Andramal's page

Apologies for the partial necro, but by rules, if you have no capital to lose, you don't lose anything: capital doesn't go into the negative. Gold technically doesn't either, but strictly speaking, you that business can only lose gold they ahve in their possession (so gold on your person doesn't magically disappear unless Plot shenanigans).

The reason for this: attriction is based on the idea of capital (such as goods) falling due to theft, faultiness accidents using it, etc, etc. It's not just some random tax. If there's nothing to lose, it can't go into the negative. So long as nothing destroys the business or interferes with general business, it should not go bust.

That said, there are some blatant holes in how downtime works. Nothing stops houseruling this, but doing so is kind of sucker punching starting business with extra penalties that don't make much sense, so I don't recommend it. Even if your business is only generating gp, adventuring is still far more profitable and you shouldn't have to worry about it breaking things unless you somehow build an entire empire in a metropolis or something (and the realistic counter to that is game plot starts involving said metropolis and business more directly than just the downtime system).

Looks like it got a little busy in the last couple days.

Unfortunately I shall have to withdraw my interest for now. >.< RL made things a bit busier, so adding on a game wouldn't work out now. But at least I know you got some other options coming your way. May you all have fun, and sorry for the distraction. :)

Hmmm, This catches my interest a bit. ^^ Looks like an arcane caster might be useful in some way. I'll study up on the information available and see what I can manage, then ask some questions.

EDIT: Urp, and a program called realmworks I see...unexpected snag, but I could still work with that.

I don't see any particular list of Do's and Don't's source wise for allowed material. Right now, most of what I'm considering is pathfinder related anyways, but a small bit of fluff stuff (and a possible alternate bloodline thing) are 3rd party material.

So what be the rules with that, or case-by-case sort of thing?

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2pyas?UC-promoting-a-business-wording#3

Figured I'd spread the love, though about two months late.

From the answer I got way back, it sounds like each day gets the bonus (which is nice), otherwise this spell would be a horrible thing to do to yourself.

Cheers

Forgive the double post. Wanted to pitch in some thoughts myself if some things have or have not been worked out.

For the 'races involved' part, normally there's a myriad of races in a community, though obviously more xenophobic ones may be much more limited. It may be better to not look at 'race building' as the source of the perks, so much as 'culture building'. If your group is made mostly of certain races, and they've been around a while, they may have a particular style they've favored over time, and -that- is what you get. Not every goblin may like to build things per se, not every gnome has to sniff alchemical fumes, it's just the mold of the culture.

The point being, if you don't spend those points to expand your bonuses, you have an 'advantage' in BP or the like to help build up quicker. Whereas if you spend to buy some advantages, if you can manage to build up despite the lack of the extra resources, then you have an edge then.

Make it possible to maybe buy those perks later on (if perhaps temporarily) and it doesn't really matter. It just becomes a play style preference more than anything. It can represent your culture changing significantly in some way.

You have quite a expedition of creation going on here. I've found it interesting to read so far.

whether or not I'd try to join depends more on the crowd check once it's all truly said and done (I don't want to overwhelm you any more than the others), but I wish you luck on this, and if it goes well, I wish your pardon if I make my own notes off it for the future. XD

It'd be fun to half train 'adventurers' in an abstract way to work as power pieces. One way to help deal with deadly monsters and tip scales, but more of a blow if they die, because of it taking time to really replace them. Like a game of chest, and trying to get a pawn across the board to be a queen (except it's more like upgrades than going from meek to chique or whatever the word is).

I'll have to look into those two books simply for collection sake if nothing else. I like the downtime and kingdom building stuff.

They did that too. that was part of why the one guy was pulling his hair out. XD

Ironically, the 18's can really happen. My uncle has actually pulled it off, but he actually -had- witnesses, and he made one other player in his group pull his hair out because he rolled high numbers two or three times in a row when people couldn't believe it at first and told him to do it again. He had one set of 18-17's, and the others , if not that high, didn't go lower than 14 and had high numbers.

