Jesuncolo's page

Ok, I'm going to respond as I see fit, responding some questions together if they seem to be somehow related. This is the first batch. Thank you so much for all of your help. Please do mind that this society is Chaotic Neutral, not Chaotic Evil. Lolth has very little grasp on society compared to other settings (or even other part of the world itself).

How much magic is in the city?

Do animated object fly folks around?
Illusions as signs?
Windwalk platforms
[...]
When the pillars need exterior construction/repair, is it work for slaves or skilled artisans?

People either use fly, use the stairs, or take an elevator. Buildings are repaired by masons, and it's pretty costly: not many are willing to work at such a risky height, and there have been some accidents involving people falling from the pillar to smash on the ground, becoming a nice omelette. Slavery is not appreciated amongs these drows, as they were slaves before.

What do they use as currency?

Alternative currency. Your gold is worthless here.

That might be an interesting idea. Maybe duergar, svirfneblin and drows use a different kind of currency, like some kind of adamant or mithral coins.

Does being closer to the ceiling mean anything? How poor/exploited are the poor? How extravagant are the wealthy?

Generally the higher in the pillars you live, the richer you live, as the cost for maintainance of the buildings can be quite high. Poor people live closer to the ground. People who have a good amount of money and power tend to dress flamboyant clothes with pride, and are often the favourite subject of the poor people's gossips.

Sorry for the delay in my response, I've had a harsh week. Thank you for your imput, I'll make sure to use those questions to help me detail the city.

I'm the GM for a homebrew setting in my game. In this setting, dark elves where simply native elves of the setting with a tribal culture, while "high elves" arrived in the continent from somewhere else. High elves came to "civilize" the barbaric humans and dark elves, and both became second class citizens. A portion of high elves wizards took some dark elves to a lab in to the Underdark, hoping to create empowered soldiers with magic experiments. Many dark elves died in the process, but the process was rendered stable and eventually the "drow" came to existance: empowered dark elves.
Drows eventually where able destroy the lab and kill their masters, feeing to the depths of the Underdark, creating a city called Kyone ("Alertness"). A caste of drow druids ensures food for the city. Only a really part of the drow rever Lolth (who revealed herself to a bunch of drows), but overall there is not a precise deity they worship. Most high elves despise the Elven Gods as they didn't protect them from the tragedy.
Drows from Kyone tend to dislike visitors, and won't accept any high elf in their city, though duergar and svirfneblin do come once in a while. Kyone is made out of three pillars that go up to the cieling of the Underdark.
http://www.animationsource.org/sites_content/zootopie/img_site/Nocturnal9.j pg

Now, I need to detail the three pillars as I don't really know what could be interesting for my two players (a human soulknife and a wizard/fighter high elf). As for now, I've got their names and general purpose.
"Living City" is the most populated pillar, where most non-noble drow live.
"Noble Tear" is the noble quarter.
"Vengeance" is the most military quarter.

The two players are looking for a trio of humans (cleric of Vecna, an ardent, an antipaladin) who are hunting down the only survivor of the elven laboratory, "Subject 14", an immortal drow the PCs freed from the lab. The villains want to get their hands on the projects of the experiments, and study Subject 14 to sell information to the best offer.

Anyone willing to help?

Guardian's shield is underwhelming, and if you change from a spirit to the other, you don't have access to armor and shield proficiency while you don't have the guardian spirit.

Guardian's Shield (Su): The spirit protects you, granting you a +1 armor bonus to AC, or increasing a light or medium armor's bonus by the same amount. You also gain a +1 shield bonus to AC when you use a shield. The armor bonus increases by 1 at 6th, and 11°.

Considering that an heavy armor is 2 or 3 AC points above a medium armor, I don't think this would be a great deal even combined with the Guardian spirit bonus.
And a medium with this spirit will be one point behind a full plate, two if you wore a tower shield.

Also, it allows you to invest mental focus into a new implement and possibly give that to other party members so that they can gain the bonuses attached to those implements, without taking the disadvantages of casting without and implement.

Mmmh, this could be good, indeed.

