I'd grab a copy of Dungeon #149 if I were you, since that adventure has this exact encounter—the PCs going directly to Orcus for an audience—in it. You can probably lift that whole section from the adventure "Enemy of My Enemy" for use.@neferphras, where's your thread asking for a FAQ clarification? I think your point is worth the FAQ click, so I would be happy to add my vote.
James, I'm looking at a 'semi-random' encounter for a party trying to go directly to Orcus for an audience. How would you go about building that encounter? This is quite a bit beyond my experience since I'm stepping in for a DM late in the AP. The characters are high-level, which is probably obvious, but I don't remember the exact levels at the moment.
That adventure is the reason for my request because I don't see any such encounter. I will go back and re-read it again. I've certainly been guilty of repeated skim-reading of something before...
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Mr james: are you planning another adventure in Ustalav? If so, are you planning to print a Campaign Setting fixed and better than Rule of Fear for Ustalav? with more descriptions, options for characters, spells per region, languages or something?
How can i convert monsters from 3.0/3.5 to PTRPG (Displacer, Beholder, Mindflayer, Ravenloft Monster Manual)?
TXS
BTW I make my own version of Ustalav, mixing it with Ravenloft (I choose this Pathfinder region for the maps and less work to do with every sigle campaign i made)and this Bestiary 4 makes better option alongside with Blood of X companion suplements... Maybe can get deeper with curses and Vistanis type of wanderers!!
We haven't announced any more Ustalav adventures... but it happens to be one of the favorite places of Paizo's Creative Director and of Paizo's Editor in Chief. Make of that what you will! :)
The best way to convert monsters is to just rebuild them as if they were brand new monsters, using the detailed advice in the appendix of Bestiary 1.
Which Indiana Jones movie is your favorite?
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Was Gorum named after the Gorham Manufacturing Company?Nope.
Gorum (one of the deities from my homebrew world) is named after Crom, from Conan.
Okies, i just heard about that company (they're metal and silversmiths) the other day and since it's spelt similar and pronounced the same my mind just went HEY! Figured it was worth a shot :3
I think it's just that Geb/Tar-Baphon is that much of a boss.
How often do you build your own monsters for your home games?
How often do those monsters end up in print?
That adventure is the reason for my request because I don't see any such encounter. I will go back and re-read it again. I've certainly been guilty of repeated skim-reading of something before...I'd grab a copy of Dungeon #149 if I were you, since that adventure has this exact encounter—the PCs going directly to Orcus for an audience—in it. You can probably lift that whole section from the adventure "Enemy of My Enemy" for use.@neferphras, where's your thread asking for a FAQ clarification? I think your point is worth the FAQ click, so I would be happy to add my vote.
James, I'm looking at a 'semi-random' encounter for a party trying to go directly to Orcus for an audience. How would you go about building that encounter? This is quite a bit beyond my experience since I'm stepping in for a DM late in the AP. The characters are high-level, which is probably obvious, but I don't remember the exact levels at the moment.
I'm looking for something outside of Everlost. The only encounter I see before the actual visit with Orcus is at the gate with the balors and the bodaks. That's not what I'm looking for - we have had a lot of "paperwork" in recent sessions and not much playing, let alone combat, and I wanted to start the next session with a reminder of how dangerous this place is.
I'll come up with something. Thanks anyway.
From what I understand once somebody dies they can't be brought back from death without their permission, and they know the alignment of the person that attempts to do so. So how did Geb bring Arazni back? From what I've gathered I don't see any reason to think she wasn't dead or that her spirit didn't pass to the afterlife after death, although I guess that's still a possibility and just hasn't been elaborated on yet.
I would think even if he somebody got some good aligned person to do it that Arazni probably wouldn't want o come back and as a virtual demi-god would have the resources even in the Boneyard to know it wouldn't be a good idea.
Did he have a way of doing so that bypasses the normal rules of the setting because he's that powerful, did a non-evil aligned person get used to do it and Arazni agree to come back, or was it the case where what "Arazni" is now is some type of souless vessel with the powers and memories of what she was that was turned into some form of lich while her actual soul is somewhere off in the afterlife?
That raises another question, does that mean it's possible to also turn others into liches against their will in Golarion?
Only the resurrection spells have that caveat of needing permission. Geb used a form of animate dead to turn her into a lich, which requires no permission.
Just how far did you chase that pige...er, I mean, archaeopteryx?Uh... Huh?
From Wes Schneider's introduction to the original Sins of the Saviors. I guess he really did distract you, didn't he? ;)
Is there any dragon related stuff for players in the pipeline?
I'm thinking imperial, primal and outer dragon sorcerer bloodlines, dragon related prestige classes/archetypes, perhaps even some sort of companions, or other cool things i can't even think of right now?
Do you drink coffee or tea?
What's your favourite flavor of coffee / tea?
