|
|
||||||||||||||||||
| Paizo Pathfinder® GameMastery® Planet Stories® Paizo Games | |||||||||||||||||||
| About Paizo Messageboards News Paizo Blog Help/FAQ | |||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
|
 
@Foghammer: I know you were interested in a tougher, magusesque witch - here's a link to the Genius Guide to the Hellion. My own similar concept is still being hammered out... Is it too soon to pester you for that aasimar racial archetype for the gauntlet witch?
It says in the description: "New archetypes like the mad dog barbarian or carnivalist rogue to help classes that haven’t traditionally used animals work with their bestial allies, as well as tips on how every class can employ animals.". If a gunslinger doesn't have the ability to have an animal companion as well, then this constitutes as false advertising. Actually it doesn't. There are plenty of ways to employ animals that do not require them to be class features. A gunslinger can buy and use a horse same as anyone else. That's "employing" an animal.
@Foghammer: I know you were interested in a tougher, magusesque witch - here's a link to the Genius Guide to the Hellion. My own similar concept is still being hammered out... I'll have to check this out, especially if I get snowed/iced in tomorrow. Thanks! And keep that iron in the fire. :)
I don't think half-lycanthropes can exist because lycanthrope is a curse, not a bloodline. How is it that NO ONE ELSE has said this yet? Fair enough. I was looking at half-lycans in a vacuum, outside of the discussion of dhampir and unintentionally ignoring half of the conversation. Looking at it in more detail now, as I often do when I'm corrected, I am surprised that I never noticed that vampirism isn't a condition that applies a template, it just is a template applied under certain circumstances. Lycanthrope, on the other hand, is curable. It is interesting just how the vampire template works: create spawn raises the victim from the dead, then changes the creature type to undead (augmented)... so it kills them again, kind of. The interesting thing about this is that casting resurrection on a vampire seems as if it would restore the vampire, not the being it was before the template, because resurrection does not remove templates, and the template is added to living creatures, so it appears to be recursive. A resurrected vampire loses its undead status and comes back to life, but then immediately becomes an undead again as the template kicks in... Am I missing something, or is that right?
I don't think half-lycanthropes can exist because lycanthrope is a curse, not a bloodline. How is it that NO ONE ELSE has said this yet? I'm always late on this sort of thing. As for the people saying things that seems like they believe that vampires can't be PCs in a normal game: If you're the DM and you put an NPC vampire in the mix, then you're making it a possibility and you need to be ready to deal with it. I may be alone on this, but I think most people would rather have a character die a heroic death fighting that vampire than to be turned and then the DM ask for the character sheet. That would insult me. "You're not adult enough to handle this and I know it, so you can't play that character." Same goes for lycanthrope. The character only becomes a mass murdering beast under certain circumstances. It's not Instant NPC-ville. If you're assailing your players with these monsters and not allowing them to roleplay their character's journey through the afflictions they present, whether they embrace it or try to get rid of it... I don't know what that makes you, but it doesn't have any positive connotations in my book. Not excited about the vampire stuff here but I do hope a lycanthrope players' guide is in the talks.
My biggest problem with wordcasting was that there's no way to replicate light which is a 0 level spell, even as a 1st or 2nd level wordspell. I really want to play a wordcaster who adds illumination effects to all of his force spells (magic missile, shield, wall of force, etc), but that's just not going to happen. :(
It's almost bed time, so I'm dotting this for reading in the office tomorrow. This is of great interest to me.
An increased penalty over distance? You already take a penalty for every 10 feet away you are... IIRC it's a -1 per 10 feet. Nearsightedness could be that you take a -2 per 10 feet instead. I am nearsighted myself, and though I'm told my prescription lenses are pretty weak, I feel like my eyes are crap for noticing any details beyond 10 feet. And forget driving at night without my glasses. That's how I would handle it.
This product sounds awesome... for people who like vampires (though I notice there's no mention of prismatic skin). Is there any hope that we may see something like this for lycanthropes? That's one topic that seems to get a lot of discussion but never any love. Really, though! This sounds like a great book. I'm just hoping it signals something else on the horizon. EDIT: On another note, I wanted to say how freaking cool that picture is with the wolf. No one in my group had any idea that vampires were associated with wolves before I told them.
