Set's page

EHP = Evil High Priest (what grognards called 'big bads' before Joss Whedon came along)

Thanks Izumi. Always a comfort to see Stealth rolls worse than mine. :)

I don't them smart enough to strategize though. Even an animal can learn when it is doing something wrong.

I do want them to be evil however. Maybe an innate desire to kill and destroy, which I think is the basic explanation we have now will have to do.

In my personal fanon, negative energy is not like 'the other white meat.' It's actually a *void* of energy. It can never create. It can only destroy. It can't make life, or power a machine, or create energy.

Any form of 'life' powered by negative energy will require an external power source, as unlife will be incapable of sustaining itself. An undead creature will not heal overnight, will not recover lost hit points, etc. (barring some special power that allows it to do so), as it's positive energy fueled biology has been replaced by a fragile negative energy conduit that requires constant feeding.

Ghouls and vampires keep themselves going in the same way humans do, by munching on other living creatures and sucking the juicy life out of them. (Living creatures also need actual nutrients, but, to a ghoul, the dregs of positive energy lingering in a bone that's been in a tomb for centuries at least give it a *taste* of life, and can temporarily stem the gnawing hunger at the core of them, regardless of whether that bone would have any nutritional value to a living creature.) Less corporeal undead are fueled by stolen life-energy (whether that energy drain manifests in the hit point damage of a ghost's corrupting touch, the ability damage of a shadow's touch, or the energy drain of a wraith or specter's touch).

Exceptions exist. Mummies use powerful magic (often divine) and the formation of canopic jars, to provide them with a constant source of energy, and have no need to feed. Liches also use powerful magic (often arcane) and a phylactery to do the same thing. Both more or less are *creating permanant magic items* to sustain their unnatural 'metabolism' and allow them the need to feed.

That leaves us with those pesky skeletons and zombies. The easiest 'fix' to bring them into line with this paradigm would be to make the animate dead spell temporary (and perhaps lower level). The arcane (or divine) energy sustains the skeleton or zombie, and when it runs out, they fall over, because negative energy is *not* free endless mechanical energy, it's a hungry void that needs filling, and with no filling, a zombie hydra is as useful as a SUV in a world with no fossil fuels. Option 2 would be to create 'hungry dead,' skeletons or zombies that can maintain their own unstable 'metabolism' by killing living creatures. The zombies might even bite and 'eat' their prey, although they would lose interest and stumble away after the prey is dead for a couple of rounds, as the meat isn't important to sustaining them as the killing (which is why so many corpses are lying around in zombie apocalypse movies, and why they never eat each other. Mere meat isn't what keeps their engine running...).

D&D tropes often have undead being found in tombs that have been sealed for centuries, and this wouldn't work as well in a system where negative energy based undead needed constant feeding, to stave off entropy and 'death.' And so, some sort of rule would need to be introduced to allow any kind of undead to fall into a state of hibernation. Dimly aware of the passing of aeons, the skeletons lie in a heap on the floor. When living explorers enter the tomb, they spring to 'life' and attack, desperate for the life-energy that will allow them to continue existing perhaps for more aeons, until the next explorers come... As their rusty scimitars cleave into the flesh of the tomb raiders, the blood flies in arcs, and when it strikes their browned bones, it seeps in, giving them sustenance, and allowing them to continue to exist.

Ideally, there would be guidelines as to what sort of 'life' is 'good enough.' If a vampire can just subsist off of the blood of his dairy of milk cows, he's less 'inherently evil' than I am for eating bacon, which can't be made without killing animals. If a shadow can kill cattle ready for slaughter at the abattoir or a ghoul can gnaw on butcher's bones for it's sustenance, they suddenly aren't any more scary or monstrous than a Scotsman eating haggis.

Plants should provide little or no nourishment to any form of undead. Since non-monstrous plants generally lack ability scores or hit dice or hit points or 'character levels' or any of the things that most undead inflict as damage with their negative energy attacks, that actually kind of works.

To keep undead feeding evil and nasty, feeding off of animals should be much less 'nutritious' to undead than feeding off of their own kind. Some sort of 'undead food pyramid' would be useful, starting with 'my own race' at the top of the tasty, going on to creatures with 'powerful blood' (dragons, outsiders, etc.), maybe including apex predators (who themselves kill and devour other creatures to survice), with herbivores being the thinnest of thin gruel, so that a vampire 'farmer' might have to spend hours each night drinking many gallons of cow's blood, in an attempt to get the same sort of nourishment from a few points of grade A human.

And so, Geb, as described, with larders filled with humans, instead of cattle, pigs, sheep, goats, camels and chickens, would 'work,' conceptually, because chicken blood (or meat) is barely a drop in the bucket to the 'nutritional' needs of a vampire or ghoul. Desperate ghouls will, as a matter of course, kill and gnaw upon animals *anyway*, because they are just that hungry, but for a *real* meal, it's long pig, all the way.

Under this paradigm, negative energy spells wouldn't 'put negative energy in you,' such much as 'drain positive energy out of you.' It's not AC/DC, it's not matter / anti-matter, it's the difference between the spigot (positive energy) and the drain (negative energy). It never gives anything, it always takes, and takes and takes. The damage doesn't come from an injection of something that hates you and burns you away like acid from within ('cause that would be, *acid*, now wouldn't it, or at least poison??), it comes from a suction pump being placed against you and drawing your life-energy away into the endless void.

By making some relatively minor tweaks to the mechanics, the *flavor* of negative energy and evil undead can be maintained, and no longer be in conflict with the mechanics.

(Geb for instance, makes little sense when, mechanically, there's no reason at all they can't live off of chickens and goats, which, per pound, are the most efficient sources of protein (even more so if you don't kill them, just 'milk' them for blood). Humans are *totally* inefficient, and take ridiculously long times to grow meat on, compared to even such an inefficient animal as a pig or cow. A nation that raises humans to eat *and doesn't have to* is as absurd a concept as the machines in the Matrix using people as batteries.)

It's kind of easy to marry the flavor to the mechanics, or vice versa.

