Pathfinder Society Core Campaign

Posted on January 27, 2015 by Jeffrey Tadlock

It has been awhile since I have made a Pathfinder post on this blog, but yesterday, the organized play coordinator, Mike Brock, announced the “Core Campaign” option on Paizo’s blog.

The Core Campaign option for Pathfinder Society Organized play is that only the Core Rulebook, character traits web enhancement, and Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play are allowable sources. This is a huge step to simplifying what has become a very complex game.

There are so many Pathfinder resources to draw from in a standard PFS game that it can be very overwhelming. To both new and old players alike. Sometimes having access to the full wealth of resources just creates a game that people don’t want to be involved in.

This step to allowing a Core Campaign should go far to resolve these issues and lower the bar to entry again for people new to Pathfinder Society Organized play. It makes the game easier to run and easier to play in many ways. So this is a window of opportunity for new Pathfinder GMs who don’t need to be intimidated by the amount of rules. And it can make things little less intimidating to new players.

In my home Pathfinder game I have done something very similar for my own character. I limit myself to just the Core Rulebook and the Advanced Players Guide when choosing options for the my character. This was not a GM imposed restriction, just one I put on myself to keep me from getting frustrated with what I feel is an overwhelming amount of options. It has worked very well in my home game.

In regards to this decision for organized play, it is good to see a strong, viable option for organized play return. When I attend a convention where I might not know a lot of people, but want to get into a game that I am pretty sure is going to run, I look to well run organized play games. Having the option of this core track makes the Pathfinder Society option much more attractive again.

It is welcoming to see Paizo listening to their fans by releasing this option without requiring a sacrifice to their fans that do prefer the full option route. Be sure to check out the Paizo blog post for all the details.

New Pathfinder Campaign

Posted on June 20, 2014 by Jeffrey Tadlock

The week before Origins a new campaign kicked off for my local gaming group with the Star Wars Edge of the Empire game coming to an end. There was a bit of discussion, I pitched an OSR game (Swords & Wizardry or Labyrinth Lord). Well, I sort of pitched an OSR game. I pitched a rules system. The other GM in the group pitched a full on game and dangled his homebrew world out there for it, Tellus. The rule system would be Pathfinder.

Pathfinder won out. I was a little nervous. Frankly, Pathfinder has taken on a bit of an overwhelming feeling for me. Lots of feats, wacky character races, character classes – some of the same things that burnt me out on D&D 3.5.

Don’t get me wrong, I like Pathfinder. Just a lot of my recent interests have been with the OSR type systems where things feel a little lighter. But the group had spoken!

Character Gen

I decided to put a self-imposed limit on myself and stick to just the core rulebook and the Advanced Players Guide. That helped keep things a little more manageable for me. Way fewer rulebooks to peruse and I already have strong familiarity with those two books.

I am not into the more unusual races or even character classes for the most part. So I went with a Dwarven Paladin for this game. We were allowed to have legacy characters that tied back to some of our characters from previous campaigns in this world (the current group started in Tellus back in 2005, the GM that runs it for much, much longer than that).

So I whipped up a Dwarven Paladin (thanks Hero Lab!) and started to get excited for the first game night.

The Campaign Begins

The first night has us running some errands for Lord Phillip (the offspring of a character run by a player who has since moved away). Check on the status of a village, cement relations there and just general get a feel for the lands to the south and bring some stability to the region.

Before the night was over we ended up in a quarry which I quickly recognized as the Caves of Chaos from Keep on the Borderlands. It was a fun romp and I appreciated that the GM was running some of the old school modules.

It looks to be a promising campaign!

I will post periodic reports from the campaign and how it feels putting the old Pathfinder gloves back on!

A New Kind of Pathfinder Character

Posted on April 30, 2014 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

When I DM I always like to try something a little bit different. Perhaps a different take on the campaign or the way the characters are built. Some of the ideas work and others do not. I liked it when I started having the players choose the ability scores for their own character. When I tried to have the players describe their character and then have the other players choose the attributes based on the descriptions did not work out as well. I do some different things behind the screen but I don’t keep track of them as thoroughly. I see the more important aspect of the game as player interaction with the rules. It is also very possible I am finding a complex solution to problems that do not exist.

