I was making up a character for Rise of the Runelords and I saw a bit about House Indros being descended from one of the founders of Magnimar and being minor enough it'd even make sense for one of them to go off to become an adventurer for cash and prestige.
Looking at what I could find on the founder of the house, though, it seems he was an Arodenite who converted to the Empyreal Lords, seemingly as a whole, which I was fairly sure you couldn't actually do, and got me onto the subject.
Since having Aroden as a former patron would probably mean that even a Paladin wouldn't have had the temperament that Ragathiel wants, for example, especially if they rejected Iomedae.
It's become argued elsewhere that they are or should count as ammunition, specifically magical ammunition, and I was curious whether there was any basis for making that argument beyond that individual's sense of how the game should be.
So any relevant rules or FAQs or errata I might have missed somewhere or another that might possibly address this sort of thing?
If there is anything, would any of it apply to the spell Silver Darts as well, since it's a cone effect of things that count as silver weapons?
So I've got about 60 days of downtime during a timeskip and about 55K that can be invested into the process.
So far I'm aware of Animated Objects, Soulbound Mannequins, Waxwork Creatures, and Trompe L'oeil as potential options, and I'm sure that there's some form of golem that I've got a high enough level/CL to make.
Not really sure what to go with specifically, though, as even when it comes to Waxwork Creatures, I'm not sure what to use as the base creature.
I think I mostly want something that can act as a bodyguard and still hit often enough and hard enough to be relevant. So definitely no larger than Large size, probably actually showing preference towards Medium-sized options.
Table issues from having too many minions on the field at once have already been addressed, so nothing to worry about there.
If not, is there a reason why this has never occurred to anyone?
Aside from people wanting to kill them on sight, the difficulties of deprogramming goblins of their barbaric and insane culture or raising them by hand depending upon their age, and the logistical difficulties of their metabolisms, what barriers would there be in terms of their nature rather than their categorically evil nurture?
Trample states: Trample (Ex) As a full-round action, a creature with the trample ability can attempt to overrun any creature that is at least one size category smaller than itself. This works just like the overrun combat maneuver, but the trampling creature does not need to make a check, it merely has to move over opponents in its path. Targets of a trample take an amount of damage equal to the trampling creature's slam damage + 1-1/2 times its Str modifier. Targets of a trample can make an attack of opportunity, but at a –4 penalty. If targets forgo an attack of opportunity, they can attempt to avoid the trampling creature and receive a Reflex save to take half damage. The save DC against a creature's trample attack is 10 + 1/2 creature's HD + creature's Str modifier (the exact DC is given in the creature's descriptive text). A trampling creature can only deal trampling damage to each target once per round, no matter how many times its movement takes it over a target creature.
Overrun states: As a standard action, taken during your move or as part of a charge, you can attempt to overrun your target, moving through its square. You can only overrun an opponent who is no more than one size category larger than you. If you do not have the Improved Overrun feat, or a similar ability, initiating an overrun provokes an attack of opportunity from the target of your maneuver. If your overrun attempt fails, you stop in the space directly in front of the opponent, or the nearest open space in front of the creature if there are other creatures occupying that space.
When you attempt to overrun a target, it can choose to avoid you, allowing you to pass through its square without requiring an attack. If your target does not avoid you, make a combat maneuver check as normal. If your maneuver is successful, you move through the target's space. If your attack exceeds your opponent's CMD by 5 or more, you move through the target's space and the target is knocked prone. If the target has more than two legs, add +2 to the DC of the combat maneuver attack roll for each additional leg it has.
Currently what's under contention is whether a creature can simply chose to avoid another creature's Trample or a Stampede of several creatures due to inheriting rules text from Overrun, making the ability to make a reflex save for half damage redundant and pointless.
So I was doing some research for Rise of the Runelords and was reading about the Varisian ethnicity and found that, surprisingly, one of their commonly worshiped deities was Abadar, of all gods.
So I thought to myself that maybe this was a reflection of how they're the ethnic majority in Ustalav after driving out the Orcs and dominating/driving out the Kellids, but when I went to check the religions of Ustalav, there wasn't a peep about Abadar there.
Which leads me here.
What Varisians worship Abadar? Why do these groups worship him?
Where are they located? Are there some groups of settled Varisians around Magnimar and Korvosa that I'm not aware of that aren't Sczarni crime families? Are Varisian wanderers really given to worship the God of Civilization, when they aren't a part of it, merely existing on the fringes of it and trying to exploit it?
How do they worship him? Is there some kind of belief they have where they break or even go on full-on heretical in comparison with mainstream Abadarites?
Everything so far that I've read about Varisian culture and Abadar suggests that they do not mix well. So what, if anything, am I missing here?
"The creature is also treated as one level lower for the purpose of level-dependent variables (such as spellcasting) for each negative level possessed."
What does this mean?
So far I see two interpretations.
