway if you can disable your foe.

Bull rushes are quite interesting in this respect. As opposed to Sunder/Trip, I've had no player who ever took Improved Bull Rush, so it's almost always a big risk. On the other hand, it might as well end the fight in one single round, if someone's pushed over a ledge.

Combat maneuvers tend to happen when the area is interesting, there are events in the fight (i.e. the situation changes, so no 3-round slug fests) and if there are more enemies moving about. If all you've got is a big room with one, single, powerful opponent, nobody can or will risk it.

You might call me a mean DM, but with the more lenient sunder and disarm rules, my NPCs will maneuver like never before. Shred their cloaks of protection, my troll minions!

I couldn't find a decisive answer about this in the FAQ or other threads here (it's been mentioned in a few scroll threads, but I couldn't find a decisive answer), so I'll have to ask it. Maybe someone has a link to the proper thread or just knows it…

Anyway, to cite the PRD (emphasis mine):

Note that all items have prerequisites in their descriptions. These prerequisites must be met for the item to be created. Most of the time, they take the form of spells that must be known by the item's creator (although access through another magic item or spellcaster is allowed). The DC to create a magic item increases by +5 for each prerequisite the caster does not meet. The only exception to this is the requisite item creation feat, which is mandatory. In addition, you cannot create spell-trigger and spell-completion magic items without meeting their spell prerequisites.

I've got a druid and a wizard with scribe scroll feats in my party. Now both of them might want to create scrolls for the cleric for which they don't have the spells on their lists (or aren't able to cast 'em yet due to different spell levels or missing spell book entries).

It's pretty clear that you aren't allowed to bypass being able to cast the spell by just upping your DC by +5. But if I'm just scribing what my buddy is reciting, can I scribe a scroll of it?

It would seem pretty weird to me, especially in a case where a wizard would technically create a divine scroll…

My suggestion was to make all of the maneuvers only provoke if the CMB roll is failed. Then if you also take the feat you still get your +2 to CMB and CMD and also do not provoke if you fail.

Considering that by doing this, you also avoid the penalty to your CM (damage from the AoO), it makes it a bit too easy.

In my opinion, combat maneuvers aren't just fun little effects that add to the combat, they're pretty essential to it. So making it this much easier is almost like giving every class a good BAB. As you get a feat every second level, fighters get lots of bonus feats etc, true combat specialists should still have enough of them available. Fighters are better at clever combat than barbarians or paladins, after all. (Never mind monsters…)

So I'd say that this rule change is a bit too good. If you want the odd combat maneuver even for less martial professions, you could ditch the Power Attack / Combat Expertise prerequisites. This way you still have to pay for a feat, but at least not two, if you don't need the feat chain entry feat.

So, yesterday we had our little talk, and as so often, I was a bit too worried after all. Apart from some ideas of getting Create Staves at one point in time, my players don't want to focus too much on item creation, apart from upgrading weapons and armors. We had a nice talk about how we want to treat it, and in the end we are going by the availability rules for items, which means that in most cities they won't be able to buy a lot of stuff (and AFAIK it's 75% even for items below the threshold), so it's keeping loot and forming alliances with factions that have semi-powerful casters. I already have one player who now opposes the political stance of the rest of the party, because one mayoral candidate has someone at hand who can get him his beloved archery items…

Also, we agreed that as a general rule it's preferred to upgrade weapons and most armor, so that most of their military equipment at least has some background story already. If they want to create something new, we'll try to make it an event, with the party getting some prerequisite components, the party smith crafting himself and then the cleric enchanting it.

Strangely enough, we now also have house rules about crafting, because the current ones are a bit too lenient *for them* (Have I said that I really like my current group yet?). So why a caster level might not be an absolute prerequisite, it still determines the DC (apart from graded items like pearls of power), and as with other optional prerequisites, it you don't have it, it costs you a +5. This makes things more challenging, so either you're actually a very powerful caster, or you're a specialized crafting wizard. Wouldn't have dared to suggest that myself…

Apart from that, our crafting cleric insisted that every item he made/upgraded now bears the symbol of Pelor, his god. Now they look like a church-sponsored adventuring party, which will probably create quite some reputation, and some of the members who believe in different things (our Druid, for example), will probably get something different if it's available to them.

