RPG Superstar 9 Season Star Voter. Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber. Pathfinder Society GM. 27 posts (60 including aliases). 4 reviews. No lists. No wishlists. 29 Organized Play characters. 2 aliases.
She just hit level 3 and I haven't leveled her up yet, but so far:
10 16 12 16 8 16 on the ability scores
Fire-focused evoker with spell substitution
Charhide goblin, Entertainer background, CN alignment
Trained in Arcana, Deception, Theater Lore, Goblinoid Lore, Pickle Lore, Performance, Stealth, and Survival, plus Herbalism Lore from networking points.
Feats are Goblin Song, Fascinating Performance, Trick Magic Item, and Widen Spell
Cantrips are Detect Magic, Acid Splash, Message, Prestidigitation, Produce Flame, Read Aura, Sigil, Telekinetic Projectile, Tanglefoot, Electric Arc
1st-level spells are Burning Hands, Color Spray, Goblin Pox, Grease, and Magic Missile.
Some of her spell songs:
Burning Hands (Fire and Rain by James Taylor)
Fruppup make fire and make you pain
Fruppup hands burn and make the burn extend
It burn you and it burn all of your friends
And if Fruppup lucky that be your end
Goblin Pox (Sick by Flyleaf)
I will lick, onto your skin
The pox living in my saliva
I will LIIIIIIIIICK (at which point she charges the target)
I'm not normally the "Hey, let me tell you all about my super awesome amazing best character evar!" sort, but enough people have loved the concept for my PFS 2e character that @CanisDirus suggested I should post about her somewhere. I hope this is the right place for it.
I'll bold the main point so you don't have to read through the whole thing unless you really want to.
Fruppup is a goblin wizard from the former Kingdom of Zog, and just a child when it fell. One of the longshanks was casting fire spells, which of course had her completely fascinated. She hid so she could watch him do his thing. When the dust settled, she called out and asked if he'd teach her, then cautiously peered around a corner. The longshanks (who turned out to be a member of the Society) felt conflicted since she was a kid, and alone now because of him and his compatriots. So he risked taking her in.
Fruppup was young and impressionable enough that the longshanks' culture rubbed off on her. She's still a spastic fire- and pickle-loving, dog- and horse-hating goblin with questionable goblin logic (She stunk up the place in one scenario full of misfortune with stinky goblin things like puff mushrooms, dead rats, and rotten eggs because "If air full of bad smell, no room for bad luck!" Her party's lucky she failed to find corpseflower nectar for sale...). But she's more able to control her impulses than most. And willing to cooperate, too. Since she looked up to her mentor and wanted to be helpful to others since he helped her, she joined the Society when she was old enough.
Her approach to wizardry is...unconventional. Complex arcane language and chants are Dumb, Too Much, and Not Fun. For reasons only Nethys understands, Fruppup's been able to turn goblin songs into the verbal components of her spells (I filk songs that mention fire or burning, mostly).
She's also never shaken her fear and distrust of the written word. Which is a bit of a problem when you need to study your spells each day to cast them. So she has her party members and various NPCs read her bedtime stories each night. The bedtime stories are her spells.
She's also apparently really good at making pickles. I've only rolled single-digits to make them twice so far, and it's mostly been 15s or above on the dice. In the scenario about setting up the new trade route, they were so good that she convinced the orc tribe to start making them themselves as a local novelty item that could be sold to hungry merchants along the road. They're also her favorite subject for telekinetic projectile. She keeps jars of them in a bandolier for easy access.
I have a voucher from George WashingCon which expires tomorrow (8/15/19). I just tried to use it to buy something through paizo.com and got the message that "this code is not recognized or valid for this order". I've triple-checked that there were no typos. Help?
I'd say that anything down to spiders qualifies as "sentient". People have a bad habit of conflating "sentient" with "sapient" - and even that may be a largely artificial barrier.
That's exactly what I meant. Though I wouldn't phrase it as "down to spiders". Too many shades of "The further away it is from humans, the less evolved it is!" Annoys me to no end that it's standard in medical research to categorize test subjects as "lower species" and "higher species".
