A player of mine wants to build a character using the Panther Style feat tree (links at the end of this post). His interpretation of the feat tree leads him to think that by the time he has all three feats he could, upon being opportunity attacked by a foe, make a number of unarmed strikes up to his Wisdom modifier in response. This could then be repeated among multiple foes up to a maximum number of attacks per round equal to his Wisdom modifier. While I do think the feat could be interpreted this way based on how the text is read, my interpretation is different. Rather than getting multiple attacks in response to an AOO, the response is always a single unarmed strike and this can be made in response to a number of separate AOOs equal to his Wisdom modifier.
I don't quite know in which direction to lean in this case, as while I do think it's more rational to go with my interpretation (which could very well just be a case of personal bias), I do think his interpretation holds water. At the moment I'm ruling that for every unarmed strike he makes beyond the first one in response to a single AOO, he takes a cumulative -1 penalty on all attacks for that retaliation. At the moment I'm fairly content to leave it at this until I deem it to be a problem for gameplay, but I'm curious to know what the general consensus on the feat tree's wording is.
due to our general dislike of the labyrinth system
Now I'm wondering if he's even running the labyrinth system correctly. Just FYI, the basic way it's supposed to go:
Group wanders through the maze for some period of time. There is a skill check with a fairly high DC. If you make it, choose where to go next. Otherwise, roll on a table and go to a random spot.
My group had a slayer who could make the skill checks on a 1 so they navigated the maze pretty easily, but we were using mythic which obviously helps.
That's how he ran the system. The DCs were too high for us to beat, however, so we had to make a deal with Asmodeus to proceed. Now we're in the Ineluctable Prison, and it's been a lot of random wandering into rooms where we're always surprised no matter what we do because "it's an Abyssal Hell Maze, it's not supposed to be easy or fun."
We're not upset at him abut the labyrinth part. It's just putting us all in a bit of a crabby mood. That puts him in a crabby mood, and then there's a whole aura of negativity.
As avr said: Bloodline Mutations, particularly Blood Havoc for +1 damage per die rolled on bloodline spells and spells from schools you have Spell Focused.
Then you pick up the Crossblooded Archetype and take the Orc Bloodline for another +1 damage per die rolled. Combine this with the Dragon Bloodline Arcana for a total of +3 damage per die rolled, which on Lightning Bolt (and any other d6 damaging spell) doubles your average damage.
I was checking, just because I'm going to use a modified version of automatic bonus progression (all the big six as automatic progression, but weapons and armors are used normally), so I have to remove some gold and items from the adventure to balance that and avoid an inflation of magic items.
So I went and counted the gold in the adventure. Not counting mundane gear, like masterwork weapons and such (which adds a bit, there are several Masterwork weapons at 350gp each), and not counting cheap consumable items like potions and elixirs, because the NPC can use and spend them, I found over 25.000 gp in cash, and over 105.000 gp in magic items. That's more than 130.000gp over the course of the adventure from lvl 4 to lvl 7. For a group of 4 adventures, you'll need 70.000 to cover the WBL gap from lvl 4 to lvl 7. Including the price of consumables and mundane masterwork items, you'll get about twice as much.
Is the game assumption that all magic items found are sold at half price (ie: players don't keep any, always sell and then buy what fits them more), and mundane items aren't plundered, even if they are worth money? Or just that the game assumes PC don't do all encounters and/or don't get all the treasure?
Some combination of the two, I believe. They'll miss some, sell some, keep some and it'll generally work out about right. I believe they've stated the aim is roughly twice the WBL value.
At least in this campaign, adding more treasure than expected is beneficial due to the way treasure is laid out in the next chapter. Even if there are the crazy cool treasures in the Dreamlands, the extra bit of wealth to spend before entering doesn't hurt considering how difficult the encounters are.
It sounds like your GM is doing a good job at making you feel uncomfortable. You're dealing with pure evil, so it shouldn't come as a total shock.
I don't have a problem with feeling uncomfortable about the villains. Like I said, it emotionally charges the players to want to stop the villains for reasons beyond "they're evil and my character hates evil", and that makes it more interesting. The problem is both that my DM is going way too far to the point where it's no longer enjoyable, and even if I wasn't made uncomfortable it's just weak storytelling to me. In my opinion, sexual assault isn't something you need to delve too deeply into to make people suitably uncomfortable. A little hint here or there is more than enough to get the point across while still remaining effective and appropriate. Even the word "rape" in and of itself is uncomfortable; it cuts through the air and hits you right in the gut. When you go so deeply into it like my DM is, it goes from effective to an exploitation film. Add that to the fact that we've barely had any breaks from the content aside from random joke encounters like the aforementioned Dretch choir, and now what should be shocking is just dull and par for the course. You could arguably do something with that, looking at how the characters are becoming so disillusioned with the depravity of the Demon armies and how that affects their morality, but that's more of a party-wide thing than a GMing thing.
