mhd's page

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.

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…

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…

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?

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?

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…

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…

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!

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…