Figurine of the Ivory Champion

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Organized Play Member. 1,177 posts (1,529 including aliases). 1 review. No lists. 1 wishlist. 10 aliases.


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Big enough to contain a library with every book ever written.


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If you did want to bring back Vanthus as an incorporeal undead, I might suggest a specter. Calling back to Gary Gygax's early conception of them as extremely evil people sent back as servants for fiends or dark gods. The Advanced Bestiary has a Dread Specter template and a normal Specter variant as well.


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I must return to my people before they are overrun by the shoggothic hosts! Then nothing will stand in the way of the shoggoths consuming all they behold!


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Personally, if a structure is entirely controlled by a single entity I call it a lair instead of a dungeon and design it differently (i.e. what the residents do if the PCs attack). A dungeon is wilder and less densely populated, though it might have lair areas within it.


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Maybe something like a Space Hulk from Warhammer 40k?


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KainPen wrote:

As Kolokotroni said, most of them have been redone as archtypes or as whole new classes. Slayer fits the Assassin role also. The rest need to follow suit and become alternate class, hybrid classes or Archetypes

Hell, knight could easily become archetype or alternate class of Paladin.

Red Mantis assassin: slayer archtype

ect. ect. This is how they need to unchain the rest of them. More PRC are not needed just new archtypes are alternate classes.

The Red Mantis Assassin is actually a good example of something that should be a prestige class. It's a specialized set of training tied to a specific group in a specific campaign setting.


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I have actually been using hexographer (a program for creating hex maps) to create my own map of Hyrule. However my map is mostly based on the original Legend of Zelda and is on a different scale than Pathfinder's hexcrawling rules.


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baron arem heshvaun wrote:
The Star Wars Marvel Comic lines are currently considered canon, and the Raider has made an appearance.

Interesting. I have no reason to doubt you, but Wookieepedia doesn't have an canon article for it.


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A quick search told me that the Pokemon Sableye is based on the Hopkinsville Goblins. That explains the resemblance to the Hobkins Gremlin, but it was very surprising to see what at first appeared to be a Pokemon in this Bestiary.


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BigDTBone wrote:
Vod Canockers wrote:

And how does(n't) he plan on paying for this?

Quote:
the proposal could benefit 9 million students each year and save students an average of $3,800 in tuition
What's another $34 billion a year?

Literally nothing.

The U.S. spent 6 Trillion dollars on the wars in Afganistan and Iraq with absolutely nothing to show for it. The sum of all federal student loans still outstanding is 1 Trillion.

If instead of pissing away life and treasure in the Middle East we had canceled all student debt then we could have taken the rest and funded this proposal for 134 years.

So were the Taliban really good guys? Were we wrong about them giving shelter to Al-Qaeda? Am I missing something here? Why does the War in Afghanistan always get lumped in with the War in Iraq?


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I should mention that I use xp for treasure. You could call that a sort of roleplaying xp for a certain value of "roleplaying". It encourages a certain kind of behavior- accumulating treasure.


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Liranys wrote:
I, as a player, usually feel cheated when, due to bad luck or an encounter that's just too hard, the character I've put months of effort into, dies. That's when I as a player feel cheated. I have never felt cheated because the DM fudged a roll to let my PC live and continue playing the game. But I get attached to my PC's, maybe other people don't.

I can't get attached to a PC that can't ever die. If my character was going to get to the same point no matter how the game went than what's the point of playing that all out? That's how I feel.


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Liranys wrote:
To each his own. I'd much rather have the Plot or story determine levels since we've been caught in two different situations due to the XP system. Either we've leveled too fast and are going through the encounters like a breeze, or we're almost dying because we didn't level fast enough. Going by "plot" or "story" can ensure that the PCs are the right level to make the play challenging but not too challenging.

That's not true, in my games at least, because if you're playing in a player driven game, the PCs decide which challenges to undertake in the first place. If what they are facing is too hard or to easy for that matter it's their own fault. Unless they happen to encounter a monster that is an outlier for the area, but getting into whether the PCs should always face "appropriate" challenges is a whole other can of worms.


