So we are just starting Book 4 and I have a little problem with the timeline regarding Veshumirix. The Adventure Path starts in 4719 AR. Veshumirix was born in 3965 AR. When he was 200 years old (so in 4165 AR) he tried to seek out Mengkare, but failed, so for 10 years he was just going around killing stuff (so we are now in 4175 AR). Then he drew the attention of Dahak cultists, who sent him visions of Dahak and the city of Saggorak where he was shown wearing a crown and sitting on a large pile of treasures. Finding this desireable, he goes there, rampages over the city, kills lots of undead and kills even King Harral. Let's say he took his time with all this and it took let's say 5 years for him to do all this, so now it is 4180 AR. With Saggorak as his base of operations secured, he turns his eyes towards Kovlar, but decides a direct assault would be ill advised, because of magic wards on the walls and whatnot, so he has an awesome idea: let's go into the Darklands and build an army of undead, duergar and Darklands monsters to attack the city in his stead. All is good and well. Aaaand then... 539 years pass and Ilssrah Embermead comes along to offer an alliance to the dragon and the adventure proceeds from there.
Soooo, over the course of 539 years Veshumirix was just not able to build his army? Maybe he couldn't find a single duergar or any kind of monster to recruit into his army? Did he maybe got lost in the tunnels of the Darklands and couldn't find his way back to Saggorak? Or what? Seriously what he was doing for more than 500 years after coming up with his awesome plan of making an army and letting them do his dirty work? Any thoughts?
Umm, I saw that the module's author answered questions here and there, so in the hopes he is still lurking around here... :-)
Spoiler:
We are just about ready to start Temple of the Twelwe and as I was reading the module, in the section describing Ailabiens 21:2 it is established that
"Despite his uncouth demeanor, few have read as many articles and files as he has, and he commands an unrivaled mental catalog of the university’s collections. He reviewed Halkueem Zan’s confiscated notes a decade ago, dismissing it as drivel."
However I think there is nothing in previous conversations that would give a clue to the PCs that Ailabiens might have this information. For all the PCs know at this point, they are just there to convince him to make an apology because of his controversial lecture. Thereby the PCs have no reason to ask him if he knows anything about Halkueem Zan's notes. Or did I miss something somewhere which might give a hint to the PCs that Ailabiens could be a source of info on Halkueem?
A few questions came up in our group and so I'd be interested in the wisdom of these boards to answer them. Let's say a solarian puts up an attuned gravity shield:
1) Can the solarian (or anyone for that matter) attack through the shield? (Either with a melee or a ranged attack).
2) Is he in cover against melee attacks coming from the other side of the shield?
3) (If the answer to question 1 is yes) Are his enemies on the other side of the shield considered to also be in cover against the attacks of the solarian (or the attacks of any other character standing in a space protected by the shield)?
I'd just like to say the Kingdom tool is super-awesome. We just got started with building the kingdom in Rivers Run Red and this tool made going through the first year of the kingdom super easy and super fun. Thanks very much for putting this together, much appreciated.
Minor spoilers below for the last module in the Jade Regent AP, The Empty Throne.
Today our brave party of adventurers heard of the food shortage issue from Isao. They immediately set out to resolve this situation, however we kind of run into a little problem. We were trying to figure out exactly how much rice are we talking about in that granary... One of my players came up with the random fact that a family of 4 in medieval Japan consumed 1 koku of rice over the course of a year, 1 koku being the equivalent of 150 kilograms (about 300 pounds) of rice. Kasai has a population of about 164000, so let's say 164000 / 4 = 41000 families, each eating up 150 kg of rice per year. That means a total of 6150000 kg of rice per year. We are assuming the bags in the granary each hold 50 kg of rice. Thus, we are talking about 123000 bags in total. Let's assume that the granary in fact only holds about half a year's worth of rice, we are still in the ballpark of about 60000 rice bags, each weighing 50 kg. This is the amount that should be stolen out of the granary in the dead of night, using carts supplied by Isao's buddies and distributed to the citizenry. Ummm, yeeeeaaah, right! This would need some serious logistics to pull off, really... Now we don't mean to criticize the module in any way, after all, we laughed so hard while figuring these numbers out and coming up with various solutions that it was much fun anyway. In the end the party decided to come up with an ingenious way of handling this, by opening a portal inside the granary, with the other end of the portal being somewhere far below the city in some natural cave, to store the "stolen" rice in. Since the portal has a limited duration they need to move this massive amount of rice quite quickly, so by clever application of the Reverse Gravity spell they mean to sort of suck all the rice from the ganary into the portal and be done with it. Meanwhile the druid is going to dig a tunnel down into the natural cave from an empty warehouse rented by Isao, so that the citizens of the city could get to the rice more or less undisturbed.