It can be done, and it's usually those 'omg' sort of stories you hear with witnesses of legend.

As such, it can be done without witnesses too, so i would not be surprised if some of those 'liars' just rolled a lot, and a lot, and then got lucky and said 'omg yus!'

Course, I would rather have it as point buy if I can't see rolls for safety reasons. I have my own beef with the attribute system that can't be helped. High attributes open up possibilities, whereas low ones lock potential in annoying ways (unless you happen to not be going certain routes, then it's not as bad).

I feel bad about that game of craziness you got into, and I'm glad you got away with it. Here is hoping things turn out well!

NO, Intensified Metamagic is not doubled with Spell Perfection.

Spell perfection will ignore the level adjustment if it's the key metamagic you use, but the feat was intended to only double up specific types of feats (of which are pretty much non-metamagic). Spell focus, Spell penetration, weapon focus (ray) if its' a ray spell.

Basically, if reminds you of a fighter feat, but for a caster, it was aimed more at those.

For one thing, it'd become extremely broken if it started working on things like intensified in that fashion, or empowered. adding 10 dice to something really makes the lower level spells crazy (and is semi useless on higher level spells where your level might not be high enough t oreate the new dice limit) and a 'set bonus of .5 on top of the 1.0 to make 2...it's much safer to assume it does not work on metamagic feats.

Name: Talea Neverwinter

Alignment: Chaotic Good

Class: Sorceress of the Shadow (Umbral) bloodline, primary focus on illusions, but first level may break that a teensy bit.

Traits:
Talented: Perform (Sing) is a skill, +1 trait bonus
Scholar of the Ancients - as per the listing!

(more mechanical details are not completed at the moment. However. I did have a very similar model sorcerer built for a game that never got off the ground recently, so half the work I would be doing is already done. Just a few quick change-abouts and I can have it quite ready! Wanted to make sure I got something in at least before deadline without worrying about falling asleep on details).)

Description: Talea Is a little off by Elven standards of traditional looks. Her long hair is of white and silver, and her skin is almost like fine pearl. Her pupils are so dark as to almost be called black, and her lips are a rich red as if dabbed by makeup. Sometimes, strands of her hair simply 'go black' day by day, and before the day is out, they will be gone, having 'fallen out' and blown away. Otherwise, she seems fairly normal. Pointed ears, a lithe body of decent height, moderate bosom, all ten fingers and toes. Her outfit for travel tends to be a mix of cloak and robe, while more civilized domains may have her set in a finer dress of black or blue.

Background: Talea is a child of Ashwood - literally, or at least, as literally as one can be the child of a forest. A place already feared for its strangeness, It was a rather shocking surprise for those that watched its borders to have a Elven child with no apparent knowledge of family or home wander out of it.

Talea was very fortunate that, apart from her origin, she lacked any particularly scary qualities, and that an Elven couple that was settled down in one of the nearby towns was willing to take her in as theirs. These Elves were entertainers, and with enough of a good reputation as to not be shunned (entirely). Eventually, however, they were ready to move on, and Talea went along with them on the life of travel and merriment (and dodging some things like those pesky bandits or crazy types).

As time moved on and Talea grew, some oddities arouse from around her. Sometimes she seemed to cough out dark wisps of cloud, she tended to favor being in the dark, odd noises sometimes came about, and, the part that scared others the most, was the one time she was found 'dead' after an accident at a river. By all accounts, her grief-stricken step-parents thought her drowned when she was pulled out. But no more than an hour later, she was up and awake - and a bit perplexed why people were calling miracles and other things. NO one really knew what had happened there, but afterwards, others decided she was 'a few shades shy of a ghost' and gave her a wider berth. Her parents at least weren't so cruel, but it made growing up that bit more harder.

Eventually, she received teachings in magic from the fortune teller of the group her family traveled with. she learned the ways of a sorceress (which didn't help much with the creepy status), and one day, parted ways with her family in Magnimar. She wanted to know more about her past, her life, and her powers (which had brought on more of those shadowy strange things, among other things). It was as good as any place to start...although she needed money, and more experience to give her a better idea of how to go about such a goal.

