peterrco's page

Try reminding your players that you are a first time GM.

Tell them that you have a story planned out, but are a bit nervous and not confident that you can handle things if it goes off track.

Say "please" go with me on this, I know it's a bit of a rail road, but I really want to make my first adventure work.

Most players are adults, who are there to have a good time with their friends, and won't take the opportunity to stick the boot into you. Some players are also GM's and will almost certainly buy into helping out the new kid if asked politely.

Once you get your confidence, you'll learn to go with the flow, roll with the punches, and judge when to nudge the players back on your main track or just free form whilst they are motivated to do their own thing.

Remember:

The first rule of GM'ing is don't say "NO", set the difficulty.

The Second rule is don't say "NO", make up a mini encounter/scenario..... on the spot if need be.

152. If the DM asks if you’re setting watch, the answer is always yes.

....152a. If the DM says "you set up camp and then all go to sleep", challenge it.

Have you considered the benefits of Armour Spikes?

You can use them as an off-hand weapon, but they don't actually use up a hand, so your primary weapon could be a two handed weapon (maybe with reach?) or you could stick to a one handed weapon and also carry a shield.

Great that you are bringing someone new to the game. We rp geeks sometimes get a bit worked up about how new players... particularly ones we care about.... see the game. But at the end of the day it boils down to a dinner party a conversation and a game.

Having said that. A multiclass character, with the additional complexity of an animal companion? That is a lot for an experienced player to deal with, let alone a new player.

Rogues and ninjas do not suck. But you should still roll her a fighter. It is traditional and relatively easy way for a new player to come to grips with the concepts of the game and ensures that she will have something to do all the time whilst allowing for growth and complexity as the character levels.

The character you have designed is great as a second character to build on the concepts learned with a pure fighter.

I enjoyed reading this guide, an interesting take on an often neglected Prestige class.

Thank you.

I think with Paladins Code issues, if you need to think about whether or not what you are doing is right, or worse, try to find a way of justifying an action that you feel uncomfortable about, then you just shouldn't be doing it. Being a shining light for good and order should come naturally to you. If your checking the fine print and looking for loop holes in the Paladin's code then you should be docked for lawful neutral (at the very least) behaviour.

oh and eos eschew materials so you can cast spells while in your wildshaped form that require material components. this is nice since your spell component pouch would be absorbed when you assume a wild shape or change to a new wildshape. being able to fly above a group of people as a roc while still casting crowd control spells and summoning monsters is pretty bad ass.

First thank you for the advice. This is my first attempt at a guide, and it does need reworking.

The Natural Spell feat does state: "You can also use any material compenents or focuses you possess, even if such items are melded within your current form"

My actual suggested feat at third level is Craft Wondrous items.

I had thought of options for abuse when creating poisons in terms of the cost, and purposely left that out of my guide. Some of the poisons available are worth several thousand gp per dose, and you could make an argument that you could produce one dose per round. I'd expect most GM's to make it very difficult to sell them on the open market, almost an adventure in itself ;) ...... There are other ways of milking poison if you really want to. Wizards familiars, Diabolists imps. Normal animals, that with the new spells are easy to call, and can then be trained and harvested. wildshape is easy and convenient, but I think that the genie is out of the bottle on this one.

By the way, I'm English, and we spell Armour with a "u" here. We don't understand why you yanks changed it....LOL

I thought i'd try my hand at writing at guide.

I hope you enjoy it. Let me know if I've made any errors and I'll make changes.

Go to Peterrco's guide to Druids

Does sound like you have to talk about it with the GM.

Every GM I've known (I include myself) goes through a phase where they think that the best game is one where the characters are being challenged constantly to the point where they feel that they are at the edge of death all the time. GM's do this because they think that this makes the game hard core and realstic and ....... because he genuinely thinks that you want to play this sort of game and enjoy the hard challenges he is putting you up against.

Your comment about nobody having been killed, even in really hard fights, suggests that your GM is using a little bit of psychology on you. One of the best ways to build up tension is for the GM to act up how much he wants to kill you and pretend that he is playing against you because he thinks that the "GM can win" when really he is putting very hard but balanced combats at you (and fudging to keep you alive if necessary). I do think that he has overplayed his hand on this though.

