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From the perspective of Lini how do you feel about the number of animal (not to be confused with vermin) allies in The Curse of the Crimson Throne?

Congrats.

I have only read a handful of the pathfinder novels so far, but this series is definitely my favorite. Excited to for the news of the next entry.

Good job and well done.

The rules for the whetstone are found in the "Adventurer's Armory."

"A whetstone allows you to sharpen a blade by sliding it against the stone at a precise angle. Honing a blade with a whetstone requires about 15 minutes of work and grants the weapon a +1 bonus on your damage roll the first time you hit with it. This only works on nonmagical blades."

An arrow is not a blade, so as per RAW, no, it doesn't work, and therefore shouldn't work in society play.

I don't think it's really a game-breaker to allow it to be used this way (and it's not an issue of slashing versus piercing - some blades are piercing anyway). But from a RAW perspective, no (I would most certainly allow it in a home game, though.)

An arrow isn't a blade, but I can see how people would see an arrowhead as a blade.

blade

noun \ˈblād\

: the flat sharp part of a weapon or tool that is used for cutting

Source

I could see an argument for any weapon with a flat sharp bit being a candidate for whetstone treatment.

I have a rogue that with a feint build. I used a combat trick as my 4th level rogue trick to get improved feint (non-human, 1st level weapon finesse, 3rd combat expertise). It generally only comes into play when I can't get a flank, so it's more of a cool feat. Depending on your build you could get it faster (human, or level of fighter, not a dex build).

5th level I picked up Gang-Up to further reduce my reliance on feinting. So from my perspective it's a nice trick to have but fairly situational. Worth the feat or two to make it a move action, but then I also like having the ability to get the AC boost from Combat Expertise. Still working on getting to the higher level stuff.

Welcome to the team.

I have, and continue to be strongly tempted to play as NPCs who have had 1 adventure basically starring them, who PCs tend to hate. That said, if somehow it happened that I were to play such an NPC and that NPC somehow showed up in the adventure, I wouldn't make a scene, beyond maybe "There but for the grace of God go I."

I am working on an elf arcanist who lives in Riddleport with an interest in joining the Order of Cyphers. How do you feel about him taking Varisian as a language from high intelligence?

Edit:

How do you want us to do HPs?

I might be interested in this, and I might have a friend who is. I am really into the roleplaying side of a play by post, since I think the forum is a pretty good medium for it.

I do like lighthearted characters, but I understand your warning. I have an Elf cleric who I tried to run a couple times, but haven't been able to make stick, but I might see if there's something else.

Try to recruit party members. They can make perform (sing) checks untrained. I have a friend who's bard is wildly popular. He has the flagbearer feat, and carries the flag of his band, and offers party members the opportunity to be roadies and what not and everyone seems to enjoy the chance to participate.

Congrats. It will be a pleasure to work with you.

Take care. Good luck.

Yeah Mike, if people want to use it once they realize they are dead, its already too late. From my perspective what you suggest might actually make it more powerful. At least it would decrease the sense of irony when you use the reroll and get the same roll or a lower one the second time.

EDIT:

And of course people can get a natural 1 on the reroll too.

I am very sorry to hear about your mother. I'll keep you in my prayers.

Something run cold can also be a TPK, or far easier than what other tables experience. TPKs are not fun, and for many players GM softballing (even unintentionally) is not fun. I am selfish. I want the best experience reasonably possible, because I can't ever have that experience again.

Edit: I understand that sometimes a GM has to run cold. I just take your post as being far too forgiving of what you refer to as a "margin of error."

Yeah, in my tenure as a GM I only managed 1 kill. And while I don't have fun GMing if the PCs have it too easy, I have never had one complain to me that they didn't enjoy breezing through something.

As for "margin of error", I am thinking of things that are fairly small without too much impact. (Specifically I think the error I was thinking of involved the number of Pig Farmers one is supposed to have in an encounter.)

That said, I had a friend that had his experience of Horn of Aroden (which I loved) under someone who ran it under prepared and I don't want to say it ruined it, but I had to explain to him why the scenario was awesome.