Axial wrote:
I'll echo what the other players have said, and state that you should talk to the GM about it. Maybe he'll tone it down a bit or portray the demon cultist's sheer vileness, unrestrained sadism, and complete lack of morals in some other way rather then describing constant rape and torture.
I've tried doing it before, and he says he's toned it down a bit, but I don't really buy it. By this point, he's not really willing to listen to any sort of advice or criticism. On some level, I can't really blame him. Our party is, as a whole, unhappy with him as a DM, so throughout the campaign, he's been getting a lot of flack from everyone (myself included). This has escalated in recent weeks, due to our general dislike of the labyrinth system. Now, he gets upset when anyone tries to make a suggestion to him, and I can't imagine me bringing up a problem that I've brought up in the past will go very well, even if I try to explain it from a storytelling perspective instead of an explantion of comfort levels.
James Jacobs wrote:
This is where I suggest the GM of this group (as well as his players) take a moment to read the section on consent on pages 190–191 of Horror Adventures.
(And as folks have mentioned several times, this is content that your GM is adding to the game—the fact that it's ruining the game for you is unfortunate and if your GM doesn't change his ways, my suggestion would be to drop out of the game, frankly. It's supposed to be a game, not trauma.)
The funny thing is that I actually suggested to him to read it before the campaign started. He didn't listen.
I have juggled with the idea of ducking out for the last chapter and coming back when we play Iron Gods with a different GM, but I like everyone else in the party too much to do that. Even if I disagree with how the GM runs the game, I still more or less like him.
I've been using Sanity from Horror Adventures, generally only making them roll in response to Mythos stuff. So far this has been stuff like the Yellow Sign, Star Vampires, and Byakhees. I've also done it for things that aren't directly from the Mythos, like Tatterman and Nemeira. Doing this presents the unique problem of making Bokrug sound like a sanity-shattering horror despite being a giant iguana.
A fair amount of madnesses have begun to pile up, mostly on the Eidolon who has a threshold of 1 (I might remove it from the Sanity system because it requires Summoner to RP both his madnesses and not the Eidolons madness), and on the PC who got hit with a Bestow Curse that inflicted a -8 penalty on saves against Sanity. The latter PC died of Star Vampire though, so his 4 madnesses mean nothing now.
We haven't really had a chance to see how RPing the madnesses goes, so I can't give much on that. I'm worried about if/when greater madnesses start popping up, as those are a good bit nastier than the lesser madnesses. I've been thinking about bringing in the reality checks from Call of Cthulhu 7e, at least for the hallucination madness.
Disclaimer: I know this forum is primarily for DMs of WotR, so I'm asking this as a player (albeit one that's nearing the end of Book 5).
This campaign has had a lot of very disturbing content, particularly sexual assault kind of stuff. We walk through dungeons, and cultists are eating people, raping people, skinning people alive, yadda yadda yadda. Baphomet, the main boss of the whole campaign, has been described primarily as "the Demon Lord of Rape". We go to the Midnight Isles and it's just nothing but obnoxious prostitutes. That was my first time ever plane hopping in the game, player or GM, and it was a huge letdown.
I've asked my DM about the unnaturally high concentration of this content, and he's told me that the campaign was written that way because of how depraved Demons are. I agree that Demons are depraved, but this just seems over the top. Not only is it just uncomfortable to a level that's no longer fun (because being disturbed by the enemies of the game can be kind of fun in a weird way, as well as instill the players with a definite reason to want to kill them beyond the plot), but it also seems like lazy storytelling. If the campaign is nothing but ridiculously disturbing content 24/7, then the party becomes inured to something that should be shocking.
If this was done by Paizo, I'm honestly surprised. In my past experience, they've been pretty good with these sorts of things. They've kept to either doing it subtly or only using it sparingly to effectively create a certain response in the players (*cough cough* Graul Family Homestead *cough*) without crossing the line. That leads me to think that my DM added much of it in, which makes sense because some of the stuff he's added in and told us were his creation are just...just comical in how graphic they are. Like Baphomet giving us a nightmare where he tells us "there is only rape". But then there's also stuff that are straight out of a Saturday Morning Cartoon, like a super powerful Demon conducting a choir of Dretches.
When I tell him of my complaints about these things he just sort of shrugs and tells me he can't do much about it. Are these complaints I should have about the campaign or about him as a DM? I really hope it's not the latter because this is the first campaign he's ever run (which wasn't a good idea if you ask me, since he's running it non-mythic, but that's another piece anyway). I don't want to be this upset with his style because it's obvious he's worked a lot on the campaign. Without spoiling the campaign, what can you tell me?
