Masters of Golarion II

Game Master fnord72

I'm still hammering away on my history. I did get to the part where Areniel saves the day though!, lol

Everyone- I'm really sorry but I've had some RL stuff come up and I'm going to have to step away from the boards indefinitely...

I know Areniel has been sort of a central connecting figure in this run of the game so far and I feel really bad messing that up... please feel free to keep him going as an NPC as you see fit. I really hope this doesn't put the nail in the coffin on this game- it's a good one and I hope you can all get/keep it going.

Sorry to hear that, Areniel. Hope things get better for you soon.

I have two possible new players interested in this, with maybe a third, aside from myself.

Fnord, I hope Areniel's leave of absence isn't the final nail in this game's coffin, as I still super interested and excited to join in.

I was going to post shelving this, if you can get them in here, and we can maintain activity, then I'll keep it going.

Hello All,

I am one of the players that Monkeygod wishes to bring in. I started playing DnD back in the sixth grade, started with third edition and then switched over to 3.5, played heavily throughout middle school and high school and started playing Pathfinder about years ago. I have also played Vampire, Werewolf, BESM, and D20 Modern. The longest tabletop I played in lasted for well over a year and was a high-level 3/3.5 game, I do prefer Pathfinder though. Unfortunately most of my PBP was done when I used to be on Gaia Online and it has been a few years since I have done it.

Townsfolk Viewpoint of Jarlaxle: Fear gripped me when I saw him. You only hear stories of his kind, you only ever hear of the horrors that they commit in the name of their goddess. And yet as I watched him with a cold sweat, fear gave way to curiosity. Drow are supposed to be agents of darkness, creatures of the Underdark and yet this man with his feathery plumed hat and bright jacket brought none of these feelings to mind. In fact when he looked around with that smirk on his face you would almost forget what he was. Thats the last thing I remember before waking up the next morning with all my gold gone and the amulet missing from the lockbox. The stories of them may not always ring true but one thing surely does, never trust a Drow.

How a level 15 character would work: A level 15 character rarely gets to be where they are on their own. Level 15's tend to be where they are via an adventuring party in terms of goodly or neutrally aligned folk. Their levels and power are amassed by helping others who in turn give them resources or fame to further themselves. As to how they would then exist in the world once they get to level 15, most would end up being leaders in some fashion, either running a settlement or organization or using their level and power for someone else, such as being an advisor or champion to a ruler.

I look forward to seeing what you bring to the table.

Why thank you. If you don't mind I was hoping to get some clarification on a couple of things.

I understand that there is no third party material but does that mean also no psionics? I ask because I know some people don't consider certain publishers to be third party and just wanted a clarification.

And second I noticed there was a great deal of discussion about the leadership feat and wanted to know what the ruling about it came down to be?

And thank you for allowing me to join the campaign.

Hey, this is EMGs brother checking in. I've been playign table top games since high school and started out playing, I think, an 18th level evil game & a 20th level gestalt good game (fighter/monk... epic). The Good Game lasted for over 2 years, on and off, I think, and we ended up becoming gods. I love the creative and role play aspect, in and out of combat, and, although my longest PbP was only 6 months (maybe), I feel this format is really conducive to how I think and play.
I've played D&D, Pathfinder, D20 Modern, and VtM. I've always enjoyed everything I played, but I've really been loving the stuff Pathfinder has put out. Modern was always awesome though, plus spaceships.

Someone of 15th level in Golarian is most likely an authority figure. Depending on class, they could be the leader of a church, a high ranking military officer, or a tenured professor at a mage school; regardless, they've seen some stuff. They've had to fight, struggle and make hard choices, and definitely almost die, but have come out of it, hopefully, wiser. They are not the most powerful, however, and they know that. At 15, a person would understand the power curve and gradient and recognize, that though powerful, they are not even close to what exists.