It seems like the knowledge skill could even be broadened (instead of condensed as some of you are suggesting) and given its own sub-system apart from normal skills. I mean... to me knowledge isn't even a skill. Studying is a skill, applying what you know is a skill, but knowledge is different. Yes, I'm inclined to say that skills should be broken down and given a whole 'nother set of points or something to apply to them. But on the other hand, the game could get much clunkier. Hard to tell; the implementation would have to be immaculate. I am going to try this. EDIT: I open notepad to do it and immediately stricken with dumb-ness. Gave me another idea though, somewhat related. I'm going to take all of the skills and give ways to use them as pseudo-knowledges. Maybe done before?
Honestly, I would say that my group probably shouldn't be playing together, but we're all we have and we make it work. The play styles are so different that it's impossible to fully satisfy more than one person, MAYBE two at a time, but again, we're all we have as far as this game goes. There are times when the game comes to a grinding halt as we laugh ourselves blue in the face over something that happens, and those times are great. There are crowning moments of awesome, and there are times when everyone looks at a part of an adventure and says "WTF?!" and chucks it (like the vorpal thorn bush of NPC death in a certain Pathfinder AP). Concessions are made and we try to ignore the damage to our own egos in the interest of keeping the game a group activity.
Players are entitled to have fun at a game. So is the GM. As a GM, I find I usually have the most fun when I can solicit interesting actions and reactions from the players and that is most likely to happen when I engage them with a game that interests them, instead of trying to get them to conform to the game I like. Basically this. As a DM and player both, I hate character death. Have I ever allowed a character to die? A few times. Most of the time I try to find a clever way around it; failing that, I shamelessly pull them back from death, deus ex and whatnot. I try to spend as much time making awesome things for my players' characters as they spend building them and fawning over them. In fact, my goal is make their characters seem even cooler than THEY imagined. It's just as gut wrenching for me then, when a PC gets offed in their moment of glory, or in the room just before the boss fight, or in some random throw away encounter that's only there to keep everyone's attention on the game. I have three regulars in my group, and two of them are completely opposed on every aspect of the game, with the third being very vague and claiming he likes every aspect the best. One throws her dice out when her character gets hit too heavy too often (and is certain her character will die), while another thinks that handling her temperament with kid gloves robs the game of integrity (even though HE does it when he DMs). One likes role playing infinitely more than combat, and another only cares about leveling up and loot. I just roll with it and try to have as much fun as I can.
Armadillos are in the book. Twice I was told that and didn't notice. I should just stop posting.
usually by the time the final cover and description go out the book is complete to a point where no real new additions can be made. Get in before that happens next time I guess. Crap. I suppose you're right. It's almost Christmas now. For some reason, February just felt so far away. I guess part of me is still back in November or October... Can someone maybe confirm or deny the inclusion of the noble pangolin (or an adequate substitute)? Can that be my Christmas present from Paizo? :D
For the love of all things good and holy, please include just TWO things for good ol' Foghammer and I will shut up about this book and be content with everything else in it. 1) Pangolins.
And make at least the second one animal companion material. Do this for me, and my soul (the only thing that I have not given to Paizo yet) is yours.
Knowledge (planes) or (religion) would be more appropriate. Linguistics is how you learn languages, but that has more to do with understanding syntax, spelling, etc, at least that's what I think.
I don't really need to work with my DM. I am the primary DM in my group, but the secondary DM is very RAW centric and doesn't like a lot of homebrew, so it helps to convince him if I have more professional material to build off of. But barring any existing products, I will work at creating such an option for druids in my games. Good thinking using the shaman transformations and Mooncaller. Any other suggestions?
Simple question: Is there a 3PP with something like this in it, or (unlikely) something in Paizo material I've missed? It would be super-cool to have a druid pretending to be a lycanthrope. For reasons.
...you can also argue that gnomes are redundant between halflings and dwarves. Wait, you mean this isn't a commonly accepted idea already?
The human entry probably doesn't carry the alignment because they are only compelled to the alignment while in hybrid or animal form. Remember, most werewolves don't know they are werewolves until they find the evidence, and most are repulsed by it. Some, of course, relish in the idea, but most people panic because they know they will be hunted. EDIT: Whoops. I didn't refresh the page when I got the computer back out after class this morning. Not ninja'd, just slow.
Personally, I only apply that to afflicted variations, and natural lycanthropes are not the cursed kind (and consequently do not pass on the condition through biting). Right, but that's not how I run it. ;) Makes more sense to me to do it that way because I can't understand why lycanthropes would be "naturally" cursed. A child born to lycanthropes carries the curse also...? That's stretching it for me. I would still consider the child "afflicted" rather than "natural." All house ruling obviously.
I think the skill tax is what offsets the cost of not having to scribe spells into a book. I do not think you will have any problems running this as written.