I was just wondering if anyone had any tips for keeping the general feeling of horror and despair during the combats. Right now we're in Fort Hailcourse (which admittedly isn't too terrifying of a place, except perhaps Clyme's body), and the creepy atmosphere that was going so well during the exploration of Thrushmoor is starting to fall away due to the combat after combat nature of dungeons. Does anyone have any suggestions for keeping things scary while still being able to focus on running the combat and keeping things chugging along at a reasonable pace?
So it seems as though my party has had to retreat from the Tatterman fight instead of finishing it. From here, I'm thinking I could run it one of two ways:
1.) The fog has lifted (it says it does so on Zandalus's defeat, not necessarily the Tatterman's defeat) and Tatterman is now free to wreak havoc on Golarion. He likely targets Thrushmoor first and murders people and/or allies with the Cult of Hastur there. If I really wanted to I could have him be a continuing menace, hopefully culminating with reuniting with the Briarstone Witch in the final chapter (who according to the campaign outline will appear then).
2.) The fog hasn't lifted, and he goes on a killing spree throughout the asylum, until the players head back to kill him.
Problem with the second one: I don't really know how the party would be able to rest, other then just saying that the Shrine of Desna repels the Tatterman.
Problem with the first one: I now need to figure out ways to keep him as a constant presence in the later chapters (or at least in the second chapter). I'd definitely need to upgrade him as well for later encounters.
I'm posting this post to see what suggestions everyone else has. How are my ideas, do you have any other ideas, etc. Thanks!
Can Karzoug (or any Thassilonain Specialist for that matter) use Wish or Limited Wish to duplicate a spell from one of their prohibited schools? I'd imagine so, seeing as it's Wish, but the spell does technically say Opposition School, not Prohibited School.
I'm playing in an evil campaign this summer, and my character is going to be based around the Cthulhu Mythos, Great Old Ones, Elder Gods, that whole shebang. The DM is letting everyone take Deific Obedience as a bonus feat (we're starting at level 12). Does anyone have suggestions for what a good obedience and boons could be for the general Elder Gods pantheon (Azathoth, Yog-Sothoth etc.) would be? If it'd be easier to focus on a specific god, it'd probably be Nyarlathotep.
I've always noticed that the best defense in later levels tends to come from miss chances. Not to say that high AC isn't effective either (just ask the level 12 character with the 41 AC I'm DMing for), it just tends to eat up a lot more resources.
My question concerns the "Windowless Cell" form of this spell. The spell states that "walls of force" form its sides, and I'm a bit confused as to whether the same restrictions on spells that wall of force has (namely, nothing except teleportation) applies, or if it's different.
The vigilante’s wild attacks allow him to block his foes’ counterattacks. He gains Power Attack as a bonus feat. If he already has the Power Attack feat, he can immediately swap it for another feat for which he qualified at the level he chose Power Attack.
What I'd like to know is if I need to meet the prerequisites for Power Attack to take this talent, or if this (and other talents that grant bonus feats) allow me to ignore the prerequisites.
I decided to keep the detriment of the sin school specialization (though not the benefit, now that I look at it; I'll probably fix that) since every other boss had that limitation. I know it's not normally a magus feature, but I figured it wasn't a huge matter.
Yeah, that's partially why I'm a bit iffy on using the conversion.
I had the same idea for the minions too. I'll make/post their conversion later today.
I've been thinking about remaking Athroxis as a magus, since it seems to just mesh better with her role as an enemy, so I gave it a shot. An argument can be made against it though, seeing as magus ≠ wizard, so it kind of goes against the general theme of Runeforge. Still, I'd like to see what other people think of the rebuild.
Note: I know I didn't list skills, but I figured that her modifiers wouldn't be so important to the point that I'd need to recalculate them. Also, in case the difficulty is called into question, I'd like to point out that I'm DMing a party of 8 that are all very well built characters.
Highlady Athroxis
Female Azlanti human Magus 16
LE Medium humanoid (human)
Init +3; Senses Perception +17
DEFENSE
AC 31, touch 16, flat-footed 25 (+13 armor, +2 deflection, +3 Dex, +1 insight, +2 natural)
hp 191 (16d8+116)
Fort +18, Ref +11, Will +15
OFFENSE
Speed 20 ft., fly 60 ft. (good)
Melee +3 adamantine flaming ranseur +21/+16/+11 (2d4+10/19-20/x3 plus 1d6 fire)
Special Attacks counterstrike, greater spell combat (-2 attack, +2 concentration), spellstrike
TACTICS
Before Combat Athroxis casts greater magic weapon and keen edge on her ranseur daily, and false life on herself. When she sees the PCs reach K3, she casts fly, blur, defensive shock, and mirror image on herself as well.
