GM Reference thread for Sword of Valor.
Chris, could you "sticky" these, including chapter one, and also put one in for chapter six?
thanks,
-- david
We do not currently have information released for the 6th volume, so a thread will be made once that is publicly available. All of them are stickied also :)
*rats* I tried, but you found me out.... hehe. and thanks for the sticky.
-- david
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I was just curious if I could get some clarification on the Redemption rules here, and ill use an example from an encounter in SoV...
** spoiler omitted **
The main question here being how to initiate a path of redemption with an NPC, especially one that is originally hostile.
My copy of Sword of Valor has not arrived yet, but I'll answer you to the best of my abilities. Also, I'll assume that you are the current DM.
First, I recommend that first of all you try to change her attitude towards you, from hostile to unfriendly. If this doesn't work, I suggest that if the PC's are keen on redeeming her, that they deal non-lethal damage until she falls, and then bind her.
Once bind, they will have an easier time dealing with her, as she cannot escape or attack them. I'll take a while, but making her friendly or even helpful should be a must, as far as I see it. You wouldn't listen a person you hate.
After that I would simply rule that a diplomacy check with a good enough roleplay involved should be enough to convince her that her captors just want her to atone.
Creative Director
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What initiates a redemption can and should vary. It might be the PCs granting mercy to a defeated villain. It might be the villain being betrayed by another villain. It might be the villain witnessing an act of beauty or kindness. It might just be that the villain is tired of being bad and is looking for anyone to give him a chance.
In a case where you have a CE barbarian who doesn't want to redeem himself, but the PCs WANT to do so... the task is on the PCs. They need to capture the barbarian alive, then treat them with kindness and trust and make friends with them, making lots of Diplomacy checks along the way and the like.
And of course... the GM has to be on board with it as well, otherwise nothing the PCs do can redeem a villain.
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"Why are you so intent on redeeming me?"
"We get these nifty medals when we do! I'm trying to collect the full set!"
"Yeah. I'd rather die. Then I'll come back as a demon and spit in your face!"
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How are you guys getting SoV already? the official website says its not out until the 25th, which is a week from yesterday(wednesday)..
The two game stores i go to here dont have the hard copies yet.. or they didnt this afternoon.
Subscribers get their copies before street date (and also get access to a free PDF when their package ships).
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To be honest i never payed attention to what the bold said.
Tangent101 Yesterday, 05:01 PM | Flag | List | Reply
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, Adventure Path, Pawns Subscriber
That said I may have to start subscribing and buying stuff straight from Paizo and not The Source :) Funny enough in my time here i never bothered to look at subscribing.. But 30% off & a free PDF, i dig it alot. Thanks for the quick response Adam.
If i were to subscribe on 01OCT would I receive Sword of Valor or Demon's Heresy?
So what's with the double initiative monster? Why not just have two monsters? Obviously with less hit points!
There are lots of mass battle's in this book which I think makes a lot of sense, my only concern being the possibility of missing all the abilities our characters have just gained.
Can't wait to run this.
So what's with the double initiative monster? Why not just have two monsters? Obviously with less hit points!
Some Mythic monsters get double initiative as part of their power suite (be it from a Mythic template or Mythic Ranks). It's detailed in the Mythic Adventures book.
I think he was complaining that one monster dies faster than two.
This is a method of dealing with Economy of Action. By doubling the number of actions the Mythic Chimera (or other Mythic critters with a similar build) gets, this allows one sole monster to become a viable threat for the PCs.
And let's face it. It is definitely more epic for a band of four to six heroes to face off against a sole monster that is powerful enough to ignore the strikes of dozens of paladins. (BTW, this also answers a question of mine about Mythic Damage Resistance: A Paladin's Smite Evil ability will NOT penetrate Mythic Damage Reduction, from the looks of things.)
I'm actually excited to see how the extra initiative works; one of the common issues I've seen with Solo Big Bad encounters is that it ends of being a looong time between their rounds when a coordinated group is using the most of Action Economy. Sure, you could instead have two enemies with less hp, but it keeps combat interesting to mix up the encounter design and facing off against a lone over-the-top Mythic chimera is pretty unique.
(not sure if that last part should be a spoiler or not, but hey, it's a GM Reference Thread)
As for the random encounters, I don't think it makes sense to have the party encounter them while they're mixed in with the army. There are several places where the party can explore and fight alone though; maybe throw a few in then?
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I have another question, maybe I am overlooking something. The bestiary contains random encounters for traversing the worldwound to Drezen. If you have your troops with you, how would that work? The encounters all seem to be made to face the party, not an army.
They don't work. The wandering encounters should be brought into play when the PCs are alone. Or perhaps they attack the camp during the night; that's one of the reasons we included a map of the army campsite.