Now it's just up to me to go through Hook Mountain Massacre and spice some of the items up a bit… (a few of them are a bit bland, and the setting is a bit too modern for my tastes, too many rapiers, clockworks etc.)

Magic items are only as "meh" as you make them.

That's the issue, *I* don't make them anymore. It's easy to have some interesting backstory about your magic weapon, if you've lifted it out of the tom of the chained elven maidens, but if it's some sword you bought in the market and which your team cleric chanted over for two days, that kinda takes the myth out of the magic. Never mind that even with narrative features, you're worse off. If one guy is supplying all their armor and weaponry, there's really no need for fine distinctions between the source of attack and damage bonuses: It hits more often and harder because Lord Pelor guides them.

Never mind that this is all fine and dandy if items are few in number, but if everyone is carrying belts, cloaks boots etc, it all becomes a blur. Knowing and listing the backstory of all your 19 currently equipped items isn't flavorful, it's tedious.

A couple questions: Do your PLAYERS like the item economy? If the items they are making are 'meh' to you, are they 'meh' to the players themselves who are making them?

That's not easily answered. At least two of my players despise the item system, as they don't want to be defined by their magic items. And all of them liked the situations that the powers and abilities of the magic items in our previous Greyhawk campaign dragged us into.

On the other hand, nobody likes to lose. Sometimes 3E is a bit mechanical, and you actually do gain more from a fanned out armor boosting set (amulet, ring, armor) than from investing the same amount of money in one piece of armor – or not selling said armor to get the item set. I think that playing WoW with all that secondary crafting character hooplah caused some damage, too.

There's always some kind of compromise between sheer gaming superiority and role-playing (nobody wants to play the warrior-accountants of doom). That's why I'm going to sit down and talk with my players about that – and why I asked about input and suggestions for said talk here. Thank you all, this has been very helpful this far.

At least with the Runelords campaign, I've got lots of humanoid opponents. So stat boosters kinda cancel themselves out, and if they're a bit behind on that scale, it doesn't really matter too much. This is worse once demons, devils and dragons are the usual opponents and you have to match inborn powers with magical gadgets.

I think we would probably achieve a lot, if we just avoid creating too many items. Upgrading actually isn't a problem, then at least people won't throw away their perfectly fine mythical honorblades for the mythical honorblade that's a wee bit sharper.

After I finally managed to stay in one country long enough, my grou is progressing through the Runelords adventure path and recently hit 6th level. Now there's a bit of downtime, some items have been sold, rewards have been given, and it's item ordering time…

As a DM (and even as a player), I never liked PC crafting and the 3.x item economy. If you've got the appropriate crafting skills (mostly Wondrous Items & Arms and Armor), you can sell your loot for half price and pay half price for your materials, so once you've got a couple of days free, you can create whatever you like. Which usually results in player equipped with their weapons and armor of choice, and the usual bonus belts, tiaras and cloaks. The kind of stuff pregens tend to have. Or in other words: Deep "meh" territory.

After perusing the boards, it seems that the item creation rules are quite lenient, basically every open question was ruled in favor of the players (5+DC, taking 10, CL no requirement).

I wanted to keep this Pathfinder campaign mostly house-rule-free, and two players already got their item creation feats (and then there's the Arcane Archer with his bonded bow). So I was wondering how your groups treat this.

Possible options I can think of (but which don't excite me a lot)

• Keep downtime short. About as unfair as sundering and stealing their items. Also, 1-20 lvl within six months is a wee bit ridiculous.
  
• The aforementioned "Fire Giant Smash!". Just not fair to the players.
  
• Keeping the loot down. Monsters often don't need their equipment as much. Still, I want the players to have exciting items, having none at all isn't better than having boring ones.
  
