Journ-O-LST-3's page

I think I'm gonna play it as a vault/ark that went bad. Somewhere in the escape/years since whatever sent the people running they all died. Maybe some kind of killers stalk their corridors or disease or madness or... ,okay, so it's the TITANs from Eclipse Phase, all the builders/originators died. They and their stuff are gone. But the servant androids are still popping out from damaged machines.

Since nobody showed up to program in what they're supposed to do, they don't know. That'd be a bit of the fun of an android to me.

At least at the moment I think it's there for you to do whatever you want to do with it.

Nyarlathotep.

But he shows up as someone else. Or you're some kind of sociopath cultist of the Crawling Chaos, which means no one can use allignment to detect you as good.

That said, almost any god ought to be able to send power to anyone and they ought to be able to do so quietly. As long as you stay out of the churches etc of the deity, no one should notice that your powers (paladin/cleric/oracle).

Or it's Asmodeus because he thinks it's funny/has a plan.

That is true if you have long enough lasting magic. Also you can just import Spelljammer directly into your game and then you get an extra pile of awesome with your bases and ships.

Other uses for a station are also possible. Or you can start working on binding gravity elementals to build space elevators.

As for it coming down, yeah, that'd suck for the people in and around it. It would also give you a good chance to mess with really strange design as the station would be made to work in reduced gravity. So you can toss in all sorts of "pointless" ladders and giant chambers etc which would be fun to build.

Edit: Also, some people talk about putting a water barrier around a space station to shield from radiation. The upshoot of this is that you can build an aquatic dungeon around the main one as well.

Building a space station is semi-easy (just costs money) however, you have more or less no need of a waypoint between home and the moon/stars in Pathfinder. Because, without greater teleport you're pretty hard pressed to make orbit. More or less nothing has the speed and thrust to achieve orbit and using teleport you don't need a waypoint.

That said, you can build one as a "proof of concept" for later instilations.

Looking at it, rogues and fighters are the ones who don't get super powers and magic. Why not just shove them together, keep the best of hp/saves/skills etc make talents start at 3rd level and take the feat ones out. You might have to mess with sneak attack a bit but otherwise it gives them a lot more use and you're not losing much by getting rid of two of the problem classes.

One of many reasons is that gay and transgendered players exist. It sucks to always be treated like an outsider. Just ask non-white players of early editions. Inclusiveness (and treating people like people) is not political correctness.

Well, it is, but the thing is that there's been a long and successful bit of social engineering designed to move the idea of political correctness from "being a decent human" to well, "PC BS."

Journ-O-LST-3 wrote:

So what would be the research DCs for spells to harvest, modify and replicate* nanobots? How useful would a wand of Divination be in this

The main modifications would be to disassemble, fabricate, scout and augment. Scout would require them to return/report to a crystal ball or other such thing.

The research DCs are not yet ready... but it's easier to use technology crafting feats and skills than magic crafting ones. And tech craft feats are also not yet ready for print either. Maybe some day...

Here's the thing. Magic is technology. It works in the same empirical way. Sure there's a bunch of stuff about how you need the proper stats/family to do it. But, if I spend the time memorizing a teleport spell every day, and every day I teleport to the same place with the same word, with the same margin of error. It is science.

The things I've been talking about squirming into a Pathfinder game with uses of spells: mass drivers, space stations, nano swarms, thnk tanks (high level mage uses a lot of simulacrum spells, they use lots of divination magic) using magic to emulate tech skills long enough to cast fabricate etc....

They're all just noodling around. None of them do what Sci-Fi should be doing. Which is exploring ideas and what a society is like when things change or certain ideas are the norm. You don't need to add nanobabble to do that in a game. Adding tech will largely just be more numbers to keep track of and eventurally just another way to get a +# to something or for a class to attack or defend or whatnot.

They find another band of adventurers and must trick them into doing something dangerous/taking a different path etc?

It's a bit late but you can also toss some kind of cryptic mystery into the crawl so she has something to be keeping track of while others do the fighting.

Depends on how obvious it is. I can see someone with lots of history/story skills applying pattern recognition to a situation. Or even in basic AP pacing if each book seems to follow the route between combat/skills etc.

I'd totally play some kind of infiltrator type. "Hu-man I am simply wishing to learn of your emotions and reactions so that I and my brethren can better live amongst you."