In time wisdom comes and you realise that this is not fun to play and rips your narrative to shreds, because if every fight is close to being a TPK, then there is no room to build up tension, no room to relax and have some comic relief before turning the screw again, and perhaps most importantly, your boss fight just feels like any other fight, because every fight is right on the edge so there is no nice feeling of victory at the end of the scenario.

Granted, in a "game of thrones" type world, you would expect things to be a bit grittier than normal.

There are also occasions when you expect to be pushed hard, in a recent game we had all been reading Treantmonk and announced our intention to roll play fully optimised characters. The GM warned us that if we did so he would not pull any punches, and has stuck by his word. It's an excellent game and turned into a proper role play as well.

I'm not sure why having a crafting cohort is such a big deal and why everyone feels that this is game destructive.

The player has firstly lost a feat, for effectively a jack of all trades crafter, who is left at home.

But crafting feats only really start to get valuable when used in cooperation with other players, so that you can fit the pre-requisites, and remember with cooperation both people have to be there throughout the process, so your crafter is going to be severely restricted whilst the players are out adventuring.

Remember you always control the timing of the adventures, the players can't really expect to say "but I'm on downtime to craft" when the dragon starts attacking the city, or the murderer starts piling the bodies up etc.

The easiest way to restrict the crafter, is to have the party leave on an adventure just before he finishes a cooperatively created item, and quote the rules:

"A character can only work on one item at a time. If a character starts work on a new item, all materials used on the under construction item are wasted"

You are then left with a cohort who is either kicking his heels in the tavern at home, or is out with the party but who is a severely underpowered combat caster cos he used all his feats on crafting.

All in all the crafter cohort sounds good in theory, but is only useful when the players are in downtime as a convenient tool to assist getting the stuff that players would probably buy anyway, at a cheaper price (but you control the flow of treasure so this should easily be balanced) and more conveniently (so they don't have to go hunting down certain magic items! instead they have to spend their downtime crafting them instead....slight convenience, lots of character cooperation and team building, so balances out against the cost of the feat)

When the players are out, he is either stuck mid project, or is severely limited in what he can produce.

This is one of those occasions when you as a GM should loudly continue to moan about how the player and the party have got one up on you, and using this as an excuse to put them against more powerful creatures, whilst secretly laughing at the player who has effectively screwed himself out of a feat.

Your lucky he's only trying to make use of the "cohort" side of the leadership feat.

You can do an awful lot with followers who are created as one shot ponies to be very good at one thing and one thing only, who are then left back at base to get on with the job.

1. Alchemist: Can make potions at first level and supply the party with alchemical items.

2. Bard: Intelligence build bards for all those knowledge checks. A charisma Bard skill focused and traited, for perform string instruments, with a few skill points in knowledge engineering and profession architect, combined with Lyre a building is one man construction crew who would be able to play all day for hundreds of man hours of work once per week.

3. Animal trainer: Do the players really ever have time to do this themselves? A specialised animal trainer can do it for them

There are loads of ways in which the intelligent/optimising/abusive player can maximise the use of support staff followers.

Lots of interesting points made here.

First thing to note is that we are playing a game, and that making the party "take the consequences" in a way that is not "game fun" but "game punishment", whilst good in theory, it is not going to make a fun session or two. I've done some stupid things before both as GM and player, but as someone who works and has other committments and plays with other people who work hard and have other committments, wrecking everyones precious downtime is never an option.

Second, turning the children to illusions retroactively is a bad move, let the dice roll is always my policy, but making the best of a bad job, when the players report back their superiors are clearly going to click what actually happened, everything ended well so no harm done, but certainly some "coaching for improvement is in order". This should be pretty much in your face, a few ideas:

1. The "reward" for the party is in the form of a metamagic rod of mercy and a wand of merciful fireballs. If the players are expected to protect civilians as part of their job and don't have a "merciful" capability already then they suck, and suck hard, it's up to you to give them this option.

2. A lecture by a seniour officer, backed by a few threats about the sort of behaviour expected in future.

If, after you have given them the capability to not hurt civilians and warned them in no uncertain terms (in game) that their previous behaviour is unacceptable, the players still act evil and go out of there way to kill civilians, then you should consider asking another member of your group to GM, and close down your campaign.

