Krinn's page

Tiefling Alchemist and Aasimar Oracle would have been a better fit for new core races and classes in my opinion.

Krinn wrote:

Goblins are a no for me as well. Honestly I can't see a role for a goblin in party other than comic relief, if not disruptive play for the sake of it. Also, goblins always had a charisma penalty, so why remove that penalty and have a bonus instead? Cha bonus with Wis penalty just screams comic relief, when those pests are dangerous as a whole.

Unless I'm playing in a setting that displays them as civilized, playable characters (Eberron comes to mind), that "ancestry" is a core feature that won't belong in my games.
I'd rather have Aasimar, Tiefling and Genasi in core, or perhaps a new race like a construct one.

It's kind of a lack of imagination if you can't see them beyond jokes or disruptions.

There can certainly be light-hearted moments, but there's no reason you couldn't have a Goblin character with a striking character motivation and gripping past that leads into an emotional character arc.

As for why Charisma?

"Charisma measures a character’s personality, personal magnetism, ability to lead, and appearance."

There are multiple aspects to Charisma. While many might not find them visually attractive in the traditional sense or amazing leaders normally, they exude personality, and they can both draw and hold attention quite well with said personality (an aspect of one's personal magnetism).

Or, to put it more simply, it's their character's charm and quirks compensating for their lack of non-traditional beauty.

If you have to pick a mental stat to give to Goblins, Charisma seems like the best fit.

I'm quite content with Goblin as an option (though I wouldn't mind a Svirfneblin as well, Deep Gnomes need love too).

You can substitute goblin for kender in your post and it would fit better.

I'd rather give goblins an Intelligence bonus (I remember their blue subrace of psionically gifted goblins) and a Charisma penalty, but my goblins are not Pathfinder goblins I guess... still, given their description in PF1, I expected a wisdom penalty right from the start, instead PF1 goblins have average wisdom and a penalty to charisma. Their difference from 3.x goblins didn't show in their stats.

Goblins are a no for me as well. Honestly I can't see a role for a goblin in party other than comic relief, if not disruptive play for the sake of it. Also, goblins always had a charisma penalty, so why remove that penalty and have a bonus instead? Cha bonus with Wis penalty just screams comic relief, when those pests are dangerous as a whole.
Unless I'm playing in a setting that displays them as civilized, playable characters (Eberron comes to mind), that "ancestry" is a core feature that won't belong in my games.
I'd rather have Aasimar, Tiefling and Genasi in core, or perhaps a new race like a construct one.

Same here, I think Eberron will be good in PF2.

- Dragonmarks as ancestry feats.
- Warforged might be difficult to translate but not more than in PF1. Also, most warforged feats may also become ancestry feats.
- Artificers might finally be easier to create a niche for, with a focus on the resonance system.
- Action points might enable a character to temporarily increase his proficiency for one action instead of just adding d6's.
- Feats like Greensinger Initiate might easily become class feats.

After a couple thoughts, I updated the crew role with the following edits:
- Entanglement reduces enemy tier by 2 rather than 1, so the bonus is more consistent. Most DCs scale with 1.5 times the tier, so a reduction of just 1 tier would mean -1 or -2 to the DC depending on odd vs even. This way, the bonus is consistently -3 to the DCs that scale with 1.5 * tier. Given that the bonus is higher, I also increased the action DC itself.
- Uncertainty mimics the Engineer's Divert action, but only for weapons. Divert is much more versatile, so it stands to reason that it should have a higher DC than Uncertainty. Regardless, if a Mystic is set to protect her ship rather than aggressively fire upon other ships as a Gunner, it's ok for her to more easily reduce incoming damage, even if the reduction itself is tiny. So, I reduced the Uncertainty DC.
- Minor wording edits so every action should be clear.
- Disclaimer: I use my own set of DCs in this crew role... likely Starfinder DCs would have been 10+tier for Uncertainty, 10+2*tier for Entanglement, 15+2*tier for Exclusion, 10+3*tier for Tunneling, but I despise those formulae since those are not homogeneous and the DCs become impossible to meet. I use my DCs in all other crew actions as well.

Crew Role: Stargazer (suggested for Mystics, Solarians, Technomancers and Priest-themed characters)

You use your mystical understanding of the Cosmos to guide your ship through the worst of space combat.
A ship can only have one Stargazer. A Stargazer operates first during the Engineering phase and is affected by the Life Support system status.

Actions:

Uncertainty
You attempt a Mysticism check with a DC of 5+1.5*tier of your ship. If you succeed, any enemy damage dice rolled against your ship for the round that shows a maximum value is lowered by 1.

Entanglement
You attempt a Mysticism check with a DC of 10+1.5*tier of an enemy ship. If you succeed, your crewmates consider that ship's tier as if it were 2 lower for the round. This effectively lowers many DCs of crew actions against that ship by 3 points.