Reason for being selected!: This ties in partly with that last bit of history there. Talea, 'cheated' her way into acceptance, in part. By stroke of luck, she overheard someone else talking about what was going on, and Charmed a secretary or two (or similar type) into helping get her on a list of potential recruits. A little nudge here, a crossing of fingers or a letter there, and with a few good words and some friendliness, found herself on a crazy adventure that would surely give her someplace to earn some experience, and perhaps later, a good spot to go and discover more about herself.

Hmm. Noon Friday you say? Cool. I have just a couple of hours to see if I can make something tempting!

the system is meant to be abstract, but there's a few things one can 'gather' on average if you look around.

Laborers, as per the team, is on average 5 people. So assume a point of labor is the work of '5 people' if you will, on average (sometimes more, sometimes less depending on the task).

A village is usually made up of more than just men. women, children, etc. So if you go by the idea of 5 people a labor point, a limit of 10 means only 50 people will be working at any one time for you. So about a quarter of the population, as it were. Maybe a little more, maybe a little less.

now, a building takes a certain amount of stuff before it 'starts building'. I believe, sine it's abstract, that reflects getting assurances of continued work over the days, etc etc. When you pay 'more' labor to speed up the work. tat involves paying people to work longer, getting skilled work for certain parts, having people work on days they don't normally do, etc. Basically extra effort.

If your GM is nice, you can say the construction begins when the base cost is met, and afterwards you can spend more labor towards it to 'speed it up'. That would mean a certain number of days aren't wasted just spending labor points, it still gets built quicker, and so on. So long as you complete payment before the accelerated time is complete, you're good.

If your GM doesn't like that, just means you shorten the time, but it still takes a 'little bit longer' to do. Still probably much faster.

Usually, a village will work to build something versus ignore it, unless the place in question horribly offends them. That falls under different rules, in which case, you can handle that! XD Given the above theory that no more than a quarter of the town will technically work on something at a time, there's some room for others to work too. If you got several players maxing out the work load though, I think that falls on the GM to set a 'they can't handle it any more captain!' moment. or a need to summon outside help. That or a lot of people are getting a lot of extra pay tiring themselves out.

Technically isn't there the option to 'fail your throw on purpose' as well?

Mind you, less reason to do so with a basic illusion spell, but with shadow conjuration high enough, you could summon some healers or other types to use their spell abilities on you until they wear off. no % of auto fail on the spell or the like.

I recall it's come up before about purposefully failing some saves if you had a reason for wanting to.

RAW = Rules As Written

Also technically means 'letter of the rule' but not always spirit of the rule.

For example. additional traits doesn't have a 1st level prereq, but a lot of those traits make more sense as history based. Others could do it, since they're more like extra snippets of training or quirks. A spellcaster could technically use this to gain one or two magic traits that adjust metamagic or other features later on versus early

whether or not that was intended though...

Migrated this to rules, as it's probably more appropriate forum. I can't delete this it seems. >.<

Been reading over these rules a few times, and now and then I find something I thought I read right, then realized I may have read it wrong.

Under promoting a business, you first choose one type of capital to serve as your buffer (to augment profit check).

Next, you roll for the number of days the promotion 'increased activity' lasts. 1d6 to be exact.

You Choose one capital the building can generate, and you make a check for it as skilled work using either diplomacy, knowledge (local), or spellcraft (I presume some are better than others at promoting particular types). every point of capital you put in augments the roll by 5 points (meaning 2 capital basically insures 1 capital always is added).

Now here comes the fuzzy part: the wording of that last part about generating the capital with a roll says 'to determine how many additional resources the business generates over the course of the increased activity'.

So...does that mean that, if you rolled 6 days, and rolled a 30 on <random capital>, you made 3 extra capital over 6 days, or you made 3 extra capital on each day (meaning 18)?

Likewise, since this is a roll 'in addition to' the regular ones the business seems to make, the business makes its normal checks for those 6 days as well, yes?

