Soulless elves.
Why does everyone gotta have souls?
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Old books? Geez..now I feel old.
I miss Beholders, Illithids, Slaadi, and a few other monsters that they held onto. I have "bootleg" versions of them, but it would be nice to have them done up officially.
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Part of the 3e OGL explicitly prohibits certain monsters from any other publisher ever using them, including beholders, gith, illithid/mind flayers, slaadi and probably some other monsters I'm forgetting. They will never be Pathfinder-converted by a publisher that wants to stay in business.
I miss immortal gnomes, the Bleaching is great flavor and unique to Golarion. They seem to have brought this back to a degree in Starfinder.
I must have missed "soulless elves" somewhere along the way.
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I'm not a super fan of them or anything, but one thing from the early days of Pathfinder I found interesting was the Darklight Sisterhood.
Also the fascination with thorn-related items. Rosewood armor, thorn bows, thorn bracers. I saw the gear in the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting, but haven't seen it mentioned again since, and have no idea what that was all about, but it seemed super-evocative and the idea of some group being all about thorns and having their own thorn-spells and thorny whip techniques or whatever seemed like it was the next logical step.
The religious 'philosophy' of Diabolism seemed to get relatively sidelined, after being suggested in the Campaign Setting to a prominent faith in Cheliax and Isger, and now, occasionally, even being mentioned as being outlawed in Cheliax...
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I must have missed "soulless elves" somewhere along the way."Soulless Elves" are actually from first edition. Back then, it was decided that Elves only had spirits. Which is probably why 1st edition Elves didn't sleep. Probably.
Yikes! Thats being pretty heavy handed in dealing with one of the big metaphysical questions for at least 2 millenia! One of the big debates is whether humans have 3 parts (mind, body, and soul) or 4 parts (mind, body, soul, and spirit). Under the first (which has been the more common conclusion) soul and spirit are just different words for the same thing.
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I must have missed "soulless elves" somewhere along the way."Soulless Elves" are actually from first edition. Back then, it was decided that Elves only had spirits. Which is probably why 1st edition Elves didn't sleep. Probably.
It's also why they couldn't be raised or resurrected (except via a rod of resurrection blowing lots of extra charges) and, I think, why they weren't paralyzed by a ghoul's touch.
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PACT MAGIC, PACT MAGIC, PACT MAGIC!!!
The Medium and its 6 character-free "spirits" is/are not a passable substitute whatsoever.
I also want a Sha'ir and Warlock that actually feel like the original AL-QADIM and Complete Arcane models - the Occultist and Vigilante Archetypes come nowhere close, nor are the Daivrat or Kineticist satisfactory.
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I'm looking forward to Kobold Press' take on the Warlock when it comes out this fall. I liked the 3.5 version, though I thought it could probably have used a little work. And I agree with you on the Sha'ir versions, as well. And I'd love to see a current work up of the Spellslayer from the Sha'ir's Handbook, as well.
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I'm looking forward to Kobold Press' take on the Warlock when it comes out this fall. I liked the 3.5 version, though I thought it could probably have used a little work.
Why, do you mean the new Warlock class in the soon to be released New Paths Compendium hardcover? :)
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Why, yes I do!
(I listen to a lot of old detective serials from the 40s and 50s, and boy did that sound like a commercial from one of those old recordings... LOL)
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Armor of Darkness was a cool spell.
XP costs for certain spells
Armor of Darkness was a cool spell.
I like that spell and I allow some 3.5 spells to be used in my games. I would change the 10 minutes/level to 1 round/level and run with it in my PF games.
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Becoming an actual dragon(well, a half-dragon) when you took all ten levels of Dragon Disciple.
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Some of the changes from 3.5 made things messy.
Raise Dead actually worked as written for second level characters for example. Now strictly as written, if you cast Raise Dead on a second level character, they take two negative levels as they come back to life and immediately die. Whereas a first level character simply takes Con Drain. In 3.5 instead of two negative levels, you lost a level. This meant that Raise Dead would work on a second level character.
Another example would be Force Cage. It use to not have a save. Now it has a Reflex Save negates without text explaining how that works. But Mark did give a good opinion here.
Ghosts were cooler back then as well.
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And I'd love to see a current work up of the Spellslayer from the Sha'ir's Handbook, as well.I want a Clockwork Mage and Ghul Lord, personally!
