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Just wanted to check my thinking on the Magical Knack trait.
It says it increases Caster Level by 2 so long as your total caster level does not exceed your HD.

So my fighter 1/wizard 6/EK 10 is a CL 15, HD 17 character. So with Magical Knack this would increase the CL to 17 with HD 17... (so can get 9th level spells).

Have I understood this correctly?

Dear Players,

A short Dissertation on the Magical Knack trait by your humble GM.

Nick wrote:
Just wanted to check my thinking on the Magical Knack trait.
It says it increases Caster Level by 2 so long as your total caster level does not exceed your HD.

No, The Magical Knack trait does not say that.

It says your caster level in that class gains a +2 trait bonus. This means that for spells that have variables linked to caster level, such as duration, that variable is increased. For instance a Wizard 2, Rogue 11 would have four hours of Mage Armour with that trait.

You can check the Caster Level entry in the Magic section of the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook. It is also available online here.

In the event that a class feature or other special ability provides an adjustment to your caster level, that adjustment applies not only to effects based on caster level (such as range, duration, and damage dealt), but also to your caster level check to overcome your target's spell resistance and to the caster level used in dispel checks (both the dispel check and the DC of the check).

This trait does not allow you to enter a Prestige Class based on CL requirement two levels early either.

Still, this is clearly an overpowered trait, especially since a trait is only meant to be a "half-feat". Most traits are about a +1 here and there for a skill check or so. Others do not seem to think so according to this post on the Paizo boards. Sadly neither Jason Bulmahn nor any other official Paizo member of staff has piped in on this particular discussion.

An easy way to break this trait - apart from mis-reading it - is to play a monster as a character, which is not officially supported in Pathfinder RPG by the way. A 2HD monster getting into a spellcasting class with this trait would get his CL related variables two points ahead of his class. Assuming that the LA (or GM defined equivalent) is not judged assuming Magical Knack, there would be a balance problem. Then again, if one wants to play monsters as PC, one only needs to play 4e.

So my fighter 1/wizard 6/EK 10 is a CL 15, HD 17 character. So with Magical Knack this would increase the CL to 17 with HD 17... (so can get 9th level spells).

With the "Magical Knack" trait, your Eldricht Knight would still be CL15 and would not gain extra spells or be able to cast higher spells.
Ironically, should he try to cast a LV 9 spell from a scroll, from what I have understood, the modifier on the CL check roll to cast it would have an additional +2, i.e. it would be as if the PC is of high level enough to cast without being so!
Note that it would be impossible to miss the CL check on a 9th level spell:
DC = 17 (CL to cast LV9 spells) + 1 = 18. An LV17 Eldricht Knight with a CL of 15 rolling a 1 still casts: 1 (icosahedron roll) + 15 (CL) + 2 (Magical Knack trait) = 18.
Only scrolls created by a Bard, of a shared spell on the Wizard/Sorcerer list, thus requiring a higher CL for the creator could potentially go wrong for an LV17 Fighter 1/Wizard 6/Eldricht Knight 10 with the Magical Knack trait.

Still this is a very powerful trait and like the old 3.5 Natural spell druidic feat it sounds like it is a must-have for multi-classed PC or PC with a spellcasting PrC. Because most of them carry a one or more spellcasting level loss (either due to requirements or actually missing spellcasting level progression).

The Witchwar Legacy.

I have begun reading the adventure. Greg A. Vaughan is a great author; he has managed to design a cold environment adventure where monsters have perfectly valid reasons to have... Fire resistance.
Be they Half-Fiendish creatures, or cursed creatures with the Cold subtype the monsters are not always afraid of heat. Thus, a Fireball throwing, Burning Hand waving or Aganazzar's Scorcher zapping magic user would still have problems hurting (beyond SR) these lovely monsters.
Yes, I know, Aganazzar is a "Forgotten Realms" mage from back in the days, but I miss my Bigby, Mordenkainen, Evard, Otiluke and other named spells too.

As mentioned to Andrew at the Big Meet, assume that your party has been adventuring for a while, even across the planes or in other worlds if you can come up with an interesting story. The party could have had tea with Rary the Traitor, one of you could have tried to hump the Simbul, you may have met with the Nameless One in Sigil or served under the order of a high-level mule in another timeline. Anyway, as long as you have not brought back any non-Pathfinder RPG item with you, you can invent whatever you want for your party history and PC background.
What I will certainly not accept is: "Six LV17 adventurers walk into a tavern in Whitethrone and read a notice on the door about retrieving a potent artefact".

