The White-Haired Witch Class for Neo School Hack

So in my buddy Steve's Pathfinder-based campaign I'm playing a witch character with the healer Hedge Witch archetype. The most recent hex I added to the character was Prehensile Hair, which allowed her to awesomely apply the finishing strike to a demon.  More recently, I was on YouTube, consuming some media, when I came across a clip of the scene from The Forbidden Kingdom (功夫之王) movie where the young punk Seeker battles the obviously more awesome White-Haired Witch (白髮魔女) and she takes the magic staff from him with her magic hair.  In that movie she's depicted as a villain, even though the character in the original novels Lian Nichang (練霓裳), nicknamed Jade Rakshasa (玉羅剎), is formidable martial arts vigilante fighting injustice.  And I thought to myself "Why isn't there a character class like that?"

Pathfinder does have an archetype for the witch class called White-Haired Witch, but all it does is swap out all the cool witch hexes--which are the core of the class--for a couple enhanced hair-weapon abilities and a handful of rogue talents. The class has no monk-style martial arts abilities. It would not play anything like the character in The Forbidden Kingdom.

So, since I'm still a bit OCD about my Neo School Hack rules, I decided NSH needed a White-Haired Witch class to remedy this glaring gaming oversight.
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White-Haired Witch

- The White-haired Witch is a female wuxia martial artist with unique powers to use her hair. She may appear as a dedicated avenger of injustice or an implacable tracker assassin.

Inherent: Magic White Hair/focus: you can magically extend your hair out 30 feet and grapple or roughly manipulate with it; however you cannot perform fine manipulation skills such as writing with a pen.

Classic Weapon: whip (In addition to normal Light Weapon attacks with it, the witch may trip, disarm, grapple, or choke an opponent following a successful whip strike.)

Martial Witch ("巫侠")/constant: the witch is trained in martial arts, allowing lethal unarmed attacks as a Light Weapon and a special dodge (spend your turn to pass a Cunning check against the attacker's dice score to flip or spin out of the path of an attack)

"Men are such liars"/constant: a witch can always tell if a male is lying

"Hmph"/focus: with a quick bad-girl smirk and slight snort, the witch summons qi for the fight; gain one temporary Awesome Point which can only be used in the current action scene

"Misfits following a misfit"/focus: after sizing them up for a few moments, the witch taunts her opponents, causing all of them to be Disadvantaged on their first roll against her in the current scene.

"Where have you flown, little Sparrow?"/rested: the witch has an uncanny ability to intuit where to find her quarry.

"Kill them!"/rested; a small gang of armed thug minions suddenly appear from nearby and perform acts of intimidation or violence for one action scene

Far Sighted/focus; taking a few moments to concentrate, the witch can see to three times as far as a normal person; this vision negates all distance penalties for ranged shooting attacks.

Lashing Leap/rested: the witch can perform a long, drifting leap covering up to 50 feet; she can double this distance if lashing her whip to generate extra qi.

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And, here are some awesome video clips from The Forbidden Kingdom of the witch in action which I based the character class on:

Scene at the inn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auGlY9fFvws

Scene in the cherry blossom orchard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5ThLvktqls

Scene at the Jade Warlord's palace: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5uhElLMLbA

New Pathfinder Spell: Mage's Sanctum Privy

Mage's Sanctum Privy

School: Abjuration; Level: sorceror/witch/wizard 5

Casting Time:  1 round

Components: V, S, M (a sheet of lead, sheet of paper, drop of perfume)

Range: close (25 fr. + 5 ft./2 levels)

Area: 10 ft tall by 5' square

Duration: 5 minutes per level

Saving Throw: none: Spell Resistance: no

Description: This spell conjures an enclosed privy for when you really need to go potty right now. The privy is ornately decorated inside and out and large enough for one medium or large sized humanoid creature to comfortably sit. When the mage is done all necessary business, all unpleasant wastes are sent to an unknown plane, any noxious odors disapparated, and the mage's private parts instantaneously cleansed and lightly misted with a pleasant scent.

Anyone looking into the privy from outside sees only a dark, foggy mass. Darkvision cannot penetrate it. No sounds, no matter how loud, can escape the privy, so nobody can eavesdrop from outside or be discomfited by overhearing impolite noises. Those inside can see out normally.

Divination (scrying) spells cannot perceive anything within the area, and those within are immune to detect thoughts. The ward prevents speech between those inside and those outside (because it blocks sound), but it does not prevent other communication, such as a sending or message spell, or telepathic communication, such as that between a wizard and her familiar.

Forest of Fiends: The Homesteaders

As I continue hammering out ideas for my Forest of Fiends campaign, I'm getting to areas which I don't want the players to see or it will totally spoil the surprise.  One area which will be public knowledge (mostly) is that of the "homesteaders".  After the peoples of the Holy Realms overthrew the demonic empire of Pra-Kryush and drove their orc and drow allies back into the wilderness and the Everdark, there were a lot of undesirables left behind.  Many were executed, with or without a proper trial, but significant numbers remain.  These undesirables included half-orcs, half-drow, suspected heretics, sorcerers, shapechangers, and so on.

As the victors began to relax after cleansing their homelands, the priests of Lawgiver Tyr ruled that these undesireables could not be held culpable for the sins of the empire and brought an end to the executions.  However, they were still not considered entirely trustworthy.  It was clear they carried some measure of taint from the dark times.  Some of the undesirables took advantage of the lull in the violence to flee to wild and desolate places or risk living in disguise.  The rest were put under some form of supervision, such as apprentices to guilds or lay brothers in monasteries.  As long as they remained well-behaved, devout, and submitted to their new place they were tolerated.

When the continental homeland of Pra-Kryush was officially re-opened for the crusade, most of the rulers of the Holy Realms saw an opportunity to be rid of all manner of persons.  At first there were open calls for volunteers to fight, build, explore, and colonize in the new lands.  But soon roundups of the undesirables began.  Half-orcs, half-drow (half-elves), kitsune, gnomes, sorcerors, convicts, vagabonds, and beggars were given the "opportunity" to become homesteaders across the seas.  Those with money and possessions were allowed make reasonable preparations.  The penniless ones, who were the majority by far, were supplied with a few basic items and handful of coin out of charity.

So as far as the campaign is concerned, there will be affects both on the overall setting and on character creation.  Any characters of the half-orc, half-elf, or gnome race or of the sorceror class (I'm working on the assumption we'll be using the Pathfinder core classes only) must begin either as a "homesteader" or with their secret disguised.  Also, all homesteader characters start with the only the minimum starting money for their class.

Zophiel'sTale: Meeting the Strikers, Then Demons

 This post is a guest appearance by my buddy Kirk.  I'm currently running a campaign based on the Shackled City adventure path by Paizo.  This is the story of how his character, Zophiel, meets the rest of the group and heads off with them on their latest foray.  They have dubbed themselves The Last Strikers and are slowly becoming known around the city of Cauldron.  The Strikers, minus the human mage Abraham, have just raided the Cathedral of Nethys in Cauldron in search of clues about the insidious Cagewrights and their vile plans.  Zophiel comes upon the party and Abraham unexpectedly as she visits the cathedral to inquire about learning some arcane lore.

The City of Cauldron (from the AP boo)

Zophiel in the Wilds, Again

After a brief introduction, I watch the Strikers.  Trenzen does most of the talking.  He leads us through the town to visit an old mage, the library, the captain of the guard, but only after a great inspiring speech in the front of the crowd gathered outside of the Temple of Nethys.  The same crowd that had gathered and I was a part of.  But first, let me continue my story of how I met them.

So, as I was standing in the crowd, I see a man dressed in robes coming to the temple.  From his description, I am guessing it is Abraham, one of the Strikers and a great wizard.  This sends me back to my days of my youth, when I was just 25 or 26, and I saw the Elven wizards so common in my homeland.  I'm a little nervous when I introduce myself and I use what humans call me, Sophie.  I mention to Abraham that I saw one of the Strikers peek out then head back in again.  It is just natural that we can follow and slip into the temple through same side door, unseen.

The inside of the temple is deserted, yet I know they are in here, and most of the others are gone, for I saw two giants, half-orc guards and many gnomes wearing the clothing of their temple running away.  I call out “Is anyone in here?” 

