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This is a discussion thread connected to our Kingmaker campaign. Please post further discussion of this topic here.

@ Lifat - Here is the wording for Contingency:

You can place another spell upon your person so that it comes into effect under some condition you dictate when casting contingency. The contingency spell and the companion spell are cast at the same time. The 10-minute casting time is the minimum total for both castings; if the companion spell has a casting time longer than 10 minutes, use that instead. You must pay any costs associated with the companion spell when you cast contingency.

The spell to be brought into effect by the contingency must be one that affects your person and be of a spell level no higher than one-third your caster level (rounded down, maximum 6th level).

The conditions needed to bring the spell into effect must be clear, although they can be general. In all cases, the contingency immediately brings into effect the companion spell, the latter being "cast" instantaneously when the prescribed circumstances occur. If complicated or convoluted conditions are prescribed, the whole spell combination (contingency and the companion magic) may fail when triggered. The companion spell occurs based solely on the stated conditions, regardless of whether you want it to.

You can use only one contingency spell at a time; if a second is cast, the first one (if still active) is dispelled.

Emphasis mine.

Since the Contingency and the Companion Spell are both cast at the same time, one would assume that you MUST specify a destination for the spell at the time you cast Contingency by the RAW. The second bold section simply states that the Contingency brings into effect or "casts" the spell at the time the Contingency is triggered. It seems as though you must specify everything about the Companion Spell at the time you originally cast it with Contingency.

I could be wrong though. That's why I am asking for other people's interpretations.

Wiggz makes excellent points, and is very correct in that a Sorcerer will have plenty of options. Their focus is narrower but they can use the tools of that focus in any combination which lends them a certain amount of versatility.

What I tend to dislike about the class is that they gain access to new spells a level later than Wizards, and if prestige classes are your thing many of them reduce your effective Sorcerer level pushing back the level at which you gain spells even further, and potentially delaying your Bloodline powers (Get a Robe of Arcane Heritage ASAP!). They also take a few levels before their spell list has any depth at the top end, so when they hit 6th level they REALLY have to choose which of those 3rd level spells they want all of their 3rd level castings to go into.

Wizards on the other hand have that theoretical access, and there is a mechanic in place by which one can obtain spells by purchasing scrolls. If a Wizard badly wants access to a spell, he can usually find it in a town by making checks each day to locate it. If the town is big enough he may not even need to make checks. Additionally if an enemy Wizard is encountered and killed, a Wilzard can gain a decent chunk of knowledge if they locate his spellbook.

None of this is guaranteed, sure, but if you run adventure paths the devs tend to throw bones to each class in turn. Kingmaker has an ENORMOUS bonus for Wizards, and Skull & Shackles is full of enemy spellcasters that drop scrolls, spellbooks and other items of note that both Wizards and Sorcerers will find useful.

Make no mistake, neither class is strictly better than the other. It all comes down to style, and I prefer the Wizard because if you are smart about your decisions you can often find yourself with the tools you need when you need them. Wizards are much more of a support character, so spells like Glitterdust, Grease, Haste, Slow, and Summon spells will almost always be useful for helping your party "win". You might run out of them faster, but if a Sorcerer picks Scorching Ray at level 4 as his one 2nd level spell, he could end up facing any of the multitude of fire-based creatures in the game that will pretty much ignore it, regardless of his ability to cast it 3+ times per day (Read: invest in the Elemental Spell Metamagic Feat, or a Rod!) The Wizard may also have to prepare his Metamagic ahead of time, but when he casts it he can also move, or draw a rod to add to it that round where a Sorcerer basically has to stand still and use his entire turn.

I've played far fewer Sorcerers than Wizards though, and I have not read all of the Sorcerer guides in the Advice forum so I'm less familiar with Sorcerer options than I am with Wizard. Take my opinion of the Sorcerer with a grain of salt, and certainly look to others on these forums for the virtues of the Sorcerer before you make your decision. They may not fit my style very well but they might fit yours.

WIZARDS
Wizards have a spellbook, and can add any number of spells to that spellbook over time. They learn two free spells of any level they can cast at each level, and they can learn more by copying them into their spellbook from scrolls or copying them from another wizards spellbook. This costs money and becomes more expensive as you level up.

Wizards are the ultimate in versatility because ostensibly they have access to every spell on the Sorcerer/Wizard spell list if they are willing to pay the cost to get a scroll and scribe it into their book. From then on they can memorize that spell any time. If a Wizard has some idea of what he will be fighting, he can tailor his spell list for the day to be seriously effective against that target.

Wizards are intelligent, often lawful and generally very logical. They are very much the "classic mage" whose magic knowledge comes from study and applying oneself to the discovery of magical power. A Wizard is only as good as his spellbook and without it he can do very little, but with it he can change the world around him.

SORCERERS
Sorcerers have magic in their blood, and they cast spells spontaneously from a short list of spells that they know. They are born with their magical abilities, or develop them from having some kind of magical heritage in past generations. Be it from Dragons, Demons, Angels, Fey or just raw magical energy, someone in a Sorcerers family tree was touched by magic and it manifested in the Sorcerers bloodline.

A Sorcerer knows only a very limited number of spells that she picks each level and cannot change, but she can cast any of these spells any number of times per day up to her maximum castings for each level. She does not have anywhere near the depth of magic that a Wizard does, but she can use it much more often. Sorcerers are the ultimate specialists. They pick a focus and that's all they do. They make great blasters, and can often use their bloodline powers to fuel this focus. As they get more powerful and level up, their bloodlines manifest themselves in different ways giving them access to modifications to their spells, skills and physical abilities.

Sorcerers have a very wide range of bloodlines and can fill many roles from blaster to front-line striker, but they are not versatile due to the limited number of spells they know. Unlike a Wizard they lack the ability to change the spells they have access to each day.

COMPARISON
Personally I prefer Wizards, because they fit my style of play more but Sorcerers can be a boatload of fun depending on the bloodline you pick. A Wizard is a great Knowledge-Monkey and an excellent party support character that can buff his allies, debuff his opponents and fill the battlefield with alternate targets to keep his friends from taking damage. He almost always knows the capabilities of his enemies and if given even a day to prepare he can heavily sway the battle in his parties favor. Even still with good spell selection a Wizard can generally perform his role well, but he rarely gets the glory. A Wizards allies usually do his killing for him. The Wizards job is to make this as easy as possible.

Sorcerers fly by the seat of their pants, and generally seek to overcome their lack of versatility with raw power. They tend to be damage dealers in one fashion or another and while many options are open to them, they must pick a narrow focus and so can be thrown off if facing the wrong opponent. Wizards can have this happen as well, but not as often. Sorcerers make up for it by having access to more castings each day and generally being able to last longer in combat. With good resource management they can save those vital spell castings for use where they really matter. Sorcerers are a more "glorious" class to play than Wizards due to their higher damage dealing potential. They are usually more likable too since they use their Charisma as a primary stat. They make an excellent "party face" where a Wizard usually does not.

Which one you choose is a personal choice best determined by your style of play. If you like wading into combat and slinging spells around while rolling lots of dice for damage then a Sorcerer is probably your best bet. It's a high-risk high-reward style of play. If instead you like being the man with all the answers and prefer to pull the strings of combat from a less prominent role then a Wizard will suit you better. I personally prefer the latter.

NOTE:The Advanced Class Guide is being released shortly and includes the class Arcanist, which is a combination of Wizard and Sorcerer. It combines aspects of both classes to allow for the breadth of spell knowledge that a Wizard has with the versatility of Spontaneous casting like a Sorcerer. Overall they cast less than Sorcerers but they can change which spells they "know" from their spellbook each day. It's pretty interesting so if you are looking for elements of both classes you might look into it and talk to your DM about it!

Litany of Righteousness is somewhat balanced by the fact that it allows Spell Resistance, and Paladins are at Character Level -3 for their Caster Level. That makes it VERY difficult for them to land it on most enemies it's worth using on in this campaign.

I've found the ability to possibly block one attack a round doesn't do much. Especially when the blocked attack fails to block.

For one thing - which attack do you block? Or which spell?

No, I think increasing hitpoints but reducing damage outputs works better as it lets the combat last a little bit longer and makes it seem epic when the PCs are doing hundreds of damage a round... and the monster is taking it.

Increasing hit points makes the boss last longer, but does nothing to make the fight feel interesting. If the players are taking less damage, and the boss is lasting longer, all it's doing is dragging things on. I don't find that fun or interesting as a player, let alone as a DM.

