Serinbaal the Lands of Torment ("Dark Sun" Homebrew Pathfinder 1e)

Game Master Sebecloki

Yes -- but it's a conversation only Tyren can hear -- all you see is a half-elf standing around searching the room with his magical lights.

I'm encouraging PvP necessarily, I'm just saying it's an option, whereas in most campaigns it's not.

Ah so Tyren is the half-elf. I was already wondering about that.

@Ri'Kli'Klek: Do you perhaps have that power where we all can communicate telepathically? Something like that would be really handy and bring you in in a new way.

We're moving pretty fast often and already got some new party members again, so i would love to keep inter party communication and rp going.
There's always a lot of spoilers containing awesome stories, but we should see that instead of spinning mainly individual stories we work on one greater story together a bit more.

@Ri'Kli'Klek -- that might actually give you an answer to what you can do to have an interesting build that isn't based on number crunching -- you could be the marshal/utility/translator character.

If you built him to take a few levels of this prestige class:

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/alternative-rule-systems/psionics-unleashed/classes /tactician,

That would give everyone a telepathic link. I'd let you take 3 instead of 2 levels b/c this isn't a combat build, to average out stuff everyone else got. What do you think?

Heck, man, I dunno if you've already used the Spellcaster HoP feat, but for that matter, a few levels of tactician, then grab Spellcaster(Erudite). Suddenly, if someone wants to give a power to the group, they can go to you and you can project it across your network.

Ah so Tyren is the half-elf. I was already wondering about that.

@Ri'Kli'Klek: Do you perhaps have that power where we all can communicate telepathically? Something like that would be really handy and bring you in in a new way.

We're moving pretty fast often and already got some new party members again, so i would love to keep inter party communication and rp going.
There's always a lot of spoilers containing awesome stories, but we should see that instead of spinning mainly individual stories we work on one greater story together a bit more.

Yes, Tyren is the half-elf. He has a story that connects with the dray situation that Jimbli and Taalik got caught up in -- the stuff about the dray ripping the dude's skin off that Taalik talked about lo these many months ago will come up again.

I was explaining some of the details to Genth/Devapala on Discord the other night -- this is a very complicated world, but I have thought through things, and they do all connect. It's just lots of stuff happening. The world exists beyond the 5' around your characters, and I really love world-building; it's probably my favorite part of DMing.

I think you had a good idea on the Discord chat to have a rest period where the players can interact more; you might even pick part of the dungeon to make a base in, or return to the Serpent Singer Temple to report back on what you've found and recuperate.

Interesting. I'll have to give that a look sometime and see if it feels like it would fit Ri'Kli'Klek.

Rokan the Ascetic wrote:

The build rules have both of these statements about HOF:

Quote:

You can select up to 6 of these puppies. They count for feat slots.

and

Quote:

For Horrifically Overpowers Feats, you can only have 1 per level/mythic tier, so either 8/2 or 6/3 at the current build.

Also, for us psionically inclined folk, can "Full Casting Action" be taken as "Full Manifesting Action"? :)

I mean 'normal' HOF feats for the 'normal levels' and 'mythic HOF' for the mythic tiers. So 6 or 8 'normal ones' and 2 or 3 mythic ones.

Fine with manifesting action.

Ah! I missed that some of them are mythic. I'll look again and finalize my decisions.

I think I'll take you up on the reworking with the Possession thing.
I think I'll refluff him just a bit more. Given his more grave(ha!) theme, I think I'll make his scientific antics aimed toward creating an acceptable alternative toward the lack of an afterlife.
Right now, though, he attempts to serve as a guide to the dead, though this would still be only the fourth such soul he's ever truly reached out to help.

I think I'll take you up on the reworking with the Possession thing.

I think I'll refluff him just a bit more. Given his more grave(ha!) theme, I think I'll make his scientific antics aimed toward creating an acceptable alternative toward the lack of an afterlife.
Right now, though, he attempts to serve as a guide to the dead, though this would still be only the fourth such soul he's ever truly reached out to help.

That's actually a really interesting idea b/c you'd think someone on Athas would have figured this out and wanted to come up with a solution to the problem of their terrible afterlife.

Tyren Lourofesh wrote:

I think I'll take you up on the reworking with the Possession thing.