At first I thought this was a neat way to half gamble some resources and hope you got a windfall of extra, but on re-reading, it's looking like it's a way to do the 'convert capital' method in a more efficient manner if it makes sense (Got spare Goods? sacrifice two of them to promote the magic at your magic academy by having a cute prize for a spellcasting contest, instead of converting 5 of them into a single magic capital).

So, which way was more accurate to the intent? Or am I wrong on both counts?

Mkay. after reading what I said, three things come to mind:

1) Serious GM call on setting some hard facts.

2) An illusion, so long as it is -not- mind-affecting, looks perfectly real to a mindless creature. Fake fire, fake wall, fake bridge, etc. Assuming there's a particular reason the mindless creature would respond to what they see, they react to it as if it's real.

3A) When interacting with said illusion, they treat it as real and 'fake'. Zombies want to claw at the wall you disappeared through. They'll assume there's a wall. when they fall through the wall to the other side, they ignore the fact they fell through - all they care about is they're now in a path chasing you again. You push them back through. They'll see a wall in their way again. If they see a bridge they can cross to reach you, they'll assume the bridge is real, even to the point of falling through it into a chasm.

3B)Alternatively, because will saves are wisdom based, focus on that - if they got wisdom, they can disbelieve when they interact. They pass, they have the magical knowledge it's fake. They fail, they continue to assume it's real. Zombie swings his hands at an invisible wall trying to claw through it to get to you - assuming another zombie doesn't push him through or something, he rolls to disbelieve by interaction. He wins, he 'realizes' he can push through, and does so. he fails, he assumes he's been cut off, and either looks for a different way, or stares at the wall mumbling about brains until he falls through it or something.

Mkay, scouting around some, and assuming the idea is 'automatically failing' or automatically succeeding...

The common effect of being immune to things like that which have saves is to just assume they made it, unless the effect would 'work on objects, or is otherwise harmless'. That's the detail from constructs and undead in regards to constitution based saves (I.E.: You can't poison a rock, but you can disintegrate a rock). If it can touch them, they make a fort save as normal.

Being mindless has a similar quality, except since 'mind-affecting' never really works on objects, that last part doesn't really exist. On the other hand, if you're mindless, what's to say you're going to you have the power to disbelieve something that isn't real?

What takes precedence: Reality, or fantasy? Reality tends to win on that question. Gravity wins against Illusionary bridges unless they got a shadow component after all.

This...is causing me a headache. @_@ this shouldn't be that much of an issue. XD XD

Been reading over these rules a few times, and now and then I find something I thought I read right, then realized I may have read it wrong.

Under promoting a business, you first choose one type of capital to serve as your buffer (to augment profit check).

Next, you roll for the number of days the promotion 'increased activity' lasts. 1d6 to be exact.

You Choose one capital the building can generate, and you make a check for it as skilled work using either diplomacy, knowledge (local), or spellcraft (I presume some are better than others at promoting particular types). every point of capital you put in augments the roll by 5 points (meaning 2 capital basically insures 1 capital always is added).

Nowhere comes the fuzzy part: the wording of that last part about generating the capital with a roll says 'to determine how many additional resources the business generates over the course of the increased activity'.

So...does that mean that, if you rolled 6 days, and rolled a 30 on <random capital>, you made 3 extra capital over 6 days, or you made 3 extra capital on each day (meaning 18)?

Likewise, since this is a roll 'in addition to' the regular oens the business seems to make, the business makes its normal checks for those 6 days as well, yes?

At first I thought this was a neat way to half gamble some resources and hope you got a windfall of extra, but on re-reading, it's looking like it's a way to do the 'convert capital' method in a more efficient manner if it makes sense (Got spare Goods? sacrifice two of them to promote the magic at your magic academy by having a cute prize for a spellcasting contest, instead of converting 5 of them into a single magic capital).

So, which way was more accurate to the intent? Or am I wrong on both counts?

Drat. I should have come looking here for games sooner. XD Been wanting to experiment with the downtime.