I think finding a way to present a challenge that the PC'c cannot just overcome by throwing massive piles of damage at it is the key to a fun and interesting fight. There should be a puzzle to solve, that once cracked allows the players to use their massive piles of damage to kill the boss. That way players feel accomplished in having figured out the trick, and they feel powerful because once they got past the trick it didn't take long to kill the thing they are fighting.

Some examples I have thought of are:

A spellcaster boss protected by a one-way barrier. He can hurl spells at the PC's but everything they do bounces off. They have to find a way to disable the barrier, possibly via some hidden room containing the power source for the barrier, or one person has to complete a puzzle of some kind while the rest of the party protects him and distracts the boss. Maybe the barrier has a frequency that changes and lets a different sort of attack through each round at reduced power, and everything else is deflected.

A melee boss that has a magic item connecting him to several statues around the room. Every attack or spell the PC's throw is absorbed by the statues and causes a minor crack to appear. The PC's CAN decide to beat down the boss until all of the statues crumble to dust, or they can choose to try and disable the statues effect. Maybe the statues can be damaged directly, or maybe the effect can be disabled by removing something from each of the statues in a specific order that's hinted earlier in the campaign?

Regardless of the battle, mechanics like the above allow the boss to live long enough to be a threat, and with moderation they won't kill the party. When the party figures out their trick and finally deals the death blow, they will feel more accomplished than if they just smacked the guy and he dies in one round.

Well yes and no.

1. Optimisation is the problem. Characters don't diversify they focus on one thing. My wizard isn't optimised he's just made sensible choices that send his DCs through the roof, my fighter isn't optimised he's just focused on dealing damage with his 1 weapon and little else. This is optimisation. It makes a DM and other players need to compete to keep up. It becomes a race of who makes the "best" sensible choices. My sensible witch can just about put everything to sleep since the DCs can get quite high. The other players hate it. The first few times they thought it great, it wears off when they get to watch the witch and clean up. So she put stat points elsewhere. Now enemies make the DCs sometimes and everyone's involved, but the etch stil eels she gets semi league out f that hex.

People even cry foul when they're caught out. It's no fair you killed my wizard with that damage! Well put the stat points in CON, take the lower DCs and get the hp. More rounded, less optimised. Sure it might end up only 40hp but that can be the difference.

I tend to agree here, however it's very hard to make players follow this school of thought unless you design pre-made characters for them (which they don't like at all!). It's also really hard to get everyone at the table to play this way. Even when they do, good players can come up with well rounded characters that will do well in many areas but you would consider them "optimized".

Let me give some examples of the problems I run into:

A few of the people I play with are experienced players, and by your definition optimizers, and a few are somewhat new to the game or are just not good at learning sets of rules.

The first type of player will create a character and without thinking about it they will include a feat tree in their build that gives them a combat advantage, and they will include other choices that synergize with their character concept. They will create a character that doesn't appear to be broken in any one area, but has a complementary set of stats and abilities that give them good offense and good defense and a variety of tools to overcome challenges. This is not that hard to do once you know how each class works, and what feats work well to compliment their abilities. These players will also know generally what their enemy is capable of based on type. They won't necessarily know every monsters stats by heart, but they will know that the humanoid guy with the big sword and bulging muscles probably isn't too fast, so using his slow reflexes against him is a good idea. They know that the Black Dragon is going to have Acid based attacks, flight, blindsight, and fighting him indoors in a small area will put the group at an advantage. They probably know to put Knowledge skills into areas that deal with the campaign they are playing in to justify their characters acting on this knowledge.

The newer or less experienced players on the other hand may ask for assistance designing their character, and may even come up with something that is strong in some areas with help. On the other hand they will inevitably, through lack of experience or just not being able to memorize their character sheet, forget to use key abilities, add key bonuses at key times or just plain mis-interpret their stats. These kinds of players will always regardless of character design be at a disadvantage. They won't know much about what different enemies can do, they probably won't assign (or remember to continue assigning) skill points into useful areas and they will generally find anything other than the basic hack-n-slash combat overly difficult.

The first player will feel comfortable in any situation, will recognize when he is out-classed or at an advantage and will act accordingly. Even with a rounded, less optimized character he will do well. The second player will feel inferior to the first player in almost every respect even if he has a more powerful character simply because he doesn't know how to use it. He will feel tentative about asking questions because he may think he will look stupid, and when he does something wrong in combat and it's explained to him that it doesn't work that way, he will feel like he is making a bunch of mistakes, even if the rest of the group is happy to help him through it.

Mythic compounds this exponentially. The player that knows what he is doing has a whole new bucket of tools to use and learning how to use them is not difficult. The player that doesn't know what he is doing feels like he is in over his head and just had another bucket of dirt piled on top of it all.

I'm trying to work around this disparity, but the Mythic rules were not a big help. My players that knew their stuff were able to compile a set of Mythic abilities that let them pummel the enemy without much difficulty, and those that did not have much experience came up with characters that were somewhat effective, but they didn't know how to use them. Mythic enemies walked all over them because they left themselves open or forgot to use a certain ability they had. Eventually the two players who really knew how to play the game were just blowing everything up and the others were cleaning up the mess.

Going into the next AP I plan to run, I am taking measures to prevent this from being an issue. I won't use the Mythic rules in any game again because they promote rocket tag and I find that distasteful. They directly feed into what you would call optimization. They make players pick a focus stat and then shove a pile of extra bonuses onto that stat, and give them a host of over-the-top abilities to choose from. If a character is even mildly optimized taking the Mythic feats he qualifies for will push him into broken territory really fast.

Anyway, I've rambled enough about this. I know what went wrong, and why it failed in this campaign. I know that some of it is my fault, but much of the blame is the Mythic rules, and I have some ideas of how to prevent it from happening in my next non-mythic AP. For now I want to enjoy just playing the game with another DM for a while. I've been DMing two major campaigns back to back for over two years now so it's time for a break and some planning before I run my next game.

I think it's unfair to call it a "failed AP." The story is pretty solid. The Mythic mechanics can be problematic. However, I don't think it approaches the level of "failure."

-Skeld

Allow me to clarify. My attempt at running the AP failed. I don't mean to say that everything was a total failure because I do agree that the story is pretty cool and there are a lot of good NPC's and Villains. But the system caused my game to devolve into something that was pretty much unplayable so I found that to be a failure.

This was not my first time DMing, nor was it my first AP. Other AP's we have run have concluded just fine. This one was just not a good fit.

I think what I dislike most about the Mythic Adventure rules is that they are basically a set of rules without a good audience.

Novice players are going to build bad characters that don't use any kind of broken combination of abilities, and as a result most Mythic enemies of any appreciable level will kill them. Badly. On the other hand even a mildly experienced group is going to put together a party of characters capable of curb stomping anything they come across with very few exceptions. Those exceptions will cause a TPK.

There's no middle ground with Mythic. There's no happy medium for anyone. The numbers are too big on both sides and someone ends up dead way too fast which is not fun for anyone.

In my particular case I ended up with a Conjuration Wizard that had an initiative bonus that was usually 15+ points higher than the enemies and access to every spell in the game. He never had to worry about Spell Resistance (if he ever cast anything that allowed it) due to Mythic Spell Penetration and Eldritch Breach, and since he had ranks in all of the pertinent Knowledge skills he was able to find exactly what spell would ruin any given encounter.

He had all of the strengths of a Wizard with none of the weaknesses. The Cleric did the same thing. Between these two characters, every enemy ended up stunned, staggered, blind, weaponless or otherwise incapacitated long enough for the Paladin and whichever character my 4th was playing to demolish them. Anything with a weapon was neutered with a Persistent Grease with an enormous save, most Demons were blinded with Holy Smite, and most anything else had a Celestial Ankylosaurus summoned on them via Speedy Summons, sometimes two or three. Rime Cones of Cold were also very popular. Anything that was able to pass their saves or shake off the status effects (like the Woundworm) caused mass chaos because he caught them in a tight space and could easily full round anyone in the party but the Paladin.

The ability to have access to every spell in the game takes all of the strategy out of playing any kind of spellcaster. It makes them all the same. That one ability was probably responsible for 80% of our problems. The rest was due to all of the massive damage stacking feats that melee characters can take.

Just thought I would post an update here. I've been DMing Wrath of the Rigteous for some time now and we made it through book 3 and partway into book 4. The campaign started out great, with cool challenges, fun NPC's and a relatively well balanced set of encounters.

Once my players became Mythic though, everything went to hell. Power creep quickly outstripped the NPC's and basically everything came down to me asking the Wizard what he did (his initiative bonus started at +17 and only got higher) then scrapping the combat because his first action usually prevented the enemy from acting and the rest of the party did so much damage that they never got a change to retaliate.