It's only strange how rarely that is even attempted, and so we end up with a race of goblins that are potentially as smart and wise as any human, even Einstein or Gandhi, who have a chart of random suicidal things they might do in any given round, because they apparently lack the smarts God gave a termite. We have *mindless* things that are capable of attempting skill checks, capable of using weapons, capable of wearing armor, capable of telling the difference between a living person and a statue, capable of following instructions, capable of understanding language, capable of *hating someone,* capable of malevolence (and yet, paradoxically, incapable of benevolence, orderliness or individualism...), etc. We have feats and class abilities and racial abilities that allow people to train bugs, because, for some lame reason, they don't have an Int score. We have exceptions out the yin-yang for how to deal with a creature that hasn't got a Con score, despite the Con score being an abstraction that can perfectly well describe how easy it is to gum up the systems of *my car.*

And these threads continue to proliferate. People argue vehemently to continue watering down and making irrelevant the alignment system, by allowing alignment to apply to mindless things, thus making the entire point of alignment, choices, and consequences, and responsibility for one's actions, utterly meaningless. Rocks can be evil. Flowers can be good. Up is down, green is red, poison is candy.

What's the point of even having an alignment system if it's most dogged defenders *want it to be meaningless?*

What's the difference between someone saying 'I don't use alignments' and someone saying 'Paladins should be able to kill baby sentient humanoids that might grow up to be evil and get away with it because it's too boring to have to deal with them otherwise, and mindless things should be evil, and therefore okay to kill, because they just are?'

TL;DR - Like many things in life, the d20 system is pretty flexible, and has some 'give' built into it. If something doesn't fit on the first try, and whomever you are playing with doesn't object, push harder and make it fit.

New Shazam

Not sold on the design. I prefer the 'big red cheese' look. Also makes me wonder what it means for Black Adam and other characters.

One side-effect of making the heroes like Superman and Shazam 'darker and edgier' is that their already dark and edgy counterparts, like Bizarro and Black Adam, have to become baby-eating freakshows, to keep up with the constant lowering of the bar.

It's like a never ending race to see who can out-Clive-Barker each other, and the winner gets cancelled anyway.

Or maybe I'm just still suffering the backlash from the Earth-2 announcements, which are all about Lois being killed and all the Amazons being killed, because the writers want to explore how far they can push Superman or Wonder Woman before they become gritty kill-em-all vigilantes or whatever.

And I'm a total hypocrite. While I don't want to see Superman, etc. all 'dirtied up,' I'd pay good money for a comic set on Earth 3, where the heroic 'Rogues' are fighting an desperate losing underground resistance against the 'evil JLA' Crime Syndicate.

For example, the China analogue is also heavily influenced by Ancient Egyptian themes, so there will be lots of animal-headed dieties and folk there.

Ooh, that sounds fun!

For a weird mash-up, it would be interesting if the Rakshasa started out as divine emissaries of the gods, sent to shepard mortal followers of the gods as priest-kings, but growing increasingly corrupted by their elite status as 'speakers of the gods,' abusing their authority, taking advantage of the human 'lessers,' and, worst of all, twisting the teachings of the gods they were sent to represent, and being cast out and denounced, only to turn against the gods and become their worst enemies, deliberately corrupting the faiths of the gods that 'betrayed' them from within, using shapeshifting, guile, illusion, debauchery, enchantment and drugs.

The various animal-headed races (gnolls, minotaurs, lizardfolk, tengu, etc.) would be the many-generations removed descendents of mortals who had been part of the Rakshasa god-kings harems. In many places, they would have to deal with the ill reputation that comes from their blood, related to the 'betrayers of the gods.'

And so, the fantasy version of ancient Egypt had 'animal-headed god-kings' who were servants of the divine, in the day, until that all went to pot...

It takes great liberties with Egyptian and Indian lore, but hey, it's a fantasy world with Osirion and Vudra in place of Egypt and India, and where Rakshasa are very real LE shapechangers, so whaddareyagonnado?

I like to think up a character that *I* want to play, and having stats that shoehorn me into a different role starts the game off on the wrong foot for me.

My first (and only) Call of Cthulhu game went that way. I wanted to play a bookish nerd like the typical character from a Lovecraft novel, and I rolled a very strong guy who could barely tie his own shoelaces.

Yeah. Cause being able to *punch stuff really hard* is gonna help in a Call of Cthulhu game. You go into the game expecting to die, but being the beefy moron who fails his first San check and flees before ever getting to take an action is friggin' lame.

I'm sure Call of Cthulhu *can* be a fun game, but being forced to roll random stats ruined it (not just for me, but everyone else at the table as well), and I never went back.

We did have a house rule, back in the day, that if I rolled a character who didn't have a Str 9+, Dex 9+, Int 9+ or Wis 9+, and therefore didn't qualify to be *any* character class from the 1st edition Player's Handbook, I was allowed to reroll. And yes, that rule was invented because I rolled that very thing. Twice! Gosh. So generous. Hold my tea, I feel faint.

I'm not adverse to low-power games. I've played and enjoyed GURPS games with 25 CP characters (a game where a heroic fantasy character was 100 CP in 2nd and 3rd edition, and has bloated to a completely uncalled-for 150 CP in 4th edition, I've heard), games like We Be Goblins or Reverse Dungeon where the 'party' aren't quite ready for prime-time-players, or a 10 or 15 point buy game standard game.

But if my character is 10 pt buy, and someone else's randomly generated character is, I'm not exagerrating, *44* point buy, I'm outta there, and I'm taking my soda and pizza with me. That's not 'fun' for me, that's horsecrap.

There's too many books I haven't read, too many rivers I've yet to kayak, too much stuff in my head that I haven't written down, too many trails I've yet to hike, too many MMO characters I haven't played, too many places I haven't been and *entirely* too much stuff in my Netflix and Hulu queues for me to hang around what is guaranteed to be a frustrating gaming experience.

Great work with the sun metal blade, taking care of those trolls so we don't have to fight them again, Janku!