Before I go on to this idea I must stress it is not something for every group. It might not even be a good idea for my own group as this will be the first time it has been brought up to them. For it to even have a chance of working one needs a DM that has a solid understanding of the rules and system mastery. It has to have players that will not abuse the system. The players also have to trust the DM in being fair with his rulings and trust the other players that no one is abusing the system. It does not require system mastery for the players and would probably be better for players who do not have it.

The Pathfinder system stays intact. Characters still have hit points, AC, base attack bonus, saves, etc. The way we get there is going to change though. Before one picks a race, a class, feats, and spells. Depending on what they were it would govern what the numbers were and the options the player had to select from for the character. What a player would do is come up for the concept for their character. It could be as simple as Knight to something very specific like Street Rat raised by a Fire Wizard. A player could have a short concept like that or flesh it out with a few paragraphs of backstory. Then the player would work with the DM to assign all the aspects that a class normally does. It will take a little more work but I think it will get a player more involved in his character and help create a character exactly like they want. Many times in Pathfinder and other similar systems I see players make compromises because they can’t find exactly what they want.

It doesn’t end there, this is just the beginning. I would throw out the skill list and come up with player created skills. A player would just name what they want the character to be able to do again with the DM overseeing everything to make sure it comes out ok. It would help keep the number of skills down and allow for broader skills to exist like Acrobatics. That could cover climb, jump, tumble and similar skills. Or a player could have a skill called Parkour which has some similarities to acrobatics but some specific differences as well. By using the language to pick out these different skills one can add a fine nuance to the game and what the character is able to do.

Each character would get feats, but once again they don’t have to pick off the insane list of all feats in existence. Feats now can also cover things like class abilities. Weapon and armor training would be included here. A character concept of weapons master might know how to use any weapon he picks up. But a concept like Spearman would have a more limited selection of weapons known but would have greater ability and bonuses when using a spear. If the player has trouble thinking up ideas then he can peruse the books and find thousands of different examples in all the classes, archetypes, and feats that are in existence.

Spells is where we really get crazy. Like feats there are just too many spells in the game so we do the same thing and just have the player name his own spells. Or maybe the DM playing the NPC Wizard who the PC is apprenticed to creates the spell. We might have one called Fire. It can be used to create light, spark dried tinder to make a fire, be used as a fire projection like burning hands, or even an explosion like a fireball. Damage would all be minimal since the caster is only first level. But anyway the character can think to use fire the spell can potentially do. As a limit I would probably introduce a spell casting skill or have a spells per day like the standard game.

It will take more work by the players but it allows them to be creative instead of ordering off the menu so to speak. If the player does not like it or is not feeling creative enough to do it then they can use an existing class, feats, and spells. There will be differences between a character done the old way and this way but if the DM is doing his job correctly they should coexist just fine. This system is very abusable and I like that it is. I trust my players with that kind of power and it has yet to blow up in my face. I don’t feel like this is an original idea and I am sure other games approach character creation more like this.

Would a Pathfinder player actually want to do this? I don’t know. It could bethe catalogs of options is what drives players to Pathfinder. I know I might be solving a problem that doesn’t exist but something in thinking on gaming this is what happens.

What do you think, Sirs?

Chris Gath. I’ve been gaming since 1980 playing all kinds of games since then. In the past year I’ve run Pathfinder, Dungeon Crawl Classic, Paranoia, and Mini d6. My current campaign is mini d6 and we are using that for a modern supernatural conspiracy investigative game. On some forums I’m known as Crothian and I’ve written a few hundred reviews though I took a sabbatical from reviewing for a few years as it burnt me out. I was also an judge for the Gen Con awards (ENnies) six times. Jeff, the owner of this blog, is one of my players and a good friend.

Bards: Style and Substance

Posted on April 14, 2014 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

The Pathfinder Bard class is one I am well familiar with. The makers of the Adventure Paths love themselves a good bard NPC and in my earlier 2nd edition game days I used to play the odd bard here and there. The one problem with the bard is they get a little stereotyped most of the time. They pull the lute out or burst into song to support the rest of the party by giving them that +1 edge in combat. The good old morale bonus. but is the Bard truly just a utility class? Let us scratch the surface and find out more.

