Ataraxias's page

How would you get him to stay dead if you could kill him? Another Empyreal lord would probably just use true resurrection.

Erdrix wrote:

Concordia wrote:

I am not excited at all by this. I know I'll get thrashed by saying so, but I think the game is perfect as it is now.

This is purely and simply a consumering scam to get more of our money. I bought almost all of the hardcovers for "PF1", do you think I'll do it again? Sure as hell not!

I won't jump on that bandwagon.

Luckily your hardcovers won't turn to dust upon 2e's release and can still enjoy them.

Right, but won't be supported anymore (as of 2019, if I read correctly). What if I like that 2nd Ed? No way I'm buying a new Core Rulebook (70 Canadian $), another Campaign and GM guide, and 5 or 6 Monster manuals...

Skill system probably won't be the same, feats won't be the same, combat is already determined to not work the same way.

You've never had to do any of that. The rules have always been free.

Omnius wrote:

It is, but that's also literally the foundation of the Druid class. They're built on Captain Planet logic.

I mean, the question of "is metal armor natural?" is entirely separate from the question of "can druids wear metal armor?". The answer to the latter is obviously "no," for exactly the same reason that druids need a grasshopper's hind leg to cast jump - because the rules say so. It's a hoop that druids have to jump through, and if you don't like it, you can find a workaround or play something else. But none of that has any bearing on whether steel armor or radioactive waste or the Eiffel Tower are natural. The answer to that is obvious as well, unless you contort your worldview to maintain an image of humans as categorically special entities that stand apart from the rest of the universe.

The Aboleths stand by that.

Ataraxias wrote:

On a related note; where's the outrage over druidic then? No one else immediately loses their powers teaching someone else a language.

Considering effort was made to have Sylvan as a universal tongue, it seems pretty evident Druidic is intended for cryptographic use. I can question why they felt the need to have a class-only secure communication, but not punishment for breaking that security.

This only leads us back to the answer of the will of nature does what it feels like. It's not like some other druid discovers you betrayed them and shows up to expel you from the order, it's an immediate omnipresent event.

On a related note; where's the outrage over druidic then? No one else immediately loses their powers teaching someone else a language.

Ataraxias wrote:

The Sideromancer wrote:

AaronUnicorn wrote:

Druids can't wear metal armor or use metal shields for the same reason that in the real world Orthodox Jews can't mix meat and milk in the same meal, or real world Catholics can't eat meat on Fridays during Lent, or real world Hindus don't eat the flesh of cows.

It's a religious restriction. It's not based on science. It's not based on "metal is less pure than leather." It's not based on anything other than "The Gods of Nature demand this. They grant me the spells and other powers that are a class feature of being a Druid. Therefore, I follow those demands or lose my class features."

And that's ok.

And if there were alternative choices for a religious restriction, that would be fine. But given the diversity of druid-legal deities (i.e. all of them), it's the equivalent of Orthodox Jews, Catholics, Protestants, Hindus, Bhuddists, Muslims, Taoists, and that guy who never gave up on Zeus all not eating beef. Imagine trying to buy a cheeseburger in that world.

Druids don't get their powers from a Deity. There is no alternative.

False.

AoN, Druid wrote:

A druid can't cast spells of an alignment opposed to her own or her deity's (if she has one).

Additionally, several deities have specific interactions with druids they provide spells to.

Keyword is if. Druids function just fine without any deities, such as those of the Green Faith. It's not the deities that dictate the will of nature. The druid could be a total heretic against their deity and still have the regular druid spell list.

AaronUnicorn wrote:

Druids can't wear metal armor or use metal shields for the same reason that in the real world Orthodox Jews can't mix meat and milk in the same meal, or real world Catholics can't eat meat on Fridays during Lent, or real world Hindus don't eat the flesh of cows.

It's a religious restriction. It's not based on science. It's not based on "metal is less pure than leather." It's not based on anything other than "The Gods of Nature demand this. They grant me the spells and other powers that are a class feature of being a Druid. Therefore, I follow those demands or lose my class features."

And that's ok.

And if there were alternative choices for a religious restriction, that would be fine. But given the diversity of druid-legal deities (i.e. all of them), it's the equivalent of Orthodox Jews, Catholics, Protestants, Hindus, Bhuddists, Muslims, Taoists, and that guy who never gave up on Zeus all not eating beef. Imagine trying to buy a cheeseburger in that world.

Druids don't get their powers from a Deity. There is no alternative.