Exclusion
You attempt a Mysticism check with a DC of 15+1.5*tier of your ship. If you succeed, you protect one of the systems of your ship from accruing further critical conditions. If a critical damage roll would hit that system, reroll the critical roll. The protected system can still be hit if this second roll results in yet another hit.

Tunneling (Push)
If you have 6 ranks in Mysticism, you can expend a Resolve Point and attempt a Mysticism check with a DC of 20+1.5*tier of your ship. If you succeed, your ship can ignore the result of one hit of your choice (after the hit is scored but before the damage is rolled, quantum weapons can try again if they would have hit on the first try) for the round.

Unification (Push)
If you have 12 ranks in Mysticism, you can expend a Resolve Point and choose a crew member. Whenever that crew member makes a crew action for the round, you can roll a Mysticism check. The crew member can use either his roll or your Mysticism check, whichever is higher.

Optional
In a harder Sci-Fy setting, the ship could have an additional System, perhaps a Quantum Einstein-Rosen Drive or other appropriate Sci-Fy sounding name that could allow FTL travel (much like the Drift Engine itself), to affect the Stargazer, and these actions could be based off Physical Science rather than Mysticism.
A proposed critical roll table with the new system could be like this:
1-10: Life Support
11-25: Sensors
26-55: Weapons
56-70: Engines
71-85: Quantum Drive / Drift Engine
86-100: Power Core

I approached the uselessness of Mystics in the ship combat and crafted a new role that any mystical class trained in Mysticism can cover. Technomancers, Mystics and Solarians alike are ideally suited to this role, but Mystics especially so.

Stargazer (Solarian, Technomancer and Mystic only)

You use your mystical understanding of the Cosmos to guide your ship through the worst of space combat.
A ship can only have one Stargazer. A Stargazer operates first during the Engineering phase and is affected by the Life Support system status.

Actions

Quantum Entanglement
You attempt a Mysticism check with a DC of 5+1.5*tier of an enemy ship. If you succeed, your crewmates consider that ship's tier as if it were 1 lower for the round.

Uncertainty Principle
You attempt a Mysticism check with a DC of 10+1.5*tier of your ship. If you succeed, any enemy damage roll against your ship for the round that shows a maximum value is lowered by 1.

Exclusion Principle
You attempt a Mysticism check with a DC of 15+1.5*tier of your ship. If you succeed, you protect one of the systems of your ship from accruing further critical conditions. If a critical damage roll would hit that system, reroll the critical roll.

Quantum Tunneling (Push)
If you have 6 ranks in Mysticism, you can expend a Resolve Point and attempt a Mysticism check with a DC of 20+1.5*tier of your ship. If you succeed, your ship can ignore the result of one hit for the round.

Great Unification (Push)
If you have 12 ranks in Mysticism, you can expend a Resolve Point and choose a crew member. When that crew member makes a crew action for the round, you can roll a Mysticism check. The crew member can use either his roll or your Mysticism check, whichever is higher.

Until tihs is fixed, I'm going with the following fix that I found on reddit with some minor tweaking:

- DC "Base" + "Tier" => DC "Base"-5 + 1.5*"Tier"
- DC "Base" + 2*"Tier" => DC "Base" + 1.5*"Tier"
- DC "Base" + 3*"Tier" => DC "Base"+10 + 1.5*"Tier"

Also, the DC to hack computers is adjusted to 15 + 3*"Computer Tier" (since those vary from 1 to 10)

So, an easy DC of 10+tier becomes 5+1.5*tier, a hard DC of 15+2*tier becomes 15+1.5*tier and a nigh impossible DC of 10+3*tier becomes a difficult 20+1.5*tier. Since both actions that require this high DC also expend a resolve point, lowering it to a still difficult one makes more sense.

By the way, I'm retconning all skill DC's in the game to follow this pattern.

The way I read it, at 18th level you can have a +5 flaming burst longsword, a +1 keen vorpal longsword, or anything in between.

I don't use herolab as well, I actually prefer notepad to develop my npcs, I've become pretty good at making npcs quickly, and on the fly if necessary.
I know at least three people in my gaming groups who would probably need something like herolab to build and manage their pcs, but it's expensive and I prefer to teach them so they can make educated choices themselves.
It worked great so far.

At the same time, I give math reps for a living, and while I concede the use of a calculator for particularly long numbers, I rather teach tricks to do the calculations with one's mind.

I find this reading enlightning.
http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/vl/notes/asimov.html

Hi everyone!
I think the various ways to add dexterity to straight damage (agile weapons, slashing grace, dervish scimitars) put the strength stat to shame, I mean, who would build a STR character when a DEX one has so much more synergy with mobility, AC, reflex, initiative and skills?

So I was thinking to houserule dex-to-damage in this way. Suggestions are appreciated.
If you would get dex to damage, you instead add dex to critical hit damage (not multiplied), and to attacks that would qualify as sneak attacks if you were a rogue. This extra damage is considered precision damage and is not multiplied on a critical hit, but if you get both a sneak attack and a critical hit, you add double your dexterity.