However we are curious about how other adventuring parties handled this particular problem? So if you have other, perhaps easier solutions, please do share. :-)
Our gaming group recently come back to Pathfinder *again* for the umpteenth time, we seemingly switch between Pathfinder and D&D 4 about every few months or so. :-)
Anyway that's not my point. For a long time I've been eyeing the Pathfinder Society site and thought how cool it would be to have this in Hungary somehow. Granted we could just buy and play the Society modules in my own regular gaming group, but that would not be the same, because I think the whole point of Pathfinder Society is the intriguing prospect that the actual gaming group might change from week to week. Now, there's a hungarian forum for roleplayers but unfortunately I couldn't really generate interest in PFS in the past there, so this time around I thought I'll turn here, to the "source" :-) because maybe there are other hungarian roleplayers here who would like to start the Hungarian Lodge, just don't know how or maybe they just like to lurk on the forums here and need someone to jumpstart things, that sort of thing.
So. Hungarian PFS fans are any of you here? Or is it just me? Really? Alone? In the dark? Nah, I know you must exist, it can't just be me, PFS is more awesome than that. Surely others must think likewise. So, if anyone from Hungary is interested in PFS and lurks here somewhere or finds his/her way here to this topic, feel free to say so and let's start something. Let's put Central Europe on the map of Golarion, too. :-)
Resurrecting the thread for another question regarding the wording of this ability. :-) One of my PCs built his character using this PrC and he has an AC of 40 when this ability is active.
Now the ability description states: This bonus lasts for 24 hours or until the vindicator is struck in combat, whichever comes first. Exactly what constitutes as "struck in combat" here? If I hit and damage the character with a Fireball spell or for example an Inflict Serious Wounds spell, does the vindicator's shield expires immediately or does it only go away if the character is struck with a melee or ranged weapon?
The exact same question posed by the OP about this barbarian archetype was asked by one of my players too. At first I was inclined to say: "well, yeah, tough luck", but then he pointed out to me the exact wording of the ability, so now I'm not so sure. The ability description goes like this:
Massive Weapons (Ex): ... The attack roll penalty for using weapons too large for her size is reduced by 1...
He argues that the wording "too large for her size" actually means that this archetype can use weapons that are literally too large for him, so for example as a Medium character, he could even use a two-handed weapon sized for a Large creature, even though this might not be possible by the core rulebook. I'm kind of on the fence about this, as I think he might easily be right, at least the wording could be interpreted this way.
Okay, dumb question about a certain section of the salt mines.
Spoiler:
I have some trouble picturing area C5 - The Crusher inside the Fzumi Salt Mines. I read the description several times but I just can't picture it in my mind's eye :-) and just can't imagine how it would work. I admit though that I have no engineering or salt mining skills in real life. :-) I tried searching Google for a picture of such a device, but I had no luck there either. So if anyone could direct me to a picture of what it should look like or could describe me in more detail how it's supposed to work and look like I'd be one happy DM. :-)
These maps look very good. I'm going to start DMing this AP next week via MapTool and your maps could be a great time saver for me. :-) Could you please share your campaign file or at least the base maps you're using without the tokens shown?
Provide an e-mail address and i'll send the campaign files over.
Thanks very much! You can send it to robert@rpotor.com
I've also drawn the bottom of the treasure pit and a few others.
These maps look very good. I'm going to start DMing this AP next week via MapTool and your maps could be a great time saver for me. :-) Could you please share your campaign file or at least the base maps you're using without the tokens shown?
A PDF should be available. I believe separate PDF purchases are generally made available at the same time the book reaches regular bookstores. So three weeks or so?
Oh, thanks for the heads-up, I think I can wait that much given the fact that I'll have some 400 pages of some Beta to read soon anyway... :-)
Sorry if this has been already covered somewhere, but will there be a "pdf only" ordering option for the Campaign Setting? As I understand from the posts above the pdf version already exists but it can only be acquired if someone jumps on the Pathfinder Chronicles subscription train, in the webshop there is not possible to order the pdf separately at this time.
I'd really like to get this awesome book but I think the shipping cost would be awesome too, if I ordered the print version. :-)
Rukus Power Attacks for 3 points (making him +16 on damage), and then rolls two consecutive natural 20's. Spears have a x3 crit rating to start with. Since Rukus was reading a spear against attack, and this unfortunately was a mounted charge, it became x4 critical damage... 1d8+16 x 4
Ouch, that really sounds nasty. :-) Also it must have looked really cool, impaling the poor PC and Rukus throwing him over his shoulder... I hereby give this PC death a coolness score of 10 out of 10. :-)
I got my first two kills in the ROTRL Adventure Path!