I forgot to say:
You can use Pathfinder Companion: Adventurer's Armory if you want. This is a very-low level book after all, and at yours the one-shot alchemical items become very affordable. Try not to abuse whatever you find there. I think Simon wants to use some items from there to adapt the appearance of his Barbarian.

I now need to revise the entrance to Jorgenfist for Wednesday's game.

Laurent,

Cool thanks for the explanation of the Magical Knack... I'd read various differing explanations on the interweb as to how it could work...hence why I asked how the "official" ruling would go. Still think I'll go with it!

I'll bring alone my character sheet for the game on Friday (for the Kingmaker game)for you to check over for any silly mistakes I may have made due to jet lag.

Dear Players,

Gaming group.

After talking to Adam while he waited for his bus last night, it has transpired that he may not have the time to get into high-level character building mode by Saturday; thus he will give the game a miss.

I will most probably shift the game from being "Nottingham" to being "Nottingham [FULL]" once the party is set this Saturday. The story is a dungeon-delve, with the dungeon being quite far away from the nearest settlement. This an adventure very difficult to run for players to get in and out of the game, hence the desire to lock the gaming group at the first session.

Game frequency.

Following the change of shifts on Saturdays for Ian, the game is not going to be fortnightly, but slightly more regular in the sense that it will go like this: Two Saturdays on, one Saturday off, two Saturdays on, one Saturday off, etc.
Considering the Christmas season is coming too and that Wednesday, December 15th will be the last game session I shall run in 2010, it is easier to say: "Check the calendar for the Saturday afternoon games".

The first Rise of the Runelords game of 2011 should happen on Wednesday January 5th. As for The Witchwar Legacy, it would resume on the following Saturday, i.e. January 8th, 2011.

I have posted two calendar events, one for this Saturday and one for next Saturday. I am using "next" the way I was told to use it in English classes during my youth, i.e. properly. In other words in American English it would be: "The game to be played on the first floor of Vague Connections the Saturday after next", but I obvioulsy mean "The game to be played on the ground floor of Vague Connections next Saturday".
For those who know, the "next" issue is part of a "Frasier" episode with Daphne getting upset about the rest of them not being able to understand the use of basic calendar expressions.

Anyway, drop your name on the attendee list on the calendar events.

Laurent,

I don't think I was ever signed up for the Saturday games.... I think at the time that the Saturday game starts I was playing RotL every week, PF and VtM every other week, and my old gaming group most Sundays... plus other non-RP related commitments.... call me a lightweight if you will, but that was enough for me at the time....

Dear Players,

Gaming group.

Adam, your lack of enthusiasm is pathetic!
The game is six-player strong at the moment, which is enough for a GM to handle. As you know it is the RotRL crew with you and Paul being replaced by Nick and Simon.
I shall switch the game to Nottingham [FULL] as of the second session.

The Veil of Tears.

As expected, two speed-bump encounters for an adventure opening, but a game change from our most sedate lower-level gaming sessions. We definitely need to roll more dice and flare up the neurons to calculate the XP, and damage!
As pointed out I forgot the fear aura of the Dragon, monster statistic blocks are quite difficult to master at this level and I was bound to miss something.
More serious, i.e. closer to your level, encounters are on your way. There are still the occasional CR8-CR10 puny monster candidate but mixed with some tactical terrain to come, so things could become interesting soon.

Running a high level game has not been as hard or as threatening as I thought it would be, and I enjoyed the session, even though my monsters were hardly a threat. Still there is an LV20 Witch somewhere near the end of the adventure, that should indeed be interesting to run for sure.

The Witchwar Legacy game page has been updated.

Laurent,

2709 points of damage in one round!!!

Hail of Arrows For the Win!!!

Also it was awesome fun and seeing the interesting characters everyone seems to have come up with. Particularly liking Ding's Fighter board and sword with two weapon fighting. Capable of dealing over 180 points(!) with out rolling dice

Dear Players,

Because the first post always shows up at the top of all the pages in a thread, I have decided to update it and remove the reference to From the Shore to the Sea, which never ran.

As stated in the edit, you may voice your preferences for the next adventure. This does not mean that The Witchwar Legacy is about to end anytime soon of course!