I say that to say, don't run things cold if you can help it. But I take personal responsibility for people having fun at my store, and if by running something cold people can play something instead of playing nothing, well, why not give it a try.

I have found that running scenarios "cold" is a pretty bad idea nowadays... there's a lot of subtleties that GMs and players can miss. YMMV, of course.

It is, of course, never ideal. But having prepped and run Wardstone Patrol around 10 times, and realizing on the tenth try I still am messing stuff up, I have come to accept a certain margin for error in how things are run.

Something run cold can still be fun. And if six people can have fun instead of 4 I feel it might be worth it.

So, could you reverse engineer the relative scarcity of these metals on Golarion by assuming the standard weight and relative value of the coins based on the rules?

Eeeeh. Well, it is a good thing no one showed up to my game day today. I was totally planning on running 5-22 cold, if there was any conflict in running the Glass River Rescue or the Merchant's Wake, and there's always a conflict.

Just lucky people were played out from Origins. Now that I know, I'll be sure to hold it until the official release.

White Cards:

A Flamestrike trap
ANOTHER Flamestrike trap
Explore Report Cooperate
--or--
Explore
Report
Cooperate
Accidentally critting the guy you wanted to interrogate

As far as hard scenarios go, how about Temple of Enlightenment? Or perhaps thornkeep?

So, you guys waited for me? I was wondering if you guys would go ahead without me, since I'm kinda meh about doing it as a PbP.

That said, I am going to be out of town the rest of this week for Origins. If you are start without me I won't be offended.

If I can't tempt you to go ahead with just 5, I'll be back Monday, or possibly even Sunday.

My character is a 12th level cavalier. Sword and board, light armor, cloak of displacement(minor). Kind of treat him as a barbarian. Tends to take a lot of damage.

I would possibly be interested. I have a character in range. I might need to be sold on the PbP format. I don't suppose I could talk you into doing it as several Roll20+Google Hangouts?

+1 to the Wardstone Patrol. Also, in First Steps Part 1, my cavalier's horse helped save the party from a TPK, earning it the name Bloodthirster. Generally try to stick to cross country tracks instead of dungeon crawls. I knew someone who had both a fighter and a cavalier around the same level and would ask the GM which would work better. Although the Fighter eventually out paced the cavalier... Maybe slow progression would have helped...

It seems impossible that no one has got the joke. Perhaps there is just an unspoken agreement to keep The Red Rover from seeing the smiles cracking forth.

I ran this at 4-5. And despite being pretty much jackasses the party got a good diplomacy roll that made up for it. Despite hitting almost every neg.

Before I go any further, I want to say in the interest of full disclosure that I enjoy scenarios where there are NPCs that aren't necessarily easy to get along with, but also penalize the PCs if they are unrepentant jerks. That was one of my favorite things about another season 5 scenario.

I also will say, any NPC interaction is dependent on the GM. I tend to recommend any scenario heavy on roleplay not be run cold. The ideal would be to play with a GM who has run it multiple times and has developed some insight into who the character really is. I imagine that isn't something that occurs especially often.

That said, there is stuff in the PCs favor. First, it is more difficult to make Lander hate you. You have to fail the DC by ten or more for his attitude to worsen. Further more, if you just take him out of the trunk, heal him, help clean him up, and feed him, you already have +6 right there. I feel like those would be things natural for heroes to do after rescuing a hostage.

Furthermore, if you can make the DC 20 sense motive check you can find out that if you boast about your own toughness with an Intimidation check, you can use that to increase his attitude instead of Diplomacy.

You can challenge him to a duel. Now the PCs might not think about it, but it also says that Lander will be throwing out challenges himself, and the PCs just need to accept one. If you win and don't rub his face in it, his attitude automatically improves one step, which should at least be enough to get a martial group in the game, even if they don't have a face man.

Also, a PC can take Lander on as a pupil, and as long as he treats him with a little respect, that PC can get a bonus to diplomacy checks.

And of course, there's the ubiquitous, bonus for if you roleplay well.