I've actually done quite a bit of personal work on updating the former.
I am intrigued!
My solution, back in the day, was just to play a standard wizard, but to flavor it up. At the beginning of the day, when 'preparing' spells, my 'clockwork mage' would make a bunch of tiny machines, like a glove that delivered shocking grasp, or an explosive that was his 'fireball,' or some sort of kaleidoscopic device to project a color spray, and each of those little devices would work exactly as many times as he'd 'prepared' that spell, before breaking down and needing to be fixed the next morning, when he next 'prepared spells.'
It was pure flavor, with no real mechanics to it (ha, pun not intended), but allowed me to play my 'clockwork mage' in spirit, anyway.
In the long run, seeing kits like the Mageweaver and Clockwork Mage, I really wanted a 'Craftmage' sort of kit, that could use any craft skill, even stuff like brewing or calligraphy to 'prepare' spells by brewing one-shot personal use elixirs, or writing 'scrolls' that only the crafter could use. One Craftmage might shape crystals with gemcutting, another might fold spells like origami from special paper and unfold them to cast the spell, etc. Balance between the different sorts of craft skills (gemcutting would obviously cost more than paperfolding, and neither would require a cauldron for brewing, or a lab for clockworks) would be some complex three-dimensional matrix juggling cost of materials, time to prepare, etc. and there's where it all fell apart for me, 'cause I simply did not care that much. :)
In addition to the Ghul Lord, there are several 3.X era 'Death Knight' type classes (or PrCs) in which a *Fighter* would embrace necromantic forces / negative energy / partial undeath to gain bonuses, such as the Unfailing PrC from Hollowfaust, or the fighters of the 'School Beyond the Veil' from Green Ronin's Arcane Societies, or the 'Death Knight' (IIRC) from Secret College of Necromancy.
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And I'd love to see a current work up of the Spellslayer from the Sha'ir's Handbook, as well.I want a Clockwork Mage and Ghul Lord, personally!
I've actually done quite a bit of personal work on updating the former.
I am intrigued!
My solution, back in the day, was just to play a standard wizard, but to flavor it up. At the beginning of the day, when 'preparing' spells, my 'clockwork mage' would make a bunch of tiny machines, like a glove that delivered shocking grasp, or an explosive that was his 'fireball,' or some sort of kaleidoscopic device to project a color spray, and each of those little devices would work exactly as many times as he'd 'prepared' that spell, before breaking down and needing to be fixed the next morning, when he next 'prepared spells.'
It was pure flavor, with no real mechanics to it (ha, pun not intended), but allowed me to play my 'clockwork mage' in spirit, anyway.
Oh, I did way better than that - I even made a character on here to playtest it some, take a look!
My Clockwork Mage is very faithful to the original; having no spellcasting of its own, it builds actual tiny constructs onto which it installs a small number of fixed daily spell-like abilities. Also included is a 'Salvage Pool' (similar to the EBERRON Artificer's Craft Reserve), and Mechanician's Script, the class's own secret language! It's all very complicated, and that's just the way I like it!
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And I'd love to see a current work up of the Spellslayer from the Sha'ir's Handbook, as well.
Come to think of it, I should mention I did quite a bit of work making an updated Spellslayer, too - I adapted them to have Warlock-like Invocations (not including the higher-level ones or Eldritch Essence/Shape), and made up about 6 special Spellslayer "Cults" that offered, among other things, niche weapon proficiencies, exclusive/prohibited Invocations, and special abilities/bonuses at certain levels not unlike Cavalier Orders.
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PACT MAGIC, PACT MAGIC, PACT MAGIC!!!Are you aware of this?
I have Dario Nardi's previous book; I'm afraid I don't care for the direction he took it. He made a whole bunch of tweaks, most small by themselves, that I just didn't find necessary or desirable, especially not when put together (that and the preoccupation with hobgoblins - they do make good enemies, and I'll grant they might be underused, but they and Pact Magic don't mix well).
The blurb does say it's been "rewritten from the ground up," though - does that mean it's more like the original Tome of Magic Binder and overall character of Pact Magic?
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PACT MAGIC, PACT MAGIC, PACT MAGIC!!!Are you aware of this?I have Dario Nardi's previous book; I'm afraid I don't care for the direction he took it. He made a whole bunch of tweaks, most small by themselves, that I just didn't find necessary or desirable, especially not when put together (that and the preoccupation with hobgoblins - they do make good enemies, and I'll grant they might be underused, but they and Pact Magic don't mix well).
