AceofMoxen's page

Let's pin down Phrasma's stance.

As far as the narrative in Pathfinder is concerned, Pharasma is always right.

Is she always on the side of right? Or is she singly focused on ensuring (and maybe delaying) the creation of the next universe and absolutely has the correct knowledge about how to do so? Without alignment, we can really ask these questions.

In theory, when alignment was part of the game, Phrasma should have been an opposing force to the party just as much percent of her appearances as Abadar, right? That is, if you took a random 30 appearances of each or their followers across the pre-remaster period, you would find them opposed to the party vs. aligned with the party at the same ratio? I doubt it. The only time I remember her opposing the party is at the beginning of Tyrant's Grasp.

In 1e, she allowed NE clerics, but I'm absolutely confused about what they would do. I've been told since 2006 that "Neutral is not Good-lite." I still have the same response that if I'm a Neutral traveler, I would absolutely prefer to sleep at the inn of a Good-aligned innkeeper than an Evil innkeeper. Did a NE cleric of Phrasma ever appear? In 2e, She only allowed GN, TN, LN followers. (Is Phrasma Neutral on Law-Chaos? clearly no) I'm pinning a "good-lite" label on TN Phrasma.

Pharasma didn't care about good or evil, and doesn't care about holy or unholy, though? The presence or absence of the unholy trait is irrelevant when it comes to her.

Phrasma allows neither sanctification, however, a list of tasks she might assign her followers includes killing Soul-stealing Fiends, but not Celestials. So Holy could be helpful to her followers. The wiki says "Her followers ... carry tiny vials of holy water"

Let's look at the wiki:

anathema "rob a tomb" is replaced with "take from the dead in bad faith".

Her followers can take from the dead in good faith? Or in no faith at all? There are many ways to interpret this. Let's say a rich man is buried with his wealth, and a young Phrasmain cleric vows to keep his tomb sealed. A few years later, a judge rules that his wealth was acquired through fraud. Is breaking the cleric's vow 'Bad faith,' or was the rich man already acting in bad faith because of the fraud? What if he does break the seal, and later finds out the judge was corrupt? I think he's under no obligation to correct his mistake. Is the only way a Phrasmain cleric can be bad is in unlikely hypotheticals?

Worshipers

Midwives, pregnant women, morticians

So a villainous Midwife is just not doing her job correctly? A villainous mortician can't worship Phrasma and steal from the dead in bad faith. I guess they could overcharge the families for their services? I'm aware of jokes about a Pregnant Woman (sidebar for non-woman who can get pregnant?) using her embryo as a hostage to commit crimes. It absolutely feels like she only allows evil in the silliest situations?

Edicts

Strive to understand ancient prophecies, destroy undead, lay bodies to rest
Anathema
Create undead, desecrate a corpse, take from the dead in bad faith

Do 'Destory undead'and 'Don't create Undead' are at the center of this whole discussion. 'Understand ancient prophecies' is almost certainly not meant to apply to Great One Olds or Outer Gods, so it's not evil. I have a personal bugbear about "desecrating corpses" in settings with undead. There should be agreement that any corpse that might be turned against you can be chopped up or burnt, as long as you do it respectfully. By Earth rules, Lastwall should be making efforts to return bodies of living whispering way followers to Tar-Baphon and/or the church of Urgathoa. You can't just import Earth practices into a fantasy setting.

The Pharasmin Penitence is an extremist sect that views worldly pleasures as going against Pharasma's plans and actively seek out those whom they feel upset their beliefs by making life easier, for instance, arcane casters

Alright, that's a villainous group. Phrasma doesn't care about suffering or boredom.

Iomedae still bears a slight grudge against her for not revealing Aroden's impending death

This is silly, and the only source seems to be a 2008 book. I really hope this isn't canon, especially as it appears to be only "legends" that Phrasma knew. (there is some Canon dispute on Phrasma's foreknowledge)

The god of accidental death, Zyphus has a fierce rivalry with the Lady of Graves, but it is not altogether clear if this feeling is mutual.