"Thorik was always destined for greatness. Ever since he was a little, troublesome dwarf, when I knew his father from the mine, I knew he'd be special." Siftan told stories to his grandchildren often. They were astounded that he had actually known the twin gods, Thorik and Godin, while they were mortals. "They grew up in this very city. I once sparred with them, after they had returned from their training." "No way!" shouted a chorus of children. "It's the truth!", shouted back the old dwarf, and it was the truth. "The last time I saw Thorik, though, he was no longer a dwarf. He had transcended. The rumor is he has merged with a plantar, an angel. His skin is now a pale silver-blue, and he's 7 feet tall with the wings of a dragon. He had a beautiful beard, with platinum bands and diamond beads, but he was still bald as ever. HA! HA!" He laughed two big belly laughs while the children sighed. "It was incredible to see what he had become, so graceful and strong. It is no wonder why he is the god of lightning."

My character for this game would be a Scrollmaster Wizard/Staff Magus. He's a master of counterspelling and melee combat, and his first love is dueling; however, with the threat posed by the World Wound and other extraplanar evils, he became a Riftwarden.

@uber

At this time there is no 3rd party material allowances. That includes psionics.

The leadership question hasn't been settled as yet. Don't expect to have a cohort that is much higher than 17th level.

Welcome So_AMaven!

Monkeygod was unable to answer this for me, but when exactly will we be starting? I have a few ideas rolling around in my head so I am still trying to narrow them down.

This is a good question. Tessara and her companion have hopped on a TARDIS and is helping some poor schlep do tax work for cryin' out loud!

Please, ignore my friend, Tessara. She's been on a bender for about a week now and she thinks that anything written as a tax form is really just warm beer at this point. For the last twenty-four hours, she's been madly harping on about finding the perfect drink. The things the she said about poor Glenlivit would make your hair curl.

Please, have pity on her! She's not herself...

I'll kick it off once I have 3-5 solid players with ready characters.

I believe it is time to table this game.

Really? That's a bummer. The three of us have been working hard to build our characters, and were even going to meet next week, so Uber can access my books to help flesh out his background.

I know my brother is super excited about his character, and has been pouring over Inner Sea Guide and Inner Sea Gods finding ways to connect and tie himself to the world and setting.

I can't force you to run this if you no longer want to, but I went out of my way to try and help keep this game alive because I not only have an awesome character I want to play, but also because the game's concept is just as awesome.

I'm hoping you'll reconsider.

It was the lack of discussion on the forum that was leading me in that direction.

There are aspects of ISG that may not be available, such as those PrC's that have boons and require vows from deities. If it isn't on d20pfsrd, it may not be allowed.

Nah, the three of us are using them for working on our backgrounds.

None of us have classes from that book, though I am taking at least one feat(Disciple of the Sword) from ISGs.

Uber is a friend of my in real life, so a lot of our conversions as been at our weekly game table or at Friday Night Magic.

Does this mean the game is still on?

yes,

might i suggest getting some of those ideas posted here so I can see how to work them into a campaign?

I'd also hate for there to be a ton of work done and then find some critical component that is a game breaker.

Since our deity is of importance to the background and the setting of the game I was wondering if it would be ok to worship an Empyreal Lord as my deity? As of right now I am leaning towards Zohls because I am going to go Investigator 20/ Sleepless Detective 5

I don't have my books with me, from what I recollect, the Empyreal Lords are demi-gods, with only a spark of divinity. (Someplace on the mythic tier scale?)

As such, you would want to know a god that your Empyreal Lord works with. I would expect that you would be somewhat polytheistic, your EL and his/her god.

An EL would not have been in the conclave that bestowed mythic powers on the players. You may have been presented to a full god as an agent worthy of becoming a mythic pawn.

Take note, it is stated that angels, archons, azatas, are all empyreal lords. This means that there is already an EL in the group (Areniel), by extrapolation, anyone with mythic powers for good might be considered an empyreal lord, which would include the entire party.

Ok, thanks so much for the clarification.

Also is there a ruling on us owning property?

And secondly besides what has been listed is the Golarion world its normal self or would other things have been changed due to our potential actions in gaining our level 25 mythic abilities? For example if my character had a goal to change the political situation of Magnimar would it already have been changed due to his actions or would that be something he would still have to attain?

Also Monkeygod just informed me of the google docs which for some reason I had not seen the link for so I apologize if any of my answers are in there.

