Cenorin's page

I anticipate my Kingmaker players using the spell divination quite a bit. Since the spell is supposed to provide "a useful piece of advice", possibly in "the form of a cryptic rhyme", I've written up several poetic answers that might be useful in most Kingmaker campaigns.

I also ran an early Rushlight Tournament, in my case after book 2 (and will probably run at least one more before book 5). Some things that I used it to establish were:

- Pitax as a possible threat. Borrowing an idea from elsewhere on these forums, I made the Rushlight Tournament a rotating event like the Olympics. This one was hosted by Mivon. Through Knowledge rolls (a mix of geography, history, local, and nobility), my PCs realized that it was unusual for Mivon to invite such a small kingdom to the event. Since Mivon is related to the Aldori (their sponsors) and has a history of war with Pitax, they concluded that Mivon was evaluating their kingdom as a potential ally if war with Pitax resumes. (Of course, Mivon won't be able to help them - by book 5, Mivon's forces will be occupied by events in Brevoy).

- Pitax's great strength with impressive showings from NPCs like Villamor Koth.

- Friendly Varnhold NPCs like Maegar Varn and the possibility of trade once the Varnhold Pass is finished, as a further incentive to investigate the VV in book 3.

- Ongoing tensions between Varnhold and the Nomen.

- The strained relationship between Baron Drelev and his wife (I decided that her brother Imeckus and Quintessa Moray weren't around yet). I made her kind of overbearing, demanding, and short-tempered, with him being generally depressing and morose.

- Terrion Numesti and his daughters as friendly NPCs from Fort Drelev.

Name: Forsythia "Thia" Black
Title: Magister
Race: Half-Elf
Class: Witch 7
Adventure: Between RRR and TVV
Location: Near the Temple of the Elk
Catalyst: Lucky shot with x4 crit multiplier

Cenorin wrote:

In the original version of The Varnhold Vanishing (I bought the books before the 10 year anniversary), Vordakai's stat block doesn't mention the Fear Aura from the lich template. However, the description of his Atrophied condition doesn't say anything about him losing the Fear Aura either. Has there been any errata issued on this?

hello cenorin! i've not seen any errata published by paizo on this; the only thing that can explain the absence of this ability is the quote in his "special abilities" part: "the exact effects from atrophy vary from lich to lich". IMHO, it's the only way his fear aura could have disappeared.

That would make sense, but I'd hope that the text would say something about that (like it does for the other differences from the standard lich template).

I'll probably give him the Fear Aura when I run the encounter. (That said, none of my PCs uses bludgeoning weapons, so I might leave it out if it looks like things will be hard enough for them.)

In the original version of Kingmaker, Vordakai is supposed to deal damage by channeling negative energy, which Necromancer Wizards can't actually do. Here's my attempt to rebuild him so that he can damage with channeling while keeping as much as possible the same.

I've made him a Hex Channeler Witch with the Death patron. This gives him a different spell list and fewer spell slots (since he's not a specialist wizard anymore). His new prepared spells are:
Witch Spells Prepared (CL 9th; concentration +14):
5th - Dominate Person, Waves of Fatigue
4th - Dimension Door (2), Phantasmal Killer
3rd - Dispel Magic, Fly, Suggestion, Tongues
2nd - Blindness/Deafness, Detect Thoughts (2), False Life, Ironskin
1st - Charm Person, Chill Touch, Comprehend Languages, Mage Armor, Ray of Enfeeblement (2)
0th - Arcane Mark, Detect Magic, Read Magic, Touch of Fatigue

Here's a summary of the changes:
* Quickened Shield (a 5th-level spell) becomes Ironskin (a 2nd-level spell). He can't Quicken it, but with his Perception bonus he'll probably know when the PCs are getting close.
* Grease (1st-level) becomes Ice Slick (2nd-level).
* Displacement (3rd-level) becomes Fly (3rd-level). Hardly equivalent, but it gives him a way to stay out of melee range.
* Drop one Detect Thoughts (2nd-level), Ghoul Touch (2nd-level), Vampiric Touch (3rd-level), and Bestow Curse (4th-level). His paralyzing touch is good enough without augmenting it with a spell.

I think this is pretty close to what the author intended when creating Vordakai. Personally, I'd this version is a bit less powerful, but not by a lot.

What do you guys think? How does this version compare to the original?