1d3 ⇒ 2
1d3 ⇒ 1
1d3 ⇒ 1

Just testing if it was indeed possible to roll higher than a 1. :)

I'd kill for a feat that allowed me to medianize my spells random effects for a +0 metamagic cost adjustment, so that I'd be guaranteed to roll *average.*

Still, that single eagle did roll really well, so my luck isn't all bad!

For a non-Golarion centric gnoll population, I think I'd still keep the vast majority of them smelly lazy carrion-eaters with little in the way of culture or personal hygiene, but also have a much, much rarer sub-breed of gnoll that built a great civilization in some place that's now an abandoned desert. They'd look more like jackal-men (or my avatar) and have founded an Egyptian-esque culture that rose and fell ages before mankind settled nearby, leaving behind only the savage 'gnolls' of today, who casually defile the remaining ruins in their territories, either clueless or, worse, uncaring, that the jackal-headed statues that they idly deface were built by their much more advanced and civilized ancestors.

Even on Golarion, that sort of thing could be retconned in. Even though Golarion's Osirion isn't replete with animal-headed gods, they still seem to have animal-headed statuary in the artwork from time to time, leaving wiggle room to sneak in a race of erudite civilized dog-headed people in antiquity that only the controversial of scholars would associate with the degenerate race of gnolls today...

It would throw the gnolls creation stories out of whack, but if they existed *before* Lamashtu ascended to godhood, and are only a pale dissipated mongrel shadow of the race they were before she took hold of their culture, that could be a funky twist, for the 'Mother' to be more of the 'evil step-mother' to the gnolls, who have had every shred of knowledge of their original faith, to Curchanos, beaten out of them over millenia.

Set, I like it, I realize it's not going to be an immediate thing, Joining the Freedom League, but it is to happen by the 3rd issue or so, The League has an "18+" policy.

18 is fine (heck, early 20s is fine, she could easily be a college graduate), her original concept was as someone who initially got rejected from the big leagues because she lacked the experience and skill to back up her power. She'll have been a 'teen hero' perhaps, for a year or two, and be in the process of gaining that experience and skill. (Which will help to justify the raft of skills and feats she's got, a couple years on the crimefighting beat as a solo hero!)

She was designed as a Freedom Legion riff on the Legion of Substitute Heroes, all the way to having her use the powers of a Legion reject (Ron-Karr, able to fold himself paper thin).

Thanks guys. Rebuilding from the energy controller is something I looked at and may review again. I like the sustained protection idea for the armor too--I definitely want it to be something she would turn on and off, not really is physical armor, just something when activated appears like armor (would also conceal her identity, so there's some thought of packaging it all under some kind of alternate form, but I don't think that's necessary).

Alternate Form might be a neat way to package it.

Alternate Form (warrior angel) 10 (Protection 10 (incorruptible flesh, Roman-looking golden 'armor'), Flight 5 (three pairs of wings, those of an eagle, an owl and a mourning dove), Blast 10 (holy fire, AP: Strike 10 (fiery sword, AP: Heal 5), 8 pp worth of other stuff)

Perhaps immunity (life support), and a few less points of Flight, or something.

I liked the connection with the ghouls, in previous editions, and even that fugly Shoosuva monster from ages ago in the Dragon magazine.

But that's not really a Golarion thing, so now I'm thinking of them in a more Lamashtu-centric light, which makes my own preference for 'hyena-ing them up' and making them matriarchal, even easier to rationalize.

I see males routes to power including barbarian, ranger (hyena tamer or hyaenodon rider) and, rarely, sorcerer. Females always outrank males (although the lowest ranking females have to settle for the lowest ranking males, as bullying around the males who have been 'claimed' by the females that outrank them could lead to the male complaining to his mistress and get the low-rank female in trouble...). Females *can* assume roles like ranger and sorcerer and witch, and, almost unheard of, barbarian, but the highest ranking ones are going to be clerics or druids of Lamashtu, with the occasional oracle or adept.

For all that they are a treacherous, cruel and vicious race, living lives of casual abuse at each other's hands, with an 'only the strongest *deserve* to survive' ethic, gnolls are very much 'pack' creatures, and a male that forgets his place or offends (or just badly disappoints) his mistress can be kicked to the curb, and, if not 'claimed' by a lower-ranking female, will end up in exile, abandoned by the pack. If even the lowest-ranking female doesn't want to (or has been forbidden to...) claim this 'damaged goods,' no male in the pack will speak to him or even meet his gaze, for fear of displeasing their own mistresses. Gnolls might kill each other in the heat of moment, but consider the worst punishment for another gnoll to be exile, with the abandoned gnoll wandering off into the wilderness, presumably, to die. (Enslaving another gnoll, for any offense, is considered an abomination.)

Gnolls commonly domesticate hyenas, and, when they are fortunate enough to share territory with them, hyaenodons. More rarely, great desert vultures are domesticated as well. While most gnolls hold pugwampi in contempt, some rare leaders keep captives in wicker cages and carry them around as 'good luck charms,' with even rarer spellcasters having found other ways to bind them into service.

While technically omnivorous, gnolls hold the eating of plant matter in contempt, and herbivorous creatures are fit only to be eaten. Gnolls almost never domesticate horses or camels, and upon raiding a caravan will often eat the pack beasts first (unless ordered to bring some back alive, for later sacrifice and feasting at their lair), and then force the surviving travellers to carry anything they want to take with them.

The influence of Lamashtu has led to gnolls regarding fertility as a sacred thing. A female that has not born cubs will never have any special status, and a female that has proven incapable of bearing young will be 're-assigned' to male status, and 'claimed' by another female (usually a relative) or abandoned as unlucky or accursed by the Mother of Monsters (if she lacks any relative willing to claim her, the 'accursed' status being more of an excuse than anything else).

Madness is tolerated, to a point, and called a holy thing and a sign of a blessing by the Mother. That holds true so long as the madness is not terribly inconvenient to the rest of the pack. A male that exhibits signs of madness will be regarded as a potential source of information, but if his babbling isn't accompanied by something the female leadership deems useful, he'll generally have some sort of 'accident' that the entire pack will tacitly know was red-handed murder of the 'weak' one. A female will get more leeway, and it isn't unheard of for a completely helpless and mad female to be tucked away out of sight in the quarters of one of the ranking females, called a 'seer,' even if her madness provides no insights.

