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Hello everybody,

I am looking for some advice to make an interesting combat out of a rather unfortunate setup (at least when it comes to encounter design). This is one of the final battles in long going campaign (72nd session over about six years, 12-16 hours each). The party is at level 13 and there are the following characters involved:

- elven transmuter in the body of a human bard

- half elven oracle of life

- dwarven inquisitor of torag

- infernal sorcerer

- a ghaele azata NPC (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/azata/ghaele/ )

- a mystic theurge NPC (CR 12) carrying a bag of holding which is rather important (see below)

- (soulless body of a human bard)

The enemy is a single (thats why I said "unfortunate") lich of 17th or 18th level (I didnt finish his stats so far)

The exposition:

The BBEG of this story arc is a high level lich (wohoo). As the party discovered the secret source of his powers said lich had to risk everything not to lose grasp on his plans. In a last attempt to prevent the party from destroying an atifact which holds the weapon he depends on to conquer kingdoms he casts the spell magic jar through said artifact on the partys bard who held it. My approach here was: when the lich has its soul and therefore phylactery at hand he is able to cast the spell but puts the one thing at danger that keeps him from dying. So the bard fails the save and is possessed. The party tries to negotiate without success and the lich threatens to kill the bard. Thats when the partys wizard does something rather surprising. He himself casts magic jar on the bard and as you probably all know: sometimes the dice tell the best stories. The lich fails its save rolling a natural one (even though his bonus alone exceeded the DC) and his precious soul becomes trapped in the wizards soul jar while the wizard on the other end possesses the bards body.

Now the constellation is rather freaky. Its kind of a stalemate; both fractions remain with a soul of their enemy.

Now the thing is how magic jar works. As both bodies are too far away from their respective soul jars, crushing those instantly sends them to the afterlife. Both parties know the other side is ready to negotiate somehow as otherwise they would have released the souls already but they expect deceit and cheating - somethings on the line here after all.

The PCs figured out they are somehow in the better spot as the lich will be desperate to get back his soul while at the same time the bards sacrifice seems like an option to save their kingdom. They made up a plan and created a demi plane, rather small, greenish and of circular shape where they gathered and invited the lich for a prisoners exchange. They know the lich will come as he needs his soul and the magic jar spell is soon to end. They also install a teleportation trap to only let in the one enemy they want to face and back that up by threatening to kill his soul as soon as someone else enters their demi plane. Quiet a bad spot for the lich to be in I guess. They stored the soul jar containing the liches soul inside a bag of holding, ready to crush it from within, killing the soul as it cannot travel between planes - the extradimensional space inside the bag is insurmountable no matter how close the lich is to the bag of holding.

The scenario:

So the lich enters a small demi plane where the party awaits him and first thing he does is casting a quickened time stop (using a rod) - thats when last session ended (nice cliff hanger!).

While he has lots of allies who could reasonably help him fighting the party, a teleportation trap doesnt allow creatures to enter the fight and even if they manage to bypass the trap the lich might not want them to risk his soul (see exposition).

The lich is buffed up from toes to teeth but now I need to know what

is reasonable for him to do and

makes for an interesting boss fight.

So what are the spells he casts during his rounds of time stop?

My first idea was: Mages Disjunction. I am not exactly sure wht the consequences will be but I think it will dispel the demi plane as soon as time stop is over and it will also render the bag of holding containing his soul useless for its duration and therefore safe. If he combat will be relocated - they will all be spat out somewhere in the astral plane (due to create demi plane) which actually makes for a nice location. But what next? The lich will be largely outnumbered and usually these kind of fights dont work well in pathfinder. I need him to get support somehow, he needs to survive the first rounds of combat and then challenge the party. I have no clue how the battle could go on from there and I'd appreciate every single idea you can come up with. I want this to be remarkable! Also - it doesnt have to end there. It would be rather fine if the lich is able to rescue is soul somehow and flee or even flee without his soul. But at this point a final battle might as well be the perfect ending to this story arc.