Laurent,

With one of Ginga's charicters proving so effective (for once ) I think the various levels of the Abyss are about to freeze over! (Either that or Ginga was trying to make up for his (n)pc in Kingmaker missing not one trap but two traps in a short order)

Ian,

Last week or so, you mentioned "Iron Kingdoms", any more plans regarding a game?

Nick: Yep, the Arcane Archer was deadly, but you all know that you have no Thief in the party. I mean, Leadership and not a single Roguish NPC!
Ideally the three goons should be: one Cleric, one Thief and one Bard.

Laurent,

Ginga,

Just a shame it was used for hitting a wall of ice and not some faces.

Ding

Laurent,

Sorry I can't make this Satruday, I had made plans based on the original one on one off scheme.

I will be back for the next one. Meanwhile, feel free to smash the enemy with both shiny stick and board. And keep your eyes out for any bees to add to Derrik's collection.

Ding.

Dear Players,

Minimum attendance.

Because this is a high-level game, it has been decided (after a RotRL session) that we should aim for a full-house to play or at most have one player missing.

Next session.

Bearing this in mind, this Saturday we were going to miss at least two players (David and Ian). So the game has been cancelled. For one reason or another, Big Meet, Christmas season, etc it works out that the next game cannot be before Saturday, January 15th, 2011.
The calendar event has been postponed and reset (Nick you will have to re-check it for the January session).

Rise of the Runelords is not affected.

Laurent,

Dear players,

In order to accommodate the Pathfinder Society session, The Witchwar Legacy has been postponed by a week. I have amended the calendar event, so please register if you can make it. This date should also coincide with one of Ian's Saturdays off work.

Hopefully we will play this adventure, which so far has only had a YEARLY frequency!

Laurent,

Dear Players,

Adventure design.

The Witchwar Legacy has at long last seen its second installment!

On a meta-gaming point of view, the rail-roading goes as follow:

• Two tracks at the beginning (Irrisen or Kostchtchie). You chose Irrisen.

• One track all the way to the room with the (now dead) cursed White Dragon.

• Split to two tracks: The climb/flight with energy drain, and as you will soon realise, a huge trap-like room with energy drain.

• Back on one set of rails all the way to the end.

So far you have gorged yourselves with appetisers, all these poor little monsters of CR less than fifteen were there for you to spend your spells, which some of you have done with wild abandon. Going back from the cliff behind the frozen waterfall, to go through the Giants was over the top! This meant even more easy fights. Worse, you had the option of just talking to the Giants, you had the password. I still do not understand why you let the Druid as an Air Elemental go first!

Alright, I agree that we never play at high level, so all those empowered, supercharged and in fact new spells (for most of us) are indeed appealing and fun to play. You have bought some items that will take negative energy attacks, these items will need to be used at some point.

When I think of it, this adventure should be a one day adventure (in game time). You are all D&D professionals, most of you have played together before, and the adventure is not Gygaxian (no stupid kill-all-no-save situations). Therefore I would strongly invite you to ease on your spell-use and keep going until the last fight.

Balancing for six players.

True, the first serious CR creature was not well designed, most of the Troll Cleric spells fell short of being useful due to HD or HP total consideration. I guess this would have been a great opponent, kind of end-boss type, for a party at LV14, just one HD shy of the minimum for Blasphemy.
So this allegedly first serious threat got wiped out pretty quick. Thus my quick adjustment of "Give him 50% HP on top" to adapt to a six PC party instead of four no longer works.
For low to mid levels, I guess the increase in HP compensates for the number of actions per round (one for the monster, six for the party). It worked fantastically well for the Black Monk in Rise of the Runelords, more HP let him last a couple of more rounds that in turn allowed him to do some serious damage.
However at high level, HP increase does not compensate for the imbalance in the number of actions: too many potential critical hits, not enough monsters wearing amour with fortification.

Your PCs tend also to be min-maxed, I cannot really blame you for that as it is part of the fun to build them at high-level, which in turn is what we all wanted to do: "Play at high level."

