toxicpie's page

Do angels and other Good outsiders just zip around the Material Plane fighting battles and sorting stuff out? Do they have a "life" as such? Like do they argue or have to work the land? Or toil to build their temples? If not, how is produce harvested, how are buildings built? I suppose as immortals they don't need sustenance, but do they not feast and make merry?

How about the petitioners? Do they just wander round in eternal bliss or do they have something meaningful to do?

Thanks for any answers/conjecture you have! :)

Starting a level 5 module, and I'm playing a black blade magus using a katana, so I won't have to spend the money (10,500gp) on weapons.

So I'd love some ideas on cool magic items to buy!
Thanks! :D

My group prefers levelling up at important milestones in a campaign, such as defeating a Big Bad or reaching a new land. I was wondering, is it possible to do this in Reign of Winter?
If so, where would you place all these milestones in the campaign?
Thanks! :3

After a little discussion with my group, the only argument in favour of the alignment system that seemed to come out strongly was that they help a player to easily decide what the character should do in a given situation. A simplistic example would be, upon seeing some beggars: "what do I do? Well, as there is a G written down, I should probably give them money or help them in some way", or "well it says N, so I wouldn't care, so I walk on by".
This is all well and good, I suppose, but I was thinking wouldn't this purpose be much better served by writing down, say, 5 adjectives that describe your character's personality instead?
For example, my tiefling warpriest is not just CG, he's Brave, Just, Open-minded, Reckless and Disdainful of the Privileged. That shows his good qualities, a thing he needs to work on (recklessness) and also a deep character flaw which allows for expansion of backstory. Being genuinely open-minded and accepting towards savage orcs or criminals (as he himself has been a victim of racism and stereotyping, as a tiefling) is all well and good, but he shows himself to be hypocritical if he immediately assumes all the rich are greedy and vain.
So as you can see doing this forces a player to think more deeply about the character's personality and flaws while also still being able to be used as a "quick guide" to "what would my character do here?"

It's an idea I've just come up with, I'm sure other people have thought of other things the same or similar, it's nothing original or innovative. I was going to ask my players to do it upon character creation instead of one of the nine alignments, and then as the GM I would note what I think their alignments would be in secret. So yeah, has anyone else made characters using a similar idea, do you think it has really helped compared to basing your characters' actions just off alignment?

I'm worried the character has to be very MAD, and I only have 15 points to use, as it's for an AP.
He will dual wield kukri, and I was really wanting to get Double Slice, so DEX would need to be 15, on top of the usual decent CON and STR front liners need. WIS is obviously important for Fervour and spells. As a warpriest of Cayden Cailean I also wanted him to be quite charismatic, a guy who's popular at taverns and knows how to have a good time. My GM is a strong believer in roleplaying your actual ability score, so that will cause problems with how I want to play if CHA is too low.
So yeah, a bit stuck, not sure how to make the points spread to fit everything I seem to need. Any help really appreciated!!

I'm really interested in Spheres of Power and it looks like a fantastic alternative to Vancian casting. I will also soon be GMing Reign of Winter, and I thought it would be cool to use Spheres in the AP. Having never used Spheres I was wondering whether you can simply convert the magic-users of the AP to the system and be done with it, or if you have to do a lot of work with CRs and balancing encounters. In other words, is Spheres of Power best used when you can design original encounters, or does it work smoothly with pre-written adventures, too?
Many thanks! :D

The main story arc of this Ancient Greece-inspired campaign will be:
-Players discover the undead are rising
-Hera, queen of the gods, suspects Hades, god of the Underworld, is behind this and sends the PCs to the Great Oracle where they will learn of an ancient prophecy and be granted their first mythic ranks. They travel the land to the Oracle's city encountering fresh undead horrors and destruction to villages and cities on the way.
-The PCs travel to the underworld to confront Hades, but upon breaking into his stronghold find him chained up (the same figure as a chained statue the PCs keep seeing in dreams) by Thanatos, spirit of death, who is in league with the primordial embodiment of Chaos to bring about an end to all things. A recurring villain redeems herself by attacking Thanatos for lying to her about their mission (she thought it would be to create a new order free from the tyranny of the Olympian gods) while the PCs deal with the avatar of Chaos.