Furthermore I would really appreciate some feedback on the whole mess of magic jars in place. I feel like we sticked as close to the rules here as possible but now it seems pretty hard to figure out what a mages disjunction will add here. As well as dispelling the demi plane it will probably end the magic jar spell on all participants. So the magic jar spell cast by the transmuter to trap the liches soul will and and as the respective soul jar is stored in the bag of holding the soul will not be able to get back to its original body (or here: phylactery), right? How could the lich prevent that from happening? Is there a way for him to force his soul out of the bag of holding wjile in time stop? Is there anything he can do about it? And is there something I missed about all those interactings of spells (namely two magic jars, time stop, mages disjunction and create demiplane)? Are there certain spells the lich can use to his advantage for this specific situation?

Thank you a lot in advance! I cannot wait to read your ideas :)

Best wishes,
Wasum

PS: Bonus points if you have an idea how this can evolve the transmuters hidden agenda; the player whants the character to become currupted more and more (he already drifted some steps away from his NG alignment at the campaign start).

PPS: Also bonus points if the following chain of events sticks to the pathfinder rules as close as possible. Not because I love those rules (man, at times this feels so outdated) but because this forms the ontology of the world we agreed to play in and itself has been part of this games narrative


Loreguard wrote:
Wasum wrote:

Hello everybody!

In my Campaign beneath Lake Reykal there was an enormous system of tunnels and caves which completely collapsed after my players fought some Neothelids there and this caused the lake to get drained completely.

What are the consequences for the nation of Brevoy? Im interessted in the obvious ones as well as in some minor consequences causing interesting alterations to the surrounding area.

I really appreciate your ideas, thanks in advance!

Well, water will likely still be running down to the lake. If one or more holes opened up in the lake, it likely would not have drained completely. I would find it more probably that there would still be a couple smaller lakes as it is likely the lake was not shaped such that a few new holes would cause all of it to drain completely. So I'd guess there would be some particularly low points of the lake that will remain as separate lakes, which won't have drained completely down into the subterranean region below. However, the land surrounding them will be full of debris and such. People will beign building buildings there, but there will be fear that they could get swallowed if the water rises again. (and those who build may fight against those wanting to restore the old life, while restorationists will try to prevent building in the areas, scared others will accept things as the new way of life, killing the support for finding a magical solution to restore things to they way they were.) If the southern river normally was a spillway, and headed south, then that river would likely dry up or even flow the opposite way for a little ways.....

Thank you - those are fantastic ideas. I really like the idea that agriculture will suffer on the long run resulting in shrinkage of harvests. Huge parts of the coastal cities will be destroyed, especially the simple housings of poorer citizens.

people will quickly overfish the remaining pools of water and therefore the tension will lead to civil wars as especially the poor will have no opportunities to feed their families.

I will need to think of how exactly this will effect trade in the region - or more precise: what the consequences of no trade on rivers will be. I guess rivers will become either dried out (after mybe changing their direction of low for a while) or become torrents (those parts formerly connecting lake and river source).

@FormerFiend: Yes, the caves were enormous, their volume exceeded that of the water in the lake by far - but I see, even then it would take a while for the lake to completely drain as probably there only will be limited cross section for the water to pass through.

I also like the idea that a lot of people will be interested to restore the lake and therefore invest heavily in respective magic - but even this would probably take years I guess? Especially if they had to seal the ground first. This also might call up those profiting from this new situation, manipulating all efforts to fill up the lake again.

Thanks so far for all that advice, I guess I slowly have an idea about how this will evolve :)


Hello everybody!

In my Campaign beneath Lake Reykal there was an enormous system of tunnels and caves which completely collapsed after my players fought some Neothelids there and this caused the lake to get drained completely.

What are the consequences for the nation of Brevoy? Im interessted in the obvious ones as well as in some minor consequences causing interesting alterations to the surrounding area.

I really appreciate your ideas, thanks in advance!


How do other players feel about this? Does he make them feel useless?


PFRPGrognard wrote:
They're the same rules developed by Jason Nelson.

I dont really understand that answer - can you maybe explain?


Hello there!

I have a question towards kingdom building and more specific the Ultimate Rulership supplement by Legendary Games.