During Combat Athroxis casts haste, defending sword, and caustic blood immediately before combat begins, and then uses her cone of cold spells. Before engaging in melee, she spends a point from her arcane pool to increase her weapon’s enhancement bonus by 2, and add a flaming burst enchantment to it as well.
Morale Ahtroxis fights to the death. If reduced to 15 or fewer hit pints, she willingly sacrifices herself, centering a fireball on herself if doing so catches a number of PCs in the blast.
STATISTICS
Str 18, Dex 16, Con 20, Int, 20, Wis 10, Cha 12
Base Atk +12, CMB +17, CMD 34
Feats Arcane Strike, Craft Magic Arms and Armor, Craft Wand, Craft Wondrous Item, Empower Spell, Greater Spell Focus (evocation), Improved Critical (ranseur) Iron Will, Maximize Spell, Spell Focus (evocation), Toughness
SQ arcane pool (13 points, +4), fighter training, heavy armor, knowledge pool, magus arcana (arcane accuracy, concentrate, maximized magic, quickened magic, spell shield)
Combat Gear as listed, but +4 mithral full plate in place of +4 mithral breastplate
During one of the adventures the players will be mind swapped with members of the Great Race of Yith, who will use their bodies to complete their own mission while the players research something dreadful in their library.
I get the feeling that'll be a problem prior to/throughout the AP, considering the whole 'amnesia' thing.
We did encounter Mokmurian, we just didn't kill him. To reiterate, someone else DM'd the first 4 chapters of the campaign, I'm just doing it for this chapter. Up until this point I've been a player. The previous DM just had Mokmurian teleport away (the spell list and statblock was changed to account for an increased party size, I don't think he normally has teleport, only dimensional door) when he was close to dying. It wasn't my decision, but if I was DMing the fight I would have let him die so the death scene would have played out as intended.
The good news is that we already know that he's raising Karzoug, thanks to my witch dominating and questioning Lokansir, so at least it's not required to have the death scene for the plot to progress.
We finished the last session right as Mokmurian teleported away, so it's yet to be seen what the party does now. They might stick around for research, they might pop on down to Sandpoint, I honestly don't know at this stage in the game. I'm just trying to come up with some possible ideas.
I'd rather have him show up and die now as opposed to in book 6 to keep the death scene near to where it's supposed to be in the story, so I might go with your idea and have him show up in the temple. As to him bringing allies, we're in an 8 man party, and it took one full round from the hasted bloodrager before he decided to teleport away, so if he's alone he'll have to show up during the fight with The Scribbler or with the Glabrezu (or the one with both of them, depending on how that dungeon plays out). Otherwise, he's mincemeat in such a small dungeon with no reinforcements (this is partially why I was thinking about having the fight aboveground in Sandpoint). It probably wasn't going to be much, really only a stone giant or two from Jorgenfist that wasn't killed.
They killed almost everything in Jorgenfist. The only things still alive are the redcaps, Conna, and a few stone giants. Most of the surrounding camps don't exist anymore either, due to roleplaying, stealth, dominate person, etc.
I do like the infiltration idea, I didn't even think about that.
Problem is that then there's a dragon and a Mokmurian/allies to deal with. Although if he made his way into Runeforge along with the dragon (perhaps he enchanted it with the help of a lamia? It'd have to be a fairly powerful one to successfully control an ancient dragon, like a matriarch or something.) it would probably lead to some fun possibilities. At the very least I could see the party's response to an abandoned dragon's lair. The question still is where in Runeforge I'd put them.
If I bring him back, do you think I should still have Karzoug possess him upon death?
I'm running this chapter to give the normal DM a break from running the campaign, and we just finished Chapter 4. While it may turn out different in our next session seeing as we were rushing to finish up when it happened, as of right now Mokmurian is alive and is not going to be fought by us (and I'm not saying that because he D. Doored, I'm saying it because the DM sent me the altered statblock with the note "here's his statblock in case you want to throw him at the party during your chapter). From the cursory reading I've done of the campaign so far to get myself up to speed on the plot, it seems like he was supposed to die for both pacing and plot reasons (although the plot reasons I can easily work around; as far as I know it doesn't extend much past "he was the last soul needed".)
The scene where the heroes finally get a personal glimpse of Karzoug (even if through Mokmurian) makes his death more meaningful than just "another villain," seeing as he hasn't been encountered nor had much known presence until this chapter, as well as giving a cool semi-climax to the first four chapters. Plus, it ties into the things Karzoug says when he animates the statue, but that last part is fairly inconsequential seeing as I can just change what he says.