Zyphus, 'Most Hated Rival of Pharasma,' 'Most other gods view him as more of an annoyance than an actual threat' I think this guy is a masochist looking to get stepped on by the most powerful woman he can find.

Pharasma's clergy often worked with those of Aesocar, especially those who delivered Azlanti babies

This is interesting. Aesocar is labeled as LG, but she was involved in Azlanti "creation of life, creating many lifeforms through magic." I assume Pharasma was aware that the Azlanti were slaves of the Alghollthu, making any lifeform they create also slaves. So maybe Phrasma is ok with the creation of slave races? That's pretty evil.

Maybe Pharasma is more evil than I thought.

As a general rule, when you see something that has a real-world science based solution, it's usually pretty safe to assume that's the case in Golarion. That's why the planet is the same size as Earth, why it has one moon the same size as our moon, and why its 93 million miles away from the sun which is more or less the same as our sun. There's stuff living on the sun of course, because fantasy, but something like a solar dragon? That'd make sense for it to be able to nest on the sun, but assuming you want them to fight and encounter a PC, they should be able to go other places.

Can a Dragon lift itself on the sun? Objects weight 28 times as much on the Sun. Looking at some of the highest Creature level dragons on AoN, they seem to be +10 Str and Gargantuan. Fafnheir,the fabled Father of Linnorms, has +12 Str, so it can hold 17 bulk if it were medium. If I'm reading table 6-19 correctly, it's limit is 8 times that, or 136 Bulk. So Fafnheir could drag 272 Bulk.

A Gargantuan creature has minimum bulk of 48, and gets to carry its own bulk for free. Now, "The Bulk value of an item reflects how difficult the item is to handle, representing its size, weight, and general awkwardness." Size and awkwardness are not going to increase. If we treat each each factor here as equal, we get that Bulk should increase 1/3 for every doubling of gravity. So (28-1)x1/3 gives us a nice 9x modifier to bulk. That givens use 432 bulk of extra weight on the Sun for Fanheir.

A gargantuan creature would need Str +22 to drag itself across the surface of the Sun.

I believe the real world reason is that they've been "halflings" since TSR was sued by Tolkien Enterprises for using some Middle Earth names (ents [treants], hobbits [halflings], balrogs [Type VI demons/balors]).

There's no point in renaming halflings now. In about 8 and a half years, the original version of 'The Hobbit' will enter the US public domain, and every Fantasy setting will immediately be full of them. This will be followed by the Tolkien estate claiming totally reasonable extrapolation of the first edition's depiction of Hobbits is actually based on later works. (See also: the period where only the first couple Sherlock Holmes books were out of copyright, and the Doyle estate claimed "respecting women" was only a trait you could have stolen out of a later book)

Arkat wrote:

Really? "cross-breed" is offensive??

Yes. Yes it is.

I'm not a biologist, but I know how to research and remember stuff. Modern Humans do not have the "genotype–phenotype relationships and phenotypic diversity" of Dog Breeds. Calling any Human a cross-breed is explicitly inaccurate. Therefore, it's similar to B$%#@, an insult by comparison to dogs. (Cite: https://evolution-outreach.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12052-019-01 09-y) (I like dogs better than humans, so I would use this insult)

I'm actually kinda obsessed with the idea of playing a character who failed the test of the Starstone now. I'm thinking of Neo in the Matrix after the oracle tells him he's not "the one."

So did anyone take or know a player who took the bribe in exchange for infamy?

I'm very curious how that worked out in actual play.

No way a simple mortal, no matter how gifted, would join the Shining Crusade and within one year become the leader of the Knights of Ozem.

It's not impossible that she was 12th level and renowned in some other way, is it? There's no mention of her age. Maybe she had been fighting in some smaller conflict and earned the respect to take over.

I've thought the stories need to be about 50% longer to hit their emotional beats in the right rhythm. Is it intentional that they are so short? Many blog posts are longer.

You have five domains, with none listed as alternate. Most deities have four, with two alternate.

You probably want to clarify her stance on undead.

I have no comments on lore without boarder knowledge of your setting. (And no time to learn, either, sorry)

Thanks for the feedback. I'm assuming retraining is pretty easy, so weapon trait specific options aren't traps, but could cost downtime.