As per title. What's the practical benefit? Why exactly should one do it? Taking other schools has obvious advantages of enlarging your spell known with another school of magic.
Is it simply a subpar way to get more spell of a single school, or does it have some merit?

Jesuncolo wrote:

my players are a little aggressive and touchy. Any percieved rudeness can lead to their retribution.

Your players are bullies?! Oh man I would love to be the GM in your group! Are there any other advanturing parties in your gaming world?

Well I'm not going to say the people themselves playing the characters are aggressive or touchy, but most of their characters are. Their characters are often subjects to whims, and tend to be on the "I'm a jerk" edge of chaotic neutral.

Anyways, there are some. It's a sandbox game though and I'm more used to throw organizations and monsters at them than adventurers.

Never mind. Nothing productive can come of this.

I just want indication on how I should portray them. You're free not to contribute. If it's not about abilities, then it might be of anything else. While DS people are indeed varied, they do have some underlining similarities, don't they?

Step back and ask yourself why this character needs stats? Do you intend for the party to fight them? If the party does fight them, do you expect it be any sort of challenge?

I do stat out many characters, because my players are a little aggressive and touchy. Any percieved rudeness can lead to their retribution.

And yes, I do think he/she should pose some challenge, but that's something I'll come up with when I'll refine the idea I have in mind.

Of course...I am more interested in the purpose of the characters prescence. Such topics are very....sensitive...to certain individuals around these parts. In my expierience attempts at including this sort of thing, or even the discussion of such usually ends up someplace where we never wanted it to go.

I'm planning a political adventure, where such characters might come up. I'm still not sure if I'll be doing it for D&D/Pathfinder or Mage the Awakening.

Well, even if they probably won't have a great carreer as a wizard, they could still do many other things. I do stat out many characters, because my players are a little aggressive and touchy. Any percieved rudeness can lead to their retribution.
I had an idea of a relevant fighter NPC with down syndrome, that's why I wondered how to stat them.
From what I read on the internet, down people are mostly slow to learn but have the full range of emotions, and can even survive alone as long as they're taught to.

In fantasy, you would have them be "simple" NPCs. I would avoid using the Tard-voice. If you can't mimic the accent perfectly, you will just be offensive. Not all people with down syndrome have a pronounced accent anyways.

I play mostly by chat.

I hope you're aware there's a proverbial legion of people who are liable to take this question badly, right?

I am and that's why I said respectfully. I was just curious of what would people do to portray such a trait.

How would you portray a down syndrome NPC respectfully with mental abilities like Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma?

Cool, anyway. You should probably make some feats to grant them abilities to make ghostly things.

Can I suggest you to use the Spiritualist from the playtest of Occult Adventures? I think the concept is closer than simply using the elan. Plus, the link doesn't open.

Becoming a spiritualist is not a calling; it’s a phenomenon. When a creature dies, its spirit f lees the body and begins the next stage of its existence. Debilitating emotional attachment during life and other psychic corruption causes some spirits to drift into the Ethereal Plane and descend toward the Negative Energy Plane. Some of these spirits are able to escape the pull of undeath and make their way back to the Material Plane, seeking refuge in a psychically attuned mind. Such a fusing of consciousnesses creates a spiritualist—the master of a single powerful spirit whom the spiritualist can manifest upon the world to do her bidding.

Role: The spiritualist seeks the occult and esoteric truth
about life, death, and the passage beyond, using her phantom
as guide and tool. The connection with her phantom spirit
allows her to harness the powers of life and death, thought
and nightmare, shadow and the pursuit of ultimate truths.

The only thing that might sound a little off is that the phantom is actually something that comes into play and can be seen, as well as attack people.

I'm trying to rewrite the monk for my games. I'm not worried about power, it's about focus. I read that the monk is somewhat incoherent, not exactly knowing what it wants to be/do. The monk feels a little like it's just like a bunch of random class features with no cohesion.

Do you think the monk isn't cohesive enough? What do you think the monk should do?

An Occultist is a dabbler, really. He certainly knows about magic, but he doesn't precisely cast it himself. No, he has toys. He scrounges up items that allow him to supplement his otherwise mediocre to nonexistent magical capabilities. In terms of precisely what he does in terms of the world, he's using psychometry to find objects with the right resonance and then forcing that resonance out into magical effects.