I think this modification lets characters who want to rely on their dexterity to hit vital spots to still do so, while doing less damage than a strong fighter would. The benefits of a high DEX are already wider than the benefits of a high STR, even without DEX to damage.

What do you think about this?

I'm running it with hero points and replaced the mythic part.
Every character gets hero points after they "ascend". They get 3 + half level hero points, regenerating 1/day, 1/level and 1/heroic action. They also get the alternate ascension bonus (+4 to one stat, +2 to other two stats).

They'll get somewhere beyond 20th level as a result, but they'd be able to face Deskari at level 20 anyway, perhaps even sooner.
Deskari, Baphomet and other demigod-level foes will still have mythic abilities, but most normal foes won't. Instead, they get hero points as well!

The game is getting better since we did the replacement, encounters are more interesting and the players like it as much as I do.

I would have used "element-bender" :)

We had session yesterday.

After "The Talk", everyone was at least willing to give hero points a shot (3+half level felt better than 3+tier as it took away all references to mythic tiers). They leveled up their characters to 11 to make up for the 3 tiers they lost and substituted the mythic stat bonuses with the +4/+2/+2 from alternate ascension.

Without mythic rules about legendary items, I can now personalize the four legendary items the party has. As an example, the psychic has a multi-dimensional crystal crafted from a partly exhausted Nahyndrian crystal and augmented with her psychic abilities, so that it exists in multiple dimensions at the same time depending on how she "rotates" it, and it allows her to use rope trick, clairvoyance and teleport.
As a legendary item, it could use those abilities once per day and would become stronger at every tier.
Now, I reworked it as a "staff" of sort (keeping the fluff invaried), it has 10 charges and can expend 2 to use rope trick, 3 to use clairvoyance and 5 to use teleport, it recovers 1 charge per day by itself and can be recharged via psychic spells once per day by an amount equal to the spell level. If she finds more Nahyndrian crystals, she could add to her own crystal powers via downtime, either adding new spells, more charges or upgrading existing spells to greater versions (rope trick => mage's magnificient mansion => create demiplane).
Yeah, the player is a fan of Doctor Who and wanted her own TARDIS, and she loves crystals... she's very excited about this new subquest of finding Nahyndrian crystals now!

Legendary items aside, the party faced enemies from the "futuristic" background of the party android (here, the player loves science-fiction and bought the technology guide on day 1). Without getting too much into the backstory, they are facing an incubus fighter clad in powered armor (posing as the "emperor" of the character's surviving people who are essentially enslaved to craft more technological items for the demons), his entourage of 6 tiefling fighters, an enemy NPC with MIRV rocket launcher (commanding a unit of 8 tiefling shooters and 4 snipers as well) and a friendly NPC both from the android past (the friendly one just rolled a natural 20 to avoid getting dominated into attacking her former lover and instead shot at the emperor himself in an act of defiance as he was struggling against the mental subjugation... when the dice gods are in tune with the story!).

For the first time since mythic went in use, the fight lasted for more than 4 rounds... we ended the session at the beginning of the 5th round, the android and the emperor locked in melee combat with monoblades near his (golden, of course) throne in a futuristic cathedral (the android pierced through its rose window, flying with her friend on jetpack), the paladin of shelyn barely saving from death her halfling ranger friend who fell to snipers and rockets and riding on top of her trusty frost drake to outmaneuver the rocket guy through structures in the military encampent, the other party members moving through the psychic crystal "rope trick" shaped as a window to help the android while the tieflings fire zero, laser and arc rifle shots at them.

For me, it's a cinematic wet dream, which wouldn't have been possible with mythic as it was. The party spent roughly a quarter of their hero points in various phases of the battle (the paladin cheating death for his frost drake which was then healed with a heal mount spell, the arcanist casting a spell he hadn't prepared, the android trying a failed hasty diplomacy and on the subsequent round closing the distance with an extra move action, and more!) and it feels more mythic to us this way than with mythic abilities - the android would just have killed the emperor in one or two rounds with move and mythically buffed full attack on the same round.

At the end of the session, everyone was really happy with the hero points change, the fight they're into is pretty epic and lasts long enough so everyone can shine for his actions, even NPCs who roll natural 20 against dominations :)

We're in book 3 right now, but I reworked some stuff to better fit my players' backgrounds and themes... They might be able to rescue Aroden himself if they defeat Deskari, but I digress.

After they one-rounded a CR 20 mythic annihilator robot (which I conveniently dropped upon them to show how broken mythic is) at level 10+3, I'm going to give my players "the talk" during our next session.

I really hope I'll finally be able to convince them and turn to regenerating hero points instead, else I foresee there being either cakewalk encounters or TPK-threatening encounters with no middle ground, depending on who wins initiative by book 4. I already have to massively adjust encounters, but I woud welcome some sort of uncertainty lasting more than "roll for initiative".