You're right that swift capacity is too strong. I think I'll move it to a fighter/champion/ranger/barbarian feat at some level. I really want flash grip and swift grip to be available to many classes, but you're right that action compression should be class feats.

I want lozenges to be stronger, but I think buffing them directly is a better approach. I'll wait to see the alchemist remaster first, however. I have a lot of hopes riding on that one.

I don't think grease works on elementals, either.

To add to the other posts, the Starstone specifically killed Acavna, the Azlanti goddess of the moon, when she tried stopping it with the moon. Seeing this, Amaznen, the Azlanti god of magic, sacrificed his own life to slow it down enough to not destroy Golarion. So effectively, that stone has two divine kills.

And only three God-creations, right? One of whom is the god of lies, and another is not confident in his own godhood, according to the prophecies. Interesting.

I'm eager to try occult witch plus loremaster with 6 slots of Hypercognition. "Just hand me the stat block, GM."

Bear in mind, Pathfinder in particular owes a lot of its DNA to 3rd edition D&D... which had a "core" pantheon of (IMO, insanely boring and forgettable) Greyhawk deities... but never used the words "Greyhawk" or "Oerth" anywhere in the text.

Vecna is an amazing god, actually. Probably my favorite D&D God in the strictest terms about what a god is. St. Cuthbert demanding good so much he's neutral about it makes him a great antagonist (for the time and place I was, at least) Pholtus also makes clear that Greyhawk good does not equal our good. Wee Jas is one of the better death gods in D&D and has some fantastic imagery. Corellon Larethian is the biggest example of "your good is not our good." He/She was abusive of Lolth and her followers, has next to no regrets about it, but is still CG.

This entry needed to be about twice as long to have the emotional impact it deserved. All the right pieces are there, but it moved too fast to settle me in one mood before moving to another. I know you have word limits for good reason, but I think this one suffered.

I have a bit of a long-term prediction, that whoever dies, there will be a future event where they come back, but it'll be after years. Maybe the transition to 3E. Because if I recall correctly, they said the dead deity wasn't going to be brought back "at the end of the thing", nothing about them not pulling a Red Hood.

...which honestly I think would be really cool; the deity comes back, possibly changed, and the world's already moved on without them. No returning to where they had been, because that spot has been filled.

The whole problem with "killing off a character and then bringing them back to life" is the idea of doing something for shock value, but then undoing it so you can maintain the status quo. But if the status quo does NOT survive, then "the character's continued status as dead" becomes less important.

Whoever dies will echo in the setting for a long time. Aroden is still a big deal.

Rant about Red Hood

I'm really bored of taking the same 5 or 6 general feats on each character, so I designed some new ones to diversify. I think these are balanced against the power of Fleet, Shield block, and toughness, but I'd appreciate some feedback.

Alchemist’s Friend level 1
You gain resistance to splash damage from your allies equal to one-half your level, with a minimum of one.

Better Backstabber level 15
When you hit a flat-footed creature with a Backstab weapon or unarmed attack, it deals one precision damage per damage die in addition to its normal damage instead of the normal backstab benefits. You may choose to use the standard backstab benefits instead if you wish.

Better Brace Level 15
When you ready to strike an opponent who moves within your reach, until the start of your next turn strikes with the brace weapon deal an additional 1 damage of the same type as the weapon for each weapon damage die it has. This is in addition to Brace’s regular damage but is not precision.

Dangerously Deadly level 19
When you would add a deadly weapon damage die, add one additional die of the same type.

Day Tripper level 1
You have a +2 circumstance bonus on fortitude saves to avoid addiction.

Expert Study Level 3
You gain a 1st level feat from your class that you qualify for.
Note: You may not take this feat if you have the human feat Natural Ambition, nor may you take this feat and later take Natural Ambition

Expert Training level 7
Advance one of your skills from trained to expert
Fatal and Deadly level 19
When attacking with a fatal weapon or unarmed attack, it gains the deadly d6 trait, in addition to its other traits.