In the original version of The Varnhold Vanishing (I bought the books before the 10 year anniversary), Vordakai's stat block doesn't mention the Fear Aura from the lich template. However, the description of his Atrophied condition doesn't say anything about him losing the Fear Aura either. Has there been any errata issued on this?

My group is just starting book 3, but Count Ranalc is how I currently plan to continue the story if the Nyrissa defeats the PCs. Here's the outline:

After Nyrissa defeats the PCs, she discards their bodies on the Material Plane. She finishes her ritual and traps the Stolen Lands in the bottle. She merges with Briar and trades the bottle to one of the Eldest, giving her a massive power boost. She then sets off on her next goal - freeing Count Ranalc from Nex, who's got him imprisoned inside the Refuge of Nex.

Sometime later, the PCs are resurrected by their kingdom with the help of powerful NPCs like Evindra. Now the PCs have to escape the bottle and defeat Nyrissa before she frees her lost love.

Fun Fact: Teleportation circle lasts 10 mins/lvl, or at least 1,700 rounds. Your PCs can arguably send a decent-sized army through one. You know, if they suddenly have a need to, say, defend a city thousands of miles away against a massive invasion of evil fey...

The divination spell reads in part:

Similar to augury but more powerful, a divination spell can provide you with a useful piece of advice in reply to a question concerning a specific goal, event, or activity that is to occur within 1 week.

What counts as specific enough to be a valid subject? The immediate motivation for this comes from a Kingmaker campaign. My players came up with the idea of casting divination once a week to ask "Will anything attack our kingdom this week?" They make the case that "keeping the citizens of our kingdom safe" is a specific goal.

I don't think that's specific enough, but I'm trying to figure out what would be. For example, what do you think about these as divination questions?

1. Will anything attack the village of Willowford this week?
2. Will an organized fighting force attack the village of Willowford this week?
3. Will the kingdom of Varnock attack the village of Willowford this week?
4. Azzarokor said that he would be back for revenge. Will he attempt to take his revenge on me this week?
5. Azzarokor said that he would ruin the harvest festival this week. How can I stop him?
6. Azzarokor said that he would ruin the harvest festival this week. Will he attack by air?

I would say that 4 and 6 are valid, but I'd like to hear other takes. 5 is a little weird because "How can I stop him?" is so open-ended, but I would probably give a hint like "he likes to use mind control spells - ward yourself against those". I'm not sure about 2 and 3.

One limitation I've imposed is that obscure or protected knowledge might be beyond divination's power. For example, "Where is the legendary artifact called 'The Eye of Ragnarok' hidden?" would yield the equivalent of "I don't know". I've seen this limitation in published adventures, and my players seem fine with it.

This is excellent material, Rhys! I decided to use a version of it in my own Kingmaker game, with a few changes:

* I added passages to emphasize the Black Sisters more, since they're a major part in the backstory of one of my PCs. I also created an unholy symbol for their sect by mixing Gorum's and Gyronna's symbols (i.e., a sword stuck in a bloodshot cat's eye rather than a mountain).
* I wanted Armag to sound a bit more like a pillaging barbarian than a conqueror.
* I removed the references to Gozreh, who isn't relevant to my campaign.

Here's the result:

My plan is to reveal the text piecemeal throughout the campaign. The PCs have found passage #10 already, inscribed on the walls of the Stag Lord's Fort from when it was a Gyronnan monastery. They'll find #7 and #9 when they defeat the Gyronnan cult from RRR, and #1 and #2 on the walls of the Candlemere Tower. The full prophecy will be revealed sometime in BfB (I haven't decided exactly when).

My party takes a trip to Restov when they want to access higher priced items...

That's what my group has been doing so far, but according to VV, Restov itself has a base value of 12,800gp and follows the same model of magic item generation. It seems like the author's intent is that the PC's capital is a better place to find magic items by the end of the campaign.

Improving magic items in Restov is also a bit complicated, since the PCs would need to either stick around or leave their equipment there to be modified.

My Kingmaker group is nearing the end of RRR, and I'm wondering about magic item availability going forward. Normally I don't restrict magic item access much if there's a large city around and we aren't using ABP, since game balance depends on the players regularly upgrading their gear. However, Kingmaker makes this a bigger question by explicitly capping a city's base value at 16,000gp in the Kingdom Building rules.