Characters would reach up to level 25-26, roughly gaining one extra level every two tiers but spreading them evenly. After level 20, I'll advise multiclassing, or use the "beyond 20th level" section. At least, PCs are gonig to make good use of their capstones during the full length of book 6!

Meanwhile, they'd get 3+"tier" hero points, regenerating 1/day, 1/level and 1/epic action (GM discretion). Thanks tangent!
Most "mythic" stuff can still be done with the "special" usage of hero points anyway, like ignoring 10 points of enemy fire resistance on a fireball with a concentration check (DC 20 + double spell level), but hero points are much more manageable and I can avoid the 500 damage thing or other mythic silliness.

I just went through my first session GM'ing this AP for 4 PCs.
- Sophia, Aasimar Dawnflower Dervish (Against the Technic League) from Qadira
- Xari, Android Slayer (Robot Slayer) from Torch
- Vicol, Male Human Iron Cleric of Brigh (Local Ties) from Torch
- Undisclosed Name Human Arcanist (Numerian Archaeologist) from Torch

They faced the malfunctional drone and with a very good roll on knowledge (engineering), they determined a way to shut it down by tearing off a wire (they could locate it because the drone didn't have much plating to speak of), so after a successful grapple and pin they could easily disable it and nobody was injured.

They talked with Val, Dolga and Joram, and then entered the caves after a rather difficult swim (only the android could take 10 and succeed, all the others had a low strength score, no swim skill and were sickened, good for them thay had water breathing) they dispatched the fire beetles with ease, climb up to A3 (ignoring A2 for the moment, yay vision blocking software!), recognize poor Parda, notice the half-eaten corpse in A4 and all hell broke loose with the Blindheim!

They were dismayed when I told them to save against blindness EVERY ROUND, complaining that the fight was about to become a TPK and barely surviving with no casualties thanks to Vicol's channel positive energy and some lucky hits from Xari and Sophia. The arcanist (the only one who kept his sight) fled in the wrong direction alerting the skulk watch, who disappeared just after being spotted.

Now the PCs are rightfully fearing for their lives, every last of their spells, spell-like abilities and supernatural abilities exhausted and a long journey ahead to save Khonnir. They're also going to give proper burial in Torch to the dead, both Parda and the unknown thug when they come back to the surface (and I imagine that will be pretty soon).

Yeah, the Blindheim scared the hell out of my players and I fully recognize a cause for TPK there without the support of a cleric AND some good rolls, but I'm definitely having a lot of fun GMing this!

I would ditch the mythic rules completely and instead use hero points, increasing the maximum hero points pool by the would-be mythic tier and letting players recover 1 hero point per day once they become mythic.

Disguise it as a necklace of adaptation... not having to breathe is a nice boon especially if you used stinking cloud or poisonous vapors a lot. I know I would keep the item just in case, especially if I don't need a necklace of natural armor.

On an unrelated note, I'm approaching the end of book 2 and I'm about to make some houserules regarding mythic so far.

- Mythic points are 3+tier instead of 3+double tier.
- Characters recover 1d4 mythic points per day instead of the full allotment. This increases to 1d6 ad tier 4, 1d8 at tier 7, 1d10 at tier 10, following the surge dice increases. Every time they defeat a mythic opponent or perform a mythic trial, they recover 1 mythic point for a maximum of 2 points recovered if defeating the mythic opponent is also a mythic trial.
- Each +2 to an ability score is instead a +1 to two ability scores.
- Mythic Power Attack doesn't have a special crit clause.
- Mythic Order's Wrath doesn't daze on a successful save.
- Mythic Heroism only grants the +4 bonus to attack rolls, saves and skill checks.
- Mythic Haste doesn't grant the extra move action each round, but affected creatures gain a +2 dodge bonus to AC and reflex saves, and a +2 bonus on attack rolls, on top of the usual extra attack during a full attack action.

About raising saves with consumables, potions of heroism (400 gp) or good hope (1050 gp) are very handy.

I guess those who are not experienced enough to curbstomp an AP, are also not experienced enough to adapt it. Instead, those who are experienced enough to run powerful characters, are also knowledgeable enough to make due alterations to an encounter, as you are doing.

I think that what JJ is trying to tell us is that they have to build APs for everyone. If they build for the first set of players, the second set will have to adjust encounters using their experience as guideline. If they build for the second set of players, the first set won't be able to do so and TPKs will be common among them. Common TPKs are no fun and could bring new people away from the market.

I don't have any problems running the AP with some adjustment to date. I just do some preparation to see how an encounter would go against 4 unoptimized PCs (elite array, blasty wizard, healer cleric, greatsword fighter with no tactics, two weapon rogue built around traps and weapon finesse). According with the difficulty that unoptimized party faces and the resources it expends, I adapt the actual fight against my PCs accordingly.
Right now, that translates into full hp and more minions or traps until I get a CR +2 equivalent, and prebuffed opponents if characters are also buffing themselves and they are heard. I can do that adjustment easily, and I don't see this as a flaw on the author part.

