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It's the idea I'm more leaning toward. Several of the people would rather I run something, but my ideas are not popping up, and like I said, as much as I like mi-to-higher level games, I can't come up with much for "general challenges" to throw at them, in between the the more scripted "this is the bad guy you need to stop now", or "this is the place that MIGHT hold the secret to what's going on, and/or what you might do to stop it." They'll be a bit pissed, especially after 3+ weeks of planning for this to be their game, but I think they'll be happier, in the long run, and I won't have to put up with certain crap I have no interest in. Will beat it around till Saturday, then let them know what's up.

Thanks folks for your thoughts. Have a good one.

I'm sort of being roped into GMing a game, and before I decide that one or two of the players are going to make me want to quit that, I thought I'd ask for some advice. I hate lvl 1 games, and am scheduling to run a lvl 9 game, which I significantly prefer, minus one point; I need some ideas of good 9th level challenges. Bandits? They are bringing a loan to the party. Pack of wild animals? Hey guys, they brought us hats. I have 2 magi, a rogue, a ranger, a wizard, and a monk, with a few cheese-options among them, and am not sure what general challenges to throw at them, as I figure out what Elf vs Human world they are going to be in. Any good encounter ideas would be appreciated; otherwise, I might just let someone else run their lvl 1 3.5 game, and dodge the responsibility. Thank you ahead of time.

I think the plan I will go with is he can have the Amulet of Mighty Fists, and as it can have up to +5, I'll let him get the Holy he wants it to have, and up to +3 atk/dam enhancement. One item, both effects he wants, no dispelling the Permanency spell, and not quite the atk boost. I'm not a big fan of monks, personally, and I let him take the class somewhat begrudgingly. With the rest of the party, I don't need him having an additional +5 atk, on top of the good atk progression, and flurry. Here's hoping he'll agree (lots of choice ;) )

Thank you everyone for your input, and please have a good one?

Thank you, everyone. For the purposes of the act, I might just have him buy a scroll of Magic Fang, and have the shop-wizard plot device it that he transfers the magic to the monk, or something, and then does permanency; on the whole, it isn't going to hurt my feelings if I cheat this one thing, and it never comes up, again. I suppose he just wants to be cool, like the rest, who will have magic gear, trinkets, and stuff. I think Monks are often that enough, without gear, but I'm open to allowing it, this time, as a test. Knowing how much they'd need to pay the wizard, to figure it out of the starting gold, was the biggie. Again, thanks everyone for helping me out. ;)

I think the end plan will involve paying a wizard x gp to have the power of a potion of +5 greater magic fang made permanent on him and then he'll wrap up with an amulet of mighty fist containing the holy enchantment. I'm going to peruse books later tonight, and make sure I'm not doing something dumb, but it's a 9th level game, and I surmise the wizard, the magus, and the rogue, and the ranger will try for their own silliness, so we'll see.

So, I will be running a little game soon, and have an interesting bunch of players/characters. One of them, a monk, wants to spend their starting money on getting a spell permaneced on him, where everyone else is buying weapons, armor, and whatnot. I think it'll be Magic Fang, but I'm not sure. Whether letting the monk become a walking flurry of Holy Avenger is a great idea, or not, is not the big issue; what I'm looking for is how much should my NPC wizard charge to perform the service? I'm not in front of my book, at present, but Permanency is a rather up there spell, and a special one, too. What might be a good going rate for it? Thanks all, and please have a good one?

So, I am thinking of a character type I'd like to build, sort of another for the list of "need something quick" ideas I keep around, and I Want a "tactician" feeling character; someone who makes use of knowledges, and tries to control, or at least limit the enemy, by the battlefield. In the Dragonlance Campaign Setting book, they had the Legendary Tactician PrC, sort of a hyped up Officer, and I really liked using what of it I could pull in, in my last game of D&D. I was also playing Suikoden V recently, and think it would be really cool to get to play a character similar to Lucretia Merces, the very gifted strategist for your force, even though you never really get to "use" her. I frequently play wizards, and I know how they can manipulate the battlefield, but from a more militant, less arcane angl, I'm sort of stuck.

Here's what I know:
* Fighter has a nice Archetype in Ultimate Combat (p.47), that I'd strongly consider.
* Bard has good skills, and group buffing, if only for so much of a day.
* Cavalier, from APG (p.32) has a leader feel.
* Battle Herald (APG p.260) seems like my PrC of choice, if I got that far.

Here's my perceived dilemmas:
* The first chunks of Tactician Archetype are cool, but the good stuff is sort of late.
* Bard works, but it's a bit short-duration.
* I was preferring Fighter over Cavalier, even though Cavalier had more of the stuff just built into it.
* Battle Herald is a PrC, which is a bit later/higher level than I often see, and while this PrC is not as bad as some, it requires Cavalier and Bard, which further hedges out Fighter.

My biggest issue is probably something I'll be hard-pressed to do anything about; the level. As much as I like playing high-level games, when I play in them, lower level is often more the norm, and they flop before we get too close to the double digits.