So that's that, but I'd like another couple of linked story arcs to keep things interesting. One idea I really want to implement is a large sea voyage, à la the Argonauts, to find the Golden Fleece to really get the Greek mythology theme going. Plus I have some good ideas for what will happen at sea.
BUT, one thing I really can't get round is an idea for why they need the Fleece. Judging from their main task, to stop the undead from destroying the world, this will need to be very important, not like Jason's where it was to prove his kingship. I was thinking it could maybe heal a great swathe of land the undead army had defiled.
Any opinions are very much appreciated, I'm having a bit of writer's block with this one. :)

P.S. No points to whoever spots the Percy Jackson inspiration ;D

Human Oath of Vengeance paladin who is an offensive greatsword user, and I already have Arisen, Power Attack, Furious Focus and Improved Sunder.
This will be the last few sessions so we won't level up again, so no need for feats just to gain entry into other feats.

Thanks for any suggestions! :)

My scores, rolled in order, are 8, 9, 9, 13, 15, 15, and I've decided to take advantage of this by taking aasimar as a race, so Wisdom and Charisma become 17.
I'm unsure on class, as obviously I'm being the face and spellcaster, I'm just not sure the best and most fun class for that. This is an evil campaign, and will involve a lot of subterfuge and political trickery, so a non-blasty spellcaster will be appropriate.

My thoughts were:
Abyssal sorcerer
Dark Tapestry oracle (which could be so cool)
Lore shaman

Not a cleric, because I want to do stuff other than spells, but my character idea was to be a member of an apocalyptic cult, who wishes to destroy as much of the world as possible before the coming of his dark god.
Background I was thinking that he was always rejected because of his weak body and the unfair expectations aasimars have put upon them. So he turned bitter and hateful blablabla evil. If I was an oracle I'd take the lame curse, to augment the crippled nature of his body.

So yeah, any class ideas and build ideas are very much welcome! Cheers!

Bouncing around ideas for a two-man paladin gestalt game, like a buddy cop thing against all the armies of hell, for if, when my friends and I go to university, we can't find more players.

The smallest group in which I've ever played is 4 (plus GM) so I wouldn't know how to adapt things for a much smaller group. Aside from changing the CR, obviously. Though maybe this would be offset slightly by the gestalt. Then again maybe not, due to action economy.

So I was wondering if you had any general advice for running a two-player game? My main worry is how to resolve the issue of if one player drops, half the party and half the skills are gone.
How have you got around this, if at all, in your games?
Have you encountered any other problems a small party brings?

Thanks for any advice and stories! :)

A white dragon appeared from out of the snow, and in the surprise round used its breath weapon. I survived but it blew my swashbuckler's hat, the object of his Attached drawback, off. I couldn't see it, it was buried under snow.
The way the GM and other players ruled it was that I had to find my hat before attacking the dragon, reasoning I'd be too concerned about the hat to be unable to anything but single-mindedly make sure it was safe and back in my possession. That's how we played it and it worked out fine, but I did have my doubts.

Would having this very strong, irrational attachment to your item really make you disregard completely your own life, and that of your comrades? Written down it actually makes more sense that it seemed at the time, but how do you guys play it?

Never played Fate before so I want to make sure my first character is a good 'un.
I have his three aspects and trouble, but I just don't know how to word the high concept to make it useful in-game.

His basic backstory is that he was an angel who got tired of servitude and fell to whatever world we're playing in. He became some sort of gladiator until he got bored of that too, and escaped. So he feels as though he's hunted by both human and celestial forces.
As an angel, he can fly (but he has acrophobia), can shoot beams of light from his hands (but this is unreliable) and can create little balls of floating light.

I envision him as really good at fighting due to his time as a gladiator, and now he's a sort of good-hearted wanderer, relishing freedom and doing whatever takes his fancy, which tends to involve helping others and getting into sticky situations.

