You build me up in the fifth book by saying one of the PC's, or Queen Galfrey, is going to be the new Herald of Iomadae.
And then...nothing? No mention in the story of what it does for the Crusaders? No template to apply? What powers are gained? What stats are modified? Do they become an outsider?
I was assuming the Herald status was thrown out there to counter the fact that your primary foe is a half-succubus. (OMG look at that Con score)
Is the PC suddenly a cookie-cutter clone of the Herald? Because that's likely a huge step down for level 18/9 mythics.
And why is the fact that a PC may be radiating the direct divine favor of Iomadae have no mention anywhere in the book? Eesh. Those demons should be shaking in their boots seeing a mythic hero is now the Herald, instead of some rote summonable deva.
Was it cut for space? Because if it was, I think you should post it for everyone to see.
I want to know what Queen Galfrey has going for her as the Herald of Iomadae, dagnabit!
==Aelryinth
Creative Director
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As Caius said, it's covered at the end of the 5th book and there are a few more things in book six. It's not a huge part of the adventure though—the "become a herald of a god" element was never really intended to be a significantly huge part of the AP, since we can't automatically assume that there's going to be worshipers of Iomedae who would want to become the herald in any one game. As a result, it's not something we could build into a "load bearing" plot element, and as such it's something we chose to downplay a little in favor of other elements.
JJ, there's 'downplay', and there's 'having the Herald of the god present most opposed to the Worldwound doesn't negatively affect the enemy ritual for the final check', because it's so irrelevant.
Being the Herald is a totally underwhelming choice. I mean, +4 to a stat and a couple spells as the initial blessing? They don't even get to fly? (and the art even shows Seelah with wings!)
:(
I see it far less as needing to be included, versus an appropriate epic wrap up if someone decides to take the step to becoming the Herald...thematics have been huge in this AP, and that was the biggest one players could choose in the AP.
==Aelryinth
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There are mythic path abilities that cal lead a character up to being a divine herald and that's where all the cool bonuses and machanics would be. As far as the story element of becoming Iomaede's herald is concerned, that's more of an in game thing. If you choose to play it up as the GM though, I think that's a great idea. When my party gets here the big bads will likely think that the herald is done and gone but then the party lands on the scene all mean and tough and radiating divine might the bad guys will probably be surprised and concerned.
One of my characters has built into her backstory that she is the grand daughter of Iomaede's mortal herald (the characters were made when the third book had been released so I didn't know the herald would show up) and was raised in Heaven and groomed to be the next mortal herald. When I read book 4 I was really glad she made up that backstory.
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JJ, there's 'downplay', and there's 'having the Herald of the god present most opposed to the Worldwound doesn't negatively affect the enemy ritual for the final check', because it's so irrelevant.
Being the Herald is a totally underwhelming choice. I mean, +4 to a stat and a couple spells as the initial blessing? They don't even get to fly? (and the art even shows Seelah with wings!)
:(
I see it far less as needing to be included, versus an appropriate epic wrap up if someone decides to take the step to becoming the Herald...thematics have been huge in this AP, and that was the biggest one players could choose in the AP.
==Aelryinth
Sorry you were disappointed.
Can't please everyone.
I would have thought that becoming the Herald of a goddess would be reward enough in itself, purely from a roleplaying perspective. There are players at my club who would relish that opportunity, even without a bunch of mechanical bouses. It is your game at the end of the day, if you mislike how the final adventure is written, change it up, change the powers template for the Herld to make that PC more powerful.
My disappointment stems more from the closing paragraph of Herald of the Ivory Labyrinth:
'In addition, other benefits of being Iomedae's herald will become apparent in the days and weeks to come, as detailed in the final adventure, "City of Locusts."'
Embolded emphasis mine. Much like Aelerith, I opened City of Locusts expecting/hoping for something, preferably something concrete near the beginning of the issue along the lines of 'If one of your PC's opted for this, this is the extra beside what we listed in the back of HotIL, a sidebar maybe...
My impression was more that this was something else that wound up on the editing room floor, in which case it would have been nice if that was recognized in time to have the quote above read more like:
'In addition, characters who choose to become Iomedae's herald will affect events in the days and weeks to come, as detailed in the final adventure, "City of Locusts."'
Thereby avoiding the assumption that there was more, mechanically, than simply what was presented in HotIL.
Frankly I agree with the way things were done. Although the phrasing of "more in the next book" may have gotten more people excited then it should have. Our party didn't have someone devoted to her, and if that would've made them miss out on much, they'd be pretty miffed about it. In this way, it clearly is an extra bonus for the lucky player, but nothing more.
I will admit that the wording did seem like there was an exclusive additional benefit of being the Herald. But I don't see that there's a problem with there not being one. The bonuses alone of being Herald are rather nice as it is. And it does thematically allow for a character to become a demigod should they have taken the path skills allowing them to grant spells to worshipers - seeing that Iomedae herself was a herald before Ascending.