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I like games that are player-driven almost exclusively and I also like "old-school" games where the game is about adventurers seeking fortune and glory, rather than heroes on a quest. Also, in my games advancement is not a given, rather it is a result of successful play.


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Werebat wrote:
thistledown wrote:
My image of them is stuck as Skritt. Fat don't enter into it.

Dude, they are so obviously based on the Skaven -- they should have just made them Medium sized and Chaotic Evil.

I mean, the Gulch Gunner? The alchemist variant with all the poison bombs (Poison Wind Globadier, anyone)?

Not that Skaven in Pathfinder wouldn't be totally awesome, mind you.

I like that ratfolk aren't chaotic evil.


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I'd probably still play Swords and Wizardry than either, but it seems good (I do like Pathfinder as well).


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Issac Daneil wrote:

Should a Sweater protect you from gunfire that punches through plate?

Test it by stepping into a gang fight crossfire, and get back to me.

Well actually... plate armor probably should protect against firearms of the same time period. It wasn't until later that rifles made it obsolete. So full-plate arguably should have DR that applies against firearms. Or at least the ability to apply some of it's armor bonus against firearm attacks. Though perhaps the fact that firearms only penetrate within a certain range is already enough to account for this property of plate armor.


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Given the description given with it's stats I am going to say Super Alloy Z.


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Playing odd races is as old as the game itself. In the original Blackmoor campaign player characters included a vampire and a balrog. In fact, the only reason the "classic" races made it into the game is that people wanted to play them. Gary Gygax originally see the point in including the "classic" Tolkien races in the published game.


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Unfortunately for you, you're so far away from the line, on the insane side, that you couldn't even see it with the Hubble Telescope.


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Does the Skill Ranks per Level include a human's Skilled bonus? If you had, say, a half-elf daredevil would they have 6 skill points per level or 7?


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Musical link!


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Electric Wizard wrote:
lordzack wrote:
Where in the heck did you get the idea that the Ten Commandments are a purely Christian thing. They're right there in the Torah.

The Burning Bush, of course.

.

And that was Electric Wizard's non-sequitur of the day folks! Tune in tomorrow for more adventures in complete nonsense!


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Well I think he's more powerful than he needs to be in the first place. I think he doesn't need to be much more powerful than the Star Spawn of Cthulhu as it is now and I think that should be less powerful as well. Just my opinion, though.


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I blame the communists. Also the goblins. Especially the communist goblins.


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Morain wrote:

I think androids are awesome, and I love them in Alien, Blade Runner and Star Trek.

But I'm kinda sad they exist in Golarion. To me they have no place in a fantasy rpg. I like magic, dragons and medieval flavor in a fantasy rpg, and I know a lot of people agree.

Imo if paizo wanted to add this "cyberpunk" stuff they should have made a seperate campaign setting for it.

Stuff like robots and the like have been in fantasy rpgs for about as long as they have existed. For instance, Gary Gygax's Greyhawk campaign had multiple characters obtaining blasters, and Dave Arneson ran Gary Gygax's Mordenkainen, and Rob Kuntz's Robilar through the "City of the Gods" a crashed alien spaceship. Androids, robots and cyborgs are mentioned in the first published version of D&D as potential monsters. This has basis in a lot of the fiction that Gygax and Arneson read, such as Conan having met an alien in "The Tower of the Elephant". Fantasy is a lot broader than Tolkien and his imitators, and I'm glad that Paizo has chosen to explore some of the possibilities of fantasy that many do not.


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Which pony is best pony?


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James Jacobs wrote:
Axial wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
Axial wrote:
Does Cthulhu eat 1d4 player characters per round?
Kinda, yeah. You'll see.

Uh oh...

In terms of general gameplay mechanics, how much worse is is he compared to the CR 20 Star-Spawn from Wake of the Watcher? If a non-mythic party tries to go up against him, do they end up like PCs from Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu?