I'm Hiding In Your Closet wrote:
As I've stated elsewhere prior, there should definitely be a [Sapient] subtype for Animals - apes, corvids, parrots, cetaceans, cephalopods, and likely more besides should have base Intelligence scores of 3-4 at a minimum.
I wholeheartedly agree. 1-2 just doesn't cover the range or acknowledge that some are as smart as toddlers, who I'm sure would never be scored below a 3 according to the rules.
Wait. Species sounds too Sci-fi, when it is a real world, biological concept used in everyday life? That makes absolutely no sense.
Used in 2018, to refer to animals. Not different sentient creatures.
Although I can't hear heritage without "don't insult my dwarven heritage" followed by someone guzzling a gallon of ale.
You...realize Homo sapiens is a species, right? And that there are many sentient animal species?
But on the subject of animals, I actually do have a question for the developers. 3.5 and PF 1E have always had horrible animal stats. There's going to be some level of suckage inevitable when there isn't a biologist combing through everything, but have animals been revisited for 2E in a way that makes them more true-to-life?
I'm amazed at the level of thought and work you've poured into a 2E that sounds like it'll be completely different in a very good way...but this honestly feels premature to me. Starfinder is still brand new and you've even recently made a new Complete book for 1E. You've hit the 10 year mark with no signs of slowing down. It was really exciting to think that you'd be the ones to break that ceiling. So...a bit of a bummer to see the playtest for 2E released now in that respect. Been playing for years but there are so many archetypes and mechanics and whatnot left that I want to explore in 1E that I don't think I'll be switching over anytime soon unless 1E is phased out of organized play at cons while I still have 1E scenarios left or the next homegame GM wants to run the Playtest AP. Someday I'll join in the new fun...but not now.
This is probably too late for you, but I'll drop it here for anyone else wanting to know.
Assault on Absalom spoilers:
The Arpadors exaggerate their formal Taldan accents and mannerisms. Marton Arpador is the very fashionable patriarch. They were cattle merchants who bought their nobility. Basically, they have a bit of an inferiority complex about their paid-for noble status, so they overplay the part. They hide in their house because they're afraid, not because they're selfish.
The Caperinas' matriarch is Annalia Caperina. The family is from Cheliax, but have renounced Asmodeus. Annalia found religion in response to the upcoming seige, though, which embarrasses the rest of her family. Like most Chelaxians, they're very lawful.
The al-Hadirs are Qadiran and all wear their hair long. Naadhira is their stubborn matriarch and a worshipper of Sarenrae. When Taldor and Qadira were more actively at war, this house included many great war heroes. Naadhira is ashamed of this for some reason.
The Tullians, unlike the other three, tried to evacuate instead of holing up in their house. The undead kept them from getting to their private ship. They aren't good swimmers, but made the desperate decision to jump in the water, hoping the undead wouldn't pursue. The interactive doesn't give any information about them because the goal is to pull them out before they drown, not convince them to leave their houses. It's not even said which country they hail from. They're so grateful to be saved that they rally to the call above and beyond the others, getting many other noble families to join in the fight.
Why is that surprising? Garundi empires number among them some of the most technologically and magically advanced in Golarion's history: the ancient Osiriani, the Shory, and the Jistka to name just three. In modern times, the sophisticated metropolises of Katapesh and Sothis are just two of the many centers of learning populated largely by Garundi. If one wants to play the real world analogues game, then Garund, to my way of thinking, might at least somewhat fruitfully be compared to North Africa and the Levant, two areas with rich histories of academic development and excellence.
People often seem to forget that the Library of Alexandria was in Africa. <wry>
And it wasn't just the area around Egypt/the Levant. Timbuktu was home to a university from which over a million manuscripts have been unearthed, covering science, medicine, history, law, etc.
At its height, the University of Timbuktu had over 25,000 students, and by the 1300s, it was sending out roving satellite campuses that traveled between nearby cities. (Read about it here.)
