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Some jokes for Gelik. I got a few actual medieval jokes off the web and modified them for Golarion, substituting the RL kings and popes and 'King Arthur' and whatnot. Some are off-color, but no more than the originals...:
One day tho Taldan king and a Half Elf sat on opposite sides of the table, with the courtiers ranged around. The Half Elf —through forgetfulness or ignorance— transgressed some of the rules of etiquette, so as to offend the fastidious taste of those who sat by, upon which, the king asked him, "What is the difference between a Half-Elf and a Half-Wit?"
"The width of this table"
"For the love of Sarenrae, give a poor blind man alms!"
"Pray pity the poor blind; and Sarenrae preserve your precious eyesight!"
"Born blind, good sir; bestow your charity on one who never saw The Dawnflower’s light!"
Thus prayed three blind beggars, as Queen Abrogail passed by them to Mass. "Poor fellows!" said the Chelaxian Queen, "there is a Platinum Piece, divide it amongst you." She gave nothing at all; and as those who stood near smiled, she put her finger on her lips, to enjoin silence.
"May Heaven reward you in Paradise!" said the blind men, in chorus;—and a moment after, "Let us share the kind lady's charity." But as neither had any coin, and as no one believed that he was not being robbed by his fellow, they fell to savage words, and from savage words to blows, fiercely striking at each other with their crutches till heads were broken and bleeding; and Abrogail passed in to prayers for Asmodeus, with the complacent comment, "Blessed are the peace-makers !"
"Praise Zon-Kuthon! When they put me on the rack, my limbs weren't the only thing they stretched."
King Haliad I of Cheliax was preparing to go out on an expedition in his Everwar and would be away from Egorian for an indefinite period of time. Haliad was worried about leaving his Queen alone. So he went to his court Wizard for some advice. After explaining his predicament, the wizard, who was from Nidal, looked thoughtful, and said that he’d see if he could come up with something, and asked him to come back in a week. A week later, King Haliad was back and the wizard was showing him his latest invention. It was a chastity belt, except that it had a rather large hole in the most obvious place. “This is no good!” the king exclaimed, “Look at this opening.. How is this supposed to protect the Queen?”
“Ah, sire, just observe.” said the Wizard from Nidal, as he searched his cluttered work bench until he found his most worn-out wand, one that he was going to discard anyway. He then inserted it in the gaping aperture of the chastity belt whereupon a small guillotine blade came down and cut it neatly in two.
“Wizard, you are a genius!” said the Chelaxian Monarch, “Now I can leave, knowing that my Queen is fully protected.”
After putting his queen in the device, King Haliad then set out to conquer. Several years passed until he returned to Egorian. Immediately he assembled all his Kinghts in the courtyard and had them drop their trousers for an informal ’short arm’ inspection. Sure enough! Each and every one of them was either amputated or damaged in some way. All of them except Quinta, of course, as she was female.
“Sir Quinta,” exclaimed King Haliad, “The one and only true knight! Only you among all the nobles have been true to me. What is it in my power to grant you? Name it and it is yours!”
…But Quinta was speechless…
An Oracle prophesied to a king that his favorite mistress would soon die. Sure enough, the woman died a short time later. The king was outraged at the Oracle, certain that his prophecy had brought about the woman's death. He summoned the Oracle and commanded him: "Prophecy, tell me of YOUR death!". The Oracle realized that the king was contriving to kill him immediatly in accordance with whatever answer he gave. "I do not know when I will die," he answered finally. "I only know that whenever I die, the king will die three days later.'
These are very funny!! Thanks for posting this ... if my party ever brings Gelik around, this will be very useful.
Interesting observation:
Last night my PCs were very reluctant to complete the Tidal Stone ritual. The Inquisitor outright refused, feeling that it was a faith/alignment violation to do something that had ritual components and involved invoking the name of what (correctly) seemed like an evil diety.
This was not a problem for me ultimately, as the other PCs broke down and did it anyway, and got the job done.
But I just didn't see that coming. :) Thought I'd point it out.
Yea, it is an evil ritual even apparently requiring a human sacrifice. Kudos to that inquisitor for staying true to character, even if they eventually caved.
Thing to do is to make sure to keep Gelik alive if there's nobody else with at least a +5 in use magic item. That way they can inevitably trigger blindly without having to do the ritual.
My home group killed Gelik but they're playing evil, so I bet they'll also have no problem with the ritual...
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There's a pretty huge difference between human sacrifice and blood sacrifice, actually.The ritual doesn't require a human sacrifice to trigger, but it does require smears of blood (from any source). The fact that the ritual itself is somewhat easy to misunderstand or misinterpret is deliberate, of course, and the intention that it causes good or lawful characters to feel a bit squeamish is also on purpose. My goal for the ritual was to present a ritual that felt creepy and maybe a slight bit "wrong," but not SO bad that no one would try it.