Gnoll society is brutal and utterly dominated by the faith of Lamashtu. Females wish to become her 'handmaidens' in the afterlife, and every male is indoctrinated with the knowledge that those who serve her earthly manifestations (their mistresses, particularly those blessed with divine spellcasting abilities) well, will be chosen to mate with Lamashtu herself in the afterlife, to produce more gnollish souls, and be father to the next generation of earthly gnolls. The exact nature of this tale is unclear, but it is generally assumed that, in the process, the gnoll himself will be torn apart, and used to create the new souls, with the most powerful and respected males becoming more souls than those with lesser accomplishments, in a strange form of reincarnation.

The only gnolls who don't follow these beliefs are those who have grown up apart from gnollish society, or the 'death walkers' who have been exiled and are generally fatalistic, believing that they have been rejected from their faith and have no such afterlife awaiting them.

A 'death walker' could, in theory, find new purpose in life among other peoples, but is far, far more likely to succumb to despair and die alone in the wilderness, or face it's death at the hands of the many, many other races that have suffered at the hands of gnoll packs.

Random ideas;

A version of Kingmaker set in Numeria could be freakadelic. Kingslayer. The party can work with the Technic League, against the Black Sovereign, or with the Black Sovereign against the Technic League, or with foreign agents provacateur against both, or play all three against each other in their own bid to rule Numeria.

Osirion, definitely. Rise of the Fiend-Pharoah, perhaps (now a powerful devil, seeking to resume authority in Osirion from beyond the grave). In the climactic final chapter, the Risen Fiend-Pharoah attempts to animate the beetle Sothis as a beyond-colossal undead warbeast and destroy the capital in the process. Someone should stop him...

Some sort of border skirmish between Qadira and Taldor where each player plays *two* PCs, one Qadiran, one Taldan, and they each complete seperate missions, struggling to overcome the objectives of the other. The party with the most 'objective points' at the ends wins. Optional encounter at the end of the AP, the two parties can meet in mortal combat! It would never work, and exists solely as a sneaky way of making sure that both Taldor and Qadira finally get 64 page Chronicles treatments. :) [Swap Qadira for Cheliax and Taldor for Andoran, and the exact same 'border skirmish' scenario could work for the other two main Inner Sea nations who haven't gotten 64 page Chronicles books yet.]

Warmaker. It's Kingmaker, set in the Hold of Belkzen. All the PCs are orcs or races working under them (half orcs, goblins, etc.). Diplomacy will probably not be your main way of establishing your kingdom.

Alternately, We Be Goblins, the Adventure Path. By the end of the 'Adventure Path' (a single 96 page volume, divided into six fifteen page chapters, with some extra info in the back), the goblins who survive will be Epic Level Characters, by Goblin standards. (6th level)

Absalom Nights. Intrigue in the big city. Each PC must be a member of one of ten or so approved factions from the Faction Guide (Kalistocracy, Varisian Wanderer, Arcanamirium, Aspis Consortium, etc.), and will use Faction advancement rules, attempting to advance not just their skills and power, but also their faction's goals. Comes with obligatory dungeon crawl in one or more of the 'Seige Castles,' to recover useful information.

Mendevian Crusades. Start out small, protecting locals from overzealous crusaders, get noticed for nobility and selflessness and promoted to field patrols, and eventually rescue missions deep into demon-haunted lands, past the wardstones. Discover signs of sabotage on a wardstone, and discover that someone inside Mendev has deliberately tampered with that stone as part of a deal with a demonic patron! Root out the traitor within (who will turn out to have demonic powers, via willing possession!), while fighting off demons without!

Something, something Irrisen.

Something, something, big *** dragon at the end!

Starglyte wrote:

What ideas are you guys planning to take the place of the gods articles you put into the other APs?

More god articles.

Once we do all the core 20, we still have dozens and dozens of other deities and demigods to play with.

Hmm. Magnimar. Golemworks. Dare I hope? BRIGH!

Vegepygmies, sneaking into villages at night to infect the water supply and food crops and livestock with russet mold...

Chamidu, at the PF wiki

Shimye-Magalla might be an interesting option as well, as she's popular in the Mwangi, which is a popular dinosaur haunt.

There aren't a whole lot of gods that share interest in the Realms of the Mammoth Lords, Mediogalti Island and the Mwangi Expanse, which are the three places one is most likely to find giant prehistoric beasties...

Yeah, the foxy avatar is getting a lot of play here, isn't it? :)

Skull Attack sounds like a cool attack, which creature should have it?

Triceratops, Minotaurs, Rhinoceri. Pretty much anything that attacks you with it's skull.

Although an undead that is accompanied by the floating skulls of it's victims, which can also attack, could be cool...

Advanced Player's Guide. wrote:

Benefit: Pick a class when you gain this trait—your caster level in that class gains a +2 trait bonus as long as this bonus doesn’t increase your caster level higher than your current Hit Dice.

so as i read it you only benafit if you muticlass. or you get "hit dice" from some where else. ?right?

Correct.

A gnoll with a level of sorcerer could benefit from it, or a wizard that intends to take a level of fighter on the way to Eldritch Knight.

it'd be nice to actually get some hob-nobbing with hobgoblins so they could get some dialogue outside of death-screams.

Heh, nice wordplay.

My bugbear pirates will be buccaneyes, because they realized that, unlike ears, it's impossible to tell a left eye from a right eye, and they can get paid twice for each kill!

And really, who'se gonna argue with a bugbear pirate with a jar full of eyes, when it comes time to pay up?

Too soon for the 'dire corgies?' joke that shows up whenever I've seen dire corbies in game?

Here's the tweaked 20th century 150 pp version of Papercut, but she's only a first notion. I've got, literally, hundreds of supers ideas floating around that I'd like to play.

