GM Kiora's Wrath of the Righteous

Game Master Kiora Atua

Honestly, the deities are one of the things I love most about Pathfinder. I'd really love to have -even more- information on them.

What I'd really like to see is paladin get an 'unchained' format, in which they just become champions of deities... and they provide full paladin codes for tons more deities. Because those do wonders for understanding where the gods stand. :)

I think the 3 prcs from inner sea gods do a good job of that :) (evangelist/sentinel/exalted)

Though not so much on the code part :(

I'd like more info on some of the other lesser known deities, like the elven/dwarven/halfling gods

I too love the dieties - Markus doesn't carry his diety's favored weapon because he doesn't have one, but the gods and their codes and the boons and the divine classes give me so many ideas for characters. I just can't even.

Does the Green Faith count as a deity? Ehren wields their favored weapons of sticks and pebbles. :p

I really want more information on the Empyreal Lords than what I've been able to find. Thus far, all that I understand is that they're -incredibly- dualistic in nature.

Deific Obedience is normally a favorite and I also love the eva/sen/exa prestiges. I'm not sure how they fit in for Ary though. I pretty much sacrificed that line by choosing to pick up Variant Multiclassing.

Some books like the Books of the Damned for other deities would be really nice releases.

Yeah another reason for the switch I could swap the morningstar for a warhammer. I generally like to carry my god's weapons, and whats more Torag then an axe and a warhammer really.

I've always loved the lore of the gods in Golarion as well, although being highly religious didn't really fit Li'an as I envisioned her.

I really like being able to have characters that are devout and not one of the obvious devout classes though. My favorite was a Summoner I used in an RL game who was an acolyte of Sarenrae. He trained as a cleric, but never managed to master divine casting. Even him equipped like a cleric of Sarenrae, scimitar (via heirloom weapon), light shield and chain shirt. Would have been a perfect candidate for VMC cleric so he'd get channel energy later on.

The archives of nethys site has much better information on the Empyreal Lords (and actually generally everything else) than the PRD or the Wiki, as far as I've found.

@Li'an: I have a few of those as well. For example a Ranger of Iomedae :p

@Markus: Yup, that's where I get a lot of my go-to information for picking up the more important lore, though I cross-reference a lot of other sites, and have perused a few books. Ultimately, there's still a gargantuan void for Empyreal Lords other than a few, so far as I've been able to discover.

Ary: Yup, definitely a good example :)

Just checking, but we're not waiting for something from the group to proceed forward right?

Wound Thresholds

So, friendly reminder we're using the wound thresholds subsystem. It just became relevant, but I'll be reminding you if you fall into a higher state of wounding, as well as tracking it on the campaign tab. Keeping up with your wounded state in your headers would be helpful, though.

I couldn't find anything that explicitly confirms it, but it makes sense to me that temporary hit points would be included in calculating wound thresholds, so we're going with that, haha.

Under wound thresholds, when you are at 3/4 of your maximum hit points, you are grazed and take a -1 to all attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks, as well as to AC and caster level. When you are at 1/2 of your maximum hit points, you are wounded and take a -2 to all attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks, as well as to AC and caster level. Then at 1/4 of your maximum hit points, a -3 as you are critical. Pretty easy.

In this system, the penalties to caster level are pretty intense: more on that under the spoiler.

Then at 0 HP, you are disabled until you fall below a number of hit points equal to the negative of her Constitution modifier.

Nonlethal damage and staggering works slightly different too: Instead of being staggered only when their amount of nonlethal damage equals their remaining hit points, characters using this system continue to be staggered from that point until their nonlethal damage exceeds their current hit points by an amount greater than their Constitution bonus, at which point they fall unconscious. A character with a Constitution score of 11 or lower is staggered only when her nonlethal damage exactly equals her current hit point total.

Single enemies or boss enemies are going to use the system too.

Group enemies use a simplified system where they only take a penalty at 1/2 of total hit points.

Ouch. I hadn't considered the implications of a reduced caster level on your ability to cast at all. I'd automatically just clicked over to 'negative levels' when I read the list of things it was showing. Minus the fact that you autodie. :P

Yeah, that's real painful. Especially with our lack of healing.