I have the trouble Hunted, and my three aspects are Trained In The Coliseum, Rogue's Luck and Divine Blooded.

I'm running a game of Fate soon, but I love the Pathfinder setting and know I can trust Paizo with good quality. So what I've decided to do is buy a Campaign Setting book of a cool region and have my adventure take place there.

I want it to have lots and lots of room for wilderness exploration, hidden artefacts, secret dungeons and ancient mysteries to solve but with places for interesting NPCs with whom the players can interact. Not really glorious crusades and paladins, more a place for good-hearted scoundrels or wary rangers. Hope that makes sense.

I was thinking the River Kingdoms, but I'm not sure if there are many hidden secret locales. Any thoughts much appreciated! :D

So this is a very high-power campaign and the PCs get a lot of high-power goodies to reflect this. My only niggle is working out how much to add on to the APL with this extra stuff, made a bit more confusing by my taking away some stuff.

All players are aasimars (any heritage) with the half-celestial template (minus additional smite evil, the skills per level, and darkvision), human bonus feat racial trait, and halo instead of darkvision (but it only manifests when wings activate). Plus a free random trait from the variant ability table.
Aasimar 15RP
+Flexible bonus feat 4RP
+Variant ability 3RP
22RP

All players are gestalt X/Paladin (any archetype) sans alignment restriction, though BAB, hit dice, saves and weapon and armour proficiencies are decided by X class. Paladin abilities which use CHA, such as smite evil or lay on hands, can use either WIS or CHA, decided at character creation.

They have the ability to grow at-will wings with good (+4) manoeuvrability and a halo (the alternate racial trait), granting a +4 sacred bonus to STR, DEX, CON and CHA or WIS, depending on which was chosen for the paladin abilities. This will, however, have to be used sparingly, as the explosive burst of Good-aligned energy will be like a homing beacon to all evil creatures in the area like "here I am, eat me!"

They also gain the granted powers, but not the spells, of *one* cleric domain granted by their Order, treating their paladin level as their effective cleric level. Clerics thus gain three domains' powers in total. I am in two minds whether to change the uses per day to run off CHA, if that's what the PC chose for their paladin abilities above.

I hope I've explained things clearly enough!
I've heard CR and APL is as much art as science, so I don't know if I just say "err, let's go with +3" and adjust as I see fit throughout the campaign. Hmm.
Any help working this out is really appreciated, thank you!! :3

I'll start by saying this campaign is heavily, heavily based off Judeo-Christian "mythology", but is in no way intended to offend or mock anyone's beliefs. I'm a rather devout Christian myself, but tend to take things regarding my religion with a pinch of salt and so I'm generally unsure what may offend other believers. If I cause any offence with a topic so close to home, you have my absolute sincerest apologies. :)

The basic set-up is angels living and training in Heaven, working on Earth to guide mortals to a greater destiny and protecting them against demons.

There are numerous plot points in the history of my campaign's world, secrets and links that will need to be discovered by the PCs. I know they can be linked together in a nice tapestry of divine deceit, I'm not just sure how. So:

-The Lex Infernus: A contract that Satan signed with the angels allowing him possession of evil souls, evil being defined by consistently committing the Seven Deadly Sins without any remorse. Turned out to be a trick, and Satan had rebuilt his realm into one of relentless suffering, "Hell", and was corrupting mortals on Earth to bring them to Hell. (Straight-up Pact Primeval steal from Golarion.)
Now, part of this deal, is that after the birth of Jesus (it's a Judeo-Christian setting, He has to be in there somewhere. ;D), the Lex was renegotiated and the battles between demons and angels on Earth would remain unseen by mankind, a sort of perception filter deal. I thought this is a cool way to explain why miracles and epic events "happened" in the past, yet nowadays so few occur.
My questions:
*Why did Satan and the devils accept this change in terms? I mean, it's great for them, more fear and bloody devastation = more happy demons. :3
*How is the birth of Jesus involved with this?

