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so a 3rd level caster (lowest possible) would do
3rd level caster would do 3d6 vs. Primary Target, and 1d6 vs. the secondary target.

a 4th level caster would do 4d6, then 2d6...

6th level would do 6d6, 3d6 and 1d6 (adding in a 3rd target)

at 9th level it would do 9d6, 4d6, 2d6 and 1d6...

so the descriptive text should say... "Therefore, at 9th level, your burning arc deals 9d6 points of fire damage to the primary target, then 4d6 points of fire damage to a secondary target, then 2d6 points of fire damage to another target and then 1d6 point of fire to a fourth target."

(I am assuming you can NOT target the same creature more than once? and a Primary Target can't be targeted again as a secondary target? Having the spell bounce back and forth between two targets hitting one for 9d6 and then 2d6 and the other for 4d6 and then 1d6.)

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did the correct number of targets ever get resolved?

was there ever an answer to the question "When the targets section contradicts the descriptive text which takes precedence?"

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Diego Rossi wrote:

It hasn't a duration, and that generates lots of problems.

Normally when you get this kind of temporary increase of an ability, it doesn't increase the number of uses.
If it increases the number of uses, what happens? You use the ability, the number of uses increase, then the battle ends and the inquisition in use stop. Do you have an extra use to start the next inquisition? When you start the nest inquisition during the next battle you use it at your level or with +3 levels?
If you use it at a base level, why do you get an extra use of the ability?

As I see it, you must use it when you activate the inquisition ability or while already using an inquisition ability, and it doesn't give extra uses.

It is a once/day ability, not a once/day, for the full day ability.

I disagree - but I do not want to argue. (yeah-yeah, I know. What am I doing on the Rules thread if I don't want to argue...)

I just wanted to know if there were any other threads or possibly an FAQ where this was discussed more or more recently.

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Thread Necro!
Sorry about digging this one up, but I'm an old judge who for the first time has a Player running an Inquisitor, so I am doing research and haven't found a thread where this is resolved.

My Opinion:

By my reading, Sean Mahoney is almost correct on everything on this, including that Judgement Surge would give an Inquisitor an additional use of judgement - if they use Judgement Surge after using all their normal judgements in the day.

If they use Judgement Surge on an earlier judgement, it would improve the effects (as detailed above), but it would still use up one judgement for the day, and later when they want to use judgement again, they have used their one use of Judgement Surge for the day and thus wouldn't get the extra use of Judgement (not being counted as three levels higher at that time).

SO... if the Inquisitor uses Judgement Surge early, they don't get any extra uses. But if they save it for when they are out of daily uses, then using it (temporarily) increases their number of daily uses and they have one use left.

NOW, does anyone know if this was resolved in a different thread and my statements above were a waste of time?

:)

oh! and thanks for your input.

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Thank you Sib! wonderful write up - I think you answered all my questions. And I actually love your use of "Technical Lingo" like immortal-godlich chutzpah !

I think I am going to use your write-up on the Moribund Key - in my run of C.C. I actually introduced a Lesser and a Greater Key also, and the PCs found a Lesser Key on the body of a Way Agent (who happened to be a Teleport Specialist/Courier - so this is perfect!).

Thank you for taking the time to work me through the mechanics!

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Sibelius Eos Owm wrote:

I find the network of Witchgates very cool, so I hope my sorcerer continues their trend of preferring to Shadow Walk anywhere they can get away with it, but I'm having a bit of trouble understanding how Witchgates work. Or at least, I'm pretty sure I have the gist but that leaves some pointedly confusing bits. Additional context: I'm running a 2e conversion, so I'm already planning to adjust how the gates work to suit my needs, but I wanted to be sure I had it right to begin with.

For the sake of clarity, since there are a number of overlapping areas in this spell/effect, I'll be using 'gate' to refer to the specific location the trap deposits teleporting travellers, 'warded area/ward' to refer to the 20mi radius zone around each gate which comprises the body of the trap, and 'network' to refer to the entire county of Virlych but especially locations which are not specifically in the radius of a witchgate but which are nevertheless part of the trap.

1) Somebody attempts to teleport anywhere into Virlych (let's say for example purposes, this location is not within the warded area of any individual gate but is within the ley line network general).

2) The creature rolls a Will Save. If they succeed, they do not teleport anywhere. If they fail, they are redirected to 'Gate A' aka one of the groves (nearest or random, doesn't matter for our purposes). They encounter the gate's guardians and move on.

3) To learn more about the trap/gate, a creature may roll Arcana to learn how it functions, but will not divine the location of any gate they are not already standing next to. Furthermore, using the normal method for identifying magic items (Spellcraft + Detect Magic) a creature can determine the radius of the warded area.

4) Here's the first part that messes with me. By travelling out of the witchgate's 20mi warded area, that gate is somehow deactivated the next time the creature attempts to teleport (whether to a location in Virlych or back out doesn't matter, since they are now inside the network)...

Please go into more depth with your understanding of the Witchgates - as I am just wrapping up Ashes and will be starting this one soon - and am facing the same problems you are. I really don't understand the way the Witchgates should work - and so your changes sound good, but I don't even understand them either.

Thanks for your posts! they really help!

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Older thread on much the same subject.

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the party came into Undiomede house thru the hole in the wall, fought the Spectors, and proceeded right to the Head Cleric. so - after that fight, and looking over the room, they use magic to peek thru the door to the room with the Giant, who heard their fight so she filled her room with mist and is waiting for the door to open... she'll drop confusion on whatever door opens...

So... they decide to by pass this room and check the rest of the 2nd floor, then the roof. In fighting the big guy up top, - as the monster is on it's last legs, the Wizard gets to cast his "Big Spell" - a Summon Monster V (his favorite spell) to summon an Air Elemental... Elemental swings a time or two and misses and the big Monster falls dead... so the Wiz rushes off (with an overland flight spell he flies down the outside of the building) back to squeeze in a small window to get to the door they had bypassed ... so that he can to open it, and get the elemental to move into the room and "blow the mist away". He left the entire rest of the party scattered on the roof, or the stairs to the attic. His reasoning? "because he only has a few rounds left on the Summons spell and needed to do this fast!"
half the rest of the party remembers the last time he went around triggering encounters and say - "Let's just let him deal with it..." the Party Healer says "It cost a bunch to raise him last time he died, I don't want to spend that money again!" and rushes back down stairs - leaving the Tanky PCs on the roof.
The Wizard, suddenly realizing that he is about to start a major fight, with his party rooms away, but not wanting to go back on his plan - takes this moment to leave his Elemental there with instructions to "Open the door, go in the room and Whirl wind the mist away" - and flies back out the window... outside the building, and back to the roof, leaving the room just as the Healer arrives... now, the party is strung out and rushing thru the rooms trying to catch up with the healer, and.... the elemental opens the door and moves into the (mist filled) room. everyone else is scattered thru this building - all in different rooms.

so... door opens, out rolls fog the healer and one other PC are in the area of the Confusion spell that goes off, but all the PCs make their saves... but the Elemental gets Confused - in a fog - the rest of the party streams into the room past the elemental and begins to search for the enemy in the fog...

Rushing back, the wizard figures something isn't going according to plan, so... he uses his bonded object to cast Summon Monster V again... (His comment was "It's the only spell I have that will help!")... to summon up a Babau...

I as the GM say "babau? wha?" he explains "I can get it to dispel the Fog"... so he did a Bonded Item cast to get Summon Monster V to get something to cast a Dispel Magic - (which he has in his book, and he is higher level...)