There's a pretty huge difference between human sacrifice and blood sacrifice, actually.The ritual doesn't require a human sacrifice to trigger, but it does require smears of blood (from any source). The fact that the ritual itself is somewhat easy to misunderstand or misinterpret is deliberate, of course, and the intention that it causes good or lawful characters to feel a bit squeamish is also on purpose. My goal for the ritual was to present a ritual that felt creepy and maybe a slight bit "wrong," but not SO bad that no one would try it.
You succeeded brilliantly! I completely forgot about the UMD option.
The broke down and did it, but it was a kinda cool role-playing to see them screw up their faces and be reluctant to do it.
Yea, Puzzel is figuring out that just meeting the technical minimum is sufficient. As intended, some parties may not.
I've got two groups, one evil and the other non-evil. I bet the evil group will go all out with some Thrunefang cannibal prisoners they may still have by then - but event there, would it offend Zon-Kuthon to two time a blood sacrifice with Ydersius? Evil party might still have some issues. Will be intereting to see what they do. Great time for the blood drinking Chupa to show up too.
My group is starting to get near the end and I'm looking at how they might leave the island. One idea I had was for them to encounter smugglers and take over their ship. Would giving the PCS their own ship create problems later in the adventure path?
My group is starting to get near the end and I'm looking at how they might leave the island. One idea I had was for them to encounter smugglers and take over their ship. Would giving the PCS their own ship create problems later in the adventure path?
Not at all, IMO, as the rest of the AP takes place on land. Just two things to remember:
1. Avoid giving your players the impression that the ship is needed for future adventures.
2. Keep in mind that they might get the idea of selling the ship. A sailing ship is worth 10k, so selling it for 5k or thereabout shouldn't give your PCs an unfair amount of cash, but you might reduce some other loot piles to compensate.
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Hey guys I'd like some feedback on a minor situation with my group.
I've got a witch in my group who wants to use the brew potion hex to make potions. Obviously on the Shiv this is a bit problematic given D&D and PF use GP costs for item creation rather than list components. Normally not a problem in your standard game where theres an accessible market you'd just spend the gold to acquire what you need. So after having a bit of think on it and considering that you can't exactly stroll down to the local markets, I'm thinking about giving my PCs the chance to find the components and heres what I've come with:
Limited to first level potions only. Note too sure if I should open it up a bit for potions that remove disease, etc.
Survival or Knowledge Nature check to acquire components. PCs can help out and so can the NPCs which should also make them more useful. The difficulty of the check depends on whether you're deep in the jungle or on the fringes near the beach. A search of the jungle takes 4 hours and has a DC 15 and a search on the finges takes 4 hours with DC 20 to gather the basics to make a stock standard CLW potion.
For every 2 points you beat the DC you can either reduce the time spent gathering or choose to gather enough for another dose to make one more potion. You can reduce the time by 1 hour, but it always takes at least 1 hour no matter how much you smash the DC by.
So is the time too short or too long? I'm thinking about adding in that a search in the same area increases the DC by 2 for each previous search.
For a bit of added spice I was thinking that the potency might be a bit random and require a craft alchemy check for consistency. So for this I'm looking at a DC10 check for a standard potion. If they fail the check by 5 or more the potion is weaker and doesn't give a CL bonus. Still consumes the same amount of time and dose/s.
There's also the chance to make a stronger and more potent potion (DC25). Yes the DC is huge for their low level and requires a high roll, but if they hit it they've discovered a secret ingredient for that type of potion that they can use for the rest of the campaign and potentially financially benefit from (assuming you could farm/cultivate it). Once discovered crafting such a potion is normal with the only challenge being locating and gathering the secret ingredient, which will take a Survival or Knowledge Nature check (say DC 25). A stronger potion grants double the CL bonus.
What do people think? My players tend to enjoy this side of things, but I'm wondering if I'm making things too messy.
Hey BQ, this came up in my game as well.. But if you notice, Malikadna (the witch from the Cannical Camp) not only has a cauldron, but she's producing tanglefoot bags, smokesticks, and antitoxin. She also has brew potion and presumably brewed them herself. Plus the room description of her lair all but implies it is a working alchemist lab.
So once the Thrunefangs were defeated, I let my witch PC use that to justify his alchemy and potion brewing. And soon they'll be off the Island...
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Brewing potions isn't something that 1st level characters can really accomplish, since they're poor, so not having access to potion brewing options at the start of this adventure isn't really an issue.