The Esoteric Order of the Palatine Eye.
Basically it's a secret fraternity type organization like the Masons or Illuminati that has Tabris and some of his writings as the foundation.

Command undead isn't going to bring parity to the outer planes.

If the disparity occurs and Hell is seen as a vulnerable target due to a decreased population, they'll be forced to do what? Mass planeshifting undead off of Eox to bolster their legions? I'm pretty sure that'd be an unacceptable encroachment on the material realm under the agreement.

Holy moly. How can people seriously try to argue that a barbarian can't reload a weapon?

Let's examine the rules shall we?

Rage wrote:

While in rage, a barbarian cannot use any Charisma-, Dexterity-, or Intelligence-based skills (except Acrobatics, Fly, Intimidate, and Ride) or any ability that requires patience or concentration.

Hmmmm.....let's see. Is reloading a skill? Nope. Is it an ability? Nope. Oh look, it's just an action. Case closed.

If you're the GM of a home game and you're damn sure not gonna let those stupid barbarians reload while raging, go for it dude. Houserule it. More power to ya. But please, stop trying to argue that the rules say something they don't.

Edit: As an aside, I can think of soooo many examples of people who were raging mad yet somehow still possessed the capability to reload a gun both IRL and in popular media.

The wacky caveat to this are those court cases where they say the act of reloading shifts it from a situation of emotional reaction, to just murder.

I think the actual issue is that the BBEG isn't actually anyone in the game, it's Hastur/The King in Yellow and the closest we really get to him is The Pallid Mask.

I plan to create an overbearing atmosphere with The King and Pallid Mask. Since he has greater teleport I plan to make him a Freddy Krueger style omnipresent stalker, dropping in at opportune times with confusion, charisma drain, greater dispel magic etc. then warping out, with Cassilda intervening if things go horribly wrong.

Cassilda and the Mask will negate each other since the King will punish her, however the Mask revives quicker than she does, creating a necessity for the PCs to make the most out of their time.

I'll throw in the King as a noncombatant also from time to time, just floating high above doing weird stuff.

Anyways my goal is to really drive the point that they're fighting Hastur, and everything happening in Carcosa is some strange game to him since Cassilda says there are "rules" of some sort.

quibblemuch wrote:

Tarik Blackhands wrote:

Hell, with the wraiths (or shadows or wrymwraiths) you need to ask how the entire world isn't largely an undead infested wasteland of gloom and despair.

Maybe it is.

Maybe all adventures are just the hallucinations of the few remaining living survivors, as they huddle in the darkness, waiting for the inevitable. The bravery of heroes, the power of the gods, the astounding arcana of wizards... all of it, merely the last ditch effort of destroyed minds to find some madman's measure of victory in a lost cosmos...

Umbral Apocalypse?

Zygomind

QuidEst wrote:

Yep, elves sleep the same as anybody else. They can't be magically forced to sleep, though, which is still very useful.

One wonders how or why they're immune to sleep effects if they sleep naturally.

The recently released Healer's Handbook says a legendary Bard by the name of Sylandurla climbed Pharasma's Boneyard and sung 8,008 songs to win it for the entire Elven race.

"You Have What You Hold"

The River Kingdoms obviously hasn't held this area for quite some time so if they want to claim their laws apply here they better get to evicting the hellknights

The Black Butterfly - an empyreal lord who has been mentioned before as possibly an avatar of Desna is literally black.

I'm hoping to start running it in March/April - with a non-Mythic Group. I honestly think the challenges in Book 6 (as written) are beatable as non mythic, for a standard party that is well built and played by experienced players.

I'm thinking (based on what the books suggest) having Book 4 be level 14-17, book 5 is level 17-19, and in book 6 you just hit level 20, maybe with some bells and whistles a the end.

Probably will start another thread on that at some point.

I think you'd have to leave out the "non mythic targets get no saving throw" abilities at the minimum.

43 replies - 3 posts on topic.

Honestly the easiest answer is Outsiders.

Outsiders of all alignments would have concerns about something as "benign" as a infinite food machine.

Here's a short list of problems off the top of my head:

Trelmarixian wouldn't be happy with a universe without famine.

Erastil's followers would probably consider the marginalization of agriculture to be blasphemy.

Pharasma's circle of life program is apparently on a fixed schedule, will an extension of everyone's longevity distrupt the order she's maintaining?

Take any evil race that multiplies rapidly and give them infinite food -
Gorum might be pleased with the impending infinite goblinoid wars but Asmodeus might not welcome such a surge in chaotic forces.