And...he hears their swordsman from in the fog yell out that he has found a "Big Ugly thing" in the fog and was swapping swings with a Marsh Giant - so... He tells the Babau to "go into the fog and attack the Large Monster" - not to dispel the fog...

Yeah - you guessed it. The Babau attacked the first "Large Monster" it encountered - a confused Large Air Elemental...

Now - the wizard is in a small room, full of fog, with a Babau between him and his (confused) Air Elemental (which he can't see) - which is now locked on fighting his summoned Babau and ... the Alchemist in the fog uses breath bomb to burn off a bit of the fog... The wizard hearing this goes "AH-HA!" and casts Burning Hands (which I do not think he had prepared until then...) ... to clear the fog in front of him... casting it thru the Babau ("It's immune to fire!" he says) ... and into the Elemental ("It got lots of HP and is going away in a few rounds anyway!" he says)... who is still Confused...

This means - he just cast an attack spell - on his own two summoned creatures (and some fog) - one of which was confused, and now he has cleared the fog between him and a confused creature that he just attacked...

I am just speechless...

and I just looked at this in amazement...I could not have rigged that if I had tried

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One or two posters commented on the lack of Traps in this AP, and having a fondness for a well placed (and well thought out) trap I actually gave it some consideration. I do have a PC in my group with levels in Rogue, and have noticed that at times they feel those abilities wasted. So I like to drop in a trap or two in areas that make sense for them to interact with. (often as part of a puzzle).

Anyway - it seemed like Part Five, would be the kind of place one would encounter Glyphs of Warding. Inhabited by high level clerics for a long time, an area they would have wanted defended, yeah. Glyphs triggered by Non-Skum/Non-Humans (wouldn't want to harm the Fishwives), perhaps with some finer targeting for triggering... so I backed up a bit, looked it over and dropped Greater Glyphs on the two main points of entry to the tunnels - figuring they were areas that would need to be defended. With the Trigger to be set off by "Non-Skum creatures in combat". I figured (correctly) that the PCs would trigger the first one, and should likely locate the other. I actually didn't place one on the entry to area G11, as that was added recently and not by Clerics. I did however, also place one in G-10 just where I thought the sealed tunnel entrance would have been, so that all the tunnels into complex would have been protected by glyphs.

I then placed a pair of Glyphs in the tunnels just outside the rooms at G3 - but these were for the Spell Greater Positive Pulse - set to trigger by Undead moving past the Glyph. This would have been designed to protect the Fishwives if the tunnels were ever attacked by undead, as this spell only harms creatures harmed by positive energy (undead and Dhampir) and it is actually helpful to living creatures... and as there has never been undead in any of the tunnels these traps would still be in place. As you can guess, my players have a pair of Dhampirs - one of whom looks like a full vampire, so they actually triggered them - but they concluded the Glyphs had been placed there to defend from attacks by the Whispering Way...

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Ok, here's a GOOD story of using the Rule of Cool - it's a bit long so I am going to Spoiler it - it has some spoilers for the PFS scenarios First Steps and Confirmation in it.

First Steps and Confirmation spoilers:

I'd like to mention two games I was involved with a while ago, two with an odd connection - First Steps and then Confirmation...

The First Steps was run by a beginning Judge - her first game (our 13 year old judge - with the next youngest person at the table was her mom - but that is another story). Mostly it was a lot of fun... the judge really liked Ledford and the lack of complex tactics for that character. He takes an ax, goes berserk and just start hitting things. She liked him so much so that she built a "look alike" character for him and took it into the next game as a PC - so we played Confirmation with a Halfling Barbarian with a great ax named Ledford (the halfling, not the ax).

Anyway - second game was a lot of fun - and the final blow was glorious!

The PCs are rushing out of the cave to save the little halfling lady and shooting at the Big Bad. Ledford (from the back of the party) moves out of the cave up to the difficult area (the trees), and draws the potion of Feather Step (from the back pack). Next round he drinks the potion and moves up to 10' short of the stream. Then the third round he charges across - jumping the stream (I was running the game and wasn't sure if he could charge and jump - but heck, I'm not going to stop the game at this point and look it up! So - Rule of Kewl and all that) so over the stream he jumps! - right into combat with the BBE. Big Bad swings an AOO and misses "the Mustache with Feet". The little guy rolls his first (and only) nat "20" of the night, and just barely confirms the crit (thanks in part to the Bards singing). This, backed up with the damage from the missile fire (Force Missiles from the Evoker Wiz and arrows/bolts from the other players) and the BBE is down - dead.

So yeah, the male Halfling barbarian charged the monster and put it down with one Ax blow! Saving the female halfling bard.... fade to next scene (hay! the barbarian is run by a 13 year old girl! So clean up those thoughts you gamer geeks you!)

And thus the Big Bad from the old intro game killed the Big Bad from the second intro game... and just to finish it out, I bothered to look the rule up. Nope - you can't charge if there is anything like a stream in the way... except for the Rule of Kewl!

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Railos wrote:
Nostig, swapping in the Mummy worked out really well for Area F7. My players had a lot more fun with the encounter then they had with the previous one. Thank you.

you're welcome!! glad it worked for you too.

I also tried swapping in Carrion Golems, and that also worked well.

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Yqatuba wrote:
avr wrote:

How many people per day do you expect to kill with this spell? Short of a situation like a cult expecting the apocalypse now and killing off its members (q.v. Jonestown/poisoned Kool aid), even one in a day seems a lot. I can't see it mattering that you can 'only' kill a handful of people per day because it's a 1st level spell. Zero or 1st hardly matters.

I was thinking an executioner could use it as a "nice" way of killing people. I'm not sure how many people an executioner would execute on an average day, to be honest.

outside of the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror, or something like that? So, say in Galt? I'd think that number would be a daily average of below 1. I fact, likely to be alot below 1.

I have seen a article that stated that one of the reasons there were so many people executed during the Reign of Terror was partly due to how easy the Guillotine made public executions. Before it's invention (by a Doctor, "invented with the specific intention of making capital punishment less painful..."), Executions were something that took all day, if not several days.

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speaking of cultural context for curse words...

a slightly approach to swearing I ran across in another novel was in a book titled Monster... one of the passing characters is a Demon (Succubas) that swears and it's all:

"Blessing this" and "Blessed to Heaven!" or "By the Light!" maybe "Creation!" - mostly religious swearing, but reversed.

It got my attention, and then made me grin. Cute idea. it's all in the delivery..."Faith, Hope & Chastity! What in Creation were you Blessed thinking!"

Or I could see cursing in a culture that viewed Eating the way we view most other bodily functions...

"Chocolate Marmalade PIE!", or "Oh, Fudge..." or even "You little Twinkie! I'm going to feed you a bacon sandwich... sideways! With extra mustard!" --

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Claxon wrote:
Yqatuba wrote:
I've never been clear on this. Obviously spells that require concentration end (as they can't concentrate if they're dead), but by default do 1/round/minute/hour per level spells last the whole duration? In particular, do summoned creatures just disappear, or do they stay for the remainder of the spell? If so, what do they do without the caster to give them commands? Just follow the last command they were given before the summoner died?

Yes, spells last for the rest of their duration even if a caster dies. Some sspells that require concentration sometimes have a minimum duration or until concentration ends as their duration, so they could potentially stick around even without concentration being possible due to death.

Yeah - like summon swarm with a duration of Concentration Plus 2 rounds. so the swarm will chase you for two more rounds even after you quit concentration (after the caster dies).