That said... one of the MAIN reasons I put Malikadna into the adventure was so that about halfway through, the PCs will gain access to what amounts to a magic item laboratory—they can use Malikadna's gear not only to build potions, but also to scribe scrolls and even to build wondrous items if they get that high level before leaving the island.
I've run a lot of man vs environment type campaigns and the crafting rules have always bothered me. The rules require you to spend gold to create items which I do completely agree with but they do produce problems when you are trying to immerse your crafting in the game world.
I read suggestions on these boards a while back and read someone's suggestion that any time a character picks up any sort of magical Crafting feat, the first part of having that feat is learning a special spell/ability that allows you to alchemically transmute treasure into a sort of base magical ingredient that you can then use in your crafting. That the reason copper/silver/gold is valuable is because those elements contain a sort of magical essence (the more essence, the higher the value). That's one way of patching the fourth wall.
What I've been doing is this. Anytime a character levels up, they are allowed to convert an amount of treasure (say 100gp x level) into magical components to use to craft with. And then we try to represent this with the time and future spending of this character gathering components from their environment. Not as elegant but sometimes game rules are too hard to try to represent in-world completely.
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That said... one of the MAIN reasons I put Malikadna into the adventure was so that about halfway through, the PCs will gain access to what amounts to a magic item laboratory—they can use Malikadna's gear not only to build potions, but also to scribe scrolls and even to build wondrous items if they get that high level before leaving the island.
I noted that, and it's great, but there's no listing for the GP value of whatever components might be on hand. Not wanting to mess with the loot balance by writing in a big GP value of mats, the PCs end up with the engine but no gas.
My solution is I use the profession skills for harvesting materials in the wild.
They already provide a pre-balanced method for PCs to get value in exchange for time (and those skills deserve a little love anyway since they're kind of redhead step-kid skills since they mechanically have little other use). Narrativly they fit the bill perfectly, too. Of course minning is what you need to extract metal from a mountain. Tanning to get leather from skins. All of those kinds of subskills are listed under professions. So, it makes for a nice synergy - profession skills are what you use to get the materials, craft skills are what you use to convert the raw materials into an item.
Mechanically, just apply the income per week rules, but make the result that GP value in materials (trade good money equivelents) rather than coin. Herbalism fits to cover harvesting magic substances (the classic eye of newt and nightshade harvested under the full moon and whatnot).
I also rule that the a skill check indicates how many unskilled helpers can assist (based off the skill covering supervision of unskilled workers). So, one person with a one rank and you can put the whole team to work gathering the rare herbs and spices, and thus have some option to craft something even in the middle of no-where.
This means only very simple items can be made in the wild in any reasonable amount of time, but that's as it should be. IMO, you can only take the "Professor from Gilligan's Island" thing so far before it gets to be comically unbeliveable (like .. well.. the professor from gilligan's island), and you don't want to make it too easy on the island, that it'll cause problems when they get off the island and want to just do the same thing.
But to speed it up, you could give them a bonus to harvest from a readily available source - like maybe the dead ghouls could give them macially potent ghoul blood that'd let them make a check for one day rather than per week for each ghoul, etc.
Great suggestion Asphesteros, I'm changing my house rules now!
Just started DMing Smuggler's Shiv--I'm pretty new to Pathfinder but I love the APs I've seen so far(PCed the first book of Kingmaker).
Anyway, I like that some of the characters on the island have broken equipment (particularly Pezock and his broken leather armor).
My question is, why do all of the Thrunefangs have broken swords? I know that their tribe has been on the island for 70 years or so, but why are they all using shoddy weapons? It would be more effective to find a piece of driftwood to use as a club.
And after decades of attacking shipwreck survivors (including defeating a Red Mantis Assassin and her crew), wouldn't they have found better weapons to use than broken swords?
My question is, why do all of the Thrunefangs have broken swords?
Especially since the witch even has Mending. However the AP notes how the witch gives them all the creeps to the point they are loathe to go to her even for healing, so I chaulk that up to that.
As for mundain repair, none of them have craft(weapons), no proper forge or tools, so can just say they lack the skill and materials to properly fix something as sophisticated as a steel weapon. I chaulk them sticking with a broken steel sword over a club or somthing else techincaly more effective as personal preference. The swords have cultural signifigance, being handed down from the first castaways, symbolise their identity, etc. They also are slashing weapons, so draw more blood than bludgeoning, and they like that.
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My question is, why do all of the Thrunefangs have broken swords?Especially since the witch even has Mending. However the AP notes how the witch gives them all the creeps to the point they are loathe to go to her even for healing, so I chaulk that up to that.
As for mundain repair, none of them have craft(weapons), no proper forge or tools, so can just say they lack the skill and materials to properly fix something as sophisticated as a steel weapon. I chaulk them sticking with a broken steel sword over a club or somthing else techincaly more effective as personal preference. The swords have cultural signifigance, being handed down from the first castaways, symbolise their identity, etc. They also are slashing weapons, so draw more blood than bludgeoning, and they like that.