Have you ever played Planescape: Torment? Baldur's Gate? Neverwinter Nights?
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From what I understand once somebody dies they can't be brought back from death without their permission, and they know the alignment of the person that attempts to do so. So how did Geb bring Arazni back? From what I've gathered I don't see any reason to think she wasn't dead or that her spirit didn't pass to the afterlife after death, although I guess that's still a possibility and just hasn't been elaborated on yet.
I would think even if he somebody got some good aligned person to do it that Arazni probably wouldn't want o come back and as a virtual demi-god would have the resources even in the Boneyard to know it wouldn't be a good idea.
Did he have a way of doing so that bypasses the normal rules of the setting because he's that powerful, did a non-evil aligned person get used to do it and Arazni agree to come back, or was it the case where what "Arazni" is now is some type of souless vessel with the powers and memories of what she was that was turned into some form of lich while her actual soul is somewhere off in the afterlife?
That raises another question, does that mean it's possible to also turn others into liches against their will in Golarion?
Geb didn't bring Arazni back to life. He turned her into a lich. One of the things in Golarion that differs from other settings is that if you find the right personal ritual... you can indeed force a person's transformation into a lich against their will. In fact... in Carrion Crown...
It's certainly a vile thing to do... and certainly not an easy one. Doesn't happen often... but when you're a super powerful necromancer, it's hardly out of your reach.
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And yes. There are signature weapons out there, although not in a really official way. More like THEMED weapons. Like guns in Alkenstar, or rapiers in the Shackles.Not the cutlass for the Shackles?
Shrug.
Rapier's in the core rules... so it's got precedence. But again... the idea of regional weapons isn't really something we ever really considered and isn't really appropriate for the world as a result anyway...
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From Wes Schneider's introduction to the original Sins of the Saviors. I guess he really did distract you, didn't he? ;)Just how far did you chase that pige...er, I mean, archaeopteryx?Uh... Huh?
oh! No... it's just that I don't retain a photographic memory of Pathfinder forewords.
I chased it for 33 miles, in any event, before it got away.
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Is there any dragon related stuff for players in the pipeline?
I'm thinking imperial, primal and outer dragon sorcerer bloodlines, dragon related prestige classes/archetypes, perhaps even some sort of companions, or other cool things i can't even think of right now?
Yes. Not a lot though. Dragon stuff isn't something I really wanna give to players much, honestly. Dragons are better flavor for the GM in my opinion.
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Do you drink coffee or tea?
What's your favourite flavor of coffee / tea?
Have you ever played Planescape: Torment? Baldur's Gate? Neverwinter Nights?
I drink both.
Favorite coffee these days is dark drip coffee. No bells, no whistles. Used to drink lots of non-fat sugar free vanilla lattes, but I'm on that diet now so it's black coffee all the way.
I have. Baldur's Gate 2 is my favorite video game of all time. Planescape: Torment is probably my 2nd or 3rd favorite one of all time (Fallout 2 is one of those two). Neverwinter Nights is in the top 20 computer games, but mostly because of all the user-created stuff.
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Ha! Being a guy that just happens to be blind, I find this statement extremely amusing. Sure, when I still could see, the images were extremely important to me, but now I find that a rich description is much more applicable. Different strokes and all!
Anyways, for the question. Have you ever played an RPG with someone who was blind? It’s one of the few hobbies that I find I can still enjoy.
I hope you didn't take offense... my comment was NOT meant to insult anyone, but was more of a generalized statement about how influential art is. But yeah... a great reason for us or ANY company to not lie back and be lazy... great and rich descriptions are ALWAYS good.
I've never played an RPG with someone who's blind, but I've gamed with folks who were deaf before. Different challenge, but the experience was something I cherished; it taught me a lot about how folks game and interact with the rules and all that.
No worries James, I never get offended about that sort of thing, but I appreciate the concern.
Now for a question. Of all the demons you have come up with in the last 30 or so years of gaming, which is your favorite?
Whole bean or preground?Kurig at home these days, so preground.
Had a grinder at one point but I think I threw it out during the great purge when I moved from Renton to Redmond.
Well. Anything is better than instant, right? :)
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Now for a question. Of all the demons you have come up with in the last 30 or so years of gaming, which is your favorite?
Ooooh... that's a tough choice.
Limiting it ENTIRELY to demons that I've not expanded upon from mythology or other authors' works, I guess...
DEMON LORD: Cyth-V'sug or Sifkesh
DEMON: Vermlek or seraptis
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Well. Anything is better than instant, right? :)Whole bean or preground?Kurig at home these days, so preground.
Had a grinder at one point but I think I threw it out during the great purge when I moved from Renton to Redmond.
Not always.
And in fact, I do drink a lot of Starbucks Via, which is instant coffee. But much better than old-tyme instant coffee, that's for sure.