-Heaven's Dark Secret- Inspired by the Seventh Accord in Golarion's setting. A really, really evil thing very high-up angels did. My thought was along the lines of this: After Satan offered to take evil souls away from the angels, God refused to let him possess neutral souls. God then created, far from sight, just beyond the horizon as seen from the peak of the Mountain of Heaven, a new land for reborn mortal souls. Here they would toil, sustain themselves and explore, living in as much peace as they themselves chose. There was one condition, however: they must not interact with Heaven, nor go further than their northern borders. For a while both sides were content, until the largest Hellmouth ever known cracked open, destroyed their civilisations and turned the land into what is essentially the Worldwound. The angels reacted quickly and placed wardstones to prevent the demons and daemons from encroaching further on the rest of the Empyrean. Since then they have been fighting a great war, attempting to reach the Hellmouth and close it. All expeditions have thus far failed. Mendevian Crusades yeah! ;D
The dark secret of the angels, I thought, was that the angels opened that Hellmouth on purpose, signing a pact with the infernal dukes to destroy the civilisation. The devils would gain delicious, delicious souls, and the angels would remove the threat of this civilisation, as a few powerful leaders had been demanding, after 2,000 years, entry into the celestial realms.
My questions:
*Is this believable? I was thinking it could be more of a trick on the devils' part, saying they would destroy the civilisation but neglecting to mention they would stay in the land and turn into a blasted, twisted waste. Then again, is that believable? Are the angels really going to fall for another "should have read the fine print"? Maybe tying this further with the Lex Infernus would be nice, I just have no idea how to. :/
*If the above idea doesn't work at all, which I totally get, any other ideas for terrible deals/things the "righteous" may have done? :) Really looking forward to hearing ideas on that one!

-The Order of the Primeval- In Heaven, there are seven churches, or orders, all basically allied, representing a different aspect of God. So, the Ordo Regis (Order of the King) leads Heaven's battles and helps mortals on Earth who wish to fight for righteous ideals. Or the Ordo Viridis (Order of the Green), helping mortals who protect nature.
These are all written up and defined, except for the Order of the Primeval, for which I like the flavour and the domains membership grants, but don't really see a point in it.
Basically it represents everything base and primal about the universe, how existence was before and just after God created the heavens and the earth. It grants domains of the four elements, the void, scalykind, chaos, darkness, sun and luck.
My question:
*But really, why does this exist? What purpose can this Order possibly serve on Earth, when their time is, almost by definition, passed?

Thank you for reading all that; I know it's a lot. Looking forward to hearing any ideas or pointers to other sources of inspiration. Just say if you need me to provide any more information regarding the setting. :)

For some reason I'm really stuck with this one!

Do any of you guys have a process in your heads, like picking out the main themes/locations/motifs and adding another cool-sounding word?

Just in case anyone asks, my campaign is basically angels coming to Earth to stop an attack from Hell, but really just general pointers would be helpful!

Cheers!

The artifact, not the Pathfinder Chronicles book. ;D

I'm really interested the dark secrets of the Upper Planes, which led the good outsiders to seal the Book away. Aside from general stuff like massacres on battlefields and pacts with demons for the "greater good", do we have any more detail on specific events where the angels committed terrible deeds?

Any info would be really helpful, as an upcoming campaign of mine will feature this exact thing. :)

Before launching into my high-powered main campaign, I want to run the (most probably new) players through some modules so they better understand their power level in the large homebrew campaign and in the case of new players, learn the rules.

However, a lot of the start of APs like Burnt Offerings or Howl of the Carrion King look really fun as standalone adventures, too, so I wondered how many sessions on average does a single part take to play through?

It's only a small thing, but has there been an edition published of Princes of Darkness with "Pathfinder Campaign Setting" on the cover, rather than "Pathfinder Chronicles"?

I just wondered for the sake of uniformity on my shelf haha.

Thanks!

