Tag: #pathfinder

Random Encounter: The Recovery.

“Beep beep-beep bee-be-beep bee-beebeep. Beep. Beep. Beep.”

An encounter for almost any D20 Fantasy TTRPG.

This encounter works ideally where technology/science fiction elements are available. It can be played as humorously or seriously as the GM desires. This is not intended to be a combat encounter, but it is possible OO-P5 has a combat mode for when it logically deems hostility is necessary.

1. The find.

The group is mid travel when they find a large, round, silk sheet with strings attached to it. There is a hole in the center of the sheet as well that would seemingly serve no logical purpose as a bed sheet. The ropes all seem to be attached to a metal framed backpack suitable for a medium creature. It’s almost as if the sheet fell from the sky.

Robot Pilot from “Hare Lift” Bugs Bunny 1952. From Warner Brothers Animation.
2. Further down off the trail.

A short while later, assuming the group is paying attention, they find a crater approximately 5′ in diameter. At the bottom of the crater is a dark gray, rectangular, metal box. There are no footprints around the crater and there’s no sign of local wildlife. It’s almost if the box was slammed into the ground by a greater force.

The box is very heavy. There are etchings on the box along with 00-P5 painted in black on one side. On the opposite side is a white button that seems to have survived the fall undamaged.

When the button is depressed, the box begins to shake a big. a port opens on top. A foot long metal rod with a small glass globe appears. “Bee=Beep Beep Beep.” is heard.

The globe lights up with each beep. The rod points the globe around at each party member as if looking them over before standing straight once more. “Bee-Beep Beep?” is heard.

Further investigation of the box.

If the group gives the strange “inhabitant of the box” no logical reason to fear them, its arms and legs will eventually protrude from its body and it will stand up. To the group it may seem like a strange golem or automaton. They will eventually be able to translate the robot’s beeping into a sort of rudimentary language. The party has gained a lifelong friend and ally or an oddity to be sold at the first opportunity.

While OO-P5 doesn’t seem terribly cold and lifeless, its logic processors can only handle so much. Emotions might be a bit too much. The real challenge of the initial encounter is to coax 00-P5 into trusting the group and coming all the way out of its box. Damage to its processing unit has left it unable to process its current whereabouts or origins.

Things the robot understands:

  • Self preservation. (Parachuting from a crashing spacecraft, for example.)
  • Preservation of close “friends.”
  • How to assist humanoids without violating the first two principles.
  • Threats to itself and friends.
  • When communication is important to it.
  • Basic machine learning. How to fire a crossbow. How to fix a cart. How to drive a cart. How to play simple games.
  • What its physical and mental limitations are.
  • How to use the rudimentary tools it is equipped with in order to repair itself.
  • Understands most languages, just can’t record or speak back due to mechanical limitations.
  • Small, furry, cute, cuddly, and innocent things are friends.

Things 00-P5 does not understand:

  • Animal behaviors.
  • Medicine.
  • Magic. (Completely freaks it out.)
  • Complex human emotions.
  • Humanoid interactions.
  • Why beings treat each other the way they do.
  • How to speak anything other than “Beep.”
  • How it got here.
  • Religion, philosophy, psychology, or sociology.

00-P5 does not have any sort of flight recorder or memory technology to explain where it came from. 00-P5’s quantum particle battery will last for approximately 99 more years unless someone tampers with it. The robot is not armed, but will seem to understand how to operate a crossbow or ballista instinctively. Its sensor dome only extends 120′ in all directions and much farther when plugged into a starship sensor system.

It will do whatever it deems logically necessary or whatever its close friends tell it to do as long as it or no one else will get hurt as a result. It’s about as intimidating as a pair of bunny slippers in combat, appearance aside. It will always try to assist wherever possible by lifting, carrying or repairing things. 00-P5 can be used as a sentry in a pinch, although mileage may very when it comes to some humanoids and small, furry, innocent animals.

00-P5: Init +0; Atk +3 Fist melee (1d6); AC 14; HD 7d6 (36) ; MV 25’; Act 1d20; SP immune to mind control, regular heat and cold temperatures, eating, drinking, sleeping and breathing; SV Fort +2, Ref +1, Will +0; Approximate Str: 12. Int: 10. Equipped gear: Flashlight (lightbulb protrudes from chest.) Basic auditory, Infrared, UV, and visual sensors. Starship piloting and gunnery programming suites. Basic tools (Claw hammer, screwdrivers, knife, scissors, pliers, wirecutter, electrical tape.) Starship/computer interface ports. It also understands how to pack and use a parachute.