Yeah I am excited to try these rules, it has always made sense to me that you wouldn't be 100% at 1%.

The penalties are scary at low levels though.

I personally think it's a tad bit overkill, but then, trying something new and different is just one reason I tried out for this game. Let's see how it goes. :)

*laughs evilly* Yes.. squirm ;)

(it's not like the whole party (cept Markus/Horgus Gwerm lol) has false life up and started the game with artifacts or anything...)

I'm always skittish at level one. ;)

It'll be fine, I doubt anybody will be beheaded by a cucaracha crit or anything... *suspicious glance*

Do you prefer preposted actions spoilered with rolls, or would you prefer to roll them yourself? Would you prefer them in discussion or in the gameplay?

Actions spoilered with rolls, I don't need to be blamed for your roll failures, son! ;D

And also in discussion, it just seems cleaner that way *is a weirdo*

Ary. Ruiner of Initiative Order! :)

Ah, yes, the delay and the readied action. Banes of initiative.

This may hurt a bit. Apparently someone swapped out my d20 with one of those 20-sided d10's :P

I had a couple of those, I can also use my 1 sided d6 to heal you in a min.

On Auto-death

After mulling it over, I don't like the idea of going from disabled to dead in one blow when you are negative constitution.

I propose the following:

"When a character is at negative hit points equal to their constitution score, they are unconscious. (->insert stabilizing/bleeding out rules here<-) When a character is at negative hit points equal to twice their constitution score, they are considered dead."

This mimics the wound/vigor system in UC.

The reasoning:

A. I don't like going from standing there (albeit messed up) to dead. Kinda weird, and also makes people squishy.
B. Having the ability to goes unconscious both gives me the power to try and capture y'all to sacrifice to my dread lord Deskari (*bwahahaha*).... oh or capture the intelligent sort of bad guys and question them for intel/offer them redemption/deliver them to the LAW for justice like the bunch of heroes y'all are (Basically: lots of interesting ways to take the story that are impossible if you just fall over dead that easily.)

Since this is a new proposed houserule, if a majority of you vote against it, it won't happen.

Or if one of you votes against it with a good argument :p

Sounds alright to me. Being standing right up until you die is one of the problems with ferocity, it seems to lead to more deaths, not less.

Assuming we get back to me tonight:

Loving the pace by the way, nice to see things moving so swiftly.

I'm just fine with it, but out of curiosity, how will it eventually stack with the Hard to Kill mythic ability? Will they stack (x2 Con mod to unconsciousness, x4 to death)?

I don't really have a problem with this, and it makes it easier to survive at low levels.

Question. What exactly does that make the condition of Roach 4 then? I'm a little confused.

Actually, I think by base design, it's supposed to be that Ary would be disabled from 0 through negative 2 hp, and then is unconscious and dying from negative 3 until negative 14, whereupon she is teh dedd.

That being said, I fully approve of making it easier to take prisoners. Just bear in mind that it also creates dilemmas in character (the good kind, in my opinion) of what to do with the unconscious and wounded and dying once the fight is over.

Goin' to bed.

If you guys are still on, don't wait up for me to run Roach 3. Just keep going with Markus/Ary/Ehren (I assume you guys have bigger problems than roach 3 right now :P)

I will answer questions tomorrow so hang tight! I have an early shift so gotta go to bed now D:

Also need to re-read the rules for the system again and make sure its working the way i think it is working :p

Bed time for me, as well.

Aside: I like the term 'on-hand'. :)

I also have +1 to hit with my quarterstaff, btws - I'm no longer wounded and I have 13 Str.

Ary? Demonslayer archetype?

Hm. That Archetype is pretty much just a straightforward buff for Ary. I lose Endurance (which is very nice, especially with the ruleset), and otherwise only gain. But... it also seems very min-maxy. It takes away my ability to choose something other than evil outsider as my focus, which I was never going to do. (And I still get to choose the weaker ones).

If Miss Kiora is good with it, it's simply better, though I'll still miss endurance. If she'd prefer I didn't go 'all in' as it were, then I'm perfectly content with normal ranger. Thanks Markus!

I am fine with the archetype. Where else would you get to use it but wotr? :p at work atm so I'll check rules questions later.