For that matter, Africans invented the university: the first known university, Al-Qarawiyyin, is in Morocco (founded by Fatima al-Fihri).
You're both mistaking my response for something it's not. I'm well aware of the history of scholarly contributions by North African and Middle Eastern cultures. I haven't delved into the history and culture of all the Golarian nations, Garund being one of them, so I didn't know what its real-world parallel is. I unfortunately don't have time to immerse myself in Golarion lore right now because I'm a very busy graduate student. My reaction is amusement at one of the nations (It could have been any nation and my reaction would be the same. Seriously.) being something I'm, at the moment, knee-deep in and simultaneously love and hate.
The list for half-orcs validates my view on how cheesy it is that players so often choose them...optimizing vs. role-playing--though not in every case. There are those few who actually attempt to accurately role-play conflicted races and not just optimize. If GMs kept that list in mind and put effort into social encounters... I am always cautioning my sons about what race they choose because there WILL be social repercussions. It's the nature of a world full of conflict.
No kidding. My only half-orc so far is a bard who does Maori hakas. He worships Lissala as she used to be because, as a half-pinkskin from Belkzen, he has a very fatalistic view on life. I've gotten a lot of compliments about him and I *think* I've inspired a few people to be more thoughtful about the roleplaying aspect of character creation.
Had a GM in D&D 3.5 whose alignment I like to describe as chaotic chaotic. He introduced a deck to us in a situation that pretty much forced us to draw cards. We ended up creating the badger god of stadium seating.
Finally saw my item today, man, I am super pumped!!! Sad thing is, the excel sheet seems to be locked, and I can't update dates like I could this morning on items I am seeing today?
Is the sheet down or something?
No, it's working right now (I just went through and marked everything that was seen today). I had your problem happen at one point and had to reload the page, after which it worked. If that doesn't solve it, I'm not sure what to tell you. :/
Also, college just started for a lot of people, so many people are probably choosing to spend their weekends exploring new surroundings and people over voting on the internet.
HERESY !!!
You know what the demographics of RPGSS are, right ? ;-)
Tries to use physics/biology/other field of reality to explain how their item works/looks. Does not understand that aspect of physics/biology/other field of reality. Rinse, wash, repeat with another entry.
Also, college just started for a lot of people, so many people are probably choosing to spend their weekends exploring new surroundings and people over voting on the internet.
@avr Good catch on WF, I didn't check out the ability scores beforehand. D&D and Pathfinder animal stats make me pain...they're almost always way off from what they should be.
With overrun, the goal is to move through the foe's square and knock it over. Doesn't really make sense for an aquatic predator whose immediate goal would be to bite and hold on (that works better as a simple charge).
And for running in general, having short legs certainly doesn't mean something *can't* run, but compared to something with longer legs, it will not be their forte. An ambush predator's entire hunting strategy is to minimize the amount of fast movement they have to do, so a feat focused on it would be beyond what they typically "have".
@Joynt Yep. I tend to err on the side of conservative assumptions, though. Just because a specimen has fish in its stomach (and they have been found) doesn't necessarily mean it's all or most of what they ate. People have taken video of gators nomming on figs, for example.
The jaw shape has more to do with minimizing drag in the water when striking than with what the animal eats. False gharials have long, slender snouts traditionally interpreted to mean they're fish-eaters, but they love to eat monkeys. If you look at some of the more terrestrial crocodylians (Boverisuchus, mekosuchines, modern dwarf caimans), they have deeper snouts than their relatives which mostly eat in the water.
In contrast to everyone else's advice, here's some (from an actual paleontologist) to make something truer to an actual Spinosaurus in case that's something you're interested in. Either way, have fun.
Spinosaurus was probably a swimming ambush predator that preyed on giant fish. Skill Focus (Swim), Stealthy, and Improved Initiative (so it gets the jump on things).
A couple specimens reported last year show it had ridiculously short back legs and was front-heavy. There was some skepticism at first, but the study seems to be legit and most people accept it now. Any feat making it better at moving out of water (Run, Improved Overrun, etc...) wouldn't really make sense.