I think I'll refluff him just a bit more. Given his more grave(ha!) theme, I think I'll make his scientific antics aimed toward creating an acceptable alternative toward the lack of an afterlife.
Right now, though, he attempts to serve as a guide to the dead, though this would still be only the fourth such soul he's ever truly reached out to help.

That's actually a really interesting idea b/c you'd think someone on Athas would have figured this out and wanted to come up with a solution to the problem of their terrible afterlife.

I think a large part of it may be due to ignorance. Thanks to the Dragon Gods basically not particularly liking even the clergy, there's really been nobody to spread the lore. People might recognize the Grey as being terrible, but there might not have been that many people who've read enough interplanar texts to realize basically all attempts to get past it have failed...Including for the dead.

So, while Spellcasters and such know, that's the exact kind of group that's usually not terribly concerned with the afterlife--For them, they kind of figure they either succeed at immortality, or they're screwed anyway/

There's probably a lot of folk traditions that aren't true as well. But since the vast majority of the population is illiterate, the ignorance thing is undoubtedly important. Still, scholars like the group of which Tyren is a member would likely be those interested in coming up with a solution -- I'm imagining all kinds of ideas like preserving souls in psi crystals, obsidian etc. golem bodies, various kinds of possession or body theft, strategies for rejuvenation like healing pods, weird herbal concoctions, etc.

That's what I was thinking. So now his two zombie allies are more of a prototype for painless transfers from the Grey, by reanimating their bodies and then coaxing their souls back in. They're long-term works, though, which is why their intelligence scores recover so slowly; the technique won't ever even be able to perfectly bring a genius back to their full level, either, so he'll probably branch out into things like creating good-aligned Intelligent Undead, sort of like the Deathless.

Then, once he's perfected a method of soul transferring out of the Grey, he'd probably work on something like a demiplane where they could do things like bring in spirits and allow them to rest. Probably recruit volunteers from the spirits of the realm to train and eventually be able to create more of such demiplanes.

There literally a prestige class for body stealing in dsp psionics, as well as many powers.
Good thing that I can make Amunet-Ra immortal.

@GM an I assume I see what hamza does and read that?

I posted a spoiler to you as well with the same information

You posted another one to hamza ;)
And then to jimbli.

forums must have ate it -- posted to you again

That's what I was thinking. So now his two zombie allies are more of a prototype for painless transfers from the Grey, by reanimating their bodies and then coaxing their souls back in. They're long-term works, though, which is why their intelligence scores recover so slowly; the technique won't ever even be able to perfectly bring a genius back to their full level, either, so he'll probably branch out into things like creating good-aligned Intelligent Undead, sort of like the Deathless.

Then, once he's perfected a method of soul transferring out of the Grey, he'd probably work on something like a demiplane where they could do things like bring in spirits and allow them to rest. Probably recruit volunteers from the spirits of the realm to train and eventually be able to create more of such demiplanes.

Amunet is talking to you in case that wasn't clear. She's super stealthy, so she's been easily hiding and observing you for a few moments.

The spoiler from Slaavathras to Devapala doesn't open :/

Yeah I just noticed that going back to check -- I'm going to try again.

Hmmm, interesting... if I went with Tactician I'd probably just trade out my Psychic levels for Tactician levels, because it doesn't seem like there's any reason to have two types of psychic casting. I'll have to mull on it a little while longer.

So I forgot how bad I am at playing tight-lipped characters.

I know that feeling. :D

Tyren, can you use the formatting listed in this post, please?

PbP

It will make your posts much easier to read.

Sure.

Besides using the paizo forum bb code, it would be really cool and helpful if our two newcomers would have some more data on their character sheets, like the complete crunch.
Everyone else has that too.
That's less to control, but more to understand.
I think both of you have 3pp stuff which is completely unknown to me at least.
Is taos helpful ingame often though of we know what the others can do, ic and ooc.

That's more of a work in progress. I had been in the process of transferring over the information from the linked page over to the actual profile, and my computer crashed, and apparently the profile 'about' description was the last part not to save.

Ah yeah, don't take too long having that page "in progress", since it won't load again then. They have a rather short timeframe you can work on that and save, before it says you ran out of time.
It's better to copy everything on a document, save that, work there, then just copy and paste back in.