Hey Fnord,

Could I be a high ranking leader of the Knights of Ozem? I figured they would really fit my character quite nicely, and give another organization aside from the Worldwound Crusades to have ties too.

I was thinking about using Rise of the Runelords as my level 1 through 17 background, I am currently running it and really enjoy it so I would able to connect with is rather easily if you allow it.

Good morning,

I wanted to clarify that I wasn't saying that you could not have the EL Zohls as your diety. Only that you would have to take into consideration a couple of additional points in making that selection.

*****
Knights of Ozem... Another Iomedae group... sigh... :)

You'd have the same issues as those that were looking at positions within the Mendevian Crusades.

1) You are a high ranking, but independent agent. You don't have any particular power as you are outside of the "chain of command" within the order.

2) You are a high ranking leader in the Order, you are in the chain of command and have agents that you can order about, some of whom are just as loyal to you as they are to the Order or Iomedae. Must have leadership.

*****
Rise of the Runelords is an acceptable background. I'd want to review the endgame of the module regarding any changes from canon history of the region. (I use PathfinderWiki for a lot of my background material). Let me know if you want to use this and I'll add you to the google doc.

*****
I've mentioned previously that I believe that a game of this power magnitude requires a significant level of self-limiting from the players as much as the GM works to provide interesting encounters. As such, I'll start posting some random encounters using Validk to show what I'd like to see from players.

The requirement that everyone is good (and some of you are ending up lawful as well) should help in this. I'd also like to discuss what I see as some issues between the typical low level d&d player and an epic long lasting, enjoyable campaign.

*****
Since I am the last person from the original set that made the character creation rules, I'm going to open up some of them for discussion within the current group.

1) No material in playtest. This should be modified to include "Recently released material may not be available until current characters have had an opportunity to retrain.

2) I like the idea of allowing a much broader selection of races including monster races. I've also seen where there are some balance issues with some particular races. Specifically those that are stacked with a lot of racial bonuses, attribute bonuses, and are effectively a full progression casting class to boot. Compared to a core race, this is effectively a gestalt creature. So how would we balance letting people play 'monster' races without ending up in a serious power balance issue from a race like trumpet archon? I'm okay with the current ruling on dragons only advancing by racial HD.

3) Wealth. I had suggested allowing a second wealth table for a character's background. Your thoughts?

4) Leadership. I'm open to discussion on expanding the number/level of followers. I've also considered just giving the feat as a freebie to all players. I'm still concerned about the balance issues of increasing the cohort max level. Your thoughts?

5) New proposed rule: Characters may retrain during downtime. Retraining during character creation is not accepted. This would allow for gradual introduction of newly released material.

6) New proposed rule: Gestalt. I personally like gestalt when it is used to increase the versatility of a character. I don't like it when it is used to pump up the primary class. I was thinking to require all players to list their character's leveling history and then, as an additional character progression give levels in a gestalt class. I.e. On one side everyone is 25th level. On the other side they might only be 5th level. Knowing the hisotry of the character's primary side would allow for determination of when saves/skill points/BAB increases were appropriate. Your thoughts?

7) New proposed rule: Arbitrary save limit. With monster races and multiclassing, and especially if gestalt comes into play, saves can get high enough to become nearly impossible to fail. A good save progresses by 1 pt every 2 levels. At 25th level the maximum class bonus to a good save should be 14. A poor save is generally half a good save, and at 25th level would be 8. Your thoughts on capping the racial/class save to 14, modified by ability score?

Well, that's a lot of interesting ideas and such. First, let me respond to my question.

Regardless of what ends up happening with Leadership, Davin will have it, even if he must spend the feat, so I am OK with the second option.

On to the other stuff:

1) I have no problem here, although I was considering taking Warpriest if we went with the gestalt option(see 6). Would that be a problem?

2) With Areniel possibly not coming back, the four of us currently are all more or less 'normal' races. Thus, I am unsure if we need to worry about monster race balance at the moment.