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some GMs "house rule" that spells end if the caster dies/goes unconscious/teleports away - but then are often vague about exactly how this works, often deciding in the moment to extend spells if "it is more kewl!"

But again, this is a "house rule", totally NOT the real rules in Pathfinder (or actually any other rule system I know)... so you would want to check with your GM to be sure how they do it. You might (respectfully) mention that you don't think it's in the rules, but that you have encountered people who play it that way...

another house rule I have seen:

Another "house rule" kind of like this is the "My harmful magic doesn't effect me" rule and the "My harmful magic doesn't effect my allies" rule. I have actually encountered this when a spell caster threw stinking cloud on his own party, thinking it wouldn't effect any of the PCs... and then becoming upset when the GM "didn't play by the rules!"

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RedRobe wrote:
Jane "The Knife" wrote:

I am currently running the Carrion Crown campaign on Roll20 and re-writing/customizing a bunch of the stuff to add in small details. I really like to provide a "wheels-within-wheels" nesting of sub plots... so something like encountering a poison needle trap as the party moves about a haunted town suddenly turns into something like...

** spoiler omitted **...

May I ask how you play Carrion Crown on Roll20? Since its not in the marketplace, how do you get the maps in Roll20? I'm currently trying to figure out how to run Iron Gods in there until we can get back to playing in-person. Thanks!

sent you a PM...

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here's one example of a "Re-write" I did for one of the Feldgrau encounters that is also a rework for a Patrol...

Area F7 or a Patrol in town:

Area F7 is an old Butcher shop, and I changed up the mix of creature there...so the encounter now reads...

"Creatures: A Whispering Way curate, two skeletal champions, and a Mummy are currently scavenging the premises. The Mummy is dragging the naked corpse of a human woman across the floor, the remains of a Demon Wolf slain by the cult. "

(for the skeletal champions I MIGHT increase the number to give more targets, so there are as many baddies as there are PCs. 5 PCs? maybe add in another skeletal champion)

changes to S.C. - add in 6 HP, as they were created in a Desecrate spell area, with an Evil Alter (see Town Square). Give them 5 additional Temp HP (Worshiper at the Town Square) so they have HP = (2d8+1d10+3+6+5). In equipment give them 3 Chakrams each, and sharpen the Chakrams so they would get a missile weapon attack that does 1d8+4 (only 3 shots, but these guys are designed to fight in melee). They should also get a Whetstone.

Swap out the muscle in the group with a Mummy.

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My PCs rather enjoyed the Lodge and looked at it as a great resource for the "political intrigue" game we have been playing as a sub-plot.

In the short term, care was turned over to the Huntmaster (who has no real interest in running the entire operation) assisted by the StableMaster. Operations inside the Lodge Building (housekeeping and such) was to be run by the Halfling who appears to have been running it up to now as Estovion's assistant anyway (sort of like the Butler always runs the Household in a Noble household).

In the long term, another Lodge Warden will need to be appointed by the Palatine Council, but any decision on their part will be heavily influenced by how well the current troubles are handled. For example, if the Markiza Welgory were to step forward and provide a guiding hand until the P.C. (Palatine Council) appointed someone, she could make a good case that that person should be herself. That does appear to be how Estovion got the job in the first place.

in my game:

My PCs had a desire to put Agent from their own organization in place. (which, humorously, is nested two layers deep. First, an organization intent to return leadership of the Palatine to Hereditary Rule ("the Noble Faction") and behind that, know only to one of the players, is the Esoteric Order of the Palatine Eye. Wheels-within-Wheels-with...).

To this end they actually worked at recruiting both Corvin Tergsvor, and The Margrave of Sturnidae (Cilas Graydon). Though I could have seen them working at recruiting the Markiza Welgory, with her business connections and her interest in the Lodge.

On a side note - the Werewolves didn't want to loose their "window on human politic" they had by having the "rich and powerful meeting hall" right next door. The PCs were working hard at getting the Packload raised (personal plot reasons) and actually got that done in Chastel on the way to Feldgrau days later (the wand of gentle repose from Trial of the Beast come in handy) seemed to set things back to the Staus Quo. The Primals got their leader back, the Princes Wolves have a set of eyes in the Lodge (Ivanja) and Broken Ones are trying not to attract to much attention and NO ONE wants to drag the army into the Shudderwood to put down a Werewolf uprising (shades of the Goblinblood Wars).

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I actually edited most of the encounters in Feldgrau - adding a lot of "personality" to the cultists and changing up the patrols a bunch.

a few examples -
I replaced the Menadoran Festrogs with Carrion Golems. Same CR (4) but I felt better in thyme. If I were wanting to beef them up a bit, I might swap them to Flesh Golem Hounds from Trial of the Beast... (CR 6) or maybe Flesh Golems or Bone Golems. I do like the Carrion Golem though.

I re-worked

F13-Town Square:
with a "Tea Party"... the two Curates are now a pair of Urgathoa Clerics with the same stats. I actually introduced the party to one of these guys way back in the set up for Book 1 - he's a gnome modeled after the Mad Hatter (complete with oversized top-hat)... they had breakfast with him long ago. The other curate is now a Halfling - kind of rabbit faced and having an oversided pocket watch. (Yeah - "the white rabbit")

I did swap some of their spells (gave them each a bountiful banquet spell for example). So they have a banquet table (created from some doors from the ruins near by), with a bunch of salvaged chairs from the buildings around. And they have created an Urgathoa Alter... and "an undead worshiper ... gains 5 temp HP" for praying at the alter. They have cloaked the undead with Semblance of Flesh so that they look like "serving staff at a Tavern" and are having a banquet most of the day... I ran this before and it is really a lot of fun to watch the players stumble into a tea party with the Mad Hatter ("Why is a Raven like a Writing Desk?"). When the fight finally starts, I have the skeletons under the table (concealed by a long tablecloth) acting as the table legs, and the ones acting as Serving Staff all attack - as well as the Mad Hatter and the March Hare (Rabbit) buffing and casting spells. First cast is a Blessing of Fervor (on the "table legs) so they can stand up as a swift action). Serving dishes go flying, food everywhere - and the plain skeletons are beefed having been created in the area of a Desecrate having an Alter (+2 HP per dice) as well as the Temp HP for the worshipper bonus.

a lot of the re-work I did was just to add personality to the NPCs... to make each encounter a little more "Custom" and a bit less cookie cutter.

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Railos wrote:
Did anyone buff the cultists or patrols? Change the composition of the partrols? My players want a bigger challenge in the encounters.

sent you a PM.

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here's a link to another thread on this same subject - from a few years back and from a Society (PFS) take on the subject

Killing of helpless or unconscious enemies.

and here's my post from there -

It might be a bit theoretically thin, but as a GM I'm fine with glossing over how the party gets rid of prisoners just to keep the main action on the rails. I have enough trouble finishing scenarios on time without worrying about this.

and it is quite possible that thru "glossing over how the party gets rid of prisoners" a lot of hard feelings and un-productive game time is avoided. (IMHO this is a good thing). It could easily mean that three (or more) players will assume that the party handled the "prisoner disposal" the way they each wanted too - all different. When asked later what was done with the prisoners, the responses could be...

Player A: "We killed 'em dead, like they deserved. And I enjoyed it..."

Player B: "Turned the evil creatures in for a suitable reward. The gold got rolled into the award at the end of the game... I think they use them in the Salt Mines..."

Player C: "We enrolled them in the Sarenrae twelve-step program of redemption and restitution. So that they can become useful members of society..."

and the players all move on to their next game - happy to have resolved this issue "correctly".