First, to break the bard “one size fits all” image, let us look at how they deliver their powers. Most of them are done through the Perform skill. The atypical bard plays stringed instruments or is a singer. Well let us branch out a bit from there. Breaking the stereotype is as easy as choosing different focused skills. For example, under perform you could have acting, mime, dancing, tumbling, comedy, magic shows, and the like. Imagine how that works in combat? Let me give you an example.

I once had a halfling bard (actually he was a duo act with another halfling bard played by another player) and we performed a tumbling act and were known as the “Zucchini Brothers”! I had specialized in a lasso and our performance in the midst of combat was to raise the famed morale bonus as well as provide a distraction to opponents. We did this by tumbling past opponents, lassoing weapons and ducking under legs. It turned our pure utility into a fun event that was colorful in description and purpose. Mind you, our GM did ban those characters as they made a fool of one too many of his NPC’s from memory. Plus they lassoed a +3 battleaxe artifact and made away with it causing some serious problems in game (this was before GM’s were meant to be fans of the players!)

Bards are not one trick ponies. Sure, most players understand the value of a bard in combat but look at all their other abilities. Bards are receptacles of knowledge. They can make Knowledge checks untrained! I am not sure about your games but in mine a lot of the information of the plot can be ferreted out utilizing various Knowledge skills. it makes the game plot a lot more robust and a robust plot is a memorable game in the players’ eyes. Having a bard and finding this information regularly allows for you to be in the hot seat for being able to lead a team of adventurers. it is not really about the strongest, but what and who you know which is all about knowledges.

Other performance abilities include countering sound based spells, inspiring competence in others, fascinating a crowd as well as giving them suggestions. There are also great performances that can be learned (using the expanded core books) that allow for even greater effects from the bard. It seems that the ones the player companions really get hooked on are the ones that give them a bonus in combat. While this is important at times, it is often more important to counter the spell that is about to destroy the party, or have the constabulary of the town suddenly become fascinated with why their horse is infected with ticks while you make away with the town treasury.

There are also the benefits to skill use as you progress in the class. You gain the ability to take 10 on Knowledge checks as well as taking 20 once a day representing your superior all-round knowledge. Then at tenth level you also gain the ability to use any skill untrained, even if training is required! This is a super ability but seems to be often overlooked by many that play a bard.

Of course there is the ability to use spells too, much in the same way as a sorcerer. That is a spontaneous caster. You know only a handful of spells per level but can cast any of them without the need to have them prepared. The spells the Bard gets tend to be a utility nature but they enhance the class features well. Apt attention to the spells you learn are a must as they will greatly enhance your character and their usefulness in every situation.

Bard’s are charismatic and knowledgeable. You may not expect to find one leading men into battle but you should not be surprised to find one acting as a tactician, general or spymaster. They have a perfect blend of social and functional skills that give them the ability to lead people. Followers always want to follow someone that knows what they are talking about and can present that information in a suitable manner. That is the bard through and through.

When you think of the bard, try to ignore that minds image of the fop in the big flouncy hat who strums his lute and sings of brave Sir Robin. Sure they exist but they are performers, not bards. Bards are inquisitive and skilled. They know how to work a crowd and do so to further their own ends. Most Inn’s have performers to draw in a crowd but most of these performers are not bards. They are musicians and singers, not bards. A bard may want to perform for money every now and again, and it is these performances that become truly legendary and memorable in the common persons mind.

Looking at the variant archetypes you can see how ranged the Bard can truly be. There is the Arcane Duelist, the Sandman, the Savage Skald, the Detective and many others throughout the books. These truly show the versatility of this class. it is a class that should not be overlooked in character generation and one that offers a true role-playing experience for the seasoned player. It also offers up a load of fun to a new player who is not yet sure what they want to play. Push them toward the bard because they are so malleable and can suit a style of play once the new player finds it.

Give the Bard a run. I promise you will not be disappointed! Keep rolling 🙂

Mark Knights is 40 year old guy living in a small rural town called Elliott in Tasmania, Australia. I have been role playing since I was 11 years old playing the original versions of Dungeons and Dragons, MERP, Elric, Dragon Warriors and the like amongst other genre games. I played D&D 2nd Edition through the 90′s but I ran Earthdawn for my fantasy setting and loved it as a GM. When 3rd Edition came out for D&D I tried it but found it too heavy on rules. I ignored the 3.5 edition of DnD in favour of Earthdawn (big mistake) as I thought it was just a money spinner. When 4th Edition DnD came on my players and I gave it a red hot go but hated what it had dumbed the game down to be. On a trip to Melbourne to buy some 4E stuff from a hobby store an old mate of mine pointed me at Pathfinder and in a Fantasy setting I have never looked back.