I've spoken to the GM about it, and I can't put up too much information. Seb has my sheet and can answer any queries you have

I'm terribly sorry for having held things up for so long. I thought we'd be left to make our own intro posts, and was taking my time reading through the backlog of the game. Being unused to the Paizo forums, I missed the PM notification that Seb sent me to let me know that he'd done my intro for me. I'll be conscientious about checking the game thread and posting promptly from now on.

I *also* managed to post in the discussion thread for the *wrong f'in game* >.<

Seb: two questions. Can Jin see that she's got all her gear, and can she see any sign of Gu?

Oh, and as far as sheet-sharing goes, my full sheet is in my profile. The short version crunch-wise is 'AoO-oriented reach monster and poison specialist', and fluff-wise is 'escaped slave with a vendetta against slavers.'

It's actually kinda funny, because Tyren was the other poison specialist on the team, so the two native poison users were the ones to be translated.

I'm terribly sorry for having held things up for so long. I thought we'd be left to make our own intro posts, and was taking my time reading through the backlog of the game. Being unused to the Paizo forums, I missed the PM notification that Seb sent me to let me know that he'd done my intro for me. I'll be conscientious about checking the game thread and posting promptly from now on.

I *also* managed to post in the discussion thread for the *wrong f'in game* >.<

Seb: two questions. Can Jin see that she's got all her gear, and can she see any sign of Gu?

she has her gear. gu wakes up beside jin

Could everyone let me know when they're done rebuilding their character and any associated buddies, animal or otherwise? I want to look through the stats at the end and do a rough gauge of stuff like BAB, AC, skill checks, damage output, etc. and probably hand out some additional prestige class levels, templates, or equipment to the party members that still need a bit of a boost to bring them into line with the other characters. Everyone doesn't have to have all those things high -- but I'm going to make sure everyone has some kind of 'niche' -- like they're not just all around lower on utility in every area than some other party member.

How much time would people need to rebuild their companions (Raxus, the lizard, and gu, I think Tyren already did his)? If it's too much work, fine, but I was thinking about having the animal buddies etc. have an encounter while everyone else is chilling at the base camp.

Raxus is 3/4 done; I haven't started Vyse, but I can make it a priority and knock those out in a day or two if needed.

Jin, can you fix Gu soon?

I'm itching to throw some nasty mythic Egyptian creatures from a Legendary Games mythic monsters pdf I got recently at the animal buddies and robots/golems and see what happens.

I'm guessing this tale was after Ri'Kli'Klek's time? :D

quite a bit

Could everyone let me know when they're done rebuilding their character and any associated buddies, animal or otherwise? I want to look through the stats at the end and do a rough gauge of stuff like BAB, AC, skill checks, damage output, etc. and probably hand out some additional prestige class levels, templates, or equipment to the party members that still need a bit of a boost to bring them into line with the other characters. Everyone doesn't have to have all those things high -- but I'm going to make sure everyone has some kind of 'niche' -- like they're not just all around lower on utility in every area than some other party member.

I'm done with Rokan *save* for the allowance of five traits (he still just has the original 2). However, I'm pretty sure this won't move his important numbers at all.

Hi! Just a heads up, I'll be away this weekend on a camping trip from Saturday early morning until mid-day Sunday (US/Pacific time). I'll be unable to post while I'm out there, but able to resume Sunday afternoon (so really only 1.5d away).

When you say companions get our build rules, do you mean Animal HD 1 | Class Level 1 gestalt, 3 CR worth of templates, improved point buy, the works?

Also, can I assume we shoot the breeze about the story so far offscreen, so I can read the previous bits of the thread and Jin can be generally assumed to know what's going on?

I have the confused. The section on vitality says 'Use the creature’s Hit Dice to generate its vitality points, just like you would hit points, but without adding the creature’s Constitution modifier.'

Yet, the chart says to add your Con mod, as does the section on leveling: 'at each level a character rolls a vitality die and adds his Constitution modifier.'

Should I assume that first line is a mistake?

Also, for those of us that bathed in the red god's pool, you said we can choose which stat and modifier we use. Was that just for wounds, vitality, or both?

I'm frankly a bit skeptical if we really need a legion of pimped up companions, be it animal companions, familiars, or other stuff like golems mentioned, the undead, etc. - where i don't even understand where they come from, since they don't seem to be a class feature.
We already have 10 players here now.
All the companions raise that number to how much? 20?

