Aegys's page

I am currently running Kingmaker right now as well, and am about half way through Blood for blood.
I've expanded the campaign greatly from what is written, and taken several of the option ideas that they scatter through it and expanded on those as well (like a Civil War breaking out in Brevoy with the PC's nation getting caught in the middle of the politics).
I've taken the areas where they mentioned Brevoy politics and expanded on those alot, making it largely the focus of the campaign now.
Pitax is hardly a worthy fight on it's own for the PCs...but the PCs are caught up into a Game of Thrones style war with a huge nearby kingdom on top of it all the stakes become all the much more higher.
If you want to compare notes shoot me a private message.

On to your PCs...alot of GMs seem to forget that the NPCs can be just as crafty as the characters can.
Someone above me also said that the terminal velocity of a large falling object is no where near as fast as an meteor of significant size and they are correct. Terminal Velocity is based on it's acceleration through atmosphere...a meteor has had many years to accelerate through space. They are moving much faster than their terminal velocity in the atmosphere.
That being said they could have filled the statue with some sort of explosive and still created a very large blast.
There are other consequences for that though...it sounds like they are a Lawful Evil nation, and they could create alot of enemies by acting out that sort of behavior.
From some of Brevoy's Houses as well as the Elves of Kyonin which are really close to Pitax.
If you are a powerful elf nation and you see someone drop a huge bomb on a kingdom right next door...I think you'd look into it...

Aegys wrote:

So if your mount has pounce, and you have pounce? Do you both get full round attacks when you charge in unison?

No, just the mount. You get the standard Charge.

Yes, but pounce allows you to take your full attack on a standard charge.

Aegys wrote:

Where does it say that is raises the PC's character level?

cartmanbeck wrote:

Pathfiner doesn't include character level increases for things like this

The rules for Monster PCs state CR equals level. So a template that raises CR would increase effective level.

CR is a derived stat that represents the general strength of a character.

Yeah, that's what I thought.

So if your mount has pounce, and you have pounce? Do you both get full round attacks when you charge in unison?

Where does it say that is raises the PC's character level?
I've never seen anything like that.
From what I've been able to tell adding a template to a character is just DM discretion. Pathfinder puts alot more control over races in the hands of the DM than 3.5 did, and doesn't give a mechanic for determining races in a such a way like level adjustment did in 3.5

A properly built Arcane Bloodline Sorcerer could rock all of those challenges pretty easy than, they don't even need to go first most of the time.
Taking Defensive Strategist so the surprise fights don't matter so much, you can use Emergency Forcefield on the fights where you are going to get charged first round, and use Headband of Counterspelling to stop the Wish from the Pit Fiend. Also contingency Borrowed Time.
Go heavy Necro focus and just Spell Perfection Thanatopic Finger of Death everything to death with DC in the 40s.
If you are really worried about it you could even throw a persistent meta on there from a rod, or Quickened Enervate them first.
Rinse repeat.

It's not that hard to have ridiculous saves if you are a charisma based character too. You could make a magic item of continuous Bestow Favor and make sure you have that handy Freedom of Movement ring.
You could even have several Headbands of Counterspelling on hand to switch out between fights.
Generous use of metamagic rods and gloves of storing would let you pull off some great effects.

All of that before I even factor in the Leadership feat and the possibilities of having a pocket 18th level crafting wizard cut the costs of all of the magic items by more than half...with that many extra resources 20th level Sorcerers are unstoppable.

But then again, with enough prep time, there are almost no encounters in the game that a level 20 Arcane Sorcerer can't take out.
Mythic would be an issue, just because of Mythic Counterspelling...

How do you get 8 DR from fighting defensively with Crane Style?

Nevermind, I figured it out.

How do you get 8 DR from fighting defensively with Crane Style?

Few questions about the challenge.

1. In any of the combats are the PCs considered buffed before the challenge begins? If no normal buffs, what about buffs that last for hours or days? Things that any caster of that level would be expected to have cast far before hand.

2. Are the PCs suppose to use starting wealth for a level 20 character? Is there anyway to put a value on artifacts?

3. What other preperations could the PCs make? Could they for example have used Planar Binding to get a Succubus' Profane Gifts or other deals made via Planar Binding as long as they are fit within what such powers specifically allow?