With that said, I would like the option to modify/create a sort of Noble Aasimar with the Race Builder. I know you were worried about the crazy that could ensure, but if I stick to 36 or so RP(The cost of a Noble Drow), I can't see myself being any more insane than a silver dragon or trumpet archon.

3) This sounds interesting, and I would be curious for more details.

4) I think allowing Leadership as a freebie is a good idea, as its the perfect mechanical means of tying one into the existing world, which I feel is so essential to this game.

The epic leadership feat allows for near infinite expansion of followers, so that shouldn't be too hard to figure out.

As for the cohort, this raises a question I've been meaning to ask in general: Will be gaining normal levels, past 25, or is it all mythic tiers from here on out?

If we will eventually level to 26 and beyond, then there should be some way to increase our cohort too. Not sure how, just yet, however.

5) This is fine, no problems here.

6) My brother and I are quite the fans of gestalt, so you'll have no problems convincing us to use them for this game. We both think they will allow us to further flesh our out characters and make them more interesting.

7) Before I truly answer this, I think the question I asked about leveling needs to be answered.

What classes were taken if gestalt was opened would best be discussed at that time, once your current character was created.

Note that according to the race builder, a drow noble should have a 2 level adjustment. A noble Aasimar would have the same. I believe the race builder states that every 10 RP points is equal to a level adjustment.

Experience for gaining levels in pathfinder is rediq. Pathfinder says that each level past 20 is twice the experience of the previous level, so to go from 25 to 26 will cost 33.6 million xp.

For a group of 4 level 25 characters, that's 134.4 million xp. The demon lord Pazuzu, at CR 30, is 9.8 million XP. So you need to defeat him, and 13 of his brothers for the party to level up.

A CR 25 creature is 1.6 million xp, so the party only needs to find an orgy of 84 balor lords to level up.

Hence why mythic will likely be the primary method of character advancement for the time being. With a possible side of gestalt.

I'll wait to see what the others have to say on these options as well.

Unsure where you saw the part of level adjustment, but at our level, a 40(and therefore 36) RP race should have add +0 to the APL of the group, according to the chart on the main Race Building page.

*However* it's your game, and while it would be cool to play an Aasimar whose is descendant from a more powerful celestial, if you rule that there's a level hit, I will be fine with the base Aasimar.

I promise that if you don't penalize me levels, that I will not go crazy with what I create, and I'll also come up with a ancestor that you can use for plot and story purposes too. Might go with an established character, possibly Iomedae's herald, or maybe an Empyreal Lord?

Also, I am rather curious about the secondary wealth table for character background.

I will most likely go with an EL as my deity because a couple of them seem to fit my ideas the best.
And I would very much like to use Rise of the Runelords as my background.
Besides my history leading up to level 1 and everything after Rise would you like for me to go into some details as to what I did during Rise?
Also would you mind clarifying as to what points I need to consider if I were to take an EL deity?
As for leadership I also believe it being a freebie would make a lot of sense, but personally my cohort and followers would most likely be all used for downtime in keeping something for me running while I'm away from it.
And what did you mean when you said a second wealth table for our backgrounds?

As EMG said, I like gestalt and the way you want to use it works perfectly for my character.

Born in Hermea, an island utopia experiment ruled by a Dragon, Zayir was third generation. He was schooled in the ways of magic and combat and excelled in both; molding his talents into a unique fighting style. He was strong, quick, intelligent, gifted with long life, everything Mengkare was looking for, but, at 16, he was also the first to voluntarily leave. His ship was destroyed not soon after he departed and he washed ashore on Cheliax. Saved by Hellknights on the coast and taken in. Inflamed by initial faith of Gorum and his new found devotion to law and order, Zayir became a fearsome Signifier. Adapt in counter magic, evocation and melee combat, he easily dispatched heretics as a member of the Order of the Pyre. Until he was called to crusade. It was there that he saw the true breadth of Golarion and the truth of the vastness of the world. After the 1st crusade, he denounced his allegiance to Cheliax & the Hellknights and joined The Riftwardens, seeking to make better use of his incredible talent at counter magic and sealing and protect the world from any more attacks. He has been living in Absalom selling scrolls since the 3rd crusade, at least, so it seems to the mortal world.