The alignments are in place because lycanthrope is a curse as well as a disease. You are cursed with a compulsion to act in a certain manner and have no control over it. That's why there is an alignment associated with them. Personally, I only apply that to afflicted variations, and natural lycanthropes are not the cursed kind (and consequently do not pass on the condition through biting).
I have longed for Paizo to provide support for this. A sentient, medium sized stone golem-like fighter is my dream PC. I think intelligent items [read: constructs], per RAW, would either follow their creator or (failing that) wander off on their own in an attempt to live out their purpose until they were destroyed.
I love this discussion, but I strongly disagree with the idea that this could not be done to someone wearing full plate. First of all, realistically, there are plenty of places to put a weapon that aren't the throat but that would be lethal. Second, full plate is already adding to the AC, so by saying full plate is immune, you are implying that full plate adds infinite AC. There is an attack roll still involved, I think (it got a little hard to follow the back-and-forth at the end), and full plate is doing its job already. And lastly, isn't the guy in full plate the one you WANT to do this to? Burning a feat for the ability to target a single niche group (at least we don't often see full plate at our table) is a tax. Personally, I think that trying to tie this down to a solid mechanic is not the way to go. This is a good general concept that is always going to require GM adjudication, no matter the circumstances. I propose that this idea be a "guideline" for potential ways to handle any scenarios that MIGHT come up, but nothing concrete. The attack roll from the OP is the best way I think, except that I don't think the player should make that attack roll. I think that the best way to handle that (because a player sees a nat 1 and knows its flubbed) is to have the DM roll in secret, write the number, and hand it to the player face down and tell them to wait. When the ultimatum is made, then the player can look at the roll and state his total to-hit. This prevents metagaming and doesn't take a whole crap ton of mechanical finagling.
You are correct. Darts are not called out as ammunition the same way shuriken are. d20PFSRD.com has them under the ammunition heading though. They should be ammunition. Who the hell is ever going to use them otherwise? EDIT: Same. I'm talking about throwing darts. I forgot about blowgun darts. In the case of blowgun darts, they would indeed be 11.5gp each, as I calculated. I thought the thrown ones were ammo, too.
A +2 furious courageous weapon makes the weapon's enhancement bonus +4, half of which is applied to the morale bonus, so an additional +2 Str/Con while raging. A +1 furious courageous weapon would only grant a +1 Str/Con. A +5 furious courageous spell-storing furyborn weapon could store a bull's strength spell (+4 Str), and while raging has a +7 enhancement (granting a +3 Str/Con) until it hits an enemy, then it has a +8 [temporarily] which allows it to grant a +4 Str/Con. Two hits later against the same enemy it will grant a +5 to Str/Con. Theoretically without end. I don't think this is broken.
Isn't a dart considered ammunition? Masterwork ammunition follows different rules for calculating costs. Masterwork darts are 6.5gp. Darkwood is 10gp per pound added to that. Darts are .5 lbs, so that's 5gp + 6.5gp = 11.5gp per darkwood dart.
The system rounds down with odd numbers that are halved, and I'm fairly certain you don't count the +1 equivalency of the courageous property as part of that. A +2 courageous weapon would only give a +1, I think. Apart from that, yes. It's a morale bonus, so it applies.
Pegasus Boots - Gives Link the powerful charge ability and increases his speed by 10 feet while charging or running. Magic Cape - Ring of Invisibility reslotted. (Honestly, invis on a cloak should be the norm, not a ring). Hookshot - Can be used to pull Link to any surface within 60 feet, or to pull objects or enemies to him from 60 feet away. To pull enemies, Link must make a combat maneuver check against the creature with a +5 equipment bonus. The Longshot version has a range of 120 feet. Fire Rod - At will, spark, 3/day scorching ray, 1/day fireball Ice Rod - At will, ray of frost, 3/day chill touch, 1/day cone of cold Bombos Medallion - Ring of Retribution, unslotted. Might take a bit more finagling. Ether Medallion - ...I got nothin', sorry... Quake Medallion - Probably a spell for this one, too, but I don't know. Magic Hammer - +3 Dispelling Warhammer of Impact Cane of Somaria - 3/day creates a 5x5x5 cube of force. Cane of Byrna - Magic Circle Against Evil...? Link wears chainmail, or at the very least a chain shirt. Sword and board fighter with moderate Str/Dex.
Only 80% real... Sounds to me like you have to WANT it to be real for it to be there. Or you have to will it to continue working? I'm sure that's far and away from how shadows work having never dealt with high level magic in our games thus far, but it sounds fun and interesting. Maybe there's a 20% chance every so often that you just blink out of the plane and back to where you were before you got there?