• Keeping the loot up. If they get quite mighty gimmicks, they can't just sell it, and even if they would, they wouldn't be able to produce stuff that's as powerful (not sure about the latter)
  
• Introducing some kind of silly "Thassilonian Power Rune Gem" system, i.e. they can take parts of items they wouldn't be able to make on their own. So at least their weapons, armor etc. would have some parts that isn't totally of their choosing and has a legacy of its own.
  
• Just live with this "gamist" part of the system and get back to AD&D for the next campaign…
  

Sing me your sorrows, fellow DMs!

I went with the old cliche and made him an absent-minded professor type. And as my campaign is set in Greyhawk, knowledge of the old ruins is very, very sparse – and he's about the only one that gets a lot of things right. There's a slight feud with Dr. Aparna in Magnimar, who thinks his readings of old Thassilonian writing is way to mundane (typical Bard).

Where actually he is right, and if they talked about battles involving 10000 people, 18 dragons and 48 demons, this isn't poetic hyperbole for the sake of rhymes and sentence structure.

Not surprisingly, an attractive women came across as a more believable source of information, so the PCs opinion of him has faltered a bit. Problem is, that Thistletop contained magically preserved books, one of the few existing pieces of Thassilonian that's not just a few words written in stone. And they gave it to Quink to translate…

Now, depending on how long it takes for the players to get back into Sandpoint, he will set forth on his own, assembling a ragtag group with the rest of his money. I'll use them either as a McGuffin or as actual rivals to the PCs. Let's see how our mighty heroes fare against a troop of mid-level NPC classes…

There aren't any called shot rules in Pathfinder. Would really mess with the game. I've yet to see a decent implementation of called shots, hit zones etc. for any D20 game…

Sean K. Reynolds has a great rant about this.

For myself, I am trying to figure out how she can stand to be near the filty, loud, and stupid ogres.

I guess that's one of the main reasons why she's in the basement, apart from the secret hallway. But this leads us to the question: How does she occupy her time, or what does she wait for here? The return of Karzoug himself? Direct orders from Mokmurian? Her next moulting? (According to HMM, she's only here for "temporary quarters")

My version of the AP takes place in Greyhawk, as we had quite a lot of fun there when we started through the original D&D 3E adventure path (never got to finish Ashardalon, though).

I've set everything in Ratik, which provided a pretty great fit for the first two adventures. Magnimar became Marner, the Varisians are semi-nomadic Flan, Myrhiss became the patron god of Sandpoint. I've also got more freedom by setting it in 150 years after the Living Greyhawk Gazetter, rewriting and resizing the lands a bit.

But now we're heading out of Marner/Magnimar into the mountains, and I need to expand on my campaign background a bit, which is why I'm asking people more experience in all things Flanaess about some pointers.

One issue that I have, is getting Thassilon into the picture. Greyhawk seems a pretty young civilization, where the big migration just happened a few years ago, and most of adventuring lands were pretty unspoilt back then. The Ur-Flan don't seem to be civilized enough. Then again, I guess that I'm missing some adventures in Greyhawk, maybe some ancient Gygaxian tome already included something that I could tie in with Karzoug. Whether it's 3000 or 10000 years in the past hardly matters.

Also, the Hook Mountain location: I always found the 450 miles that the party had to travel from Magnimar to Turtleback Ferry to be a bit too much for the sphere of influence of a city state, and in Greyhawk it's definitely out. I was thinking about a mountain range in the Griff mountains, probably with some added incentive that makes it worth the while for Marner (mines?). Possibly some intervention from the Theocracy of the Pale on the other side.

I notice that there are some similarities between Golarion and Greyhawk, so I hope that someone can point out a few of them for me to mine…

The Lamia Matriach description specifically says that she becomes Medium Sized when shapechanged. See the "Alternate Form" special ability description on Page 92 of The Skinsaw Murders.

I meant that I'd rate her closer to a perfect 10 than a medium. 'Scuse the bad joke.

