Bloodtoof's page

I don't think so. It doesn't say anything about adding spells to a spell list. I think the point is you can copy spells, you could already otherwise cast, from an alchemist's formula book.

I believe that in the discription for Wild Shape it says that it works like the Beast Shape spell except for the duration is longer.

The enemies they will face will be primarily humans and elves. The mages themselves will be powerful in a relative sense but not overly so in a absolute sense. Maybe they'll have a few minor pet magical beasts or elementals but nothing really major. Also the mages will be much more focused in their particular school specialization and will have few prepared outside of their focus.

I'm planning on giving all the PCs UMD as a class skill keyed off of any mental stat they choose to reflect some limited training or aptitude for magic item use.

First, when I hear "from within" I start thinking double agent. Maybe the party is working for the established oppressive regime but is also working for a rebel faction. That makes me think of cold war era KGB and CIA stuff or even WWII Nazi secret police. As agents of the government these people were often given special equipment and special privileges to get the job done as well as various levels of clearance.

basically if the party were double agents they would probably have more access to magical items and would be less restricted in choosing classes with access to limited spell casting or spell-like abilities. They may also not be restricted on the supernatural ability front at all.

the trick to this is that they may have to be hyper secretive as well as do things that would hinder their ultimate goal of overthrowing the government (which could also offer interesting opportunities to do some espionage on missions they are supposed to be accomplishing for the oppressive government).

also I don't see a low magic setting that has high level casters as the government having less of the typical monsters as much as it would have more government agencies that are tasked with hunting and eliminating these creatures. Which of course would be equipped to handle the challenge.

idk my 2 cents

I was thinking that they would be given various missions by the resistance commanders and that they would occasionally be given some sort of magic items to help them achieve these missions. There will definitely be infiltration missions and for those they'll have access to things like hats of disguise and rings of non-detection.

blackbloodtroll wrote:

Um, without Spell-like and Supernatural abilities, your class choices basically come down to:

Fighter.

That's it.

Nah, Barbarian, Rogue, Skirmisher Ranger, Martial Artist Monk, Gunslinger, and Cavalier are all doable without any of those. You'll lose out on a few Rogue Talents and many Rage Powers...but it's far from impossible.

Also Brawler, Swashbuckler and Slayer from the playtest will probably work.

Um, without Spell-like and Supernatural abilities, your class choices basically come down to:

Fighter.

That's it.

I mean that the specific options that grant spell-like and supernatural abilities won't be available at first. For instance barbarians won't be able to take totem rage powers but will have access to any of the (ex) powers.

It sounds like avoiding combat may be the "right" way to play in many circumstances. You should think about how you want to award XP; if you only award XP for creatures fought, you're giving contradictory instructions to your players on how they should play.

Consider focusing XP rewards on objectives achieved instead of enemies defeated.

I'm going to give XP no matter how they overcome the problem. Or I may just have fixed leveling points.

What is the PC's motivation for fighting the system ffrom within? Are the magocratic rulers evil?

The PC's motivation will be primarily to achieve freedom from oppression. Specific motivation beyond that will be up to the players. The rulers are not outwardly or expressly malevolent just very greedy and power hungry.

Is the restriction on Arcane only, or is Divine magic restricted too?

Do gods exist in this campaign?

Divine magic is going to be completely prohibited and so is any kind of divine worship. I was planning on the players retrieving some long lost divine relics and reestablishing contact with a forgotten god as a plot point.

No supernatural or spell like abilities will be allowed in the beginning. Spell-less archetypes of classes will be allowed, however and some (su) options may be changed to (ex) if it makes sense to do so. All core races except gnomes will be allowed as well as orcs, hobgoblins, goblins, kobolds and ratfolk as they all make good "under-races." The magisters will primarily be humans and elves and they will have a strong bias against the other races. I'll probably give them either 25 or 30 point buy so they're a bit tougher.

Those are all good points, Corvino. There'll definitely need to be "a helpful voice in the sky" in the beginning, at least. I'm also considering giving them the Stealth Synergy feat for free so that they have an easier time sneaking around.

Deadmanwalking's solution is very similar to the old 3.5 Vow of Poverty and that's not really the direction I want to go. The way I envision it is the players are kind of like commando operatives and they use things like inherent skill, unconventional tactics, and limited resource based tricks to win fights that they couldn't beat head to head.

Kind of like a team of medieval, fantasy James Bonds/Jason Bournes. Allthough, I want them to be acutely aware of just how close to death they are at any given time. I kind of want it to be an uphill battle. Most of the games we've played recently have been too easy.

I'm thinking that status curing alchemical substances will be available. Not too sure how to handle the save defecit, though. Maybe by giving them the save feats for free or having them get save boosting traits as story rewards.

As far as healing goes, I was thinking of using this Strain and Injury HP variant coupled with relatively easy access to troll syptics. I want to, as much as possible, avoid any of the PCs being able to do anything that works like spellcasting at the beginning of the campaign so I don't think I'll be allowing alchemists. I will, however, let the players have cheaper and/or higher DC versions of nonmagical alchemical items.

I'm thinking of running a campaign set in an oppressive mageocracy that ruthlessly cracks down on any non sanctioned magic use. The PCs would all be rebels fighting against the regime from within. This game would be primarily in an urban setting and would focus on roleplay and combat about equally. Because access to magic has been so restricted, the PCs will all be non-magical classes with extremely limited magic items.

As this will be a deviation from the assumed high magic nature of Pathfinder, I'm wondering if anyone has any advice about how to better set up and scale encounters against magic using enemies.

Dwarves literally have greed as a racial trait... Just sayin'.

The trade subdomain isn't bad and would ceartinly be thematically appropriate. It doesn't really seem like any of the other domain choices fit in with your role playing concept. Have you considered The Evangelist archetype? That would make a great cowadly (but effective) lead from the rear type.

Your survivability, particularly at low levels, is not great. You may want to pick up some emergency and defensive spells like obscuring mist, liberating command and mage armor/shield/protection from whatever. Additionally, something like hydraulic push would let you take advantage of your high charisma and control the battlefield a bit while keeping the bad people away from you.

Pearls of power never hurt. Also, if you can afford it, a +1 spell storing spiked gauntlet can be a useful thing to have in a pinch for a witch. Or you could save up for a Witching Gown.

Almost definitely the air elemental. The lightning elemental has some offensive power the air elemental lacks, but this simply isn't enough to make a difference in the scheme of things. The air elemental has whirlwind and is also a good deal more durable than the lightning elemental

Reading through whirlwind, it looks like it'll only affect tiny or smaller creatures. On the other hand, while less durable, the lightning elemental gets +15 to CMB on a charge against metal bearing opponents.

Well from a roleplaying standpoint (based on the little information I have) I really wouldn't understand why a lunar oracle would get a lightning elemental as a familiar. even air seems slightly more appropriate. (although not that much)

His whole deal is that he's a kind of conduit for nature spirits. He's got the haunted curse and a totem guide archetype wolf animal companion. The elemental improved familiar would basically be his existing raven familiar transforming into a more primal nature spirit form.

I have a level 6 Lunar Oracle with eldritch heratige (arcane) in a home RotRL campaign. Come level 7, I intend to take improved familiar and get a small elemental with the valet archetype from Animal Archive. I'm having trouble deciding between the air and lightning elementals; my question is which would be a better choice and why?