Yeah; the witch isn't all that helpful to the cannibals since she's kinda creepy and mean, even to the cannibals.
As for why they have so much broken stuff... two things:
1) Things break pretty quickly on the island, with all that moisture and heat and mold and stuff. Without proper places for them to keep all of their weapons and armor clean and maintained, and indeed without the mindset to do that in the first place, things break down fast. By giving them broken stuff, it helps to build the adventure's feel of being on a nasty island where things tend to fall apart.
2) There's a lot of cannibals. I wanted there to be a lot of them, because fighting a lot is more exciting than fighting one or two or three. Giving them broken weapons is a great way to further de-fang characters that are already mostly as low level as they can possibly get.
My question is, why do all of the Thrunefangs have broken swords?Especially since the witch even has Mending. However the AP notes how the witch gives them all the creeps to the point they are loathe to go to her even for healing, so I chaulk that up to that.
As for mundain repair, none of them have craft(weapons), no proper forge or tools, so can just say they lack the skill and materials to properly fix something as sophisticated as a steel weapon. I chaulk them sticking with a broken steel sword over a club or somthing else techincaly more effective as personal preference. The swords have cultural signifigance, being handed down from the first castaways, symbolise their identity, etc. They also are slashing weapons, so draw more blood than bludgeoning, and they like that.
Yeah; the witch isn't all that helpful to the cannibals since she's kinda creepy and mean, even to the cannibals.
As for why they have so much broken stuff... two things:
1) Things break pretty quickly on the island, with all that moisture and heat and mold and stuff. Without proper places for them to keep all of their weapons and armor clean and maintained, and indeed without the mindset to do that in the first place, things break down fast. By giving them broken stuff, it helps to build the adventure's feel of being on a nasty island where things tend to fall apart.
2) There's a lot of cannibals. I wanted there to be a lot of them, because fighting a lot is more exciting than fighting one or two or three. Giving them broken weapons is a great way to further de-fang characters that are already mostly as low level as they can possibly get.
Both valid points, and Asphesteros makes some good points too. I'll probably see how my players handle fighting the TFs and if it's too easy I might give a small percentage of them unbroken weapons to represent plunder from some of their victims.
It should be interesting, as on the 2nd day of exploration my PCs (during the terrible heat around noon AND during pouring rain) are encountering a WM patrol of 4 (out of a possible d4) cannibals, hehe. We ended on a cliffhanger, so the battle will start immediately at the start of our next session. Maybe I'll have some character obits to add already..
Cheers for sharing your thoughts guys.
Just on the weapons, when the PCs encounter a pack of cannibals you could give one or two normal weapons. PCs will likely assume them to be some sort of leader which could add a tactical element to the battle. Mechanically it does little to nothing, but giving the PCs a target and have the other cannibals protecting/blocking could make a battle more interesting.
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That said... one of the MAIN reasons I put Malikadna into the adventure was so that about halfway through, the PCs will gain access to what amounts to a magic item laboratory—they can use Malikadna's gear not only to build potions, but also to scribe scrolls and even to build wondrous items if they get that high level before leaving the island.
I told my PCs they could crush up the many red pearls they had gotten from the cannibals and mix them in with potion reagents/scroll ink to use as the "expensive" part of crafting. I figured there were appropriate liquids in Malikadna's hut that just needed a little oomph to magic up correctly.
That's a great idea. The Island Curse turned the read mountain stones red, assumedly same for the pearls, so makes sense they have JuJu, and would reinforce why the cannibals like them so much. All the game balance elements are already in place, too, with a mechanic for harvesting them from the oysterbeds already in the AP.
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I told my PCs they could crush up the many red pearls they had gotten from the cannibals and mix them in with potion reagents/scroll ink to use as the "expensive" part of crafting. I figured there were appropriate liquids in Malikadna's hut that just needed a little oomph to magic up correctly.
Mate thats a ripper of an idea. Keeps the supernatural element flavour of the island and encourages the PCs to dive for pearls while keeping with the GP mechanics. I like it.
I added in a random encounter with locathah (Bestiary 2: 179) partly for the bard to use his social skills and partly for the PCs to trade and use their gold. We've just had the initial introduction and it went well enough that the PCs are returning to camp to look at what they could use to barter/buy from the Locathah. I figure I'll throw in what they could use for potions in trade for gold. An unintentional benefit of using the Locathah is that the PCs are planning to go into the jungle in search of some type of potato (Locathah like tubers), which is good as my group has kept to the beaches.