I started using Sc8rpi8on's updated stat blocks in book 2 and this helped for a while, though my players began to feel that I was sniping them when I would knock one of them out of a fight with a well coordinated attack. By the time we got into book 3 though, the combat went back the other direction even with the updated stat blocks. Nothing lasted long enough to even act in combat, so there wasn't much point.

At that point I made the decision to completely scrap combat rules and just let players roleplay their way through everything. It was an interesting experiment but without a structured system it devolved into me describing combatants and my players telling me exactly how they demolished them before they could even act. The moment I tried to narrate a challenging fight they told me how they would completely stomp it without ever breaking a sweat.

I got tired of it, and last night I made the decision to fold the campaign and chock it up to a failed AP. I verbally told them how the AP concluded and next week we will begin Mummy's Mask with a different DM.

I'm extremely disappointed. The Mythic rules took a compelling story about Good VS Evil and turned it into an absurd game of rocket tag. The average party will walk through 80% of the stuff in this AP without batting an eye, and the enemies that do challenge the PC's will absolutely murder them. I may try and run this AP again in the future but I will certainly scrap the Mythic element from it. I like the story, but I just cannot stand the Mythic rules.

Of an interesting note, the party cleric took Beyond Morality.

I'm waiting for him to try to use the Talisman of Pure Good and get an error on it. :P

He wouldn't. He has no alignment and his alignment counts as the best possible result for anything that requires it. A Talisman of Pure Good could be used by a character that was previously Chaotic Evil and took Beyond Morality.

It is a problem that a player will almost certainly feel that because Arueshalae is a follower of Desna he is obliged to heavily interact with her , this will put pressure on him to act and roleplay (which is normally good) but when put under pressure he freezes , can't think of anything to do , wastes a lot of time and then feels really bad about it. So it will be a negative experience for everyone. Its a potential player issue rather than a character issue and I would prefer to avoid it so everyone has fun.

Empyrial Lords I don't have a real problem with , however I would probably have to explain them to my players and I could not think of any appropriate ones off the top of my head, also as lesser beings than gods more on the level of the Demon lords they did not quite seem appropriate , however if anyone has a good idea for one of them none of the above are show stoppers.

I would ask the player in question how he would feel about having a special connection to a prominent NPC before making the assumption that it would cause a problem. I certainly understand that being put on the spot might not be a good experience for the player, but I've gotta believe he would like to have the choice, even if he doesn't know anything about it yet.

I would also tell the player that while a prominent NPC may have some kind of special connection with him, he should not feel too pressured to interact differently with them than anyone else. It's your job as the DM to make your players feel comfortable (though pushing them out of their comfort zone often helps them improve as players), and I'm sure there is a way to include Arushalae as written and not feel like you are over-pressuring your player. She may react in a demure or shy manner around the player, or avoid directly confronting the player until he initiates a conversation. She would certainly be drawn to him as they presumably share a deity, but she does not have to outright attach herself to his hip. In fact, until she feels out the party she is more likely than to to be distant and quiet which should take the pressure off the player and allow him to approach the situation on his terms.

The only reason I suggest going this route is because all of Arushalae's art has Desnan symbols, and two pieces of her gear are directly related to Desna. Her weapon is also a Starknife which is Desna's favored weapon, and her story is HEAVILY reliant on having been awakened during a dream she entered as a curiosity, and that's definitely Desna's territory. Re-writing her would be a significant undertaking.

But that's just my opinion.

• I will protect my allies with my life. They are my light
and my strength, as I am their light and their strength.
We rise together.

• I will seek out and destroy the spawn of the Rough
Beast. If I cannot defeat them, I will give my life trying.
If my life would be wasted in the attempt, I will find
allies. If any fall because of my inaction, their deaths
lie upon my soul, and I will atone for each.

• I am fair to others. I expect nothing for myself but that
which I need to survive.

• The best battle is a battle I win. If I die, I can no longer
fight. I will fight fairly when the fight is fair, and I will
strike quickly and without mercy when it is not.

• I will redeem the ignorant with my words and my
actions. If they will not turn toward the light, I will
redeem them by the sword.

• I will not abide evil, and will combat it with steel when
words are not enough. I do not flinch from my faith,
and do not fear embarrassment. My soul cannot be
bought for all the stars in the sky.

• I will show the less fortunate the light of the
Dawnflower. I will live my life as her mortal blade,
shining with the light of truth.

• Each day is another step toward perfection. I
willturn back into the dark.

So, what part of that says you can not swear vengeance or slay evil outsiders? How does it break your oath to redeem an evil outsider rather than destroy it? It specifically says you will not do things to get your allies slain nor fight a battle you know you can not win. I am gonna go ahead and assume fighting every demon in the abyss is a little out of any PC's league.

Emphasis Mine.

The Oath Against Fiends leaves no middle ground for Evil Outsiders. You kill them. You do not redeem them. That is the oath, and doing otherwise is outright banned by that oath. It's not banned for normal Paladins, but an Oathbound Paladin has a further oath added to his code that requires specific actions under specific circumstances. There's a Demon, and it's one I can kill. I must kill it. I can't kill it? I must find allies to help me kill it. We can't do it? Can I try to banish it? Nope, OK run away.....wait why is it murdering everyone?!

By taking the Oath Against Fiends you put your allies lives in grave danger if you ever travel to an Abyssal Realm. You are not fair to others. You and your allies do not rise together, you more than likely fall together. That's not a battle you win. You likely die and cannot fight on.

Let me clarify here that I am not being hostile toward you. I simply intend to point out why the oath is a bad idea, which isn't something you seem to fully grasp. You seem to have the idea that it will be challenging and fun to run a character with the oath, despite multiple GM's (some of whom are running the campaign with such a Paladin) telling you that it's not challenging, it's almost completely unplayable.

When the subject matter of book 4 involves traversing abyssal realms with cities of evil outsiders and working with them to complete your assigned tasks and destroy a greater evil, a Paladin with the Oath Against Fiends makes those tasks absolutely impossible. It's not just a matter of your GM being creative in order to circumvent the issues. It's a matter of your GM having to completely re-write entire sections of the campaign specifically to accommodate one PC which is not fair to him or everyone else who wants to hear the story as written. Also, depending on how you play the character you may torpedo an important roleplay encounter earlier in the campaign and deny your party a VERY powerful ally.

You can do what you want, but don't expect to make friends doing it when it's a mistake of the magnitude you are about to knowingly make.

You were warned.

Regarding the other ACF, you have my answer. It works fine with the oath and I would allow a player at my table to take both.

Aldarionn wrote:

But that's just MY opinion, and I'm sure there are plenty more ;-)

Honestly, I think the problem for many is that they simply don't engage in fantasy role-play with the intent of pursuing (or having catered to) a particular political or social agenda. I have nothing against gay couples - I don't want issues like abortion or gun control in my campaigns either. The idea of one NPC selling a family heirloom so that another NPC can have a sex-change operation might seem romantic or noble, but there is absolutely nothing about it that says 'fantasy adventure' to me.

I get that Paizo is a progressive-minded company and that's laudable, and I get that these kinds of discussions are a deliberate driving force behind these kinds of NPC's - above and beyond simple inclusion, they 'raise awareness' - but its my position (admittedly no more valid than anyone else's) that they should reflect those beliefs in their hiring practices and in their work environment, which I'm certain that they do, and focus more on crafting superb fantasy adventures than pushing social agendas. Reign of Winter, Wrath of the Righteous and now Mummy's Mask - Paizo's M.O. has become pretty clear. Sure, we can alter the NPC's however we wish, and we often do, but doesn't the same hold true for predominantly LGBT groups? Aren't they just as capable of altering the NPC's to suit their group's preferences?

I don't necessarily think it's just about advertising that they are "progressive" or anything. It's about making certain groups of people feel welcome in their campaign setting by including NPC's that they can identify with. You can see examples of this in older D&D texts when they began alternating between "he" and "she" in the descriptions of their classes, feats and spells. Similarly, they have included humans of a variety of racial backgrounds and skin colors in Pathfinder, using real-world inspiration for their cultural backgrounds and beliefs.

These kinds of additions are about making everyone feel included and welcome, not just about pushing an agenda. If Paizo wants to sell to a majority of people, they cannot make their product cater exclusively to one particular group. Including a little bit of everything (like homosexual or transgender characters) makes it a little close to the melting pot of a planet we all share.

--------------------------------------------------

Regarding the discussion at hand - personally I would speak to the players out of game. Tell them that this product comes from a company that does not share the political and social views of the religious right and as such there may be content as written that caters to the LGBT community among others. I would ask how the players feel about that content being included in this (and future) campaigns and how they, as a group, would prefer I run the game.