Thematically, he's not personally a spellcaster per se (though he is mechanically), he's a guy with amulet that can shield him from harm, or a wand that throws blasts of deadly energy, and who always seems to have another magic item up his sleeve. He probably has more in common with the Alchemist than the Wizard, with both relying on devices (extracts and implements, respectively) to provide them with magical effects that others can mostly get something like with magical items...but free of the cost that carries in gold.

First, you need to compare to the right class, an occultist is very little like a Wizard, because they do not memorize spells, they do use weapons, and do wear armor.

The closest thing I have seen to an Occultist is a Magus with the Eldritch Scion Archetype (from the Ultimate Class Guide).

A Magus gains their spells by revelation via psychometric induction...which is a fancy way of saying they get it from objects. They have no spell book, no study requirement. They are more like a Sorcerer than a Wizard.

They do not take spell penalties for wearing armor, they can cast spells with their hands full and their mouths bound.

At low level, a Magus will likely beat a Wizard due to having better weapons, armor, and hit points, as well as a similar number of spells.

At high levels, the Wizard's top end spells will slowly turn the tide in their favor. Until at least level 5, however, he Magus should be a better character in most situations.

Thank you for your explaination, now I can see the class with a greater focus. That's a good concept!

I can say I can't understand the flavour of the occultist. It doesn't resonate to me as anything in particular, I can't understand it.

Could someone explain it a little better?

What's the difference between this and a wizard?

Jesuncolo wrote:

Discrete magic [General]

You can hide your magic from divination.
Requirements: Ability to cast anti-individuation
Benefit: Three times per day, you can cast a spell that defeats detect magic, arcane sight and similar spell-detecting spells. When someone tries to detect your spell, he must roll a caster level check against DC 11+caster level. If the roll fails, the detecting spellcaster cannot detect the hidden spell. True sight lowers the DC by 5.

I'm curious as to exactly why you came up with this. What situation are you trying to deal with?

Most of the things that defeat invisibility do it with blindsense, scent, tremorsense or something similar.

Are you the subject of a lot of divination spells or something?

Just seems kind of niche.

Yes, it comes up often. My wizard player makes whatever is in his power to have a consistent way to access detect magic and arcane sight. You can cast any spell on you and cast anti-detection on yourself, but if you cast an illusion outside of yourself, they're not going to be affected by anti-detection. The first who uses detect magic is going to find out the school effect and say "It's an illusion!". I got frustrated because I couldn't use Illusion anymore, because it's trivially exposed with a simple cantrip. Or worse, with an always active effect of arcane sight.

Discrete magic [General]
You can hide your magic from divination.
Requirements: Ability to cast anti-individuation
Benefit: Three times per day, you can cast a spell that defeats detect magic, arcane sight and similar spell-detecting spells. When someone tries to detect your spell, he must roll a caster level check against DC 11+caster level. If the roll fails, the detecting spellcaster cannot detect the hidden spell. True sight lowers the DC by 5.

"Why I fight against evil people? Well, because being mean to other people doesn't make society a liveable place. I don't want my personal life to be influenced by douchebags who want to make other's life miserable. Plus, this cult is about to bring about an apocalypse, isn't this enough motivation?"

It kind of does, because a game should generally have all similar options be in the same ballpark of power.

So if your X mechanic is Y powerful, and your alternative version (essentially) of X mechanic is Y-1 powerful...people will be disincline to use it.

It needs to be different, but roughly equal.

3.x/Pathfinder is generally TERRIBLE at doing this across the board, but fairly consistent when it comes to spells and spell-like systems.

No, it doesn't. Unless your main goal is to increase power creep so much that you don't notice it. But at that point you'd better create a whole new edition of the game with greater power baseline built in it.

The point is that "oh no look at that one, he's overpowered, let's be overpowered" leads to even more powercreep.

Offering horizontal growth of options is good, offering vertical growth is generally not.

Anyway, this is probably OT.

I look forward to these classes, maybe to use them in my 3.5 games if they are balanced enough. But my worry is they'll be just as bad as the jump from APG to ACG. Or worse, from the Corebook to the APG.