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I liked the Gelik jokes posted in this thread and found a few more that I used. Seems to have bonded the little guy to the group who hated him before. Here's the ones that I used:
Gelik Joke 1:
One day a King had his warriors and guests around a table. On the opposite sides of the table was the King's champion and a Half Elf bard. The champion was an arrogant brutish man who took delight in belittling the courtiers at the table. The Half Elf quickly realised he was far too clever for the arrogant champion and his cheer squard of fellow warriors around the table. He took great pleasure in subtle mocking to impress the ladies and in no time he was locked in a contest of one-up-manship. The Champion tired of the insults thought he'd outwit the Half Elf and asked, "What's the difference between a Half-Elf and a Half-Wit?" To which the Half Elf replied, "The width of this table"
Gelik Joke 2:
A knight returned to the king’s castle with prisoners, bags of gold and other riches from his victories. “Tell me of your battles,” said the king.
“Well, sire, I have been robbing and stealing on your behalf for weeks, burning the all of the villages of your enemies in the north.”
The king was horrified. “But I have no enemies in the north,” he said.
“Well,” said the knight, “you do now.”
Gelik Joke 3:
Q: How many pirates does it take to set fire to a lantern?
A: Forget the lantern our ships on fire!
Gelik Joke 4:
An elf tired of travelling late into the night decides to stop at a run down inn. He pulls up his wagon and knocks on the door. The old owner opens the hatch and croaks out, “name!” To which the elf answered, "Caladrel Lanliss Seldlon Talathel Summerchime." Which drew a reply of, "Sir, we don't have enough rooms for you and all your women."
Gelik Joke 5:
A travelling bard looking to ply his trade walks up to a inn named "The Dragon and the Knight". He approaches the bar seeking the innkeeper, but before he could open his mouth, the shrewish innkeeper's wife snaps "What do you want here, you tramp?" The bard eyes her for a moment and glances at the inn's sign. "Is the knight in?"
Gelik Joke 6:
A man was paying his last respects to his wife when someone asked him: "Whose at rest?", he replied: "Me, now."
Gelik Joke 7:
A curiosity hangs by the thigh of a man, under its master's cloak. It is pierced through in the front, it is stiff and hard and it has a good standing place. When a man pulls up his own robe above his knee, he means to poke with the head of this thing that familiar hole of matching length which he has often filled before.
Answer: Key, you sleazy bags
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I had them train everyone all at once, even the other castaways.
I also changed up a bit what the result was. I have a dislike of having to keep track of all the various elements to know what to add to a save, etc.. (and I hate the "wait, was that a charm or compulsion spell, cause that would change my number")
Aerys knew a way of using the berries to give someone a +1 to fort (they had enough berries to cure her and give everyone a dose).
Ishirou taught gave them a +1 to ref.
Jask gave them jungle fighter trait (they love him for that, all the fighting in difficult terrain in the jungle was driving them nuts, with no 5' steps).
Gelik taught them to see the humor in everything, giving them a +1 to will
Sasha gave them a +1 to initiative.
Basically, they gained the equivalent to 5 traits.
I'm starting this path on Saturday and had a couple of questions.
1) Mapping - Do you recommend giving a basic map of the island (sans markings, of course) and let them choose which way to go or would it be better to make them map it out themselves?
2) One of the players is an alchemist; I figure it would be easy for her to find what she needs in the jungle. The other is a cleric who focuses on a crossbow. She only has 20 bolts. Should I be stingy and make her keep track of the bolts or should I just handwave it and say you have enough? I'm just wondering how it would work if I basically took away her combat ability.
Thanks for all the great ideas in this thread and for the awesome handouts! :)
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For mapping, I have the Smuggler's Shiv map from the Serpent's Skull Map folio in a poster frame. I've got it hanging on a wall next to the play area, and I am using small 1/4" label dots to mark locations as the players find them. I also gave a printed unmarked map to the players to keep their own notes on.
One of the players is an archer, so I am saying that hits are lost, but she can recover her misses. Gotta make every hit count!
Thanks as well for the neat ideas!
I give them the folio map as a reward when they search the captain's cabin on the Jenivere. Then I lay it out on the table over a magna map, and use Action Stands to mark where they are and let them plot out where they intend to go. We also use divider calipers to measure the distances, just like real treasure mapping!
I have them track their ammo usage. Shots that miss are often completely lost. Those that hit and break, if they can recover them, the cantrip mending usually repairs them.
I too gave them access to the map from the map folio once they searched the captain's cabin.
Training:
On the training side of things it really depended on the NPC and the group. Sort of treat as if you don't make the effort with the NPC then you're not going to get the reward. For my group they didn't really use the NPCs or go out of their way to interact with them straight away except for one player. That player bonded with Jask and managed to find the evidence so Jask's training was just for him. The other NPCs had their quests done later and by then the group had bonded with all of them so it was a group training session.