The blurb does say it's been "rewritten from the ground up," though - does that mean it's more like the original Tome of Magic Binder and overall character of Pact Magic?
I don't see a question about Pact Magic here, but if you want to ask me questions about my design work for the Grimoire of Lost Souls, Hiding in My Closet, please feel free to shoot me a PM or post them here and I'll happily answer them.
Also, quit drooling on my shirts. The kids I teach keep asking me about the stains, and I don't know what to tell them anymore.
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I don't see a question about Pact Magic here, but if you want to ask me questions about my design work for the Grimoire of Lost Souls, Hiding in My Closet, please feel free to shoot me a PM or post them here and I'll happily answer them.
Well, it's been a while since I looked at it, but as I recall, some of the tweaks to Pact Magic I saw in Secrets of Pact Magic that I didn't like included:
- Granted Abilities being balanced and weighted more like normal spellcasting (this is one of the bigger problems, since whereas spells of different levels don't need to 'compete' with spells of other levels for slots, vestiges/spirits of different levels do)
- more limited ability, as I recall, to bind multiple vestiges/spirits with levels than the original Binder did
- Pact Magic for most classes being based MORE on Constitution, rather than less-than-or-equal-to Charisma
- vestiges/spirits being ascribed alignments (I'm a very big fan of the alignment system, as it happens, but at the same time, I also liked how the Tome of Magic made vestiges all so distant from cogent sanity as to be amoral)
- signs and influences being too complex or many-pronged
- Special summoning requirements being too involved or requiring fancy skill checks or otherwise going too far; one of the premises of Pact Magic is that it's supposed to be disquietingly easy compared to other magical practices.
Have any of these tweaks been scaled back to more in the original Tome of Magic mold?
Also, quit drooling on my shirts. The kids I teach keep asking me about the stains, and I don't know what to tell them anymore.
I drool pure liquid soap. It's not my fault you don't wash them better.
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Granted Abilities being balanced and weighted more like normal spellcasting (this is one of the bigger problems, since whereas spells of different levels don't need to 'compete' with spells of other levels for slots, vestiges/spirits of different levels do)
Our spirits are absolutely balanced in effect against what a spellcaster of that level could do. It actually helps us make sure that the entire "package of spirit" is useful in at least a niche scenario. (There have been a couple of guides for our pactmaker on line that have basically said that no spirit is awful, and that they should be measured in how broadly applicable the spirit is.)
Most spirits have powers with multiple uses per day, so you'll absolutely get more bang out of choosing a spirit then, say, a wizard gets from choosing a single spell.
more limited ability, as I recall, to bind multiple vestiges/spirits with levels than the original Binder did
We've got mostly the same progression, as I recall, and we've also got a couple of cool feats and options that give you more flexibility with what you bind, like a feat for terminating pacts early or having a "reserve spirit" that you can call upon briefly.
- Pact Magic for most classes being based MORE on Constitution, rather than less-than-or-equal-to Charisma
Our big class (the pactmaker) is Charisma-based. Specific archetypes sometimes change which mental score your pactmaking is based on, but I don't think there's anything really Constitution based in the book if I'm remembering right.
- vestiges/spirits being ascribed alignments (I'm a very big fan of the alignment system, as it happens, but at the same time, I also liked how the Tome of Magic made vestiges all so distant from cogent sanity as to be amoral)
We kept that for our Pathfinder version, but it's less important then it was in Dario's original works. (And there's no, "I'm gonna permanently change your alignment!" mechanics because I didn't like that either.)
- signs and influences being too complex or many-pronged
I'm super biased, but I don't think signs or influences are overly complex in the Grimoire of Lost Souls version. Maybe some fans can chime in with their thoughts?
- Special summoning requirements being too involved or requiring fancy skill checks or otherwise going too far; one of the premises of Pact Magic is that it's supposed to be disquietingly easy compared to other magical practices.
So I changed that mechanic to a totem mechanic, where doing the special thing makes a spirit easier to summon, rather than being a requirement. For example, there are spirits that will give you a totem bonus on your check if you're a certain gender or age or race or have enough ranks in a skill and so on, but none of those things are usually needed to actually bind the spirit.
Hope this helps you out!