In truth, after the crusades had ended, and having traveled most of Golarion, Zayir became a planeswalker. He travelled, sealing rifts in the great beyond and on planes all over the cosmos. Working with and fighting outsiders, he learned much about himself and the nature of the universe.

All that he had learned, though, could not prepare him for his most recent mission. While meditation on the astral plane, he felt an intense heat come over him. A radiance of power and energy, unlike anything he had known before. As the bright light subsided, he sat before a Jyoti, a being of the positive energy plane. Confused and somewhat frightened, Zayir began to speak with the rare outsider. He had been sent to find Zayir because a small tear had occurred in the positive energy plane, much like the worldwound. And although the Jyoti and Ravids are incredibly powerful, they don't have any way to manipulate the fabric of the great beyond. Zayir humbly accepted and was escorted there. Upon entering the Positive Energy Plane, a crystal flower from The Garden at the center of the plane blossomed and irradiated him with light granting him the divine spark. The Jyoti were astonished and marveled at this new development, but there was little time to waste. With his new found mythic ability, much help and great effort, Zayir was able to seal the rift before any lasting damage could be done to the Positive Energy Plane. After a triumphant celebration, he returned home to Absalom, sat back and continued to sell scrolls.

8 Scroll Wizard/7 Staff Magus(gestalt 7 Hellknight Signifier)/10 Riftwarden

Archmage tier 1

Throughout his life his alignment has shifted from CN (as a follower of Gorum on Hermea) to LN (an indoctrinated Hellknight) to NG (a crusading Riftwarden). He is currently Nuetral Good and will probably stay that for the foreseeable future.

Gestalt could, potentially, be a good solution for your desire to include monster races... A lot of monsters' HD are more in the area of a gestalt level in terms of power than they are a normal level (certainly most/all outsiders are). If you let people gestalt their class levels but give no additional bonus for levels spent on racial HD or CR, then it should balance things out nicely.

Also, I'm really glad to see this is continuing- I love the idea and was really bummed to have to walk away.

Those are some interesting alignment changes. And they don't make much sense. Can you explain further? At first glance it appears to be just a mechanic to get around restrictions for a couple of your PrC choices.

Path of Prestige may be one of those books that falls under the unavailable category. I don't have it. Try to use the class names that ma be posted on d20pfsrd. Many class names are changed from the smaller splat books since they are copywrite. Riftwarden is listed as planeswalker.

We'll also need to work on your ascension. For this campaign, all ascensions are granted by a good deity for a specific purpose.

Just checking so everyone knows I'm still alive. 4 more days of taxes to go...

2. Since I'm a drow, the question of using monster races seems a moot point to me. I'm fine with others using them, just to make things more interesting.

3. Not sure I follow. Could you explain this one to a very tired tax accountant? o_O

4. Since I already have Leadership, does that mean I get an extra feat?

5. I have a similar house rule, and I allow the characters to cross-train any (reasonable) skills, typically at 1 feat/level.

6. I am all for gestalting. That being said, I'm not sure what I can add on to Tessara without making completely unwieldy.

7. As for saves, I'm fine with keeping it as low as 12, to keep things challenging.

The alignment changes correspond with changes in his environment and big changes in his way of thinking. He was brought up on Hermea, and worshipped the God of his parents, Gorum. After his exodus, he has a near death experience (shipwreck) &he was rescued and indoctrinated by Cheliax and became a Hellknight, which is why there is such a dramatic change. Both CN & LN occur roughly 100 years ago, before te 1st crusade. As he fought in the crusade and adventured throughout Golarion, his true personality began to shine through, but it was only after he denounced The Hellknights and joined The Riftwardens that he actually started doing "good". No longer bound by service to Gorum or Cheliax, he seeks out good for its own sake, using his abilities to protect the multiverse.

And as for the ascension event, that's fine. I just wrote that up because I thought it was cool and being one of the few to ever go to te positie energy plane fit the granduer and scope of this game. If you don't mind, I'd like to leave that in as part of his backstory and just make it a sign of his impending mythic-ness.