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Creative Director
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I actually ran an encounter with the Sandpoint Devil against my group a few years ago using the dual initiative rules, and it actually worked out really cool; it allowed for an exciting and quite memorable battle where the PCs had a harder time ganging up on the monster since it went twice in a round.
It had the added benefit of catching Jason Bulmahn off guard too, since dual initiative wasn't a thing yet and it was something I made up to give the poor Sandpoint Devil a fighting chance against a party of 8 7th level characters.
I have another question, maybe I am overlooking something. The bestiary contains random encounters for traversing the worldwound to Drezen. If you have your troops with you, how would that work? The encounters all seem to be made to face the party, not an army.They don't work. The wandering encounters should be brought into play when the PCs are alone. Or perhaps they attack the camp during the night; that's one of the reasons we included a map of the army campsite.
Having said that, you could always hear some noise coming from a lone building or something, somewhere you simply couldn't fit a whole army and the PC's could go check it out. The info could come from one of the scouts perhaps?
I actually ran an encounter with the Sandpoint Devil against my group a few years ago using the dual initiative rules, and it actually worked out really cool; it allowed for an exciting and quite memorable battle where the PCs had a harder time ganging up on the monster since it went twice in a round.
It had the added benefit of catching Jason Bulmahn off guard too, since dual initiative wasn't a thing yet and it was something I made up to give the poor Sandpoint Devil a fighting chance against a party of 8 7th level characters.
I know technically abilities like breath weapons and such are once per round attacks but could a duel initiative monster get to use them on both initiative counts (assuming a 1 was rolled on the frequency die) ?
James, I have to ask.. If you run a table of 8 player.. why are all the paths written for only 4? Is there any chance of us actually getting a path or a few adventures written for those of us that run larger table. I mean in my entire 25 years of gaming, Ive never once had a 4 Player party.
Up until Pathfinder, I've always had the reverse problem. I've never had a table of more than 5 and that was pretty rare. I've always only seen tables of 4 or 5 in my 23 years. So I always found it strange that so many modules back in the old 2nd edition days assumed a party of 6.
It's one of those "sticky wicket" scenarios where there really is no perfect number (other than greater than 2) since there's so much variation by region. No matter what an adventure settles on, it's never going to match more than about 45-50% of all groups.
It seems like my groups almost always start with Two. And then I find and recruit others to join in. Then again, this is why I tend to run GMPCs; two players is never enough. ^^;; (Though two Mythic characters may very well be.)
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Does anyone have a Mythic Graveknight template prepared? I want to use the instructions for that one recurring villain. But I don't want to just drop the regular graveknight template on a mythic character, I'd rather do something more along the lines of the Mythic Lich.
This is a question for all the people who have seen it already. How awesome is it? I'm on pins and needles waiting for it to come in.
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Creative Director
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James, I have to ask.. If you run a table of 8 player.. why are all the paths written for only 4? Is there any chance of us actually getting a path or a few adventures written for those of us that run larger table. I mean in my entire 25 years of gaming, Ive never once had a 4 Player party.
The reason I ran an 8 player table is because the whole point of that campaign was to get a game where everyone in the editorial department could play in the same game, as both a team-building exercise and to give some of our employees who didn't have as much experience with gaming, Pathfinder, or Golarion a regular dose of what it's like to game.
When I started the "Shadows Under Sandpoint" campaign, there were 5 players. But as the years rolled on, and as we started hiring more folks, that number grew. At the highest point, we had 9 players at the table. That's WAY too much, so when I reached a point in the campaign's narrative that it made sense, I split the group into two groups.
I do NOT recommend running a game for more than 6 players—it's way too much. Not for the rules to handle, but for player attention. Beyond 5 players, it simply takes too long for combat rounds to wrap around to your turn again. Remember... the amount of time you spend gaming in a session isn't going to change, so every new player you add to your table essentially decreases the amount of time each player gets to actually take their turn in the game. The more players, in other words, the less each player actually gets to play.
My preference is 4–5 players.
In any event, the reason we assume 4 players is because that's the core assumption that Wizards of the Coast went with back when they first designed 3rd edition D&D. Remember, when we first launched the Pathfinder RPG we were VERY conservative on the types of changes we were comfortable making to the game—at that point, we didn't know HOW folks would react to a new game, but we DID know that folks were fans of 3rd edition. And so we changed as little as we could. And there's a LOT of stuff there that assumes a 4 player group—a significant amount of the underlying rules architecture, such as the CR system, assume this. Changing that would have not only changed the game too much for our comfort, but it would have necessitated some significant rebuilding of a system that we felt already worked great.
I still think that the 4 player assumption works—remember theres also a lot of folks who play with 3 or fewer players. By keeping the baseline in what is hopefully a midline, it makes it easier for GMs to adjust things in either direction.