“We are back here!” A half orc’s voice returns.  From the descriptions I got in the bath house, this must be Trenzen, the half orc archer-paladin.  The half orc is busy questioning two clerics of this temple.  I keep silent as he probes them while they prepare a corpse for burial.  I find out that the body is one of the famous Stormblades.  Trenzen handles this like a mystery.  Admiration for his inquisitiveness is worthy to give him, for a half orc.  That is my upbringing talking, for being in the goddess forsaken place I have learned that many are much better than they seem, while others, deep down, are very superficial.  I ask about magic regents and don't get any help.

Soon we are on our way to the captain of the guard and introductions are given to me.  So many names but for me, it is to put names to faces.  I tell them, seeing how they are a ‘just’ force coming to power, I want to ally myself to them.  I'll want tell of my past but not today, as Trenzen is so interested in what I could do.  I tell him of my translation work, and tracking, both humans and animals, and being a scout.  He asks me if I weave magic.  I state that I do and he presses me for if I use books or not.  And well, sometimes I do, but mostly I don't.  Then he asks if I perform. I do not.  I tell him again, what I have done in the past and how I can help.  Apparently, we go in circles.  And finally he asks if I can teach him some magic.  We finally agree that what I know, he doesn't know and has little chance of learning.  I can only surmise, that the orc in him is speaking. 

We arrive at the house of the captain of the guard and Trenzen proclaims the group’s innocence.  When he speaks, it's hard to follow, but in the end, he is very convincing, this is not the orc speaking this time.  The logic doesn't actually confirms his original statements, though.  Since it is to our benefit, I'll let it slide.

Next, Trenzen wants to warn the rest of the Stormblades.  We find one of them in the Cusp of Sunrise.  She tells of how the head of the temple of Nethys wanted them to go underground beneath the city to fight something called the Cagewrights.  Instead it was an ambush and one of them died, which explains the death. 

For the evening, they offer to let me stay with them. 

The next day, we are up early. Trenzen asks if I need a horse, but I decline.  I summon my spirit horse.  All the day long it is with me.  We, the summon horse and I, move as fast uphill as down and more than once I had to wait for the others with their slower animals.  The hooves from the horse are barely seen, for one can almost see through them.  And after a day’s trip, we arrive at Red Gorge.  My horse vanishes when I dismiss it.  But the Strikers take this in stride, that is, magic they are accustomed to, and so, it's a common thing for me to weave the elven song.  We stay at the Redhead Miners Inn and I meet Kaylee, another Striker, and I compliment her on the bathhouse.  I tell her the employees spoke very highly of her and of the rest.  They told me of many tales of their adventures in colorful washes of finely spoken words, while I lay naked in the pool, with a mist rising around.  Not the same mists of the jungle.  The jungle holds mists filled with creatures and plants, magnificent beautiful and dangerously deadly.

That evening, we debate how to proceed.  In the end, we decide to hire boat paddlers to take us down the Seave River to the camping spot with an idol.  The paddlers sleep under the canoes and we rest around a campfire, located on a sandy beach, midway from the river to the jungle tree line.  It's a short distance of no more than 50 or so feet.  I set my backpack down and pull out my bedroll.  I fall into a comfortable meditation quickly under the stars, for I know I am with good company.  They agree to wake me for a third watch.

Shouts, orders, painful shrieks I see and hear in my non awake mind.  I know I must be dreaming, but then I open my eyes and am all too well aware that I wasn't dreaming.  We are being attacked!  A wall of blue and purple flames encircled around us, forcing us close.  There is a reason I can guess and is confirmed not a few more seconds later, when a fireball comes down from the sky and explodes right on our campfire, engulfing us.  The Strikers do their thing, and I stretch my mind for a jungle creature that does this.  But to the Strikers, I appear confused and panicky consider jumping over the fire, or over the ice storm that appears to possibly put out the fire circle.  Or, to jump in the water to swim under the fire.  Then I feel a sudden urge of goodness.  That's my cue to shoot wildly at the creature that is raining fire down upon us.  It will force it to dodge more arrows and disrupt its casting another fireball. I see that an arrow, one of mine hit Toni, the Striker's heavily armored warrior.  I run to her and using my magic, I close some of her wounds.  And I apologize profusely for having one of my arrows hit her.  It's over almost as fast as it begins, with arrows and magic bolts, the creature falls from the sky.  At this point, I can clearly see it is not a jungle creature at all, but a creature not from this world and some of the Strikers conjecture it was sent by a newly made adversary, the high clerics of the Temple of Nethys from the city of Cauldron.

Since the entire night hadn't passed yet, we return to our sleep, a bit more watchful of the sky and of the jungle treeline, searching for whatever could be lurking in the distance.  I finally drift off to my meditation while others discuss if that creature was sent by the clerics of Nethys, something I concluded already.

The next day, I'll be on point.  I summon the Elven magic to give me a clear view of the jungle and the most safe direct route to the Demon Scar.  We don't want to fight anything we can avoid.  A vision comes to me and I recognize the places where natural beasts would lay in wait, catching their next meal.  These areas I avoid.

About mid afternoon, after the usual rains, the jungle give way to a vast desolate circular bowl void of plant life: the Demon Scar opens with a view.  Down below, we see demons and fire giants roaming freely.  I suggest that we can go around the rim.  Before setting out, I call a small woodland spirit.  It looks like a pink semi translucent bird.  Definitely it is not a real bird.  I ask it to scout the rim and to look for large animals or creatures and report back.  When it returns it tells me that there aren't any large animals or creatures on the rim, and it also says that it found ruins where an entrance has been dug out recently. 

When we get there, Jax the "adventurer" and I scout around.  We make too much noise and I realize the day at the bath has softened me some.  We find tracks of three of four people that have passed this way.  It's too difficult to tell if they came or left.  On the way back, Jax and I are much more quiet.

We decide that everyone should go into the building for they think it will be safer inside than out here.  I'm not running this group, but I'd advise against it, if asked.  I call a bat to fly down into the ruins and it returns to tell us of two empty of life rooms below and a collapsed tower with a watery stream running in a tunnel, below.  We move inside and rest in the big room.  I conjure a magic hut so we rest in comfort from the jungle humidity.  That is one thing I haven't gotten use to after a hundred and some years here - the wet heat.  The night passes without incident.

At the end of my watch, I prepare a breakfast for the Strikers...

A Munchkin Birthday

So I had my birthday recently.  I started the day with lunch at a Korean barbeque place my son recommended--there's nothing quite like eating delicious food surrounded by non-stop Kpop videos on multiple widescreens. 

Back home, I was pleasantly surprised to find my amazing family bought me Munchkin Quest for a present.  Naturally, I insisted we play it immediately.

Munchkin quest is a board game-ish version (expansion?) for the Munchkin card game.  It adds a bunch of room tiles and connector (door/corridor) pieces, all of which are double sided.  They also have nice stand up monsters and little plastic munchkin tokens for the players.

The room tiles all have special characteristics which affect play and the connector pieces have colored directional markers which affect monster movement at the end of each player's turn.  Play is slower because there are a lot more things to adjudicate each turn but the core is the same as in the original card game.

The Academae Campaign: Capture of a Renegade & Death of a Doppleganger

 [Our travels, toils, and travails in the city of Korvosa continue on Roll 20.]

Sanjay peers into the back room of the butcher's workship and sees the main abbatoir, with vats, butchering racks, tables, etc.  [The map reveal works great here, as I finally see what is in the room.]  Also the renegade guardsman who fled is fiddling with a key at a door on the wall to his right.  Sanjay calls on him to stop or be set on fire like his fellows.  He considers that for a moment, then drops to his knees and surrenders, pleading that it wasn't his idea.  Axios and Slade rush upstairs in search of the renegade's leader, Vankaskerkin.  [Axios has a bit of trouble here with the teleport to the upstairs map.]  Upstairs, Vankaskerkin and Talla face off, armed.  Axios casts a spell magically weakening the renegade.  The guardsman suddenly becomes pale and slumps.  Ashe rushes upstairs to join them, as does Crow-Eye.  Talla advises him to drop his weapon.  Downstairs, Sanjay takes the key from the surrendered fellow and assures him that we are here for Vankaskerkin and if he is innocent he will not be harmed.