Of course all of this is optional, only necessary for Pathfinders who desire to "go above and beyond the call of duty." If they want, the PCs can just keep Lander in the trunk, and carry him back.

But at the risk of being repetitive, I think a lot of PCs treat NPCs like brick walls. Treat them however they want, with no expectation of negative consequences. I can appreciate people wanting to play games like that, but I don't think PFS should be a game like that. If your character is just a jerk to NPCs, maybe you should lose a prestige here and there.

Wait, I think you might be confusing two different feats.

This is the feat Wicent has:

Bludgeoner

He does not have this feat, which gives you extra sneak attack damage when attacking nonlethally with a blunt weapon:

Sap Adept

I know some builds put these feats together to great effect, but Wicent has not gone that path, at least, not by level 6.

To summarize: Wicent does do non-lethal sneak attack damage, but no extra damage than he would if he were doing lethal attacks.

I ran him as doing nonlethal the whole time, with the other mooks doing lethal. Personally, if I am trying to take someone alive, I like to put a far amount of nonlethal on them first, before I consider doing lethal so I am less likely to kill them on accident if I make a mistake about how much HP they have. From Wicent's perspective, I don't think there's a downside to using nonlethal. Of course, if for some reason there is, (a lot of mid-combat healing, Community Domain cleric, or undead opponents) he can always change tactics after realizing it.

No, it takes them a day or two to get out to where the bandits are. I think it says somewhere that the bandits tend to strike the caravans around this time. Also, since you can only try to improve someone's opinion of you once a day, it gives the PC a couple days to work with as they bring Lander back.

My understanding is that she is in hybrid form at both tiers. I think one of the other threads also addressed this?

I just read this scenario and it looks awesome. I really liked how The Wardstone Patrol focused on a specific NPC, and I like how this one does the same, with the added bonus of maybe Lander showing up again in the future.

I also like that Marek is easily prepared to give PCs a run for their money if they insist on picking a fight.

Additionally, a couple of these combats seem pretty cool.

I would love to hear any ideas about RPing Lander, especially if you have run this already.

As far as the boon goes, there seems to be mass confusion about it. I had thought it would be a Taldor only boon, but my plan is to error on the side of generosity, and let some future ruling clarify it down, if necessary.

Matthew Morris wrote:

I was actually thinking one 'hiding' in the society and following more of an Athiest PoV.

One does not simply hide from our lord and savior Razmir, for he sees all. Also, considering that Razmir himself is a member of the Decemvirate, the society would be an interesting place to hide from him. You have been warned, he is keeping his eyes on you.

Why else send him to the Accursed Halls? Someone is hoping for an "accident".

Yes! No! Not at my table!

Just reading the spell, I do not see why it couldn't, although since it says it can't attack, I might not allow an oil of inflict to be rubbed on an enemy. Although, would that need an attack roll? Hmmm.

Geoffrey Griffith wrote:

Nefreet wrote:

Or an ally.

Remember, targeting an ally with an oil is still a full-round action.

Only if they're unconscious.

Huh. That is an interesting distinction that I had not noticed before.

Or an ally.

Remember, targeting an ally with an oil is still a full-round action.

Dragnmoon wrote:

Matthew Pittard wrote:

Yeah not cool bringing Beer to the game (or alcohol in general). Drunky/Tipsy gamers/gaming is not cool.

A Public Con game with people you don't know, I agree. But an After Ours game at a Con with your friends those can be fun.

I did Hall of Drunken Heroes with the Merrymead boon and a selection of fine libations, and it was a lot of fun. Definitely not the sort of thing for a public venue, no, but it can be fun for an occasional night with friends.

Well, it was fun until..

Have you decided anything about table size?

Brent, it was a pleasure working with you. Good luck with everything.

Andy, welcome to the team. If you can help you out with anything let me know.

It seems like you are getting a lot of conflicting information from your area. You may want to review the guide to society play, so you are getting official information from the source.