Also to clarify, customized magic items are apparently allowed as long as they follow the explicit rules laid out in the Core Rulebook magic item creation section...am I right? It would seem that way since the original monk has some of these.

Yeah, there are several actually. I was just saying I made one of them focus on teaching its students to be Magus.
I haven't read Inner Sea Combat yet though, I'm just going on what's in the Kingmaker campaign, what's in the Inner Sea World Guide, and what's in other fluff books.

If you have a pocket arcane caster throwing up heroism or Greater heroism on you all the time it's very worth it.
Also at higher levels it's easier to get custom magic items made to focus on your accuracy more.

I'm running Kingmaker for my group right now, and one of my players is heavy attached to the Aldori Swordlords (his father was one).

As I've been fleshing out alot of their RP with Restov I made one of the swordlord academies there actually focus on teaching the Magus way.

I love alot of the Restov Swordlord background and alot of the politics with Brevoy during the campaign has moved through Restov and dealt with the Swordlords (much of this is because the King PC is the character I mentioned above and usually comes down on the side of the Swordlords in any of the Brevoy based politics of the campaign).

Restov is an interesting city to have good RP in.

I definitely didn't feel like Runelords was a "killer" AP.
I found most of the encounters to be too easy and poorly constructed at times. I'm in wrath of the righteous now and I feel like the fights are much better constructed and challenging (though I hear that starts to fade away at higher mythic tiers as well).

An Enchanter will do very very well in that campaign. I played an Arcane Bloodline Sorcerer specialized in enchanting and the majority of our fights turned into roleplay because I'd charm the villians and we'd talk to them...there were not very many instances this didn't just end the threats outright and changed alot of the metaplot due to villians becoming allies that wouldn't have normally been so.

Enchanters sometimes lose alot of steam at high levels (as many enemies gain immunity to mind effecting), but you can always just respec your Spell Focus feats and some of your spells at higher levels.
Negative Energy combat is probably the most powerful high level caster option, with Thanatopic Spell feat in the game now, Finger of Death and Enervation pretty much wreck everything.

On the other note about Paladins, having a Paladin in the party doesn't necessarily require you to play by their rules, it just requires you to be sneaky about it. My sorcerer wasn't a good guy, but he had a really really high bluff score and knew how to keep his shady business out of the view of the Paladin of Thorag in the party. Eventually the two became best friends, though the Paladin never found out about how terrible my sorcerer really was.

I always find the concept of "powergaming" to be amusing. When someone accuses you of power gaming, you can point out that the most optimized character concept in the game at higher levels is an Arcane Bloodline Sorcerer specced in just about any school. Their DCs will just naturally be so high that they will wreck everything, and all they need to do is throw up Mirror Image(a second level spell) and they have most of the defense they will ever need.
The most powerful concept at low levels is usually just a Barbarian or Fighter with their most basic stuff (Power attack, weapon focus, weapon spec).
All of this is out of the core book...

You aren't a powergamer for playing your class, taking spells off your Core spell list, and casting them on yourself.
Have you stacked multiple classes to gain ridiculous benefit? Have you searched obscure reference material to find the most powerful rare powers in the game just to gain a greater edge? Probably not, you sound like you are just playing a core class, using core spells, and doing anything they can do out of the core...that's hardly going out of your way to optimize (though I could be wrong, maybe you have spread sheets of optimized spells and powers from every corner of the cosmos).

Any GM who gets vindictive against his players for any reason is probably not a very good GM. Taking anything your players do as a personal insult against yourself as a GM is bad idea. Your players just want to have fun, and you want to have fun as GM...but it's not fun to GM a game when your players aren't also having fun, so your fun is their fun.
You might have some luck in changing his mind if you can remind him of this truth...though if he doesn't agree that GMing a game where your players aren't having fun isn't fun for the GM either...then you really do need to move on.