In my group we considered a switch from the Ultimate Campaign ruleset to the more balanced approach in Ultimate Rulership but - more than two years in the game - noticed a rather huge gap between the old and new stats of the kingdom which appears to prevent further its developement. E.g. the stability value dropped too far to give us a fair chance of making the respective checks. This raises several questions:

- has anyone here ever managed such a transistion and can share his or her expieriences?
- for those who had no transistion but still used both those rulesets: how did they compare? What were major differences in the kingdom developement and its pace?
- has anyone another idea on how to manage that? We dont want to reconstruct all turns already played so this hopefully isnt the only solution. But maybe someone comes up with an advice on how to deal with this situation

Thank you :)


Nobody?


Hello everybody,

I would appreciate some help on a level 9 fractured mind spiritualist build. The character is based on Senua from Hellblade: Senuas Sacrifice. I want her to fight in melee as well as the class allows while her phantom should be a melee tag team mate of hers. I even considered the pahntom blade archetype but as the character already appeared in my campaign and had her phantom fought some sirens offscreen it will probably be hard to back up.
Character creation rules are PB20, two traits and all paizo material allowed.

Du you have any kind of recommandation? I'd be really glad on how to effectivly build such a character :)

Thanks in advance,
Wasum


Thanks, Gray Warden - that was super helpful!


The NPC will start at third level - so no agile weapon yet, sadly.


I am looking for a secondary role for an oracle of life. I do not want to go full caster with the halfling (its an NPC) so I'm looking for ideas on how to make him a nice melee combatant. So for now I have warsighted as an archtypes that serves well but I need some help on how to go on from there. Slashing Grace? Piranha Strike? Something else?

I'd appreciate anything you can come up with :)

Wasum


Two other great spells to throw in:

Aqueous Orb - great for dazing as you can shape the area, you can use it for several rounds and it doesn't allow SR. Also there are probably less enemies immun to nonlethal than to fire.

Ice Spears - similar to battering blast, no force effect but no attack roll needed. Also it scales faster and has some minor control options added in. Also doesn't allow SR.


Thank you really much! Do maybe also have recommendations on key feats/talents/infusions I should build aroun?


Nobody? :/


Hello!

I'm trying to build a cyclops skeleton with the kineticist class (about 8-9 levels). As he's an undead I'd have to pick the Overwhelming Soul archetype - which fits pretty good if you ask me and I guess void would be the apropriate element.

But now I'm a little stuck. I'm completely inexperienced when it comes to the kineticist and I need to consider archetype, template, base creature and the class itself including good picks of infusions.

Maybe someone could help me so I get a correct statblock for a somewhat powerful monster. I'd really apreciate your help!

Thanks in advance,
Wasum

PS: "Creatures with class levels receive +4, +4, +2, +2, +0, and –2 adjustments to their ability scores" - this is the only thing I can do to improve the cyclops rather poor dex and cha values, right?


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Hello everybody!

I am playing a campaign based on kingmaker right now, but I'm not going to use books 4 to 6 (as I don't like the plots). The PC are level 9 and have to deal with strange murders in their capital as well as political entanglements these days as the House Orlowski seems to have suspicious plans.

What happened so far and what is different to the plot in the books - not obligatory for answering my questions:
Just a rough-grained summary: Restov was ruled by Jomani Surtowa, mayor of the city and loyal to the king Noleski. In times of riots (as aldori swordlords wanted to reclaim power in Restov) his position was questioned he sent out adventurers to the greenbelt in order to stabilize his power by taming the wilderness in the south.
The players then played the first book, killing the staglord and eventually establishing their first city right on the ruins of his fortress - Narlgaard. Few days before the coronation he dies to a Wright - Turalyn Baldor the Stillborn.

They then start building up their nation, make friends with werewolf mercenaries and find themselves in a planar adventure that after betrayal leads them to the fellnight realm (based on the respective module), rescuing Roswen the awakened goldfish witch and shutting off the arcane engines that connects the demiplane to the narlmarshes (I used the "Fangwood Keep" instead of the one found there in the second book of the AP.

Right after that Noleski Surtowa, king of brevoy, marries Elana Lebeda and announces that Restov shall again be ruled by the aldori swordlords - which costs Jomani Surtowa, sponsor of the PC, his job.