If the answer is "go with it" then I would expect no complaints later. If the answer is "cut it out" I would do that (though I don't think I would game with a group that wasn't open minded enough to give it a shot).

As others have said, you know your players best. If you think this is going to be a sticking point and draw the focus away from the major story, you should either change it or perhaps look to a different AP.

Hope that helps.

Areelu Vorlesh has the following (VERY COMPLEX) stat block:

If we look only at the parts of her stat block that increase her actual abilities we end up with the following:

Headband of Mental Superiority (+6 enhancement bonus to all metal stats)
Belt of Physical Perfection (+6 enhancement bonus to all physical stats)
Ancient (+3 age bonus to all mental stats)
Profane Pact (+4 profane bonus to intelligence)
Energumen (+6 profane bonus to constitution)
Inherent Bonuses (+4 inherent bonus to dexterity, constitution and intelligence)
Mythic Tier 8 (+8 mythic bonus to *presumably* constitution)
Level 20 (+5 typeless bonus to *presumably* constitution)

Now, her abilities are listed as follows:
Str 14
Dex 28
Con 48
Int 38
Wis 21
Cha 29

If we strip off the above listed bonuses we get:
Str 08 (08 + 6enh = 14)
Dex 18 (18 + 6enh + 4inh = 28)
Con 19 (19 + 6enh + 4inh + 8myth + 6prof + 5lvl = 48)
Int 21 (21 + 6enh + 4inh + 4prof +3age = 38)
Wis 12 (12 + 6enh + 3age = 21)
Cha 20 (20 + 6enh + 3age = 29)

Assuming she uses the heroic array of 15/14/13/12/10/8 like every other enemy, and going for the most even racial bonuses across all stats my guess is that her base stats were allocated as follows:

Str 08
Dex 12
Con 13
Int 15
Wis 10
Cha 14

That leaves her with a racial bonus of +6 Dex, +6 Con, +6 Int, +2 Wis, +6 Cha. With the only odd bonus being the +2 to wisdom, I'm going to guess that's her racial bonus for being a human. I'm guessing the +6 to Dex, Cont, Int and Cha are from Half Succubus which is one hell of a template!

Feel free to jump in and correct me if you think I am wrong but that's about the best I'm able to come up with.

When I re-build her I will be bumping her to MT10 and allocating the Mythic bonuses, 4 points of the Level bonus and her Human Racial bonus to Intelligence, putting it at 54 and giving her +8 to all of her DC's and dropping her Con to 36. To combat the loss of HP I'll just give her max HP, but considering the damage my party is already putting out at level 9 she will need to rely on far more than just raw HP to survive more than a single character's full attack. Her AC, offense and other defenses need to be far more beefy if she is to pose any sort of threat.

I just straight up told my players that they cannot utilize the army in any encounter intended to be a party fight. It was only useful in mass combat. They complained about this quite a bit, but I made a ruling and enforced it. It probably was not the cleanest way to go about it but it was certainly the intent.

Oh I'm not worried about it after the campaign, and I suppose in the grand scheme of things it won't really matter during the campaign either because things move so quickly, but if the party decides to fend off Xanthir Vang's attacks for a year the character could rake in some 91k extra gold to just do with as he pleases.

Also he has told me he plans to take the Leadership feat so he can get a cohort to put in charge of the union while he is adventuring. Ostensibly this cohort could make his collections and keep things running smoothly while the players are off tramping through the Abyss killing Demon Lords, so that when they return he has a nice extra paycheck waiting.

I just want to know if there is anything anyone can find in the rules to prevent this kind of organization, or if it's 100% legit as written. I cannot find anything preventing it, so I'm inclined to applaud the player's creativity and let it slide.

My players began downtime activities in Drezen last night and I must say that some of it was.....amusing.

Three of the four players began relatively standard activities, with one starting work on a temple, one starting work on a tavern and an organization to operate out of it, and the other beginning work on a casters tower while also starting research on various leads that cropped up at the end of the previous session.

The fourth player on the other hand decided he wanted to found an organization. But it was not just any organization. No, this would be a labor union. He proceeded to spend about a month hiring 40 teams of laborers, 5 teams of bureaucrats, 5 teams of elite guards and 5 teams of craftsmen. Basically a large labor force split into groups lead by foremen and protected by a small group of armed guards and overseen by teams of lawyers, accountants and other paper pushers to see to the bookkeeping. Once Drezen is rebuilt he will have enough laborers to on average produce 25 units of labor consistently each day (with the possibility of a little extra which he will donate for free to the city), which happens to be the exact amount of labor one can sell at 10 GP per unit, or 250GP income per day. In a month of downtime this labor force would generate 7500GP in labor alone, or 91,250GP per year.

Basically, this player founded the Drezen branch of the Teamsters and I cannot really fault him. In a town in the Worldwound everyone is going to need labor for building, maintaining or repairing various projects, and while the town is being rebuilt he is donating most of that labor along with a large supply of goods to the reconstruction effort. He is using it to build mass lodgings which will replace a number of the ruined housing units and lodge his force of near 300 workers, bureaucrats, soldiers and craftsmen. After Drezen is rebuilt they will maintain the city and provide the manual labor required to expand and keep the city running.

They just also happen to generate stupid amounts of free money and provide for a seriously comfortable retirement after the Demons are dealt with and the Worldwound is closed. Once the city has its economy restored I will have Irabeth impose a tax on the labor, but it's still basically a giant labor union capable of generating enormous income, and if the player is somewhat philanthropic about it I cannot find fault in him for doing it. I also can't find anything in the rules preventing it.

Anyone have any thoughts?

I re-wrote the intro to the campaign, and while it's not useful to anyone else who has started the campaign already it might be useful to someone looking to run it soon.

Here it is:

Aldarionn wrote:

Something like this?

Quote:

Awesomeness!

...

Bravo sir!

I will keep this in mind should my players do exactly this, I hope you don't mind.

Heh, glad someone likes it!

I re-write a lot of scenes from Paizo modules. I'm not a fan of some of the dialogue because I think the way it's written makes cunning villains with ultra-high intelligence (Baphomet, for example) sound mustache-twirly evil instead of terrifyingly evil and cruel.

Something like this?

With a mighty kick of his armored sabatons Sir Antonin Drayke shattered the door leading into a finely appointed room. Maps of what appeared to be a realm of mazes lined the walls, watched over by the unholy visage of a goat-faced Demon with a crimson pentagram glowing brightly on his forehead. Drayke was a man of few words, preferring to let his actions talk for him and as a Paladin he was compelled to destroy what he knew lay beyond this door.

"FOOLS!" Screamed the rooms only occupant. "You know not what you have interrupted! You cannot possibly fathom the work that goes into the refinement of pure Nahyndrian! You will pay for your insolence a thousand times over in pain!" Hepzamirah was a terrifying sight to behold; a female Minotaur towering near to the ceiling and cradling an enormous pick in powerful clawed hands. Clad head to toe in black plate and mail, her bestial features were amplified by her obvious rage. She stepped forward on thundering hooves, hefting her weapon but before the mighty Demon could bring the pick to bear, Drayke felt warmth and light wash over him.

Rashim stepped past the heavily armored Paladin and brandished a gleaming talisman. The words he spoke were in an ancient and unkowable language, though Drayke somehow understood them. "You shall pay for your crimes, daughter of Baphomet. Your black soul shall be flensed by the Light and you shall know what it is to be truly judged!" Rashim's voice was low, but the Warpriest's every word rang with holy purpose.

Moments later the ground began to tremble and Hepzamirah's face was split by a silent scream of terror and pain. The floor beneath her hooves was torn asunder and though she thrashed against invisible bonds, she was drawn into an ever growing pit filled with radiant golden light; a light so bright it made the sun seem black by comparison, yet Drayke somehow found it easy and comforting to look upon.

The comfort Drayke took from the light lasted only moments. No sooner had the towering woman disappeared when the pure radiance flashed a deep crimson as it was swiftly corrupted into abyssal flames. A booming voice seemed to echo from nowhere and everywhere at once. As a Paladin Drayke had not known fear in some time, but that voice reminded him what true terror felt like.

"THAT WAS A MISTAKE. THE TIME FOR YOUR ACTS OF REBELLION IS AT AN END. YOU FACE NOT THE DAUGHTER OF BAPHOMET NOW, BUT THE LORD OF MINOTAURS HIMSELF. NOW YOU SHALL KNOW WHAT IT IS TO BE TRULY JUDGED AND FOUND LACKING." Even as he spoke Bephomet rose from the pit his daughter had been dragged into mere moments before. Black flames danced around his cloven hooves and from beneath a goats primal brow shone intelligent, almost human eyes.