Worse enough that a 20th level party will get crushed, driven insane, ruined, and killed. Not necessarily in that order.

Meh. Sorry, but the source material just does not support Cthulhu being that strong. Being able to terrorize a boatload of low-level NPC classed characters does not necessarily equate to being able to do the same to a party of near-demigods like a high level Pathfinder party.


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The players in my longest running campaign thus far actually started a cult devoted to a fire deity.


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Sissyl wrote:
Make a monster matrix in generally nondescript rooms in a dungeon. Make the dungeon absolutely mindbogglingly oversized and also symmetrical more than one way. Avoid any sort of plotline like the plague. Get the PCs there by a reward of gold. Take every monster straight from the MM. Make sure that spells and magic items and monsters don't follow any particular theme or discernable pattern.

Most of that's not objectively bad, that's just a difference in playstyle. The last couple of things and the part about symmetry I'd agree with. However, the megadungeon is a perfectly valid style of play, and can be made interesting even without a "plot". In fact, unless you're a skilled GM plot can easily lead to railroading, which is absolute anathema to me.


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Well, I've been thinking of going back to college anyway.

But seriously, you are a terrible, horrible person for suggesting that a person's worth is tied to their level of education. Furthermore you seem to be under the impression that there are a lot of engineering jobs available to anybody who wants them. That doesn't seem to be true, in fact in America we have a lot of people who have advanced degrees but no opportunity to make use of them, including some of my friends. So not only is you're suggestion born of arrogance and callousness it's also ignorant as well.


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^ That was in response to this post, I think.

YawarFiesta wrote:
Sean K Reynolds wrote:
Alzrius wrote:
It's nice to see that the book will have rules for buying businesses, but what I'd like from it is a bit simpler: will it have rules for buying a house (including the land the house is on)?

It has rules for buying a finished house, building a house from scratch, or adding onto an existing house (replace "house" with any other kind of building). Say you want a house that has 2 bedrooms, a sitting room, a kitchen, a garden, and storage; it tells you how to build it, how long to build it, and the costs to build it (or buy a completed one).

"How much does it cost to buy this land?" is a campaign-specific question (in some places you don't need to buy unclaimed land at all, in some places you're only borrowing the land from the royals and aren't actually buying anything).

Does this means that the book doesn't have rules or guidelines to buying lordship over a land or other nobiliary titles?

Humbly,
Yawar


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There is this. I've used a little bit and the only problem I've encountered yet is coming up with stats for NPCs that are introduced. However, books like the GameMastery Guide and NPC Codex would help with that.


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Well this ties into something I posted earlier in another thread. The game wasn't originally about heroes. It was about adventurers out for fortune and glory. While the game had creatures from Lord of the Rings it more closely modeled Conan and other Sword and Sorcery stories. In the Blackmoor and Greyhawk campaigns you weren't heroes trying to save the world, you were exploring the treasure-filled dungeons under an abandoned castle trying to win you're fortune, at least the early part, since after you won you're fortune the game would transition into a different phase, but that's a completely different can of worms. Of course as people started playing it they started to take it in different directions, where some campaigns were more inspired by Lord of the Rings, eventually leading to such developments as Dragonlance and Second Edition, where this was the default. Yet the roots of the game still stuck to a degree.


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One of the things every megadungeon needs is a nearby town for the PCs to use as a base of operations. This should be big enough to provide the resources the adventurers need, such as a cleric that is high enough level to cast spells like restoration and raise dead. However, if you use a large enough settlement it can be difficult to fully detail it enough, which may or may not be a problem depending on how you treat the settlement. If all it is is a way to provide resources to the PCs it doesn't need to be fully detailed. Theoretically the town could be inside the dungeon it's self, or it could be less a town and more of a camp in remote areas far from civilization.

A megadungeon is a "living" place, it will change over time due to the actions of it's inhabitants and in response to the PCs actions. A PC group will never clear out a megadungeon, not only because it's too large, but because as the PCs clear out certain sections of it these sections will be repopulated by other monsters. There is no "end" to a megadungeon, even if it is bounded geographically. Even then a DM can still add new areas, as the inhabitants mine them out, or otherwise create them.