So, if I want to play a character who will feel like they have a tactical knowledge of the area, remembering details from prior battles there that others wouldn't, and enhancing a decent group of people's ability (it doesn't have to be a whole army; most games still focus most on the player group), what direction should I go? If it's just a "you can't get what you want before level 12" scenario, some ideas of what parts to focus on, and I can pick up the other bits later, would be cool, too. If I missed anything obvious, or in a book I don't have (have Core, APG, UM, UC, ACG, and some monster/NPC stuff), I'd also like to know of it. Sometimes, I go looking for something like "tactician", and if I don't see it, but there's something that one could interpret as that, say you took some of the flair out of Bard, but got the same results, I might've missed/overlooked it.

Thanks much for any assistance, and please have a good one.

Points taken, and much appreciated. ;)

In the story example, Vedra Tae'Vareth (the drow) is a young elf, and a bit conflicted, as she has made a new "friend" of a slave who is, while no saint, also no monster, and she is a young drow, still, so she isn't quite the callous demon her mother might be, or other non-Drizzts; this leaves that hint of worry, both in Matron Mother Tae'Vareth, and the Spider Queen, that her new, close friend might try to lead her away from her destiny, and the young priestess, unaccustomed to "friends", might waver, wanting to keep this new commodity. Elistraee is also sort of involved. After some particularly potent deeds on behalf, Lolth "tests" her up and coming servant with a small test on par with her potential future as a Matron Mother, and orders her to send him away; not kill him, but send him off, and accept that he's gone. She does, but then she questions why she did. She's always served her goddess, even taken a duergar city, in her name, and her "reward" is to be forced to lose something she values, to "put her master's mind at ease." Being a bit selfish, and accustomed to getting her own way, Vedra then questions what all her efforts have been for, if her goddess will only reward them with suffering. MM Tae'Vareth is the most Vulcan drow ever, and so not the most helping; she saw the point in it.

Again, it's at least as much a case of my potentially terrible, corny writing, as anything else, but that's where it is. In the end, I sort of plan to have the Spider Queen "relent"; Vedra has never had to show her personal fortitude before, and while disobedience is frowned upon, someone who might stand up to their own wicked goddess can probably be counted on to hold to the prescribed course, no matter what else someone there says, or does.

On a side not, minusing one weird source, drider-state has NEVER been a reward; it is always the punishment, being made a mockery of both Drow and spider, but not a perfect either one. And now, it is time for bed, as work will soon be upon me. Thanks again, everyone, for your thoughts and opinions, they were a great help.

Don't know, a good deity might make you/trick you into feeling important, trusting you with important things, while the evil one will make you/trick you into feeling worthless, amusing themselves with your suffering, like you are anyone else in the world. Proving loyalty is one thing, but being screwed with, just so she can say "yes, I did that, and you went along. Tomorrow, you will, again" seems like a stupid religion to follow. Suppose I'm looking at it from the outside perspective; there are about a half-dozen real-life religions I could name, none of which I am a member of, that I could look at and say "they expect you to what?" or "what do you mean you can't ______?"; I see some of their strictures as odd, others as downright stupid, but don't have the indoctrinated aspect to say "it's not a question of right or wrong; it's just how it always has been, and always will be."

Part of it could also be the silly shoe-horning of the story in question, but I hesitate to blab about it here, as it is a bit ridiculous, and also, I might just keep typing. The scenario in question might not even normally develop the way it did; it had to, in this case, because of how I arrayed the characters, before I started writing.

All that said, the cleric in question does get a lot of perks from Lolth, including clerical powers, the gear that comes from being future ruler/high priestess of a city, the entirety of the system that is her House, and such. Thanks all for your ideas.

As long as I've been doing this, this will sound like a noob question, but it rarely comes up in my D&D/PF games, so I haven't really had to deal with it, though it figures into a story I'm working on, so now I must tackle it.

There are good deities, and there are evil deities, and both must have people, for one reason or another, worship them, and have clerics who preach their words, and grow their power further. How important to said evil deity are their better clerics? Many works show them being short with even their most potent, devout worshipers, and for the smallest infractions. I get that arrogance and jerkiness are actually sort of a facet of their being; it is how they MUST act, in some ways, and they don't want to appear as if they are anything less than immensely above all others, but still.

Lets say, for example, that you are a drow, and that means, barring copyright, you serve a particular spider-themed deity. Now, she is, in some respects, a cruel, capricious deity, and she will gladly play her followers against one another, with potentially lethal results, just for the fun of watching it. I get what she gets out of it; a combination of entertainment (she is a total b***h, sometimes, and also a culling of her "weaker" servants, so only the best serve her, and it is how drow live, but what does the cleric in question get out of being a goddess's unwilling plaything? I'm a powerful priestess, and used to lording my power over the many slaves in my underground city, toying with the mind flayers, duergar, and other dark denizens of that fungus-filled place; I am NOT fond of anyone jerking me around, in turn.

The good deities have an advantage, in that they may let you live your own life, grant you power, and when you occasionally ask them to, they will come to your aid; it's a beneficial system, in both directions, but what about the evil deities? Am I just to let this goddess, whose power is in some way dependent on my faith, in addition to the many others who worship her, mess with me, like I'm no more important than dirt, even after I have devoted my life to her service, or what? How do I feel valued when I can be so flippantly discarded? Perhaps said goddess WOULDN'T play these games, but I can see this particular one doing so; she tests her faithful eventually, and those who fail become driders. Why would I tolerate this behavior, or am I imagining behavior where it wouldn't be?

Thoughts and ideas would be appreciated. Thanks much.