"YOU SHALL NOT BE THE ONLY VICTIMS OF MY WRATH TODAY. YOU JOIN THE HERALD OF THAT JUMPED-UP MORTAL IOMEDAE IN ETERNAL AGONY AND SERVITUDE TO THE IVORY LABYRINTH. LET THIS BE A REMINDER TO THE SO-CALLED CRUSADERS THAT MY REACH IS BEYOND MEASURE. I CAN STRIKE ANYWHERE, I CAN TAKE ANYTHING YOU HOLD DEAR AND I CAN CRUSH THOSE YOU CONSIDER GREAT HEROES WITH A MERE THOUGHT!"

"Ahh but it is my realm you invade 'Lord of Slain Daughters.'"

Drayke's head whipped around at the familiar voice that seemed to caress him in uncomfortable places. Nocticula's form was beautiful and seductive even when irritation and anger clearly stained her otherwise perfect face. "Let this be a reminder that your reach is not without measure, and the only mistake made today was showing yourself where you are not welcome."

Nocticula flicked her delicate fingers almost casually and the abyssal fire engulfing Baphomet began to sear his twisted flesh. His guttural screams and curses faded and his corporeal form shattered with a thunderous roar, leaving broken stones and scorch marks were once a Demon Lord had dominated the room. Nocticula's intoxicating, musical laughter filled Drayke's ears and his skin crawled with a desire he did not want. It made him feel filthy and shameful, but he could not help it when she was near; he had a feeling few could.

"You kept your end of the bargain, so I shall keep mine." Nocticula wove her way through the transfixed occupants of the room to where Baphomet had stood.

"Rest assured that from now on none of your enemies shall siphon the blood of my realm, though I fear you can count Baphomet personally among those enemies now. It shall take him some time to recover from the lashing I just gave him, but he will return with a vengeance. Still, your business here is now complete......unless you wish to stay and keep me company?" Her coy smile and smokey eyes left no doubt in Drayke's mind what she meant to do should any of them accept her offer. With another casual waive of the hand she disappeared and was replaced by a curtain of black flame.

"Your way home lies through the fire." Nocticula's final words echoed in Drayke's head and he eagerly stepped forward, and back into the realm he knew.

Sure, they can have a save.

Will save DC 31. Pray that you don't strand someone alone in there with him.

No, there is no save. Time Stop does not have a save, and the augmented version simply mentions "Creatures" not "Allies" meaning it works on any creature you designate. Nowhere in the augmented version does it list a save, so by the RAW Mythic Time Stop does not allow one. If you want to ADD a save you can, but that would be a house rule, not RAW which is an important distinction to some people.

Actually, I think saying that you can pull opponents into a mythic time stop without them even having a save is pretty much BS. And if Baphomet pulls in the wrong ones... well, bye-bye, Baphy.

By the RAW that is exactly how it works, and any Mythic character capable of casting Mythic Time Stop can do so. It only gets crazy when they augment it, which requires 10th tier, but your run-of-the-mill Wizard that takes Mythic Spellcasting can do it for 1d4+1 rounds at 17th level.

Mythic play is absurd in the extreme. Some abilities are beyond crazy, and the Mythic Time Stop trap is actually kind tame compared to the Mythic Feather Fall Nuke or Mythic Vital Strike Shenanigans. Keep in mind that players can do all of this themselves, so if they are facing a BBEG at 10th tier with a bunch of minions, the Wizard can Time Stop the entire party and either pull all of the minions in with them for easy slaughter away from their master, or pull the BBEG in alone and there is nothing he can do to stop it. The only thing that makes it worse here is that a Demon Lord can spend 27 hours waiting for Mythic Time Stop to end and not give a damn about not having any rest.

As tactical as that is, it's not really fun for the other players.

"Alright, Baphomet is casting Time Stop. So you two, roll initiative. The rest of you, go play Xbox or something."

Well, I think the point is that the players really should not try to fight Baphomet at this point in the campaign, and when the Demon Lord appears he is straight up looking to kill them by whatever means possible, not just make them leave. They killed his daughter, foiled his plans and slighted him in his own house which should put them squarely on his $%!7 list.

Since Paizo seems to forget sections of their own rules when stating encounters/forming tactics (In this case that Baphomet is Mythic Rank 10 in his own realm and knows the Mythic version of all of his SLA's), it's up to the DM to adjust accordingly. If my players decide they want to face a Demon Lord, I am not going to pull a single punch, and they are going to face him in all of his terrifying glory regardless of if it's fun for them or not.

I WILL give them a chance to escape, and if they choose to stay I will even give them a second chance as long as they have not all used all of their Mythic Power. When I pull two party members into an Augmented Mythic Time Stop I will pull the Paladin and the Cleric together, leaving the Warpriest and the Wizard outside. This means both groups of two have a character with the Wild Arcana (or divine equivalent) ability to spend a Mythic Point and just Planeshift the hell out of there once they realize their error. If they still choose to fight, they can TPK at that point.

Why it is always a trio of balors? Why do Vrolikai never get any love?

Vrolikai have a lower attack bonus, and at this level of Mythic play every point counts. They do have some nice abilities, but both of them are likely to die in conflict with Mythic PC's unless Baphomet just murders them, and when Balors die they explode for extra damage which helps.

Dismissal at will is not necessary. He casts Mythic Time Stop for 3 MP and includes himself and two members of the party. THEY can't dismiss it either so he spends any time up to and including 27 hours horribly murdering the two he chose, then spends the remainder of the time (except the last three rounds which he uses to summon a trio of Balors) quietly contemplating how hilariously screwed the other two are. The time runs out and he murders the other two. Pretty simple.

Time Stop, Mythic.

Augmented (10th): If you expend three uses of mythic power, the duration increases to 1 hour per level of apparent time. You and other affected creatures gain no benefit from rest or sleep while the spell is active.

I'd be impressed to think about what Baphomet can do with 27 hours to f&~~ with the party, beyond a customized unhallow on top of them.

While you might not gain the benefits or rest or sleep, would you regain the use of 1/day or 3/day SLA's?

Well considering a spell/effect must have a duration longer than the duration of Time Stop to affect creatures locked in normal time, it won't do him much good to use Mythic Time Stop on just himself other than to run the hell away, and he can do that just as effectively as with regular Time Stop. He could heal himself I suppose, if he had a bunch of scrolls of Heal, but again he could just do that with normal Time Stop.

What he COULD do is cast Mythic Time Stop on himself and any members of the party he would like to isolate from the group, then absolutely wail on them for up to 27 hours since there does not seem to be a save for the spell. Pick the healer and the squishy caster, then tear them to shreds before summoning a trio of Balors and absolutely trashing the other two party members.

As for your other question, I would rule no. I believe the intent is for a creature to have to rest before it regains any of its per-day abilities including SLA's.

For those of us without the pdf for the rest of the month, care to share?

Here you go:

Idk, his HP is fine for a creature of his level. It's his abilities that are going to really make the fight. Time stop, summons, unhallow, then lead with a baleful polymorph. Quickened GDM in between attacks. He has a good chance of going first in initiative (though there are certain powerful builds that can beat him), and he's not alone.

I think he'll make a good final fight for the players honestly.

His AC is 45, which seems like a lot but most characters that care about his AC will have in the neighborhood of a +40 to attack (being conservative here, it's possible to have MUCH more, especially for a Paladin) and potentially several ranks of Precision, meaning all of their attacks are that high. And his 643 HP seem high until you realize just how much damage even moderately built melees can do in a round.

His biggest defense is going to be flight and the Time Stop which lets him summon a bunch of Balors, but if he wants to last more than a few rounds he is going to need some better protection. He's also completely foiled in melee by a single spellcaster tossing a heightened persistent Grease, causing him to drop his weapon. A spellcaster at that level will have DC's near the 40's so a +26 reflex save is not that high.

He is not a pushover, but for a Demon Lord he isn't overly impressive either. He's not even Mythic, which I find kinda absurd. If the whole point of this campaign was to develop an elixer to grant mythic power to Demons, you would think the leaders of the Demons would probably have drank this elixer.....

A DC45 Knowledge check would tell you that she has the ability to grant a Profane Ascension, but that does not mean you are required to allow that level of Knowledge check to give every line of the ability. If you play like that you might as well just let your players make a knowledge check, then sit with the bestiary open next to them metagaming exactly how to counter every ability of every creature.