Do you have any suggestions for his ascension? Is it the same as the original PCs or should I come up with a unique story?

I agree with Areniel that using gestalt as a way to compensate for monster races or templates could work well. On that note I still have no idea as to what race I want to be yet and I was hoping for some help. I like the idea of having some dragon blood in me, but hate the idea of using the Half-Dragon template since I see it as being overpowered and was wondering if any of you knew of a race that is less Half-Dragon and more like a Tiefling or Aasimar in power level.

kobold

Nice to see the two of you still here Areniel and Tessara!

Areniel, Did you mean that any racial HD/CR would be one side of a gestalt? or both sides?

For all races, or only those that are effectively also full casters?

3)Wealth Basically I'm thinking of a boost to wealth, but the additional can only be spent on background stuff.

This would be using the cash costs in downtime rules to own buildings and hire people to run those businesses. Build your center(s) of operation, etc. Defenses could be incorporated as well. Buff mechanisms that last beyond the property line should be purchased from your own wealth. This would effectively allow you to spend your entire current wealth strictly on personal gear.

So_AMaven, having an event occur is fine. The ascension itself would have occurred similarly to how Validk ascended. The google docs has a file that is the copied text for the original ascension. Yours would have occurred at the same time, but out of phase from that group. You have only been mythic for a few weeks, just enough time to start feeling it out and learn about your new abilities.

So we can use the downtime rules for, well 'empire' building from UC? If that's the case, then I'll need to read up on the rules. After all, you can't run a decent spy network on string and plastic cups. :)

FYI, have you read the blog posts for Pathfinder Unchained yet? If so, have you considered using the 'variant multiclassing' option as an alternate to point 6 from earlier?

yes on ultimate campaign downtime rules. Note that character generation requires using the cash only option. Once the game restarts, using the trade goods option would be ok.

Players interested in extensive holdings may want to use a google spreadsheet to track things, especially if you plan to continue growing your holdings during the game.

I haven't read anything on any playtest material. I have a hard enough time keeping up on the released material.

I'm Not actually still around... I still don't have enough time to really play with you, but I'm trying to check in on your posts once in a while and offer some input when I can... if you want to keep me around as an NPC I might be able to offer some in game guidance/assistance from time to time...

Regarding gestalt and monster races... I originally meant that levels invested in a monster race wouldn't get any other side (so a trumpet archon, for example, would have 14 levels invested for his race then 11 more levels of gestalted classes). After considering your question, I'd suggest a more nuanced approach if you're ok with a slightly higher level of complexity....

• for races with equal CR and HD you spend that number of levels and get the rest of your 25 as gestalt (so a trumpet archon would spend 14 and get 11 gestalt levels)
• races with higher HD than CR aren't quite as powerful (they usually have less stat boosts, SLAs, etc), so have them spend their CR on full levels but let them treat the HD beyond that as half of a gestalt (so a doppelgänger would spend 3 levels then have a 4th level where race is one side of their gestalt, then get 21 normal gestalt levels; or a stone giant would spend 8 levels, have 4 more levels of gestalt race/single class, then 13 regular gestalt levels)
• races with CR higher than their HD tend to get quite a bit (big stat boosts, lots of special abilities, etc)... These races are rare, but may still fall behind if missing HD... To balance that out we could have them pay full levels for their HD and then let them gestalt with an NPC class up to their CR, with the remainder full gestalt (so a shield archon would spend 9 full levels, get 1 level of gestalt race/NPC class and then 15 normal gestalt levels; or a Solar would spend 22 on race, 1 on race/NPC class gestalt, and 2 normal gestalt i looked for a while and those were the only two examples I found where CR>HD
• templates affect CR but not HD, so they'd make the most sense to follow the previous pattern... half-dragon is +3 CR so you'd get 3 levels of template/NPC class and 22 levels of normal gestalt.

Would be alright if Davin was a benefactor of/to the Eagle Knights? Not a leader of any sort, or even somebody who has any real say in their activities, but almost like a silent investor who backs them with funding, resources, etc and might occasionally be called on for advice or aid.

