This sounds a lot like C. S. Friedman's Magister trilogy. In this world, power their spells with their long life force, so every spell brings them closer to death. Magisters, on the other hand, get their power from the life force from a random stranger, slowly killing that person. It's an interesting idea. I'd suggest allowing the spellcasters to regain all hit points lost from from spell casting after a period of rest so they're not dependent on the cleric blowing all of her hit points to save the other part members.
207. A gas giant with a narrow layer of breathable air created by air elementals. Populations live on floating continents made up of gargantuan earth elementals. Water elementals create spherical seas that drift through the air. Fire elementals live below, destroying anything that falls out of the sky.
My suggestion: Two levels of Expert with maxed Knowledge (Psychology) and Acrobatics for her "pre-corruption" stage. Then, she starts taking levels in Bard (Court Fool archetype). This gives her a bonus to Acrobatics and Climb equal to 1/2 her Bard level. Multi-class with Alchemist to gain poison resistance and bombs. High Dex, Cha, and Con, really low Wis. Feats: Acrobatic, Bludgeoner, Exotic Weapon (clown hammer), Goad, Nimble Moves, Weapons Focus (baseball bat), Weapon Focus (clown hammer). Baseball bat uses the same stats as a great club. Clown Hammer stats: Two-handed exotic weapon, Damage (Sm): 1d6, Damage (Md); 1d8, Critical: x3, Weight: 8 lbs, Type: B, Special: Sunder
I've always been fascinated by the idea of artificial worlds like Dyson Spheres or Ringworld. The idea I'm currently working on is a binary planetary system: Two Earth-sized worlds tidally locked. I haven't decided on names for either world yet, so for now I'm calling them Alpha and Beta Alpha was designed by the gods to be a perfect global garden/hunting ground. A massive geodesic sphere has been erected at about 10 miles above sea level. This crystal sphere acts as a literal greenhouse, trapping heat and keeping the lower atmosphere at a constant, warm temperature. However, as gods are always likely to do, they feel into conflict and one of them transported a second planet into the system in hopes of causing the two to collide. The other gods barely managed to avoid the destruction of both worlds, but only by trapping Alpha and Beta into being locked together, spinning around their common centers of massive. As a result, Beta's tilt has been altered, putting it into the beginnings of an ice age while Alpha has begun to experience rising temperatures. Meanwhile, the beings who could fix the problem, the gods, have been stripped of their power and forced to live on one or the other world as immortal wanderers.
Malefactor wrote:
You are correct, so it would most deities, it would depend on how far your alignment shifted away from theirs. So, any good deity and any neutral ones like Pharasma that hate undead on principle would disown a priest that became a vampire. Evil gods would probably be delighted. The other question would be what happens to the priest's soul? Did the soul escape upon death or is it trapped within the body of the undead creature? If it's the former, than a good deity could still welcome the soul of their priest into their plane even as their body is still walking around doing evil things.
ghostunderasheet wrote: To become monsters. Say a priest is forced by a kiss of vampires to become an undead. Does the priest's god reject their fallen follower even though it is not thier fualt that thier condition was forced on them? This includes other smart monster types. You could say that about anyone who was turned into a vampire against their will. Becoming a vampire turns one's alignment to chaotic evil, so any member a class that requires them to be within one step of their deity's alignment would immediately lose all spellcasting abilities and other class abilities unless their deity was CE, CN, or NE.
I'm working on the background details of a sort "post-Ragnorak" world where a newly ascended god kills off all of the old gods to create a Lawful Evil theocracy. The only ones left to oppose him are the demigods like the Empyreal Lords, Demon Lords, Horsemen, etc, plus a few non-theistic religions. My big concern right now is the lack of diversity in the domains, so I may tweak that a bit.
FormerFiend wrote:
I'd go with darkness, evil, strength, travel, and war.
Most divine spell casters can be played as worshiping a pantheon or even a nondeity specific religion without any changes in mechanics. Druids and Shamans can worship nature or nature spirits or they could worship a pantheon so long as most of deities aren't hostile to nature. Rangers and hunters could easily worship pantheons that support tracking down and slaying monsters. Paladins would tend to favor pantheons that were mostly lawful and/or good in alignment. If there are evil gods in the pantheon, a paladin might view them as "rogue" members or forces that need to be appeased in order to stay their wrath. For oracles, mysteries could be associated with a pantheon as a whole. The three classes that might need adjustment are those that depend on domains, inquisitions, and blessings: cleric, inquisitor, and warpriest. These are also the classes that are required to have an alignment within one step of their deity's. These were designed to be classes that are deity-specific. Clerics could worship an entire pantheon. The only question would be how would they choose their domains? I wouldn't open up to letting a cleric choose any two domains associated with any deities in the pantheon. Instead, give each pantheon a short list of domains available to a pantheistic cleric based on what the overall culture or theme of the pantheon. For example, if the pantheon is closely associated with a particular alignment, give them that alignment domain. If the pantheon is similar to the Norse pantheon, their worshipers might be seagoing warriors. Domains like war, water, and weather might be appropriate. Warpriests and blessings could work exactly as domains do for clerics. For inquisitors, either pick a domain from the list of pantheon domains or an inquisition that best fits the role or archetype the inquisitor is following. Perhaps not all inquisitors search for enemies of their religion the same way.
LMPjr007 wrote:
Witch doctor?
Weirdo wrote:
I like these suggestions. Do you think there should be restrictions on what types of animal companions characters should have based on their class? For example, a rogue with a woolly mammoth doesn't make much sense.