Blinded By The Light

Posted on December 16, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds – used under Paizo Community Use Policy

Conditions in a game can play as big or as small a role as you would like as a GM. It is pretty rare in a fantasy game that some kind of exotic creature does not have some way to cause an issue to the character they target. Conditions can be great equalizers to power players and awesome factors for players that want to puzzle their way around things.

A quick proviso: We all know I am a Pathfinder player for my fantasy largely, so I am going to describe the conditions here that are pertinent to a Pathfinder game. It is likely that your own game system has rules covering these same things but if I do slip and talk about statistical effects I am coming from a Pathfinder perspective.

Have a two-handed weapon specialist who sneers at the rogue every time they drag out a short sword or a dagger? Well do I have the condition for you! Swallowed whole. Hit them with a big creature that has a penchant for not chewing its food. Have the character slip down the gullet of the creature. Inside the gullet of a creature it is much easier to harm BUT the character can only attack with a light one handed weapon. Seleca, the Cavalier in one of my games, is the two handed specialist and she has recently just scored level 18. She is capable of cutting a twentieth level fighter down with over 300 hp in one round. She has just taken to carrying a dagger as she has now been swallowed around seven times and been able to do absolutely nothing until her companions cut her out.

A condition that hampers nearly every type of character is the blinded condition. In Pathfinder Blindness/Deafness is a second level spell and is a permanent effect! While running the Reign of Winter adventure path for Pathfinder I have blinded a Paladin twice in the campaign. The first time this occurred he remained blind for about four sessions and the condition really hampered his ability to be effective. The second time lasted only a single combat (in which he hilariously got eaten by an oven) but it caused a big drama as he struggled to be effective against the witch that had caused the blindness. This condition also seriously hampers a magician. A magician that cannot see is severely hampered in creating lines of effect for spells or using a lot of the spells in their repertoire.

Continuing on with the spell caster perspective you also could use deafness. Deafness causes any spell with a verbal component a chance of failure as although the magician can think of the correct words the brain cannot tell if the mouth is verbalizing them correctly. Tonal information is important to the casting of spells and this feedback to the brain is important to ensure the tone and pitch is correct in the delivery.

Creatures that can cause confusion or stunning effects are also good to have. If they can cause these conditions for multiple rounds it can turn a powerful enemy into their own worst nightmare! Confusion gives the player a random chance of what they are going to do for the round. There are four different options in Pathfinder. They can continue as normal, babble incoherently, attack themselves or attack the nearest living creature, regardless of who it is! As you can see, two of these outcome (50% of the time) the player will likely be doing awful things to themselves or possibly their companions! Stun on the other hand is effective against characters that get a lot of attacks per round with a weapon. It causes the player to drop anything that is held. That means to become effective again the player needs to pick up the weapon (which draws an attack of opportunity) or draw a new less preferred weapon (no AoO) before they can be effective again. The player is also unable to act for a round which means the creature can attack for that round. It is likely confusion will last multiple rounds while stunning is very rarely any more than one round.

Just a quick post today. Use your creatures wisely to inflict interesting conditions. There are far more conditions that exist in the game than what I have listed here, but the ones above are always a good place to start. The players will remember these combats for the way they overcame them regardless of the ‘x’ condition they were carrying. it makes for more interesting combats and more heroic actions from the players. Keep rolling!

Mark Knights is 39 year old guy living in a small rural town called Elliott in Tasmania, Australia. I have been role playing since I was 11 years old playing the original versions of Dungeons and Dragons, MERP, Elric, Dragon Warriors and the like amongst other genre games. I played D&D 2nd Edition through the 90′s but I ran Earthdawn for my fantasy setting and loved it as a GM. When 3rd Edition came out for D&D I tried it but found it too heavy on rules. I ignored the 3.5 edition of DnD in favour of Earthdawn (big mistake) as I thought it was just a money spinner. When 4th Edition DnD came on my players and I gave it a red hot go but hated what it had dumbed the game down to be. On a trip to Melbourne to buy some 4E stuff from a hobby store an old mate of mine pointed me at Pathfinder and in a Fantasy setting I have never looked back.