The megadungeon doesn't need one overarching theme, but it can be useful. However, this theme should not dominate the dungeon entirely. That can get pretty boring. Instead have levels that are different somehow, like a cave of troglodytes connected to a megadungeon inhabited by undead, or have the dungeons intersect with a different underground structure that existed before.

A good dungeon, in my experience does not have every single room inhabited. Despite what the Pathfinder Gamemastery Guide says, "empty" rooms are good. These can serve as a buffer between different monsters, addressing the complaint of "why haven't all these monsters killed each other already if they live in such close proximity?", can serve as channels for PC exploration, allowing them choices like "do we attack these orcs, or do we try to go around them and see what is there first?" or can serve as a refuge were the PCs can hole up and prepare to take on additional challenges. A classic megadungeon is not the "break down the door, kill the monsters, loot there stuff, rinse repeat" hack and slash dungeon that so many complain about. It's primarily about exploring this wondrous, exotic and dangerous location... and then looting it.

Levels tend to have multiple interconnections, and internally to have lot of different paths, branches, side paths, etc. A classic megadungeon level isn't a linear path from the entrance to a "boss monster" whose guarding the only path to the next level. In addition there tend to be multiple entrances, often providing convenient access to the lower levels.

Also, don't think you need to detail the whole thing at once. It's good to have an idea of how the whole thing fits together, but generally you should work on 2-3 levels at once. Also one dungeon level does not necessarily equate to one character level. It can, but even then it tends to have "extra xp", so that the characters don't need to clear out the whole level (which as I said before, is unlikely anyways) to go up a level.

This is it for now, I might have more thoughts later.


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I would say that the threat the Nomen poses to the PCs kingdom is perhaps overstated a bit by some posters. Certainly, a force of calvary archers, perhaps using guerrilla tactics is nothing to scoff at, so however much larger the PCs army is they certainly could be a threat of some sort. However, they will certainly be unable to take and hold territory, since that will open them up to retaliatory strikes that will certainly overwhelm them. So while the Nomen can certainly be a nuisance to the kingdom, they have no chance of conquering any of it.


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Start with a small animated object and add the robot subtype and levels of rogue.


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Link is no more an elf than Mr. Spock is. Hylians is general are basically identical to humans with the exception of their ears.


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You dig giant robots!

I dig giant robots!

We dig giant robots!

Chicks dig giant robots!

Nice!

Seriously the only better giant robot related news I could think of is if I heard they were bringing over the next Super Robot Wars Original Generations game over.


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Does there necessarilly need to be a mechanical reason for raise dead to be more expensive? After all, Id say that rpgs are supposed to be more than just mechanics.


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The genre D&D comes closest to is Swords and Sorcery, not heroic fantasy.


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I'm thinking of allowing "talking animals" as a possible racial option. However, the Race Builder does not allow for magical beast characters. So here's what I've come up with:

Magical Beast (4 RP)
Magical beasts are similar to animals. They usually have supernatural or extraordinary abilities, but are sometimes merely bizarre in appearance or habits. A magical beast race has the following features.
Magical beasts have the low-light vision and darkvision 60 feet racial traits.
Magical beasts breathe, eat, and sleep.

Special Subtype: Augmented Animal (2 RP)
An animal is a living, nonhuman creature, usually a vertebrate with no magical abilities and no innate capacity for language or culture. An augmented animal has increased intelligence and possibility even the capacity for speech. An augmented animal race has the following features.
Augmented animals have the low-light vision racial trait.
Augmented animals breathe, eat, and sleep.

I'm not sure how to handle the various disadvantages such a creature might have, such as lack of hands, lack of speech, etc.


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Clerics are holy warriors, paladins are holy knights.


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I don't think that, even if deities cannot be killed, that they should automatically win any fight. If the players have a goal and a deity is opposing them directly, they should still have a chance. Furthermore, stats govern things outside of combat as well.