So, I was going through the timelines in Rule of Fear and The Worldwound as part of coming up with a Wrath of the Righteous character's backstory, and I may have discovered a slight inconsistency.
In Rule of Fear, it says that the "invasion" of Sarkorians that cased the Demonskin War took place in 4611 AR, whereas in The Worldwound, the date given is 4644 - after the fall of Storasta.
Actual Question
Is it the newer version that's Paizo-canon (the only problem I would have with this is that the Rule of Fear timeline makes mention of the Ustalavic Princess who ordered the border be closed, and the time-gap is large enough that she might be dead by the latter date), or could it be that there were two different waves of refugees causing similar events?
What would be the best way to play a non-insane Chaotic Neutral character, without veering into Chaotic Stupid?
Would you say the Cuban Pete scene from The Mask is an example of a Mythic Perform (sing) and Perform (dance) or a Mythic irresistible dance?
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What would be the best way to play a non-insane Chaotic Neutral character, without veering into Chaotic Stupid?
I don't see how I can answer that, honestly, in the context of a messageboard post. Especially since what qualifies as "chaotic stupid" will vary.
If you want to look to media, I'd say that Snake Plisken from Escape from New York makes a pretty good case for chaotic neutral without being chaotic stupid.
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So, I was going through the timelines in Rule of Fear and The Worldwound as part of coming up with a Wrath of the Righteous character's backstory, and I may have discovered a slight inconsistency.
In Rule of Fear, it says that the "invasion" of Sarkorians that cased the Demonskin War took place in 4611 AR, whereas in The Worldwound, the date given is 4644 - after the fall of Storasta.
Actual Question
Is it the newer version that's Paizo-canon (the only problem I would have with this is that the Rule of Fear timeline makes mention of the Ustalavic Princess who ordered the border be closed, and the time-gap is large enough that she might be dead by the latter date), or could it be that there were two different waves of refugees causing similar events?
The Worldwound date is what I'm going with for all of Wrath of the Righteous. I did try to sync all those dates up, but sometimes errors slip through. If you're fine with there being two different waves of refugees... go with that. Otherwise, feel free to pick which date works best for your game.
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Would you say the Cuban Pete scene from The Mask is an example of a Mythic Perform (sing) and Perform (dance) or a Mythic irresistible dance?
Not a big fan of that movie, and since I've been taught "if you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all," I'll refrain from answering.
But if you forced me to answer, I'd say it was a special ability granted by a powerful artifact.
Can demon lords expend mythic points to use the augmented versions of their mythic SLA in their home realm?
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Geb didn't bring Arazni back to life. He turned her into a lich. One of the things in Golarion that differs from other settings is that if you find the right personal ritual... you can indeed force a person's transformation into a lich against their will. In fact... in Carrion Crown... ** spoiler omitted **
It's certainly a vile thing to do... and certainly not an easy one. Doesn't happen often... but when you're a super powerful necromancer, it's hardly out of your reach.
Carrion Crown is one of the couple of APs between the beginning ones and the latest ones I don't have, so I guess I missed that.
I'm still sort of confused though. If he never brought her back to life did that mean she never died? Even with bringing somebody back to a state of undeath it's been something that's seemed to almost always need a freshly killed being to do it other than things like zombies and skeletons that are basically automations powered by negative energy and not somebody's corrupted soul. This was done decades after the fact. I would think that some special circumstance would have to happen for somebody's soul to wait that long before passing on.
Actually going back and looking at the undead creation spells I guess in an absolute technical sense it doesn't state any time limit, just a corpse. On the other hand those rules are also setting neutral and it seems almost every powerful type of undead where their origins are explained in the setting involved the souls of the dead that crated them in a process that happened shortly after their death, even if it took long after that for the being to form.
That makes me think of something else along the lines of my earlier question. Are most undead required to have anything to do with the previous person's soul the undead are created out of outside of obvious ones where that's the case like ghost? If that's the case what happens when a spellcaster creates an undead creature like a shadow out of a corpse that has been dead a...
The method by which Arazni was made into a lich did indeed convert her after she died at Tar-Baphon's hands. There was indeed special circumstances going on, and we haven't yet spelled it all out how it actually happened. Needless to say, it did.
Mindless undead don't require the previous soul to be created, but as a general rule all others do. That's why creating undead is evil. We don't put limits on how long a body can be dead before it becomes undead... but it needs to still be a body, and for the most part, bodies decay far faster than they would pass the point of the soul being judged and free.
Can demon lords expend mythic points to use the augmented versions of their mythic SLA in their home realm?Yes, that's specifically one of the things that they can spend those uses for, as detailed on page 45 of Bestiary 4.
Sorry, James.I should have made it clearer. what I ask is actually whether they can use the further augmented versions (that is, the ones with minimum tier requirement)of the spells, since it's not obvious in Bestiary 4. Thanks!
Have you seen a trailer for 47 Ronin yet?