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I can remember a fight where the PCs just "Cake Walked" the fight. It envolved a number of Kobolds in a ruined watch tower, and the PCs using sleep spells and grapples to beat them easily. Less then 10 HP taken in damage amoung the 5 PC. so they tie up the Kobolds, and gather up the loot and ... look it over.

"What a bunch of C%$#P! Cheap, Small weapons, and wicker shield, 'food' I wouldn't feed my dog, rotten leathers, and COPPER PIECES! What the h&%%, I'm not loading any of this s&^%t on my horse to haul it outta here." off stomps PC1

the rest of the party also shake their head in disgust and mount up. Rides away into the sunset.

Just then Player A starts to giggle "Talk about insulting. Think about it from the view of the kobolds. Not only are they not dangerous enough for us to kill 'em, but we didn't even want ANY of thier treasure!"

Player B "yeah, (gollum voice), my presious, why didn't they take my presious" laugh.

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When presented with this type of dilemma in the story line of a game I am running, I try to remove or mitigate it so as to spare myself and my players a bit of discomfort. Some things I have done in the past to "fix" this.

1) "Biology Fix" - Stealing a page from an old world setting named Harn I often use their Gargun ((they are a created race, brought about by a bad ass evil mage type for use as mooks. Essentially, they breed like ants or termites, with a Gargun nest having single fertile king and queen. Their "spawn" or larva are dangerous worm like creatures that dwell in a compost pit and will eat anything organic they can reach). Or something like that... (Broo from the RQ setting - to nasty to even discuss).

2) "Jonestown Massacre/Masada" - when presented with the possibility that the spawn/non-combatants will be captured, the "elite guard" ensures that everyone... isn't captured alive. Which makes the BBE even more evil.
(sorta - there is that one scene in 13th Warrior...before the final battle, Weilew brings a wrapped bundle to Olga, waiting in the cellar of the Great Hall, with the village's children and says:
Queen Weilew: When the time comes...
[She unwraps the bundle to reveal a set of daggers. Olga takes the bundle and hastily covers it again]
Queen Weilew: *Don't* let them be taken!
-- Queen Weilew

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TriOmegaZero wrote:
gnoams wrote:
I can't even tell you how many times I've had to argue with a GM when I said I take ten and they say so that takes you ten times as long as normal.
Ignorance. I would gladly wear my shirt to their table.

wait! Where'd you get the shirt? is it one of my Take 10 shirts? (having given over a hundred, I have no idea who has them!)

LOL! thank you sir - you made my day! Even if it isn't one from me - that just means someone else is making them!

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Rysky wrote:
nosig wrote:
Rysky wrote:
Maybe he was inspired by the fact that Runequest didn’t have any of that?

how so?

he was inspired by the lack of a mechanic in an RPG that has not been in common use in over 30 years to include aspects of that mechanic (that is a fundamental part of most other RPGs developed sense then)?

Thats what I’m guessing, not having seen the interview.

And RQ may be old but he may have recently played it. Or he played it much earlier and and everyone should have a class with powers is a mindset that stuck with him afterwards?

?? ah well. I'm totally lost at this point. Not to worry - it must be a Monday.

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I adore old RQ. If there was some aspect of old RQ that is not common in other systems that IS in 4e, it would encourage me to take another look at it (as I didn't notice it when I looked at 4e before).

What does 4e do like RQ that other RPGs do not?

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Rysky wrote:
Maybe he was inspired by the fact that Runequest didn’t have any of that?

how so?

he was inspired by the lack of a mechanic in an RPG that has not been in common use in over 30 years to include aspects of that mechanic (that is a fundamental part of most other RPGs developed sense then)?

?? It must be a Monday - I'm totally lost.

Perhaps he was inspired by chess too? At least in chess "every class should have special powers" - every piece has special powers, abilities few other pieces have.

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SheepishEidolon wrote:
Rysky wrote:
Reminds me more of Star Wars Saga, which I have no doubt also inspired DnD4.

4e's lead designer (Rob Heinsoo) was inspired by RuneQuest (from the 70s) when he pushed the idea "every class should have special powers". At least afterwards he noticed that's not what everyone wants... According to an essay by him in the Complete Kobold Guide to Game Design.

Who knows, Pathfinder probably wouldn't exist if a certain guy hadn't picked up a certain RPG several decades ago...

To me that is kind of a strange statement. I am very much an old RQ player from back in the 70s and 80s and the one thing I really liked about it was that there WASN'T any "classes". A character wasn't a Fighter or a Cleric or a Rogue or whatever. The game system didn't have classes. A character might have a SOCIAL class (Nobleman or Peasant or Barbarian or something like that) but...

Your PC was a Hero. If your hero learned how to pick a lock, swing a sword and cast a Healing spell, they did it because they learned those things, not because they were some strange thing called a "Class". If you got to be really good swinging swords, this did NOT mean you got better at shooting crossbows (there are no "levels" either, not just no "classes") So... saying that "...he pushed the idea "every class should have special powers"." makes not sense at all to me. RQ doesn't HAVE classes... how can each of them have special powers if there aren't any of "them" in the game?

The Exchange

Often when running a game, and "getting in the Zone" I often start to have a lot of empathy for my monsters...

I can recall running a game of Masters of the Fallen Fortress where the players were stomping all the monsters. So in the descriptions I was careful to call out the little "things" that make the creatures encounters more "real"... name on a food bowl for one monster (a pet) for example. Or a name written in the collar of a tunic from a body encountered... Until one of the players stopped between encounters to ask "are all the monsters in here named? I'm kind of feeling sorry for these little guys..." (HA! a win for me!) and so party started swinging with Non-Lethal damage after that, esp. for the "animals".

The Exchange

I remember an game (a different system even) a long time ago, where the party was sneaking thru the dungeon and stopped to listen at the door of a guard room and hear the local mite equivalent (called Trollkin) playing Papers & Paychecks. We were told by the GM that P&P (3rd edition) was a role playing game where the players played characters in a post-industrial captialist society, with such classes as "Student" and "Pizza Delivery Driver".... If I remember right, we slipped quietly away down the hall, and left them to their game, secure in the knowledge that they would not leave that room for days.

The Exchange

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Goodness - we still need this sort of thing. Anyone know if there is a current Version of Ignore that works?

The Exchange

1 person marked this as a favorite.
ErichAD wrote:
Tsukiyo wrote:


Regarding the recent spate of posts: Is there a mute function on these forums? Some posters strike me as consistently unhelpful and antagonistic and it'd be great to filter them out. Failing that, perhaps they could comport themselves with more dignity and stick to forums for games they actually enjoy?
I don't think so. If you find one, let me know.

Ignore is a wonderful thing.

I actually don't know if it still works though - I did use it for a long time though, just to filter out some of the worst. But then I started to develop an internal filter, and now I just don't see some posters posts... so I guess I have modified my internal filters.

At one time, before I found it, I was at the stage of giving up on the boards, and finding the Ignore V5 actually enabled me to remain on-line and active in the community... so I hope it still works.

The Exchange

This might help you with an in game explanation on why a PC would suddenly be "unavailable" for a duration of adventure... The advantage of this one is it even works to pull a PC right out of the middle of a fight...