The Thing I Hate About Pathfinder

Posted on November 25, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

So, hopefully we are going to start a discussion here that I have been wanting to have for some time. I think this is an important discussion to have and I most certainly want to hear your point of view on it. I want to discuss the one thing that I dislike the most about Pathfinder and it is not even Pathfinders fault, it is a legacy of third edition D&D.

I dislike complex rules systems and Pathfinder is really not all that difficult except in one aspect. Feats. I hate feats. I hate them as a GM and don’t mind them as a player which is a bit of a paradox. I GM far more than act as a player. If people ask me what I do not like about Pathfinder I will unerringly mention feats. These things have been a core of the rules since Wizards of the Coast created their first version of D&D and interestingly enough Wizards of the Coast in their D&D Next material have begun to pull away from them as well. Is it possible that the company that created this curse is as annoyed at them as I am?

Why do I hate them? It is down to one thing and that is rules bloat. Every single feat is a little gem of rule changing evil, or new rules or rules twists. And there are thousands of them depending on how many books you have. They are little packets of moderately powered rules changes. Consider that from the GM’s perspective who works to be an arbiter of the rules. The d20 based rules of Pathfinder are pretty easy to come to terms with but then when you look at feats you have to rethink everything you know because for nearly every rule they mention there is at least one feat that modifies it. Apply several of these to a character or creature and you really have a complex series of interactions occurring that you need to juggle in game which can be quite a hard job.

I understand the rationale behind feats though, which means I am torn. Feats were introduced so a character could apply some individualization. Prior to this (2nd edition D&D), if you played a fighter, a fifth level fighter had all the same abilities as any other fifth level fighter. The differences between characters largely came through experiences and favored equipment. TSR realised that with newer style games coming out focussed on character customization that they were beginning to lose players. They worked on their books that introduced more combat options and also started working on certain builds that mixed up the character creation process. I actually think it was this explosion of customizable material that led to a lot of rules bloat and confusion to 2nd edition and it also caused a lot of players to leave the system.

Feats were born in third edition so the customization was built into the core rules from the very start. When I first played 3rd edition I liked the concept and enjoyed the differences they could create in a character. Of course I did not know then, when I held that Players Handbook 3.0 that feats would bloat horribly. To customize anything the company would add more feats, the third party contributors would add more feats and in the end feats became a swamp that I found myself being sucked into. Overwhelmed I could not get out. So between feats and attacks of opportunity I left my 3rd edition D&D behind.

So, there you have it. I do think feats overcomplicate Pathfinder, but what can you do? As a player I like feats because each one gives me that little bit extra for the character but as a GM they are too much. Especially when players take feats but take no responsibility in keeping them in mind either and a round after an action they try to retrospectively change it because they forgot X feat did Y. Then every NPC has reams of feats, monsters have them too as well as their normal abilities and I find the times I have to pause in game to check a rule always tends to be to look up the rules of a feat.

What do you think? Am I making a mountain out of a bullette burrow? Is there something that you hate more? Let us talk about the things we hate the most about Pathfinder and see if we can come up with some solutions to these problems! Until next time, keep rolling.

Fantasy System Customization

Posted on October 14, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

Today I come to you asking for help. I am trying to find a system that matches requirements for a certain type of play style that arose out of a conversation I got involved in yesterday. I was asked recently by an American friend to investigate games based on customizability. There was a large discussion about the systems we know about and I think he shaped precisely what he wanted from that discussion. We talked Pathfinder a little and I lamented about the one thing I don’t really love about the system that was introduced with D&D 3rd Edition and that is Feats.

What my friend is wanting to do is find a game where he can take an off the rack class (say a fighter) and through options of customization, turn him into a stalwart defender so to speak. Or it might be he wants a rogue that customizes to become an excellent burglar. Just the ability to take an off the rank archetype and make it your own. I talked a bit about feats as they were topical at the time I joined the conversation and I stated how I really did not like them. Feats as a tool for customizability are good but they make the rules systems intricate and complex.