Flash Grip Level 11 Free Action
Requirement: You are holding a combination or modular weapon.
Frequency: Every ten minutes
Change your grip on the weapon from one mode to another.

Great Backswing level 3
In addition to Backswing’s regular bonus, after missing twice in a row with a Backswing weapon or unarmed attack, you gain a +2 Circumstance bonus on your next attack. After missing thrice in a row with a Backswing weapon or unarmed attack, you gain a +3 Circumstance bonus on your next attack.

Great Force level 19
When using a Forceful weapon or unarmed attack, your third attack each turn with the weapon gains a circumstance bonus to damage equal to thrice the number of damage dice, and your fourth attack each turn with the weapon gains a circumstance bonus to damage equal to four times the number of damage dice.

Great Resonance level 19
When you use the conduct energy action granted by a Resonant weapon, the energy lasts until the end of your next turn.

Hidden Lethality level 1
When using a weapon or unarmed attack that has the nonlethal trait, you may make a lethal attack with a -1 circumstance penalty. If you are an expert in that weapon or unarmed attack, you may make a lethal attack with it with no penalty.

Legendary Training level 19
Prerequisite: master Training
Advance one of your skills from trained to expert, from expert to master, or from master to legendary.

Master Study level 11
Prerequisite: Focused Study or Natural Ambition
You gain a 2nd-level feat from your class that you qualify for.

Master Training level 11
Prerequisite: Expert Training
Advance one of your skills from trained to expert or from expert to master.

Small Bite level 1
Frequency: once a day
The first time each day you bite down on a Lozenge, you may choose to gain the secondary effect without ending the primary effect.

Swift Capacity level 11 Free Action
Frequency: Every ten minutes
Requirement: You just fired a capacity weapon.
Switch to the next chamber or barrel of the weapon.

Swift Grip Level 7 Free Action
Frequency: Every ten minutes
Change your grip on an item from one-handed to two-handed, or two-handed to one-handed, or from one hand to another free hand.

Triple Sweep Level 7
When using a sweep weapon or unarmed attack, if you have attacked two different targets this turn with the weapon already, you gain a +2 circumstance bonus to your attack roll if you attack a target you have not attacked yet this turn. If you have attacked three different targets this turn with the weapon already, you gain a +3 circumstance bonus to your attack roll if you attack a target you have not attacked yet this turn.

Wand Wielder level 15
Frequency: Once a day
You may activate a single wand one additional time each day.

Saw this on Reddit and it was an instant buy for me. A PF2e Video game? Finally! It’s clearly worth the $5 price tag, but I’m torn between “leaves you wanting more” and “maybe classes should have more than a single 2nd level feat?” I thought it had good encounter design, but terrible writing. I’d have played more if Champion was an available class.

I'm no historian, but I was told that a gun wasn't as tiring as a crossbow. A crossbow requires a minute of heavy rotation to wind back the firing mechanism. A gun takes a minute of light activity. The muscle required for the comparative crossbow was a significant cost in both training and calories. A unit of musketeers could practice once every few months, while a unit of crossbowmen would require weekly strength training.

I tend to suspect "not Nethys" if only because it would make things weird with the archive.

plenty of archives are dedicated to dead beings, but I doubt Neyths would die without a major shake up in the way magic works.

Loved Darkseid in worlds finest. Great to see him rebuilt as something two Supermen and two batmen and some help can't stop.

How does this work with the thaumaturge? Can a thaumaturge exploit weakness to holy? Or spirit? If I remaster an monster weak to law, should I give it a weakness to spirit?

AceofMoxen wrote:

Arachnofiend wrote:

Shelyn definitely goes into the "more interesting alive than dead" category. Zon Kuthon is just an edgelord without her.

Unless Shelyn's death sets Zon-Kuthton back on the path of light. That creates lots of interesting stories.

True, but it's also a minefield.

"Kill the happy nice sister so her edgelord brother can be redeemed" gets justifiably panned on a regular basis.

Of course, if there's anyone I trust to navigate that arc well, it's Paizo. I'm just guessing the other way around (with pieces of Zon-Kuthon becoming part of Shelyn) is more likely.