Papercut, the Folding Girl

I've read "Legacy of Fire," but would still be happy to play in it, if the opportunity came up -- but obviously not with most of the people here, who apparently view that as a moral failing and a capital crime of some kind, judging from some of the responses.

Same here. Both myself and several of my friends have run through Keep on the Borderlands three or four times, without meta-gaming ever being a problem.

We all have such different GMing styles (I change *everything*, for instance, just because I like rebuilding encounters), that it would probably be more dangerous to try to meta-game, anyway...

Favorite Deity: This one is super easy—Wee Jas.

Very cool! She's in my top three, with Heironeous and Trithereon!

I have wondered who sponcered most Paladins before Aroden went away.

Good point.

Torag is awfully dwarf-centric, at times, so while he seems a fine Paladin choice, a pre-Iomedan *human* order of Paladins seems less likely to have defaulted to him. Erastil is kind of rural, in focus, and, again, that doesn't exactly scream 'knightly orders.' (Although a more woodsy order, like Greyhawks 'Knights of the Hart' seem custom-made for Erastil, or, vice-versa...)

Then again, it's been clarified that Arazni was a *wizard* in life, and she seems to have had an order of knightly, possibly even Paladin-ly, followers, so who knows. A bunch of paladins serving a wizard demi-goddess would certainly be uncharacteristic, and therefore, intriguing!

There seems to have been a magic god or two banging around (like Lissala), perhaps before Nethys burst onto the scene, but it's not clear who rogue-ish types rallied around before Norgorber slunk out of the Starstone, all resplendent in his new godliness. Calistria, perhaps? Sivanah, like Lleira, ecliped by a 'Dark Sun?' Some other rogue-ish god(dess) who has since mysteriously gone silent, after being invited into a dark alley by the new god on the block?

I actually argued for Charisma to attach to Will saves back in the 3.0 playtest era... but it didn't stick, obviously.

Ooh, that's awesome!

I like the idea of allowing a feat or archetype or something to mix things up and allow someone to base their Reflex saves on Intelligence (anticipating and avoiding the brunt of a blast, for instance, through calculated action), their Will save on Charisma (force of personality overwhelming feeble attempts to assault your overly-developed sense of self / ego) or even their Fortitude save on Strength (not as intuitive as the other two, but one could rationalize it as 'bulling' through something through sheer physical power).

Back in the 3.0 beginnings, when 'Spell Power' was busting spell DCs through the roof, one of my GMs toyed with giving everyone a half-strength bonus to saves based on the secondary attributes listed above, so someone with a 16 Dex and a 14 Int would have an extra +1 (+2 Int mod, halved to +1) to his Reflex save over someone with a 16 Dex and a 13 Int (+1 Int mod, halved to +0).

Then WotC revised Spell Power and made it a non-issue, so we ditched it.

Theropod Cultist wrote:

Aside from Golarion, what is your favorite published campaign setting?

Greyhawk.

From Greyhawk, what's your favorite nation and who's your favorite god or goddess?

Sunndi and the Yeomanry seemed to have tons of adventure potential, given their locations and surroundings.

Good points there. The lighting bolt thing is supposed to be a single target attack. Making it a ranged touch attack makes sense.

I was thinking that by capping the spell at 5d6, it would allow the caster to intensify it in order to knock it up to 10d6 if he's willing to pay the enhancement cost. You do make a good point about the level when he'd be casting it.

The wording will definitely exclude the summoner from casting it on himself.

The lightning "rend" effect is really interesting. I was actually concerned with the original version not buffing enough damage for a 4th level spell.

A potential pro/con (depending on which side of the GM's screen one is on) of your 1d6+1/2 levels damage for the wing-buffets is that something with electricity resistance 5 is still going to take 1d6 damage for the average 10th level user, whereas an unmodified 1d6 is pretty much negated by that small amount of energy resistance. If you are concerned with the attacks potentially not contributing, definitely stick to the +1 damage / 2 levels idea.

By limiting it to just the wing-buffets, and not shooting for the moon and having all five-ish of the Eidolon's natural weapon attacks enhanced, the player has already done a fine job of limiting it. Wing-buffets, IIRC, are also secondary attacks, making them less likely to hit than claw or bite attacks, and only likely to be used during a full attack action.

If the spell combined with a potentially insane number of armed attacks from a 'Kali' Eidolon, or a bunch of primary claw attacks from a six or eight legged pounce monstrosity, I'd be wary of this, but by explicitly linking the additional lightning damage to a secondary attack, I'd be inclined to be generous.

Make sure to decide beforehand whether or not this will stack with Energy Attacks Evolution. I don't see why it wouldn't, but you may want to look at the numbers and decide whether or not this alters your view of how effective this is going to be.

I'm interested as well.

I've got a ton of builds available at my site for 2E, but I'd probably want to go with something like this one;

Papercut, the Folding Girl

That character was designed for a Freedom Legion far-future sort of game, so she'd need some flavor changes to work in modern-day Freedom City, and I'd add 12 pp worth of stuff involving Speed and Teleportation, to give her some movement abilities (since I prefer to have characters with a mix of offense, defense and self-transportation, at least, and not be the chump who shows up after the battle on his motorcycle). :)

Other notions, such as an old who alternate-forms into a dragon-man hybrid (strength, natural weapons, armor-like scales, winged flight, fire breath), could also be fun.

Heck, the Archetypes straight from the book are fun, speedster, psionic, gadgeteer, energy controller, etc. I played Knock-Off from the 1e book at a convention and he was a *blast.* Need a brick? Turn to stone or metal. Need a blaster / movement power? Turn to light or air.

It just makes no sense. Andoran is known for pirating against specifically Cheliax's slave ships, so while they might be a major part, it doesn't really work to have them completely absent.

I do kinda see Matt's point here. Occasionally, on these forums, somebody says I want to play an X who does Y, and their concept gets pooh-poohed with 'group Y does Y anyway, why not play one of them?' as if every single person who does Y has to be part of group Y (or worship god Y, like a recent post in the 'names for rum' thread that suggested that it would be inappropriate or uncharacteristic for an Inquisitor of Iomedae to have an interest in ales and beers, since, by some logic, *anyone* who has anything to do with booze *has* to be a Caydenite, and, by that same logic, before Cayden ascended, beer and ale apparently didn't exist, because non-Caydenites who drink or work as brewers are somehow suspect or 'wrong'...).