Because of this, I'm thinking on how I can use him throughout Chapter 5. From what I can gather (correct me if I'm wrong) he was taking stones from the Hellstorm Flumes so he could use Stone Tell to find out where The Scribbler, and by extension Runeforge is. I don't see why he would stop in this quest, so when the party returns to Sandpoint (either due to a sending from Father Zantus or of their own volition) I'm thinking about Mokmurian having recently arrived there as well, and with a retinue of stone giants and Lamias, If I could figure out the timing it'd be cool (I think) to have the fight climax with the formation of the sinkhole (maybe even during the fight if I want to complicate things). For this to work, I'd probably need a reason for Mokmurian to be above ground instead of taking the tunnels along the beach to his destination of Xaliasa since there's no where to really fight a bunch of large sized creatures below ground that isn't part of the sinkhole. Past that, I'm having trouble thinking of where else I'd want to put him in the chapter save for having him trail the party into Runeforge and then making an alliance with one of the denizens (which admittedly does have it's possibilities).
The problem with putting him in Sandpoint as the first fight of this chapter is that it feels like a weird bump in pacing to go from final fight, to resting/researching, to all of a sudden "final" fight again. However, if I put him later I feel like that might have it's own problems with how it interacts with the timing of when they fight the Karzoug statue (especially considering the modular order they can tackle Runeforge in). I could just leave him out and let the regular DM utilize him in Chapter 6, but that just feels like the fight will lose it's "oomph" by then (if that makes any sense).
I'll be running this in a few weeks after a few months trying Reign of Winter that ended fairly poorly due to the difficulty of that campaign. I'm already planning to houserule certain feats (using this guide) and to reward making an actual backstory with a toughness feat for individuals and a CLW wand for the whole party if everyone makes one, but I'm curious if there's anything else I should keep in mind. Any suggestions about both difficulty as well as all other topics are very appreciated. Thanks!
I'll be running this in a few weeks after a few months trying Reign of Winter that ended fairly poorly due to the difficulty of that campaign. I'm already planning to houserule certain feats (using this guide) and to reward making an actual backstory with a toughness feat for individuals and a CLW wand for the whole party if everyone makes one, but I'm curious if there's anything else I should keep in mind. Any suggestions about both difficulty as well as all other topics are very appreciated. Thanks!
I did some searching but did not find much so any insight or reference would be helpful...
How does the Revelation Quill work? Specifically how does the contact other plane function work?
"Once per week, the user may use the quill in the same way to cast contact other plane instead, asking up to 10 questions of the mysterious intellect that guides the revelation quill."
Does the user have to be a caster? With Contact Other Plane on their spell list?
Is the user subject to the risks of Contact Other Plane? (Int and Cha fall to 8 and loss of arcane spell casting) Can they just have the fighter use the quill; the fighter who wouldn't care about the ability change or loss of spell casting abilities he doesn't have?
I assume the power behind the Quill is the Peacock Spirit - what outer plane level is the Peacock Spirit? According to the Core Rulebook that sets the DC for avoiding consequences, the duration of the consequences and the accuracy of the answers.
It's not a spell activation/trigger item, so I wouldn't think the user has to be a caster. The Peacock Spirit has never been well defined, but it seems that it was one of the most powerful deities of Thassilonian faith (to the point of being worshiped by one of the Runelords), so it'd make sense to list it as "Outer Plane, major deity." Just my 2 cents though.
In Runelords Anniversary Edition, is there any specific reason why Jordimandus doesn't have augment summoning? It seems weird to me that a conjuration wizard with a strategy revolving around summoning monsters doesn't have augment summoning.
Has anyone thought about giving Jordimandus some of the feats that boost Summon Monster (e.g. Augment Summonings, Expanded Summon Monster, Superior Summoning)? Because it seems strange to me that a conjuration focused wizard with a battle strategy primarily focused on summoning monsters doesn't even have Augment Summoning.
Just a note: other than Augment Summoning, the other feats were published after the Core Rulebook. Curiously, Augment Summoning was a 3.5 feat (for which RotRL was originally published) so not sure why he doesn't have that one...
Note that Jordimandus does not appear in the original version - he's exclusive to the AE.
As for why he doesn't have Augment Summoning, hard to say. It could just be an oversight. It may have been intentional. It keeps his power level down, which can be a goal with the APs; additionally, Augment Summoning adds work by requiring altered statblocks for monsters, whereas his summons can come right out of a Bestiary (reducing the potential workload for GMs). Maybe it was deemed unnecessary. His tactics imply that his summons are just there to be a wall; while Augment Summoning adds some hp, it might not have been a high priority.
I believe James Jacobs wrote this encounter specifically for the AE; you could try asking him. ^_^
But...he's like...James Jacobs and stuff. He's got James Jacobs-y things to do.