Meanwhile Raifs, the father of the staglord and Hragulka started to gather allies in order to defeat those humans penetrating their world. More threads arise within their boarders, riots of mine workers caused by some mysterious stranger, a bonedevil assaulting their high priest and killing dozens of guards and conflicts within the high council. Another PC dies in the very same tomb Turalyn did a year earlier. Far deeper in old catacombs of ancient cyclops. This is also where the PC defeat a normous costruct guardian who protected a long forgotten grave. An undead cyclops then rises from this very tomb and flees as fast as he can. He will later awake Vordakai, the lich king of cyclops.

This is the point where my questions below will connect.

A lot of stuff happens. An army of trolls appears right in the center of Narlgaard, their capital, and destroy a huge part of the town as well as hundrets of citizens. They can fight back the attack but the damage is great and the trolls appear to have some kind of great magic in their support. Suspicious. The players then notice that the trolls gave up their bond to Raifs, killed him and most of their allies. When the PCs enter a new but empty stronghold of Hragulkas troops they find a cave leading to a valley where they find an entrance to old caves - "The Rift" (You can goolge for the "rift" and the "warrens" maps, which I combined - they belong to the most amaging dungeon maps I ever used!) where they not only find Hragulka and his fellow trolls but also the entrance to a newborn underground keep of duergars. The battles are long and tough but finally the PCs manage to kill the high circle of the enclave - three powerful duergar spellcasters and recover an artifact foliant of droskar.

Back in their capital the recession kicks in. The damage is terrible but slowly the young nation starts to recover.

This is where my game is right now the next event will be a marriage between a PC (elven wizard) and Mina Lodowka, princess of House Lodowka.

What I want to do is make Vordakai a far more fleshed out villain than he is in the actual book. His tactics are so poor as written that I wouldn't want to waste and sacrifice a freaking lich for a little dungeoncrawl.

Thats why I thought about what he would do from the moment he is woken up by his champion that the PC released in the ancient cyclops tomb.

He has this crazy powerful artifact in his head which he wants to make best use of:
Oculus of Abaddon
Minor Artifact

Category:
eyewear
Description:
An oculus of Abaddon appears as a sphere of clear crystal that contains a black void at its center. When held, the oculus feels warm to the touch and fills the holder with a sudden desire to pluck out an eye and place the oculus within the socket—this causes 1d8 points of damage, 1 point of bleed damage, and 2 points of Constitution damage. Once placed in an eye socket, the oculus can only be removed by ripping it free (causing the same amount of damage as the initial plucking). An oculus placed in an empty eye socket immediately heals all damage caused by plucking the previous eye out. Once placed, an oculus allows its new owner to utilize its powers, as listed below.

Darkvision to a range of 120 feet (constant)
True seeing once per day as a free action
Greater Scrying three times per day
Planar Binding once per week (only to summmon natives of Abaddon)
Familiar farsight at will
The oculus of Abaddon’s greatest power, though, is its haunting beckon. This ability is usable once per year, and allows the user to manipulate the minds of a huge number of targets, provided that the end goal of the manipulation is a tragic or otherwise horrific fate for those being manipulated. This functions as mass charm monster, but with a range of 1 mile, and establishes a telepathic link between the caster and all minds in that area. The effects are still language- dependant despite this telepathy—creatures without the ability to understand language (typically, creatures with an Intelligence score of 2 or lower) are unaffected. All other creatures are automatically affected unless they have 6 or more HD, in which case they gain a DC 22 Will save to resist the effects. Spell resistance applies regardless of HD.

The oculus of Abaddon is powerfully neutral evil and possesses a limited and hateful intellect of its own. while not capable of communicating directly with its owner, it refuses to activate its powers for any user who is not neutral evil.