I have been watching a person on Google Plus (Keith J Davies) who is currently trying to model the feats and their dependencies in UML (maybe, but definitely some kind of flow chart) and he is coming up with some intensely complicated diagrams. These diagrams are just for the requirements too! Let us hope he doesn’t try to model the effects also! From a GM perspective, feats are a nightmare as there are hundreds of them and they all essentially change, tweak or break the rules in some way. In an ideal world the players would all know their own feats but I get asked at least once a game what a feat does. Not to mention the NPC feats and monster feats that you have to be across to utilize your opponents well.

OK, feat rant over. They are good for customization but they introduce a massive bloat in complication. Once we had reached this point in our discussion we started to look more broadly at the customizability of other games. D&D Next was looked at favorably apart from the removal of the skill system introduced also in 3rd Edition D&D which we thought limited the customization of a character. Instead the system relies on a very poor amount of proficiencies (taking it back to similar to first and second editions). Dragon Age was mentioned as a possible option though we do not like the proprietary feel of the system. Exalted came up and was looked at favorably but the “charms” it uses create new rules and thus has the same problem as Pathfinder with every “charm” offering more complexity to the game.

So what I guess we are looking for is a fantasy system that does the following things;

offers a healthy level of character customization so you can build different characters from the one archetype;
contains a skill system that is variable (i.e. not a binary system of you know it or you don’t, but a system that offers levels of understanding)
customization mechanics need to build off present rules so that the effects only modify what any character can already do
customization options must not be “overly” extensive (i.e. there can’t be so many that the games complication outweighs its usability); and
it has to be a game with a certain amount of “crunch” value (where “crunch” means a robust rules set and the game is not considered rules-lite)

This is a challenge that I put out to you all dear players and GM’s of the interwebs. We all have our favorite systems (and despite my rant about Pathfinder feats it is still one of my favorites) and I am hoping that for some of you the points above may be ringing true. There are a lot of fantasy systems out there and hopefully one will fit the bill. Do you feel the game that you play meets those dot points? Does the game you play fit the points because you house ruled it? Do you feel that these points would represent a game you would like to try or do you not value customization in a game? Please help us out and share your systems with me that you think will meet our needs. Until next week, keep rolling.

Props: Building Maps and Letters

Posted on October 1, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

Ever played in one of those games where the GM lays out a prop that it is obvious they have spent hours on? Well sometimes GM’s know a few tricks on how to make something look terribly cool in a fraction of the time it looks like it took to make.

I have decided to do a bit of foreshadowing in the Skull and Shackles Pathfinder campaign I am running for my group. A part of doing this is actually going to be giving them a treasure map that they will find in some creatures loot somewhere or on board one of the ships that they pirate away for later use!

A good map has the old crisp aged parchment feel. It has a slightly off look and of course for a pirate map it has to look like it has been through the wringer. All of this is achievable in a little under half an hour including drawing the map and I am here to walk you through the steps!

Editors Note: This process requires the use of an oven. Do so at your own risk – The Iron Tavern is not responsible for fires!

Things you will need
1. Piece of paper
2. Lemon cut in half
3. Bowl
4. Pastry/Paint Brush
5. Oven
6. Something to write with and a lighter if you want it to look like my final product!
Lemon and an oven. Basic chemistry! Set the oven to 160 degrees celsius (that is 320 Fahrenheit for others). If it is a fan forced oven we do NOT want the fan on or the paper will blow about everywhere.
After the oven is set you need to do is squeeze the lemon juice out of those halves. You don’t need to strain the pips 🙂 If the lemon is very dry you may need a couple to get enough juice.
Once the lemon is dry use the pastry brush to cover your piece of paper. I generally do both sides but one side should be OK.
Place your sheet of paper in the oven and watch it. Mine took around 7 minutes to get a light off white colour and a nice crispy antiqueness to the sheet. I also picked up some nice fat stains on the sheet from my last roast which is cool because it makes it look like it has lived! The longer you leave it in, the darker it will get but it may catch alight so keep an eye on it.
Once the sheet is done, do your writing. If it is a letter or whatever go for it. You can see I am a tragic and actually use a quill and ink for this phase which layers that little bit more on to the authenticness.
The next step is optional and should be done outside or over a sink. For my map I took a lighter to the edges of my page, a little bit at a time. Let it burn a bit, blow it out. Repeat until you are all the way round.
Final step is presentation. For my pirate map I rolled it in to a tube, tied a bit of twine around it in true piratical style. If yours is a love letter, place some ribbon around it. If it is a secret message and you have wax and a seal, go for it.