We don't play that way. Players are not allowed to have the bestiary (or appropriate page of the SRD) open during encounters. If the party successfully makes such a check I would tell them Nocticula can grant a Profane Ascension, which is similar to a Succubus's Profane Gift but far more powerful, and more dangerous. If the PC is well above the DC I might say that it includes a large bonus to one stat and a smaller bonus to a second stat, and that removal of the Ascension can cause massive trauma to the character who receives it. The Amulet of True Faith the characters wear will tell them their alignment may suffer should they accept it, but a high knowledge check would probably do the same as well.

This is not just a standard Succubus, this is Nocticula. She is a unique Demon Lord and some aspects of her abilities may not be known to anyone but her, meaning no knowledge check would reveal everything about her. You are the DM which means you define exactly how knowledge checks apply to certain beings. If you want to tell them exactly what the ability does word for word, that's up to you. I choose to make it more mysterious and preserve some of the danger and intrigue of working with a Demon Lord.

You are making several assumptions here.

The first assumption is that you must mechanically tell your players how large of a boon the "Profane Ascension" is, or the extent of its weaknesses. They might gain some inkling through divination magic, high knowledge checks or other sources of information that this boon is similar to a Succubus's Profane Gift but likely more powerful, and it might come with different or more dangerous strings attached, but ultimately how much info you give your party before they make the decision is up to you. You by no means have to read the ability to them. When Demon Lords are involved it's likely that certain things are just not generally known about them.

The second assumption is that your party will automatically jump at the Ascension simply because mechanically it is better than an item or a question answered. Remember that a Paladin who does this should lose his powers until the Ascension is removed and he atones. He might even slip to Neutral alignment and need to be "redeemed". Good Clerics will likely be in danger of having their alignment slowly slip away from their deity the longer the Ascension is active. In fact most PC's would probably be in danger of this happening. It's not mechanically stated in the text of the ability but it's a perfectly reasonable assumption to make and well within the DM's power to implement.

The third assumption is that your party will choose any boon at all rather than just accepting thanks and moving on. PC's of neutral alignment will be more inclined to take a gift but good PC's who just readily jump into accepting gifts from Demon Lords without careful forethought might be playing a little off-alignment. Especially since every PC will have an Amulet of True Faith that can tell them just how dangerous THAT particular reward is.

Really I think you are borrowing trouble here, but you know your players better than any of us do. If you are truly worried about it, I would suggest inserting rumors of misfortune that befalls many who accept Nocticula's blessing, or whispers of the dangers it can present should the bearer of her blessing anger her. Or, as you suggest, change it up however you see fit. Personally I like having a reward so powerful that it could tempt even the righteous PC's in my party to take it, and if someone takes the bait I intend to play with it later.

Aldarionn wrote:

Basically, play her to her alignment. She is Chaotic Evil, and should be treated as such.

Chaotic Evil doesn't mean she doesn't want to side with/help the PCs, though. ** spoiler omitted **

James Jacobs wrote:

Alleran wrote:

I'm reading through Midnight Isles, and with regards to the meeting with her:

** spoiler omitted **...

Well...

** spoiler omitted **

I'm just not sure that the (few) downsides are enough to balance out the huge bonuses, or compare in any way with the other options (it's not just better, it all but completely obliterates them).

A "free" cohort (succubus or lilitu) can still represent temptation, and would also slot in nicely with the other boons - a bit stronger, with the temptation aspect to balance the boost (and lilitu get a profane wish as well - just think, the PCs know that their assistant can grant a wish, but know that it'd be risky, but she's right there in case they really think they need it... and maybe they will wind up needing it...).

Yes, she wants to side with the PC's in that she wants the PC's and their leaders/Gods to owe her. She is simply trying to curry favor with the enemy of her enemy. That does not mean she wants to be good, or that she doesn't wish to use the PC's abilities to her own ends. She is more likely to make it mutually beneficial for her and the PC's in this one situation because she wants that favor to call in later (perhaps to forgive her for some drastic action she plans to take?), but she is a Demon Lord. Her schemes have schemes of their own!

Any PC that trusts her insofar as to do.......things.......with her and receive her Profane Ascension is taking a massive risk, because if they end up on opposite sides of the table again later on down the line, Nocticula has one HELL of a trump card to use against that PC. It's basically a Hump of Damocles! I'm not saying they WILL end up on opposite sides - I cannot know that for certain with the information presented thus far - but the narrative certainly suggests that Nocticula will think less of a PC that accepts her Ascension and to me that means she is more likely to try to use that PC as a pawn in some scheme and she is MORE than capable of doing so even if she cannot just pull a remote trigger and have the PC dancing on her strings after a failed will save. I wouldn't trust PC's to fail will saves anyway. I would use other ways to manipulate them into doing what Nocticula wants them to do.

Regardless, I would be VERY surprised if at least one of my players did not opt for that boon, and if they do I'm going to have EPIC amounts of fun with it.

I have an interesting use for the herald of Iomedae in my campaign so I'd like a few opinions on if these plans sound cool or not.

First a little background:

So my idea is for the herald of Iomedae to be the mystery man Gerrard's mother had a fling with, and when he was recalled back to Iomedae's service (as is oft to happen with Angel/mortal relationships) his mother was left to care for him.

His extreme desire to serve the forces of law, and his tendency to lean toward good come from his angelic parentage, however he was not born a Half Celestial because the dragon blood on his mothers side caused a conflict. Both attempted to come out in strength, but neither was able to manifest strongly enough to make him a half-celestial or half-dragon. Terendelev's blood covering him at the beginning of the campaign sparked his Dragon blood to take the lead first, but his Mythic potential comes from his father's side.

The books hint at a PC becoming the new Herald of Iomedae when the current one is slain by Baphomet, so having Gerrard learn of his father's identity sometime before the end of book 3, then finding that the Herald is taken by Baphomet might give him a personal impetus to go after the Demon Lord. Additionally it could lead to him having a tough choice to make, either to accept his fate and become the herald of a god he is destined to serve, or forsake his destiny and stay true to Sarenrae's faith. I would not make him lose access to Dawnflower Dervish, since Iomedae knows diversity of faith makes for a strong people, and I feel one can still pray to Sarenrae while serving Iomedae. It would also be an ironic twist considering he looks down on the Paladin in the party who does not serve one god in particular. It might also help him accept that not all chaos is bad, and help him come to terms with his own duality.

Does this sound like a cool idea or should I scrap it?

I scrapped the XP thing as well and have instead been handing out levels where the module says to level up. It's working very well so far and I don't have to worry about throwing in a few extra trash mobs here and there for action economy.

For your problem with the Chimera spreading out damage, perhaps give it some kind of Voltron-style ability where it can split into its individual pieces, then re-combine toward the end of the encounter. Maybe it even attacks the players separated, with a Dragon swooping in to breathe on them while a Lion pounces out of some scrub brush and a massive Mountain Ram leaps over a rock to slam into someone. As they fight it becomes increasingly obvious that they are working together, and at the end they Voltron into a Chimera and gain some new abilities like the coordinated attacks thing, and maybe some other stuff as well.

Might be a lot of work to design, but could be fun and interesting.

Here is how I pronounce the 16 names listed on the covers. The syllable in all capital letters is where the emphasis falls (One syllable names are all caps):

I can also do any other names you have trouble with. Just let me know. I cannot guarantee this is how the devs intended the names to be pronounced, especially considering the chaotic nature of the abyssal forces, but it's how I pronounce them.

In a game the other day one of my NPC's used Mirror Image to protect himself. One of my players, being a smartass, moved adjacent to this enemy and then declared he was closing his eyes, then swinging into the enemy square.

Since his eyes were closed, the enemy had total concealment (50% miss chance as if he were blind) and he claimed Mirror Image would afford no protection at all since he could no longer see his target. Basically the 16.67% chance to strike an illusory double was taken down to a 50% chance, and because the character had Blind Fight, he could re-roll this chance.

Seems to me this is an effective means of bypassing Mirror Image, especially if you have the Blind Fight feat. Mirror Image doesn't really do anything to fool a blind opponent as long as they can target your square, so can you intentionally blind yourself by closing your eyes and use your Blind Fight feat to actually INCREASE your chances of hitting?

A properly built Magus will be able to handle himself in combat for just as long as any primary melee. Spell Combat can be used with Cantrips, so you take Spell Blending to get Touch of Fatigue on your list and you have an unlimited number of extra attacks via Spellstrike. Combine that with a Dervish Dancing Kensai Magus that's Dex based taking Spell perfection, Spell Pen/Greater Spell Pen, and Metamagic feats to prepare the spells as Maximized, Empowered, Intensified and different elemental types and you have a force to be reckoned with.