Sorry, I was referring to 3.5 being written badly, because people seem to think psionics were ok back then.
As for Pathfinder, I liked some of the DPS stuff, though not how the psychic reformation was fixed (i.e. at all). A temporary energy drain called somehow otherwise doesn't weight all that much when you have a day off.
Plus, DPS material has the same flaw as Paizo:
As long as it's cool-looking, it doesn't matter if it's broken or overpowered. That's why I'm not playing Pathfinder all that often anymore. Still, I'm a sucker for new things, so I keep an eye on their stuff even if I'm not going to use it.
I remember trying to convince the PoW developer to avoid absolutes like "I can parry a planet explosion with my shield or withstand the hits of the God Mighty of Weapons" with a maneuver while I'm a puny 18th level character, to no avail. And that way I lost any hope Path of War could help my D&D games with new ToB material.

EDIT:

Considering the fact that Magic is even *more* powerful in 3.5, you really don't want to be going down the road of saying psionics is broken.

You got me wrong. Just because something is broken that doesn't mean the other should be broken as well. Just because magic was on average more powerful, that doesn't "give" psionics "the right" to be broken.

It's not "eye for eye", it's "turn the other cheek".

When you manifest reddopsi, powers targeted against you rebound to affect the original manifester. This effect reverses powers that have only you as a target (except dispel psionics and similar powers or effects). Powers that affect an area and those that produce effects can’t be reversed. Reddopsi also can’t reverse any power with a range of touch.

Should you rebound a power back against a manifester who also is protected by reddopsi, the power rebounds once more upon you.

Actually, there is no such limit for reddopsi. You are straight immune to single target spells for 10 min./level

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/reddopsi.htm

Mars Roma wrote:

As long as it goes the way of Mythic powers, I.E., Never sees PFS Play and is made a Novelty boon in some random scenario for a 1 to 3 time use only, Then cross off. I don't care.

People are going to assume its broken. which is why some people will be drawn to it, that and flavor. Paizo will likely handle it well but id rather they not risk exposure to the hate. from both lovers of the old Psionics and from people who misunderstood how powerful it really was.

Yeah... that's not going to happen. Also, 3.5 and Pathfinder Psionics were/are well balanced. The issue comes from people not following the rules. But that's an issue regardless of whether or not you're using Psionics.

One of the big issues was the manifester level cap on PP. It's akin to someone saying, "Oh, I'm 5th level but I can cast a 10th level Fireball".

Seriously, compare all of the similar powers/spells between the two systems and you'll find Spells are more powerful probably 9/10 times. In addition, when you compare what Psionics can do that Spells can't vs what Spells can do but Psionics can't... again, Spells are more powerful.

Except when they're not. Like...reddopsi(hello, I'm like spell turning, but no spell levels limit, and just because you can't take it without Expanded Knolwedge or being a kineticist that doesn't mean it's less powerful) and bunch of other powers that were straight better than their magic counterpart.

EDIT: Well, looking closely to some powers, you could pretty much tell that whoever wrote them didn't pay much attention to what the hell he was doing. Translating a phrase from my language: "This book was written with the feet".

Extended spell. Divinations has lots of buffs, and it still applies to a lot of spells from other schools.

Tetsubo57 made a video on this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dsTK2YPOcY

I say that arcane magic has harder time compared to divine magic, to channel positive energy.

Thank you everybody for your answers!

I wanted to share a story on the matter of evil by tradition (homebrew setting with Greyhawk's pantheon + Eilistraee, Sune and some other FR god)
During my PF campaign, the first "boss" was, Grimrat, a goblin cleric of Maglubyiet. "Ok, i guess" you would probably say. Well, it's not your typical servant of Maglubyiet.
He was a good hearted goblin. The goblin knew love from his mother, who treated him gently when he was ill, because that's what a mother does. He feigned death to escape the goblin society, he wanted to become a good person. He tried to act good and help people, but racism almost got him killed. The goblin understood he could not continue like that and eventually abandoned the thought of doing good.