Clearly, those rules say that a minor cloak of displacement (cost 24,000gp) will only be available if it's rolled randomly in magic item generation. However, what does this means for enhancing existing magic items? Can a player have his +2 longsword (cost 8,315gp) upgraded to a +3 longsword (cost 18,315gp) by a local vendor?

It seems crazy to say that someone in town can create a +3 longsword by random chance, but can't improve an existing sword in the same way. On the other hand, the starting items for the Big Six are all under 16,000gp, so if they can always be improved, the magic item availability restrictions don't seem to mean much.

None of my 6 PCs (currently lvl 6) have taken any item creation feats yet, nor do they seem to have any intention of doing so.

What have you done in your Kingmaker games? How has it worked out?

Realistically, the PC can't simply go with the elves to Kyonin, because the central campaign is Kingmaker and the PC holds a leadership role. She might visit Kyonin (I actually really like this idea), but I doubt she could spend enough time there to satisfy her elven kin while still fulfilling her government responsibilities.

I'm prepared for the possibility that she'll be willing to give up the sword, but I doubt it. In her backstory, she inherited the sword from her brother after he was slain defending her. Her primary goal is to restore him to life, and the sword is pretty much the only thing she has to remember him.

One of my PCs is a half-elf whose elven mother ran away from Kyonin to elope with her human father. When her mother left, she took a sword with her, which the PC inherited. I have a plotline in mind where her elven relatives appear to demand that the sword be returned, because it's a family relic and they don't see her as a legitimate part of the family. The player doesn't actually use the sword in combat (she's a witch), but I assume she won't want to return it.

My plan is for them to offer some kind of trial to prove herself worthy to keep the sword. I could homebrew something, but I'm wondering if there's any precedent for tests like this in Golarion. Something that half-elves can do to prove their dedication to their elven heritage, or maybe something that outsiders can do to gain entrance to areas normally restricted to elves.

The party also includes a couple of full elves (one from Kyonin), a human, a dwarf, and a tiefling. I'd want something that would allow them to accompany her.

I have a player interested in playing a CN rogue with a penchance for artwork trained by a guild of assassins. The Red Mantis seem too evil and don't work with his backstory for other reasons, but the Guild of Wonders sounds potentially promising. Is there any information about them beyond what's available in the Guide to Absalom?

I'm also open to other suggestions for assassin's guilds or other groups that he might have trained with.

RRR mentions that "particularly adventurous PCs" might try to recruit unusual NPCs like Chief Sootscale and Melianse the nixie as leaders for their kingdom. My group is about to start RRR, and I suspect that this will come up - they're already talking about recruiting Perlivash and Tyg-Titter-Tut. The phrase "particularly adventurous" suggests that this should come with special risks, but it doesn't seem to give any guidance on what those risks might be, so I'm looking for suggestions and feedback. This is particularly important because they're also considering having an NPC Ruler.

I'd prefer to avoid just treating their ability scores as lower than they are, since that doesn't seem "particularly adventurous". I'm thinking that I'll customize whatever I do to sit the NPCs and the role, but some basic ideas are:

* Recruiting the NPCs in the first place may be difficult - treat their initial attitude as Unfriendly or Hostile for this purpose. Playful fey don't like the idea of paperwork.

* Small chance of generating Unrest each turn, as the humans are uncomfortable with their leaders.

* Some, like Perlivash and Tyg-Titter-Tut, may shirk their duties. Each turn they have, say, a 5-10% chance of leaving their office vacant.

* NPCs with dumped stats (not in their primary ability scores) may create problems. For instance, so far they have spared Auchs - if they give him a leadership role, they may find that he endangers the fragile peace they've established with the Sootscale Tribe.

Other thoughts or suggestions?

I'm starting a new campaign and I have a player who wants a mouse familiar. Since I haven't found rules for such, I was thinking of using the squirrel as a starting point. My main concern is that it will be too powerful for scouting, for two reasons:

1. It seems like a mouse should be Fine size rather than the squirrel's Diminutive.
2. As another thread pointed out, even if a mouse is spotted sneaking around, the enemy isn't likely to think much of it, whereas many other familiars would draw more attention.

Any thoughts?

Also, are there any methods available that would let an observer distinguish a familiar from just another animal?

109) In this setting, the PCs make their money mostly through trade rather finding it in dungeons or being paid for their services. A dragon's hoard contains not money but rare art and spices that need to be sold at market. They'd never want to sell the ship except to buy a better one because they'd be cutting themselves off from making any additional money in the future.