Well, I guess I'll keep an eye out, just in case! Have fun everyone. :)

I really like the the Synthesist. It made Summoner playable to me. My questions though:

1) Is he allowed to take the magic evolutions? I would assume he would, and he would use his Cha. Mod to qualify but my rommate says otherwise. Can anyone provide clarification.

2) It says the synthesist gets access to the eidolon's special abilities evasion, darkvision, etc. Does that include the devotion ability?

Reading my book on it (for I have yet to see many responses to these things that are official yet) a Synthesist is basically 1 creature when combined with the Eidolon. That means the 'Eidolon' is the Summoner, and the Summoner the Eidolon. So, the Eidolon, in this case, has the Cha of the summoner, so yes, technically it's a valid choice (You better have some Charisma). Until someone gives a bizarre reason why it's not true, it makes sense to allow it. This archetype is already suffering from several flaws as it is.

As for Devotion, I would have to say 'yes' it applies. It's intention is normally to keep your eidolon from betraying you, but in this case, it just means you're not extra hard to influence. Again, several flaws already, no reason to take it away.

A somewhat old post...but I can still give a thought, right?

Since the extra limbs ability does not otherwise state it makes you harder to trip or knock down, etc...a simple method to get the improved speed without going outside this evolution is to take it anyways, and ignore added another set of legs - just imply stronger, faster legs instead. Good for when you want a surprisingly fast two or four legged creature (instead of a 8 legged creature).

That's one advantage one can have with a lenient GM. So long as the fluff is mere fluff with nothing else attached, you can tweak it.

Some good points there about the summon 'bugs'. Regardless of how many times I could summon it, I wouldn't stoop to free healing that way. Limited resummons, however, I'll ponder. Mechanically I don't think it's too major if you did have that option sans death. It takes a minute to re-summon, so very limited combat advantage. Outside of combat, it at least makes going into town a non-issue, since the moment you went very far in, your Eidolon automatically loses a chunk of HP. That seems a senseless waste/quirk there. No one else in my memory 'suffers' that way. Fuzzy Druid friends at best just stay out, and are there later. Even a summon would be okay, albeit they wouldn't last very long anyways.

But things I will keep in mind. :) My playtest may not be finalized before the end date though, irk. *ponders on that*

I've thought up a few things over time, and I've heard words about a 'assortment of comments made about Summoner that are collect somewhere', but don't know where this where is!

So, until I find that place to see if other answers are there..here are some questions or curiosities I have, to see what others thing, and so they're out there for answering in a more official capacity.

1) Antimagic fields

The norm of such fields is that summoned creatures 'wink out' until the effect is gone, durations still apply, but the key issue here is thus: does the Eidolon wink out too? Naturally, it has a permanent duration, so it won't run out of time, but It would suck for it to suddenly vanish on you - it also makes the text under flight redundant when you get supernatural flight (it can't fly if it's not there, right?)

2) Eidolon summoning wording

I understand the class is in playtest, so this may be draft wording oopsie than a 'critical error', but by the way the pdf words Summoning your Eidolon, so long as it doesn't get dismissed due to 'death' (via hp loss) You can technically call it back repeatedly in the same day. It only gets full HP once (from the initial summoning) but otherwise, until that one death, you can keep calling it back. True, False? Unsure? I'd feel better knowing a need to dismiss my Eidolon won't screw me over for the rest of the day.

3) Durations after death/otherwise?

This involves summon spells and Eidolons. I don't recall...but will a summoned creature continue after its master bites it or falls unconscious? Does the Eidolon? Heck, if the Summoner dies, and the Eidolon has access to a proper resurrection spell (via various means, such as wishes), and has the necessary components nearby to use, could the Eidolon revive his own Summoner? That'd be pretty friggin sweet, to be honest. Summoner falls, Eidolon swoops in, grabs body, and takes it off to be brought back to life while it still can.

(The only flaw in that plan I can see is the range distance factor. If you're dead, you may not count as being 'there', heh).

