Ammogromin's page

My recommendation is to try to spend some time with each player and work out their background. Find out what they want for their character and how that can fit into your world. And importantly: *make sure this actually matters in the game.* Not just the obvious PC race & class mechanics, but if they are from city-state X, they actually have all the basic local knowledge. They should have local connections, family and friends as appropriate. In other words, don't treat them as completely naive and ignorant.

As far as their starting circumstance is concerned, the races & classes are going to make a big difference. Two arcane casters in a land where magic isn't trusted and a tiefling that is going to be hated on sight. You didn't specify if Tengu are considered monstrous, but that wouldn't be surprising. So you've got reasons for three, possibly four of your party to start the game on the run or in the shadows.

You can use the Suicide Squad/Dirty Dozen approach. Someone wants a dangerous job done and 'recruits' a group of outcasts.

Another thought: Have them all in the same city for a festival. Something bad happens, like a riot or an attack by some outside (possibly even extraplanar) force. The party winds up in the same spot by chance. They're confronted by some obvious menace - this gives them a chance to get one combat in before worrying much about roleplaying. Be sure it's something they can handle. But after resolving the fight, they get picked up by the local guards (religious police?) on suspicion of causing the riot/attack/whatever. It doesn't have to be clear how long they'll be held or what will happen next. Others are held with them, giving them a chance to gather information. So, do they escape, is there a general jailbreak, do they get assigned to some dangerous civil duty as punishment, or does someone get them out? Up to you.

Hope these ideas help a bit.

Thank you! I do think that I'm currently pushing towards an idea of religious reformation kinda theme? Kinda martin luther esc, but with nailing swords through people's bodies instead of parchment to doors. I may push them towards such an event yes I didnt want much besides the start to be too railroady but Ill toy with those ideas. Thanks again.

Does that mean the Arcanist doesn't even get a spellbook?

You could start by coming up with a theme for the prison. Maybe it's a prison island. Maybe they escape while still on the boat taking them there, and it's a sea campaign. Or it's a salt mine, and they can use tools as improvised weapons. Or they're being auctioned, and they can join a slave revolt.

You could give them an ally or two who already has an escape plan - nobody vastly more powerful than them, though.

After that, "on the run" isn't much of a story in itself; unless you want a sandbox campaign where they can go anywhere, they need a clearer goal, somewhere to head to. The person who helped them asks them to join a resistance movement, or they've got a friend who was sent to a different prison and who needs rescuing, or something like that.

Maybe there's a lost underground temple they stumble upon while fleeing, and they find old weapons and armor down there.

Yeah I just wanted to give a general summation of those ideas. I know ultimately that the arcanist needs to have their spellbook and I was thinking that maybe he had a few pages stuffed away. The important stuff dunno. Its a little short sighted, I know. I'd set up ways for the casters to get their spells somehow the main point of the question was for ideas and I get that. As for the clearer goal? Well I have something in mind, nothing ambitious primarily they'd be fighting the church or be given the opportunity to join it. Or if they decide to flee all together I'm willing to let such a thing happen(with speedbumps and levys as needed) And I do know this is vague I'm working on concepts atm and charting things out from there. Thank you for your suggestions.

I forgot to include the map I'm working on to give a sense of the land.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Zz4YH77ZCQEtWB-tHdlH5ps_QzL7sUoq

Hi everyone!
I'm currently prepping for a HB game and I was kinda flummoxed over how to start my players off in this campaign.
First some background.
My setting is sort of like ancient Greek city-states with good old fashioned catholic orthodoxy kinda societal structuring. At least the main focus will be such.
The region of Wymalt has a deep history of miracle and many faiths lay claim their holy land upon its hallowed ground. Because of this the various theocracies fight amongst each other and within themselves.
The main idea behind this setting is that the gods are not as transparent as they tend to be in many traditional cases. People know they exist to some extent as their are divine powers granted and creation and ascension myths, but the nuance of the various faiths cannot be agreed upon. So you'd see more morally questionable clergymen and the occasional inquisition.
Magic of the Arcane sort is seen as socially dubious at best and an act of blasphemy punishable by death at worst. These sentiments are reinforced by the gnomish country of Tryspon that is to the North of Wymalt. This country is run by gnomish clans sort of like the triad or mafia in their behavior and power structure, there is constant cloak and dagger activities going on within the clans. This is made worse by their constant meddling with all facets of the arcane morally evil or otherwise.

Common races(elves, dwarves, halflings, humans) are the most prevalent with humans and halflings being the most common, dwarves to be the occasional oddity, and elves to be a rare occurrence. As for the other races they are pensively accepted as long as their features wouldn't be considered monstrous. Aasamirs are non-existent(sort of), and tieflings are seen as devils or demons. And gnomes are seen as sorcerous cretins.