I've been trying to find more information about the prophecies of Aroden, but so far I've come up short. I know that prophecy has been unreliable on Golarion since he disappeared, but I'm wondering how detailed the prophecies were before then. For example, would someone familiar with his prophecies have known that Cheliax would split away from Taldor ahead of time, or would it have been fairly vague and the meaning would only have become clear in retrospect? Given that the Harbingers have apparently been trying to make various prophecies come true, it seems like his followers have a pretty clear idea of when certain things were supposed to happen.

I'm also curious exactly how the prophecies have failed since he died. For example, suppose that a prophecy indicates that a great darkness will fall across the land, bringing war and death in its wake, until a hero with a magic spear leads an army to victory against it. Would we expect nothing to happen, or would we expect something to happen but with an uncertain outcome? For example, would everyone be scared because some big darkness is supposedly coming and without Aroden there's no guarantee that the hero will emerge?

104) There isn't much that they'd want to spend the money on. Most magic items aren't generally available for purchase in this world, and most other things that they could spend the money on (e.g., opening an inn) are generally going to be equivalent to saying "I'm tired of this campaign".

105) There aren't spells out abilities for things like long-distance flight or teleportation that could meaningfully replace a ship. This doesn't necessarily have to mean banning those things outright, i.e., "You think being on a ship in a storm is bad? Try just going straight through one with Overland Flight!".

101) For some reason, ships are much less expensive in this setting, so selling the ship wouldn't provide much money. For example, magical tools exist that greatly simplify ship construction and repair. Or some recent event has caused a crash in the sailing market (e.g., large sea monsters have suddenly started appearing and no one knows why), leaving a glut of inexpensive boats waiting to be sold.

99) The ship has unique properties or components that are vital to the PCs' mission, so they can't reasonably do without it or replace it. For example, it has an experimental warp drive or is magically protected against powerful storms.

100) The PCs don't know where they're going - the ship does, because it's alive or otherwise tied to their destination. They have no way to communicate with it and extract that information.

Other metamagic feats you might consider (depending on whether you expect to do more buffing or debuffing) are:

Bouncing Spell - The first target making the save redirects the spell to another target of your choice.
Persistent Spell - Force target to save twice.
Reach Spell - Many transmutation spells require touching, and it's not always easy or desirable to be that close.
Vast Spell - Don't you just hate it when you have to choose which targets to affect with Haste because some are more than 30 ft. apart? Well, what if I told you they could be 60 ft. apart for the low, low cost of one additional spell level?

Interposing Hand reads as follows:

Description

Interposing hand creates a Large magic hand that appears between you and one opponent. This floating, disembodied hand then moves to remain between the two of you, regardless of where you move or how the opponent tries to get around it, providing cover (+4 AC) for you against that opponent. Nothing can fool the hand–it sticks with the selected opponent in spite of darkness, invisibility, polymorphing, or any other attempt at hiding or disguise. The hand does not pursue an opponent, however.

An interposing hand is 10 feet long and about that wide with its fingers outstretched. It has as many hit points as you do when you’re undamaged, and is AC 20 (-1 size, +11 natural). It takes damage as a normal creature, but most magical effects that don’t cause damage do not affect it.

The hand never provokes attacks of opportunity from opponents. It cannot push through a wall of force or enter an antimagic field, but it suffers the full effect of a prismatic wall or prismatic sphere. The hand makes saving throws as its caster.

Disintegrate or a successful dispel magic destroys it.

Any creature weighing 2,000 pounds or less that tries to push past the hand is slowed to half its normal speed. The hand cannot reduce the speed of a creature weighing more than 2,000 pounds, but it still affects the creature’s attacks.

Directing the spell to a new target is a move action.

Both Forceful Hand and Grasping Hand say that they behave like Interposing Hand, except that they can attack the opponent in certain ways. The question is, how far can they move to do that? Clenched Fist specifically says that it can move up to 60 ft. per round and still attack, but the other spells don't mention a speed limit, and in fact Forceful Hand specifically says:

The forceful hand gets one bull rush attack per round. This attack does not provoke an attack of opportunity. Its Combat Maneuver Bonus for bull rush checks uses your caster level in place of its base attack bonus, with a +8 bonus for its Strength score (27), and a +1 bonus for being Large. The hand always moves with the opponent to push them back as far as possible. It has no movement limit for this purpose. (emphasis added) Directing the spell to a new target is a move action.