I'll start by saying this campaign is heavily, heavily based off Judeo-Christian "mythology", but is in no way intended to offend or mock anyone's beliefs. I'm a rather devout Christian myself, but tend to take things regarding my religion with a pinch of salt and so I'm generally unsure what may offend other believers. If I cause any offence with a topic so close to home, you have my absolute sincerest apologies. :)

So, in my campaign the players play as angels on Earth, agents of the hierarchy of Heaven, God being a sort of omnipotent, omnibenevolent but unknowable force somewhere up there. He guides and answers prayers in, yes, mysterious ways, and most importantly to the game itself, is the only being aside from Satan able to bestow spells upon His celestial worshippers.

However, I can't really think how this will work. I mean, in a polytheistic setting the god of nature can give clerics (for example) magic concerning water, growth, animals etc.
But with, ya know, God, shall I just say He gives ALL domains to whoever wants it? It just seems a bit unsatisfying and... Theme-less? I could split Him into different "aspects" and say "this one is for all aspects of battle, this one for the elements" and so on, but aside from the absolute religious nopes that this entails, having God as separate is just not what God IS, in Christianity or in my setting (let's not get into the Holy Trinity).

So yeah, any ideas with this particular problem?
Again, no offence meant in any way, shape or form, and I would much rather keep all discussion of real-world religion as out of here as possible, unless it's really necessary. Thanks! :D

So in my (relatively) upcoming campaign the players will be angels on Earth, combatting threats to mortals like vampires and demons. The work is secret and mortals (aside from a select few) are totally unaware. I suppose it's quite a common trope, like the Mist in the Percy Jackson series, altering mortals' perception of events.

Has anyone done something like this in one of their campaigns? I need a reason whythis world is kept secret, how it's kept secret and to think up a system the angels and unearthly defenders have developed to explain away devastation caused by mass demonic attacks and the like.

Looking forward to hearing the board's suggestions, you've never let me down yet! :D

In my next campaign the players will be angels who have come down to Earth to solve a plot to bring about the apocalypse and kick some ass. Righteously.

They will all play paladin gestalt characters (any archetype), but my only niggle is the extent of the paladin side. Keeping the BAB, saves, HD and proficiencies would probably encourage full spellcasters and mean fighters and other full-BAB class would be far less attractive, while I'd like to give every other class even worth, if you like. My solution was to keep pally class skills and (obviously) class features, but the other aspects decided solely by the other side of the gestalt. So a wizard/paladin would have d6 hit die, half BAB etc, as well as the features from both classes.

Do you feel this way would work, or is there another way to give every class even (as much as possible, anyway) worth while gestalting with a paladin?

I've never been in a game with even firearms before, but I'll be playing in a short Christmas campaign soon so I'd thought I'd give something different a go. We're starting at level 5, so I'll have 10,500 gold to play with.
Any good builds, weapons or magic items I should know about?

Thanks a lot!!

Players fighting a large graven guardian with reach. One thinks that charging does not provoke an attack of opportunity after going through the opponent's first threatened square. He's probably right, he's far better at the rules than me, but I can't see where it says this in the charge section of the CRB.

Any help appreciated!

Human Warpriest
STR 18
DEX 15
CON 14
INT 10
WIS 14
CHA 8

1: Two Weapon Fighting, Double Slice
2: [bonus] Weapon Focus (kukri)
3: Improved Initiative, [bonus] Dodge
4:
5: Dual Enhancement

I thought it would be a cool idea to capitalise on sacred weapon's damage by using a scimitar and kukri for all those sweet sweet crits.

I'd appreciate any advice on the attributes, feats and in particular the blessings as I'm unsure what to choose for those.

Cheers!

The character was raised in a small barbarian tribe who worshipped dragons as their creators, rather than naga. The tribe was incredibly isolated and rather xenophobic, and believed they were the only nagaji in existence. The character is adventuring because the tribe was destroyed (possibly by dwarves who wanted to kill the dragons the nagaji viewed as their protectors) and he is the only survivor and thus thinks he is the last of his race.
I like the dragon part because the character is a bloodrager/dragon disciple and it should be fun if he runs into other nagaji and can come to terms with the fact there are others like him.

My only problem is that it's too cliché in the "last of his race" thing. I mean that's almost so unoriginal as to be laughable. Any help with that?