Waking up is/should be a free action. It requires no conscious effort and is a reaction to stimuli. Sure, it may take you or me three snoozes and an alarm reset to wake up in the morning, but when you have proper motivation, you would be surprised how fast a man can be up and attentive. If there is a perception check to perceive the threat of combat, regardless of sleep, the diviner's ability triggers. The diviner is still prone and has to take the surprise round to stand up.
If you are looking into running a campaign around fey, Tales of the Old Margreve is probably your best bet. Ancient, sentient forest full of darkness and danger. My favorite monsters are humans, but mostly because until recently, the only quick source I had for random NPCs was the GMG, and there's nothing but human NPC stats in it. The NPC codex may fix that. Maybe. Hobgoblins leading goblinoid armies have made some prominent appearances, and I made my own variable template to apply to a selection of creatures from the bestiary to make them all Slenderman-related.
Reducing the number of iterative attacks is going to seriously cut into your martial players' damage at higher levels. I didn't notice any mention of what level you'd be starting them out at, so this may not be an issue. I wouldn't make a decision like this lightly. Also, what kind of effects will it have on the mechanics if you have a +3 masterwork sword with a +1 bonus? Were I you, I would consider instead changing the fluff of the weapon rather than the crunch. Just tell your players that the +3 weapon they found was forged by a smith whose esoteric methods and strange blue forgefires produce steel that holds such an edge that it can cut water. Some crap like that. I don't know what your reasons, but I would almost be willing to bet you that it isn't worth the headache of trying to work out a different system for the current enhancements and abilities when fluff will do the work for you. I allow my players to take average hit points (half the size of the hit die) before they roll any dice, but once they roll, they're stuck with it. I also have started giving character feats at even levels as well as odd levels, along with a list of free feats (weapon finesse, power attack, and deadly aim among them).
I am giving positive and negative because the entire thing is more or less arbitrary. I wrote it into the story and dont want to take anything from him without balancing it in some way. Then don't take anything away. If he is rescued by his allies, then they find him with low health, maybe even bleeding out. Otherwise, he's fine. If he finds them, then maybe he's only got a quarter of his hit points and he's covered in blood, being chased by a number of enemies he can't face alone. Making more or less permanent changes to a character that the player has no control over is a bit of a no-no, IMO. Role play the experience by explaining to him who captured him, what they did to him, etc. and then have him recount the tale to his group in-character.
There is one thing I explicitly disallow in my games currently: gnomes, and only because I cannot stand the stupidity that comes along with [my group] trying to role-play their wackiness in the middle of an otherwise serious campaign. Anything else, I work in as best I can. I disallowed arcane casters once for a specific campaign and will never do it again. My point: I have learned that balance is an illusion that I, as DM, can manipulate by making each character feel important in some way. I have also learned that the game is not all about me and the world I want to present, it's a social game and I have to consider the desires of others. Just because I have a personal dislike of a concept does not make it okay for me to take that fun away from someone else. Unless they are trying too hard to be comic relief. That is my one shameless prejudice.
My idea: A legendary dagger made from the bones of a vampire that leeches the life force of creatures that it strikes and heals its wielder... 1d4+Str+other bonuses... Healing a maximum of one days worth of rest (character level plus Con bonus). Per hit? Per day? Per round sounds fair to me, though this is something that should probably be seen no earlier than 8th or 9th level. I would personally think to limit it to light melee weapons, and just say that all weapon damage is treated as health drain up to the maximum. Personally, I dislike effects that rely on critical hits. I see critical hits so rarely that it's laughable, and when I do see them, it is usually against something in the way of goblins or stray dogs. Tacking on special abilities to them makes them a further disappointment. So I am against that from a design standpoint. Special abilities want to be seen.
It's one thing to feel immediately protective of an orphaned child you just met. That's not the same thing as "I am go to raise this child as my own". I think it's a trope that a hero takes an orphan under their wing out of a sense of obligation and then grows fond of them and decides to become a surrogate parent. What I don't think is a trope is that the hero helps kill the bad guy then at the drop of their hat decides to take the bad guy's kid and raise her as their own, accompanied by the other murders of her parent, half of whom want to kill her or sell her into slavery. That's not hero territory, that's creepy serial killer territory. Exhibit A: Loki, Laufey's son. Okay... Seems like a bad idea. Exhibit B: Slevin Kelevra. Well he didn't turn out so bad in the end. Exhibit C: Kurt Wagner, aka Nightcrawler. Okay, this one is a bit of a stretch, but his parents are evil, and he's taken in by the good guys who are constantly at war with his parents' side. All that considered, he's one of the most humble, kindest, and most gentle heroes there is in Marvel's world of snikt-snikt and kapow-eye-lasers. Conclusion: This could go anywhere. It really depends on the player's portrayal of the surrogate parent (who sounds genuinely empathetic) and the DM playing the child (who could, after all, fail to recognize the kindnesses done for her).