My Oracle of Desna in Wrath of the Righteous is planning on taking the Starstone trials after he's finished killing all the Demon Lords in existence (he has some emotional problems with demons...something about being captured and tortured by them as a child). The character also has strong ties to Iomedae (He worshiped Iomedae through his youth, but felt like she abandoned him when he was captured as a child, and renounced her, and eventually found Desna...but Iomedae and him are starting to make up now during the campaign, so we'll see...I was thinking of taking Beyond Morality Path Power and dipping into Paladin Of Iomedae as well as being an Oracle of Desna, could create alot of fun RP).

I'm sure being Mythic Tier 10 by that point in time will help him get around alot of the trials.

He's already taken the Divine Source Path Power, and he's a godling of Redemption and Heroism Domains, so I'm sure his tenure as a god would have to do with those.

Though unlike Sarenrae who's lofty and and self righteous, he'd be more about little people making up for their past wrongs and redeeming themselves through personal feats of heroism and self sacrifice.

Sorta like a Cayden Calen crossed with Sarenrae.

If a spell's range is touch, like "creature touched" and you cast the spell on yourself, for that instance of the spell could that spell's range be considered "Personal"?
I ask because of Ring of Continuation.
There are not alot of spells with a 10/min per caster level duration (which is required for Ring of Continuation by the errata), so this magic item seems nearly useless if you can only use it with Spells that say in their description range personal.
But let's say you cast Heroism on yourself...it's duration is 10/min per caster level, could you use Ring of Continuation with that?
In it's description it says range touch, but for that instance of the spell could it be considered range personal?

I've heard of a build using mythic rules that can give you multiple full round attacks in a turn.
Does anyone know how this is done?

The core book says you can charge on a standard action if that's the only action you can take that turn, though you can only move your normal movement on this charge.
Once you reach tier 2 mythic you can spend a mythic point to take a free standard action.
I guess the real question is when does your normal turn brought on by the initiative order end, and your new standard action gained via spending a mythic point begin?
Are these separate turns? Can you use this mythic inspired standard to take a charge where you only move your normal movement?

Personally, I think that things descended from immortal celestials and fiends should live longer. I prefer having them age like humans until adulthood, then age as per normal for an aasimar/tiefling. That way, they can still grow up with humans, but once they hit adulthood, they become very long lived.

I'd be fine with this option too.

Thanks James for the quick response, and I'm glad to see we are on the same page. I figured at first that the age chart was some sort of hold over from the way Aasimar's and Tieflings were run out of 3.5 and that the companions were your way of making it your own (which I love that you guys are doing that more and more over the years), I'm glad to see you guys continuing along this path.
Golorion is one of the most detailed and complicated worlds for a game that I've ever seen developed, keep up the good work.

I understand it isn't exactly like medieval times, but it's still similar. Most people don't have access to magical healing...

Sure, if an Aasimar's parents where magic users then they'd be fine.
Most Aasimar's are born to regular folk who don't even have access to such things though.
There isn't a Paladin on every corner using Cure Disease Mercies on everyone in every town after all...

There also some places that are probably very much like the modern world.
Nex for example, is probably comparable to a modern metropolis, with plumbing, and disinfection to make it very sanitary.

That doesn't change the fact that the majority of people in the world live on farms, or small towns, with no access to such things.
Even if their country does have access to such things do you think it gets passed down to commoners?
Do you think Cheliax is approving it's Clerics of Asmodeus to go around and heal all the common folk?

Let's not forget, that even though this is a magical world, it's a horribly oppressed magical world. Tyrants keep the little people in filth as much as possible.

All of this aside, this is still somewhat off topic.
The point is that Aasimar's aging at roughly a third as fast as regular human makes it not only not makes sense for the childhoods that the fluff describes, but also makes for lame story because suddenly...their childhood friends are grown adult and possibly dead before they even hit their teens...
Their parents aren't there for them after a certain point, whether that's 6, or 10, or maybe push it to 12, they are being orphaned.

Also, if you are born on a farm, and you can't do chores to help the family until you are 20-25 years old...how long do you think such a family is going to put up with taking care of you? Farmers have kids so they can help on the farm. Craftsmen have kids to help with the business...an Aasimar child won't be able to do any of that until it's far too late.
The extra burden of taking care of such a child would make such families poor, which would create even more troubled childhoods for Aasimar in general.