I've updated Ary's sheet. She now gets an additional +1 v. any magical effect from evil outsiders, and K(Planes) will be a class skill when I advance it at next level. Thanks!

On Pathfinder Unchained Wounds Subsystem and Disabled

A character with a Constitution score of 12 or higher who is at or below 0 hit points is disabled until she falls below a number of hit points equal to the negative of her Constitution modifier. For example, a character with a Constitution score of 18 would be disabled from 0 to –4 hit points and unconscious at –5 hit points. A character with a Constitution score of 11 or lower is disabled only while she has exactly 0 hit points.

Alright, for some reason I was thinking this said constitution score not modifier. No idea why I interpreted it that way, I R dumb.

I'm fine with this system, then. It gives you a good amount of time to capture the bad guyz if you are so inclined, unless you're like Hrut and just smash through their Con score in one hit :p But you could always, like, hold back when they're getting low if that's the plan, haha. One of the things I like about the wound subsystem is it gives you an idea of how much HP the enemy has without necessarily having to know their exact HP total.

So taking that back. The other roaches won't take nearly as long to kill, then ;)

I did forget to apply the wounded modifier to Roach 4, but it wouldn't have changed anything that happened. (Remember: as a group of enemies, they only go from healthy -> wounded -> disabled, skipping the critical/grazed steps for simplicity)

So I guess in response to Ehren, it would work as normal, except for the fact that people with constitution over 12 would be disabled for slightly longer than those under 12.

Honestly, not dumb at all. My brain kind of glazed over the first several times I read it. It was nice having sugar-coating. I can only imagine how scrambled a newer player would be trying to digest the wording in much of Unchained.

A future question:

Automatic Bonus Progression:
How do Cold Iron items interact with this system? Normally, a cold iron sword would be significantly harder to enchant. In this case, you simply attune it. I can see adding the increased cost to the cost to add non-enhancement... enhancements to the blade, such as flaming, but that also undermines part of the properties of cold iron. Not that I'm complaining. :P

Sorry I keep linking things - let me know if it's annoying. It's just I think I found a picture of Ary.

I actually use this picture for Ary. It's just gorgeous and fitting. :)

Honestly, not dumb at all. My brain kind of glazed over the first several times I read it. It was nice having sugar-coating. I can only imagine how scrambled a newer player would be trying to digest the wording in much of Unchained.

A future question:

Automatic Bonus Progression:
How do Cold Iron items interact with this system? Normally, a cold iron sword would be significantly harder to enchant. In this case, you simply attune it. I can see adding the increased cost to the cost to add non-enhancement... enhancements to the blade, such as flaming, but that also undermines part of the properties of cold iron. Not that I'm complaining. :P

You can just attune it to add +1/+2/+3 etc :)

Remember though, that under automatic bonus progression, you end up "trading" your attunement to gain other weapon enchantments.

"For example, if a character with a +3 enhancement bonus from weapon attunement wields a keen scimitar, she subtracts 1 point of her enhancement bonus (for the cost of keen), leaving her with a +2 keen scimitar. If a character doesn’t have enough of an enhancement bonus to afford the special ability (such as a 4th-level character with a vorpal longsword), she can still use the weapon’s power on its own, but the weapon gains no enhancement bonus."

I'm thinking I'll have certain unique (read: mythic or legendary) items basically ignore the automatic bonus progression rules and keep their qualities as is without being forced to trade. Not gonna promise this just yet though gotta mull it over and look at what kinds of things you get and when.

As for linking things... keep it up, I don't mind at all. Worst case scenario, you give me more good ideas. :)

How would it work with the mythic legendary item progression, or is a that a mythic thing you changed and didn't notice?

Only thing changed with legendary items is foe-biter. You could attune those items like normal, and since the appeal in making a legendary item isn't really in using special abilities, you wouldn't need to "trade" your attunement for abilities with those.

I was thinking more along the lines of mythic items found as part of the story, to kind of retain their appeal.

Forgot to mention anyone besides me within 10' of me gets +1AC, my aegis ability, just a future thing.

Oh, that's really useful :)

Also, sorry for all the if-thens. :P Given that Ary pretty much adopted Aravashnial in terms of trying to keep him safe, she's having to juggle him around, when he's willing to be juggled. :)