In fact it possible this group is not playing Pathfinder Society, but is just playing a Pathfinder homebrew? If that's the case, the GM can really do whatever he feels like to get you into the game. Although I guess that doesn't explain why he'd send you to a VC about it...

Another option to level a PFS character for you to consider is Conventions. In a few days you can grow a level or two. Possibly more if they have modules you can play in.

I'm thinking about doing a marathon over the New Year Eve and New Years Day. I can't tell if the other marathon took 14 hours or 38 though, which has me a bit concerned. Doing campaign mode, without a lot of extra fluff, any idea how long this will take?

Geoffrey Griffith
30510

I'm not sure I have a level one ready, so I'll either throw one together or grab a pregen.

Improvised Weapons: Sometimes objects not crafted to be weapons nonetheless see use in combat. Because such objects are not designed for this use, any creature that uses an improvised weapon in combat is considered to be nonproficient with it and takes a –4 penalty on attack rolls made with that object. To determine the size category and appropriate damage for an improvised weapon, compare its relative size and damage potential to the weapon list to find a reasonable match. An improvised weapon scores a threat on a natural roll of 20 and deals double damage on a critical hit. An improvised thrown weapon has a range increment of 10 feet.

PRD

So, in short, yeah basically just pick something and go with it. At my table I usually compare things to clubs.

Shepherds use canes for the sheep, right?

Alternatively, if you want a cane that bad, just take the Caught off Guard Feat and treat it as an improvised weapon.

Other alternatives: a club that for the purposes of character discription you say looks like a cane. Might still have trouble sneaking it in to "safe" zones. Use a sword cane, and just never take the sword out. Maybe a Hanbo (AA), if you don't like the quarterstaff? Take a level of wizard and get a cane as your bonded item?

I enjoyed First Steps when I played it, and I think my group liked Master of the Fallen Fortress, but I didn't run it for PFS, and we didn't actually get all the way through. It does have a decently cool PFS hook.

Thornkeep is another module that can be run multiple times, but has two fairly dangerous enemies, and player deaths often (but not always) put a damper on a gaming session.

Quest for perfection is a pretty cool low level three parter, with a boon at the end that is interesting for certain character types.

I always think of the early blakros museum missions as sort of prototypical pathfinder missions. They aren't as roleplay heavy, (more dungeon crawly) but I feel like it gives a good feeling for what pathfindering is about. Echoes of the Overwatched, is probably the one that is least this way. Penumbral Accords was my favorite, but that could just be because I like saving damsels in distress.

Edit:

I forgot We Be Goblins. It's a Free RPG Mod, and while not really Society related it is definitely a favorite. High pitched squeaky voices recommended for the goblins.

All the best for your future. Hope we didn't trouble you too much over your last con as VC. ;)

And wasn't it spelled out in like, the first adventure? To the GM, if not the party.

I guess if Dragon was its own domain I wouldn't have been so surprised, but Scalykind is also snakes and stuff. Venomous stare, magic fang. To me it seems like it's written for a druid who is particularly well connected with snakes and lizards. I guess the animal companion you get from it is more powerful than the Animal domain one. Maybe that's why?

So I've been wanting to do a Druid with a domain for a bit now, but I never really started work on it because I didn't really have a domain in mind. So the other day I'm flipping through the Champions of Purity I think, and saw the new Dragon Subdomain. I'm all, awesome. But then I started looking at the idea closer, and I was surprised to see the Druids don't have access to the Scalykind domain.

I was wondering why. It seems like that would be up a druid's alley. Could it be a balance of power thing? My personal pet theory is that no one really remembered that Druids can get domains, so Inner Sea didn't mention Scalykind as a possible druid domain, and since most druids get the animal companion instead anyway it just hasn't really come up.

Theories?

Man, I would love a scenario that revolved around traveling to another plane, such as the elemental plane of fire. That in itself would be awesome, and the added bonus at a shot at an ifirit or something would send it over the top.

I know there's some VOs for Istanbul, there's probably some games in the middle east, although that's not exactly handy for you to just drive to. Too bad you aren't headed to Pakistan, I'd refer you to a friend of mine there.