: The Lemon And the Paper

: The Paper and Lemon Juice

: Into the Oven

: Out of the Oven

: Drawing the Map with Quill

: All Rolled up

Finally, take it to the table and lay it out for the players. they will think it is cool and wonder how much spare time you have. For the pirate map it took me a little over 20 minutes, all up to make, including the photos!

Hopefully this helps you bring a few props to the table! Keep rolling 🙂

En Route Encounters

Posted on August 21, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

It has been a while since I ran a good sandbox fantasy campaign. I like the adventure paths and enjoy going through them, but they are linear and it can be tough to really have the feeling of go anywhere and try to do anything. Even though I haven’t run that kind of campaign lately I still hold on to and seek out books that aid in that kind of campaign. There are not a lot out there that are easily adaptable and portable into different fantasy games and worlds. This week I am going to look at three books of the En Route series by Atlas Games for their Penumbra line. These books offer a variety of different encounters that can easily be dropped into almost any fantasy campaign.

The En Route series of books boasts some impressive writers. We have author credits by Keith Baker, Brannon Hollingsworth, Chris Aylott, Spike Jones, Justin Achilli, and many other familiar names. The first two are written for 3e and the third is written for 3.5 ed D&D using the OGL, but these are very mechanics light products making them very easy to port into any other fantasy game. Since the books are older it should be easy to find them relatively cheap. A quick look on Amazon.com shows they can be purchased for around $5 a piece.

The En Route series are books featuring simple encounters designed to be used when the PCs are traveling from one place to another. Some are for on the road, in a city, a tavern, in a forest, on the sea, and other places. There is a variety of different locations with some unusual ones like in a goblin encampment or whenever the party teleports. Each encounter is a bit more in depth with great plot ideas that a DM can carry forward. This is one of the great things I like about the books, the encounters can be throw away encounters the PCs run into and then can forget about. But I like encounters that might originally feel like that but a DM can cleverly use something established there and showcase it later in the campaign. I think it helps tie different adventures together and helps the players remember what is happening in the campaign because they know something that is happening now can come back and help or hinder them in the future.

Between the three books there are approximately 50 different encounters. Each covers about four to eight pages. There are simple ones like the Door. It is designed for second level characters and while wandering a road they encounter signs that say something like “Are you Worthy?” and “Do you think you have what it takes?”. Ahead off to the side of the road is a small trail that leads to a door in the side of a rock facing covered in mystical runes and animal carvings. The door is locked and trapped. What lies behind the door will be remembered by the party.

There is the Haunting Place, which says it is for level 10 but I would reduce it to lower level. The magic of a level 10 party could easily make this encounter too easy or they could kill the creature they are trying to help. It is built on the idea of a summoned monster trying to get home but there is a communication problem between it and anyone it tries to get to help it. It can really set the scene for a spooky encounter as the players are trying to figure out exactly what is going on.

Many of the encounters are not combat encounters. Some use illusions or tricks to set up situations that are not quite apparent to the players at first. One of my favorites is the Glass House by Keith Baker. It is a simple situation in which a magical experiment inside in Inn turns the place and everyone inside invisible. The PCs are assumed to be outside and witness the Inn and everyone vanish. There is a mystery of what happened and how to undo it all but it sets up for some fun and different kind of encounter.

The En Route series is perfect for DMs looking for something a little extra to help out a gaming session or serve as a small distraction. None of them will take a full session or even a half of session but all of them could if the DM wants to put in a little work to add additional levels of complexity. I like these for a sandbox campaign as it would be easy to just have the books handy and grab them when needed. There are a few that could be used in Adventure Paths to just put in something different and not directly connected to the AP. Most of them are for lower level groups and any of these that say they are for higher ones like level 10 and up I would pay close attention to, as most of them I feel would work better for lower level characters. There is a lot of creativity and cleverness in these books coming from authors who were not as well-known as they are today.

Do You Tarrasque?

Posted on August 19, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

I have never, as a player, been caught in a game with a Tarrasque. Have you? This creature is one of the most iconic creatures in all the bestiary books I have ever read. We have seen at least five different official versions over time and there is always one thing that can be said about the Tarrasque, and that is you just can’t keep it down. Ever. Period. Don’t mess with it because it will kill you.