The PC has "Family Obligations", and has one or more Friends/Family/Employer/Religious Organization/Government Agency who has priority on them. At some future time, the PC may be "Called" using a

Bracelet of Friends:

Aura strong conjuration; CL 15th

Slot wrists; Price 19,000 gp; Weight —

Description

This silver charm bracelet has four charms upon it when created. The owner may designate one person known to him to be keyed to each charm. (This designation takes a standard action, but once done it lasts forever or until changed.) When a charm is grasped and the name of the keyed individual is spoken, that person is called to the spot (a standard action) along with his gear, as long as the owner and the called person are on the same plane. The keyed individual knows who is calling, and the bracelet of friends only functions on willing travelers. Once a charm is activated, it disappears. Charms separated from the bracelet are worthless. A bracelet found with fewer than four charms is worth 25% less for each missing charm

and is not available until the Family Crisis/Government Intervention/Religious Obligation is completed.

example:
Judge:"Dude - it's your Mom calling. You gotta go..."
PC: "Sorry guys! I'll be back as soon as I can! Meantime, don't forget to..."pop!

The Exchange

Quixote wrote:

Why not come up with an archetype yourself?

Dwarves have an ability that allows them to ignore some of the issues with encumbrance and armor.
Rangers have a limitation with armor.
The two just don't mesh well.

Pathfinder is usually pretty good when it comes to swapping these sorts of things in and out so as to minimize "dead" bonuses, especially when it comes to racial abilities.

This seems totally in line with the reason archetypes exist in the first place.
Off the cuff, maybe...drop skills down to 4/level, slap on heavy armor proficiency and remove the restrictions on fighting style?
If that feels like too good of a buy, maybe remove or delay access to another ability or two?

Yeah, I figured I would do something like that. Maybe come up with a Dwarven Ranger that modifies the Combat Style to be Armor feats rather than weapon feats.

The Exchange

RAWmonger wrote:
could always wear Mithral heavy armor later in the game if you grab proficiency... can still use ranger combat styles then... the real question is if the character is dex based (my assumption), why are they wanted heavy armor?

She is actually running a Dwarf, so the Mithral armor wouldn't really buy her all that much - still only a 20' move.

Ranger gives her favored enemy, skill points and wand use - at least I think that's what she was looking at.

I need to look more into the masked maiden vigilante - and the note on a "mental disorder" may actually be right up her alley - she's playing her with Claustrophobia (yeah, a Dwarf afraid of small tunnels underground... go figure).

The Exchange

Thanks everyone!

I'll report it to her... she's starting the PC as a Ranger (likely to go Corpse Hunter Archetype - so was hoping for something that might combine with that) but is likely not going to take more than a level or two of that... mostly for background. She was hoping for something that might swap out Combat Style for Heavy armor - which would fit her Dwarf personality more... she's looking for an armored tracker... anyway. thanks!

The Exchange

Is there a Ranger Archetype that gets Heavy Armor?

My sister is wanting to run a dwarven Ranger type in a low level game, but she was wanting heavy armor. Short of taking her first feat for it, is there another way for her to pick up Heavy Armor Prof.?

The Exchange

from one of the Harrowstone threads I saw a suggestion to change out the BBE in Haunting... and it really appealed to me.

Changing up the BBE in HoH:

Someone in one of these threads suggested making Vesorianna the BBE instead of the Splatter Man, and frankly that is appealing to me a lot. Most of the time I have been reading thru the write-up of the Prison I keep thinking to myself how even before the riot/fire/etc. this was an EVIL place, run by EVIL (with a capital "E") people.

Executions are excepted and expected. Mass murderer? Execute them and send their soul to The Lady to be judged. But... branding? Regular systematic torture of prisoners? Tossing a prisoner into the furnace? So many things stacked up to make this a very nasty place even before it burned down.

Then I saw the suggestion that Vesorianna was actually a very Evil person and was controlling the Warden and thru him many of the guards... and had an inspiration. Vesorianna = Evil Witch = BBE.

This appealed to me. In this version, Harrowstone wasn't ORIGINALLY an Evil place, it grew into one. This is still a work in progress, but I am running it like this...

With the use of Charm spells, and Hexes, the witch Vesorianna gained control of the Warden and thus Harrowstone. Once in control, she began corrupting the institution and the people associated with it, creating ever greater evil in the world. This process was stopped only by the riot and fire, and the death of everyone involved. In Death, the Warden saw what they had become and vowed to set things right. To contain the evil and prevent it's release into the world...

In death, Vesorianna's spirit still haunts the Harrowstone, keeping the spirits of the prisoners trapped here. Only the Warden was keeping her in check, preventing her from spreading her evil even farther...

So, when the Way removed the Warden, she was free to set in motion a plan to gather the powers of each of the strongest of the Spirits - the ones she could not directly control. After she gained control over the spirits of all the prisoners she could move out from the prison ...(insert Master Villain Speech here) ... From the "Destruction" of each Haunt she not only prevents them from manifesting again, she gains powers as each of their haunts are defeated by the PCs... gaining some of each of the haunts abilities...

When the players ultimately learn that they have been making the BBE stronger by defeated her rivals... From each of the prisoners they defeat she gains abilities and power...

So, how does that sound? So far it is working out great. The players have explored the two upper floors of the prison, and picked up a bunch of clues which will in the end tell them that Vesorianna is behind it all, and they have been actually working for the wrong side...

When they come to the "final confrontation" with the Splatterman, he summons Celestial Dolphins as his opening... and I'm hoping one of the players goes "Wait, you can't summon Celestial creatures if you're Evil... What the heck?"

Then they get to talk to Professor Hean Feramin, AKA the Splatterman.

Story from Professor Hean Feramin:

Long ago, I was Professor Hean Feramin, a celebrated scholar of Anthroponomastics (the study of personal names and their origins) at the Quartrefaux Archives in Caliphas. Yet a friendship with someone I believed to be a beautiful woman twisted and warped my studies. Lilith took a great interest in my work, and her flattery blinded me to her evil. I failed to realize that she was in reality a succubus, a demon from the north, from the World Wound.

And my life became a repeat of that old story where a bookish academic is led to evil by a pretty face. Not that it excuses my actions in the later part of my life, I merely relate it to give you background for our current state of affairs. With the subtle guidance of Lilith, I tried to enhance the power of my familiar thru arcane means. And birthed a minor demon, a creature called a quasit, from a sliver of my soul as it brushed against the fabric of the Abyss. It might have been due to the wound to my soul I had suffered creating the familiar, or perhaps it was the quasit that controlled me from then on, or perhaps I was a willing participant in my heinous crimes. I really do not know, and in the end it really didn’t matter. I did many terrible things – many I shudder to remember.

I became obsessed with the power of a name and how it could be used to terrify and control. Soon enough, my reputation was ruined, I’d lost tenure, and everyone in my life had deserted me. In the end, even Lilith… though I see now that that was because her evil work was done. I only had my familiar, that evil sliver of my soul was my only companion and see now how it guided my actions from then on. I’d developed an uncontrollable obsession with studying the imaginary link between a person’s name and what happens to that name when the person dies. That is madness, and I really don’t know if it was my madness or something from outside of me, but it consumed me.

In time, after many horrible acts on my part, I was caught, and for my terrible crimes, for the hideous things I had done, I was sentenced to die in this place. And I came here – only to find a greater nest of evil than I could have created. Institutional evil, run on a grand scale. This prison was an EVIL place, run by EVIL (with a capital "E") people.