A group of Chelish disenfranchised ex-nobles, gathering up those dispossessed by Chelish racial intolerance (and history-editing) such as halflings, tieflings and elves, might make a fine secret faction that wouldn't necessarily have (or want) anything to do with Andoren rabble and their anti-monarchial views (since the Andorens aren't exactly big fans of restoring the *previous* Chelish aristocracy, as that goes against their 'common people' / equality thing).

Their goals, while using the same sorts of tools as the Andorens, would ultimately be at odds with Andoren equality and freedoms and whatnot. The ex-nobles wouldn't be anti-dictatorship and anti-oppression and anti-inequality, they'd be anti-someone-else-being-the-dictator and anti-them-no-longer-being-at-the-top-of-the-social-heirarchy...

That all said, it's entirely possible lower tiers of either organization would work well together. A Bellflower operative or Grey Fleet captain might not care in the short term that these agents have an agenda to restore an imperial Cheliax without quite so many Thrunites, so long as they can work with them to get some halflings out of the country or prevent some fresh shipments of slaves from bolstering the economy/power of the current Chelish ruling authority.

Politics makes strange bedfellows, as they say.

Were you thinking a line effect lightning bolt or a single-target ranged touch attack 'ray of lightning' effect?

Typically, an effect that added energy damage to natural attacks (such as the evolution that does this) would just add +1d6 damage of that energy type, but, as this effect isn't affecting all of the eidolon's natural attacks, the extra damage is probably fine. (Edit: Watch as I completely change my mind on this by the end of this post. 'Cause I'm nothing if not inconsistent!)

The 1d6/level, max 5d6 seems like a moot point, since he's got to be 10th level to cast a 4th level Summoner spell, and so will never be casting it at CL 1, 2, 3 or 4 anyway. Either set the damage at 5d6, or perhaps use some other metric, like 1d6/2 levels (still 5d6 at 10th level) and raise the cap to 10d6 at 20th level (which still still only be 33 hp, on average, with a Reflex save for half...).

If the ranged lightning attack is a single-target ray, I'd definitely bump it to the 1d6/2 levels (max 10d6 at 20th). And, given that the eidolon appears to be a flier, I'd totally shy away from making it a line attack anyway, since adjudicating who is or is not affected a line attack arcing down from a flying creature can be a pain in the butt.

If it is a ray attack, and not a line effect, it will require a ranged touch attack to hit, and, like scorching ray, make sense not to allow a Reflex save to halve damage (since it's already got it's point of failure up-front, with the attack roll, and the usual energy resistance / spell resistance problems at the backend).

As you've detailed it, it will add up to +2d6+10 electrical damage at 10th level to the Eidolon's full attack routine, which might be far more relevant than a ranged attack that does, at 10th level, an average of 17.5 pts of electrical damage. If anything might benefit from being tweaked downwards, it might be the wing-buffets. Dropping them to the effect of a shocking weapon enhancement (a flat +1d6 electrical) might be better, and then add something back at 15th level or so, allowing it to use the shocking burst enhancement instead.

Alternately, if you don't want to just flat-out use the shocking burst 'extra damage on a crit' mechanic, perhaps the creature's electrified wing-buffets have a multiplicative effect if both hit in a single round, adding +1d10 electrical damage to the second hit, sort of like a 'lightning rend' option.

Bear in mind that, at some point, the Summoner will be able to spend evolution points on himself and give himself wings, and, if the spell isn't worded to exclude that, be able to cast this spell on himself.

That may or may not be a problem for you, but it's best to think of whether or not you want that to happen before he gets to the level to surprise you with it.

Check the Foreword of Dungeon #141.

Oh wow, there it is, on page 8! Good catch donato!

I posted this in another thread where the OP was asking about how to handle a party with no healer, and liked it so much I wanted to run it by the sages over here on the homebrew forum to see what they think. I might use on of these in a future game to see how it goes...

• During combat, a character can take a "breather" for one round to recover a number of hit points equal to their character level. During this breather, they can't move at all, nor take any other actions, including free or immediate actions, and they are flat-footed.

I like this one best (Monte Cook used something similar in his Book of Experimental Might). I'd add the Con mod to the base number, to make it a little more 'buff' at 1st level, but otherwise go with that one.

Other options;

Alchemical healing salves. Not as good as the ones in the 3.0 Arms & Equipment Guide (which healed 2d4, IIRC, which seems a bit too much), but still an option.

Improved 'Treat Deadly Wounds' option for the Heal skill (only using 1 use of a Healing Kit, perhaps), and scaling upwards for higher and higher DC checks (hit points equal to twice character level at DC 40, for example, and add another multiplier for each additional +20 to the DC result).

Healing options for other classes, such as;

1) a feat or archetype option that allows a Monk's Wholeness of Body to be used more often, or on allies,

2) a feat or archetype option that allows a Ranger to recover hit points at an accelerated rate (or as if under a healer's care) if within a Favored Terrain (by taking advantage of healing herbs or whatever that he knows of in that terrain),

3) a rage power or above option that allows a Barbarian to gain fast healing while raging, or some temporary hit points while raging (creating a buffer before he takes 'real damage'),

4) an option for a Bard to have a song / performance that refreshes people and causes a certain number of hit points of damage to become nonlethal damage, or just a 'fast healing song' or something.

5) an option for a Rogue or Ranger to gain 'enhanced' use of Heal skill, the way Trapfinding gives him enhanced use of Disable Device / Perception, or Track gives him enhanced use of Survival. With a proper roll, he can use the improved 'Treat Deadly Wounds' options, or even make appropriately high DC checks to Treat Ability Damage.

I checked his homepage, etc. and for images of Demogorgon online (wow, some cool stuff), but I didn't see it. He's got a bunch of monster themed holiday cartoon stuff on the WotC site, but none involved Demogorgon, that I saw.