Has anyone thought about giving Jordimandus some of the feats that boost Summon Monster (e.g. Augment Summonings, Expanded Summon Monster, Superior Summoning)? Because it seems strange to me that a conjuration focused wizard with a battle strategy primarily focused on summoning monsters doesn't even have Augment Summoning.
I'm letting one of my players run a short module for the first time while I prep for a new campaign, and I was wondering what would be a good pick for a beginner DM. Any suggestions?
In terms of Distant Worlds, search the boards for "Strange Aeons" which is the AP after Hell's Vengeance. It's supposed to be occult themed and is rumored to also include some planet hopping. In addition, in Reign of Winter, one of the books takes place entirely on Triaxis.
Unless I'm mistaken, they've explicitly stated here on the boards that the AP will in fact take players to
Spoiler:
the planet Carcosa.
Suffice it to say that, as a huge Lovecraft buff, I'm looking forward to this AP (sort of).
I have a player who's recently begun utilizing a spell combo of entrapping an enemy in an aqueous orb one round, casting burning disarm on any weapons they're holding the next round (or throw one of his own weapons in if the creature uses natural attacks), and boiling the enemy alive for 10d6 damage a round at level 5.
I've been trying to think through the logistics of this, seeing as the latter two spells state they boil the water "around" the weapon. Realistically speaking, if you dip scalding hot metal into water it creates steam, and then cools down. Counterargument is that there's a magical force keeping it warm, so heat laws won't really apply.
Another problem is the question of how far around the weapon the water boils. If it's just the immediate area there shouldn't be any damage, but even if it's a 5x5x5 foot cube, that's a whole medium sized creature.
My gut is telling me to just say it doesn't work for balance reasons, but I want to give the player some reward for coming up with what I think is a really creative use of spells. Any suggestions?
The only things you lose for empiricist are poison stuff, swift alchemy, and a capstone ability that Reign of Winter won't ever reach. If you like the new stuff better than the old stuff I'd say go for the empiricist.
The stablock for this ability states: "An ancient white dragon can use its breath weapon to create a blizzard in the area around it as a standard action."
What I'm wondering is if the dragon gives up the damage for that breath weapon use to instead create the blizzard (and then have to wait the 1d4 rounds to recharge), if he can use this ability in conjunction with the cone damage, or if it has nothing to do with the normal mechanics for the breath weapon and every part of that is flavor text save for the action type.
Rogue/Brawler who's a mixture of bully stereotypes from the 50s through the 90s.
Bard that's a washed up night club singer. Resorted to using magic such as Hideous Laughter to maintain an audience.
A sorcerer who's an absolute idiot in every way, but enters a trance for the 6 seconds that he's casting a spell, then reverts back shortly there after. ("Hey, look at the big lizard, it's blue! That's the-"*crosseyed*"FIREBALL")
Party was just the fighter, druid, and magus again. Traveled the way to Waldsby, making fairly short order of the raven swarm (druid's flaming sphere helped tremendously), other than that went just fine; endure elements and wand of cure light wounds helped with any failed fort saves from extreme cold. At the town, I made an encounter based off of a post in this thread (I think; might be a different one) where the blacksmith was being hung off the statue for supposed fire magic after it had been more or less banned in the town. The fighter ran up to save them, fight broke out, all the guards were killed (fighter should have died but I forgot to make him take 1d6 fire damage every round due to standing in flames; probably for the best), and the day ended (after the group met Nadya's family and the magus took a visit to the bar and met the Goltiaeva's). Next day they started exploring the town, magus spent the morning with the blacksmith and his wife, druid did a bit of shopping, and the fighter spent time in the bar. We ended the session in the middle of the day with everyone meeting to go have tea with the Goltieava's.
Next session after the tea they'll have a few more hours in the day to do whatever, if they go to investigate the fire magic the blacksmith was accused of they'll eventually find the spirits of the former headman's family in the form of Burning Ghat's. I had decided that all this usage of the Ley Line by Elvanna might have been enough to make a few undead, and I hope that makes sense. (On a side note, is the tome of horrors a safe 3rd party source for monsters? I've seen it quoted in the adventure itself, so I'd assume so but I'd like to see what other people think).
They're planning to head to the Pale Tower the next morning with Nadya, but they'll have to deal with a few more guards the next morning (using the encounter in the book).
Since this was written before the book ever came out what do you guys think of making Captain Hertrig Orlov a Bloodrager with the white dragon bloodline?
I love this idea, thank you. Will be trying it out next session (bloodrager 5).