Map:
In this thread people have put up a few pics of the map (and cheers for that). I used the outline one which was enough for the guys to get an idea of where they were in relation to the castaway camp and where they wanted to go (Red Mountain). I didn't use the full colour map as it shows the jungle trails and my guys didn't find those for a long time so it didn't seem right to give them one that showed the trails.
Ammunition & Alchemist:
Resource management is part of the challenge and fun of this AP so I wouldn't give them unlimited amounts. I'd throw ammunition and components for your Alchemist as loot in the shipwrecks and at abandoned camps. I'd also even look at changing one of the NPC's skills to have Craft bowyer/fletcher so they can make the ammunition. Have them tell the PCs to collect the heads of the used arrows/bolts an they'll make the shafts. Gives a way for the NPCs to contribute, which helps the PCs see a value in them. Have the PCs make the roll for how many arrows are created (say 2d6+4 per day). You could do something similiar for the Alchemist by having an NPC with Knowledge Nature/Craft Alchemy trying to locate things for them.
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Three more Gelik jokes for you.
1) A priestess of Lamashtu is walking into a cavern with a little boy and a little girl.
The little boy says "Why are we going into these dark caves?"
"To give offerings to Lamashtu" She says.
The little girl says "I'm scared!"
"You're scared? I have to walk back out of these caves alone!"
2) A destitute halfling is begging in Egorian. He sees a pretty Chelish lady and calls out "Miss, Miss, could you give me a loaf of bread or a few coppers for my wife and little ones?"
The lady stops and considers him suspiciously. "Why are they so cheap?"
3) in a churchyard. The morning sun shone brightly and the dew was still on the grass.
"Ah, this is the weather that makes things spring up," remarked a passer-by casually to an old gentleman seated on a bench.
"Hush!" replied the old gentleman. "I've got three wives buried here."
Those are awesome!
Thank you.
I just wanna say if I run this again, that I wouldn't really apply the chances for disease each night. Between all of the encounters with poison and the chances for disease my party died without really getting more than a few hours from the beach. They had such terrible luck on almost every save.
My players kept getting diseases as well.
Jask was able to keep on top of it, adding in a bonus to their saves. And when a PC was down due to disease, the player would run one of the Castaways.
And finally, Jask finally told the PCs that sleeping in armor caused minor scrapes and such, which was one way that they were getting sick so often. And if they used presdigitation to clean themselves off after every fight they would lessen their chances of getting sick. All of that brought their chances of getting sick to 5% a night.
My players liked the fact that the island is dangerous in a way that they hadn't faced before, and in a way that couldn't be solved by fighting.
Medics cut the chance 5% each, and shelter + campfire is a base 10%, so two medics would cut the chance to zero in the base camp.
Regardless, I took the advice James wrote into the AP to not over do it and just blew off disease after the second time someone got sick. I think the best way to go about it is to leave the threat out there until the first PC catches ill - let it be one of the truly horrible diseases from Heart of the Jungle, even - then the PCs deal with that as a major encoutner, dramatising the dangers of tropical diseases while lost on a jungle island, then when they beat it, say they beat the threat and don't bother with it again.
I'm starting this path on Saturday and had a couple of questions.
1) Mapping - Do you recommend giving a basic map of the island (sans markings, of course) and let them choose which way to go or would it be better to make them map it out themselves?
2) One of the players is an alchemist; I figure it would be easy for her to find what she needs in the jungle. The other is a cleric who focuses on a crossbow. She only has 20 bolts. Should I be stingy and make her keep track of the bolts or should I just handwave it and say you have enough? I'm just wondering how it would work if I basically took away her combat ability.
Thanks for all the great ideas in this thread and for the awesome handouts! :)
One of my players is an archer-type ranger. What I did to lessen the ammo problem was as "treasure" for one of the shipwrecks I put 3 or 4 "durable arrows" sticking out of the rib cages and other bones of a couple of the skeletons that the PCs fought on the ship. Pretty cool flavor-wise, and now he has some "nigh indestructible" ammo.
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Hi all,
My group is starting Skull at the end of this month. I've spent the last month or so preparing for it (a couple of months of daily encounters rolled, all NPC's, creatures and mobs on Hero Lab to use from the Tactical Console, all maps loaded in Maptools ready to be projected onto the game table for the players to "explore").
I've taken lots of advice from the GM's posting on here - love the Gelik jokes. I've also given my players maximum money to start to buy all sorts of goodies (most won't be in their rooms, so will be lost on the Jenivere -- will help them with the destitution of loss).