After a really close and tough fight with Lucrecia my PCs basically blow through the ogres inhabiting Fort Rannick. And when I say blowing through, I really mean it, though I have to admit that sometimes they got really lucky with confirmed critical hits. :-)
Just to illustrate their damned luck:
Spoiler:
Gragavan Kreeg in B18. Workroom barely see what killed him, but while he might have seen it, he certainly didn't have time to react when an Earth Breaker (see Pathfinder Player's Guide page 10-11) wielded by the party's priest of Gorum hit his face for exactly 100 points of damage. The weapon has immediately been renamed to Face Breaker...
Jaagrath Kreeg in B29. Chapel had a poor initiative, so before he could even take a turn was hit by a Ray of Enfeeblement and after a lucky attack by one of our paladins, Face Breaker again finished the job here. Jaagrath couldn't even take his first turn.
So after these lucky kills, my PCs bravely walked into the Commander's Quarters, where two of them unfortunately met their end. To honor these heroic deaths, the names of the fallen shall be engraved on the board of this forum for all eternity thusly:
Name of PC: Wesh
Class/Level: level 6 Paladin / level 2 Fist of Raziel
Adventure: The Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: 3 Fireballs cast in 3 consecutive rounds by Dorella Kreeg
IRL Time of death: 19 April 2008 13:55 CET
Name of PC: Anterien Legdoril
Class/Level: level 8 Wizard
Adventure: The Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: 3 Fireballs cast in 3 consecutive rounds by Dorella Kreeg
IRL Time of death: 19 April 2008 13:55 CET
Okay, I admit I fudged the spell roster of Dorella a bit, instead of lightning bolt she had Fireball, but I think that's an acceptable change... :-)
May the souls of these brave adventurers rest in peace forever!
Rhavin has a good point. You shouldn't judge the Paizo community by looking at this particular subset of the forums. Before you really turn your back on Paizo products you should at least take a good look for example at the Rise of the Runelords threads where you could see just how creative and helpful this community is when the subject is not the new edition. :-) I'm sure that the positivity you find there would easily balance the negativity you found here and were offended by. And when these two "poles" are balanced you should maybe reevaluate your decision of not buying Paizo products which - rest assured - are downright awesome.
Thanks Watcher for sharing those maps. I couldn't help but notice that they were made using a software called dundjinni, so I googled it and man it is an awesome program! I was looking for just something like this. You see I hate it when the adventure needs to stop for minutes while I'm drawing on the battle mat the room our bold adventuring party just entered. And then wet-erase and redraw the whole room again when I realize that due to some miscalculated number of squares, the room ended up 5 squares "below" a corridor it was supposed to connect with. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. :-) So I was trying to create player maps using the wonderful MS-Paint program and then print out the result in 1" scale, so I can just put the map on the battlegrid, place the minis and away we go. However as you might guess MS-Paint is ... well let's just say it's not quite designed to do this. So I'm very excited to find this program called dundjinni, which seems to have been created just for this very purpose. While with the trial version I couldn't do such a cool map as the ones done by Watcher, I still managed to draw the outlines of Fort Rannick, lvl 2 as a practice. It looks ugly and there are no doors or whatever, but still, someone might find it useful, so I'm putting it up on my website here free of charge, and umm, like Copyleft - All rights reversed. There that should do it, please do not send me money if you use it. :-) Anyway if I manage to cough up 40 bucks for the full-version dundjinni software and doing something like this is really okay, then there might be more of these player maps coming from me in the future, provided I can overcome my general laziness and manage to avoid my boss seeing what I'm doing on a company computer during office hours :-)
1) Do you plan to convert to the new edition of D&D?
2) If Paizo converts its RPG products to 4.0, how will that affect your purchasing patterns for our products?
3) If Paizo does not convert its RPG products to 4.0, how will that affect your purchasing patterns for our products?
1) Yes.
2) No change. My subscription to Pathfinder will continue.
3) Most likely, no change. I've subscribed to Pathfinder, because I'm kinda lazy and I hate designing modules. Pathfinder adventure path modules are well-designed and ready for DMing right out of the book. So, given that I'm planning on changing to 4e, there will be a problem, since I won't be able to DM those modules without involving some conversion. Therefore I'll most likely look for another publisher that might supply me with modules for 4e. While I'm looking for this mythical "another publisher" I'll most likely not cancel my ongoing Pathfinder subscription, because I'm lazy and I would spend that money on pizza anyway, which is not my idea of a better investment. So after I've looked a little and then some more, I'll most likely find out that there isn't any publisher on the scene even remotely close to what Paizo is doing now. And WOTC will simply not be able to publish monthly such quality modules as Paizo, I just don't think that it will happen. I think that it holds true for modules that will be published in the digital Dungeon magazine, too. So at that point in time, I'll just say, well, screw it, and continue to use the Pathfinder modules just for the story elements and either convert the necessary statblocks myself or just use 4e monsters / NPCs instead of the ones as written in the Pathfinder books. Also, I'm fairly sure that I won't have to do any conversion by myself anyway because I'll just need to hop on the Paizo messageboards and there will be a gazillion conversions for each Pathfinder module probably mere days after the .pdf hits the subscribers' inboxes.