I haven't run the encounter like this yet, but I did stat her out and assuming she rages and enlarges when they walk in, having full BAB and the bonuses to strength means when power attacking she deals 2d6+20 damage with a +10 chance to hit. I'm thinking that's a bit too strong, even if it's one enemy vs. the whole party.
My apologies, I was using demigod as another way to say powerful. Wasn't aware demigods granted spells in golarion, thought it was just full gods. Sorry.
I was debating going with followers of Kostchtchie seeing as after part 3 none of those guys do anything in the story and it wouldn't hurt to bring them back so that Part 3 has more connections with the rest of the campaign than just "where we found keys 3 and 4". I did like the idea the book gives of Kostchtchie resurrecting the centaur priest later on as a demon, so I might look into that.
Actually, one of the PCs is from the Lands of the Linnorm Kings (I told him he would have to be able to get over the whole hatred of Baba Yaga, at least to save the world; he chose to run with a lesser of two evils deal). I'd be hoping to have a group that can follow the party to the farther-off destinations though, are the folks of the Lands normally able to do that?
This is just an idea I came up with a few minutes ago, and I'm curious what people think. Seeing as the PCs are now servants of Baba Yaga (a chaotic evil demigod), and are what's left of 3 of her more powerful servitors, I thought it'd be interesting to have them be hunted by a group of creatures that have no desire to see Baba Yaga return and see the PCs as individuals in cahoots with whatever evil acts Baba Yaga has done and will do (therefore, evil creatures regardless of what alignments they may detect as). Does this seem like much of an idea worth pursuing? If so, any suggestions to augment it? I'm fully aware this probably isn't a very good idea, I'm just curious what people more experienced at this think.
I've started this campaign a few weeks ago, and it seems like sharing updates in these threads and asking for critique is what the cool kids do.
This is a wall of text, so I'll put it behind this spoiler for ease:
Starting Party: Tamait Barnaclebeard, dwarven cleric of Gorum; Emanneul "El Calamar Gigante" Montakey, the Tetori Monk; Seraphina, the dream discipline psychic, Klorg Skullcrusher, the undead bloodline bloodrager, and Derek, the two weapon fighter.
Session 1: Due to scheduling we didn't even get started until the last 45 minutes. I had been planning to spend this time in the town, having the players do little side quests, and pick up hints to the oncoming danger. I was flustered because no one told me they were going to be late until a few hours beforehand, so I only had them spend 20 minutes in a bar interacting with NPCs and learning about the snow and recent strange events until Yuln ran in, exposition was given, and then the town asked them to investigate. They went off to the massacre site, encountered the zombies, and promptly TPK'd. I was going to let the zombies just wander off once they went unconscious and have the townsfolks come back when they didn't return and carry them all back. Unfortunately, one of the players (a bloodrager) had diehard, and in addition to not attacking the zombies (he explained it was because he missed the first few times), he also made no attempt to run away.
Session 2: The bloodrager introduced his new character (a cavalier; order of the sword let me make him another guard of lady Argentea's caravan that ran off as well). They ventured into the woods, and made it to the lodge after being KO'd by the sprites, tricked by the atomie, nearly killed by the snowman, and doing quite well with everything else. At the lodge, they ran in at night, and had a grand ol' fight with every denizen of the lodge (save for Ten-Penny Tacey; her backstory didn't make it seem like she would get out of bed to participate). Thanks to copious use of sleep, daze, and the tetori monk grappling Rhokar early on, things went fairly well (although the fighter died after crawling into Rhokar's bedroom while his skeletons were in there with him).
Session 3: I gave the fighter the option to be revived (did the same with the bloodrager), and the fighter took it. Decided Lady Argentea had a scroll of raise dead on her (with label "If found dead, please revive and return to Taldor"). They accompanied the Lady to town, rested up, and ventured further into the forest. They did nothing when they encountered Area J, took care of the frost firs, got hit by both the bear traps (though the war priest had Craft (Traps) and used his weapon to disarm the trap (rolled surprisingly well considering the -4 improvised tools). At the house, they didn't make any of the diplomacy checks to ask more questions, so I used the haunt's vision to show sights of Thora in Waldsby, planning to give them INT checks to remember they're the same city. We ended with the Cavalier putting Thora in his backpack, and the group spending the night at the cottage. Thora cast frostfall on everyone in the cottage, which was the whole party except for the Warpriest, who slept outside so he wasn't near the doll.
Level Up!