So it sounds like an opponent can outrun a Clenched Fist, but not a Forceful Hand. What would you say about outrunning an Interposing or Grasping Hand?

I have yet to see another caster take Reach Spell, but it's been a godsend (Sarenrae, in this case) on my oracle. Usually, I use it to turn touch spells into short-range spells, either so I can save someone's life with a Heal or Breath of Life from across the room or so I can use a debuff like Bestow Curse without having to get into melee.

I like the basics of SheepishEidolon's idea. Here's a variation you might consider:

The transformation ritual isn't instantaneous - it's constantly going throughout the fight. The boss has two HP values - one for the party's friend, and one for the dark power growing inside him as a result of the ritual. Most normal methods of dealing damage hurt their friend, but they can use Diplomacy (or the social combat rules) to damage the dark entity. Give the dark entity some visual representation, so they can see that they're damaging it.

Every round, the dark entity gains a certain number of HP - if it crosses a particular threshold, the transformation is completed and killing him becomes the only solution.

If you want to give the damage dealers a bit more of a role, you could also have normal methods of dealing damage apply to both the friend and the dark entity (or the dark entity takes half of what he takes, etc.). Or maybe the boss has some kind of evil spirits swirling around him for them to fight - they could be minions, or maybe the ritual involves a bunch of spirits entering his body, and killing them before they merge with him prevents the darkness from gaining HP.

What happens if an object that is the target of a Daylight spell is destroyed? Does the spell dissipate, or do the pieces of the object continue to shine?

The phantom should be okay, as it is harbored in the Spiritualist's consciousness until it is manifested.

Upon further research, I think the phantom could only manifest in incorporeal form in this situation; it can't take on ectoplasmic form because without the Ethereal Plane there's no source of ectoplasm to draw on. Whether it can sustain an ectoplasmic form created outside the mirror once inside, I'm not sure, though personally I'd allow it.

As I've read it, the phantom could not manifest at all. It comes from the Ethereal Plane, it would also be prohibited from entering.

My thinking was that when fully manifested, it's no longer on the Ethereal Plane and could enter the mirror as normal, but couldn't be brought back if reduced to 0 HP. You could even make the case that reducing it to 0 HP would utterly destroy it, since it can't return to the Ethereal Plane, but in the absence of a specific ruling that seems like a real dick move.

Do people agree that basically the same rules apply to spiritualists, since their phantoms come from the Ethereal Plane? Or is it even worse in their case and the phantom can't manifest at all?

I think the fact that the Pathfinder Society was apparently founded in both the Pig's Paunch tavern and the Wounded Wisp tavern suggests that if Paizo does have such a book, it's not really doing the job. That said, they have claimed that they do have written material in-house containing answers to questions like "What really happened to Aroden?" so that, if they change their minds and decide to publish material that hints at the answer, all of that material will be internally consistent. So ... maybe?

"Erinyes" is another interesting creature with a name that I find impossible to pronounce. Yes, it's from Greek myth, but since a lot of translations outside of D&D/Pathfinder call them "furies", they could have easily used that instead.

How about a Dual-Cursed Oracle with the Clouded Vision and Deaf curses?

The Martyr Paladin archetype is pretty weak in my opinion, giving up some very powerful abilities for a weaker version of bardic performance.

I like devas, but it's terribly confusing having both "monadic devas" and "movanic devas".

Depending on how much time you expect to have for buffing, the Vine Strike spell is quite nice, given you an extra 1d6 damage and a chance to entangle the target, making them easier to hit in the future for you and your allies.

By the way, is 15 the starting level for the character, or what you expect him to reach eventually? Depending on the build the character might have some pretty crappy levels to get through on the way there.

There are a couple I really like that I don't think have been mentioned yet.

One is Tsukiyo, because I love the idea of a Lawful Good god of the moon who grants the Darkness and Madness domains (among others). I haven't seen them play up the madness angle much at all, which I'd kind of like to see; maybe some remnant from when he died. I have a half-formed idea that I really like for a character who got lost in underground caves, went insane from loneliness and sensory deprivation, and then pledged herself to his service when she finally escaped (crediting him with helping her survive in the dark).