Also, I was thinking that his parents, unsure of what happened to him during the Shining Crusade, but ever hopeful that he would one day return, had set up some sort of trust or investment. This would grow over the thousand years plus until he finally was freed and eventually learned of its existence. Would something like this be possible?

The money wouldn't be used to increase character wealth at all, but would be the funds he uses to purchase any holdings he has. Basically, the background of this possible secondary wealth table you've mentioned.

Which, by the way, now that its explained, I am fully on board with. I really like the downtime and kingdom building rules in Ultimate Campaign, and I know Uber is well versed in the downtime info as well.

When we are away from our organization/buildings, would our cohorts stats be used for the rolls that need to be made, if they are the ones looking after things?

Uberdeathyness,

I'm fine with cohorts filling the role of 'master' while your PC is off adventuring. I'll have to revisit the rules. I believe they state that the PC needs to visit each unit once a month before penalties kick in. I'll likely allow this to be modified up several months if the cohort is making rounds as your right hand.

Monkeygod,

I could see your parents trust as having been a benefactor of the Eagle Knights, and your return placed you as the trustee of the remaining, dwindling funds. I don't really see both roles at the same time. Eagle Knights have been around for how long?

If you own all the buildings the EK operate from, you would effectively have control of them. Without tying up your leadership feat with the EK, your benefactor status would have to be grants and gifts.

If you want to go the X-thousand year old trust account from your parents. That would be a story in itself as to who was holding it, how it was grown, and how it was still in existence.

Areniel,

Interesting ideas. I like them. Do you think this is enough to balance out those races that are full caster, or otherwise look like a dual progression already?

From what I can tell, the Eagle Knights were originally supposed to be a ceremonial honor guard for when Aroden came back to Golarion to lead mankind into their golden age. Thus, when he died, their initial purpose died too, and from those ashes, arose the 'new' Eagle Knights of modern times.

Which, fits perfectly into the timeline of things, as shortly after Aroden dies is when Davin gets released from his imprisonment.

I definitely do not plan on owning all or even most of the holdings of the EK. Maybe just one keep, but I've helped fund many of them.

Let me give an example in the real world: The Steinbrenner family are the principal owners of the New York Yankees. Thus, they make the big decisions, finance the team, etc.

Then they are lesser partners who are invested in the team, but get no say in the daily operations of the team. This is what Davin would be, he's helped finance the EKs, but not to such a degree that he gets any real say in what they do day to day.

However, since he's a 25th level character, I would imagine that his counsel is occasionally sought after, and he's likely aided them throughout the years.

Btw Fnord, this is the blog post about the variant multiclassing mentioned above:

Variant Multiclassing
Have you ever wanted to multiclass your character for flavor reasons—maybe pick up some bardic performances and versatile performance to represent the time you unexpectedly spent studying music one adventure—but then you realized that your character would be pretty significantly handicapped by taking those two levels in bard? It happens all the time, and it requires you to sacrifice something whichever choice you take. With the variant multiclassing option, you can choose a secondary class and trade out half your feats (3rd, 7th, 11th, 15th, and 19th) to instead gain a progression of special abilities based on which class you pick. Want to be a fighter who dabbles in divination magic such that he always acts on the surprise round or vexes his foes with hexes? You're covered. Want to be a druid who specializes in taking out dragons as her favored enemy or flies into a rage when the natural world is in danger? You've got that too. With variant multiclassing, you can open more combinations than ever before, without delaying your access to your main class's cool new features!

Definitely sounds interesting, and I plan on picking up Unchained soon so if this interests you, I can try and provide more info.

Interesting ideas. I like them. Do you think this is enough to balance out those races that are full caster, or otherwise look like a dual progression already?

I can't say for sure without seeing it in practice but I think so... it doesn't make them any less powerful but by allowing standard races to take gestalt combos for those levels you're effectively letting everyone have that same dual progression... there might be a slight gap between say a trumpet archon and a creature that's both CR 14 and has 14 HD but only focuses on magic or the physical... but i doubt it would be noticeable unless someone paired it poorly (like taking a race that's martially focused but choosing caster levels after)