I would like to see a few sidebars here and there on important bosses like "How to challenge more powerful PCs" with special tactics that are effective against optimized PCs, but since a GM should be the best fitted to develop that tactic, the sidebars would cut into the AP print space and not everyone would be using it, I understand why it's not here. The community already provides GMs excellent advices to make encounters more interesting.

EDIT:
Also keep in mind that extra action only provides a single standard action or move action (that can't be used for spellcasting, so no dispel magic in there), not a full round action, so in your example, you wouldn't have full attacks on top of a greater dispel.

Looking at the description of the seal, I too think that it should be used to resurrect the dead character, regardless of the consequences.

Hi all!
I'm going to play Rappan Athuk with a party of Alchemist, Diviner, Oracle of Life and Rogue, so they need a big frontline warrior.
I considered tripping builds, but I was not pleased with the damage output, defenses and the rapidly escalating trip DC, not mentioning monsters that are impossible to trip due to size or flying.
I then considered a pure damaging paladin, but I was not pleased with their weakness against non-evil foes and risks of losing their tools either by killing the mount, destroying the bonded weapon, or going against the code of conduct.
I lastly considered the barbarian... and after toying around a bit, he had everything I wanted. Here is my build until level 15, starting at 5th level with 25 point buy.

CN Human Barbarian (Invulnerable Rager, Urban Barbarian)

STR 17 (13 pt) +2 Racial bonus here
DEX 16 (10 pt)
CON 15 (7 pt)
INT 07 (-4 pt)
WIS 13 (3 pt)
CHA 07 (-4 pt)

Skills: Intimidate, Acrobatics, Perception. All maxed.
Traits: Breed for War, Armor Expert.
Favored class bonus: +1/3 Superstition at each level.
Feats and Rage Powers:
1) Intimidating Prowess, Power Attack
2) Superstition
3) Improved Sunder
4) Witch Hunter, +1 STR
5) Extra Rage Power: Strength Surge
6) Spell Sunder
7) Cornugon Smash
8) Lesser Beast Totem, +1 CON
9) Extra Rage Power: Beast Totem
10) Greater Beast Totem
11) Combat Reflexes
12) Come and Get Me, +1 WIS
13) Dazing Assault
14) Ghost Rager
15) Extra Rage Power: Eater of Magic

Equipment:
Adamantine Greatsword => +1 => Furious => Cruel => Courageous => +5
Mithral Breastplate => +1 => Light Fort => Moderate Fort => Heavy Fort => +5
Belt of STR +2 => CON +2 => DEX +2 => +4 => +6
Ring of Protection +5
Ring of Evasion
Amulet of Natural Armor +5
Cloak of Resistance +5
Elven Boots / Boots of Speed
Goggles of the Eagle / Goggles of Night
Mask of Intimidation (custom magic item based off the orcish battle mask, it adds +5 to intimidate checks... if unavailable, circlet of persuasion is a nice substitute)
Headband of Havoc
LOTS of potions of enlarge person
LOTS of potions of lesser restoration
Spring Loaded Wrist Sheath + potion of enlarge person
Spring Loaded Wrist Sheath + potion of lesser restoration

I currently start with an Adamantine Greatsword, a +1 Mithral Breastplate, a Cloak of Resistance +1, a nonmagical battle mask, two SLWS and a few potions.
Whenever combat starts, my starting tactic will likely be: swift get enlarge potion, standard drink potion, free action rage, move to reach the enemies while drawing my weapon. If an enemy is adjacent already, I instead rage, draw weapon and smash his face!

Highlights of the build:
- AC that works, since controlled rage doesn't lower it, reckless abandon won't be used, crowd control adds +1 when adjacent to multiple foes, and I can debuff with every hit by level 7.
- Free action debuffs at every hit, via cornugon smash (I get it as soon as possible at level 7) and cruel weapon, total -4 to hit/saves and -2 to damage as soon as I hit twice.
- Spell sunder at level 6, as soon as it is available!
- Greater beast totem (aka pounce!) at level 10, as soon as it is available!
- Come and get me at level 12, as soon as it is available, with enough AoOs thanks to combat reflexes at 11.
- Dazing Assault at level 13 (a pity that I can't get it at 11) and I expect it to work fine, especially against a debuffed enemy.
- Saves through the roof, touch AC very high by level 14, great rerolls by level 15. At level 5, my saves are even higher than those of a paladin, against everything that matters.

After level 15, I'm not sure what to take, I guess unexpected strike, improved critical and increased damage reduction x3, but the build itself is complete at 15th level.
I personally think rage cycling before level 17 is cheesy and not worth the expense of a rage power to get immunity to sickened/nauseated and a certain ioun stone. I'd rather spend a standard action and drink a potion of lesser restoration between rages instead.

Any thoughts?