The other one is Bolka, the dwarven goddess of marriage, because I feel like she offers an interesting counterpoint to the stereotypes of dwarves. We usually see dwarves as fearless raging warriors, so the idea of a nervous dwarf offering a prayer to Bolka before shyly approaching a girl and asking her out is something I find wonderfully compelling. I also like the fact that she's described as beautiful, an adjective not typically applied to dwarves.

You can argue that the various "specialized" Fighter archetypes like Two-Handed Fighter, Phalanx Soldier, and such do a better job of reflecting the character concepts that most people have when making Fighters - it's much more common for someone to be thinking "I want to be the ultimate greatsword user" or "I want to be the ultimate pikeman" than "I want to be really good at wielding a wide variety of weapons", in which case you don't need the Weapon Training in five different weapon groups offered by the base class.

In one tier 1-2 PFS game I was playing my Bard 2. She has enough points in the traditional rogue skills to do a bit of sneaking, but since we also had a Rogue 1 I figured I should stand aside and let him take the lead on that stuff. You can imagine my surprise when he turned out to have no skill points invested in Stealth, Sleight of Hand, or Disable Device.

A Paladin with Oath of the People's Council from the Divine Anthology - I've been trying to make Liberty's Edge Paladin for a while and playing a support role would be great because I already have a bunch of front-liners I never get to play (it seems like every time I sit down at a low-level table I find a Fighter, a Barbarian, and a Monk already there).

58. While on the Astral Plane, have the silver cord that connects you to your body severed.

The main downside of being a channel-focused cleric is that you're spending points in Cha that could be spent elsewhere; the same goes for feats. You need at least 13 Cha to take the Selective Channel feat, which anyone expecting to channel regularly should probably take.

Some deities offer feats that can significantly improve the usefulness of channeling, usually by adding a buff or debuff effect. By far the best one I've seen for positive energy clerics is Milani's Beacon of Hope, but I also like Iomedae's Protective Channel, Pharasma's Fateful Channel, and Torag's Steelskin Channel.

...But in the Pathfinder world, what is impossible? I feel like there is no way to achieve that feeling of finding the thing that should not be because there are no things that should not be.

I'm about to suggest some things that could have a significant impact on your game world, so you might want to think hard before implementing them...

The detect magic can provide something of an opportunity here. When I played the first part of Iron Gods, we went with the idea that our characters didn't understand why several pieces of technology we encountered didn't register as magical. After all, the overhead lights clearly had to be some variation on the continual flame spell, right? You could do something similar, either not having things register as magical at all, or show up as magic that doesn't match any of the known schools (i.e., it's some kind of weird combination or otherwise doesn't fit well into the normal classifications that wizards use).

If you don't want to use technology, you could borrow an idea from the Forgotten Realms setting of Faerun. Magic in Faerun is generally based on a sort of energy field called the Weave, but my understanding is that it wasn't always that way - the Weave was created in the distant past to replace an earlier system of magic. Very old artifacts in Faerun could have been created by a kind of magic that is literally no longer possible. I believe detect magic works equally well in Faerun regardless of the kind of magic (now, anyway - the history of Faerun is weird), but there's no reason that has to be the case in your adaptation - whatever form of "alt-magic" you would use could be completely undetectable by detect magic, or appear as something very strange and unexpected.

Of course, if you introduce such a thing, be aware that your players may want to learn to wield alt-magic, so you'll need a reason why that isn't possible. That's one of the concerns I was alluding to at the beginning.

It might help to know a little more about the specific feeling that you're trying to create in your players. Are you hoping that the weird things will scare them ("I'm never heard of a monster like that before, what the hell is that thing?"), enthrall them ("whoa, that tree made of crystal you just described sounds awesome - I wish I could see it for real"), or something else?

Regarding the problem of player familiarity with monsters, I haven't had much occasion to try it myself, but I've heard from other GMs that they've had a lot of success re-skinning existing monsters. For example, one GM used the statistics for a gorgon, but presented it as a red-furred yeti thing.

44. Leave a timeless plane and suffer the retroactive effects of a lot of time passing at once (e.g., instantly aging into dust, suddenly dying of starvation because you skipped a year's worth of meals, etc.).

45. Use create pit to drop someone into a hole, then cover the top of the pit with stone shape. When the create pit spell ends, the floor rises back up and the victim is crushed against the new ceiling.

Imprisonment might be worth an honorable mention - it doesn't kill you, but it can certainly cause you to lose a character if you don't have a way to reverse it.