Vankaskerkin sees the game is up and drops his weapon.  Vankaskerkin asks if the guards sent us.  Axios says what guards?  Vankaskerkin says the royal castle guards.  He asks what happened downstairs, claiming he and his fellows were just selling meat here.  Talla points out Vankaskerkin and his fellow guards deserted their posts.  Vankaskerkin counters that a lot of guards went astray in the rioting.  Talla says he should come back to the castle.  Vankaskerkin agrees.  Crow-Eye and Ashe go investigate one of the other rooms off the main abbatoir room, finding a meat salting room.  After looking around a bit, they think some of the meat looks a bit odd--like, as in not any of the meats you'd typically find at the corner butcher shop.

Talla takes Vankaskerkin's weapons and leads him downstairs.  On the way, Talla glances into a side room upstairs and sees a silver dagger stabbed into papers on a desk.  She leaves the prisoner with Axios and enters to look closer.  It is a makeshift bedroom.  She notices the silver dagger is quite exquisite and examines it more closely.  Vankaskerkin tells Talla it is his, given to him by a friend.  Talla says it must not be very important if he's leaving it behind.  Vankaskerkin says it's not important if he's being arrested.  Talla points out that he is not being formally arrested because she is not a guard.  Vankaskerkin calls her a mercenary.  They go downstairs.

Ashe and Crow-Eye argue a bit over what exactly is the odd meat.  [We now encounter some problems with lighting vs. vision in some rooms.  We discuss how this may be due to how the rooms are outlined.  Dan notes that if would be better if  places we've visited should appear on the map, even if we can't see into them.  Kaiser says it should be like in the Diablo games where the map areas you've explored remain visible, but grayed out if you're not there.  Mike says you can have rooms be visible but put monsters on the GM layer and change their visibility when someone can see them.  Bill notes that he's working on some programming to make something like that happen.]  Ashe informs us that he's noticed something definitely odd about the meat.  Crow-Eye asks what sort of meat is in here.  The other captive impudently says it's just pig and cow.  Ashe tells him to eat some, but he refuses on the grounds that it's raw.  Ashe cuts off a chunk and waves it at him, trying to get him to eat some.  The fellow insists it wasn't his idea.  Sanjay demands he explain what's going on. He says it was Parn's idea.  The renegades did a couple jobs as hired muscle for various people, but Parns would bring back parts of their victims to sell as meat.  He notes that Parns is one of those burned to death earlier.  Sanjay is shocked.

As we prepare to leave, Talla asks our captives if anyone else is still here and they say not.  Crow-Eye impulsively decides to investigate another room off of the main abbatoir.  It is a long room, smelling of manure.  There are holding pens for animals with water troughs, including a large wild boar--no two wild boars!  The first boar panics and rushes Crow-Eye, but slips and slams into the wall.  The other boar then rushes Ashe, who has followed Crow-Eye, and gores him!  Talla shouts out to ask what's happening and Ashe shouts back "It's a pig!"  Talla shouts back at him "Well, deal with it!"  It now becomes apparent that there are at least two boars loose in the holding pen area.

Sanjay now ties up the surrendered guard to hand over to the authorities, based on his admission that he knew cannibalism was going on. 

Crow-Eye summons an earth elemental to fight the boar and backs out of the melee.  One boar attacks the elemental.  Ashe struggles to hit the other boar and calls for help.  Talla reluctantly heads in and sees the two enraged boars.  Sanjay's rope tying goes poorly and it all just falls off.  [We have a discussion about where the heck "Use Rope" skill went, then realize that was a 3.5 skill and did not port over to Pathfinder.  Mike looks around and finds that it is now Craft: Knotwork.  Never heard of it.] While the struggle continues in the pens, Axios asks Vankaskerkin how many boars there are.  Vankaskerkin has no idea and the two casually decide to just head back to the castle.   Ashe engages the boar again, cutting it a bit.  It fights back, injuring Ashe badly.  Talla leaps in, twin blades flashing.  The elemental kills one boar. 

Sanjay ties his captive up again--this time he's sure the ropes are well-tied--and pushes him along to join Axios. Slade, and Vankaskerkin in the hall.  (The porcine scuffle in the pens is quite beneath his dignity.)  Talla, Ashe, and Crow-Eye continue the battle with the remaining wild boar.  Talla maneuvers and double back-stabs it to gory death.

[Axios texts "Let's get some hands - never know when you'll meet llamas... "]

[DM Kirk swaps us over to the castle map--without warning which leaves us all concerned that maybe we all just got teleported to the Death Temple of Orcus or something.  With lighting fixed we see we're outside the main door to the castle. The teleport spot on the main steps out front works great and moves us to the entry hall.  We teleport again up to another floor.]
Upstairs at the castle Seska meets us full of excitement.  She notes that the queen is exonerated even though no doppleganger was found.  Suddenly a guard barrels through a doorway with people shouting behind him and knocks Seska down.  Seska gets up--but actually two Seskas get up! It's the doppleganger!!  But which one!!  We stare confused for a moment.  Only Crow-Eye notices that one of the Seskas is holding a dagger with a bit of blood on it.

Slade prepares a spell and shouts for the Seskas to hold.  Crow-Eye summons an eagle to attack the one with the bloody dagger.  Slade blasts the same "Seska" with bolts of fiery magic.  Sanjay casts a spell allowing him to discern the the moral depravity of persons in his sight.  The "Seska" not being attacked has an aura of evilness and Sanjay points to her and shouts "That one is evil, I see it!"  Axios shoots a ray to enfeeble but his aim is poor.  Ashe moves up and menaces the evil "Seska" to surrender.  The evil "Seska" stabs Talla, but is felled.  In death the creature reverts back to its hideous self.  Other guards rush in and the queen arrives.  We see that the queen is injured and Ashe moves to heal her.  Meanwhile we hand the two captured renegades over to the custody of the castle guards.  We reassure the queen that the thing is dead.  Axios congratulates himself on figuring out that it would be a doppleganger.

Seska relates that the Senschal figured out who the doppleganger was.  She she also reports that the queen has pardoned her mother and herself.  Talla notes that this means that now she doesn't have to guard Seska any more.  We enter the throne room and see our school headmaster, along with Lord Yager of the banking house, Lord Zenderhome, and Lady Alessia of House Leroung, and Sabina the queen's bodyguard.  Marshall Croft is there but takes her leave to see to the captured renegades.  A guard enters and says that Venster cannot be found in the castle.  Seska opines that perhaps "Venster" was the doppleganger all along.

[DM Kirk now clears all NPCs off the map simply my shifting them to the DM layer.]

The headmaster scolds us for leaving the Academae without permission.  He says he expects to see us back there in the morning. 

The queen asks if Seska would like to stay, impressed that our group was loyal to her and believed in her.  The queen asks Seska to be her wizardly bodyguard.  She also asks Talla to be a personal bodyguard as well and Talla agrees--providing she gets leave from the headmistress of the University.  We take a little while to wash up and refresh ourselves, the queen offering her the use of her personal bath.  [At this point Steve's token gets stuck on a pillar for a short while some how as we navigate through the castle to the royal bath.] 

Kirk now shifts us to another map--the Academae!  <insert screenshot>  Kirk shows us our dorm room and how to use the door-teleport to go from the room to the outdoor map.

The Academae Campaign: Dopplegangers and Renegades

 [The game continues on Roll20 for our Academae campaign.  Our heroes are still at the castle in Korvosa trying to sort out the confusion surrounding the murder of the old king and accusations against his youthful queen.]

We are taken aback at the threats to the queen by the king's half-brother Venster.  We check again to see if the painter, Trinia Sabor could actually have seen the location of the hidden shrine to Asmodeus from the narrow hallway outside the queen's room and find that she really could not have done so in the manner described.  Talla asks the queen's bodyguard whether the queen ever ventures out by herself, other than the couple times she joined us on our crypt exploration.  The bodyguard says yes, but she is almost always accompanied by guards.

We learn that Venster claims he is half-brother to the deceased king because his mother Queen Domina, who is also mother of the king, had him before marrying and having the king. 