Also other considerations like how to roleplay a character who's never seen humans before would be appreciated! :D

More specifically, does the bloodrager's Draconic bloodline stack with dragon disciple levels for the purpose of the Blood of Dragons ability, as the sorcerer's do?

Err, hope I've worded that right.

Dragon (10 RP)
A dragon is a reptilian creature with magical or unusual abilities. A dragon race has the following features:
Dragons have the darkvision 60 feet racial trait.
Dragons have the low-light vision racial trait.
Dragons are immune to magical sleep effects and paralysis effects.
Dragons breathe, eat, and sleep.

I tried making one with magus-fighter but with my system mastery game is weak and I could only complete it at level 15. I think.

Any way to get the feat tree finished earlier?

Are there any nations/cities/schools that train their warriors or knightly caste to ride and bond with dragons, as described in the SSG dragonrider class?

If my GM allows, I was thinking of building a dragonrider character but was wondering where on Golarion his backstory could be set. Of course, I can always go with the Eragon egg-found-in-the-woods deal.

Like I had an idea the fighter might be a bit more appealing if he had some way to perform well in social encounters. As if he exudes so much confidence in his skills and abilities he has a sort of personal magnetism that attracts people to him, maybe so much so he can be a "face" character.

Maybe this is a stupid idea. Just something I thought of, I'd love anyone's opinions on whether this is a good/bad idea or the actual crunch of this feature. A scaling bonus like Bravery, perhaps?

My first real one was tonight. We (I am a paladin of the king's elite guard) have been exiled by/had to flee from a rebellious faction, believed to be loyal to the king (only we know the truth), on false charges. So our families are in incredible danger including my character's wife.

We got to a new lost city which knows of ours' existence, and I'm trying desperately to find anyone who can smuggle my wife out of the city. I guess as tension's were running high, and the bard got a bit sick of it he exclaimed, "Forget it! You're wife's dead and her pretty head's on a spike!"
I shouted, he called her a whore.

Backhanded him. With spiked gauntlets. So wish it was a crit. I took about half his hit points.

We sort of made up though, shook hands and I used Lay on Hands after he apologised. It was fun, interesting start to my paladin's gradual descent into being more ruthless and more accepting of bending the law to get the job done, or doing what needs to be done.

In the module, the players meet by being guards for a trader, who is then discovered smuggling as arrested. The PCs get free lodgings by a kindly owner of an inn, and that's when the PCs introduce themselves.

But it doesn't really make sense to me to introduce themselves here, as if they've already been travelling together you'd assume they'd have talked before. (Also they're all new players so I want to give them a simple first encounter with bandits.)

So how would you go about getting the smuggler to acquire their services in the first place, that's not meeting in a tavern?

But using a lower hit point total than average to up the lethality on both sides. So, maybe using one point lower than is given on the PFS table for hit points. Which if I'm not mistaken is d6- 4, d8- 6, d10- 8, d12- 10, after the full at level one, adding the CON mod as usual.

Would something like this work? Or would it disadvantage full arcane casters too much who don't get a lot of hit points to start with?

How do you do it? Is it one per level up, so choosing just one skill rank, hit point or either class's bonus? Or do you choose two, so you could have two extra hit points per level?

Like a compilation of every map created, detailing every nation and region in Golarion?

If not, are there any known plans for something like this to be created?

Planning to run this straight after Dragon's Demand, as the levels run into each other nicely, and they're very conveniently set geographically close.
I can't seem to find where they end up level-wise, though I'd guess somewhere around level 9, judging by the final encounter?

Backstory is that he is an escaped gladiator slave. This works really well with swashbuckler, due to the combat side and the flashy manoeuvre side, a high charisma pleasing the crowd etc.
However I don't know what gladiator-like weapon I can use that will still have the high crit range and one-handed/light qualities a swashbuckler needs.

Apart from that, any advice on my first Society character? Feats, attributes, anything really!