Two issues, off the bat:

1. Golarion is much closer to Renaissance than Medieval.

2. Even in Medieval times, it was common for people to live past 60. High infant mortality brings the average lifespan nearer to 30. This means that if you survived infancy, you had a good chance of living to at least middle age.

Even during the Renaissance people didn't live much longer on average then Medieval times, life spans didn't start to really extend until we started to develop sanitation and medicine, and we didn't even know what bacteria was until the last 100 years. In 1800s France they still poured their s~&~ water out their windows on the streets below, the fester into disease which killed many.

I would not say that it was common for people to live to 60, sure some did, but almost all of those were upper class who were sectioned off enough from those s+#! covered streets to be lucky enough to avoid the majority of the diseases that afflicted everyone else.

I even put the average age of the Aasimar's parents at 40 when they died, which takes into consideration much of what you are implying anyway, even with that included nearly every Aasimar is an orphan by the time they are 10.

I don't really want to get into an arguement about actual medieval times though, that's besides the point and just a general jumping off point to start with.
Either way, the Age table in Advanced Race guide contradicts the fluff in the way that Aasimar's mature.

So I've been thinking about the ages of such characters.
The Advanced Race Guide has a chart that shows their ages, having them hit adult hood by 60ish.
Yet the Blood of Angels and Blood of Fiends books contradict this by saying they live slightly longer then their parent race.

I'd prefer to go with the second option, because the first makes little sense.
If a human Aasimar hits adulthood at 60, and let's say when they were born their parents were an average age of 20 (which is actually kinda old to be having kids in a medieval setting).
If adult hood is considered about 18 (which again in a medieval setting adult hood is more like 15-16) and 1/3 of that age being 6, then by the time the Aasimar's parents are 40, their child is the equivelant of a 6 year old.
Most people don't live past 30 in medieval settings, and 40 is even more unlikely, so that means nearly every human Aasimar's parents die when they functionally are 5-7 year old or so.

Not only does this very much contradict much of the fluff material, it also just makes for a very formulaic story. The fluff talks about how most Aasimar's parents are proud of them, and even though they sometimes have hardships for being different they usually have good childhoods.
If every Aasimar was orphaned at 6, the chance of the majority of them growing up to be healthy adults is pretty low, and most would end up in a bad place (not saying all Orphans have this problem, but they do often deal with hardships the rest of us don't, and that would be even worse in a medieval setting since the world just sucks more).
So, the aging scale in Advanced Race Guide further contradicts the way Aasimar's would turn out.
It also cuts off a great deal of personal story, since their families would always be dead and gone, meaning no story to write there and no possibility of writing any sort of legacy story.

Now, for Tieflings, the Blood of Fiends talks about how they often live lives even shorter than their parent race, because their demonic parts don't get along as well with their humans parts. So even more contradictions, though them all being orphans does increase the odds of them turning out to be bad guys due to rough childhoods (not that all tieflings are bad guys either).

So I'd like to discuss these contradictions, and possibly other age related contradictions in the settings, and see if any Devs have an opinion.

I don't even really like the way Elves or other longevity races age either, since it makes little sense that it takes them 120 years to figure out how to be a 1st level character level of competency.
I know of 10 years olds that can do Calculus, so I somehow doubt a society of advanced learning would require 120 years before their people can do basic spells, or swing a sword with proficiency...not to mention the fact that any such society would be wiped out by the shear numbers of societies with faster procreation rates....
Though the Elf conundrum is harder to deal with since they also live a very, very long time, and as such even if you said they hit adulthood like everyone else but then aged slowly from there then it wouldn't make sense that every PC starts out as an 18 year old Elf, and hits level 20 by the time they are 25-30ish, and yet there are 300+ year old elves that aren't nearly as powerful.
So I'm more willing to table this and focus on the Aasimar and Tiefling discussion because of the contradictions with them having a different parent race compared to their own.
Really...Aasimar and Tiefling should be templates you add to a race...but perhaps that's another discussion.

@Taku
What build lets you add your charisma to your AC 4 times?!?

Also, if monsters have to ignore a party member because they can't hurt it and then attack the other party members, then realistically said monsters would just retreat....unless suicidal.
Why would they stick around fighting something that they can't hurt and is tearing through them just to hurt it's friends alittle more?
They should regroup and rethink their strategy.