The castle seneschal takes Talla aside and asks for help in finding proof about the queen's involvement--either for or against.  He will see to the queen's coronation if she is innocent, but can remove her from the throne if no proof found.  Talla, half-seriously, asks the queen if she can just kill the seneschal off.  The Hellknight commander Severs DiViri is there with Field Marshall Croft, head of the guards.  The queen demands to know where the Peers are, who she summoned for the review.  A guard, fearfully, says the queen said to dismiss them.  Talla asks the bodyguard if she was with the queen all day yesterday; the bodyguard says yes.  And did she see any of the Peers?: no.  Croft says she saw the queen emerge from a room off to the side by herself--so we determine there must be a double.  Axios exclaims there must therefore be a creature called a doppleganger loose in the castle somewhere.  The queen orders a search of the castle, and that the Peers be sent for again.  Sanjay wonders how you can search a castle for a creature who can change its appearance to be anyone.

We talk with the queen about the possibility that the seneschal is actually plotting to replace the queen with the double and thus her life might be in danger.  [At this point DM Kirk accidentally moves a torch from the wall on the Roll20 map.  Turns out that some items are not fully fixed in place as expected.]  We decide to proceed to the chapel of the castle with the queen.  On the way we pass through a small art gallery--where we see the portrait of the king painted by the painter Trinia Sabor--then down a narrow staircase.  [On the Roll20 map, Dan's character disappears as we "teleport" to the next floor.  We spend some time finding him, then trying to find how to get to him on the huge black, unrevealed map.  Finally we all come together on the staircase on the next level, but it takes a bit to get the door on the map open and start revealing things.]    Finally we arrive at the chapel, which has a small fountain chamber outside the doors.  There is actually a statue here of a tall man with his arms out--the dead god Aroden!  The queen asks Axios if he can get it re-consecrated to Iomedae.  Axios is willing, but wonders if re-dedicating it might lead to trouble.  The queen formally puts him in charge of the re-dedication and Axios is pleased.

We head back from the chapel.  [Ashe's character gets lost on the map as we use the stairway "teleports" from floor to floor, apparently because he does not have a currently active light source.  Mike helps us get Light spells set up properly on our spell lists.]   We arrive back at the throne room, where the queen seats herself on the throne.  The queen asks Axios about Cheliax.  Axios realizes that the queen is supposed to be from Cheliax--which makes it odd that she would ask about it.  The queen asks if Axios knows Queen Abrogail of Cheliax.  Axios says he is here to train to become her champion--a champion magus--having been chosen from the gladiator pits.  The queen gets confirmation from Axios that he is, in fact, of noble blood.

The queen then draws Ashe, her former "boyfriend", aside into a side room for a private talk.  The queen thanks Ashe for keeping their clandestine relationship secret, but explains that she acted as she did because of the spell she was under--and besides Ashe is not of noble blood.  Ashe asks if they are over.  The queen confirms they are and asks him to please be discreet, particularly with Venster.  Ashe is openly thrilled they are breaking up, which surprises the queen but she is pleased it was so painless.

The queen wonders if she should arrest Venster, because of his threats and attempts to implicate her in the murder.  But she also wonders if this will make her seem unjust.  [In Roll20 we now have issues with hearability.  We find that if a person suddenly cannot hear anyone else, they need to exit the game and re-enter to restore connectivity.]  We argue that we don't have any real proof against him.  Ashe argues that the painter is an illusionist and thus there are probably illusions involved.  The queen suggests finding the source of the poison as a possible lead.

Field Marshall Croft returns and informs the queen that there is a problem: a renegade soldier, Verik Vancaskerkin.  In the confusion of the recent rioting he left his post and took some other soldiers with him.  They seized a slaughterhouse and are now, strangely, handing out free meat.  Croft is hesitant to send any other soldiers and asks if the PCs can help bring him in.  Sanjay is reluctant, but we think it will give us time away to think.  Seska volunteers to stay behind with the queen.  We head out.
[DM Kirk drags our icons to a new map.  It is all black except my icon.  Then Kirk reveals a starting area and we can see a narrow area outside "All the World's Meat".  Now there's a name for you.]  We enter the shop, and find a lot of flies, no meat in sight, and two people hanging around a little too casually behind the counter.  Talla says we are here from the castle, to inspect the warehouse.  One of then two men says that won't be necessary and we can't come in.  Talla says we'll have to arrest him--and he calls for reinforcements.  [Sanjay rolls a 1 for initiative.  So much for super-cool 3D dice.] 

Now we notice that the "shopkeepers" are clad in chainmail and girt with longswords--as one quickly slips through a door to the back to summon help.  Slade blasts the one blocking our way with a bolt of magical energy.  It is only then we realize that we weren't given any real description of Vancaskerkin--making it possible that we just killed him.  But then [quick Int checks all around] we remember being told he is skilled with bow and spear, making it likely he will be armed with one or both of those.

Axios steps into the back room, sees several guys, and tries to intimidate one into putting down his weapons and just talk to us.  Axios swears he won't hurt him, but it doesn't work quite as planned.  So Ashe just steps up and whacks him in the head with the flat of his glaive, knocking him out cold--and quite badly injured.  Crow-eye summons an earth elemental to grapple another fellow in the back room.  [We continue to have problems in Roll20 with people's sound dropping out.]  Another guy moves to attack Axios, hitting him with a sword.  Another two attack the elemental.  Sanjay and Slade size up the situation and position themselves for action.  Axios threatens to incinerate the renegades all with flame if they do not surrender, and sparks and smoke spurt impressively from his mouth as he speaks.  One fellow drops his weapon.  Axios then spews oral flame across the other two and the elemental.  The two men die in flaming agony.  Axios asks the survivor where Vankaskerkin is and the guy points upstairs.  Axios says to go get him, now.  The guy flees farther back into the building instead.  Axios yells to head upstairs and Slade leaps forward.  Ashe moves to his victim and uses his healing powers to save him from dying.  Upstairs Slade and Axios corner a man wearing a cloak with the insignia of the guard: perhaps our quarry Vancaskerkin!

The Academae Campaign: Clues, Lies, and Recriminations

[Another play write-up from our Academae campaign run on Roll20.]

So we were still the headmistresses' office at the University of Korvosa.

There is a knock and a familiar face enters--the headmaster's favorite nephew, Boxter.  He mentions he is looking for a pupil of his.  Axios looks shaken.  Boxter says that Axios must return at once and he will pay for his insubordination.  Axios takes his leave, but promises to return.  He leaves with Boxter.  Talla notes that it was Axios who brought the whole matter here, but now just departs.  The headmistress says her duty now is to bring Trianna the painter to the castle.  As Talla sighs, Seska points out that the painter will be implicating the queen in the king's murder.  Seska and her mother have a heated discussion on this.  The mother says she has the authority of House Leroung and charges Seska with delivering the painter safely to the seneschal at the castle.  Seska is quite opposed, suggesting that swift vigilante justice on the painter might be better to save the queen from scandal.

We bargain with the headmistress for a bit and get her to allow us to wait until the next morning before taking her to the castle, on the basis that some of us are wounded and Ashe is still under the influence of strong drink.

Talla points out that we need to figure out exactly when the queen began coming to the Academae.  We struggle to remember, but finally figure out that there was talk about the queen and her marriage beginning about a year ago and that's when she started appearing at the Academae.  We decide to check the university records on a "Trika" (the queen's alias when she is out adventuring incognito) to help get some info.  Trika turns out to be a fairly common name, unfortunately, and there are seven in the records.  However, only one started about a year ago.  Sanjay and Crow-eye volunteer to go check the records at the Academae.  Slade and Seska are guarding the painter.  Ashe "consults the gods".  Ashe also brings up the idea of finding a senior cleric who can use the power of the gods to discern if a person is lying.  The high priest of Pharasma and the cleric we met earlier at the castle are mentioned but we don't come to a conclusion.  Ashe reminds us that there was actually poison found in the king's body.

Crow-eye and Sanjay head over to the Academae.  Sanjay remembers looking in the big crystal ball there earlier and seeing someone in a location under the library of the university.  At the Academae Crow-eye heads into the records office to research admissions.  The person behind the desk is suspicious and asks why he wants to, and under what authority.  Crow-eye tries to impress the person, noting he is "The Crow-eye of the Clan Antazi!" and notes that he needs to look up a person of importance to the queen!  Crow-eye talks his way in, but finds no Trika mentioned at all [due to a failed Diplomacy roll].  Crow-eye asks the clerk for help.  The clerk finds one, but she left three years ago.