Adding summoned creatures to give the GM's more actions per round (to fight the 1 vs. 6 current score when battling unique monsters) is not an option as the party obviously has access to dispel magic (even if its CL caps) and similar tools. And short of always giving the monster three or more rounds of spellcasting before the encounter, not many of the summoned creatures can show up. Also, one knows that summoned creatures are never that great in combat in the first place (always being two or more CR values below standard encounter level).
So... I still need to solve my number of actions mismatch per round. This means adding gribblies or right-hand characters to my single-monster and challenging (CR18+) encounters.
Gribblies would fall to Cleave and other feats in the Cleave chain, i.e. not perform any better than a summoned creature, thus relying on rolls of 20 to hit.
To keep with the adventure's background, I am thinking about bringing in Daemons (Paizo's equivalent to NE Yugoloth) as Irrisen is NE, and definitely not fond of CE Demons like Kostchtchie. Something at one or two CR level below unique monsters/NPCs could work. Although, this has the potential to turn into a bloodbath and TPK as a monster special ability or another could just succeed at seriously impeding an LV17 PC.

If somebody has a better idea, I am willing to listen.

The action (not number of attack) number is very important, because, for instance, to escape a grapple is one action/full-round action (depending on how it is done), whether we play at LV1 or LV17; thus a round during which the monster can neither casts spells, nor have an attack routine nor use a special attack or ability. If a player is grappled, that is one less action out of six for the party. If the unique monster is grappled, the GM has no action to play with for that round. True, it is also 1 action vs. 6 at low-level, but at low-levels the GM can "buy" more round with more HP (at low and mid level, critical hits do not happen as often as at high level, where so many feats can be collected).
Quick fixes like haste and other spell-based solutions are not viable in the long term because of dispel magic and similar effects.

Rolls.

The party got lucky:

The Remorhaz fights were obviously there only to have a cave-in. The cave-in never happened.

At best the encounter could have claimed a weapon or two, all saves but one were made.

The Winter Wolves (even at low CR) were indeed there to inflict at least half-damage and test the protective spells of the PCs. They never had a chance.

Still the game was fun to run, and I hope to play, which is what this is all about.

The game page has been updated; and the event posted.

Laurent,

I was thinking about the spells thing on the way home on Saturday.

There is a definite downside of playing a prepared caster type, particularly at this level. While I have a fair number of spells yet to cast.
I prepared them before knowing what we were up against, and now I realise the spells chosen are not optimal for what we have been up against.
The spells I chose to prepare were in character.. but now I know the choice was not an "optimal" choice.
There in is the big upside for the spontaneous casters. They may know less spells, but they do not have to "guess" at what they are going to need.

In Campaigns like RoTRL, Kingmaker, and the like in and out of character, you have a good idea what you will go up against the next day based on the previous day. In one shot adventures like this.. it is harder to tell.

I'm so glad that my character is able to hit things, reasonably hard too. (I grant you not as hard as the full on fighters, but I can drain levels when I critically hit!)

Nick,

True, the "demonic" taint ensures that people who fight cold with fire (pun intended) brings in a few surprises. I loved the White Dragon with steam-breath for instance; but as you say, it is a bit unfair for Wizard types.

I shall house-rule as if you, and others, had kept empty slots, thus a one hour stop would allow you to switch prepared spells.

As for the rest, for sport reasons, i.e. put a bit more challenge, I would encourage the party to fight/progress until it is obvious that the spellcasters need to refresh but not before.

Laurent,

Laurent,

Dear Players,

Tomorrow, (Saturday, February 5th), Andrew will have to be at a convention, thus will not be able to play. I have postponed the game to Saturday February 19th. The event has been entered as "Tentative" in case a Pathfinder Society Organised Play session is running on that day. Next week is the monthly Big Meet.

As you are all aware, this game is special, in the sense that it gathers the crême de la crême when it comes to players and GM. Nobody can be replaced even for a session. Humbler people would say that it is because PC sheets are far more complex at LV17.

Assuming we play in two weeks, see you then for the next instalment of The Witchar Legacy.

Laurent,

Dear Players,

With the Pathfinder Society event playing this Saturday during the Big Meet, it is fair to assume that the game session will be happenning on Saturday, February 19th. The event should now show as "confirmed".

Please register there.

Laurent,

Dear Players,

Well the last session saw some innovative uses of the rules.
I do not regret allowing the interpretation of limited wish , but that of telekinesis shall surely be a one-off, it was fun though.

You have not missed yet, but likely will miss, a nice energy drain encounter that could have also sent you to the Ulfen village-like mausoleum. Logic dictates that the party will select the next set of stairs that go up, but who knows?
Weird cuckoo clock and a rush to the BBEG for the next game? I expect another two sessions, but it can go either way (only one or three).

We have agreed on March 5th, 2011 for the next session, making the game closer to being fortnightly than yearly.

The next event is up, you may register.

Laurent,