If Gozreh tries to strike down the PCs with a manifestation of nature's wrath, do the PCs survive? If Shelyn tries to charm a PC does she succeed? What happens if the PCs tries to deceive Asmodeus or face Cayden Cailean in a drinking contest? Let's assume that "whatever the story says should happen" isn't a concern, mostly because not everybody plays that way.


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I personally would like to see Paizo's version of post-20 play. I see Mythic as a supplement, not a replacement for such.


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Did I say, golems and clockwork? No, and that's not at all what I'm referring to. What I am referring to is the explicit mention to "Cyborgs, Robots and Androids" in Volume 3 The Underworld and Wilderness Adventures of the original D&D boxed set.

Furthermore, robots appeared in the module DA3 City of the Gods, which is based on a dungeon appearing in the Blackmoor campaign run by Dave Arneson. Gary Gygax's own character, Mordenkainen explored this site alongside Rob Kuntz's Robilar. Speaking of Gary Gygax, he had characters from his D&D game visit the starship Warden from the game Metamorphosis Alpha. Metamorphosis Alpha later inspired the adventure S3: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, which featured part of a crashed alien space ship. I will also bring up Temple of the Frog, which while it has no robots, does include an alien who wields several technological items. This adventure first appeared in D&D Supplement II.

While I could bring up more examples, these should be enough to prove my point. That being that the inclusion of Sci-fi elements in D&D has a long history. For that matter, this was also true in many of the Swords and Sorcery stories that D&D was based on! Fantasy is far larger than Tolkien, which arguably was only a superficial influence on D&D at first. Not saying you're wrong for not liking them, but they have been part of D&D for a while, and apparently part of D&D that the Paizo developers like. So I wouldn't expect them to go away anytime soon. Besides I thought we had already established that nay-saying others ideas for monsters was a no-no.


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Starsunder wrote:
Kthulhu wrote:
Evil Lincoln wrote:
LazarX wrote:
Evil Lincoln wrote:
Then again, a god's statblock is fun to read. Especially for GMs.
I don't need stats for Gods to GM them. The expression of a God's power is in three forms.
But, it would still be fun to look at.

Init He goes first; Senses all; Perception He sees you

DEFENSE
AC You don't hit him
hp More than you'll ever whittle away, even if you could hit him
Auto-Save vs Mortals
OFFENSE
Speed: Damn Fast
Melee: He kills you
Ranged: He kills you from across the room
Special Attacks: Lots of them
STATISTICS
Str High, Dex High, Con High, Int High, Wis High, Cha High
Base Atk His attack succeeds; CMB He gets you; CMD You don't get him
Feats: Most of them
Skills: Most of them Auto-Succeed
SQ: Lots of them
Combat Gear: Pretty much anything he wants
Nah. That's far too boring and unimaginative.

Not to mention inaccurate to many mythologies.


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Farael the Fallen wrote:

Do they need to destroy canon to make a good movie? Yes, they do. JJ Abrams did when he made the new Star Trek. It was a great movie, because he didn't give a f^&* about canon. He set out just to make a great movie, and that's all. He didn't have to rewrite his scripts based on Star Trek tech discussions. That actually happened in ST:TNG.

Hopefully, Disney will hire a great writer for the script, and a great director for the movie. It could even be the same person. When you do that, it usually ends up being a great movie. The only canon the new writer/director needs to follow is from the first six episodes. That's it! Anything else is a waste of time...

You do realize that everything in the original Star Trek universe is still canon, right? It just takes place in a different universe.


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I'd like to see Pathfinder Modern.

I'd like to see some stuff for the Race Builder rules from the Advanced Race Guide. Maybe some support for magical beast characters including talking, speaking animals.


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The EU is a part of Star Wars canon. There are four levels of Star Wars canon, G, T, C, and S. G is the "highest" level of canon and each level of canon overrides those below it. There is also N-canon, which is non-canon. Everything else is part of Star Wars continuity.

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