Sanjay makes his way to the office of the Dean of Divination and eagerly communes with the large crystal ball.  He tries to go back in time to see the queen during one of her rumored visits to the Temple of Asmodeus but fails.  He then tries to check on the unusual location under the library at the university and succeeds, seeing the headmistress of the university talking there with the dean of divination but he cannot hear any sounds.  They are talking--then the dean notices Sanjay and tries to communicate by holding up a written note, but it is too fuzzy to read.  Crow-eye joins Sanjay in the office and locks the door.  Sanjay now turns his powers to the queen, and it zooms to the castle with dizzying speed.  The queen is there with her bodyguard, pacing and rubbing her hands.  The seneschal is there.  Various people are coming and going.  The cleric of Pharasma is there as well, with scribes taking dictation.  Crow-eye comes up and asks "see anything good?"  Sanjay manages to focus in on the dictation scrolls and it's about the king having seen the queen dropping something into his tea, also that he doesn't want to hurt Seska.  Sanjay surmises that the cleric has spoken with the king in the spirit world and is dictating the conversation.

Ashe finally awakens in a corner, feeling a bit better.  He attempts a "ritual" to "contact the gods".

Back at the crystal ball, Sanjay searches the castle for the king and finds him laid out in royal style.  Then he sees the king's half-brother pass the chamber.  Sanjay tries to focus on him, sees him possibly talk to someone in a cell, and notices that he had something in his hand but it's gone now.  He tries to look in the cell but can't get it into focus.  Crow-eye watches the ball swirl with colors--go black for a bit and Sanjay go a bit rigid--and then fade out.  Sanjay says he's a bit tired and wants to stop now.  The two head back to the university, but make a stop at the castle guardhouse on the way to get the magical book and other items they left for safekeeping.

Sanjay and Crow-eye arrive safely back at the university.  They fill Ashe and Talla in on what they learned.  Ashe suggests doing a Harrow card reading.  Sanjay performs the reading and the main card is "The Liar" and it applies somehow to the king's half-brother.

Sanjay now checks the book of magic found in the crypt.  Casting a spell to discern magic presences he finds evocation, enchantment, and necromancy.  Sanjay is still suspicious--this was previously the property of a necromancer--and carefully opens it with a poker from the fireplace.  Nothing happens so he goes over and starts reading.  There are spells for someone called "Vreeg":

Feather Fall (L1)
Magic Missile (L1)
Ray of Enfeeblement (L1)
Sleep (L1)
Chill Touch (L1)
Darkness (L2)
Command Undead (L2)
False Life (L2)
Scorching Ray (L2)
Water Breathing (L3)
Gentle Repose (L3)
Fly (L3)
Vampiric Touch (L3)
Continual Flame (L3)

Sanjay also checks the scroll and finds it has two spells: Shield (extended) and Spectral Hand.  He then turns in for the night to rest up.

The next morning we awaken.  Seska is rather tired because she didn't dare actually go to sleep while watching the painter.  We head for the castle, escorting the painter, and arrive safely.  At the castle we walk in and find a lot of activity.  There are a lot of armed guards around the castle seneschal,  The chief cleric of Pharasma is there, as is the queen.  We notice that the queen is trying to be calm and dignified, but is clearly very worried.  The seneschal comes over to us.  "I would like to have a word with you.  It seems this is the person we are looking for", pointing at the painter.  "The painter is a very important witness to what is going on here.  The queen said the painter was with the king and we want to question her."  The seneschal wants to take the painter elsewhere.  Talla asks why, and the seneschal says he merely wants her to be comfortable, adding that one of two of us may accompany her.

Seneschal then takes Talla aside for a whispered conversation.  He explains that he is in charge of the murder investigation.  They got disturbing news when the cleric of Pharasma communed with the spirit of the king: the king saw the queen put something in his tea--but he couldn't remember anything which happened after that.  Talla questions why the king did nothing after seeing this--but the seneschal repeats that the king couldn't remember anything else.  The painter is brought for questioning and seated.  Trianna the painter testifies that she was hired, did paint the picture, and it's hanging up somewhere.  The painter repeats that she saw the queen put something in the king's tea and the queen then threatened to kill her horribly if she didn't keep quiet.  The painter gets up "I can show you something but you have to keep the queen away from me."  Slade points out that the painter was told there was an understanding that she would make no demands, threating her with a clawed hand.  The guards put hands to weapons.   The painter walks quietly down the hallway and we follow, to the queen's chamber.  "I saw her do this", she says.  She presses something and a panel in the wall opens revealing a shrine to Asmodeus with cups and vials, some unstoppered.  Talla questions when exactly she saw the queen reveal this shrine.  The Trianna tries to explain when, but gives a confusing answer as to whether it was the day of the alleged poisoning or another day.

Sanjay, Ashe, and the Pharasmin cleric use their various skills and powers to check the contents of the vials.  Meanwhile, Talla goes to have a talk with the queen.  The queen protests her innocence.  Talla asks if the queen knows who "Trika" is and the queen confirms it's her--but asks that it be kept quiet.  Talla also relates to the queen that a secret shrine to Asmodeus was found in the wall of her bedroom--and she appears genuinely shocked and surprised.  Talla then asks the bodyguard how long he's worked here.  He relates that he came here before the queen, became acquainted with the queen and was later selected for her bodyguard.  The bodyguard is unaware of any construction work on the queen's bedchamber.  Talla surmises the shrine was already there before the queen moved in.

Meanwhile the seneschal is promising the painter protection and Slade, still suspicious, stands by as guard--and possibly executioner.  Talla pulls Ashe and Sanjay aside and asks if we have anything to determine lies.  Sanjay says he has a spell ready which can determine a person's moral persuasion.  Talla asks the painter to close the secret panel for us but she claims to not know how.  Talla finds it is easy to close and closes it.  Talla now asks exactly where the painter was standing when she saw the queen open the panel.  Talla stands at the indicated spot, which is outside the room, and finds there would be a good view from there of anyone opening the panel.

Talla gets confirmation from the senechal that worship of  the god Asmodeus is frowned upon but allowed.  Talla finds it odd that the queen would have a secret shrine and that she would have it where it could be so easily seen and why she would leave the door to the room open while opening the door.  The painter reconfirms that the door was open and Talla questions why it would be open like that.

Meanwhile, Axios has an argument with his mentor Boxter then storms off to the castle to rejoin us.

Back at the castle, the king's half-brother Venster now comes in, goes to the queen.  Talla hears him whisper "Enjoy the throne while you can."  Then Venster goes to the cleric and seneschal to learn what has transpired with the communing, questioning of the painter, and discovery of the secret shrine.  Venster insists the proof against the queen is solid, she must be removed from the throne and hanged.  Sabina the bodyguard and Talla step in to guard the queen, Sabina drawing a two-handed sword and Talla drawing her weapons.  Talla says the seneschal is not empowered to remove the queen.  The seneschal's guards and some hellknights there draw weapons in response.  Axios arrives just in time to view the scene, exclaiming "What's going on!"

Sanjay draws back in alarm and Crow-eye joins him.  Slade maneuvers behind the seneschal.  The queen shouts "There will be no bloodshed here.  Put away your weapons!"  Slade moves over, maneuvering to push Venster out from his hiding place behind the seneschal.  The seneschal's guards block Slade in a tense confrontation.  Slade calls Venster out to stand out like a man if he's going to make such accusations.  Venster comes out and confronts Slade, asking him to back down.  Slade is amused by the lesser man's challenge.  Venster: "You don't scare me".   Slade: "You don't even rate my attention, boy!"  The queen again asks all to put away their weapons, and asks Slade to step back.  Slade courteously accedes to the queen's request.  The guards lower their weapons.  The tension eases a bit.

The queen asks Venster if he is really accusing her of poisoning her "beloved husband".  Slade discerns that she didn't love the king all that much--but thinks that few people actually loved the late king anyway.

Axios asks what the heck is going on.  The queen explains, carefully, that the seneschal thinks he has enough evidence relating to the killing of the king to remove her from her new throne.  The seneschal comes forward and explains that he does have the legal power to remove a corrupt monarch.  We argue that there must be a proper trial.  Venster threatens to have a "hanging judge" try the case.  Talla slides over as Venster exits and says "I heard what you said to the queen about her throne--and I say the same to you."  Talla then asks the seneschal if the cleric was here at the castle when he used his priestly powers to commune with the king.  The seneschal admits he knows nothing of what divine methods were used by the cleric--the cleric merely related what the king;s spirit supposedly said.  And the cleric also used a divine invocation which showed that the painter lied.  Talla asserts that she is determined to have a fair trial.