But first he needs information - the most important good for him in the early and even more so in the later stages of his rise. Luckily his Aculus allows him to scy a lot and use his familiar for scouting the neighbourhood. He spots Varnhold, he spots the realms of my PC and he spots Brevoy as well as Mivon. A lot has changed within the past thousands of years. Together with his champion he wakes up all other cyclops buried in this very tomb (for which I use a slightly recolored map of Snurres Hall of the Fire Giant King) - enough to do some mining at least. He uses spells and undead workers to produce salt and jewelery - he needs money to accomplish further goals he set up. So while his minions are mining he scries and scries and scries. His raven travelling through the surrounding countries, listenig to important nobles, lords and ladies. He gets to know secrets, for example that the Orlowskis plan to attack the Lands of House Lodowka (an elven wizard PC is just about to marry the princess of House Lodowka) so thats a good point to start. He visits Lord Orlowski in human form (he uses Greater Magic Aura and a greater Hat of Disguise to appear as humen without magic properties) and convinces him that he wants to buy weapons for wars in the south so he makes him a great offer. He will fund the war against the Lodowkas if the Orlowskis provide more weapons he can transport to the south.
The Orlowskis will then ask Jomani Surtowa who was a broken man ever since he lost his reign over Restov to make a deal with the dwarves in the Highdelve. They should fabricate weapons for their war against the Lodowkas as well as weapons for Vordakai (who needs them as he will have to equip an undead army later on) - all in the name of House Surtowa.

For Vordakai this is perfect as he wants to use the war in the north as distraction and also profits from weapons for his own units.

Right after the deal is made he uses his artifact for the first time. He charms the population of Varnburg in order to take their (rather empty) treasueries and to have more workers for his plans. There is a lot of stuff he needs to prepare.
He gets mercenaries in Mivon who will deal with the transportation of the weapons from Brevoy.
He now has one year of time to get ready for the next step in his plan.

At this point I might need your help. He now has a couple of undeads, a lot of information and ~200 citizens from varnhold he turns into undead (maybe one or two intelligent ones as he needs help organizing his upcoming rulership). He also started to contact other evil enteties around to find some allies or vassels.

A year later when the war between Orlowskis and Lodowkas has probably started - according to his plans - he wants to use the Oculus of Abaddon for a second time. But now he's aiming for Restov.

I did some calculations on the distribution of CR among the citizens and the formula I thought looks plausible was an exponential function, proportional to EXP(-[HD of citizen]/1,25) which resulted in ~19.900 of the 20.000 inhabitants being charmed without getting a save. That sounds like a lot but I wanted to have a rather steep distribution. Most of the remaining citizens won't make their save so that I guess 20-30 of them being able to resist the artifact.

Now what? He has almost 20.000 humanoids under his control for 20 days. What does he do? Does he move them to his "base"? Will he kill them to raise them as undead? That seems hard to handle. He wont be able to feed so many people at all so he probably needs to kill them. That's a truely scary scenario. What does he do with those that resisted the charm? What will those who resisted the charm do anyway? Some might be able to use spells to stop several of the charmed... but I'm not sure how to think that through. What's going to happen afterwards? Would it be smart to even use the artifact? He could take every single coin from that city - not too bad. Could he use the structures? Should he leave the city abandoned? Can he still conceal whats going on? How does he move those people? Just have them walk two hundred miles?

And what would he need to tho in the previous year in order to prepare for that event?

This is how far I am right now. I also want him to get some help from Abaddon as his artifact is closely tied to this plane. He will get some Divs and Daemons to lead his armies because why not. He will also get an army of Urdefhans as I feel like this would suit him really good and is plausible.

I'm open to any kind of idea or critique - the more detailed the better. I want his plans to suit a highly intelligent ancient wizard with great knowledge and power so it should make sense all through and result in a subtly rising threat establishing in the very east of my PCs nation.

Thank you so much in advance,

Wasum


noone?:S


I gave it a try to make her a unique outsider:

Dancer of the Boreal Valley, CR 13
XP 19,200 
LN Huge outsider (extraplanar, fire, lawful)
Init +11; Senses Blindsense 30 ft, Darkvision 60 ft; Perception +27
DEFENSE
AC 34, touch 20, flat-footed 22 (+11 Dex, +1 dodge, +14 natural, -2 size)
hp 207 (14 HD; 14d10+126)
Fort +13, Ref +20, Will +14
DR 10/lawful; Immune compulsions, fire, paraysis, poison, desease; Resist cold 10, electricity 10; SR 24
Weaknesses cold
OFFENSE
Speed 60 ft.
Melee +1 heartseeker scimitar +22/+17/+12 (2d6+7 plus 1d6 fire/18-20), +1 heartseeker scimitar +22/+17 (2d6+4 plus 1d6 fire/18-20)
Space 15 ft. Reach 15 ft.
Special Attacks Dance of the Boreal Valley
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 12, concentration +18)
Constant - Firebrand, Fire Shield
3/day - Sirocco (DC 22), Quickened Greater Thunderstomp (CMB +18)
1/day - Detonation (DC 20)
STATISTICS
Str 23, Dex 33, Con 28, Int 15, Wis 20, Cha 22
Base Atk +14; CMB +22; CMD 43
Feats Combat Reflexes, Dodge, Improved Two Weapon Fighting, Mobility, Quicken Spell-Lile-Ability (Greater Thunderstomp), Two Weapon Fighting, Weapon Finesse
SPECIAL ABILITIES
Dance of the Boreal Valley(Ex): As swift action Dancer of the Boreal Valley can become a whirling dancer of death for one round three times per day. While in this dance, she can take a full attack action (for melee attacks only) and still move up to her speed. However, the Dancer of the Boreal Valley must move a minimum of 5 feet between each attack when using this ability, and she cannot return to a square she just exited (though she may return to that square later during her full attack). The Dancer of the Boreal Valley is subject to attacks of opportunity while dancing, but may use the acrobatics skill normally as part of her move. A Dancer of the Boreal Valley prevented from completing her move is also prevented from finishing her full attack.

What do you think?


Hello everybody!

I am a little confused by the saves of some demons I checked. While I can rebuild the saves e.g. of a Succubus easily I am kind of struggeling with some of the higher CR demons.

For example the Balor has a +17 ref save at 20 HD and 25 dex. I have no idea how to get there.
Same with the Nalfeshnee with +21 will save at 14 HD and 22 wis.

Could you let me know what I am missing? There are actually more examples where I have no idea how to get the written saves so I feel like there is something I don't understand.


Thanks Xexyz! Those are great ideas. I would prefer her to be primary dex based but other than that I might follow your advice :)


Aloha everyone!

I want to create the Dancer of the Boreal Valley, a Dark Souls 3 boss in Pathfinder.
For everyone who doesn't know what I'm talking about, here's the link:

Dancer of the Boreal Valley Cutscene

Dancer of Boreal Valley Fight

Now this is the framework I had in mind:

CR 12-14
High dex huge outsider
Fire-themed SLAs

I now want the creature suit into the pathfinder lore. What kind of outsider could it be?
And how could I stat out the creature? You maybe have ideas for abilities it should have?

Thank you in advance!

Wasum


Take 3 levels of UnRogue for 1.5x dex on THF-Finesse-Weapons.


Vidmaster7 wrote:
Is their any closer mountains or caves?

Nope.

I donˋt know how its plausible for a troop of 30+ units, including large ones, to travel 80 miles open field unnoticed...


I need some idea on how to get a small army of duergars and trolls could surprise attack a nearby town.
The town is about 60 miles away from the duergar keep. The town also has scouts who keep an eye on this keep and the town of course has walls. On the attacker side there are duergar spellcasters up to character level 9 (druid, cleric, wizard). They have a lot of time to prepare their attack - I just doubt a tunnel over 80 miles would be all that plausible. Maybe you can come up with some suggestions, how around 30–40 duergars and trolls could get their buns inside that town – the more surprising the better!


No offense at all - but I guess you could work with those answeres given here way more easily if you thoroughly read the rules about cleric spells, cleric domains and cleric subdomains. Then there would probably be less confusion as those rules are pretty clear.


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Google: "pf summoner powerful"

Might be faster than a thread;)


I really like the Mesmerist idea! I think the Fey Trickster archetype would suit the fluff.


Aloha fellow adicts,

I want to add classlevels to the following creature:

Statblock Baobhan Sith

I want those classlevels to suit the style of the monster without adding completely new aspects. Do you have recommandations?

Right now I have in mind either some martial class w/o spells or an occult class...

Thanks in advance,
Wasum


Wasum wrote:
But sadly its channel ability only works on extraplanars, so no harm to devils in hell :/


But sadly its channel ability only works on extraplanars, so no harm to devils in hell :/


Hello everyone!