1. They count as a creature of X fewer HD/level for ALL effects, regardless of whether they are the source of the effect or the target of it or included in its AoE. Things like being targeted by Sleep or Blasphemy or Lesser Geas as well as their CL and spell durations.
2. They count as a creature of X fewer HD/level for determining the efficacy of effects that they generate, and only the effects that they generate. Things like their Caster Level, the Save DC for effects that scale off of HD like 10 + HD/2 + Ability Modifier.
Let's bring up some specific examples.
Example 1:
Let's say that there is a Level 9 Human Fighter. He dies. He is brought back to life with 2 permanent negative levels. Does Lesser Geas now work on him?
Example 2:
There is a level 6 Dwarf Cleric. She's hit by Enervation and gets 4 temporary negative levels. Would the Sleep Spell now be able to affect her?
Example 3:
There is a Bison. It acquires 2 negative levels. Is the DC of its Trample reduced from 20 to 19?
So I know there are a number of old noble families in West Crown something like 12 main houses with 2 or 3 cadet branches (or is there some other thing at play here with the subservient houses?).
I'm having trouble, however, figuring exactly how the nobility fit with the society and government of Cheliax. I want to play a scion of a noble house, but I feel I need to understand it better to fit the character in, let alone roleplay it.
Spoiler:
I don't really want to give the GM a huge hassle or risking him leaking spoilers, so I want to understand them as much as possible before I run the loose backstory by him, and to feel like I can even make one I have to feel like I somewhat understand what's going on here. I have checked with him and simply being from one of the houses is kosher, though I've yet to fully discuss whether I'll be able to handwave living expenses as part of that privilege or not.
I'm sort of in a toss-up between a Bard, a Magus with investment into social skills and spending arcana on things like charm person, an Inquisitor(can't find a deity that seems like it'd fit), or a Rogue of some stripe.
Imagine Ezio from the very beginning of Assassin's Creed 2, and that's pretty similar to the current picture I have of him. The only Inquisitor angle I can think of would necessitate getting an Inquisitor of Asmodeus that is basically more or less putting up this character as a facade OK'd. And if I'm going that far I might as well shoot for being part of Her Infernal Magestrix's Secret Service. That is to say, I find the character rather unlikely to be greenlit.
My initial understanding was that it was basically a unified, pseudo-Renaissance/Early Modern Period Italy under the control of an absolute monarch in a similar vein to the Sun King, but if that's all that was going on, the existence of nobles lingering in Westcrown doesn't make much sense.
As, if they were landed nobility that had just migrated there to be in attendance to the Dynasty that predated House Thrune's ascendancy, with no impetus to stay in the town and no desire to be fashionably in line with the diabolists in power, leaving aside, for a moment, just what they were doing during the civil war, shouldn't they have retreated in large part to their ancestral lands and legal powerbase?
And if they're not landed, what is the basis of their noble station in the first place? Are they all just descendants of wealthy notables who were awarded hereditary styles by the "ancien regime," and the Thrunes never bothered to update the law to withdraw the titles from the toothless holdouts?
Or are the nobles who are still there of much lesser station than I was thinking and "noble" is here taken to mean the patrician class that forms, and becomes largely hereditary, and rules the city whether it be via nepotistic appointments to the majority of public offices or by having the money and clout to afford enough education to ensure that they stay at the head of the local imperial bureaucracy. So the main difference between the nouveau riche merchant princes and the nobles is that the nobles have been on the scene longer and have been the de facto ruling class of the city through one means or another.
Because if that's the case then isn't 12 major houses a bit much? Or are the families that make up each house a lot smaller than I'm thinking? Even to the point where each individual house is actually more like a single nuclear family with its two generations of descendants.
Another idea I've started playing with to try to grok this was to compare more with the model of the Roman Senators. By my understanding, basically wealthy landowners who stayed close to the center of culture and acted as absentee landlords with a hierarchy of flunkies and children that checked up on and maintained their holdings. Since, after poking around here on the boards, it seems that Cheliax is supposed to have much more Latin/Roman flavor than Italian, though I haven't seen any inkling of that from scouring the non-Paizo boards internet or from what I've read of the description of Westcrown in the first book of the adventure path and in the player's guide.
But it still doesn't quite seem to fit with the rest of it, but that might be more because the reasons for the 12 families to stay in Westcrown, even if they were the landlords of most of the city's property, are left hazy either for DM reasons or because they'd spoil something in the adventure path.
And if they're titled nobility but basically control one aspect of trade or business or landlording or another, is there any sort of rough listing connecting the families to the aspects of Westcrown's economy they exert their influence overand derive their principle notability/wealth from?
TL;DR, can someone explain to me either the canon on chelaxian nobility or their take on extrapolating from canon tidbits?
Even just a different model to draw on for understanding, either from real life or fiction would be helpful. "Standard Fantasy" and "Court of Louis XIV" don't seem to be working for me.