The queen beckons us all over and pleads for our help.  Axios tells her the Harrow cards said that something is impersonating her.  He also suddenly puts in a personal request for help getting out of hot water he's in at the school.  Axios also suggests replacing the secret shrine of Asmodeus with maybe one of Iomedae, his favored goddess.

The Academae Campaign - The Darkness at the End of the Tunnel

[Our Pathfinder game run by the redoubtable Kirk, dubbed The Academae Campaign, reconvened in Roll20 on Monday.  Our discomfited band of heroes continued with their second venturing into the nasty old crypt in the graveyards of Korvosa on a quest for the remaining body parts of the son of a Shoanti barbarian chieftain...]

Our group pauses to regroup and assess the situation after a short but brutal fight with a hideous flesh-thing.  Talla claps for our little victory, won despite her sensible advice, and asks sardonically "Was it really necessary to do that?"  Slade points out, correctly, that nobody got hurt.  We debate leaving the damp miserable crypt to rest up, a suggestion which Sanjay supports.  Axion suggests scouting a bit more and first.  Talla suggests scouting might not work well for some party members.  [At this point we notice that our characters have visibility only in a 90 degree sector to the front, but for a very, very long distance.  We discuss whether that is a proper setting or whether we should have a full 360 degree lighted area but only out to torch radius.  We decide that the 90 degree is more realistic but experiment for a bit, moving the characters around to try out the view areas and viewable distances.  After an attempt at scouting through corridors with the limited 90-degree view we decide it's too much of a nuisance and go back to all-round vision, limited to light source distance.] We debate for a bit then go find a reasonably clean room in which to rest.  We rest for some time in the oppressive dimness of the rough-hewn chamber but it is enough for us to recover our mana.

Rested, we resume cautiously exploring--and soon encounter a tall, odd-looking, monstrous fellow in yet another miserable rough-hewn chamber.  Axios, leading the way, quickly steps forward and channels his arcane power to breath a gout of flame all over it.  The fellow is burned horribly and his meagre belongings catch fire.  Axios yells "Run!" at his victim.  "You foul ogre, run!"  The creature shrieks in charred pain, but un-intimidated yells back "You go in pit now!!"  Talla quickly relays what she can see of the scene to the rest of us, and Sanjay is not encouraged.  Talla leaps forward and takes up a defensive stance, crying out "Why, Axios, did you do that?"  Axios is impressed with her badassery.  "Cabbage-head angry now!!" the creature bellows.  He attempts to seize Talla but she deftly avoids him.  The narrow passage leading to the room where "Cabbage-head" was waiting prevents us from attacking as a group, leaving Axios and Talla at the front.  Axios and Talla withdraw a bit into two side-passages to draw it out and allow room for others to join in.  Axios breathes deadly flame again, but the creature endures the injury returns the favor, slamming a huge fist into the young magus.  Sanjay squeezes forward with a mix of exasperation and desperation and blasts the thing with vicious crackling lightning.  To Sanjay's great relief it collapses to the floor, charred and smoking.
We look into the room and peer a short way into a couple small side passages.  Exploring the room a bit more we find three deep pits, two with with malnourished, sickly persons in them.  One identifies herself as Tiora, and admits she was caught, well, trying to take things which didn't belong to her.  She promises if we rescue her she can repay us later.  We pull her out.  She explains it was "Cabbage-head" who threw her in here.  In the second pit we find a male beggar, who collapses and appears dead.  We pull him out, and find that he is actually dead. Axios offers Tiora a bit of bread.  She slumps, exhausted and limp in her ragged clothing, almost too weak to eat.  Ashe applies healing to the woman, alas out of entirely selfish motives.  Seska reminds Ashe that we are here on a mission to retrieve the body of the young Shoanti, not to "help" random women.

Slade checks the third pit, finds nothing, then re-checks the other two pits again.  We debate what to do with the dead man, finally agreeing to leave him here for someone to recover later.  We leave the room, bringing the semi-conscious woman with us.  We explore a narrow side passage but it soon ends in a cave-in.  We back-track and head in a direction which might be north.  [At this point we struggle a bit with moving all the character icons through the narrow passages in Roll20.  Realistic, perhaps, but still rather obnoxious.]  Talla, up front, comes to a door.  Opening it carefully she finds another rough-hewn room with a stench of decay and glistening tools for carving and slicing flesh and bone.  On a table is a large corpse made of parts of other corpses stitched together--and it has the garishly tattooed head of a young Shoanti man attached--likely the head of the fellow we've come to retrieve.  Axios strides forward and begins carefully cutting the stitches to release the head from the corpse-doll.  We enter and look around, noting two or three side passages.  Crow-eye finds a door and listens carefully for any activity on the far side.  He hears nothing and notices it does not have a lock.  Talla peers into another room, spotting a large four-poster bed, a desk, and a large mirror; there is also an opening into an adjacent smaller bedroom.

Talla suddenly hears strange incantations called out by someone nearby.  Slade hears something going on there as well and moves to join Talla.  Talla peers around and spots one of the strange little people-things which were playing the cruel game with the rats in the maze on our previous visit.  Talla realizes the incantations were the strange creature casting some spell.  Slade joins her.  Talla decides to smile as broadly as possible, then says "Hi!"  [The GM now urges Crow-eye to go through the door to really split the heck out of the party.  Crow-eye totally doesn't go for it at all.]  Axios continues his careful cutting of the crude stitching to free the head.

Slade notices the creature--he's floating up near the high ceiling--and blasts it by evoking massive flame.  Crow-eye dashes in to help, as do Axios, Ashe, and Sanjay.  [Numerous jokes about tubby Sanjay getting stuck in the narrow passage like Pooh bear.  Sanjay sees no humor in the situation at all.]  Slade shoots flame again, but misses his target.  Talla drops her torch, draws her second gladius, and attacks, scoring two hits on a summoned zombie as it shambles forward.  Crow-eye assesses the situation and summons two fierce celestial eagles to attack the floating wizard.  Axios launches a magic missile, wounding the wizardling.  A zombie comes at Axios and they battle in the doorway to the small bedroom.  Sanjay finally makes it into the large bedroom and hops on the bed to see better.  Slade blasts with flame and Talla slashes expertly.  One zombie falls.  Crow-eye now summons a small elemental to battle the remaining zombie, which is blocking the doorway to protect its master.  The celestial eagles continue their attack, screeching, clawing, and biting with righteous fury.  The wizard, whom we think is called a derro, dies screaming and plummets onto the bed below.  Ashe charges up with his glaive to engage the zombie.  Sanjay finally manages to focus and zaps the walking corpse with a ray of bitter cold and it collapses.  Talla swiftly moves to the wizard and slits his throat just to be sure he's dead.

We examine the two chambers, finding some skulls and a tattooed torso with an arm still attached.  The arm and torso twitch and thrash occasionally.  Sanjay is reminded is why he swore off necromancy forever when he settled on his course as a wizard.  We check for any valuables, finding a wand, a dagger, some poison, a robe, and a ring; there is also the wizard's spell book.  Sanjay eagerly seizes the book, then realizes it's probably full of hideous necromantic foulness.  He is conflicted but decides to examine the contents later in case there's something decent tucked away inside.

We now argue for a bit over who will he carrying the various bits of the Shoanti back to town, then realize we haven't found the last missing leg.  We decide to check the room which Crow-eye found earlier, back in the room where Axios retrieved the head.  Talla checks for traps, then cautiously enters.  It is a library filled with interesting-looking books and scrolls.  Slade notices there are many on diseases and plagues.  We gather them up.  Suddenly Slade spots a secret door!  We find the last leg.

We return to town with our loot and burdens.  The woman we rescued is good to her promise and gives Talla a wand of healing powers.  We drop off our stuff and go to see the queen.  Instead we meet a guard at the castle and he says the queen has incited a mob to go after the painter earlier suspected of poisoning the king. <party mass facepalm>

Might try a digital card game to see if I could make a tabletop game...

Okay, so at the last Tridentcon I got the chance to try the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game.  Our group plays Pathfinder as our primary go-to rules for fantasy RPGing so I was interested to see how they'd made a card game of it.  Now let me state up front that I'm not a card game player.  I play RPGs over all other types of games for the group camaraderie and because GMing is a great creative outlet.  But the new PACG seemed popular with the card gamers so I figured it must have something going for it, which why I signed up for it at Tridentcon.