4) Transmogrify spell

It doesn't exist to my knowledge, so it must be in the upcoming book. Any minor hints of what it is meant to do? Just a way for players to 'alter' their characters in a more magical way versus IC/OOC 'retraining'? What's to really stop you from using the retraining answer for Eidolons, apart from the current text saying 'they're stuck that way until you level, or use Transmogrify'?

That's all I can think of questions-wise for now. gonna see about a lvl 5 summoner playtest.

EDIT:
Silly me, I forgot part 3 of my confessions...err, forgot a tidbit I considered for the magical items issue.

1) Let the darn equipment go with the Eidolon. So long as they're wearing it or actively carrying it (such as a backpack) Why not? If you're smart, you'll use it in spiffy ways, if not, it won't get used. It saves dealing with some work in some cases, and makes small Eidolons sneaking into places, grabbing loot, and being dismissed a viable use. Living 'equipment' (aka kidnapping halflings, you horrible person) can be excluded. That means cursed gear will stay stuck as needed, and other magical gear doesn't have to be picked up or salvaged from the bottom of rivers.

2) Make it so the Summoner can wear the magic item, and bestow the benefit to the Eidolon by proxy. Whether or not they get the boon too is up for debate, but it would make the issue of item slots moot (since most summoners will have them all), and you don't have to worry about adding feet to your fire-breathing ball of slime to use boots.

I would also put in that since you were apparently several levels their 'weakest' that the DM at the time also chose to be gentle with you - and in that case, your Eidolon's multiple attacks cleaved right into the soft fleshy underside of his plans.

Now, if you were of equal level to them, and you ripped through it all yourself, I could see that as a more accurate bit of 'overpowered'.

However, you were lower level (even the Eidolon was, 2 Hit dice versus 4-5, even with d10's, means they probably had more HP than it), you were both given comparable buffs, so neither of you had an edge in that field, if anything, your Eidolon was the one trick pony waiting to be made into glue, but since no one pays any attention to the 'ponies', it got a good kick in and ate all the hay.

Combat type 'monsters' have an edge in varied attacks, but usually mediocre HP and/or AC. Idea is usually they pounce and kill before their Defense becomes an issue. If your Defense was never genuinely put to the test, then they can't call you overpowered in that situation with fair intent (IMO).

Finally, you may have played 'intelligently' versus 'not so intelligently'. Good tactics, a lucky roll or two, and careful consideration of actions can do a lot for ones survival at any level.

There's no rule against applying a template to a creature - after all, there are fiendish so-and-so's and such in the summon spells. A templated Outsider would be very rare though - they usually are the cause of such templates.

Being an aspect of a more powerful being, I would lean on no (but not impossible through magical enhancement, something that gave the Eidolon the advanced or giant size template). The main reason I see it as no is because it's not a 'living, growing creature' when summoned, it's an approximate example of one. If it were a brutal, war machine aspect of the said outsider, then it effectively has those 'templates' by grace of evolution points spent on combat features, strength, size, etc.

going back to the earlier examples, 2 things I didn't see mentioned I thought I would add.

1) All 1st level Summoners have a 2 HD Eidolon. That means they get 2 levels worth of skills at the start (8 points, which is 4 each given the reduced intelligence).

2) At lvl 20, all summoners have a 17 HD Eidolon. That means they are -not- 'lvl 20' for skill cap purposes. So the last example given can't use a base of 20. So it goes down 3 points.

Agreed on the Inherent bonuses part, though I would ask if you could ever put those on a regular summoned creature in the first place - normally I would expect it to be a complete waste but plausible for all of maybe the 2 minutes the creature exists. True, the Eidolon can 'go away', but the impression is you're summoning the same creature, even if it's an aspect. Until you changed its points and such, I would think it the same creature at the time, and to avoid being a stingy, PITA DM, leveling up would ignore any 'changing' involved and the inherent would stay.

The main issue is getting the inherent bonus in the first place. If you get it, you get it, congrats, if not, the game resumes.