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I'm writing a heavily water-based campaign set in Golarion, and I'm hoping that I can get some help with ideas for a particular scene.

The players are visiting a friendly Gillman villiage in the Inner Sea, towards the bottom of the twilight zone (3000 ft. below sea level), and they are invited to a festival of Gozreh.

Now what does an underwater festival look like?

What I've got so far:

* Music is provided with a band playing bass instruments like horns and drums. The locals dancing looks a lot like synchronised swimming.

* Food is provided by several vendors preparing fresh seafood, in most cases raw, but in some cases seared with a magical blade enchanted to produce fire (or steam underwater)

* There are games in the form of tests of skill and strength. The tests of skill involve harpooning a bluefin tuna released from a bag (they swim at 44 mph / 70 kmph). The tests of strength involve placing one's arm into a giant clam, then wrenching it back open when it closes.

And after that I'm stuck.

I want to create a reasonably believable event, even if it is underwater with magical fish-people, so I'd like to avoid extravagant displays of magic or anything else that would be out of the reach of a small village.

Ideas?

So, I'm running a campaign which takes place mostly underground, and the PCs are spending a lot of time with Dwarves who have never traded with the surface.

So what do Dwarves eat without access to the surface? Clearly they survived on Golarion for some time without access. An obvious one is mushroom dishes, and the occasional game meat like displacer beast, but for any large settlement, there would likely have to be some kind of semi-farmed animal.

My current fix is the invention of the 'deep goat', a variant underground goat with a black hide and darkvision. My argument to the players is that deep goats are clearly only omitted from the bestiaries due to space restrictions.

I could use some other suggestions as to what other foods underground races might eat, otherwise I'll have to go with displacer chickens, dark pigs, etc.

Hi guys,
I've lost count of the amount of times I've needed models for the town guard, generic mercenaries, or some other uniform fighting force that isn't decked out in full plate from head to toe. Most of the paizo models I've seen have been very distinctive, and not ideal for representing a cohesive group, despite being excellent quality. I'm looking for recommendations of where I can get some appropriate models. Ideally they would be:

* Metal
* 5+ figures, with minor differences on each
* A slotted bottom, for fitting into a square or round base.
* Lightly/moderately armoured; not full plate, not leathers.

Thanks!

Hi all - I have writers block tonight, so I figured I'd crowdsource some of my game preparation :).

I have a party of 7th level characters, on the way to the front of an orcish invasion. Currently the characters have a short stopover in Ardis, Ustalav, before they make their way to where the armies are encamped. One of the characters is a magus with the bladebound archetype, who is essentially playing a bloodthirsty viking who wants to end up slaying dragons, drinking, wenching, going berserk, and all that good stuff. His intelligent sword pretty much echoes that sentiment, and has been passed to him by his dragon-slaying ancestors. It's a fun character, but there isn't much chance for his sword to actually be intelligent, since it just agrees with everything he wants to do.

Enter an NPC, Sir Edwin, a cautious, knightly, magus who follows the tenants of politeness, decorum, and patient strategy in order to win his conflicts - he is also someone following the bladebound archetype, and his sword similarly echoes his virtues. Sir Edwin is going to guide them to the front, and during that time, I need some event which will swap the personalities of the two swords, preferably in such a fashion that there is a chance of undoing it at some point in the future, so that I can backtrack if the player doesn't have any fun with his new sword personality.

Any ideas?

Hi all,
I have a party that is currently going through a game set in Ustalav, which is a mix of a Fighter, a Rogue, a Summoner and a Magus. The Fighter and Rogue aren't really a problem, but I am having problems with the summoner's eidolon. The Eidolon and Magus get enlarged in almost every combat, and the Eidolon already has extended reach and a knockback ability that essentially means that he threatens most squares in each of the combats I run. They are otherwise reasonably well optimized, though not ludicrously so.

I've been able to counter this by buffing up the strength of the NPCs they face, but really, it's getting to the point where if I don't make their AC astronomically high and give them huge quantities of hit points, it becomes an utter route. This isn't all that fun for the players either, because they are always looking for extremely high rolls to actually achieve anything.

I'm not naturally a number crunching GM - I like roleplaying, and I'm getting tired of writing NPCs with names, motivation and history only to have them plowed into the dirt the moment they are physically in the same location as the PCs.

My players aren't problem players... it's just easier for them to try and kill everything than deal with it another way. There are plot based ways around that, but it feels like railroading if I do it too often.

So, I'm after suggestions for:

Rail-roady or not, suggestions for plots that make killing some main antagonists undesirable, difficult, or at least make them think a bit before they do it.

And

Rules-based strategies for giving the players tougher fights without making the NPCs AC & HP sky high.

I’ve always loved psionics in fantasy, but I’ve found that they are presented in a fashion that is more akin to Sci-fi settings than fantasy, and I really think that’s more about how it is presented than anything else. The concept of a seer with mental abilities, or a gypsy with the second sight is pretty common in fantasy literature.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking that with some simple name substitutions you could change the feel a little:

Instead of... / Use...
Psionics / Second Sight
Psionic Focus / Mystic Focus
Psionic Feat / Mystic Feat
Psi-like Ability / Mystic Ability
Power Resistance / Mystic Resistance
etc / etc.

Classes
Psion / Seer (Implying studied learning)
Wilder / Mystic (Implying intuitive learning)
Psychic Warrior / Adept
Soulknife / Mmm… can't really sell that as anything other than what it is. I wouldn't use it in campaigns where I was trying to avoid the sci-fi feel. You just know they meant 'Jedi' when they were first writing it.

Skills / Powers
Autohypnosis / Mental Discipline
Know.(Psionics) / Knowledge(Mysticism / The Second Sight)
Psychometabolism / Body Control
Psychokinesis / Energy Control
Psychoportation / Mental Travel
Clairsentience / Mental Sight
Telepathy / Mental Communication / or just leave it as Telepathy
Metacreativity / Mental Creation

Instead of Psi-Crystals, refashion them as Orbs, like scrying balls, with similar effects. Perhaps minor levitation instead of growing arms and legs to get around though.

Can anyone suggest any other changes you could make to psionics to make them a little less starwars-y?