I think I'm having this problem in my group as well. My players are kind of neglecting the details. For example in Foxglove Manor there is the room where the paintings on the wall show the previous owners of the house. One of my PCs said "okay I wipe off the cobwebs from one of the pictures". Cheering inside I eagerly described Kasanda Foxglove and prepared for the haunt when all the paintings are revealed. Instead what was the reaction of the group? "Okay let's move to the next room." Mmmmmmkay. So anyway they found the clue leading to Magnimar but I think they not quite "get it", though for me, Handout 2 could not be more revealing even if it would read in big red letters: "The next step of the adventure is in Magnimar, Foxglove Townhouse". Anyway what I'm going to do to get them rolling is when they get back to Sandpoint, Sheriff Hemlock would like a detailed briefing from them, explaining their progress with the murders. Obviously when Hemlock hears about the letter, he will immediately suggest that it would be good to tie up this loose end, so the clueless deputies should go check the Foxglove townhouse in Magnimar.
What is the consequences of burning down Foxglove Manor without first exorcising it (according to p.39)? Is the curse still broken, or is it just limited to the area underground?
I would say that the curse is not broken, it is still in full force underground.
Also in this topic there are some cool suggestions for the house burning given by Mr. Jacobs.
I'm going to run The Skinsaw Murders soon and I have a question about the manor house. I like to plan ahead for worst case scenarios my PCs could come up with and one thing I thought is what happens if the PCs come to the manor house, check things out from the outside and they just decide to follow the example set by the ruined outbuilding, take some torches and set the whole thing on fire without ever stepping inside? Will it not break the module, since the clues to continue are inside the house?
Heh. the same thought jumped in my head as I read the Misgivings section. Gonna hafta find a workaround for that very possible circumstance.
The only thing I've come up with so far is that the second someone reaches for a torch, a lightning strikes through the clouds and there begins a downpour of massive proportions lasting for at least a week. :-)
I'm going to run The Skinsaw Murders soon and I have a question about the manor house. I like to plan ahead for worst case scenarios my PCs could come up with and one thing I thought is what happens if the PCs come to the manor house, check things out from the outside and they just decide to follow the example set by the ruined outbuilding, take some torches and set the whole thing on fire without ever stepping inside? Will it not break the module, since the clues to continue are inside the house?
be creative and make Falcon's Hollow the next town over from Sandpoint.
You could certainly do that... although there aren't many kobolds living in Varisia at all, and there was never enough dwarves living in the region to have a minor deity like Droskar have much of a presence, so you'll end up having to fudge a few more things than locations if you put Falcon's Hollow right next to Sandpoint.
I just run the module where it is and I guess I'll figure something out when I get the pdf to explain why the PCs suddenly need to travel from one end of the world to the other end to Sandpoint. :-) BTW "D0 - Hollow's Last Hope" was well received by my players, it was just right for lvl 1, nice work there Paizo.
And on another note, I find the level of communication between the Paizo staff and us, customers awesome. I think that there are very few companies out there where the editor-in-chief would chip in on such a minor topic as this. :-)
I hope someone in the know might be able to answer this question. On Saturday this week I'll have a campaign to start and I was planning on starting it with the first Pathfinder module of course. :-) Anyway since the pdf is not up yet, I think I might need to initiate Plan B, which would be the running of the adventure D0 Hollow's Last Hope (actually it also happens to be my last hope of successfully starting the campaign). So I was thinking along the lines of running this adventure and then send the PCs to Sandpoint. However some information would be nice to have on the distance between Sandpoint and Falcon's Hollow. Are these two locations a world apart or not too far to each other? That would be an important tidbit to know because if they are very far, I'd need to devise some unconventional method of travel like accidentally falling into a gate, flying there on the back of a black dragon, while the PCs are miniaturized so the dragon doesn't notice them or somesuch. But if the two communities are closer, a simple merchant caravan might also do the trick. So if anyone has insights into this, please don't hold it back. :-)
I'm not sure that I'm posting this in the right place but this forum seemed to be most fitting for my question.
There are some web-based services where you can (for a certain fee of course) download various magazines in a digital version and read on your computer an exact copy of the actual printed magazine. There is also an option to subscribe to the digital version. I'm not sure if mentioning the name of such a service constitutes as some kind of advertisement, so I'm not going to name it. Anyway I think this is a very convenient method of subscribing to a magazine, you miss nothing because the digital copy is absolutely the same as the paper one, there is no chance of your copy getting lost in the mail or anything.
So, my question would be: is the Paizo staff considering in the near or not so near future to issue Dungeon and/or Dragon magazines in a digital format like I described above?
Thanks for any responses and I do apologize if this kind of topic has already been discussed anywhere on these boards before.