I can actually see everyone's perspective. Excellent post. It is my opinion that under these circumstance, the mental and emotional trauma of being dropped off at a church and sequestered from the world after having been subjected to whatever horrors the hags were exposing her to far outstrips the physical dangers of traveling with adventurers. She goes to some church to be trained and the other children shun her for her heritage? The priests and clergymen regard her in the same manner as a stray dog because they do not wish to associate with her or because they simply can't figure out what she needs psychologically? That is a lifetime of torture, regardless of your religious views. A Pathfinder nunnery is not some temple to the pantheon where they sort you into your preferred religion like a cracked out version of Hogwarts. You are forcing a way of life onto that child without her consent. Is that historically accurate? Perhaps it is; maybe in Europe they sent children off to those establishments, but this isn't the real world. Women have rights in Pathfinder that they didn't back in the middle ages. There are cities the size of Rome in a dozen places, and genetic experiments being conducted. Just because one person has the idea to do it does not make it the only logical answer. Maybe it's because I watched Despicable Me last night, but I think the witch IS best suited for this. There is a stigma that comes with being a changeling and a witch, and who better for the job that someone who truly understands it AND is neutral good? Kudos to the Paladin and witch players, and hurray for awesome grey-areas in morality.
I had my players fight a dragon on a trade road; she took a couple of hits after a few bomb runs with her breath and fled. They tracked her to her lair, but she wasn't there. She came in while they snooped about at an iron-bar gate in the back of the cave. They did well on their stealth, and then they made a small error that got her attention a round early, so she initiated combat inside the cave (being a young and reckless red dragon). When they started gaining the upper hand, she fled to the back of her cave and went inside the gate, locking herself in; she would have used it as a barrier to fire her breath weapon from while they tried to get in. Not the smartest thing a dragon can do, but again, she was a young dragon. I knew it would be a speed bump to the players since they could kill her from outside and the wizard could teleport in with his school power, but the dragon couldn't know that, so I let them have it. It didn't immediately occur to them though that they could get in. They killed her with ranged attacks and were immediately baffled as to how they would get in. XD The wizard got it after a minute with a "duh" moment, but it was good fun. They mopped the floor with her, but it was enjoyable for all of us, and I almost dropped the inquisitor. :D
will there be mythic paths for races as well?I second this. Maybe you pick a path and you can choose from racial path traits each time you tier up, instead of your path trait? I would veto this, if my word carried any weight. My concerns could be noted, but this is not the place, I think, and I've done enough debating today. I don't say it out of dislike of the idea, just the fear of the implementation.
Interestingly enough, I have several houserule/homebrew elements in my games that resemble several featured items in this playtest... I probably will not be able to participate in this playtest as such anyway, since I'm not currently DMing. Looks like an interesting system though! Have fun everyone! :)
The Thornkeep PDF references the NPC Codex for an enemy in one of the dungeons, and I have 3 weeks to wait to see what the stats are on it. Life is so unfair.
Yeah, I was mostly joking. Sorry for that. But seriously. I was too young to see that movie when I did.
Yeah, I won't be touching this module, or coming with a mile of anywhere it's being played. Pennywise destroyed my childhood.
In my games most domestic or wild game animals, goblinoids, orcs, skeletons (come on, now), and dragons are immediately identified as such without a check. That doesn't give any info about them, they are just familiar enough (whether from first-hand experience, local events, or study) to know what it is on sight. Most people never see creatures from any plane other than the material plane, and while wizards may speak of "realms beyond the understanding of mere men" that doesn't explain anything. Some creatures are so similar in appearance or function that people often mistake them for another creature. Wraiths for ghosts, worgs for wolves, trolls/ogres/particularly ugly giants can all be confused for one another depending on the locale. A nymph and dryad, to the uninitiated, are essentially the same kind creature. I tend to wing it, but this is the gist of my method. Everything is still a knowledge check, and I grant bonuses if the knowledge skill is particularly pertinent to a character's job/class/backstory (especially if the character is older). EDIT: Ninja'd, and in more detailed. That's what I get for trying to post while I'm at work.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