That night, a devil presented itself to Grimrat in a dream, posing as Maglubyiet and told him:
"You weak fool, don't you see you are wasting your life trying to be gentle? There is no hope for you, your only hope is to come with me and embrace your race. There is no other hope, those humanoids are evil and hateful, you deserve a better life! Go to the temple of Maglubyet and become a priest! This way the meaning of your life will be fulfilled!"

Out of despair and deep sadness, the good goblin became a member in good standing of the cult of Maglubyiet and destroyed the temple of Eilistraee where Amelia (a PC NG aasimar-drow cleric of Eilistraee)lived. Amelia happened to discover Grimrat's story and the group accidentally killed the goblin in the rush of the battle.
She grew an emotional connection to him, and prayed for his soul to go to Arborea instead, because while he behaved bad, he really wanted to be good.

That prayer alone was a disaster. Grimrat was almost ready to go to Hell, but he became a ghost, torn between Hell and Arborea. He wanted to be good, and to do something good, he wanted redemption at least in death. He haunted the location of his death until the PCs finally helped him pass away.

How is the group setup?

I was wondering, who would worship an evil deity. Possibly, why would a "sane" person do it. Anyone with any kind of logical capabilities. What gain would you get?
Being evil sends the characters into Hell or Abyss, and there he will suffer.

At the moment, I've come up with some rationalizations, but if you can help me with more, you are welcome.

Accompany him with a witch. Evil eye + Crackle + whatever save or suck.

Hello, -8 to Saving throws. Have fun.

Pseudodragons have poison, and they are neutral good. I guess non-lethal poison it's not evil.

http://paizo.com/PRD/monsters/pseudodragon.html

I like psionics, I allow them in my campaigns, but I don't use them RAW. I have some problems with some powers, namely psychic reformation, schism, temporal acceleration, and some others. I mostly play 3.5, so energy powers are still a problem because of the "trololo I change energy type at whim" and "trololo rogue, roll Fortitude half instead of Reflex half". I also got allowed metapsionics to work with their rightful costs (empower is 4 pp, maximize is 6 pp, quicken is 8 pp and things like that) but they don't spend the psionic focus. Overchannel is also something I prefer not to allow.

Once I get those in check a little bit, I'm fine with psionics, mostly.

As for flavour, I've always liked X-men, especially Jean Grey and professor Xavier, so I can't help to like psionics. I occasionally treat psionics as Dragonlance mystics.

I replaced "power stones" with "psionic mantras" and got rid of most of the crystal stuff.

Barbarian (Attila the hun)
Monk (Mulan)
Rogue (Aladdin, Esmeralda [which can also be a bard])
Wizard (Jafar, Merlin)
Sorcerer (Elsa)

I agree with you, Ross. Good is hard. I've come to understand it recently. Mind manipulation, even if it is "for the good", it's not harmless. You're an good-aligned enchanter? Well...I admire the intention of not doing physical harm to people but...the point is that coercing someone to the point they unwillingly desire or do what you want them to do, is not harmless. How would you feel if you knew you've got charmed or dominated?
Also, killing a killer doesn't make you better than them, though it does help other people to be safe. And it's not like taking someone as prisoner is easy. Should you kill an evil character you caught?

I don't know. In D&D/Pathfinder, Good and Evil are tangible and real. Killing an evil character would send him to Hell or the Abyss or whatever. That means there is no way for him to save himself. He's going to suffer for eternity (quite a bit long time). And he won't have any chance to become a good creature and become useful to the society.

This spell is not a mind affecting spell. Otherwise it would have the tag. Figments are not mind affecting, they are images.
The talent is not goint to help against this one. It's not an hallucination, it's an ologram.

Wands. Lots of wands.

To be more accurate, the Bard in the first editions was a Fighter/Rogue/Druid. A DIVINE caster.

Then it became arcane (it had a spellbook), and then in 3.0/3.5 it became a spontaneous caster.

The most accurate example of actual bards we have in 3.5 is the Fochluchan Lyrist.

My problem with Power points is:

Ok, i manifest this, and augment this way, but wait I have discount that makes this, so i put this metamagic feat that lowers my effective CL but hightens the damage and overchannel bla bla bla. At the end, figuring out how many damage you'll be rolling is a little complicated to me both as a gm and a player. I lose more time figuring out how much damage I'm going to deal with psionics that with some sword slashes and magic blasts, because damage does not scale with psionics and there are a bigger number of variables.
That's not exactly the same thing with HPs.