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Creative Director
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I know technically abilities like breath weapons and such are once per round attacks but could a duel initiative monster get to use them on both initiative counts (assuming a 1 was rolled on the frequency die) ?I actually ran an encounter with the Sandpoint Devil against my group a few years ago using the dual initiative rules, and it actually worked out really cool; it allowed for an exciting and quite memorable battle where the PCs had a harder time ganging up on the monster since it went twice in a round.
It had the added benefit of catching Jason Bulmahn off guard too, since dual initiative wasn't a thing yet and it was something I made up to give the poor Sandpoint Devil a fighting chance against a party of 8 7th level characters.
Nope; being able to take multiple actions in a round does not speed up "cooldown" times. It all takes place in the same round, after all.
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Creative Director
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Does anyone have a Mythic Graveknight template prepared? I want to use the instructions for that one recurring villain. But I don't want to just drop the regular graveknight template on a mythic character, I'd rather do something more along the lines of the Mythic Lich.
My GREAT preference is to not use something like a Mythic Graveknight. Since if you do that, the character loses his mythic tiers anyway. Just make him a normal graveknight with champion (or whatever) tiers and you're better than good to go!
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Aha! Finally some sort of confirmation that even a Paladins smite cannot bypass DR/Epic. From the fight against Soltengrebbe (the mythic chimera):
"As a mythic monster, Soltengrebbe represents a significant challenge that the PC's army simply cannot overcome. No matter how many brave attacks they mount against it, the chimera shrugs off their efforts with its epic damage reduction and spell resistance,..."
The army, it should be noted, is composed of Paladins.
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I'm personally impressed that none of the paladins can do more than 5 points of damage in a hit ;)
One question: how are the players supposed to fight swarms that have 10 points of resistance to fire? I'm thinking of using the 250gp of silver dust from an earlier encounter and suggesting that the NPC cleric could prep and cast a bunch of bless water spells.
How is the party aided in the fight against Eustoyriax by the sword of valor? Its benefits apply to armies and when 'firmly mounted upon an interior wall in a visible, public place.'
I mean, I guess I could ad hoc that it provides +4 to hit, +4 to ability DCs, +4 AC/CMD, +4 to saving throws - which would indeed make the battle a lot easier.
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Creative Director
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I'm personally impressed that none of the paladins can do more than 5 points of damage in a hit ;)
One question: how are the players supposed to fight swarms that have 10 points of resistance to fire? I'm thinking of using the 250gp of silver dust from an earlier encounter and suggesting that the NPC cleric could prep and cast a bunch of bless water spells.
One of the side effects of the mass combat rules is that things like individual attacks and damage reduction get swept under the rug in favor of simplicity; for mass combat, DR simply works differently. If you make a mass combat version of the mythic chimera, a party of paladins can not defeat it.
If you instead run it as a normal rules fight of 100 paladins versus a mythic chimera... maybe they could defeat it... but I still would be shocked to see this happen since the chimera has some significant advantages.
In any event... the whole point is that the mythic chimera is something the PCs are supposed to face. If they let their army fight it... they don't get a mythic tier and then they're off by 1 tier for the rest of the campaign and that could get ugly.
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Creative Director
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Question about Aravashnial and adding Spellbreaker.
Does he always add this (DV +4 vs Spellcasters) to the army or does the commander have to choose the Spellbreaker Tactic during tactic selection.
Shouldn't spellbreaker actually be a Special Ability and not a tactic?
He always adds that bonus.
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Creative Director
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How is the party aided in the fight against Eustoyriax by the sword of valor? Its benefits apply to armies and when 'firmly mounted upon an interior wall in a visible, public place.'
I mean, I guess I could ad hoc that it provides +4 to hit, +4 to ability DCs, +4 AC/CMD, +4 to saving throws - which would indeed make the battle a lot easier.
The sword of valor is intended to be a weapon that protects on a large scale, and helps in mass combat. Not so much an individual use item, really. Still...
chapter 2. there are ghoul army that has disease, undead type, paralyze special ability. according to ultimate campaign, recovering from disease needs stability check. But in this story, they dont have kingdom. so stability check nonsense! or am i missing something?
And paralyze saids "Each time the army damages an enemy army, reduce the enemy army's DV by 1" How long does it effect? I assume it last one battle. Is it correct?
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Creative Director
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chapter 2. there are ghoul army that has disease, undead type, paralyze special ability. according to ultimate campaign, recovering from disease needs stability check. But in this story, they dont have kingdom. so stability check nonsense! or am i missing something?
And paralyze saids "Each time the army damages an enemy army, reduce the enemy army's DV by 1" How long does it effect? I assume it last one battle. Is it correct?
Paladins are immune to disease, so that shouldn't matter for the PCs' army.
The reduction to the army's DV from paralysis goes away at the end of the fight.