When enchanting magic items in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, part of the process requires that you make a skill check (usually Spellcraft) with a DC equal to 5 + caster level. This is usually pretty trivial for most crafters — a caster who has maximum ranks in Spellcraft and Spellcraft as a …
On G+ I saw a map that I quite liked, but there was a mountain range on it that seemed too perfect. The ridge line of the range was very clean, with a couple sections that were quite straight (and at almost right angles), and another that followed a smooth …
As part of my research for graded items, I reviewed the Dynamic Magic Items material from Pathfinder® Roleplaying Game: Pathfinder Unchained™. The system there is rather more complicated than I am interested in — I generally favor simpler solutions — but I do have use for the Perks and Flaws presented. …
A graded wand or staff can include metamagic feats. The metamagic feats apply only to spells activated from the wand or staff, count as qualities of a grade equal to the spell slot adjustment, and increase the number of charges needed to activate the spell. Below I present the wand of miltiary …
I thought I’d take a few minutes and do a quick summary of where I stand with this year’s A-Z Challenge. The big topic this time around is graded items, special items with abilities of various grades or degrees of power or utility. I’ve got a few posts about encounter …
Last night I wrote about 2,400 words on legendary/spontaneous graded items. On my way in to work on the bus this morning, I realized I might have overthought things. As much as I like the ‘quest’ aspect of it, the entire thing can probably be simplified. Spontaneous Graded Items, Simplified …
During this year’s A-Z Challenge, many of my posts have discussed graded items, items with multiple qualities of different grades. Often these items are enchanted, and many of them are simply very well crafted, with special materials and processes to get around spell prerequisites. I’d overlooked another option: spontaneous enchantment, as …
In many encounters, “kill everything!” is often an effective plan. A little predictable, perhaps, but it often lets the PCs get the job done that they came to do. In fact, it’s so effective and can be so predictable that it can become kind of monotonous. Taken to extremes the …
Yesterday I wrote about improving encounter economy and design. Today I’m going to explore how to implement encounters as designed in certain Japanese (console) RPGs. There are several elements to encounters in these games that stand out, and that I’ll describe below, that I don’t often see in encounters in most published …
Developing encounters for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game can be simplified, and easily made more flexible and scalable. I will show how below, contrasting with the PRD Designing Encounters text. Sample Encounter Design In the sample encounter design in the PRD, the party consists of two fourth-level PCs and four fifth-level PCs. Step 1: Determine …