You did the right thing in my opinion.
If he doesn't want to come back via reincarnate, then he'll have to wait. Also you should point out that any XP the party will earn until that time, his dead character won't get any.
Also, his companions have no chance to knowing in advance "in character" whether his soul would be available to come back from the dead or not, unless he made a testament beforehand. In any case, the soul has no knowledge about the spell being used for that purpose, so the only way to "refuse" coming back on a reincarnate rather than raise dead, is refusing a priori.
I'd say it's just easier if he rolls another character, limited to races and archetypes that make sense in that environment. Death has to come with a pay toll.

If they don't loot or give to charity, it's easy to convert to other forms of resources using the downtime rules.
http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/ultimateCampaign/downtime.html

Say they left Millorn with his stuff (about 2000 gp) instead of looting. Millorn would then acknowledge that not everyone is out to get him and help the PCs later in the form of 20 Magic as he's crafting scrolls or other magic items for free to pay his debt of life.

Say they donate 600 gp to charity in Kenabres. Word spreads and people are willing to help the PCs in their time of need, earning them 10 Influence and 15 Labor.

No good deed goes unpunished!

I'm sorry if my words are offending you or anyone else. English is not my native tongue, so I just use the first thing that comes out of the dictionary. I don't mean to disrespect anyone here. I guess "unusual" would be a better word instead of "odd" then. By my dictionary, they're synonims.

As a Physicist, I studied statistics at University. One can use "normal" statistics when there are at least 20-30 samples. If sample is as low as 6, then one uses Poisson statistics. Keeping in mind the variance, 1 unusual fact can be expected, but it's still a surprise. More unusual facts and the chance that something else is skewing the analysis skyrockets.
You can play poker and get 4 aces. People then cheer at your luck. Keep getting 4 aces and someone could think that you're cheating. You might just be having a serious good luck, but that doesn't change the fact that the more unusual facts, the more one thinks reality is manipulated.

There were 12330 people in Kenabres before the fall. I read in the wiki that LGBT people are about 5% of the total population in USA, and I don't have reasons to think Golarion to be any different, or it should be written somewhere. The chance that 4 important NPCs out of 6 be LGBT is abysmal. Since an AP is a written work and not reality, I think that's done on purpose by the writers to send a message to the readers.
However good is the message, and I don't deny that it is good, it still feels forced into the AP story, to such a degree to break verisimilitude, in the exact same way as 4 elves out of 6 NPCs would break it in a dwarven land where 95% of the population is dwarven.
I hope my opinion came across right this time :)

PCs need some backstory explanation because they are special, they are unusual by definition, the story revolves around them. NPCs? not so much. NPCs are there to interact with PCs, so anything important or unusual about their backstory should be relevant to the PCs in some way, otherwise it's wasted space that should have been used for more PC-related stuff, IMHO.

In a massive war against demons etc... it's not unusual that there are many LGBT NPCs fighting, nor is unusual that there are many dwarves or elves or halforcs or [insert other unusual races] NPCs fighting in a human-dominant environment. What's unusual is that the main cast is made up of LGBT NPCs mostly, as if they were the majority of population in Kenabres and not the other way around, or if being LGBT provides more "oomph" to be on the spotlight.
There are many ways in which you can tell a story, but if you have limited space you should focus on important facts. In WotR, those important facts are PCs and their fight to save Kenabres, free Brezen and eventually close the Worldwound, not the sexuality of NPCs. Imho.

I never saw Casablanca, no, but I'm fairly sure the story focuses on the main characters, not the minor ones. That's my point.

I did 8 hours, and the party barricated inside the inner room while all manner of random encounter spawned outside... As soon as the temple was sanctified again, a blast of holy light surrounded the PCs and the noise of the critters vanished, as they fled the area.
The PCs were increasingly frightened as they heard 2 bat swarms, 4 giant maggots and 5 dire rats waiting outside to feast on them...
It was then clear that the place was a safe one to rest and the players were very happy to acknowledge what I said them before the start "good deeds earn *very* good rewards".

Thanks for all the replies :)
I went with the PC and Aravashnial knowing each other, the PC trying to learn from him as much as he can during his latest couple years of apprenticeship as a wizard. Aravashnial went to Kenabres just two years ago, so he definitely isn't the PC's teacher.
This won't mean that Aravashnial actually cares about the PC, he might even not remember his name at all. After all, he has more important things to do. Chatting with a "novice" about demonology is just a thing that Aravashnial does between his explorations.
But the PC enjoyed those chats nonetheless, seeing the more experienced wizard as a paragon of lore to emulate...

The Worldwound is at most 107 years old, while an elven wizard would be at least 120 years old. I'm handwaving this by letting the PC be a precocious 105 year old elf, and his parents among the first to investigate the Worldwound. He's not yet graduated as a wizard, but Khorramzadeh didn't wait for him to be "ready", so he'll have to learn "applied magic" the hard way.