For stats I thought:
STR 12
DEX 18 (+2 from Human)
CON 14
INT 10
WIS 7
CHA 15

Feat Level One: Weapon Focus (???)
Bonus feat: Slashing Grace

Any suggestions much appreciated!

Soon I'll be using a reskinned (Ancient Greek) Skinsaw Murders adventure path for my campaign, and I know at some point the players go to Magnimar.
Now, in my game the players (and the Skinsaw events) are in a nice little city called Pōtama, ruled by a kind and just king. This city's refusal to take part in slave raids is making things tense with a huge, militaristic slaving city which they have a loose alliance with, part of a larger League. Think Sparta. One player, a member of the tribe seen as sub-human in Not Sparta has good reason to hate the city, and has already sworn to serve the king of Pōtama against Lakeros if need be.

What I thought would be cool is if the players go to this Magnimar/Not Sparta needing something from the King, and the only way to get it is by helping him take Pōtama. Obviously, I hope, but if not, ah well, the players will refuse. Meaning they need another way to take the item. I'll leave that up to them.
This is happening against a backdrop of rising undead (which have never existed before) and arcane magic becoming stronger and more prevalent, which is outlawed and punishable by death.

I'm having trouble setting this up. What item should it be? It has to be something incredibly important for the PCs to want to risk their lives for. Maybe a god instructs them to get it (they've been having odd dreams lately), in preparation for when they become Mythic. And it will have to be set up and alluded to right through the adventure path so as to not feel tacked on.

Any suggestions would be awesome.

Soon I'll be using a reskinned (Ancient Greek) Skinsaw Murders adventure path for my campaign, and I know at some point the players go to Magnimar.
Now, in my game the players (and the Skinsaw events) are in a nice little city called Pōtama, ruled by a kind and just king. This city's refusal to take part in slave raids is making things tense with a huge, militaristic slaving city which they have a loose alliance with, part of a larger League. Think Sparta. One player, a member of the tribe seen as sub-human in Not Sparta has good reason to hate the city, and has already sworn to serve the king of Pōtama against Lakeros if need be.

What I thought would be cool is if the players go to this Magnimar needing something from the King, and the only way to get it is by helping him take Pōtama. Obviously, I hope, but if not, ah well, the players will refuse. Meaning they need another way to take the item. I'll leave that up to them.

I'm having trouble setting this up. What item should it be? It has to be something incredibly important for the PCs to want to risk their lives for. Maybe a god instructs them to get it (they've been having odd dreams lately), in preparation for when they become Mythic. And it will have to be set up and alluded to right through the adventure path so as to not feel tacked on.

Any suggestions would be awesome.

The PCs are following kidnapper's tracks and end up at a cave. In the cave is a teleport... Thing, like an obelisk (but small, it's in a cave) guarded by a graven guardian. The teleport thing transports anyone off the island to the foot of a mountain range, in to which the kidnappers have taken their victims. So the graven guardian kills any innocent who stumbles in, but it doesn't make much sense for the magic-learned enemies to not hide their gateway.

Any suggestions for creating wards which would realistically drive away passers-by, non-suspiciously, but the players would be able to break through, perhaps some sort of puzzle. I'm totally stumped, any suggestions appreciated!

Writing my campaign and after the first dungeon, where the PCs save a load of kidnapped villagers, they are treated a heroes by the city. I am then launching straight into the Skinsaw Murders, as the king tells them about two murdered men with strange marks cut into their chests. Strange marks the PCs have seen on a dead body while tracking the kidnappers...
Anyhoo, I've realised that in my city, aside from the king, possibly the guard captain (Sheriff Hemlock) and the multitude townspeople who owe them their lives, I don't have an NPC for the players to get really friendly with, so they'll actually care about saving the city on a more personal level.

I was thinking the jolly tavern owner (of course), giving them free drinks and such, any other ideas?
Two PCs have a friend they traveled with who was taken by an evil wizard. I was thinking of having him from the city, maybe get the PCs to interact with his family and become good friends?

For example, the troll with "2 claws +8 (1d6+5)". Does this mean it has two separate attacks made as a full-round action, or this attack is done with two claws but is just a normal attack?