Journ-O-LST-3 wrote:

But if you rename Pathfinder as post-apocalypse instead of "medieval" fantasy (with guns) it fits much better.

That said, it's still a bad idea to introduce nanites to the setting. Not so much as what they do as the implications that nanotech is available/doable will lead to a chain of logic/rolls that lets PCs begin building genocidal disassembler swarms.

We've actually kinda had nanites in the game since the 3rd module we published about 6 years ago... "Seven Swords of Sin." James Sutter's a big fan of mixing sci-fi with fantasy. The point is... the nanites are already hear and the game survived... ;P

So what would be the research DCs for spells to harvest, modify and replicate* nanobots? How useful would a wand of Divination be in this

The main modifications would be to disassemble, fabricate, scout and augment. Scout would require them to return/report to a crystal ball or other such thing.

*Ideally make them self-replicating, not full grey goo but accidents happen.

Are all androids on Golarion male-shaped or are there gynoids as well?

The example over on d20pfsrd is female. But as they are synthetic, I'd assume more or less all of their appearance is cosmetic. While we can get really pedantic on "android" the idea of a synthetic life form that mimics human means it should not be hard to also make one that looks like a dwarf or lizard-man or a human with six arms or an integrated sickle or no head with sensory organs/apparatus elsewhere.

But if you rename Pathfinder as post-apocalypse instead of "medieval" fantasy (with guns) it fits much better.

That said, it's still a bad idea to introduce nanites to the setting. Not so much as what they do as the implications that nanotech is available/doable will lead to a chain of logic/rolls that lets PCs begin building genocidal disassembler swarms.

Mikaze wrote:

12. Would outsiders born from android souls inherit some of their artificial nature? Outlook quirks or circuitry aesthetics?

12) That's a question for the religious scholars to freak out about.

They go to Silicone Heven. However they will always reassure non androids that they too have sould so the fleshbags don't go mad.

John Kretzer wrote:

Hey guys...I have this great idea when I last looked at this thread on Wed about 500+ posts have been added...anyway my idea is simple.

Agree to disagree. How alignment and the question if a given action will cause a Paladin to fall should be up to each invidual group. Let it go. No one is right or wrong here...move on.

Stop trying to encourage peace and civility. you're taking away my entertainment.

But is that what a paladin would do?

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With a happy beat, maybe a drum and
Let's hear a tale of pious [name] a paladin brave and pure
He will be sure to tell you that out for all to hear

His honor stood against amubshes so he would shout out loud
Bringing down upon his friends a very angry crowd

Three cheers for [name] a man who's true and quick
He's never-yealding against the weak and sick

A man of honor never backs down from any kind of fight
But even honor knows the weak sometimes won't act right

Three cheers for [name] a man who knows what's true
He'll send his minions right in first cuz that's just what you do

And so on, just adjust the words for actions and keep alternating between the verse and Three cheers chorus. Pay a bard to write it and a couple to preform it in another part of the land, wait a few months and see if it memes over to where you are.

Ouch! I can understand why that ruling was made, then. But I think that I would allow it in space for habitat construction purposes only.

That ruling comes from 2nd edition letters to Dragon. But my understanding was that you can't use them to cut things but can make bridges etc.

As for the demons, clearly you need a golem factory first. The campaign will be called "Secret Moon Wars." The sequal will be when the moon-golems break free of their master and invade the planet below.

For wall, I'm pretty sure it blocks gas attacks so it ought to be airtight.

For the atmosphere, may have to admixture a decanter of endless water or trap an air elemental somewhere.

Also, on the first day you need a fly or levitate spell so you don't fall before you create the floor.

I'm working on something similar and yeah, i'll be dippin like they're giving away chaw. A bit of gunslinger here (nimble and Sam Spade has a pistol), a bit of monk, maybe duelist and then off to sleepless detective.

That said, rogue isn't quite worth going to 20 anyway but a lot of the talents are pretty nice

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As for writing a letter, it's a waste of time. As long as the paladin is un-fallen the church won't care what he does to who. I mean paladins do have the approval of their god flowing through them. If that's there, I can't imagine some church official mouthing off to them.

All right. This is not a paladin alignment thread: you just want to know how you, as a fellow player, should react to the paladin's actions.