I found the game to be beautifully produced and well structured but not as "fun" as our usual Pathfinder games.  Nevertheless as I played I was wondering if the rules could be applied to tabletop play, a sort of "Pathfinder Lite: same great taste, less rules bloat".  I thought I might deconstruct the rules and put up a homebrew hack.  But the base sets are US$45 to $60 which is more than I want to spend just to test out a theory.

But Obsidian Entertainment and Paizo earlier partnered up to do a digital version, playable on iPad and Android tablets--and it's scheduled to come out at the end of this month!  If it's well under $40 and will play on something I own I'll get it and see if the rules can be hacked for use at the table.

Review: Technology Guide for Pathfinder

Okay, so this was something of an impulse buy for me.  It's been on my wishlist for a while but I doubted I'd ever use it, except maybe a Pathfinder-based game of Hulks & Horrors.  But the friendly (and devious) people at Paizo offered a discount code for 10% off and, well, you can't just not use a discount code--it'd be like throwing money away, wouldn't it?  So I took the plunge on two of their "science fiction" books, the Technology Guide and People of the Stars.

The Technology Guide is mostly lots and lots of equipment but includes good general rules for technology, including crafting, making hybrid magical/technological items, and handling "timeworn" technology.  Timeworn technology is a nice touch.  The book assumes you will probably be using it to add ancient technological devices to a fantasy campaign.  Older technology will be low on charges and have quirks after all this time.  There is a nice set of tables for characterizing each item so the players never know what exactly will be wrong with this particular frenzychip.  Actually I quite liked several of the device names including frenzychip, cranial bomb, and zero rifle.  In addition to the expected weapons and armor you also have a wide selection of medical stuff, a few cyber enhancement items, comms gear, and more.

For characters there are technology-related feats and traits, several archetypes, and one prestige class called the technomancer. Finally there are some really cool high-tech materials and a quick look at high-tech environmental hazards and traps.

Note that missing from this tome of wonder are robots, vehicles, and starships.  I think some robots appear in the bestiaries and there are definitely several in the Iron Gods adventure path books (worth buying for ideas on running a hybrid fantasy/sci-fi campaign).  Androids are covered in the People of the Stars book as a playable race rather than a technology item.

Review: People of the Stars for Pathfinder

I'm not a big fan of mixing fantasy and sci-fi in gaming.  I see them as two very distinctive genres and typically I want to be immersed in either one of the other during play.  But a little while ago I had a subscription to Paizo's adventure paths and got the "Iron Gods" one, which is an extended homage to the old D&D module "Expedition to the Barrier Peaks".  I got it just to see how they'd do an entire campaign of mixed fantasy and sci-fi.  Overall I liked it but still wasn't sure I'd want to run that type of game.  Paizo has a couple companion products out to support it.  I've had them on wish list, but as lower priorities.  Then yesterday Paizo put out their "rainy day" sale for 10% off and I decided to take the plunge, buying their "Pathfinder Player Companion - People of the Stars" and the "Technology Guide".

"People of the Stars" is only 38 pages, cover to cover, but it does what it says. You get four full player races, a couple less detailed races, a good selection of thematic traits and archetypes, sidebars on each of the planets in the solar system for Paizo's campaign universe (properly detailed in their "Distant Worlds" book, which I recommend if the topic interests you), some magic items, and brief rules on gravity, vacuum, and other planetary/space conditions.  There is tantalizing mention of the Dark Tapestry, an evil alien interstellar conspiracy, but you'll need one of the Iron Gods books for details on that.

I liked two of the races (android and kasathas) but wasn't exited by the other two--but that's just a personal thing. The other bits were only okay I thought.  So overall I was mildly disappointed but don't feel I wasted my cash.  I'm considering how to run a campaign set in the D&D ethereal plane, which is similar to a interstellar setting, and this book is good food for thought towards that end.

Review: Towns of the Inner Sea, for Pathfinder's world of Golarion

As I've mentioned before my favorite RPG books are setting books, from full-on campaign worlds down to city or wilderness settings.  Towns of the Inner Sea from Paizo for their Golarion setting world is one of my recent buys in this category.  The book presents six towns but also starts with a great listing of towns already detailed in earlier modules or adventure paths which is a really nice touch.  There is also a Golarion overview map showing you where the six are, which is very handy if you aren't familiar with that setting world.

Each town starts with a nice bit of art with a panoramic view of the town.  These are great for showing the players as they arrive.  Then there's an overview/background section to lead you into the various numbered locations.  Pretty much every single location has interesting details, an NPC, and plot ideas. There are also sidebars with more general adventure hooks, rumors, and a fully fleshed out major NPC at the end.  All this content is great.  You can easily run a bunch of adventures in and around any of these towns.  I particularly liked the desert pilgrimage town of Solku as a place to start a campaign.

The one feature which was disappointing is the maps of the towns.  As with the Neverwinter Campaign Setting book for D&D 4E I reviewed earlier, four of the towns as mapped out are just too small to encompass all the activity going on.  The town of Pezzack sounds like a bustling place and looks pretty cool in the opening panoramic view.  But the town as mapped is way smaller than shown in the panorama--it's only a quarter-mile across.  Unless all those buildings are very tall (and even then) there just isn't enough room for all the people and activities described.  Solku and Issurian look about right as mapped but I'd re-do and enlarge the maps of the other four before I'd use them in actual play.

Some thought on using Hero Lab at the table...

Okay, so last night we had another of our rare but much anticipated sessions of our buddy Steve's campaign.  As with most of our group's fantasy genre games we're using Pathfinder.  Our group generally likes and is comfortable with very crunchy systems like Pathfinder and Mutants & Masterminds.  Crunchiness means a lot of record-keeping and fact-checking when building and leveling characters and so Lone Wolf Development created Hero Lab is a great tool for PF.  For Steve's game, and mine to a lesser extent, we're almost all using Hero Lab for our characters.

Hero Lab is almost as massive and crunchy as Pathfinder.  It supports other games as well but I've only really used it for Pathfinder (and indirectly for Mutants & Masterminds).  So it is a great tool for managing the crunch overload of Pathfinder.  It can be used not only by players to build and level their characters but for GMs to make NPCs.  GMs can also load in the players' .por character files, sent via email or Dropbox, for reference and thus make notes real time during play, such as during combat.

But this is where Hero Lab fails to keep up.  During combat there are situational modifiers, spell modifiers, spells and arrows expended, hit points lost, hit points healed, etc.  Unfortunately all of that has to be laboriously entered by hand for each and every PC and NPC each round, round after round.  The program hold and tracks all of that very well but it's just too damn slow to operate.

Combat can be a wearying grind in may systems and Pathfinder is on the edge here.  You can fudge stuff and push things along to keep up a pace (like I usually do), or you can go by the book and make sure every T is crossed and every +1 accounted for.  Using Hero Lab naturally moves you in the direction of the T-crossing approach.  That's not a wrong thing, because the rules are actually written that way, but by actually slowing combat down Hero Lab becomes sort of an anti-aid.

I suppose the obvious cure is to go full 21st century and have every player equipped with a computing device connected to the GM's.  That way the data entry work is distributed  and all data shows on everyone's copy with only one person entering any one bit of data.  This character casts a buff, notes it as cast in Hero Lab, checks the boxes for all other characters affected, and clicks "send" or something about like that.  Almost everyone in our group has a device or could borrow one so that will work for us if the folks at Lone Wolf Development decide to add networking in the future.

Review: The Slave Trenches of Hakotep (Pathfinder adventure path)

Right, so this is the fifth book in the Mummy's Mask adventure path.  This adventure takes place in a sprawling outdoor maze of huge trenches with lots of small dungeons and outdoor encounters areas.  And all that exploring is with the goal of activating a magic tractor team to bring down the flying pyramid (did we mention there are flying pyramids?) of the main villain.  It is a major undertaking for the PCs and will tax their endurance.

The adventure actually starts with the PCs defending the city where the entire path starts from a menacing smaller flying pyramid, one of a fleet fanning out over Osirion.  This is a fun albeit small dungeon and it foreshadows the big, nasty flying pyramid in the final book in the series.