Executions are accepted punishment and expected for many crimes. Especially my crimes. Mass murderer? Execute me and send my soul to The Lady to be judged. But... branding? When did we as a society start branding prisoners? Regular systematic torture of prisoners? Dropping prisoners into an oubliette, then regularly dumping feces onto them? Public punishments meted out in seemingly random fashion, in front of many other prisoners, in order to maximize the terror and pain inflicted. Tossing a living helpless prisoner into a furnace as a form of execution? As a punishment for “being a difficult prisoner”? And all of it watched with sadistic glee. In fact, it appears that much of it was perpetrated just to provide entertainment for one person. Only evil societies can justify this sort of thing. So many things stacked up to make this a very nasty place even before it burned.

But the true Evil of the place was hidden. Only to be discovered after death. Because even in death we are all trapped here. Unable to move on, to join the river of souls on the journey to The Lady to be judged and sent to our final reward. I don’t know how it was done, or in fact how it still is done… but everyone who dies here stays here. Perhaps some faction of Necromancers have created it as a giant spirit trap, intending to harvest the soul energy from those trapped here. Perhaps it’s something left from the age of the Whispering Tyrant. Whatever it is, it is still working.

And after the fire, when we discovered we were all trapped, we could still feel Her here. It seems even in death we couldn’t escape Her gaze, we still provided Her sadistic enjoyment. We were all held in our little cells, trapped individually. All of us but the Warden, who patrolled the halls and keep us in our places. But then came the day when he was gone and the bonds that held us here started to loosen. We could move about in the prison. It seemed that soon we would escape in a flood to make our way to The Ladies Judgement. To the River of Souls we all see above us. Only She blocked us, and She was weakening.

But it seems She has found Mercenaries to aid Her. And with each of us they destroy She grows stronger.

The Exchange

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nosig wrote:
** spoiler omitted **...

Story/Note from Professor Hean Feramin, AKA the Splatterman:

Long ago, I was Professor Hean Feramin, a celebrated scholar of Anthroponomastics (the study of personal names and their origins) at the Quartrefaux Archives in Caliphas. Yet a friendship with someone I believed to be a beautiful woman twisted and warped my studies. Lilith took a great interest in my work, and her flattery blinded me to her evil. I failed to realize that she was in reality a succubus, a demon from the north, from the World Wound.

And my life became a repeat of that old story where a bookish academic is led to evil by a pretty face. Not that it excuses my actions in the later part of my life, I merely relate it to give you background for our current state of affairs. With the subtle guidance of Lilith, I tried to enhance the power of my familiar thru arcane means. And birthed a minor demon, a creature called a quasit, from a sliver of my soul as it brushed against the fabric of the Abyss. It might have been due to the wound to my soul I had suffered creating the familiar, or perhaps it was the quasit that controlled me from then on, or perhaps I was a willing participant in my heinous crimes. I really do not know, and in the end it really didn’t matter. I did many terrible things – many I shudder to remember.

I became obsessed with the power of a name and how it could be used to terrify and control. Soon enough, my reputation was ruined, I’d lost tenure, and everyone in my life had deserted me. In the end, even Lilith… though I see now that that was because her evil work was done. I only had my familiar, that evil sliver of my soul was my only companion and see now how it guided my actions from then on. I’d developed an uncontrollable obsession with studying the imaginary link between a person’s name and what happens to that name when the person dies. That is madness, and I really don’t know if it was my madness or something from outside of me, but it consumed me.

In time, after many horrible acts on my part, I was caught, and for my terrible crimes, for the hideous things I had done, I was sentenced to die in this place. And I came here – only to find a greater nest of evil than I could have created. Institutional evil, run on a grand scale. This prison was an EVIL place, run by EVIL (with a capital "E") people.

Executions are accepted punishment and expected for many crimes. Especially my crimes. Mass murderer? Execute me and send my soul to The Lady to be judged. But... branding? When did we as a society start branding prisoners? Regular systematic torture of prisoners? Dropping prisoners into an oubliette, then regularly dumping feces onto them? Public punishments meted out in seemingly random fashion, in front of many other prisoners, in order to maximize the terror and pain inflicted. Tossing a living helpless prisoner into a furnace as a form of execution? As a punishment for “being a difficult prisoner”? And all of it watched with sadistic glee. In fact, it appears that much of it was perpetrated just to provide entertainment for one person. Only evil societies can justify this sort of thing. So many things stacked up to make this a very nasty place even before it burned.

But the true Evil of the place was hidden. Only to be discovered after death. Because even in death we are all trapped here. Unable to move on, to join the river of souls on the journey to The Lady to be judged and sent to our final reward. I don’t know how it was done, or in fact how it still is done… but everyone who dies here stays here. Perhaps some faction of Necromancers have created it as a giant spirit trap, intending to harvest the soul energy from those trapped here. Perhaps it’s something left from the age of the Whispering Tyrant. Whatever it is, it is still working.

And after the fire, when we discovered we were all trapped, we could still feel Her here. It seems even in death we couldn’t escape Her gaze, we still provided Her sadistic enjoyment. We were all held in our little cells, trapped individually. All of us but the Warden, who patrolled the halls and keep us in our places. But then came the day when he was gone and the bonds that held us here started to loosen. We could move about in the prison. It seemed that soon we would escape in a flood to make our way to The Ladies Judgement. To the River of Souls we all see above us. Only She blocked us, and She was weakening.

But it seems She has found Mercenaries to aid Her. And with each of us they destroy She grows stronger.

The Exchange

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Mortagon - love your work! Some stuff here will fit directly into my run (we're in HoH now), others will after with a little work.

a sign that I actually read parts of it in detail:

Minor correction... Lorne Maltroy lists a Potion of polypurpose panacea in his gear. You might want to switch that to a scroll, as it can't actually be made as a Potion - it's a personal spell like shield

and you might want to add in a note that he has a spellbook in his gear.

a gift for you - I changed up the False Crypt some for my game if you want feel free to use it

False Crypt:

THE FALSE CRYPT
The false crypt mentioned in the professor’s journal is located in the northeast corner of the Restlands, near the junction of the paths known as the Eversleep and the Black Path. The crypt itself is a freestanding granite mausoleum, the roof of which is decorated with a pair of leering gargoyle statues, along the front of the stone building were weathered stone carvings depicting symbols of Ustalavic national pride. A single stone door with a rusty looking lock sits in the mausoleum’s south facade, but an examination of the lock (DC 12 Perception check) reveals that the lock is broken, its clasp melted by acid and then put back into place so that to casual observation the lock appears intact. (Professor Lorrimor used a few vials of acid to disable the lock several weeks ago, then arranged it upon his exit to look like it had never been broken.)
No one but professor Lorrimor has been into these chambers for several decades, and his tracks remain obvious in the dust and dirt of the floor to anyone who makes a DC 15 Perception check. A DC 18 Survival check allows a character to follow the faint line of tracks across the outer room to the right hand door, and thru it to the single large sarcophagus that sits in the deepest part of the crypt. It is within this sarcophagus that the hidden cache the professor wrote about is located.
Within the first chamber, a flight of stone steps leads down into the cold earth to a large chamber almost devoid of contents—no dead are interred here, though Church records report that the crypt was one of the first filled in Ravengro’s early days. Two stone statues of armored humans face each other across a room tiled with a mosaic of the large owl sitting on a tree branch. The two doors ahead each have a chain motif stretching across them, though they have no lock and indeed are surprisingly easy to open (outward, into the outer chamber).

TRAP: Detect DC 28, Disable DC 28, Bypassed with the phrase “The Owl of Wisdom” in Ancient Osirioni.