My advice - given your alignment and class - is to use the gambit TVTropes refers to as "Your Approval Fills Me With Shame." Congratulate the paladin often on having the foresight to murder a bunch of helpless people. Be sure to mention that even you - a trained killer with no pretensions toward lawfulness or benevolence - thought that was "ruthless" and "pragmatic." If any situations come up where information the prisoners could have told you would have been useful, say, "I sure wish you'd allowed me to torture information out of those prisoners before you had them smashed to death." Mind you, a little of this goes a long way. If he loses his paladin powers, be sympathetic and supportive.

Hire a bard to write a funny song about the brave paladin who sent a minion to kill weakened prisoners, pay him enough to get it to include implications of cowardice, cruelty and stupidity?

Except if you move beyond random definitions for the word and see the usage, it says "into" which is not "on top of."

Most talk about environments supporting things has to do with available food and such. For example, a kiddie pool, even full of sea water cannot support an orca. "Falling" is not a specific environment, the surroundings are. So as we are looking at a horribly technical reading of the spell, while an orca cannot be summoned on Venus (the air is acid, and too hot, and it sucks, environment cannot support it) it can be summoned a mile up because it will not start dying due to a hostile atmosphere.

Even taking the second definition, in space the orca cannot withstand the pressure and cannot be summoned but a mile above ground it's doing okay, until it lands on something, then it isn't. But that's not the environment.

To stay on topic:
Air Bubble is pretty awesome once you have a few levels to give you enough time to move around. It provides a place to hide, or to stash things in a mildly heavy box.

Journ-O-LST-3 wrote:

Fromper wrote:

Doesn't work. From the Summon Monster spell description in the Core Rulebook:

Quote:

Creatures cannot be summoned into an environment that cannot support them.

It was not summoned underwater or in space so the environment can infact support it. Similarly, orcas are air breathers. You need to enforce the on a surface/in water to keep PCs from raining animals on their enemies.

If the summoned critter fell, then its weight obviously wasn't supported. See also: dictionary.com.

to sustain (a person, the mind, spirits, courage, etc.) under trial or affliction: They supported him throughout his ordeal.

That does clear it up. Clearly being summoned from wherever would be stressful for a creature, without someone around to make handle animal checks to calm it, the spell cannot be cast? Is that why you pointed me at a dictionary? To educate me on making sure that an environment could sustain the a summon through the ordeal of being called to another place?

Create water. Need an oncoming canoe to sink? Need to put out that signal fire? Need to see how deep a hole is? Need to not die in the desert? Need to distract someone? Need to make the ground slippery before an ambush? Need to flood an underground room (takes time but so worth it)? And that's just off the top of my head.

Doesn't work. From the Summon Monster spell description in the Core Rulebook:

Quote:

Creatures cannot be summoned into an environment that cannot support them.

It was not summoned underwater or in space so the environment can infact support it. Similarly, orcas are air breathers. You need to enforce the on a surface/in water to keep PCs from raining animals on their enemies.

Also, on monsters, Imma call bs on dolphin stats, they have way more CHA than 6.

Sure. Though in air you'd have wind trying to move the station around, also you'd be pretty vulnerable to dragons and other jerks who can fly.

As for the anti-magic shell, you'd lose one to four wall sections depending where it was dropped. Then you'd lose atmosphere and people who got sucked out would do so through an anti-magic shell.

As for the rod, even if it's not holding reletive to the planet/moon, it can be reletive to the sun as long as it's in the solar system. Every 4000ish miles up weight goes down by 75% or so, so at 8,000 miles it's under a pound. However, as long as you're within distance of the moon which is a bit over 200,000 miles things orbit, so you're still within distance for quite a bit.

It'd be a bit easier as a moon base.

Don't see an edit button anymore, I made a mistake there, the 22,000ish miles is for geosynchronous orbit, again you likely would not know this. Unless you get your hands on some kind of divination spell (Contact outer plane comes to mind) and start asking about the best places to go. The five lagrange points would be similarly hard to find but doable.

So I can go with an Elder Thing created slave race uplifted by Yithians to trap the Polyps in the dormant part of their life cycle for humans?

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I've been noodling around with space station construction for an antagonist in a future game, this looks like a place to dump it.