I don't think it would count as a "frigding," because Shelyn wouldn't be forgotten, we had plenty of time with her, and she had other connections. Like, Desna's hair trigger would be pulled, setting up a great conflict.

Shelyn definitely goes into the "more interesting alive than dead" category. Zon Kuthon is just an edgelord without her.

Unless Shelyn's death sets Zon-Kuthton back on the path of light. That creates lots of interesting stories.

James Jacobs wrote:

Kittyburger wrote:

Anorak wrote:

James Jacobs wrote:

CreepyShutIn wrote:

"Belief makes a god" is perhaps my least favorite description of divinity. I shall be happy to determine that this was delusion.

This has been a core fundamental of the setting from day one (although it took a bit to scrub all of that influence out—certain other TTRPG campaign settings have a lot of influence!), because the idea of a god who has no worshipers active but can still be a god and potentially come back or have secret cults and all that was there from the very start of the Pathfinder Adventure Path in Lissala's story.

Hrmmm this reminds me of Xanderghul for some reason.

So does that mean Razmir could or potentially has become Deific?

I believe JJacobs is saying that Razmir can only become Deific if he either follows a path like Irori (purifies himself to his deific potential) or the Ascended (takes the Test of the Starstone).

(In my headcanon, he's undertaking preparations to become a lich, because he cannot stomach the idea of dying, and if/when he dies, his final fate is going to be rather similar to that of Sisyphus in Greek mythology)

Razmir's biggest challenge to overcome on the path to becoming a deity is that stories about him are more interesting and compelling when he's NOT a deity.

And the (very valid) Doylist explanation rears its head ;)

does it actually count as Doylist? A deity is a story itself. They literally have meta-narative powers.

I'm struck by an image of Razmir as Marvin the depressed Android in starfinder. "Two and a half times as old as Pharasma, and I still haven't become a god."

Take Nenio with you at the end of act four, and you get what I think is the funniest dialogue in the game.

In any case, the idea that Desna's butterfly-elf form isn't enitrely her original holds merit.

A BUTTERFLY isn't in its original form?

Dranngvit is dead? I'm free! I'm free!

Luis already confirmed that Arazni isn't inheriting anything from the deity that dies.

In the "technically true" sense, this would suggest Shelyn dies, Zon-Kuthon reverts and takes her role, and then Arazni could inherit something from him.

AceofMoxen wrote:

Aberzombie wrote:

I also picked up my Rom Omnibus Volume 1. It’s…..GLORIOUS! I look forward to reading through it. Though, in hindsight, it did come out last week, so maybe that and Thor would have been worthy of the gas and time….

Is there significant X-men content? I remember some X-men/Rom crossover being in a legal hold, but I don't know how many issues that was.

IIRC there was a two issue crossover with the X-Men and then a later related two issue appearance of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants that shortly preceded Rogue joining the X-Men.

It looks like this volume only has iron fist and power man 73. Ideally, Marvel will produce a paperback of just those four issues. I'm not sure I'm buying a whole omnibus for a few issues.

I did enjoy the Rom stuff in the recent Cable (2020) series. It had me laughing.

My Money is still on Torag to bite it.

Or, maybe we get more than one dead deity.

I also picked up my Rom Omnibus Volume 1. It’s…..GLORIOUS! I look forward to reading through it. Though, in hindsight, it did come out last week, so maybe that and Thor would have been worthy of the gas and time….

Is there significant X-men content? I remember some X-men/Rom crossover being in a legal hold, but I don't know how many issues that was.

Original Mass Effect, Pokemon Blue, and Planescape: Torment.

I went back and reread his Justice League series. Thirty-five years later, people still talk about Batman punching out Guy. It's hard to imagine anything printed in today's Justice League provoking such a reaction.

Eberron (by default) is always at 998 YK. The creator has blogged about playing a game set in the history of the setting.

LeftHandShake wrote:

More importantly, the various changes to the guide still don't address how alignment damage works; see my post on this thread from Nov 13. The gist is that there is no sanctioned source that says what to do with alignment damage. Everyone *thinks* it's supposed to be treated as spirit damage, but there is no sanctioned source that actually says so.