A special Glyph of Warding has been set into the mosaic on the floor. Triggered by crossing the floor, it will effect anyone in the room, casting Modify Memory (Will Save DC 16 negates) to implant the false memories of searching a small chamber thru the doors ahead, and after discovering only a crypt with old bodies without anything of value, the memory of exiting the room and closing the door. Multiple persons will all have EXACTLY the same memory each time they try to cross the room (and fail the Will Save).

In the inner crypt the symbolism on the walls turns strange. Each door has an inscription in Ancient Osirioni (Linguistics: DC 20, “What do you seek?”) etched into them that is visible when they are opened (on the inside of the door). Burial niches to left and right are empty, showing no signs of ever having had anything placed in them. Carvings of sphinxes, pyramids, burning eyes and suns adorned the walls and ceiling, scattered almost at random around the room. On a raised dais against the back wall, below the carving of an especially large pyramid with an eye adorning it’s cap stone, is a large stone sarcophagus (in the Osirion fashion – “mummy case”).
No one but professor Lorrimor has been into this chamber for several decades, and his tracks remain obvious in the dust and dirt of the floor to anyone who makes a DC 15 Perception check. A DC 18 Survival check allows a character to follow the faint line of tracks to a single large sarcophagus that sits in the deepest part of the crypt. It is within this sarcophagus that the hidden cache the professor wrote about is located.
Creatures: a Giant (Medium) Iron Cobra has been left here as a “Guard” on the equipment left here. A member of the Order of the Palatine Eye would know a code phrase to bypass the guardian. ("Who seeks knowledge within this sepulcher?" spoken in Ancient Osirioni).
Treasure in racks hidden within the sarcophagus: a case of ten silver arrows, a rack holding four sun rods (one empty slot), six flasks of holy water, a case of ten +1 bolts, another case holding five +1 ghost touch bolts & two +1 undead bane bolts (three missing bolts), a padded wooden rack holding five potions of cure light wounds and two potions of lesser restoration, a stack of scroll cases holding: a scroll of detect undead, two scrolls of hide from undead, a scroll of protection from evil, and a thin darkwood case decorated with an image of a scarab with a single eye glaring from its back. The darkwood case is worth 50 gp, and contains three objects of interest—a spirit board with a brass spirit planchette, and four iron and glass vials containing tiny, churning clouds of vapor. The vials sit in velvet-lined indentations to the left of the spirit board and planchette, along with six empty indentions.

Notes: The Guardian is loaded with Cure Light Wounds potions as a poison vs. undead (to fight the WW), that way "innocent grave robbers" would suffer less damage and likely flee where Undead would be harmed even more.


I figured the Order of the P.E. would guard the crypt - with something the members would recognize and be able to by pass.

The Exchange

nosig wrote:

I'm just starting into running this, and am very much looking forward to the fun times ahead. All the threads have given me any ideas, and allowed me to very much build on what is actually in the books themselves... so I will be customizing the adventure a little bit, just to make my run of it my own.

I expect I will be stepping to the posting board from time to time in the coming months with a question or three, looking for some advice... and now for the first question.

One of my PCs is a Dhamphir, and I am wondering how this is going to work vs. the Lopper? The Lopper does 1d6 negative energy plus 1d6 bleed... so, when he swings on the Dhamphir PC he'll do... 1d6 healing and 1d6 bleed? How is other people handling this?

Healing so not taking any actual damage prevents the bleed?
or
Take both, so (with rolls of 3&4) healed for "3" and THEN bleed for "4"? and then continue to take 4 each round until healed again (maybe by a hit from the Lopper - again which a different bleed number being rolled.
or...
something else?

ok, I dug far enough into the HoH threads that I think I have answered my first question... (it appears that most people are having it do both, with the bleed NOT being fixed by the healing that takes place in the same round.)

now for my next Question.

The area of the Pipers haunt is very large, and likely to have skeletons moving around in it. If an Alchemist were to throw a Holy Water flask at a skeleton, the area around it that is splashed would be part of the Pipers Haunt... so should it also take splash damage? (splash damage from the HW flask would be 1+INT)

The Exchange

Changing up the BBE in HoH:
Someone in one of these threads suggested making Vesorianna the BBE instead of the Splatter Man, and frankly that is appealing to me a lot. Most of the time I have been reading thru the write-up of the Prison I was thinking to myself how even before the riot/fire/etc. this was an EVIL place, run by EVIL (with a capital "E") people.

Executions are excepted and expected. Mass murderer? Execute them and send their soul to The Lady to be judged. But... branding? Regular systematic torture of prisoners? Tossing a prisoner into the furnace? So many things stacked up to make this a very nasty place even before it burned down.

Then I saw the suggestion that Vesorianna was actually a very Evil person and was controlling the Warden and thru him many of the guards... and had an inspiration. Vesorianna = Evil Witch = BBE.

This appealed to me. The Harrowstone wasn't ORIGINALLY an Evil place, it grew into one. This is still a work in progress, but I am thinking something like this...

With the use of Charm spells, and possibly Hexes, the witch Vesorianna gained control of the Harrowstone. Once in control, she began corrupting the institution and the people associated with it, creating ever greater evil in the world. This process was stopped only by the riot and fire, and the death of everyone involved. In Death, the Warden saw what they had become and vowed to set things right. To contain the evil and prevent it's release into the world...

In death, Vesorianna's spirit still haunts the Harrowstone, keeping the spirits of the prisoners trapped here. Only the Warden was keeping her in check, preventing her from spreading her evil even farther...

So, when the Way removed the Warden, she set in motion a plan to gather the powers of each of the strongest of the Spirits - the ones she could not directly control. After she gained control of the spirits of all the prisoners she could move out from the prison ...(insert Master Villain Speech here) ... From the "Destruction" of each Haunt she not only prevents them from manifesting again, she gains powers as each of their haunts are defeated by the PCs... gaining some of each of the haunts abilities...

From the Piper she will gains his haunting dirge ability to give all creatures who hear his tune the Shaken condition (save DC each round). Overcoming this Condition (shaking off the effect) would cause 1d6 Bleed damage, and make the target immune to it for the day...

From Father Charlatan she will gain the ability to target one person each round with a special Hold Person that appears as spectral chains... (once a PC saves it is immune to it for the day).

From the Lopper she will gain "Blood Siphoning", and a bleed effect on damage she does.

From the Mosswater Marauder she gains the Screaming Severed Heads Haunt (and it's weakness), and a Touch attack using what appears to be an Ax (the influence of the Lopper) that does 1d6 and gives the Staggered condition (as the Marauders hammer attack).

From the Splatter Man... I'm not sure yet...

So, how does that sound? It's a few weeks or maybe even a month before my crew finally gets there, and I'll keep watch here for suggestions and to chime in with progress reports... just for anyone that might be interested.

The Exchange

I'm just starting into running this, and am very much looking forward to the fun times ahead. All the threads have given me any ideas, and allowed me to very much build on what is actually in the books themselves... so I will be customizing the adventure a little bit, just to make my run of it my own.

I expect I will be stepping to the posting board from time to time in the coming months with a question or three, looking for some advice... and now for the first question.

One of my PCs is a Dhamphir, and I am wondering how this is going to work vs. the Lopper? The Lopper does 1d6 negative energy plus 1d6 bleed... so, when he swings on the Dhamphir PC he'll do... 1d6 healing and 1d6 bleed? How is other people handling this?

Healing so not taking any actual damage prevents the bleed?
or
Take both, so (with rolls of 3&4) healed for "3" and THEN bleed for "4"? and then continue to take 4 each round until healed again (maybe by a hit from the Lopper - again which a different bleed number being rolled.
or...
something else?