I'd suggest staying away from Andoran help just to avoid the stereotype. Make their backers be Taldan, or maybe even some deposed Chelish families looking to strike back at the current regime.

I like that even better. Evil being it's own worst enemy is a theme I like to play with, and some of the worst foes of the Thrice-Damned House of Thrune being the former nobles of 'old Cheliax' who they tried so hard to eradicate and edit out of the history books, makes for some tasty comeuppance.

In the end, Vecna's worst enemy was Kas, after all, and without Raistlin, Takhisis might have won. It's poetic justice when evil sows the seeds of it's own destruction.

HappyDaze wrote:

Maybe some dissatisfied tiefling pirates that hunt Chelish ships and harass their navy would be nice too.

That actually sounds pretty dang amazing. How about a group of Tieflings and Aasimar sort of Robin Hooding Cheliax?

That does rock. Oppressed tieflings and halflings, working with some humans, halflings and aasimar from Andoran, as part of an anti-slaver buccaneer fleet, could be totally funky.

Only Cheliax could create a sound in-game rationale for a bunch of tieflings and aasimar to work together against a common foe.

Then a mere 8 years ago you have the Night Terror incident, where a Chelish ship is found crewless and in pristine off the shores of Andoren after having been lost in the Eye of Abendego (i.e. a long and impossible distance). And while that isn't close (any more than the Isle of Kortos), is is still relatively in the same oceanic region.

Sounds like someone hitched a ride from the Eye of Abendago to Andoran. Given the kind of folk that live around the Eye of Abendago (and perhaps within and / or below it), that's creepy in itself.

Whoever they are, they are most likely in (or beneath?) Andoran now.

Weren't the eyes of a kraken an ingredient in the perpetration of a lich's phylactery (from the story of the original Foxglove, in the Skinsaw Murders? Not that all phylacteries aren't based off an original formula)..

Ooh, that's a neat connection!

James Jacobs has suggested that the process of becoming a lich might be different for each person, meaning that any 'recipe' someone is following, from the Foxglove Manor or not, is likely to end in a series of tragic failures, and the deaths of all the high level spellcasters involved...

That's actually a pretty cool way to kill a ton of high level evil spellcasters. Hand around a recipe for lichdom, and any of them who don't know that the same recipe never works twice could just croak themselves off.

OTOH, if this *is* a rare 'reliable' recipe for lichdom, the idea that there might be thirteen newly minted lichs running about, with some sort of unknown agenda of their own, is scary, too.

(Loved the old Dragon article on creating the lich potion, although I first read in in the Best of Dragon, with the cool artwork in the werewolf and vampire articles sort of telling the story of how the wizard gathered the components.)

Using it on familiars and animal companions brings up another question. Is an undead familiar or animal companion still considered so?

Back in 3.X, there were occasional PrC abilities or feats that allowed (or required!) one to have an undead familiar or whatever, so, based on that precedent, which I don't think has been carried over to Pathfinder, I'd think the original intent was for the familiar or companion of someone who didn't have one of those Feats or PrCs to stop being a familiar/companion upon conversion to something else (whether it be undead, or plant via yellow-musk-creeperfication or construct via half-golem-ing or raggomoffyn-possession or whatever).

That all aside, that's my interpretation of 'rules as intended.' 3.X Druids could only have 'normal unenhanced' animals, to prevent template-nabbing and whatever. Because Pathfinder Druid companions are mechanically divorced from 'normal' animals and have their own statistics and rules, that line may have been abandoned, which opens the door for, rules as written (or, in this case, unwritten), a druid to continue having a companion bond with a companion that has become a completely different creature type, such as undead or plant or aberration or whatever.

Unlike 3.X, I'm not seeing a rule that prevents a druid from continuing to have a companion bond with a 'no-longer-animal' companion. (I could well be missing one, 'though! I just glanced through the animal companions sections in the core book, and might have overlooked it!)

And druids, unlike good clerics, aren't mechanically built around being pro-positive energy or have class features devoted to blowing up undead. Negative energy is no more 'unnatural' than positive energy in a fantasy setting that has both. It might freak out a player who doesn't really grok that negative energy isn't unnatural (although it's as deadly as fire, floods, earthquakes, plague or poison, other completely natural things), but it seems to be possible both mechanically and thematically.

Edit: I found *a* rule that suggests that Pathfinder intended the same sort of notion as 3.X, in the awaken spell, where it states that an awakened animal can no longer serve as a familiar or companion creature. So, the writer of the spell seemed to be assuming 3.X precedent, even though the Druid writeup no longer had the 'normal animal' verbiage.

Still, as written, this doesn't preclude any other wonkiness, such as a ghoul or mummy badger, just an awakened badger...

Oh, I noticed it the day they put it in, I just hadn't had a PM yet, so I was stocked to get one. Most people I chat with from the boards just email me.

In the Golarion setting, a ghoul can retain class levels and memories of it's previous life if it becomes a ghoul in the presence of a rare darklands mineral known as lazurite. If the GM is copacetic with such things, a chunk of lazurite used as a power component might allow a spellcaster to raise a dead ally as a ghoul with his class abilities and memories intact.

As with pretty much everything, since 1st edition, if there isn't a rule or mechanic that allows something, there's always limited wish or wish for doing those things. A limited wish (perhaps off a scroll), cast in conjunction with the create undead, seems like a reasonable solution, although, as always, the GM's the one who decides what those spells can do.

Various 3.0/3.5 sources have templates and / or 'racial class' options for most forms of undead. Libris Mortus has Umbral Creature (shadow), Mummified Creature (mummy), Gravetouched Ghoul (ghoul) and Ghost Brute (ghost) templates, for instance, and I think the Book of Vile Darkness has one or two others.

An undead 'template' strapped onto a character of the same level as the rest of the party can be tweaked down a bit by the GM by simply having the undead form of your character only recall *some* of their life-experiences and memories, just chopping a few levels off the top, to bring the new undead version of the character down to a more even level with the rest of the party.