As with the other books in the series this one has an extra article revealing the background of the ancient Shory empire, who ruled from flying cities.  I've been wanting to find out more about the Shory since I first came across them in the Serpent's Skull adventure path.  So this was a very welcome inclusion.

The art throughout is excellent, as it is in the earlier books in this series.  There are also more magic items, in this case with more extensive background lore.  The fiction story continues.  I'm not sure I like having bits of fiction in these adventure paths, since it's not why I brought the product, but they are good for getting you into the atmosphere and always include a small map handy for GMing.  The monsters at the back were pretty good this time, although I'd probably only use about half of them in my games.

Bottom Line: The overall format of this adventure was a pleasant surprise and the article on the Shory was welcome extra.  I'd recommend buying it if you're at all interested.

Review: Secrets of the Sphinx (Pathfinder adventure path)

Okay, so I'm doing up reviews of the rest of the Mummy's Mask adventure path books from Paizo Publishing for their Pathfinder game.  This path is set in the part of their game world which is a fantasy version of ancient Egypt called Osirion.

This adventure is split into two parts: a sandbox hex crawl, then a huge dungeon.  The hex crawl locations were great, lots of variety to keep the players guessing and challenged about what's coming next.  Among the encounters are several interesting NPCs who could re-appear in later adventures if you wanted.  One possible problem with the hex crawl, typical to all hex crawls, is what to do if the players take it into their heads to go totally in the wrong direction and off the map.  I guess that's where the GM's creativity comes in.  The big dungeon, which is actually inside of a huge sphinx, is quite a challenge.  The encounters in here are also quite varied and will keep the players challenged and entertained (even if they don't survive). 

The book also has two extra small encounter areas which can be added to the hex crawl or any adventure.  There is a great section on curses to inflict on the PCs, a set of monsters which I actually liked this time, a bit of fiction (part four), and new items.  The major NPCs get extensive write-ups in a section at the back, which is very handy for GMs to reskin them for re-use later.  The art was excellent, as it has been in the previous three Mummy's Mask books.  I'm glad to see them continue applying ancient Egyptian themes successfully in the NPCs and creatures.  I have six of Paizo's adventure paths and this one compares very well to the others.  Some I buy just for the ideas, but I would actually run this one if I got the chance.

Bottom Line: yes, this was worth the money and I can recommend buying it if you're at all interested. 

A Pathfinder Paladin for Our Next Campaign

Okay, so my group is getting ready to try doing a game using Roll20.  Over time our group has become more spread out geographically.  For our Monday night games we already have one player Skype in.  Naturally that brought up the idea of doing a totally virtual game.  My buddy Bill volunteered to run one with Roll20 and the rest of us are working up our characters.  This time I've decided to try a paladin.  In general I like the idea of the paladin.  But when I look at the actual structure of the class in D&D/Pathfinder my enthusiasm wanes.  However, I've never actually played one and so I thought I'd give it a try.

Here's the design for the character up through level 5.  In the old days I just picked a class and started playing.  But with all the feats and other options for a Pathfinder class, you really have to look ahead a few levels.  Note that this is not meant to be an "optimized build".  This is more about the flavor

Torathiel-yng-Ulathual-min-Calaisse IV (or "Cal")
Paladin (hospitaler archetype)
Male elf, Lawful Good <--Lawful Good elf? What's wrong with this picture? No wonder he left home.

STR 14 (+2)
DEX 16 (+3)
CON 10 (+0)
INT 14 (+2)
WIS 12 (+1)
CHA 16 (+3)
*Note: the GM had us start with an array of 16, 14, 14, 12, 12, 12 for the stats, placed as desired; at the first session we will get an extra 1d4 of points to play with.



FORT    2 + 0 = +2
REF    0 + 3 = +3
WIL    2 + 1 = +3

Elf Favored Class Bonus: Per level, add +1/2 hit point to the paladin's lay on hands ability (whether using it to heal or harm).

Elven Immunities: Elves are immune to magic sleep effects and gain a +2 racial saving throw bonus against enchantment spells and effects.

Keen Senses: Elves receive a +2 racial bonus on Perception checks.

Skills: (2 points/level)
Knowledge (nobility) (Int): 1 + 3 + 2 = 6
Ride (Dex): 1 + 3 + 3 = 7

1st Level
Aura of Good, Detect Evil, Smite Evil 1/Day
Feat: <see ideas below>

2nd Level
Divine Grace (add CHA bonus to all saving throws), and Lay on Hands (1/2 Paladin level + <CHA mod> times per day, heals 1d6 per 2 paladin levels)

3rd Level
Aura of Courage (immune to fear/+4 to ally saves), Divine Health (immune to diseases), Mercy
Feat: <see ideas below>

4th Level
Channel Positive Energy (3 + <CHA mod> times per day for 1d6)
Spells: one 1st level paladin spell
+1 to ability score

5th Level
Divine Bond (mount or weapon; maybe I can talk the GM into doing shield instead of weapon)
Feat: <see ideas below>

Feat Ideas
Pathfinder has probably way too many feats now.  Picking feats for your character is half the work of leveling up.  I went through the feats on the d20 Pathfinder SRD site

Arcane Talent (Cast a 0-level spell 3 times per day as a spell-like ability: maybe detect magic, dancing lights, or light) this is just to add some elf/magical "flavor"
Disarm, Improved (+2 to disarm) this character will fight for good, but he's not a natural born killer so disarming fits
Dodge (+1 AC) elves are supposed to be quick and a bit of extra AC helps keep him alive in battle
Exotic Weapon Proficiency (bastard sword) I just like the idea of an extra huge sword, but maybe this is an expensive use of a feat
Extra Channel (+2/day) this is a hospitaler type paladin, so healing channels fits well here; channeling comes at level 4, so this would be good for the level 5 feat
Lightning Reflexes (+2 to REF) this one would be to represent elvish quickness, but he's pretty quick already in this area
Mobility (+4 dodge bonus to Armor Class against attacks of opportunity) this allows him to be mobile in battle, elf style, rather than standing in one place battling it out, but as the only fighter type so far he have to play that role
Persuasive (+2 bonus on Diplomacy and Intimidate checks) "Now see here old chap, you really must put your weapon down or I shall be forced to smite you..."
Point-Blank Shot (+1 hit and damage within 30') as an elf he'll likely be shooting a lot and this is the "must have" basic feat for archery
Scholar (Gain a bonus to two Knowledge skills) represents his well-educated family background
Sharp Senses (+4 racial bonus on Perception checks) more elf flavor, but maybe a waste of a feat on top of the existing racial bonus
Shield Focus (+1 to shield AC) part of the character background is the shield of his uncle who was a paladin
Toughness (+3 HP and +1 per level) just a generally good feat for keeping any character alive
Weapon Focus (+1 attack with a weapon) a good basic feat for fighty types, but longsword or long bow...hmm







Primary Equipment Ideas
Scale Mail/50gp
Shield, Heavy Wooden/7gp
Longsword/15gp [or Bastard Sword/35gp]
Dagger/2gp
Longbow/100gp
Arrows (20)/20gp

Finally bought the Pathfinder Chase Cards

Okay, so I recently happened into my FLGS, Games and Stuff, and purchased Ponyfinder (details in a future post) and Pathfinder Chase Cards 2, Hot Pursuit.  We've been using the Plot Twist cards in our games for a while, both decks, and we've enjoyed them more than I thought we would (to be honest).  Paizo has lots of other decks, but the only one which really interests me is their two Chase Cards decks.

I will admit to having avoided chase scenes (well, planned ones) in my games because they were tough for me to do well.  So when I saw that there was a deck of cards out to make it easier to run random chase scenes I was intrigued.  And so yesterday I finally jumped in and bought one.  They were out of the 1st deck, but the two are designed to be used independently so it really didn't matter.

The cards come divided into ones for dungeon, wilderness, and urban chases.  Each has a situation and two ways to get past it, usually with skill checks but also using saves and other mechanics.  It's quick and straightforward and I think these will be fun.  In play I will put the deck in the center of the table and let the players pull each situation from the deck themselves.  I like the idea that they get the fun of seeing what comes up next.

The only disappointing thing with the cards is that there aren't a lot of options offered on each card for resolution.  I generally set the creative content bar high for reviews of Paizo Pathfinder products because I know they are capable of really good stuff.  The Plot Twist cards each have about half a dozen ideas on each one so I know they can do better.