For your 10th level fighter, hat of disguise, greater is very nice:

Hat of Disguise, Greater

Aura faint illusion; CL 3rd
Slot head; Price 12,000 gp; Weight — lbs.

DESCRIPTION

Like a hat of disguise, this garment allows its wearer to alter her appearance. It functions as an alter self spell (as opposed to disguise self). The hat becomes a part of the disguise and can be a hat, a helmet, a headscarf, and so forth.

CONSTRUCTION REQUIREMENTS

Craft Wondrous Item, alter self; Cost 6,000 gp.

Pathfinder Module: Curse of the Riven Sky

Pathfinder Module: Curse of the Riven Sky. © 2010, Paizo Publishing, LLC; Author: Monte Cook.

........................

If your a small fighter become a medium fighter, and stop toddling round the battlefield with your toy weapons.

If your a medium fighter become a small fighter when necessary, for those nasty "small" sized tunnels that evil GM's like to put in every so often.

Get Darkvision in certain forms.

Get Scent (V useful for a ranger wanting to track), in certain forms.

Get a Swim speed in certain forms.

Get +2 Strength if medium

Get +2 Dex if small

This has to be the one of the best tactical items in the game.

.............

I hate to think of builds based around a single magic item, but a Gnome Ranger, with the Master Tinker alternative racial feature option can:

1. Have proficiency in any exotic weapon (with Masterwork Transformation these can be crafted quickly and then made magic)

2. Choose when to be medium or small, to suit the tactical situation.

3. Ride either a medium or large creature. With an animal companion this opens up a number of variations for the mounted warrior or infantryman.

4. Has any number of role playing opportunities as a spy or infiltrator.

Well yes I sometimes wonder that the people playing that particular angle are indeed undercover Paladin-Hating unwashed troglodytes who are misrepresenting the class as an excuse for their appalling social graces to be foist upon us with an air of 'legitimacy', and to bring disrepute to a noble and decent class.

Just sayin' :P

I don't hate Paladins, I love some things about Paladins for example:

1. The have lesser restoration as first level spell. Lets you make wands of lesser restoration for 375gp.

errrrr

2. Detect Evil at will (How do they look at themselves in the mirror!)

3. The way that they just don't see "I'm only doing what my honour code says" as the moral equivalent of "I was only obeying orders" or "Yes, My Fuhrer"

4. The way that they are constantly having to remind other classes of how they have better social graces than them and how they are more noble and decent than others.

5. That they aren't afraid to stoop to low grade insults when they feel the slightest challenge to their moral superiority.

6. Of couse my favourite thing about Paladins, is that they wash regularly.

Let me assure everyone that I give nothing to Paladin's except the love and respect that they so richly deserve.

Unfair Trap ............. Isn't that a contradiction in terms?

Craft items is best seen as different way of casting spells with either permanent effect or permanent till used. In the same way that spells can be used to buff yourself and the party, Craft Items allows you to do this.

When you get a craft items skill, you are not just getting a feat for yourself, you are getting one for the whole party, and you should expect everyone in the party to cooperate in using it, particularly the spell casting members.

Remember that each item has specific pre-requisites and anyone with the pre-requisite can contribute to creation of the service.

For example as a Magus if you chose Craft Wands (a greatly underrated feat) you could cooperate with the cleric to make a wand of Cure Light wounds for 375gp the Ranger to craft a wand of Resist Energy for 375gp and the Paladin to craft of Wand of Lesser Restoration for 375gp (possibly the most efficient way in the game of healing ability damage), as well as make a customised wand for yourself, with the wand wielder ability with say True Strike, Shocking Grasp, Ray of Enfeeblement to enhance your combat on it stacked with Vanish and Obscuring Mist for those times when you just don't want to be there anymore, a wand with five 1st lvl spells stacked on it like this gives you real options and depth of casting for just 1875gp, again very efficient. I've used wands as an example but you can get real milage out of all the other Craft options as well.

Crafting is one of the easiest and best ways to customise your own character, help others customise their characters and generally strengthen the party as a whole.

My first game, second session (a looong time ago)

We are exploring a dungeon and find a strange crypt, with a Mummy lying on a slab at the other end of the room.

I carefully sneak up, and stab it in the heart......with a wooden stake......

Needless to say, it did not have the hoped for effect and only annoyed the Mummy.

My first character died shortly afterwards, together with most of the rest of the party.