I will give them a bare outline of the Shiv (provided they find it in the captain's cabin) with no markings on it, so they'll have to work out where they are before they can start to fill in the map -- won't be too hard, sun rises in the east, so they'll know they're in a cove on the east shore -- pretty much limits it, though there isn't a scale on the map, so they'll have to work that out.
Ammo -- when they've run out, they're out :) I like the idea of "mending" on broken arrows (I use the 50% of ammo which hit is recoverable -- there are advantages to having a sling though). Of course if they want to venture into the undergrowth to try and find an arrow ...
At the moment, I have a rogue and a magus (waiting for .pdf release of Ultimate Magic on 18 May ... :0 ) with possibly a Paladin -- waiting on my fourth player to decide on his character :)
Anyway, I bought the Inner Sea World Guide and Paizo have changed the calendar ... so I made a year's calendar, starting in late summer 4711 and going though to summer 4712. It has all holy days, events, etc as well as room to fill in details for that day (on mine, I've marked which time of day has which encounters), hope you like them.
Any queries or suggestions more then welcome ... the support on this forum is awesome.
Word one is here - it is editable Golarion Calendar 4711
PDF version is here Golarion Calendar PDF
...I've also given my players maximum money to start to buy all sorts of goodies (most won't be in their rooms, so will be lost on the Jenivere -- will help them with the destitution of loss).
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Ammo -- when they've run out, they're out :) I like the idea of "mending" on broken arrows (I use the 50% of ammo which hit is recoverable -- there are advantages to having a sling though). Of course if they want to venture into the undergrowth to try and find an arrow ...
This might cause a ruckus, some of your players might take this badly if not informed beforehand before being "robbed" of their gear. And my tip is to give them a bare minimum of "indestructible ammo" (I inserted 5 extremely durable bolts into my game), or else a ranged-based character will spend the majority of the adventure underperforming. Mor importantly, the player might feel cheated or barred from playing the character he/she wants.
If you think your players can handle it, feel free to consider me a worrying needlessly, but players generally freak out when their gear is taken away. My group KNEW they were starting with no gear, and they still grumbled about lack of bolts and longswords.
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We're an "older" group (I started playing d&D in 1979) ... so I'm hoping they don't whinge too much :)
I like the idea of finding "durable" bolts / arrows, and your point about a ranged-based character is exactly right :)
I'm going to give them three of the four players' backpacks (as well as the NPC's gear) -- love a random roll.
Of course the kit their missing (except the extra gold's worth of expedition gear, I've "allowed" them to buy which was in the hold, and now in the ocean) will be on the Jenivere, as will the map, Jask, etc :)
I like someone elses explanation of finding durable ammo embedded in skeletons / zombies / other dead things somewhere else, and think that will be the way to go for my group.
Thanks for the suggestions jorgenporgen :)
Oh, and has anyone else made a Captains Log -- even with the last week or so's entries ??
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I'd leave Ammo a solvable challange for them, and let them figure out that they can repair & make new arrows and bolts.
Let them discover they can salvage the arrowheads and flights from their own broken arrows and from ruined supplies in shipwrecks, bird feathers, the good old flint napping method, jungle wood & driftwood for shafts, etc. so they don't need to buy anything.
By craft skill rules: Arrows are DC 12, so a success lets them make at least 2 quivers for a day's work. Bolts are DC15, so a success yeilds at least 3 quivers for a day's work. You can use the skill untrained, so the Int-class PC of the group would probably have an auto success by taking 10 to make arrows at least.
So, ammo really should be a non-issue provided the players put their thinking caps on. Once they figure it out, I'd even treat gaining replacement ammo as an bonus gained by anyone doing the Defender role.
Another thing I've done that works pretty well is to using the shipwecks as a vehicle to let the PCs get the extra mundain gear they need. The wrecks all have a chance of a random GP value of loot, so rather than determine it myself (and rather than make it useless 'valuables') I've just let them have that value of whatever mundain item they want --- I.E. they loot the ship and find something useful --- I just let them determine what that useful thing is.
My PCs did not have any craft skills, so they wouldn't be able to make their own ammo. This is partly min-maxing (they don't think craft skills are worth it) and the fact that none of them are "the crafting type" (we have an ex-pirate barbarian, an young deckhand sorcerer, a jungle-tracker druid and an archivist bard). I planted 20 bolts and two light crossbows on the Jenivere, that's all they started with. We also houseruled that a bolt has a 50/50 chance of breaking regardless of whether it hits or misses (just to ease bookkeeping).
I expanded the shipwrecks a lot. In one (a pre-Thrune Chelish warship), they found a case of 5 +1 flaming bolts (normal durability) early on, which the bard (resident crossbower) LOVED, though he agonized over using them :P
In another wreck they found an ancient wicked-looking black metal heavy crossbow with five wicked barbed bolts. I ruled that these bolts were indestructible, but since they are for a heavy crossbow which can only fire those bolts they still feel like a limited resource.