If only Aroden died a couple decades earlier... :)

I'd just raise the cohort cap to effective character level -2, that is, a 14th level character with 6 mythic tiers would be effective level 17 (just like monster CR is calculated) and could gain a 15th level cohort with a high enough leadership score.

I ruled this way:
Max effective cohort level = effective PC level -2.
Max cohort mythic tier = PC mythic tier -1
Effective level = level + half mythic tier.
Additionally, any character with a mythic tier automatically gets the "special power" bonus and very likely the "great renown" bonus too.

That allowed a 13th level character with 2 mythic tiers to have a succubus (treated as level 12) as a cohort.
And the 13th +2 paladin of the party to have a champion pegasus (treated as level 6 +2 for champion) paladin 4 as a mount.

Now I'm just waiting to see how those characters and their cohorts will behave...

At some point I had an enemy wizard who summoned a succubus to fight against the PCs... at one point, the wizard casted black hentacles and dimension door'd away... in a safe spot to scry the area... the tentacles couldn't "harm" the succubus (1d6+4 vs DR 10) but they got the party in a pretty bad situation... all... those... grappe... checks...
the one with freedom of movement also miserably failed the will save to reach the succubus and "save" her from the hentacles :D

@Ynaeve Amryln
Pre-chosen, because technically you don't have those mythic tiers yet at the start of the game. They'll be granted on the first post.

@Oterisk
I'd say no to implanted ioun stones. They have to revolve around your head to work, so if you implant them they cease to be effective.

@Thibbledorf
Telling a tale about how you got your mantle of immortality is certainly cool for me.
Mithral Hall has just been conquered by demon-backed orcs after a 30-year long siege. I wouldn't be surprised if you (and Drizzt) died while defending the city to the last, allowing dwarven women and children to head deep underground for safety.
There's got to be a really irritated mythic dwarf after that...

you have a PM

Wow so many new posts :D

@Viscount K
There's a Drizzt application, I really can't veto a Thibbledorf application now, can I? :)
As I said somewhere earlier, in this timeline canon stops in 1374 when the portals to the lower planes appeared, the deities became silent and the planes went awry. Whatever happened since is your domain and I fully expect a creative background that shows what you did till 1409. As far as my little knowledge about him goes, the little dwarf has been well and alive in 1374, save for his scent, of course.
In short, forget canon, the fiends ruined it all :)

@Barid Naismith.
If you ask a caster to craft an item for you, he will sell the item at its full price. You only get the reduced price if you can craft it yourself by rolling a natural one on the check.
Those prices are not correct. Weapon special abilities don't cost a flat amount of gp that you just add together. For example, shocking burst is equivalent to a +2, and a simple +2 weapon does indeed cost 8000 gp, but a +2 shocking burst weapon costs like a +4 weapon (+2 from its enhancement plus +2 from the special ability) or 32000 gp, not 8000+8000=16000 gp. You add the modifiers together and calculate the final cost based off the total modifier.
The most you can have out of a weapon is a +5 equivalent one, so you can have, say, your Cotumo be +3 keen rapier of evil outsider bane and it would cost 50320 gp. If you want to pay any less, a +2 keen rapier of evil outsider bane would cost 32320 gp and it's a +4 equivalent weapon. Similarly for your other weapon.

@Finkmilkana
I'll be honest, I'm not overly interested about the accuracy of an elf's lifespan, it's not like you'll need to worry about dying of old age during this kind of adventure anyway. 600 year old means venerable and that's it for me :)
About the mantle, I was just lazy and didn't read carefully about the body slot. I won't change it, I just assumed (wrongly) it occupied the "shoulders" slot because "mantle" to me is the same as "cloak". Lathander knows I made this very same mistake with headbands of charisma and circlets of persuasion :)

@Llaelian
Cool concept! Have you considered an Inquisitor instead of a Ranger perhaps? It's just that every time I consider an Inquisitor, he just screams "retribution" to me :)

@Ynaeve Amryln
I'm sorry, but no to peri-blooded aasimar, they're not within the sources allowed.
While I like the background differences that different heritages might give to different aasimars, I don't like the "cherry-pick" thing that comes off their crunch translation. Who would play, say, a half-elf, when you could just choose the aasimar that gives a bonus to the preferred stat plus extras?
Feel free to use the Alternate Racial Traits present in the ARG and say that your ancestry dates back to a Peri, if you so wish, or any celestial preference, but Aasimars are one race.
Dimension door (and other similar abilities) is affected just like any other teleportation effect. If you have to step into the Astral Plane even for a split second and your starting point or destination is within the Material Plane or one of the Inner Planes currently adjacent to the Material Plane, bad things will probably happen, as described in the first post. Outer planes are not affected.
The problem with such an item as you described is that if your character can craft it, soon the demons and the devils would have it as well. You could certainly craft a continuous Necklace of Planar Adaptation for the cost you correctly calculated, but you'd need to specify a single plane for which it works at the moment of creation, so it won't help to avoid all possible effects due to an Astral mishap. You can devote multiple spell slots to protect yourself (or the whole party) from the most harmful planes (negative energy plane and quasielemental plane of dust look like the worst ones), with a rod of extension you can get them to work for 30 hours minimum each, or you can just study your spellbook again and refresh your spell slots by spending a Mythic Point.
As a comparison, a simple pearl of power V costs 25000 gp, and it lets you cast Planar Adaptation one more time per day, 49000 gp and you get a Pearl of Power VII for the mass version. Cheaper and easier. :)