Additional uses: 00-P5 could also be a refugee robot in any given post apocalyptic or science fiction campaign. It will most likely appear as a relic from a long-past era or civilization.

There is a much longer backstory I will share about this robot at a later date. Have fun with it if you decide to run the encounter. Thanks for stopping by.

Book of the Dead for Pathfinder 2E Review.

As Pathfinder books go, I give it a 5 out of 5 stars in its own arena. As an RPG book in general, I have to knock one star off because of the heavy PF2E influence, some of the fonts were hard to read in places, and there is a heavier amount of gore than some players might be able to handle. I’m definitely mining this book for some 5E and DCC ideas. Lots of great ideas here!

Someone probably rolled their eyes when they saw that title because they think it’s just 52 new flavors of undead.

It’s pretty cool, actually. Then again, I’m a Game Master that prefers Undead (or un-dead if you prefer) as one of my go-to bad guy monster options in most fantasy games. To be completely honest, I grabbed this book to mine it for ideas to use in other fantasy games as well as Pathfinder 2E.

This book has a lot going for it. As a friend of mine says, it has a lot of fluff as well. I call it flavor text. It’s not really a negative if you like PF2E, Golarion, and so on. There’s a lot of world background there to be used.

Another defining quality of this book is the way it makes the macabre and morbid seem like an everyday occurrence. It even goes so far as to detail undead gods such as Orcus. There are also entire lands of the dead, including an Isle of Terror. To top that all off, there are plenty of undead character options. (Probably wouldn’t fly in my campaign without a phenomenal backstory, but…)

There are a lot of parts of this book aimed at the players, but GMs can benefit greatly, too.

There’s the old GM paradigm that if the players can use it, so can the GM. There are spells and feats in the front matter of the book that would work just as well on NPCs as they do for PCs. GMs who create their BBEG just like they’re making a regular character. Use Feats, new spells and abilities to the villain’s advantage and now the regular run-o-the-mill lich becomes a level 20 necro monster with the Reanimator Archetype, an undead companion, and some pretty gnarly spells.

I’m sure a lot of people, GMs like me maybe, got this book for the 100+ pages of undead monsters. It’s tempting to skip right to Page 71 and dive in. However, I found it especially worthwhile to go over the other parts of the book, too. The art is the usual phenomenal job we’ve grown to expect from Paizo’s other PF2E books. The adventure is definitely worth a look as well.

It’s really all about the monsters, right?

I know a lot of people probably saw this book and thought, “Oh, it’s just another book of reskinned zombies with bat wings. There’s nothing new here.”

And those people are what I like to call “wrong.” True to Pathfinder tradition, creatures of myth from all over our world’s cultures are represented. Of course they have the Pathfinder spin on them, but Page 71 does a lovely job explaining which cultures some of them came from.

Full disclosure: they do give the undead adjustments for the “regular undead.” So, if you want to make a mummified dragon or a vampire kobold, you can do it. Yes, there’s even a way to doctor up a zombie and give it bat wings, but that’s not the point of the monster section! (*LOL!)

There is some straight-up nightmare fuel for the PCs in Book of the Dead if the GM chooses to pull it out. There’s everything from ooky spooky things that go bump in the night all the way to cunning, manipulative, and hella evil. A couple of the beasties in here can pretty much touch off their own zombie apocalypse if they wanted to. I don’t want to drop too many spoilers, but I’m truly glad some GMs/DMs maybe won’t pick this one up. Yeek.

It’s more than a standard book with more Skeletons and Zombies.

As Pathfinder books go, I give it a 5 out of 5 stars in its own arena. As an RPG book in general, I have to knock one star off because of the heavy PF2E influence, some of the fonts were hard to read in places, and there is a heavier amount of gore than some players might be able to handle. I’m definitely mining this book for some 5E and DCC ideas. Lots of great ideas here!

I can’t see Wizards of the Coast ever putting a book like this out officially for 5E or “One D&D.” It’s just not quite as warm n fuzzy as most WotC books. DMsGuild has a lot of fan-made undead sourcebooks already.