Session 4: The Tetori Monk had missed the last session, so when he showed up he immediately told the cavalier to bury the doll. They encountered the Talking Stag again, and gave him a wonderful update on everything that had occurred since last time. They fought the giant weasel, the tetori monk nearly died due to bleeding, and they decided to stop for the night so the Warpriest could regain spell slots and fervor. Thora attacked, and since the psychic was out the only person who did anything was the tetori monk who climbed up the trees in the clearing, jumped, and grappled/pinned Thora while she was levitating. He punched her to death while awkwardly hanging onto her in the air (seemed like the rules said that was legal). I didn't want to have them be ambushed twice, so Izoze was pushed to the Winter Portal. On the way to the Portal though, they encountered the Talking Stag, and were attacked by the atomie. At the winter portal, they TPK'd. I messed up by letting the sprites and atomie attack them without provoking, so I dealt some damage to them and healed the PCs up a bit to make up for it. Past that, I can't think of anything remarkable about it.
It was at this time that I realized that this was kind of a hard AP for a party who's most experienced player hadn't played past 10th level, and was otherwise composed of players who had only played PF for 5 months. After asking for advice on this board (thank you people who helped!) I decided to let them make their new characters at level 3 to alleviate the pain.
New Party Makeup: Kitsuna, Magus 2/Sorcerer 1 of elemental bloodline (now his shocking graps are flaming grasps), an as of yet unnamed Swasbuckler (he wasn't present this session), *unintelligible grunt* the Arctic druid of the Fire domain, and Derek the two weapon fighter (his player wasn't present at the TPK, so I kept him alive, said he ran off before the winter portal and met the new party). The tetori monk bowed out because he had to start taking more hours at work, and because he said I was being mean to him. I don't know what I had been doing, but I'll admit I had expressed a dislike of him arguing with me over every single decision I had made that went against what he wanted. I don't know though. He's my brother though, so I don't think it was anything huge.
Session 5: Redid the Winter portal with only 3 players (all but the swashbuckler), and it probably would've resulted in a TPK, if not for a mixture of me being nice and ignoring Teb and Izoze's rengeration/fast healing near the end, and luck from the Arctic Druid in the pit casting flaming sphere and moving it out of the igloo and directly into Teb. I didn't want to have another TPK, so I played it a bit easy near the end. The Black Rider showed up, and I described to a friend as such:
"You have to help! Baba Yaga's been kidnapped and her daughter wants to rule Golarion with an icy apocalypse!"
"How does this concern us?" "I roll Sense Motive" "I begin to draw the dying man."
I sort of had to spoon feed them the exposition after a couple minutes, and the mantle was passed. They went through the portal, had the giant mantis fight, and sat down to the fire with Nadya. We ended the session right after Mierul showed up.
Current new party make up is a pyrokineticist (though his attendance is up in the air at the moment), an arctic druid, a magus who took a level in sorcerer (elemental bloodline) so he could convert all his shocking grasps to flaming grasps (I may or may not have given him this idea), a swashbuckler, and a two-weapon warrior fighter.
The environment actually hasn't been any problem. It's possible I misunderstood the cold-weather rules, but the CRB refers to "unprotected" characters. They all had cold-weather gear, so while the AP says they just get a +5 bonus to the fort saves, it then later says that in Irrisen they make fort saves on the hour instead of 10 minutes. I basically just made it so in Taldor they don't make the saves, and in Irrisen they make it on the hour unless they have endure elements, in which case not at all. I'm hoping that's the right way to do it.
They first TPK'd at the zombies in the carriage, and again at the winter portal. I'm worried that this will keep happening, so I'm debating having them come back in at level 3 and then slowing character advancement later on if I feel it's gotten too easy. They're still fairly new to Pathfinder, having only played a level long homebrew and part 4 of Carrion Crown before, and this seems like a fairly difficult AP.
Should I just keep it all as it is and hope for the best, or should I try my above plan? Because I certainly don't like dealing with TPKs, and they all get disheartened by their happening. Plus, I'd like to try and keep a constant party composition once the Black Rider event occurs.
Name: Klorg
Race: Human
Class/Level: Bloodrager 1
Adventure: Snows of Summer
Location: The very first fight with the Zombies.
The Gory Details: I'm hoping someone in the party will now learn to make sure all 3 damage types are covered. Not only that, but I'm hoping this players is now going to continue to attempt attacking the enemy, even when they miss the first 2 times, as opposed to just sort of standing there while they continue to die hard.
I'm hoping the whole campaign won't be this bad. To be honest everyone in the party was reduced to negative HP. I just figured that the zombies wouldn't try to coup de grace them or anything and left the final fate of death in the hands of CON checks. Afterwards just had someone from the town wonder where they were and go to see them.
I got to have them wake up covered in leeches, so that was fun!
First off, would I base any save DCs off of INT like all my other Witch hexes? Second off, when it refers to Shaman level should I use my Witch level instead? And finally, when it asks to base something off of CHA considering that's what most Shaman hexes are built around, should I keep it as such or change it to INT instead to keep it in line with Witch hexes?