And in her case, I couldn't imagine anything where she could squeeze through in her Arielle form, but couldn't as a lamia. Her legs/hips transform into a snake body, which doesn't exactly have problems slithering through narrow openings. So large, shmarge, I wouldn't count it against her. (In Pathfinder I gave her the Oversized Weapon quality, as a normal lamia)

In her human form she is medium. :)

On my list, she rates quite a bit higher than medium… (And yeah, size category isn't everything. She basically gains a snake body as her abdomen and legs, but retains her svelte upper body. Not quite the same squeezing issues that an ogre or a horse would have.)

Personally, I've opted against direct involvement of Lucrecia – this would be too simple. Treason has to play a major part in it, as I want to reinforce the general theme of the campaign, where it's not just evil outside influence, but that the normal people are often bad enough and their sins and wickedness can be exploited. Granted, this is a bit lost in the high-level adventures, but on the other hand, we're playing it in Greyhawk, where pure black & white morality isn't as common as e.g. in the Forgotten Realms.

Therefore, amongst the weapons of the Unexpected Ogre Invasion Force are the following items:

• Poison. Kaven had been spiking the food of the rangers for the last weeks, and disease has been rampant. Nothing too obvious, just a couple of rangers incapacitated. He was told that this would remove them from dangerous combat, leaving more to survive. Whether he actually believed that…
  
• Information & strategy. The ogres knew the layout and the shifts. They picked the right approach (along/in the creek), , the right time (shift change at the East Gate) and once ranged combat is no option anymore, the Ogres have the advantage.
  
• Air support. For the initial assault, they had the help of Barl's remaining bodyguard. Being a superior climber, he went to the eagle's aerie, dispatched of a few of them, and then let deadly stone rain upon the rangers.
  
• Lack of leadership. The second-in-command was on a convenient patrol, the commander was a bit distracted by a fairy (tale) love. I'll probably add injury to insult and let the Sorcerogress capture him while he's on his way to her. As I won't have weeks between the burning down of Paradise and the appareance of the adventurers, this will make it more convenient for her to have a look for him sooner. After he didn't appear that night, she immediately looked for him…
  

I hope I can keep the adventurers occupied for long enough in Turtleback Ferry after the fire, so that Lucrecia can move there and settle in. Dangit, I want one reoccurring mastermind, after they managed to prevent both Aldern and Xanesha from fleeing. Stupid thrown statues…

That is, if you decide that Paradise *is* lost, if you excuse the pun. If I remember correctly, that location was cut to make the adventure fit the usual format, and because it distracted from the common ogre/giant-slaying thread.

I can understand those reasons, but if your party isn't one for a straight and narrow path, there's no reason why you can't shuffle things around a bit. It certainly has a different mood than the rest of the adventure, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Also, this gives you a few scenes where the greed/lust aspects can be a emphasized. That came a bit short in the previous adventures, if you ask me, so some debauched gambling won't hurt. Just don't make the Sihedron business too obvious ("Hey, welcome to Paradise! Care to join our loyalty club?")

If the players are present while the bark is burning down, this doesn't hurt the plot. Whether they arrive weeks later or whether the Ogres just took over a couple of days doesn't really matter. Actually, the descriptions of the Fort seem to evoke a more recent takeover anyway.

Obviously, you have to find a different reason for them to travel to Turtleback Ferry in the first place, but that shouldn't be too hard. My group just finished Skinsaw, and I plan to have them check out the Paradise in the first place.

Well, the description of Xanesha in Skinsaw Murders contains the following sentence:

I would just assume that the same is true for most agents of Big M. The Lamia Matriarchs have lots of freedom what to do, but there seems to be a pretty decent flow of information about the current situation. All a bit centralized, of course. With sending etc., a monthly "newsletter" with some occasional special announcements isn't exactly High Magic.

Now you have both an adventuring skill, a combat skill, and a social skill.

A high BAB is a social skill, aka the "speak softly and carry a big +3 Falchion of Torturous Disembowelment" rule.

And of course, you can always transform into your low-level Aristocrat alter ego.