GMs are provided with the following guidance on the Remaster Guidelines page:

Quote:

Alignment: Alignment has been removed from the game. PCs and NPCs no longer have alignment.[...]

Holy and Unholy: Many previously-aligned options now have either the holy, unholy, or sanctified traits. At a GM’s discretion, enemy abilities which previously had the good or evil traits may now have the holy or unholy trait.
Example: A quasit’s strikes previously had the evil trait. A GM may choose to give them the unholy trait, as quasits are demonic creatures. Similarly, a quasit’s weakness to good should now be considered a weakness to holy.

What should be done with creatures weak to law or chaos?

Nevertheless, it seems strange to me that a rogue pretending to be a monk will likely outdamage a true monk at the monk's niche: unarmed strikes.

this was already true with thaumaturge.

Aww man I liked Pathfinder Training bonus feats/lore :'D

Sidenote, did any society scenario have enemies weak to Law/Chaos damage? Maybe one protean somewhere? I'm mostly curious if there was any guidelines for those situation

My thaumaturge did deal law damage at one point, so this could be a nerf to him.

You had economics in high school?

I taught economics in high school.

Nona was decent. Not as good as Harrow, better than Gideon.

On to Scourge, a Star Wars book by Jeff Grubb. So far it's decent, perhaps edging towards good.

I'm currently working on Nona, but I nearly gave up during Harrow. I can't stand the second person perspective or protagonist who can't trust their senses.

So, the same way you are going to increase the price due to rising "economic factor"; if that factor goes down in the future, you will reduce the prices too... right?

Deflation is worse than inflation, for those of you who failed high school economics.

Ace,

Who is Worm?!!

Worm is a web novel by wildbow. It's amazing superhero fiction. https://parahumans.wordpress.com/table-of-contents/

It follows a young girl who kinda backs into being a villain. It really changed the way I view superhero media. For me, it was far more meaningful than watchmen.

You have significant fair points. I don't know enough to say more.

Set wrote:

This issue even had the one Isca appearance, like, ever, in which I didn't loathe her and her dumb plot device power. :)

That idiotic character was one of the many poor writing/editorial decisions made on the recent X-books that made me drop every single one of them.

Worm handles that power so much better, which makes X-Men fumbling it just look bad. You can't have that power in an ongoing narrative with multiple writers over decades, it just doesn't work.

Aaron Bitman, I'm typing on my phone. Fat thumbs make weird mistakes. I apologize. Anyway, remember when Jimmy Olsen's comic was cancelled for only having a million readers? Today's comics often sale less than 50,000. They are at the peak of average quality and already dead.

Maybe it’d be easier to get some artists back, but even there I’d think it was iffy.

Unfortunately, artist skills decay with age. Certainly, the speed to get a book out disappears with age.

You can't save coming cs with things that appeal to comic book poeple. To save comic books, we would need to move eyes off of tictoc and video games. (This is of course impossible, comic books are going to die.)

I want more Thrawn.

I am not up on post legends content. Has anything else discussed another galaxy? Is it still full of killer robots?

The river kingdoms are not a great place for a stage coach. Perhaps he was a stage coach driver in Galt, but escaped the chaos of that country and is starting over?

Mechanically, it's hard to say much without knowing the other character.

Going by the question in the title, my answer is no. It moves like a living creature, but is not alive. Think of the "living dead," as another example of this use in English.

Going by the question in the post, it could go either way. As the GM, your goal is to create an interactive, intriguing, and challenging story. Will your players feel cheated or intrigued by a non-/living creature with abilities like a living creature? Will they even notice?

I have just begun to read Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon by Dan Dennett. It's the first book of his that have read, and here's hoping it is good.

Thanks for mentioning this. It's a topic that interests me, so I'm eager to hear your opinion.

I play a redeemer of Likha, the storyteller. He was a gladiator/historical reenactor, but the government wanted him to change the stories to make them look better. He refused and joined the Pathfinders instead. I've mostly had to make up lore for Likha as I go.

I'm aware of weresharks and werecrocodiles, and they are both abominations.

I'm still thinking of more than one death.