Items needed:
Necklace of Adaptation
Immovable Rod
Bottle of Air
Seven s~$+-tons of diamond dust

Spells needed:
Greater Teleport (eventually Teleport Gate)
Wall of Force
Permanency

Optional:
Wall of Stone, Stone Shape

Step one, teleport a few thousand miles up (22,000ish gets you to the Lagrange point but you likely don't know about that).

Place Rod and activate.
Anchor a Wall of Force to the Rod, you now have the beginning of a floor.
Permanency that wall.
Teleport home or just hang out until you get your spells back.
Keep adding Walls of force until you have all six sides sealed.
Toss in the bottle of air to make an atmosphere.
If size permits, use wall of stone to build the interior structures.
If you do that, grab a bunch more Rods to support the weight (8,000lbs/rod)
Space Station is online.

Now build another room with an open floor and a weak Reverse Gravity.
Use this room to open gates to the plane of Earth and grab huge chunks of rock to rain on your foes/the people who laughed at you.

Mount: It can create cover, distractions, trap detectors, something to block doorways and I guess a way of traveling too.

About this, I have a question. I'm going to run the

game next Saturday. It's a game and stuff, it has three acts, and most everything looks fine. But, the final encounter? The dude has two lightning bolts each at 6d6 and this is a 1st level game? I only have three-four players and I just don't see how they're going to live. This isn't even clever or anything. They're going to enter the encounter and two of them die. It'd that simple. Is this as intended?

I'm in a Jade Regent game and noodling around with backup ideas for when I die.

I'm not too worried about optimized since right now I'm playing "The worst cleric evar," and just obliterated an entire encounter more or less on my own.

So, here are my ideas:
Col. Psmith: A Cheliaxian (the GM said they were the most British) who after spending his time putting the colonial boot to the face of Mwangi is now hunting big game up north. I'm thinking some kind of gunslinger/??? combo, ranger is out because nature exists to be tammed, turned into useful land or shot at, also the GM said I can't take "foreigner, native, tribal or lower class" as favored enemies.

Grunghvor: a half-orc barbarian/alchemist who practices "Traditional Orcish Medicine." TOM does not work but costs a lot of money and involves the genitals, spleens etc of rare animals ground into powder etc. This is hilarious if you've lived in China. He's pretty easy to stat because he came into being when the GM told me the Warlord class from the d20pfsrd was overpowered and I should make a nice balanced thing from the main books. That said, for 6-9 level, what's the best class combo to get the most numbers?

Ren Hori: This is the hardest, ment to be the last if I can, I'm thinking of her as a hard boiled detective type, I'm thinking 2-3 levels of gunslinger and a few levels of Monk then moving to Sleepless Detective. The monk manifests as a zen like detached cynicism and brawling, while the gunslinger brings in dogged determination and the SD brings out the ability to solve crimes like Sam Spade. Is this at all possible? She's for the later parts (since I think I make it to Tian on three characters) so she'll have a few more levels to toss around, I was going to add rogue in but SD does most of what they do for what I want.

I think it's mostly Ren who's a puzzle to build but Psmith is proving a bit odd as well.

From what I recall, most urban combat entry is done through "any place that isn't a door," so it's not much of a surprise that the PCs are bringing their modern understanding of tactics to the game.

If the NPCs catch wind of it they may want to adjust their formations.

This is the same group that did an full on Wuxia battle with a sniper and assassin across roof tops because they can either fly, or jump 30+ feet every turn.

That's pretty awesome.

They tried once but PunPun and the league of min-maxed optimizers stopped them so dead in their tracks that all outsiders promised to never again threaten the material.

Or yeah, Yog-Sothoth, the Gate and the Key, won't let them move that much.

Or they don't want Azothoth's notice, or they don't want Hastur to infect their homes with his entropy and madness, Hell would be especially bummed about heat death.

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How much do you want to play Call of Cthulhu? How closely do you want to stick to the themes and such of that circle?

How much nihilism do you want?

If you're going off the old books, Azathoth is the swirling nuclear chaos in the center of the universe, should he awaken he will end existance, compress everything and restart the universe with a big bang event as the best case scenario.

On the other hand, Pathfinder is not about that, it's about big damn heroes who don't make SAN checks and live in a universe that kind of loves them.

Then again, the furry toad mostly just pretends to sleep and ignores people if they go away.