Irori wouldn't approve of the sloth and obesity this would probably give rise to.

So plenty of outsiders have a vested interest in removing such concepts from play.

Repaying the favor. FAQ'd .

I’d like to point out that mere moments before stepping out into this deathtrap The Coffin Man paints a pretty grim picture :
“world gripped by war, in a frozen country stillborn in bloody revolution.”

“army bristling with strange weapons, the sting of which the PCs have never felt.”

As well as describing a man capable of running a plot that can thwart a near demigod.

So I think the better question is why wouldn’t your players be on high alert?

Hubris? Short term memory loss?

I know of Yoshitsune from Tale of the Heike and of course the major players of the Sengoku period like Nobunaga and Kenshin have fantastic elements.

Are there accounts of samurai that go on epic quests similar to Sir Gawain or Odysseus?

As a GM who's never had a falling out of this type I was actually enjoying the stories in this thread until someone threw a hissy fit on it.

Well unless your team has snowshoes or certain abilities like frostfoot hex also know that entering snow covered squares costs 2x movement and entering deep snow is 4x movement. That restriction alone made the first several encounters much more challenging then the PCs were expecting.

In any case all the relevant info is on pg 8 of the free players guide so its not that much to go through, I just printed that page for reference.

Honestly while I'm sure most are fine with the setting/writing and such creating the epic feel, there's still a large level of disconnect between a lvl 20 PC and Demon Lord.

Orcus in Rappan Athuk is CR 35 by himself not counting the large number of minions that are in the same chamber. You're just not meant to win within the current ruleset.

And if you're going to bridge that gap with items and boons then your story becomes less about the heroes and just creates cognitive dissonance for many players.

"You mean we can defeat Deskari if we had Excalibur? And Deskari hid it in that dungeon ? Why wouldn't a Demon Lord capable of interplanar, interstellar travel put it somewhere much more difficult to reach? Like a black hole? Why didn't any other level 20 hero go get it earlier?"

I can imagine all of those and more coming from my players.

Edit: Ninja'd

Personally I find boons and items to be a crutch.

To me negating or disabling the BBEG in some way means you didn't actually fight the BBEG.

The final battle of Harry vs Voldemort was dissapointing beyond measure. He didn't outsmart him, or even learned spells to protect himself properly. He just had a boon.

Amusingly a fire related death:

Name: Dryden
Race: Kitsune
Classes/levels: Ninja 2
Adventure: Snows of Summer
Location: Soulbound Guardian

Catalyst: Character is a witch hunter and is highly proactive in destroying anything that remotely smells of witchcraft. Seeing the doll in the chair, with no one actually having entered the hut he convinced the rest of the party to stand far back from the hut while he standing about 10' away from the door lobbed Alchemists Fires in order to burn it down.

The Gory Details: He hit the hut with 2, and I ruled that it would probably take at least 1 minute for the hut to completely burn up. I allowed half a minute to pass, then had the Doll use charm person and convinced him to walk in the hut (he also failed the save to do something it wouldn't normally do). In the hut (due to initiative) the doll managed to paralyze him before he could back out.
Between the distance of the rest of the party along with the Doll's Frostfall staggering a few of them no one was able to drag the ninja out of the fire before his paralysis lifted.

I was actually going to roll just random 1d6 fire damage per round but everyone at the table Ninja included decided it would be much more realistic for it to result in autodeath seeing as the hut technically would collapse on him.

Going from the angle that someone close to them is hiding their weakness you could have them consume an item that contains a unknown ingredient; maybe their grandparents brew them potions containing the blood of Mephits

I'd like to point out that a Witch's Cook People Hex is inherently evil RAW.

Cook People (Su): The witch can create fabulous spells by cooking an intelligent humanoid creature in her cauldron, either alive or dead. Using this hex creates one meal or serving of food of the witch's choice, typically a delicious stew or a dough suitable for cookies, pastries, or other desserts. Cooking the victim takes 1 hour. Eating the food provides one of the following benefits for 1 hour: age resistance, bear's endurance, bull's strength, cat's grace, eagle's splendor, fox's cunning, neutralize poison (instantaneous) owl's wisdom, remove disease (instantaneous). Alternatively, the witch can shape the dough into a Small, humanlike creature, animating it as a homunculus for 1 hour. The witch must have the cauldron hex to select this hex. Using this hex or knowingly eating its food is an evil act