And are we now picking up just random cohorts?

The other thing is the balance.
How will that compare to a character who doesn't have a companion and neither spells?
I mean spells also provide a broader range of abilities than no spells, which didn't come to bear fruits here much so far, but mainly because it wasn't really used too.

I'm also wondering about the sudden Steampunk vibe we have. I'm fine with exploring some ancient tech, but with cowboys in Dark Sun i'm not sure how that fits in for me. No offense though.

When you say companions get our build rules, do you mean Animal HD 1 | Class Level 1 gestalt, 3 CR worth of templates, improved point buy, the works?

Also, can I assume we shoot the breeze about the story so far offscreen, so I can read the previous bits of the thread and Jin can be generally assumed to know what's going on?

Yeah everything.

Yeah, that's fine.

I have the confused. The section on vitality says 'Use the creature’s Hit Dice to generate its vitality points, just like you would hit points, but without adding the creature’s Constitution modifier.'

Yet, the chart says to add your Con mod, as does the section on leveling: 'at each level a character rolls a vitality die and adds his Constitution modifier.'

Should I assume that first line is a mistake?

Also, for those of us that bathed in the red god's pool, you said we can choose which stat and modifier we use. Was that just for wounds, vitality, or both?

I've got to fix that -- I'm still looking through the revised rules. It should come out the same as the characters

I'm frankly a bit skeptical if we really need a legion of pimped up companions, be it animal companions, familiars, or other stuff like golems mentioned, the undead, etc. - where i don't even understand where they come from, since they don't seem to be a class feature.

Athasian half-elves get Animal Ally as a bonus feat at 5th, and I boosted it a bit by taking Boon Companion- not actually expecting it to get juiced so radically, more because I wanted it to have some chance of survival in such a high-powered environment. Now that it's going to get buffed, I'm actually considering swapping Boon Companion for Extra Combat Talent (Specialized Venom: Undead, Construct), since the intent was an impressive pet and not PC #2, and since it seems like the current environment is undead-heavy.

Amunet-Ra wrote:

I'm frankly a bit skeptical if we really need a legion of pimped up companions, be it animal companions, familiars, or other stuff like golems mentioned, the undead, etc. - where i don't even understand where they come from, since they don't seem to be a class feature.

Athasian half-elves get Animal Ally as a bonus feat at 5th, and I boosted it a bit by taking Boon Companion- not actually expecting it to get juiced so radically, more because I wanted it to have some chance of survival in such a high-powered environment. Now that it's going to get buffed, I'm actually considering swapping Boon Companion for Extra Combat Talent (Specialized Venom: Undead, Construct), since the intent was an impressive pet and not PC #2, and since it seems like the current environment is undead-heavy.

but the wolf has already appeared 'on stage' at this point, so what do you plan to do about that?

Aye, it is tough to find a sweet spot for companions in a high-powered campaign. Just to throw an idea out, maybe give them just 1 class instead of gestalt?

I think one of the concerns has been the high turnover rate, but that does seem to have settled down.

Also, we may want to be cautious about sidelining the main cast and story.

but the wolf has already appeared 'on stage' at this point, so what do you plan to do about that?

Keep the Animal Ally feat, which still grants an animal companion of effective level of your character level - 3. That still permits a wolf, just one with 3 HD rather than 6. Would that be doable?

Sebecloki wrote:

but the wolf has already appeared 'on stage' at this point, so what do you plan to do about that?

Keep the Animal Ally feat, which still grants an animal companion of effective level of your character level - 3. That still permits a wolf, just one with 3 HD rather than 6. Would that be doable?

I don't really want to do lots of different ad hoc rules for animal companions, etc. that differ substantially from player to player -- this wouldn't just be an issue of a 3hd wolf, it would also involve all the other build questions we've been covering above, and encounter all kinds of clarifications, follow-up questions, grey areas etc. I just want to do everything the same so I don't have dozens and dozens of questions about how to construct these entities.

This is more a concern than a complaint.

I forgot half-elves get that feat, sorry.
Also don't want to throw them out or something, although some might not oppose eating them :D

When a compaion + character are the same as another character power wise, that's fine, since the companion is a feature then.
Cae summoned my concerns quite good.
It's more the concern that 1 character plus several companions gets a bit too much, especially since we already have so many players now.