It's jaws would not be heavy damage dealers (relatively); they're too gracile. So not Improved Natural Attack (bite). It probably caught its prey with its mouth, though, so Weapon Focus (bite).
It had big fish hook claws, however. So Improved Natural Attack (claws) and Improved Grapple (using it with the claws, not the teeth...they seem less modified for holding on to a slippery fish than you see in many piscivorous animals).
And seeing as it's a gracile critter overall, Agile Maneuvers, Weapon Finesse, Lightning Reflexes.
EDIT: And for the ability score increases, Dex, Int, Wis, and Cha make sense to me (the sail was probably for display). Con could work too, though, since that's the stat used for telling how long a critter can hold its breath.
The duration for Ray of Enfeeblement is 1 round/level. Does that mean that the caster has a ray shooting out of their hand for n rounds which they can aim at whomever they like? Or that the ray happens once and the person hit continues to make saves to avoid any higher damage rolls for n rounds?
fire hazard in the greenhouse. Everyone will [potentially] be taking damage from fire and smoke, but no mention is made of damage from high heat. Shouldn't the PCs have to make saves vs. heat at some point?
And at what level? The greenhouse would already be 80-85 degrees before the fires even start. If the conditions would be very hot (90-110, which seems likely), that would mean everyone makes a Fort save or takes a small amount of nonlethal damage. If the conditions are severe heat (110-140), the effect would be the same since the battle won't last longer than 10 minutes. But if the conditions are extreme heat (140+), they would automatically take a small amount of damage once, plus the same effect from lower levels.
The CRB specifically mentions fire under extreme heat, so I'm thinking of considering squares on fire and squares adjacent to them to be extreme heat and everywhere else very hot to severe heat. And once a certain number of squares have caught on fire or fires have been raging a certain number of rounds (whichever happens first, number of rounds/squares TBD), considering everywhere in the greenhouse to be very hot to severe heat.
Has anyone heard a Paizo employee weigh in on this yet? It seems like the answer I get depends entirely on who I ask and I'm not finding an errata on it.
I've found a couple general gaming forums discussing this, but nothing Pathfinder or PFS specific and nothing definitive-
How would a Bag of Tricks work in PFS? The description says:
Quote:
The animal serves the character who drew it from the bag for 10 minutes (or until slain or ordered back into the bag), at which point it disappears. It can follow any of the commands described in the Handle Animal skill.
Would one need to make a DC 10 HA check for it to follow a command (excluding instances where one may have Speak With Animals active)? Or does it automatically obey the way a summoned creature does if one can communicate with it and tells it to do something other than attack? The description is rather vague. It doesn't explicitly indicate that a check is needed, just that those actions are what it's capable of doing.
I have several questions about Eidolon design. If one wants to design a creature built like a pterosaur, bat, bird,or wyvern, do they have that option? Here are the issues I'm running into.
1)Wings
Do wings need to be treated as additional limbs that sprout, or can they be already-present limbs that evolve into wings? The rules aren't clear on this- "An eidolon grows large wings, like those of a bat, bird, insect, or dragon, gaining the ability to fly."
2)Dropping free limbs?
If the answer to the above is "they must be a new pair of limbs", can one just drop a pair of free limbs? There would be no advantage to doing so other than cosmetic. Mechanics-wise, it would actually be a disadvantage because you lose possible avenues of attack.
3)Quadruped or biped?
Birds are obviously bipeds. Bats and pterosaurs are both quadrupeds when walking on the ground. But one could conceivably design a wyvern or other fantastical creature to walk on fours and run on two.
Hi Dan! I'm Bob's wife. I'm not the boss of him, so there was no letting involved. ;) It sounded like he really enjoyed it!
And you being dragged out of the room was highly entertaining.
Thanks for an awesome Gamicon, everyone! It was my first and definitely worth a repeat. I think I may have roped two more people into joining. I used my nat 20 for random schwag to give them the core book after one of them mentioned they were thinking about playing. As soon as we hear back, Bob's going to run a scenario for us.
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