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Our spirits are absolutely balanced in effect against what a spellcaster of that level could do. It actually helps us make sure that the entire "package of spirit" is useful in at least a niche scenario. (There have been a couple of guides for our pactmaker on line that have basically said that no spirit is awful, and that they should be measured in how broadly applicable the spirit is.)
Most spirits have powers with multiple uses per day, so you'll absolutely get more bang out of choosing a spirit then, say, a wizard gets from choosing a single spell.
What I mean is that some lower-level spirits in Secrets of Pact Magic became obsolete or had caps on the power of their abilities that made it so a higher-level binder lost incentive to choose them over higher-level under most any circumstances; lower-level vestiges/spirits should be able to remain 'competitive' at any level, because whereas a Wizard or Cleric, for example, doesn't have to choose between preparing 1st-level OR 9th-level spell slots, a Pact Mage only has a few 'slots' that don't 'belong' to any level of vestige/spirit, so spirits of different levels have to be able to compete with each other power-wise; Understand what I'm saying?
For example, Amon from the Tome of Magic had no cap on the damage of its fire breath ability, despite being 1st-level, whereas "The Green Wyrmling" (whatever it was called) from Secrets of Pact Magic was stuck with a 5-die cap on its acid breath ability.
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I'm looking forward to Kobold Press' take on the Warlock when it comes out this fall. I liked the 3.5 version, though I thought it could probably have used a little work.Why, do you mean the new Warlock class in the soon to be released New Paths Compendium hardcover? :)
Why, yes I do!
(I listen to a lot of old detective serials from the 40s and 50s, and boy did that sound like a commercial from one of those old recordings... LOL)
Ha! (those old 40s and 50s radio shows were great!)
Early Golarion material makes a lot of references to things that are either never picked up again or contradicted in later works. For example, some books mention psionics and psionic characters, and i use that to justify using psionic characters.
one retconned element is Dragonfall, the dragon graveyard where all Dragona go to die
what are some of the weird and crazy things from those old books that you like?
Honestly, for the most part, I'm pretty much OK with the Golarion lore that got "fire cancer" and died.
One thing I do miss about the early days was when Paizo was more willing to go dark and edgy from time to time. You're not going to see Paizo publish anything that's as dark, twisted, and sick as Carnival of Tears or the original version of the Graul homestead from Hook Mountain Massacre. Of course, that's probably for the better: some of that stuff really did push the boundaries of good taste, and could have reflected poorly on Paizo as a company.
If you really want to run with that kind of content, I might suggest checking out Lamentations of the Flame Princess. Some of the support material for LotFP makes Carnival of Tears look like an episode of "My Little Pony" in comparison.
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Dunno, the last book of Hell's Rebels, for example, gets pretty dark and twisted in places. (That's not a complaint.) Although I haven't read either of the others you mentioned (going to be playing RoTRL next), so I guess I can't compare directly. And some of the stuff in the hardcover Book of the Damned seems to go fairly dark as well.
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Well, as far as older edition material is concerned, I don't really miss anything apart from the settings ,as there's already more PF material out there than I can easily integrate into my games.
As far as older Golarion lore is concerned: I absolutely loved Mike McArtor's Dragon article in "Fortress of the Stone Giants". And I still happen to have this idea, that misogynistic Erastil makes for a much more interesting deity, even when that idea stems from a misunderstanding.
Same with the isolationist, arrogant Elves of Kyonin, still this way in my game, because I like it much more, than having the major races simply live in peace with another
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Yes, a demigod of pedophilic rapists with vans is certainly something from 6 years ago that was made as a joke(?) and then left alone with no further treatment or even much elaboration in the publication that introduced it.
He got a portrait and an obedience in Book of the Damned.
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He got a portrait and an obedience in Book of the Damned.
Yes, a demigod of pedophilic rapists with vans is certainly something from 6 years ago that was made as a joke(?) and then left alone with no further treatment or even much elaboration in the publication that introduced it.
Are you talking about the "strangers with candy" daemon?
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Are you talking about the "strangers with candy" daemon?He got a portrait and an obedience in Book of the Damned.
Yes, a demigod of pedophilic rapists with vans is certainly something from 6 years ago that was made as a joke(?) and then left alone with no further treatment or even much elaboration in the publication that introduced it.
Folca, the Gaunt Stranger? Yes. Check pages 112 and 114.