If you use the Delta Green stuff about Hastur, he's not even a thing but Entropy itself with a love of madness.

They could indeed be "protecting" the material simply by existing, as no one wants to bring active entropy back to their home much less any of the other Old Ones.

To kinda suppor this, a Star Spawn of Cthulhu is CR 20, the book says that Cthulhu is to them as they are to commoners (CR 400?) and he is but a preist of the Outer Gods.

Yeah, don't use the word Necromancer when you talk. Get the party face to help out, explain that you're a small helpless town and you need extra bodies to work the fields/man the towers etc. Spend some time using the undead as miners who don't need to sleep.

Use them the way we use automation now if you can get some time to test them out until the locals get used to having mindless worker robots.

Use that to get bonuses on making them like you.

Rogue, gunslinger and fighter seem to exist for dips rather than full on play.

A lot of the classes from later books get ignored more than anything else.

I'll see your mecha and raise you infantry power suits and cybernetic replacement limbs and eyes.

I'll see all of those and kill them with cheap un-manned drones.

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Fun Fact: Faerun didn't have the cultural complexity that Golarion does.

Fun Fact Part Two: Did you know that the Eastern Chinese/Japanese types in Faerun were VERY much separated from the rest of Faerun, UNLIKE Golarion?

Faerun the pseudo-medieval Europe? Or the whole planet? Or the setting where random settings got dumped because novels were big at the time? Because I'll hold Al-Qadim up above any non-Eberron setting produced since for a well presented culture integrated into the rules and setting.

On the other hand, after a bunch of years of D&D I'll go ahead and say that the setting debate does little for me. Because, I've had enough of the bog-standard settings, be they Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms* or all the other kinda-sorta-medieval-Europe-except-the-parts-we-don't-want-to-deal-with-and -with-some-stuff-from-other-places-and-times-but-because-ninjas-are-cool.

I'm not really sure what your second fact has to do with anything else with the whole Forgotten Realms being a huge mess from too many sources yet somehow not connected. With the people connecting to gods all the time and having high level wizards building their lairs on other planets yet somehow no one has heard of this island a few hundred miles away.

*I'd play the hell out of Al-Qadim, The Horde or Mazteka, I'm just done with the same bog being slapped around.

Paizo will do no such thing. The last thing they ever would want to do would be move away from the 3x rule fans and let someone else slip into the OGL space and scoop up customers.

If we were going to see any different edition type things it'd maybe be a slimmed down version of the game, some kind of Beginners Box delux or a new game world in ten years.

But as long as people like 3x PF won't change and they should not.

If they timed it with D&D Next, they would run the risk of switching places with Hasbro. Right now Hasbro and Paizo are dueling to be recognized as the "natural successor to D&D."

This right here is meaningless marketing gibberish.

Yeah, but to an extent I'm not interested in balance or numbers as much as can a new and different society be created.

The honored dead:

A society that makes use of animate dead and speak with dead, their founders still weigh in on issues, years after their deaths they are steering policy.

Most unskilled/dangerous/boring labor is done by zombie, the dead till the fields, mine for ore, carry goods for shoppers skeletons trudge unsecure mail between towns. Most militias have 20-40 undead available as extra bodies.

Burials are unheard of as each death is a new resource. Other resources, food, simple clothing and simple shelter are pretty easy to come by.

The dead leaders lead to a stagnant society with an un-needed but un-desporate underclass. The society buldges a bit as the merchant/artisan class becomes more and more able to provide comforts for themselves as well as serving as magical resources with their access to spell casting.

Family becomes more important both because of sorcer bloodlines and because they hold on after death to become workers or servants adding to the ability of the family.

So I want to play idea sci-fi. In a Pathfinder setting let's make magic more common, every time someone gains a level they get a free "level" of sorcer/oracle (must choose one at creation) not the feats, skills, saves or hit points, just the spells and bloodline/mystery powers. Everyone, Bob who was orphaned by orcs, willie the wizard, bob the shopkeeper, bob the farmer, king bob, every class.

The premise is that in this new world, everyone has some spells. Let's say all smart races on the prime plane (screw outsiders). Throw in a few rules that make item creation a bit easier or less money consuming.

Now you have a world where decanters of endless water feed desert cities, the stone masons use stone shape, wall of stone and dig spells to build cities in weeks, teleportation is treated like an airplane, outsiders with the greater teleport power are summoned to deliver packages across the world...