"I cannot be caged. I cannot be controlled. Understand this as you die, ever pathetic, ever fools!" [cit. Jon Irenicus - Baldur's Gate 2]

I'll consider adding in the bind effects to the table, BUT that is a seriously big table to try and squeeze into a document. Let me look at a couple different layouts and see if I can come up with something that'll give you that information without looking seriously ugly or adding 5 extra pages to the document(s).

Try this:

Belt= Be
Body = Bo
Chest = Ch
Hand= Ha
Head= He
Feet= Ft
Neck= Ne
Shoulders = Sh
Wrists = Wr

Example:
Forcestrike Knuckles^Ha | Dae/Viz | Deal force damage with unarmed strike or ranged attacks | Increase die of force damage

Gorget of the wyrm^Ne, Sh | Viz | Gain breath weapon attack | Improved breath weapon or Wings

I cannot playtest directly because I have no games to play these in, but I might be able to build and let others compare to other builds.

I think the bind abilities is what he's really looking for. It was a problem of mine when I started thinking about trying to open and use Magic of Incarnum.

It seems strange to me that Armer the farmer had a terrible childhood because he was setting things on fire with prestidigitation or putting people to sleep random.

I get that bard's spells are spontaneous casting. But in AD&D they werent, and even before they were DIVINE CASTERS.

Where does bard's magic come from? Does it pull it from the ass like a sorcerer? Is it another type of magic altogheter?

Spirit Animal (Ex): At 1st level, a shaman forms a close bond with a spirit animal tied to her chosen spirit. This animal is her conduit to the spirit world, guiding her along the path to enlightenment. The animal also aids a witch by granting her skill bonuses. This spirit animal functions like a familiar using the wizard’s arcane bond class feature, except as noted in the Spirit Animal section. A shaman must commune with her spirit animal each day to prepare her spells. While the spirit animal does not store the spells like a witch’s familiar does, the animal serves as her conduit to divine power. If a shaman’s spirit animal is slain, she cannot prepare new spells or use her spirit magic class feature until the spirit animal is replaced.

C&P Typo.

robert best 549 wrote:

Tiny Coffee Golem wrote:

Jesuncolo wrote:

Druid/Necromancer.

Though definitely do-able RAW I'm curious how to work out the Role play of that?

Someone with an obsession for animals, and loves them so much that he feels a need to bring them back?

Dunno. Undead are sort of Anti-nature.

At best I think maybe if you did a Yin Yang kind of thing.

I opened a thread on undead druids some time ago. Developers seems to agree that they don't lose their power.

Beguiler/Rogue.
Beguiler/Ninja.

Magus/Psychic Combatant.
Magus/Psion.
Wizard-Ur priest Mystic Theurge/Psion.
Hexblade/Magus.
Magus/Rogue seems fun.
Druid/Necromancer.
Hexblade or Antipaladin/Enchanter or Fey Sorcerer.
Beguiler/Barbarian. Sneaky when you need to, brawly when it's time.
Half orc Shugenja (fire)/Sorcerer (fire elemental). FIIIIREEEEE.

Although if you want to look at it with feats, he could maximise it for two power points at lvl 20 and it'd be 49d6 49d6 ⇒ (4, 3, 4, 2, 3, 5, 2, 2, 3, 1, 3, 2, 4, 3, 3, 5, 2, 5, 3, 5, 4, 3, 6, 3, 6, 2, 1, 5, 4, 3, 4, 4, 6, 6, 1, 4, 5, 3, 2, 1, 4, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 1, 4, 6) = 169 and that's without anything but a singular feat.

Guess you meant empowered. Maximize does full damage at -4 CL.

Yes, I just wanted to provide a full build. 1st level is a little low to compare the classes.

For a good example of what a blaster wizard is capable of doing (and I mostly sure the psion isn't going to best her) there is Sampy Mc Splosion, in Brewer's guide to Blockbuster Wizard. That's quite blasty.

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2pwg7?Brewers-Guide-to-the-Blockbuster-Wizard