I would like to extend my request to PrCs that deal with planes in general - and I'd still prefer those that can be built on divine spellcasters :)


Mesmerist is a really great idea, maybe I'll give it a try!

But I also like some of the archetypes and prcs you mentioned. Dawnflower Dissident for example or Liberty's Blade.

What do you guys think about the "Planes Walker" PrC?


Yes lemeres, anti devil mechanics are secondary!

Thanks so far for the suggestions, blackfire adept is really great but actually I'd prefer something less evil. Paladin and Inquisitor are no options sadly as we already have those classes in our party.

The anti devil character will be run by one player whose character is kept hostage in Dis and therefore needs an appropriate replacement.

Right now the devil impostor summoner is my favorite, even though I'd prefer a divine caster.


Hello there!

I am looking for classes, archetypes and prestige classes that are fluffed out to desl with devils. I'd prefer spellcasters but I'm open to any kind of idea. I appreciate builds but do not necessarily need fleshed out characters.

Thanks in advance,
Wasum!


Dazing aqueous orb is pretty sweet:

At a speed of 30ft it covers a huge area of daze effect that can be shaped as needed. No SR, only few enemies are immune to nonlethal and you also have high potential to suck in some creatures which will likely be stuck in the orb the whole time. It can be pulled off qiet early and find great use in persistent spell as well.

Hard to find a better control spell at this level.


How about some Battering Blast build?


Dazing aqueous orb is pretty sweet:

Ata speed of 30ft it covers a huge area of daze effect that can be shaped as needed. No SR, only few enemies are immune to nonlethal and you also have high potential to suck in some creatures which will likely be stuck in the orb the whole time. It can be pulled off qiet early and find great use in persistent spell as well.

Hard to find a better control spell at this level.


Another thing to consider:

Those housrules come along with deep cuts in the simulation dimension of the game. Now you have entities in your gaming world that use another set of rules not accessible by PCs. Thats weird. If you're players are all up for gameism thats not a problem but for those who also want to part of a consistent gsme world this bears problems: Enemies don't only have other abilities, they also use a different framework of action economy.


But honestly - usually when you have one minute of time to prepare a new spell then you may as well take 15. its rare to be in a rush that differentiates between spending one and 15 minutes.


Scorching Ray is really abd against anything with even low resistances. Fire in general is a bad damage type.

Best DPS spells are probably Battering Blast or Ice Spears. They work well with Spell Specialization and CL-Boosting stuff and scale crazy good while still offering control.


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Thanks for the advice so far!

I will definitly use some of those ideas.

Now I'm especially curious on how to pace this scenario.

How can I decide when and how often the PCs find themself in a special situation? At what pace will they encounter things o their way to said tower?


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Hello everybody!

I want to generate an intense atmosphere of danger in the next session of my current campaign.
Last session the 7th level PCs entered the realm of an evil fey and managed to stay unnoticed for a while. When they decided to use "Secure Shelter" for resting their shelter for the night was spotted by fey units and they surrounded the bulding until reenforcements arrive. Inbetween the PCs developed an escape plan and actually managed to flee - 3 of them teleported out, the druid left in eagle form, invisible, and the alchemist tried to escape invisible as well but is chased by a Babau, who was summoned by an antagonist to shut down the invisibility. Now the Dimension Door they used to teleport has no huge range and therefore they are not out of danger. The session ended with them regrouping close about 400 m away with the alchemist still being chased by the Babau (who will stay whole 10 Minutes as it was summoned by a summoner).
The PCs want to reach the tower of said evil fey queen which is about 30 km away. As they dont have means of fast travel (other than wildhape of the druid) this will take them at least two days, more if they actaully stealth. I want those days to be intense. I want them to feel hunted, with creatures looking for them and constant thread of being outnumbered.

Do you have recommandations on how to design such a scenario? I'd really appreciate every single idea you can contribute :)

Wasum


Another thing would be reach spell and force hook charge. Should as well replace the dimensional dervish chain.


Lingering Pain will shut down the sorcerer, so this should be one of our arcanas.


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Ever heard of Stormwind Fallacy?


Aloha everybody!