So what kind of civilizations would exist here? What kind of systems would they use? How does a magic industrial revolution effect the world?

Stone Shape, Wall of stone, the various digging/excavating spells all allow for rapid construction.

Create water (even if only for a day) means an end to sanitation problems if put with the right infrastructure.

Speak with dead makes a lot of crime investigation easier.

Animate dead makes free workers.

Shrink item makes shipping dead easy.

The bringing back to life ones are pretty game changing though they won't de-age people.

Simulacrum is a pretty easy way to build a factory of wizards.

Comprehend language and its' ilk make communication possible and easy in a way that the world hasn't seen. Same with sending and other message spells.

Have to look at fabricate again, but it'd be one hell of an industrial revolution.

Brand identity piled on the OGL combined with inerta, good advertising support and good luck with PFS.

Merchandising!

Pathfinder the flamethrower.

LN seems right you can also do LE pretty easy with them. Though, if you want something truly SM like you'd have to be some huge level with rediculous magic armor/gun/chainsword as well as keeping them in alchemical enhancments, having secondairy organs represented by resistance to critical hits...

Maybe make them a new race entirely, something min/maxed with templates (advanced x3, always drunk changed fluff wise to jacked up on drugs, etc.)

Metagaming is such a buzzword...

When you have a pseudodragon using their telepathy to provide poor-man's TacNet, metagaming is the new norm.

16,000 pound iron ingot heated red/white hot, shrink item, bluff "let me feed you this healing potion." Command word to re size the iron, dragon goes pop?

It's true, Bugbears murder children from the prettier PC races and use their blood and bones to make bread for Bugbear holidays.

The thing is that Abadar is China, he's for harmony/civilization/not rocking the boat. We can all expand stability and it'll be good.

He's the judge in upholding law, not protecting the weak from the strong and predatory.

Meh, depends on how Bugbears are in the setting. Otherwise let the players work it out together both in and out of character.

On the broader issue, how do you do morality? How important is allignment? How "real" are monsters or are they just bundles of hp wrapping the sweet sweet xp that comes from murder?

Bugbears killed some of his family at one time.

It's easier to make a list of monsters that haven't killed a PC's family isn't it?

He can also be crazy, the two weapons he's got? Looted from a battlefield. Both are low grade egos mostly interested in killing their chosen target more than anything else, so like Deadpool he's always got someone in his head telling him to kill about half of what he sees.

In this case he may just be a poor chump who picked the wrong place to loot but now found some new power ("I've got TWO magic swords, woooooo.")

Or he could be from some sect of druid that sees Outsiders as a threat to the natural order.

What is "Fair?"

Do you want Cesar Chavez or Ayn Rand because you can make both out of this idea.

You might also just create a new school of Liberation Theology if you want to go all wobbly.

You could also make an inquisitor and be a LN traveling judge type, mix it with some gunslinger (sawed off shotgun, in ye olde days called a "judge").

Is a fair wage enough to live on, as little as can be paid in a competitive market or some random number decided on by gov't/church/the PC?

A lot of this also depends on how your DM has the world set up, you have slavery and serfdom as the primary things someone like this would likely be going after but depending on how the DM runs the world there is more or less of that.

Also what is the character's view on replacing unskilled labor with zombies?

Also in re charity: Wow, even objectivists don't have a problem with the idea of charity. That's some pretty grim jumps in unplesant logic.

I forget the name but back in the 20s there was a (played out?) salt mine used as a prison, every day guards would come in, throw (not enough) food on the floor and check for signs of people trying to dig escape. If signs were found all within the gallery were killed. Each day, three people were brought up to work the bellows to keep everyone from dying. If you were there and suposed to be let out, the guards would call your name three times over three days and if you didn't answer they assumed you dead.

But, with a bit of Ston Shape and a Teleport Circle and a Bottle of Air, you can build your place a mile or so down with earth blocking all access. You can use a Decanter of Endless Water to keep them hydrated and as a quick kill-em-all if they get out of hand.

If you want to go crazy, using Immobile Rods to anchor walls of force with another Bottle of Air in geosynchronous orbit with a Teleport Circle again.

Or just find some monster with an at will use of some kind of control power and hire one?