The Tarrasque has always been an open topic of conversation at the D&D and Pathfinder tables. It is said if a GM ever tires of his current campaign the certain way to end it is to introduce a Tarrasque. But what are the origins of such a beast. When it got placed in the Pathfinder Bestiary I realized that the adorable little critter (not) was’t the Intellectual Property (IP) of Wizards of the Coast (WotC) as I had previously believed. I became curious as to the origins of such an iconic creature in the game so I went and looked at books (yes, the paper kind) and the internet to track some information down. Was there a high level adventure hiding somewhere that I could take advantage of debasing the myth that the Tarrasque was a simple rampaging creature full of wrath and destruction?

The legend of St. Martha is actually the source of the Tarrasque story and it stems from a book of legends called the “Golden Legend” which was penned in the mid 1200’s although more was added through the years. Over a thousand manuscripts of this book has survived as it was exceptionally popular in its time. The source of the story comes from France where there was a dragon like creature known as the Taresque who lived in and around the Nerluc area in Provence, France. The creature was laying waste to a wide swathe of territory and nothing seemed to be able to stop it.

The Taresque of legend was not the colossal magical beast of the D&D books. In fact it was said to have six short bear legs, an ox-like body covered by a turtle shell, a scaly scorpion tail and the head of a lion. It was said to burn anything it touched which was the way it was ruining the land. It is unclear if this was before or after it had been attacked by knights and catapults though so it may have been peaceful before it. Regardless, anything they fought with could not defeat the creature.

Enter our heroine, St. Martha. Understanding the damage the creature was causing, she sought out the creature in the hope that her faith in God would protect her and change the Tarasque to a creature of God. On finding the creature St Martha placated the creature with hymns and readings from the Christian book. The creature joined with St Martha who took it to the city to show the people there that the creature was not a threat. As she approached with the creature the people of the city rose up and attacked the beast in fear. The Taresque did not fight back in any way and the city folk killed the creature with their hatred.

After the destruction of the creature St Martha preached to the masses and converted them to christianity. Ashamed at what they had done to the Taresque the newly converted followers of christianity renamed their town to Tarascon in honour of the creature.

There are obviously quite a few differences between the Tarrasque of D&D or Pathfinder and the Taresque of St. Martha’s Legend. But the tale does offer an interesting insight into perhaps the way it could be used in a game. The Taresque of legend appears to have had little overt intelligence but it was aware enough to make choices and this is reflected in the statistics of the Tarrasque as found on the Pathfinder Reference Document (PRD) here. Obviously the creature would listen to reason and therefore had a good Wisdom again reflected in statistics. It does appear in the legend that the creature itself was not an angry rampager in its infancy and it was likely the intervention of man attacking it that caused it to rampage, so it was likely a Neutral creature reacting to being attacked, again reflected in the statistics.

Where the Tarrasque of the game differs though is basically on every other aspect. It is a colossal creature which is not reflected by the statistics. It looks different to the legend representation, it regenerates (even if it has been disintegrated!) and no known method has been found to kill it! In the statistics it truly does seem that this creature is something a GM uses when they have had enough! The only time I have ever used one was in a what if scenario with a mate of mine. It was “What if a Tarrasque met a Hekatonkheires Titan (Bestiary 3). By the way, the Titan won just by stunning the Tarrasque, beating it down to below 0 HP and then banishing it to another dimension.

Using the St. Martha legend you could handle the Tarrasque a different way though. Perhaps even using the same story line where the monstrous beast is simply found and attacked out of fear as your high level party approach the area. The Tarrasque retaliates out of anger for being threatened and disturbed and the players need to find a way to get through to the creature instead of finding a way to destroy the beast. This creature does not need to be the death of the party, in fact it could be a great ally in a time of need if they take the time to solve the beasts issue and the issue those that attacked it have.

I always find it interesting to look at the history of creatures. Find their folklore or legend origins and you will likely find a seed for an adventure. I have never heard of anyone (seriously) using a Tarrasque in a game yet it reappears edition after edition as this gigantic monstrosity. It generates a lot of discussion at the table and while I am sure there is a lot of visits to the Tarrasque page to check its statistics there are very few games that have ever employed one. I am keen to hear in the comments from those that have used one in a serious way or for those of you that have ideas on how else you could introduce the Tarrasque to your game. Let me know, and until next week, keep rolling!