It sounds like the Magus in your game is a little more toned down than this, but to be honest your melee characters can be just as powerful with the right build. The thing is, if you have a party of people who build characters but don't really build them with any sort of combat focus in mind, one person joining the party taking even remotely well though-out options will destroy everyone else on the damage charts. That can be done with almost any class.

You know, these are Gods and divine entities we're talking about. Perhaps at the moment of his death, Aroden sent out a tiny bit of his essence so not all of him would be lost. But it was affected by disruptions in time and space due to Aroden's death... and only some 80 years after his death did the essence find a home, perhaps in one of the few faithful left who still believes despite the loss of Aroden.

Or to put it another way, time is not linear. Fom a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint - it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly... time-y wimey... stuff. ;)

So what you're saying is the character should carry around with him a thing he calls his Timey-Wimey Detector, which goes Ding! when there's Stuff!

Aasimar (Angelkin) Sorcerer/Dragon Disciple/Champion - 15 point buy

Str 13
Dex 12
Con 14
Int 10
Wis 8
Cha 15

+2 Str from Angelkin
+4 From Dragon Disciple
+5 Inherent from Manual
+5 Level Up
+6 Enhancement
+10 Form of the Dragon III
+10 Mythic Rank 10

55 Str

And that was just from a cursory look. I could probably ditch the 10 Mythic Tiers if I search hard enough for a way to get another 6 points of Strength. The worst part of it is that a strength based sorcerer/dragon disciple is not a bad way to go. It could actually be an effective character.

My point I guess is that there is a fine line between challenging a party, killing a party and having the party curb-stomp every encounter. Adventure paths have cool stories but they tend to allow for the third option 9 times out of 10 with a few exceptions. I'm shooting for a fun and challenging encounter where the party is taxed, but able to win. If they breeze through everything I put in their way, I feel I have failed as a DM exactly the same as if I murder them at every turn. Neither option is fun. Riding that line in the middle is what make the game entertaining. Presenting them with obstacles that they have to think to overcome, not just putting obvious win-buttons in easy line of sight.

In this case I think I will try a few things. First I plan to have the random encounters ramp up as the final battle outside Drezen approaches and the party takes the fight into the Citadel. This should start taxing their resources.

Second, as the party tackles the Citadel I intend to have the denizens act cohesively. If they retreat to rest, I will have enemies come after them, maybe even minions of Eustoyriax himself like a summoned Shadow Demon and a few Shadows. Things will attack them in their camp only to retreat after interrupting their sleep forcing saves against fatigue and exhaustion. If they choose to rest inside the Citadel in a safe room, they will find themselves haunted by its warden. After all, it does say Eustoyriax does everything in his power to protect the Sword of Valor from would-be rescuers. It should be hard for them to recover spells that way, and force them to think outside the box when it comes to protecting themselves.

I like the idea of giving Eustoyriax the ability to dispel magic, or even Penetrating Possessions (though I need to find text for that ability. I don't own that book and it's not on the SRD) to give him the chance of overcoming Protection From Evil. The two players with good aligned characters took Worldwound Walker, giving them protection against things that discriminate against their alignment. The baddies can have the same kind of trick!

Finally, I'm going to try to think of a way for the Sword of Valor to still be usable in the fight, but not without the party specifically looking for it. Basically instead of being a win-button it will be there for the taking if they think to try and find it, but it won't be there staring them in the face.

I won't really have to change much to accomplish these things; just play the encounters differently and utilize the resources of the Citadel in a smart way.

We shall see.

I created a thread here:

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2qf59?Counerspelling-objects-that-use-Spell-Tri gger#1

Hopefully we will get some feedback.

Here is the modified statistics block I intend to use for Xanthir Vang. If anybody sees any glaring errors or wishes to offer critique I am all ears. This stat block assumes he has cast Augmented Mythic Fly, Shield, False Life and Energy Resistance prior to his confrontation with the PC's.

His list of Spells Known has been modified slightly to include the spells he currently has prepared. Mythic versions of the spells are listed on his prepared list as an optional upgrade at the time of casting along with their effect.

There are a number of good tactical options that have been discussed so far including trapping the entrance to his room (or various locations throught the keep) with dispelling traps, or other traps designed to use resources, and having him take the fight to the PC's instead of waiting for them to come to him. I gave him Earth Glide as a spell known (and one on his list of prepared spells) so he can send the Retrievers at the PC's as soon as he has buffed, then join the fight shortly after. I may increase the size of the keep a bit and add some features to benefit his mobility and unique qualities like Blindsight. Once in combat I intend to follow the listed tactics somewhat closely, but leave the PC's fewer openings to exploit. Hopefully these changes will give my players more of an epic and cinematic experience from an otherwise static and underwhelming encounter.

I may also give similar treatment to other creatures in the keep and add mythic ranks to some of the monsters. I want this to be a high point in the campaign and I'm not above forcing my players to retreat and rest a few times before finally coming out on top. Hopefully if my players are outclassed early on they will be smart enough to see it and act accordingly instead of just soldiering on and getting killed.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

I tend to agree with Magnuskn that the Vang fight seems a little odd. He seems to have been created with the intent to give the party a significant challenge (hence the round-by-round tactics and PC level wealth) but it seems like the devs made some choices during design that deliberately left him extremely vulnerable in many areas.

His SR from his robe is HILARIOUSLY outgunned at that level. His stats are designed to keep his INT from being too high (Keeping DC's lower than thy might otherwise be), and his feat selection is purposely littered with crafting feats that are made obsolete by a single mythic path ability. Finally, his tactics seem to leave him exposed on the first (and most critical) round of combat. Swift action Greater Invisibility, Move action fly to the ceiling, Standard Action Disintegrate on someone who likely has no hope of reaching his position and will probably pass the save? That pinpoints his location to an opposing spellcaster for an easy Quickened Glitterdust, followed by a Greater Dispel Magic to strip him of his defensive abilities and his flight.

I can totally get behind the idea that Paizo developed this for the lowest common denominator. It can't be horribly brutal or most people won't play. I don't fault them for this, but my group will shred those tactics and exploit those weaknesses without thinking about it. You don't even have to be super optimized to do so, you just need to understand tactics and work together.

With that in mind, I am looking for some input on how to adjust tactics and abilities a little in order to make the fight more challenging, but not make it an impossible fight against a hopelessly overpowered opponent.

The weak points in his build as I see them are:

-Stats are allocated poorly.
-Feat selection is terrible considering the crafting path ability replaces all of those feats.
-Initiative is VERY low for Mythic play. He will be going dead last.
-The robe is cool looking, but also very sub-par. The SR is pointlessly low for a caster of that level. The armor is much lower than the Enduring Armor path ability, and the saves are more easily acquired by making a Cloak of Resistance +4 for a lot less money.
-The Rod of Withering is pretty much useless. Anything other than a frontline melee is not going to get hit with his terrible touch attack, and most frontline melees will pass the save with no issue then cut him in half the following round. He shouldn't be anywhere near combat.

I'm considering bumping him up to 6th tier, ditching the crafting feats for Mythic Crafting, and re-assigning his racial bonus from Dex to Int. Then I'll probably adjust his gear to be a more effective use of his wealth. Enduring Armor, Mirror Dodge and a more interesting feat selection would definitely make his build a bit more dynamic and durable.

For his tactics, I'm thinking I will swap his order of operations on round 1 to open with Disintegrate on the party spellcaster, then swift action Greater Invisibility followed by moving to whevever he wants. Then round 2 should lead off with Cloudkill followed by a swift Spiked Pit below the Paladin to knock him out of the fight. That leaves him with a rogue type (being re-created after an unfortunate death last session - see obituary thread) and a second melee frontliner that can fly to deal with.

I'm not worried about killing people. I have a strict "BBEG'S do not pull punches" rule that my players know about and are comfortable with, but just as I don't want the fight to be a cakewalk over in one round with a simple spell I would also rather the fight not completely curbstomp my players.

Do you think the above adjustments are too harsh? Too lenient? Just right?

Name: Kar'ash
Race: Half Orc
Classes/levels: Ninja 6/Trickster 1
Adventure: Sword of Valor
Location: The Gibbering Swarm
Catalyst: Scouting Mission
The Gory Details: Spoilers in the description. Readers, consider yourselves warned!

Intentionally provoking an AoO by moving so they can't take it during your casting action because you "the player" know that the monsters are unlikely to have Combat Reflexes is very "meta-gamey".

No, you just have a very narrow mind when it comes to what is player knowledge and what is character knowledge. The character had all of the information available to him to make a judgement call.