I'm kicking around the idea of world that is sort like Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series. If you're not familiar, this is a world where people's souls exist outside their bodies in the form of animals called "daemons." It's more or less a world where everyone has animal companion/familiar. The question is, how to balance it in Pathfinder where certain classes have animal companions and others do not normally gain them. There are several archetypes like the homuncultist (alchemist), the carnivalis (rogue) and the mad dog (barbarian) that grant certain classes animal companions or familiars. There's also a few options like the animal domain or the familiar bond feat which requires characters to use up two feat slots. But I'm looking for a way to make having an animal companion or a familiar the default for every character. Basically, I'm thinking what needs to be done is either taking something away from each class that doesn't have some kind of bond feature or adding something to those that do. For example, letting the druid have both an animal companion and a domain. Is that overkill? Would it make the druid too powerful?
Greatbear wrote:
The cleric has its roots in a certain Medieval holy knight and it's always struck me as still too rooted in that archetype. I like the priest with its more focus on spell casting and divine gifts is kind of more how I would envision a servant of a deity being. I do have a couple of thoughts. One is, what about switching the priest to being a Charisma-based caster with a limited number of spells known like the oracle or sorcerer? I like the idea of a priest who is very persuasive and actively seeking converts. Also, has anyone tried combining the priest with the variant channeling rules in Divine Favor - The Cleric? Or any other variant channeling rules?
Skylancer4 wrote: "Cleric" covers A LOT of ground. And being a versatile class with spheres and spells, they can do quite a bit besides "heal bot". You might get a better response if you qualified the specifics of what it means to you. I'm just looking to see what classes people like for flavor reasons.
What is the relationship between the gods and the various outsider races in your campaigns? Some are easy to describe. The devils all work for Asmodeus. The angels serve various good deities. But what about the proteans or the inevitables? Is there an ultra-lawful deity who commands the inevitables? Are the demon lords subordinate to or rivals of the chaotic evil gods?
DungeonmasterCal wrote: I've thought of just creating a pantheon of 9 gods, one for each alignment, but I don't know how to best assign the domains, so that idea just sits on the burner. My usual pattern is to go the opposite direction. Decide on what role each god should play, what their portfolio is, and what domains fit them best, and then figure out what alignments fit them best. But then, I'm not a huge fan of the alignment domains. I'd rather elevate the planar faction subdomains to full domains. In other words, instead of giving the lawful evil god either the law or the evil domain, give him the devil subdomain as one of his domains.
For some fluff, check out the Pathfinder Tales novel, The Redemption Engine. I think it's the first one where the main character travels to a number of planes. The cosmology of Golarion isn't tremendously different from the 3.X D&D cosmology of the Great Wheel. There are planes associated with each alignment that souls are naturally drawn to after death. The goddess Pharisma is in charge of making sure the souls make it to the right afterlife. Asmodeus is not just the king of the devils, but a fully-fledged god. The slaad have been replaced by the proteans. There are three supplements, The Book of the Damned vol. I, II, and III that cover the denizens of the lower planes in pretty good detail. Another supplement, Chronicles of the Righteous cover the good-aligned outsiders. Nothing for the elemental planes or for the inevitables or the proteans beyond their entries in the various bestiaries so far, though. So, while there isn't a single book by Paizo describing the planes, there are a number of supplements covering at least some of them. But since it is so similar to the 3.X cosmology, you could use a lot of the fluff from the Manual of the Planes and Planar Handbook and incorporate it into your campaign without much difficulty.
If you run a campaign where guns are common, then the gunslinger becomes pretty redundant. There are a couple of gunfighter archetypes, one from Kobold Press and another from d20PFSRD.com. These turn fighers into pretty effective replacements for the gunslinger. The one from Kobold Press grants fighters the ability to acquire grit feats in place of their combat bonus feats. As for rangers, an easy option to create a gunfighter combat style for rangers. Rangers who choose that combat style can perform deeds and gain grit feats as their bonus feats.
Orthos wrote:
I was actually thinking outside of the whole "spell slots" system. Sorry I wasn't 100% clear. Dreamscarred's psionics point system is cool, but it's based on the idea that the powers don't scale with the character's level. If you want to do more damage, you have to spend more power points. Whereas with Pathfinder spells, the damage increases automatically with the caster's level, ie, a fireball cast by a 15th-level wizard always does more damage than one cast by a 6th-level wizard. My feeling is that a spell point system would have to work the same way, with wizards having to expend more spell points in order to do more damage.
My impressions is that the Occult classes have a more Victorian/Steampunk feel to them. The names of the classes, occultist, mesmerist, medium, originated in that time period. If you're doing a campaign around gypsy fortune tellers or psychic detectives, then the Occult classes are perfect. On the other hand, if you're looking for classes with a Jedi-like feel, then Dreamscarred's psionic classes are perfect. They aren't incompatible. Not any more than either would be alongside the core classes. They're different flavors, that's all.
I'm working on a campaign styled on a frontier. Humans are moving into an area where, up to now, they have not occupied. Other humanoids, such as orcs, goblins, and centaurs, already live in this region in small tribal groups. Naturally, there is going to be friction as humans encroach on their territory and start fencing things in. It's analogous to American western stories, but it's not a direct copy. Land is used either for farming or mining. Most cargo is transported by skyships, so piracy is also a big factor. Think Lone Ranger meets Pirates of Caribbean. So far, I have the following products: Avalon's Homestead Guide to Frontier Life
Any other third party products that could be used for inspiration for frontier and/or pirate based campaigns?
Pathfinder now has over 20 base classes. If you include third party material, it's over a hundred. The number of PC races is about the same.
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