I think too many GMs are afraid of having the enemies retreat, team up with other encounters and then attack the PCs again.
It makes for far more complex and challenging fights.

When PCs are being cracky for me, I just throw multiple encounters at once at them.

The Eidolan is an Outsider. A villain with spellcasting can Dismiss it.

The issue with most classes is that they peak at different levels.
By "Peak" I don't mean they hit their most powerful point, I mean they hit their most powerful point when compared the the campaign, the enemies they are facing, and compared to their fellow party members.
Fighters peak really early and start to drop off for example.
Full casters peak much later, and Sorcerers and Wizards don't really have a real peak as they just keep getting better and better.

Synthesis Summoners peak at about level 9-10.
At this point, they are the most powerful they will be when compared to everything else leveling around them.
After this point, their increases in powerlevel aren't as incrementally unbalancing as they are during the 6-10 levels.
So, the good news is there is light at the end of the tunnel.

I'd suggest you try the dismissal thing. It's as easy spell for a villain to have level 10 or 11 and it shuts of the Eidolan.

Now I wouldn't suggest doing this on a regular basis, because you make the player feel their their character is useless if you just shut him down all the time.

It's a balancing act.
I'm currently running a game with a Sacred Shield Paladin in it, and his AC can hit well over 40 against a single evil target (like most Bosses of chapters) and he's only level 9.
So I feel your pain, but the answer to him is even more simple...combat maneuvers rule his world.

No PC is invincible, and the NPCs at your disposal are often far more capable then you initially give them credit for. They have all sorts of abilities that aren't explicitly written on their sheet, but are instead implied as things anyone can do. The problem with running such things is that we rarely run NPCs as well as we would our own sheets...just takes practice.

So Thanatopic Spell says that the spell bypasses immunities to spells with the death effects.
Golems say they are immune to spells.
Hence, an immunity.
So does Thanatopic spell bypass said immunity?

By "Faction List" I mean I've heard reference on some forums of a list of magic items you are allowed to buy from your faction, and I thought that those were the only magic items you were allowed to buy outside of chronicle sheets and always available, but BigNorseWolf seems to have cleared that up for me.

I'd love to find a place where it clears this up in writing though, since I have a friend arguing with me that you can only buy items off Chronicle sheets and always available.

@ BigNorseWolf
So the lists they are referencing are those magic items not banned within PFS that you have enough fame to be able to purchase?

Hmm, the wording on these is pretty wonky, I haven't found an FAQ on it either, though I haven't combed through every FAQ yet.

After rereading the Guide to Organized play, it seems pretty clear that you can only buy magic items from chronicle sheets, the always available list, and certain items presented to each faction.
Here is the quote from the book.

"Beyond the gear noted above, your character is restricted
to purchasing additional items from his accumulated
Chronicle sheets, or by capitalizing on his fame within
his faction. Weapons, armor, equipment, magic items and
so on that are outside of these lists are not available for
purchase at any time."

So this references this "Faction List" again, which I cannot find anywhere.
It's not in the Guide to Organized Play that I can find, nor is it in the Field Guide that I can find, both books I have open in front of me.

I have the guide to organized play.
There isn't a separate faction list for magic items in there though, just the list of what cost of magic items you can buy via fame.

So does this mean if I have 45 fame, which allows me to purchase magic items up to 41,000 gp, then I can crack open the Core book and buy a Belt of Physical Might +4 (which costs 40,000gp) at any time?
Or just when I finish a session and a GM can sign off on it it?
Or is there some other Faction list of Magic Items that I am only allowed to buy magic items off of? If so, I can't find this specific list.

So I have found the chart to buy always available magic items, and the chart that lists how much gold I can spend on any particular magic item at a time according to fame.

I can't seem to find the chart that shows which magic items I can buy via faction, even though I've read that such a chart exists and even thought I saw it when going through various threads at one point in time, but I can't find it again.

Also, other than the always available magic items, and those found during sessions, are the faction magic items the only other magic items you can buy?

What else is available to buy other than always available and faction magic items?