I have a question towards designing an upcoming encounter. Last session the following happened:
The party, a nature oracle, an alchemist/fighter, an inquisitor of torag, a druid, a bard and a wizard got informed that another member of their "high council" has been killed within their castle. Investigation of the corpse revealed a poisen that belongs to a bone devil, so the next night they were alarmed and watched their bedrooms from save distance. They didn't see the bone devil (due to it's invisibility) but they could tell something is there, so just three of them attacked. It was a desaster - they didn't stand a chance, about 20 guards were killed and the three (bard, wizard and alchemist) only survived because the devil had no means to overcome invisibility in combination with silence.

Now that they know what's up against them they want to prepare for the fight and also plan to ask a local priest for help and maybe even shelter as they know he's rather powerful (he's actually cleric level 11 but they don't expect that).
The really interesting thing now is that right this priest is the antagonist who called the bone devil via planar ally and gave him the task to kill certain members of the high council. I really want to make the best of this great setup and therefore need help on how to let the devil and the priest act in regard of the following aspects:
- First I want the encounter to be interesting and challenging. The devil doesn't have much time so he will attack in the next night. I am afraid that a single bone devil will be rather easy for 5-6 players at level 6 who know what is coming and will be prepared.
- The priest who called the devil doesn't want to reveal his evil alignment so he needs to offer help to the players on one hand while subtly supporting the devil on the other.
- The location of the combat will likely be a temple as the players thought this might be to their advantage, especially when said priest offers protective spells.

I really want this to be a memorable fight. It would be great if the players didn't get to know about the priests intentions but in case they manage to find out it's fine. What do you think should the cleric do? What should the devil do? And how do I make this encounter more interesting than "6 players vs 1 bbeg" promises?

Thanks in advance,
Wasum


...why is he doing that? Is he the kind of person that makes these kind of jokes as well? I don't know but to me this sounds somewhat weird.


Sir Thugsalot wrote:
Wasum wrote:
You didn't reply to this at all but picked one statement (the one about perfect conditions) and added som--

*stomp* What you need to understand is that when you try to stuff words into someone's mouth that they did not say, that person is likely to get "picky" and just plain ignore anything else you have to say until you take it back, and that you're just going to have to deal with it until that happens. <and...on to the next>

Actually I didnt want to stuff words in your mouth you didn't say - I just made a wrong assumption and as I considered it as unimportant for the core of the conversation, so I didnt really bother. I'm sorry if this offended you - on the internet this extensional blur of natural language can produce even more misunderstandings so my apologies for the inconvenience. Next time you could just let people know about this as one usually expects constructive participation and therefore respective interpretation on both sides.

I was wrong about mentioning the damage you claimed to do included critical hits, it was just an assumption that followed your statement about "perfect conditions" that wasn't more than a more or less educated guess.


Sir Thugsalot wrote:
<context preservation clause now in-effect>
Wasum wrote:
Sir Thugsalot wrote:
Wasum wrote:
And if what you understand as perfect conditions (critting every single hit...
Who said anything about getting crits?
Whatever it is you assumed - it doesn't matter. I ha--

*stomp*

If your only hope of winning an argument on the internet is to concoct that someone held a position that they did not actually hold, and double-weasel-down when they flag you on the foul, then...

Quote:
You('re) not contributing much to this conversation.
Yeah. That.

I already explained in detail where I see problems. You didn't reply to this at all but picked one statement (the one about perfect conditions) and added some intransparent proposition which didn't even face my argument (calling out there are conditions where this build makes mediocre damage whithout mentioning what these conditions are. Sure, I didn't make that clear as well but the DPR calculations for regular attacks with and without sneak attack are pretty straight forward and show your build is just not sufficient in this area). My point that made you "stomp" was just that it just doesn't matter on which conditions you deal your damage as my argument above does not depend on what those conditions are.

Now my main point was the ratio of efficiency and spotlight it takes to perform and why I think contributing in a significant way will be close to impossible.

If you can tell me why these concerns are meaningless I'll definitely will admit I was wrong - but at this point I am not at all convinced.


Whatever it is you assumed - it doesn't matter. I have no idea what point you're trying to make. The above build you posted has a lot of problems as I explained earlier.

You last two post were not contributing much to this conversation.

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