An important thing to note is that while I do enjoy the Golarion pantheon I've decided to go with the Forgotten Realms pantheon as my players are a bit too familiar with the Golarion Deities. I kind of want to keep the mysticism of higher powers prevalent and I feel that the familiarity my players have would ruin it somewhat.

Now my current idea is somewhat cliché but I was going to have them all imprisoned for heresy and have to escape and be on the run from a zealous inquisitor(is there any other kind?). They'd start with no equipment and would have to scavenge for what they could while on the run.
This is the best thing I could think of to start off with to introduce the party to the setting. Yet I don't know how to run it or even if it would be what I really wanted. It feels somewhat like immediately throwing a child to the wolves when they have no way of being prepared.
I'm looking for suggestions on either the scenario I've presented or
new ideas all together.

My party of five is
Human-Arcanist
Human-Witch-Winter Witch
Human-Cleric of Caylan(one exception)-Crusader
Tengu-Brawler
Tiefling-Unchained Rouge

Thank you those are both great ideas! I kind of want to just place the two goofs in the three more normal players path.

I like that but so far they have come to this station as more of a happenstance kind of deal.
The tengu and android are stranded on the station due to a solar flare from the star and have ties to the starfinder society.
The drow got abandoned by his house on a giant dump/ scrap asteroid within the systems belt, for not being flashy enough.
The ysoki mechanic is a kind of robin hood character that is hiding out after angering a group of pirates by technologically uplifting a few sentient species they were taking advantage of.
And the Mutant is basically a stowaway.

This is all prep ideas we have yet to have one session.

So as it says in the title I used to play/ Gm pathfinder all the time. As of now though I have been struggling with personal issues I feel have drained my creativity.
So I feel like I need some help with some substance to help me with my general setting/ plot.

The setting I am working with is within the Pathfinder/Starfinder universe but is placed within a fringe system.

The system is Known as the Orgidus system.
It is a Red Giant system with a star known as Sultan Zsolt.
Its a system with a few desolate planets and one that seems to be habitable. But that really wont matter at the moment.

The starting locale for my players will be a mining city/ station floating within the system's large asteroid belt. Newly discovered after the gap.
Named Arkwell after the family of dwarves that discovered the abandoned Archeo station.
The dwarf family will have been usurped at one point by a rival family of dwarves known as the bloodstones. The bloodstones at this point in time have become essentially a crime syndicate as they have become more and more desperate with finding their goal. The head of the bloodstones is known as Calrund Bloodstone. A man willing to do anything to achieve his ultimate goal within the Orgidus system.
Which at this point I don't know what it is I want to do to bring these jerks in my group together. I have a basic idea of what direction I want the group to go in but I'm floundering on the details.

My players are a
tengu ace pilot envoy
drow icon technomancer
Ysoki outlaw mechanic
Android space faring technomancer
And a space caterpillar( read as mutant shirren) priest mystic
As you can tell my players are generally zany weirdos per the norm.

Any criticisms are welcome. Thank you.

The idea of doing a Thundercat based catfolk group would be pretty spiffy, plus yelling "THUNDER! THUNDER! THUNDERRR CATS !!! Breaks my heart a little

No no no. You want the SUNDER cats. they run in sunder everyone's equipment and then run off.

BBEG means Big Bad Evil Guy, the main villain of the campaign.

Oh really that's kinda adorable for a villain name. And thanks I will check it out never got around to beating 3 was so obsessed with having the perfect save file for it that I never Actually played past mars on 3.

I would be interested to read more on your ideas for this BBEG.

Not familiar with the term BBEG

Well David Tenant was an excellent purple man I don't know if what I want is a naive sociopath. I'm more leaning towards a villain who makes the players jump through hoops to avoid them from seeing the real problems.
So yeah I don't intend to make the mesmerist dominate the PC's just have him turn yesterday's friends into enemies and give a general sense of paranoia to the PC's.

The answer to your question is minions.

The Mesmerist isn't really a gish without some effort, and certainly doesn't need to be. It is a party-buffer to some degree...but that works just as well to have a main villain buff his minions. which a mind-control master should certainly have.

Cult Master is a good plan, too, but what you really need are minions.

Yeah the archetype seems pretty interesting and would probably fit a nemesis type character I'll look into it but keep my options open.

So I've been GMing Pathfinder for friends for awhile now
(mostly homebrew)
And I finally got around to reading the occult adventures book.
Which brought out a lot of interesting ideas.
Seeing the mesmerist class and the nifty abilities it gets got me thinking of possible villain ideas (ie a legato type character)
With the addition of the nemesis guidelines in UI I thought it'd be the perfect type of character to go with my current setting.

However here's my issue.
A mesmerist is a gish class by nature and while it does have some neat mind control abilities, it seems to be more melee/team combat oriented.

So how would I go about making an effective nemesis out of this?
Should I even use this or just go for a different class (such as a enchantment focused sorcerer)?
Or should I drop classes all together and give it abilities?

I would like to make this enemy memorable in a way and have an entrance set up so any and all advice is helpful.