Ranik the Wizard has a limitation that he can only make a single attack of opportunity in a given round unless he specially trains to improve his reflexes. The abstraction of that is "Your character must take Combat Reflexes to make multiple AOO's in a round." That's not player knowledge, that's character knowledge. Now, assuming Ranik has basic human level intelligence (pretty safe bet since Ranik is a Wizard), he would know that Goblins threatening his position are likely to be bound by the same restrictions. He knows that if he casts a spell, he will leave himself open to retaliation unless he casts on the defensive, but doing that gives him a good chance of failing to cast at all, so Ranik chooses to gamble. He assumes the Goblins are not gifted with unnaturally swift reflexes (and potentially confirms this with a knowledge check), and so provides the Golbins with an opening to attack him as he moves around them. If the Goblins take it, Ranik will absorb the blow as best he can and hope it's not too telling, then cast the spell while the Goblins are recovering from making the attack. After the Goblins attack him, Ranik is injured but alive, and fires off Color Spray from his new position catching several of the beasts in the blast, incapacitating them and allowing his friends to mop them up on the following round.

How is any of that "Metagaming"? The rules are an abstraction of what your character can actually do. Your character knows his limits, and knows which of those limits apply in the majority of cases. If the character is a risk taker, he might test the limits of others in the hopes that he can come out on top, and achieve a reward that was worth the risk.

As I'm trying to build a Divine Hunter, I thought I'd bump this as it doesn't seem to make sense. If played as written, a level 14 Divine Hunters gets these two abilities, the first from regular paladin, the second from divine hunter:

Aura of Faith (Su)

At 14th level, a paladin's weapons are treated as good-aligned for the purposes of overcoming Damage Reduction. Any attack made against an enemy within 10 feet of her is treated as good-aligned for the purposes of overcoming Damage Reduction.

This ability functions only while the paladin is conscious, not if she is unconscious or dead.

Righteous Hunter (Su)

At 14th level, a divine hunter’s ranged weapons are treated as good-aligned for the purposes of overcoming damage reduction. Any ranged attacks made by an ally within 10 feet of her are likewise treated as good-aligned for the purposes of overcoming damage reduction.

This ability functions only while the divine hunter is conscious.

This ability replaces aura of righteousness.

***

This genuinely makes no sense at all. Clearly the Righteous Hunter ability is meant to replace Aura of Faith, and be a more restrictive version of it. Replacing Aura of Righteousness means the Divine Hunter gets an ability that is a complete subset of the class's regular ability without giving that ability up. Also, losing Aura of Righteousness makes no sense, because then at 20th level the DR the paladin "doesn't have" increases.

Can this be errata'd?

^^This^^

Aura of Faith and Righteous Hunter do almost exactly the same thing at exactly the same level, except Righteous Hunter does it to ranged weapons, not melee weapons. Aura of Righteousness does something else entirely, and does it at an entirely different level. Clearly Righteous Hunter is intended to replace Aura of Faith at 14th level, and the Divine Hunter is supposed to get Aura of Righteousness as normal at 17th level (as the ACF doesn't change anything past 14th level). The mistake was likely made as a lazy error because Aura of Righteousness and Righteous Hunter both have a word in common. The writer probably latched on to the title but forgot to read the ability when he said which one it replaced, and it slipped through editing.

My current character in our campaign is a 5th level Gunslinger/11th level Divine Hunter and that's how we ruled it will work when I hit 14th level in Paladin. Then again, I will never get Aura of Righteousness unless we get to level 22 for some reason so it will barely matter.

Yeah, the "wheeeeeeeeee DICE!" builds usually don't compare to those who stack static damage.

This revelation is one that always seems to depress newer Rogue players.

That's why you do both.

Consider a 10th level Human Ninja with a 22 strength (16 base, +2 race, +1 4th level, +1 8th level, +2 enhancement). He will have 6 feats and 5 Ninja Tricks, one of which can grant him an extra feat, and one of which can give him Weapon Focus for free. At 10th level he can use Greater invisibility by spending a Ki point, so everything is flat footed unless it can see him. So, Exotic Weapon Prof (Tetsubo), Weapon Focus (Tetsubo), Power Attack, Furious Focus, Sap Adept, Sap Master, Bludgeoner, and you have one feat to spare. Your 5d6 sneak attack damage turns into 10d6+20, and with Powerful Sneak your 1's count as 2's for a minimum flat bonus of +40 on every attack, and an average of +58. That's on top of the d10+18 you are dealing just from your weapon (not including enhancement bonus). Of course, all of this is non-lethal so it goes right out the window when fighting undead, elementals and golems, but against anything living it's basically a 1-shot if they are equal challenge rating, and god help them if you crit with that x4 weapon.

There are more feats/abilities that can be combined to make this worse, but in the mid level range it gets pretty broken pretty fast.

Undead can do basically any task that is not super complex. They can serve as a deckhand, a rigger, they could serve as crew operating (but not firing) a siege engine. As a necromancer gets more powerful and can create intelligent undead, they could even do more complex tasks such as firing the siege engines or piloting the ship.

In fact, there is a spell called Skeleton Crew which creates a number of undead from corpses that serve for a period of time to perform the specific necessary tasks for piloting a ship. Of course you would not have enough of them at lower levels to be able to crew a Sailing Ship (minimum crew of 20) but you could crew a Junk easy enough.

There is even a piece of specific loot from the Island of Empty Eyes module that summons a crew of (I think) 28 skeletons to serve as a ships crew. It can be used once per week, and they serve for a week. They don't take part in fighting, but will follow the captains orders. It's exceedingly useful because it allows the ship to be under sail 24 hours a day with no rest. They will never tire and never disobey an order or mutiny, and you never have to pay them.

1. How does the magus dervish dance build work? Specifically how he uses spells with his blade, and how we prepares spell. Can he prepare the same spell, as long as he doesn't exceed his amount of spells/day ? I think I even read somewhere that the Magus (Dervish Dance build) can attack twice in one round at a low level (before level 6), how is that possible?

Grick answered this one pretty well.

2. Why isn't there any offical stats for easter weapons, such as katana and wakashi? I was lucky to find some good suggestions here on Paizo forums, but still, shouldn't it be written somewhere?

See above poster. Also, I believe eastern weapons are in Ultimate Combat if you are looking for the actual source book.

3. How would you guys fix the "star trek fallacy"? Where most common races and people speak common? Half of my group are easter based classes and wish to speak their version of Japenese and if need to, they will speak broken English for the rest of the group. Unless the other players use one of their language slot for that particular language.

Common exists as a language that most societies understand, and use of that language helps, however if someone wishes to speak limited common and use a different primary language, that could present interesting roleplaying opportunities. Linguistics is a very powerful skill that some of your players may wish to take, because it gives you an extra language for every rank you put in it, and it allows you to make checks to understand writing or potentially speech from languages you do not speak.

Generally, most monsters in the various Bestiaries either do not speak a language, or they speak Common in some form in addition to their racial/regional language. Additionally, it's not bad practice for a party coming from similar backgrounds to share a language that others might not speak. It's a good way to share information between party members without allowing others to understand you.

4. Is it possible to enchant cloth or just simple regular clothes?

One of the players in my campaign is a monk and wishes to have some better armor, via magic. You could say he is a bit jealous of the other who have enchanted both their armor and weapon. The group is about level 3.

Bracers of Armor exist for characters that do not wear armor. They grant an armor bonus but otherwise do not count as armor. Also, Monks add their Wisdom to their AC in addition to their Dexterity, which helps to make up for the difference.

5. Regarding range weapons, if I have understood it correctly, only thrown weapons and composite version of a bow deals damage + str modifier?

Correct. Composite bows only add a specific amount of Strength modifier to damage, which is chosen at the time the weapon is created, so if you make a Composite Longbow (+3 Strength) then a character than has a +5 Strength modifier will still only add +3 to damage, and would need to have a new bow crafted if he wished to add more of his strength.

6. Is Deflect Arrows considered OP for a low level monk?

I don't understand this. Deflect Arrows is a perfectly viable option at the level it can be taken. If the character can take the option, it's not "OP" so to speak. That said, there is such a thing as min/maxing which can lead to characters well above the power curve. You should speak with your group about how you want to set the power level in your campaign, and put restrictions on how you do stats, how gear can be acquired, and about what classes/abilities/combos you would prefer not to see, and which ones are ok. Some groups like a no-holds-barred game where they can do whatever they want, and some groups like the challenge of restricted play. Figure that out with your group and plan accordingly, but remember, if you have several min-maxers, you might need to advance monsters to make them last in a fight, or go with constant higher challenge rating fights and use the slow XP track instead of medium.