If the latter, why does the skeleton have options for " claw –3 (1d4+1) or 2 claws +2 (1d4+2)", when it is clearly always a better option to go for two claws?
And, actually, how does attacking with two claws give the skeleton an attack bonus, I would have thought the penalties would worsen, like with two-weapon fighting.

Thank you!

After two threads and a lot of fantastically helpful replies, I have decided I am playing a stealthy elven cutthroat slayer who fights with an elven curve blade (houseruled to one hand) and a kukri. This campaign is low-magic, low gold, set in a war-torn city environment (Isger) with a lot of enemies stronger than us so sabotage and stealth is the name of the game.

My stats are 15, 16, 12, 10, 12, 8. (Thanks, Mergy!)
My HP is 31.

My skills are Acrobatics +10, Bluff +4, Disguise +3, Heal +6, Knowledge (local) +5, Linguistics +4, Perception +8, Sense Motive +6, Sleight of Hand +7 and Stealth +9.

I'll be wearing either chain shirt or lamellar (leather) armour.

We start at level 3, and my feats so far are exotic weapon proficiency (curve blade, elven) (to wield it one-handed) and two-weapon fighting.
Next level I'll take terrain mastery (urban) for the slayer talent.

Now I don't know where to go from here. I don't know whether to focus on stealth, as the other players seem to be doing, or on my dual weapon fighting in case we get found and need to fight our way out, as I'm probably the only player who'll be somewhat good at that.

I understand that these feats may not be the most optimal choices, but no one else will be hard optimising (they're actually quite against the idea) so I should be okay, plus they're necessary for the image I had in mind.

All ideas re: feats and stat boosts and talents appreciated. :)
Many thanks!

A short sword with 19-20/x2 and 1d6 damage, or a kukri with 18-20/x2 and 1d4 damage?
This is a low magic setting so I think things like keen are out the window, but I could get Improved Critical at level 9 (playing a slayer).
One of these will be my light weapon for TWF.

Thanks!

In my campaign, set in Ancient Greece, arcane magic is outlawed, but arcanists still exist, it's just punishable by death and everyone thinks they're evil.

In the first bit of my campaign, people start going missing. PCs trace them to a mountain and find the dead have risen, something never heard of before.
Everyone will assume it's the arcanists who are behind this, and I'm going to let them think that for a while. It's actually Thanatos, spirit of death, who's teamed up with primordial Chaos and they're framing Hadēs, but anyway.
After the PCs return to the city and inform the king, I'd like to start the Skinsaw AP, but reskinned with different enemies. What I'm asking, is how do you think I should make the first bit flow into the AP, and what additions/subtractions should I take away from the AP? Any ideas welcome!

One thing I'll do is have some cultists/arcanists in the undead mountain dungeon wear runes of Hadēs, but inverted, which only a very good knowledge of religion with reveal. This is sort of a spiteful thing to Hadēs, like "yeah we imprisoned you and now we're warping your holy symbol". I'm using that instead of the Runelord star thing.
An addition I'm going to make will be dreams of Hera, queen of the gods, leaving odd gifts and dreams for the PCs to guide them, in preparation for her becoming their mythic benefactor later on. She can't reveal herself fully as Zeus, king of the gods, has banned contact with mortals until the crisis is over.

Two of the PCs' backstory includes a kidnapped friend, taken by an evil wizard, with a magic pendant. So it looks like I should fit in the friend somewhere in there too.

Any ideas appreciated, I don't yet know much about the AP, aside from a rough idea of its plot; I'm going to have a good read tomorrow, but any pointers would be much appreciated. :)

For a city/rebellion/sabotaging/sneaky campaign?

The skills swapped are obviously going to be much more commonly used and far more effective.

But I'll have to wait another level to get terrain mastery, and in a campaign where I imagine most of the enemies are human, the opportune target ability won't be that useful.

Also stab and grab, unless I'm missing something, I could just, you know, steal the enemy's items when they're dead or unconscious anyway.

What would you say?