My disappointment stems more from the closing paragraph of Herald of the Ivory Labyrinth:
'In addition, other benefits of being Iomedae's herald will become apparent in the days and weeks to come, as detailed in the final adventure, "City of Locusts."'Embolded emphasis mine. Much like Aelerith, I opened City of Locusts expecting/hoping for something, preferably something concrete near the beginning of the issue along the lines of 'If one of your PC's opted for this, this is the extra beside what we listed in the back of HotIL, a sidebar maybe...
My impression was more that this was something else that wound up on the editing room floor, in which case it would have been nice if that was recognized in time to have the quote above read more like:
'In addition, characters who choose to become Iomedae's herald will affect events in the days and weeks to come, as detailed in the final adventure, "City of Locusts."'Thereby avoiding the assumption that there was more, mechanically, than simply what was presented in HotIL.
+10
I also expected a substantially higher payoff to the Herald sub-plot. The very first thing I did when I opened the PDF was a keyword search to find any mention of it, and was also woefully disappointed. One of my players built his entire concept around his character becoming a Paladin after witnessing the early events of the campaign, so flavor wise becoming the Herald will be a logical payoff to his journey.
Even if a template could be errata'd, or if JJ could point us towards a template or even creature Paizo feels approximates what they were going for with the Herald would be fantastic. As it stands now, I'll probably just cherry pick some abilities from the stats given in Herald of the Ivory Labyrinth to give to my player.
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I also expected a substantially higher payoff to the Herald sub-plot. The very first thing I did when I opened the PDF was a keyword search to find any mention of it, and was also woefully disappointed. One of my players built his entire concept around his character becoming a Paladin after witnessing the early events of the campaign, so flavor wise becoming the Herald will be a logical payoff to his journey.
Even if a template could be errata'd, or if JJ could point us towards a template or even creature Paizo feels approximates what they were going for with the Herald would be fantastic. As it stands now, I'll probably just cherry pick some abilities from the stats given in Herald of the Ivory Labyrinth to give to my player.
There's not a "template or something missing from where we were going." Feel free to augment it as you wish, I suppose, but part of the reason it doesn't do more is that by the time we got to that last adventure, we were realizing that mythic at that high level was a lot better than anticipated, and that there wasn't a NEED to further bolster the PCs for the fights ahead.
I came to that realization relatively late in the game though, and wasn't really able to manage all of the expectations for what the Herald would grant as a result.
(Turns out, as I've mentioned elsewhere, doing an entire AP that's based on brand new rules is really hard!)
by the time we got to that last adventure, we were realizing that mythic at that high level was a lot better than anticipated
Not enough. Not nearly enough. ^^
by the time we got to that last adventure, we were realizing that mythic at that high level was a lot better than anticipatedNot enough. Not nearly enough. ^^
I can't remember, do you have problems with the mythic rules or not magnuskn? :P
I can't remember, do you have problems with the mythic rules or not magnuskn? :Pby the time we got to that last adventure, we were realizing that mythic at that high level was a lot better than anticipatedNot enough. Not nearly enough. ^^
Oh, let me elaborate... :p
I also expected a substantially higher payoff to the Herald sub-plot. The very first thing I did when I opened the PDF was a keyword search to find any mention of it, and was also woefully disappointed. One of my players built his entire concept around his character becoming a Paladin after witnessing the early events of the campaign, so flavor wise becoming the Herald will be a logical payoff to his journey.
Even if a template could be errata'd, or if JJ could point us towards a template or even creature Paizo feels approximates what they were going for with the Herald would be fantastic. As it stands now, I'll probably just cherry pick some abilities from the stats given in Herald of the Ivory Labyrinth to give to my player.
There's not a "template or something missing from where we were going." Feel free to augment it as you wish, I suppose, but part of the reason it doesn't do more is that by the time we got to that last adventure, we were realizing that mythic at that high level was a lot better than anticipated, and that there wasn't a NEED to further bolster the PCs for the fights ahead.
I came to that realization relatively late in the game though, and wasn't really able to manage all of the expectations for what the Herald would grant as a result.
(Turns out, as I've mentioned elsewhere, doing an entire AP that's based on brand new rules is really hard!)
Thank you for taking the time to respond to all of us!
I can understand that what you intended by the end of module 5 wasn't able to work out practically in module 6. For my player's sake, he'll probably be plenty satisfied if I just describe him looking like the Hand of the Inheritor with no mechanical changes at all:
This masculine, golden-skinned angel stands taller than the greatest human champion. His halo is a spinning wheel of blades above his head, and with a gesture it flies to his left arm like a deadly spiked shield, while great wings of brilliant energy manifest from his back.