Not that anyone from Paizo would read this, but I think they should do a whole series of books like this. Golems/Constructs, Dragons, Elementals, and so on would be pretty cool. To the best of my knowledge they didn’t do any PF 1st Ed books in this vein, but it’s possible. I also think pulling some of these undead into Starfinder might be pretty cool, too.

Thanks for taking the time out to read my little review. Please go check this book out in PDF or at your FLGS. It’s definitely worth a look if you’re into horror roleplaying. I appreciate you stopping by.

Fantasy TTRPGs- Starting a Dungeon

Dungeon crawls. Why do they exist and who would build such a thing?

Giving the dungeon, and the module, a backstory.

Whether I’m creating a typical five room dungeon or a massive underground mega sprawl, the first question that always comes to mind is: why? And the why actually goes both ways. Why would anyone in their right (medieval fantasy) mind want to build the complex, possibly underground at all? Furthermore, why would a group of characters want to go into a dank underground complex full of terrible traps and drooling, slobbering monsters?

Now, not every dungeon adventure the party is going to face is necessarily underground. It could be a hedge maze, an old manor, a shipwreck, or something even stranger. The question always remains, why is it there?

Design for a Stage Set: A Dungeon with High Vaults and a Staircase at Right. by Domenico Fossati is licensed under CC-CC0 1.0

Who built it and for what purpose?

Not every dungeon is built for a reason. Some occur naturally. But every dungeon is inhabited for a reason. (Or worse, abandoned for a bigger reason.) I mean, every creature needs a home, right? Even drooling, slobbering, scary monsters gotta live somewhere.

But a true dungeon, a real stereotypical fantasy underground complex, springs to life with a legitimate reason of some sort in mind. I find it important to decide on a cause before I start construction so I know what the centerpiece of the place is going to be. Bear in mind, a truly huge dungeon would take thousands of man hours and gold coins or lots of magic in order to build it safely. Guards and traps are extra, of course.

Then we come to the who. Sometimes it’s obvious from my GM/DM’s perspective that said BBEG or villain needs a cool lair. Sometimes (Out of character) I need a particularly deadly place to stash some epic loot the party might need some time down the road. Other times yet, it’s just for flavor, like a sidetrack or incidental.

The builder’s in-character motive always comes to mind as well. Maybe it’s a tomb full of stone soldiers constructed in memory of a forgotten general. Perhaps a power mad necromancer needed a secluded place to build his golem in peace. (Darn villagers with their torches and pitchforks…) It’s possible a well meaning group of beings long ago wanted to seal away a gate to their realm. It could be the lair of an innocent Ancient Red Dragon that just wanted to keep it’s modest filthy lucre mountain safe before he can donate it to the orphans. Maybe a group of well meaning good samaritans wanted to seal something truly horrific away forever and throw away the key. Still another reason might be to bury a powerful artifact away from those who would abuse its power.

These are mere examples. We could go all day and night coming up with cool reasons to build a dungeon. The history and lore should play an important role in the next step: getting the player characters in the door. To be continued…

Fantasy TTRPG: The ‘Why’ of Dungeon Crawling.

One of my favorites is the group stumbles onto the thing completely by accident through a buried entrance or random hole in the ground. “While doing your character’s business off the trail, he stumbles into a hole and plummets 30 feet into (dungeon room number 1.)”

I like to give players a reason for their character to enter the spooky underground maze of despair and certain doom.

Picking up where we left of yesterday. Why would anyone in their right mind enter an underground complex full of locked doors, deathtraps, and horrifying foul creatures of every sort? Okay, beyond the motivation of, “We’re perpetually angry thieving murder hoboes looking for the filthy lucre mountain to steal.”

What is the hook of the dungeon going to be? What can I put out there to get at least one player, if not the whole group motivated to go traipsing down into The Lair of the Vampiric Devil Dragon? What logical reasons could there be for wanting to cheat death? Okay, aside from it being a fantasy game.

The two most basic kinds of motivation: Intrinsic or Extrinsic.

We’ll start with the complicated reasons- the intrinsic kind. Maybe the group wants to rescue someone. Maybe the lost component of someone’s backstory lies within. Perhaps the lich that built the place is someone’s great grandfather. In extreme cases, it might be to keep some really frightening thing from ending the world. Whatever the intrinsic reason is, it’s something motivated by the characters themselves.