@Vuvu
As long as I get to read your backstory and crunch somewhere, works for me. Once we start, though, anyone participating would have to write his sheet on his playing alt, eventually, just to save me a headache :)

@Steven T. Helt
Isn't Shar an evil-aligned deity? Please, no evil deities and no evil characters :) Think about what would happen if a Chosen of Mystra and a Chosen of Shar entered a tavern together...

@Everyone who submitted a (lengthy) background!
Phew! I came back home a bit later than expected, and I'm glad I have so much to read, I actually love reading good backstories!
However, I'm afraid I'll read them all after a good night of sleep so you'll have to wait till tomorrow for a PM with my feedback :) With all the material you gave me, at least 4 sheets would probably be mostly complete, so I'll set a deadline tomorrow for next week. That means everyone will have time till the end of the month to hone the particulars.

Choosing the Chosen on March 1st looks like a good omen :) So many things happened that day... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1

Since historically they could pierce armor, I'd give hand/light/heavy xbows the ability to bypass up to 2/4/6 points of armor bonus (not counting enhancements) and/or bypass up to 1/2/3 points of damage reduction.

So a warrior with an adamantine full plate would have an AC 6 points lower and/or would not benefit from its damage reduction against a heavy crossbow user.

Inspire courage (as a move/swift action) and a moderate BAB effectively negates any high-ish touch AC. 7 bab +3 dexterity (counting a +2 item at 10th level) +2 inspire courage is +12. +2 from the d20 roll and it's a 14+, 15+ if you're small sized (likely since both small sized races also have a +2 cha bonus). Monks may afford a higher than 15 touch AC, but most monsters and most characters, even rogues, won't.

The DC is high since Charisma is high and the DC scales with the bard's level just like saves scale with level, but it's much more common for a bard to raise charisma at levelups than for a warrior-type to raise constitution because strength is more important for them. Even if you halve 6 words out of 10, the average damage is still pretty big, just do the math, I did and true, the group fighter is the one who behaves best against such an ability, but goes from full to about 10 hp on average, just a little fluctiation on the damage rolls and he's still in immediate life danger.

Damage reduction doesn't work against supernatural abilities.

I'm not worried about high level play, I'm worried about the levels at which the words are more powerful: 6-10 and maybe up to 12 too. At the level you get the words, they're pretty much the most powerful direct damage ability I've seen so far. I'd really like you to prove me wrong.

Weird Words is a supernatural ability and as such they don't provoke attack of opportunities and can be used while grappled without any concentration check. Maybe the bard will provoke one attack of opportunity from the fighter because there is a ranged attack involved, but once unleashed, the words pretty much slaughter that fighter.

Sneak attacking rogues need a full attack action, have to hit normal AC (normally way higher than touch AC so misses are much more frequent than just on a 1) and either they find some sort of greater invisibility for ranged or they put themselves in danger in melee. Weird words is a standard action and doesn't need anything of the above.

It's way easier to counter an enchantment than this ability and no spell outright kills an enemy at 12th level or earlier (ok, phantasmal killer does but you have to fail two saves in a row, not going to happen often)

I fail to see how those drawbacks can actually be important for a bard, since most of them are exceedingly rare (high touch AC), just a minor inconvenience (you need BOTH high fort and high hp to survive a single blast, and two blasts pretty much guarantee your death anyway) or do not apply (grapple and damage reduction).
You're right that it pretty much never occurs that there are ten enemies within 30 ft, so such a limit is pretty hindering, but as written, it's TOO powerful at levels 6-12, both in player's hands and in enemy hands.

As a house rule, I might slow the words advancement to 1 per 2 bard levels, so max is still 10 words at 20th level but it's not utter annihilation at levels 6-12 when you concentrate them on a single target.

http://paizo.com/forums/dmtz1l20?Point-Blank-Shot-Precise-Shot-for-Ranged-T ouch
http://paizo.com/forums/dmtz32vr?Point-Blank-and-Nonray-Ranged-Touch-attack s

There does not seem to be a reason why those feats wouldn't work with any ranged attack, otherwise you'd have the weird case when you can hit normal AC more easily than touch AC (think a human commoner with no armor in melee with an ally...)

I think this one is the best Artificer conversion I've seen so far.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2669279/Artificer.pdf

It's from here.
http://www.enworld.org/forum/pathfinder-rpg-discussion/306822-artificer-con version.html