BTW, my group spends much of their time exploring the shipwrecks, since they saw them as the only places to get gear. I highly recommend reading some of the thread on spicing them up or just using them to introduce stuff PCs might like but which aren't easily available. For me, the shipwrecks was the obvious place to spend "excess GM creativity".
Another example: One of the boats was a viking longship with three fast zombies with broken battle axes and scale mail waiting under the boat in ambush. After killing them they found four "courage drinks" in clay flasks which were enchanted mead (4x potions of Aid). (I ruled the zombies' other gear was too busted to repair to avoid too much loot, but wanted to keep the "viking flavour". That might not work in all groups, if the players like to salvage all loot possible.)
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Thanks Asphesteros -- I was thinking of them finding "stuff" they wanted (shovels, buckets, a large iron pot ... etc) on some of the ships, but allowing them to name a "mundane" item works well too :)
At the moment the only "arrow" users I have in my group are the castaways :)
Still waiting on my fourth player's decision on a character ...
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A big part of the fun of this book is the resource management and the joy the PCs get out of finding simple things like cauldrons and arrows. So I wouldn't go down the indestructable ammo path as you're reducing the challenge and taking some of that fun away. My guys were high fiving over finding simple things like a normal shortbow, which was quiet funny.
I'd give your players a heads up on ammo recovery rules and encourage them to take a look at the craft skills. Before my group started I let them know that they wouldn't have access to a stores and the importance of survival skills for the first few levels. If your players aren't interested in the craft skills then I'd recommend adjusting the skills of the NPCs to include the crafting skills that could help out the group.
One thing I've learnt out of DMing is that often players whinge when they're restricting in their access to in game resource (eg healing, ammunition, etc), but will think back on positively. It's like a badge of honour that they endured and survived the grind.
Like jorgenporgen says the Shipwrecks are not only a great way for the group to build up resources, but a place for the DM to be creative and have fun. Its funny to see a player cheer when you read out that they've found 13 arrows.
For the guys gear you could have the come across it as they explore the island. Maybe down the beach wedged in between some rocks is a crate full of arrows. To get to it the group has to get past/through 2-3 shiv dragons (or some other creature). Make the treasure from some encounters their own gear!
All what BQ said, and you can use craft skills untrained - it's just an int check. Even if int is a PCs dump stat, even counting improvised tools, you can roll a DC12. I think it's healthy to encourage players to think outside the box sometimes, use a skill they may not be good at but would still work, figure creative uses for abilities. For example, one shocking gimmy on this island are all the skeletons. Bestiary skeletons have broken chain shirts, and any cleric has mending as a cantrip, which turns them into fully functional chain shirts, which is ideal armor for the environment.
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Edited my Golarion Calendar for 4711 - 4712 :)
Damn you 8 year Leap days :) I missed it in the original ...
Here they are
.pdf version of Golarion Calendar
Any comments, feel free to let me know
Edited my Golarion Calendar for 4711 - 4712 :)
Damn you 8 year Leap days :) I missed it in the original ...
Here they are
.pdf version of Golarion Calendar
Any comments, feel free to let me know
My comment is - you rock like a dolomite!
I've been needing a proper calender like this since this all started!
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Thanks Asphesteros, I figured that the calendar could be used for pretty much any AP ... as the start year is 4711 (though I have started my calendar specific to Serpent's Skull, so it starts in Arodus 4711.
If you or anyone needs earlier dates (or the full 4711, let me know, and I'll post it up).
I have two weeks to my start date for Smugglers Shiv. I'm just about fully prepared :)
I know most of you have already started / completed the Shiv, but I am now working on Captain Kovacks diary.
As a player in other games where a "diary" has been found, the old "we'll keep reading it" always comes up until the GM gives the players the vital clue.
I'm going to actually write his diary -- including all sorts of boring stuff about cargo and passengers taken on, who left at different ports and I'm going to set a few "at sea" encounters for the players to take part in during the trip (non-xp encounters -- a run in / escape from a pirate ship in the shackles, a couple of "dangerous weather" incidents and a couple of others dependant on where they boarded the Jenivere (they may have seen Aerys hit the sailor for suggesting she "bunks" with him for instance).
That way, I can hand it to them and they can look for anything unusual themselves, if they get bored of reading it, they may miss out on the vital clues (though, most peeps would read a diary backwards to find out the most recent incidents). When I've finished it, I'll put it up here for others to use / comment on.
I want them to get into a routine on board so I know what they tend to wear and carry on board, where they store their gear, etc so I will know what they will have on them when they find themselves on the beach :)