By comparison, extrinsic reasons are pretty simple. The group has a reason to believe wealth, fame and fortune lie within. They’ve been promised a great reward for braving the depths and retrieving the MacGuffin. Gold and magic items top the list of extrinsic motivators.

There’s always basic curiosity and dumb luck.

All of us veterans know some hooks by heart. For example: a ragged looking wizard stumbles into the inn with a map in his hand. He falls over dead in the middle of the group’s table, dropping the map in the unsuspecting rogue’s lap after muttering something about an ancient curse.

One of my favorites is the group stumbles onto the thing completely by accident through a buried entrance or random hole in the ground. “While doing your character’s business off the trail, he stumbles into a hole and plummets 30 feet into (dungeon room number 1.)”

Last, there’s always basic curiosity. Rumors abound at the inn about a miner’s discovery of a door covered in an ancient, unknown dialect. The cleric’s order recently unearthed a series of forgotten vaults underneath their oldest temple. Why is the humble town of Tristram suddenly under siege by hordes of demons and undead? Who lives in the Death Fortress on Skull Island? There might be some sick loot in the old ruins at the top of the hill.

Whatever the reason, good luck to you and your players. Thank you for being here. I appreciate you!

D12 Tables

I have more d12s in my bag than d20s. Yes, I rolled a Nat 12!

I could make a 1d12 table of 1d12 tables I want to make. That’s how much fun they are. I won’t bore you with that one here, but it could be done.

I make 1d12 tables for a lot of odd random things as a DM, though. They add all kinds of spicy goodness to bland encounters. They work for weather, travel, global events, some NPC attitudes, and of course, random monster encounters. I know I’m old school, but I still believe in the old wandering monster table. Because maybe the troll down the hall decides to go for a stroll about the time the party thinks they’re going to rest. Bwah ha ha! Rolled an 11. Meet the troll.

I think the d12 is the most underrated dice in any game, except ICRPG. Yay! I suppose they’re good in SWADE and EGS, too if I remember right. But D&D and Pathfinder are very reserved in their use of the d12. My solution is to use them for any and every thing I can think of. I carry the things for fun every day. Really.

My players have called me out on it in the past. I have a pattern for most of my tables. You can probably guess the pattern. 1’s are, of course going to be catastrophically bad or unwanted news. 12’s are, naturally, something favorable or at least more favorable. 2-3 are usually something unwanted but not scary bad. 10-11 are usually the pretty good end of whatever the table is. Everything else is likely meaningful but random. I’ve done more random variants, but that’s the gist.

I have more d12s in my bag than d20s. Yes, I rolled a Nat 12!

Let me throw down a sample:

Roll 1d12. Average Night at the Stable:

  1. The stable catches fire! If the group has mounts there, the animals are in danger! One of the stable hands running into the inn a major panic to get help and save the animals.
  2. Horse thieves! Choose a random party member who had a mount in the stables. Their mount is now missing.
  3. Oops. The stable boy accidentally left the stall door open when he was cleaning. Choose a random party member. Their mount is now out wandering around somewhere.
  4. Asleep on the job. Stable keeper accidentally loaned one of the characters’ mounts out to a local merchant. The animal is treated well, but won’t be in the stable until the next night.
  5. Where did they find this kid? The stable boy decided to ignore his chores. The animals are not fed or watered, and stalls are not cleaned out. This will lead to somewhat moody, fatigued, smelly mounts the next day.
  6. All is well. The stable keeper feeds the all of the animals a treat! Unfortunately, it doesn’t agree with one of the mount’s tummies the next day. (Choose a random mount.)
  7. All of the mounts are well fed, well treated, and are ready for action the next day.
  8. The stable keeper notices an issue with a horse shoe and takes care of it, free of charge. He lets the group know the next morning.
  9. The stable keeper chases off a predator outside the stable. He lets the group know about it in the morning. One of the characters’ mounts is still skittish. The stable keeper will offer to loan out his personal thoroughbred for free if desired.
  10. The mounts are well-loved. They receive a +1 discretionary bonus to any one given roll during the day.
  11. What’s in that feed? Whatever the stable keeper fed the mounts, is working very well. The group receives an Advantage on any ONE given roll related to travel or the mounts.
  12. Holy buckets! The mounts are well fed, loved and ready to go! ALL mounts gain a +1 discretionary bonus and Advantage on one travel/mount related roll. They will also automatically pass the first morale roll within 24 hours automatically! The mounts are happy.

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