The Exchange

Thadyne wrote:
baron arem heshvaun wrote:
Thadyne wrote:
One thing I did which made the research stuff more interesting was I somewhat utilized the research rules from Ultimate Intrigue and then wrote up a bunch of what the characters would actually be reading- a newspaper story, some letters, some journal entries- in order to fully convey the story. My group seemed to really enjoy it more than just some skill checks and "here's what you found out". You may not have enough time left to do that though.
Would you consider sharing this Thadyne? Sounds awesome.
Sadly, I did it all by hand so there are no electronic versions.

Would there be any way for you to scan any of these and email them to some of us? Then perhaps we could get someone to post them on a site accessible to everyone... just a thought. Feel free to email them to me - though I will say I am not internet savvy enough to be able to post them to a common area. (My email is nosig (at) aol.com - replace the (at) with an @)

And THANKS! Even if it’s just for the suggestion of newspaper articles...

The Exchange

I have a House Rules that "Playing Dead" is an immediate action that can be taken whenever your PC takes damage.

This allows someone to "fall over dead" when they get hit, instead of having to wait until their Initiative....

GM: "The troll hits you for 36HP damage..."
Player: "Ouch! I fall down and play dead before it takes another swing!"
GM: "Roll me a bluff..."
Player: "You know, after doing the math, it looks like I'm not playing... guess my bluff just got a lot better..."

The Exchange

Watery Soup wrote:

This is supposed to be an idea generating thread so I'll post some ideas later, but first, I wanted to express my dislike for side quests and messages in dreams.

These things are frequently used for abruptly changing the direction of a story. If the story is a road, these things are sudden changes in direction; even roads in the middle of nowhere when they turn like that are often given different names at the L intersection. To continue the road analogy, it's difficult to gather momentum on those roads. You want a highway - a road that gradually makes a 90 degree turn, but turns smoothly at every point. The road may still meander back and forth, but it's unquestionably the same road.

Abrupt starts / turns / stops are okay for one-off adventures, but for continuous adventures there's an opportunity to set the bar much higher.

The characters motivations should draw from their backgrounds, and their future quests from the current quest. This requires some seeding of potential story lines as you go along.

Four people may start their adventure at a bar when someone stumbles in with an arrow in their back and dies on the table. That's a good way to jump start a one-shot adventure, for sure. But in a longer term campaign you want to tie it in to a larger story - PC #1 was expecting to meet the dead person, PC #2 discovers he knew the dead person, PC #3's father was murdered using the same arrow, and PC #4 was there watching the bartender. Later on quests can start with combinations of those backstories - PC #2's history with dead guy leads PC #1 to caves only DP's childhood friends knew, where they find evidence tying PC #3's dad to the bartender, which helps PC #4 put together the evil plot to take over the world.

At the end of it, there should be some unanswered questions and loose ends that form the fabric of the next adventure.

a dream in the quest:
Was this post above directed at my "Message in a Dream" suggestion? I would point out that in the story the PCs were tasked with delivering a package (actually a portable hole full of stuff) to the Temple of Nethys in Absalom, and the dream was actually directed at them from the BBE... trying to intercept the package. Lead the PCs astray. Due to other clues (in the dream and elsewhere in foreshadowing - and because my players are paranoid) the PCs were able to figure out that "it's a Trap". Or at least they assumed so. So they were then presented with a decision - to continue to the original location for the delivery (in Absalom) or try to "ambush the ambush". They actually decided to just go to the original delivery (Temple of Nethys) and report the "Dream" ambush attempt there.

Discussion when something like this...
Player One:"We were contracted to deliver the package. That's what we do first. We're a DELIVERY SERVICE." (The campaign was called "Special Delivery and the PCs worked for a Delivery Service specializing in high value magic items.)
Player Two with a Star Wars quote:"'Stay on target'. Yeah, head strait into town."

The Exchange

here's one I used once... The adventurers were on a ship in the Inner Sea, on their way to deliver a package in Absalom

Message in a Dream:

Suddenly, standing in the middle of what was an otherwise pleasant dream of … something (you knew a moment ago, but it seems to be slipping away)… is an older male human with a long grey beard, singed on one side and a large pointed hat. He appears slightly confused about something, and muttering to someone you can’t see – who isn’t even there.

“How exactly is this thing supposed to work again?” he glances down at his hand clasping the edge of a rust colored cloak he is wearing. (Knowledge Arcane: DC22 to recognizing it as a "Cloak of Dream Sending"). The rest of his outfit consists of worn black scholars robes covered in arcane symbols (with what appear to be food stains at odd points), and pointed leather slippers (one white and the other black) with the toes turned up. Small tassels dangle from the tips of the toes. The man continues to talk to someone you can’s see “You sure he can hear me? Seems like a silly way to send a message if you ask me… “

He raised his voice and looks right thru you. “The delivery location needs to be changed. It wouldn’t be safe for you to bring ..ah…’the cargo’, thru the streets of the city.” He glances to his left and seems to speak to someone beside him. “What do you mean, lower my voice? I want him to hear me right? And he’s all the way out to sea! Stands to reason I’d need to speak up!”

He turns back to you, looking to a spot just over your left shoulder. “SO, we’ve set up to meet you at a location just outside of the city. There’s an old siege tower that’s been recently cleared out by adventurers. Just five miles west of city walls – and the entire eastern face of the tower has collapsed. But the rest of it’s structurally sound.” He glances back to his left and lowers his voice – speaking to someone else again. “Think the bugger will be able to find it? I mean, I can’t exactly give an address, the thing’s a ruin for Nethys sake, not like he can stop and ask directions, nothing out there but mongrel dogs and undead…”. Looking back toward you with a smile, and speaking to a spot just past your right shoulder, “You can’t miss it. Only standing building in the area. Sixty feet tall stone spire. Entire front face peeled off. We’ll be waiting for your arrival in the upper room – smashing view of the city I’m told. You should be able to fly right up to it, nothing around for miles. Anyway – Mortimur says you’ll be there tomorrow about this time, and we’ll keep tabs on your progress till then. Got every confidence in you! See you then.” Glancing back to his left, “what? I already told him who… again? He knows who I am! It’s not every day someone gets a visit from the High Priest of Nethys!”

Glancing to a spot just behind your torso he finishes up: “Anyway, bang up job you chaps are doing! Keep up the good work See you soon!” he begins to tug at the drawstring holding the cloak on, “there, that went well if I do say so myself. And I still have time to make the evening dessert cart…” as he removes the cloak he winks out of your dream and you awaken.

It's for a home game, but I could easily see it being adapted for PFS... Delivered by VC Drang perhaps? Yeah, in the middle of the night...

The Exchange

tread necro -

so this came up in a recent game...

anybody have a list of what character classes have "... abilities reference using a spellbook..."?

or for that matter, what qualifies as "... abilities reference using a spellbook..."? Does owning a Ring of Spell Knowledge count?

The Exchange

Still playing 1st Edition...

Still playing PFS...

Most recent game (scenario) played: Nov 19, #10-23—Passing the Torch, Part 2: Who Speaks for the Ten

Most recent game run: Nov 12, #31: Sniper in the Deep

Preparing to play the Mod: The Ruby Phoenix Tournament

Prepping to run: Echoes of the Everwar Part 2: The Watcher of Ages

Also Prepping to run the AP: Carrion Crown soon (expect to run it for a year... In Campaign Mood)

The Exchange

dang, missed my Will Save to resist posting on another Take 10 thread. I knew I shouldn't have dumped Wisdom...

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