Depending on what your GM goes for, it might be less of a headache for you to just write up a new character, and let the necromancer make an NPC undead out of the last one. If the resulting undead is going to be a standard 3 HD ghoul or shadow under the control of the necromancer (until it isn't...), that doesn't sound like any sort of fun at all.

(I remember all those krakens washed up on the shores!)

That one was great. What killed them? What possible reason did whatever killed them have for removing their eyes? Cool...

Holy Cr*p they FINALLY put in a messaging service! Yay!

Yeah, I got my first PM a couple days ago. I was stoked!

Here's a PC-level 'LA 0' version of a Serpentfolk I would use for a more Freeport-like Serpentfolk race.

I am done dealing with him and if he shows and starts again with the "as written" I will tell him to leave if he doesn't like the way I run games as I've got a waiting list that keeps growing and growing of people asking me if spots have opened up.

There's your solution right there. The people waiting in line will appreciate a chance to take his place. I think you're long past the point of that, really, and kicking him to the curb *before* the next session (Via phone call or something. Not telling him until he shows up would be rude!), and calling someone on the waiting list to take his spot, seems quite reasonable.

There have always been rules-lawyers and the like, all the way back in 1st edition. You can find them in poker and chess and football and every other sort of game, it's hardly unique to D&D, or 'edition X' D&D. Some people are just bad sports, or get a little disgruntled when the perfect plan they've concocted in their head doesn't survive contact with the enemy. (Self included. I'm not immune to getting annoyed when things I've spent hours or even *months* on for a game just arbitrarily don't work.)

I like the idea of using earth deities, but I also have this idea of using the "portfolio" of each diety as its personification. A god named Death. A god named Strength. A god named Light, and so forth.

If the 'god of fire' *is* fire, all fire, everywhere, that could make a pretty funky setting. If Fire is displeased with you, fire will not burn, no matter how much pitch or tinder you spent trying to keep back the chill. Temples to Fire would have torches everywhere, so that Fire can see into every nook and cranny.

Being initiated to become a cleric of Fire would involve simply stepping into the bonfire, and if Fire accepts you, you will not burn. If fire thinks you aren't ready (or if your doubt is stronger than your faith), you'll get burned, but that doesn't mean that you can't come back next year and try again, and many elders of the church of Fire have impressive scars from their repeated attempts to join the priesthood.

Fire respects those who do not give up after being burned once.

There was a Dragon article ages ago that went on at length about designing a setting with four elemental gods, each tied to different themes (fire being the god of creativity and the forge, as well as destruction and magic, for instance, and the patron of summer), so that despite having a small 'pantheon,' each god had many different, often contradictory, aspects. The god of the sea was both the chaotic and treacherous god that drags sailors to their deaths, and the eternal calm and patient shephard of the unfailingly ordered tides who sustains the fisherman. Chaotic, good, lawful, evil. All at the same time.

Say, Thom, what do we get for a natural 20? :D

The Chelaxian version of a a Tony Award, I think.

Marius already took his earnings in ample loving from the diva.

I vaguely recall that gender-specific pronouns will tend to conform to the gender of the iconic, if applicable. (So a reference to a generic sorcerer will use 'her' and a reference to a generic bard will use 'his.') But I'm not sure if that's a holdover from WotC, or something I'm just totally making up...

Everyone else is all 'Oh sweet temptation!' and Marius is like 'Agh! Get it out! <Stab, stab> Die you ****er!'

Cue audience cracking up.

Didja know that Tyrannosaurs may have had the most powerful bite of any land animal, ever?

Just because something may be mindless and have no choice in it's matters doesn't mean it has to be Neutral.

Can something be mindless and have no choice be Good, then?

If the neutral mindless 'anti-life' of negative energy turns something evil, then does the neutral mindless 'life' of positive energy turns things good? Because it is empowered and enlivened by positive energy, is ebola good? Are demons, daemons, devils and qlippoth good, because negative energy is antithetical to their 'life?' Is the Queen of Cheliax good, because her body is empowered by mindless positive energy?

And if life and death, not choice in life, not malevolence or wicked deeds, not a life full of kindness and good works, are the deciding factors of whether one is good or evil, when *exactly* does a paladin turn evil. The exact second his heart stops beating and he becomes a bodiless spirit, or does it take a little bit before he becomes irrevocably evil, because he's all dead and gross?

Hey, that sounds like a funky game world, in which all living things are automatically good, even orcs and demons, and all dead things turn evil, including blink dog puppies and paladins.

It must be terribly unpleasant for all those clerics of evil gods by your logic, forced by their state of life to be 'good,' unable to be evil, no matter how many vile and unconscionable things they do, since alignment is not determined by the choices you make, until the moment of their death, when they are finally able to be evil.

And that is your argument. Choices don't matter. Your beliefs and actions and desires don't matter. Even if you are utterly mindless and incapable of volition, *all* that matters if whether you have AC or DC running your battery. Save the world, make it a better place, turn deserts into gardens, run a combination homeless shelter / soup kitchen / animal rescue clinic, *none of that matters* if your crank runs on negative energy, you are evil, full stop. Eat succulent babies, torture people for the lulz, kick puppies, start message board threads with the words 'alignment,' 'paladin' or 'katana' in the title, it doesn't matter, as long as fluffy positive energy empowers your body, you can not be other than good.

Nothing you do matters. Whether you are good or evil was decided before you made your first choice.

It's hard to picture a bleaker world-view.

Maybe not a stat site but is there a posted Paizo list that has all of the gods, their domains and favored weapons?

I'm not sure there's a convenient list available, but the PFWiki has most or all of them on individual pages.

The inside of the front cover of Gods & Magic has a list of most of the non-demon lord/daemon horsemen/archdevil/empyreal lord/etc. gods. with areas of concern, alignment, favored weapon and domains.

Sadly, no favored colors or favored animals, for those who remember 1st edition, but we can't have everything!

As for gods and stats, I like the old quote from Yamara, "Euclidean dice would not avail you in any case."

10,000 years of history. That's rather a lot. I remember disliking that in Eberron as well (much more so, there, actually).

Cutting timeline ages by a factor of ten (or at least five!) would neatly streamline that, I think.