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Democratus's page
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You could work to reduce the number of people who have access to magic. Or you could destroy scrolls, books, research and the like.
These things would work against the purposes of Nethys.
What's more interesting to consider for your campaign is why Nethys is so interested in increasing magic. What is his endgame?
Perhaps once enough magic has saturated the world it will be an unhinged reality, like the abyss, where will alone can change the rules.
Or perhaps Nethys is cultivating the prime plane like a battery. Once it has hit a critical amount of magic "stored within" he will discharge it all at once to power some ultimate spell or device.
Or maybe he wants to bring about a Utopia that is only possible once everyone has magic at their fingertips. The more magic users that exist, the more easy it is for everyone else to learn.
Working out the reasons behind a god's portfolio can reveal far more than simply looking at what they support and oppose. And it can be the source for stories and adventure to fuel endless campaigns.
Undead exist in a state that is in defiance of nature. It is difficult to maintain Goodness when so cut off from the natural order.
It would be interesting to portray someone who started off Good but was slowly loosing their grasp on their moral compass.
So now the problem is that the GM doesn't like the player's attitude?
Sounds like he is trying to tell the player how to play their character. Just let it go, dude. This is a high fantasy world where wizards create alternate realities, dragons weighing thousands of pounds fly, and...yes...barbarians know they can wade through lava with impunity.
Don't get mad at the player because he is playing Pathfinder when you want to be playing GURPS.
It would be a fun addition to the philosophy of a campaign world to state that the list of creatures available in Reincarnate is also a list of the only creatures in your game world deemed to have souls.
So all those other sentient creatures may walk and talk and such, but the Druids don't consider them "true souls" because you can never reincarnate as one.
Just a thought for some ecclesiastic shenanigans.
Sandbox wrote: gated demiplanes for food production? This could be brilliant. What if the entire place was set up with massive, layered defenses. Once you get through all of them and battle your way to the "treasure vault" - it is a gate to a plane with rolling plains of wheat under a mild sun.
This place provided all the beer-production ingredients the clan would ever have needed. A treasure beyond measure.
You could even have some powerful entity have taken up residence in this bountiful demi-plane that served to block production of ale and thus the place was abandoned as useless.
I think it's important to set expectations early. Players can feel betrayed if the game has kid gloves during the early levels and then suddenly gets deadly on them.
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You can't kill anything without GM fiat.
The only question is where to draw the line on "things that can be defeated". Some choose to put the line below gods, some above them.
Magic is usually the explanation.
Like the Orcs in the works of Tolkien, who were created by the hand of Morgoth. They are irredeemably twisted and evil creatures.
You can also have certain races be part of the creation myth of your world. For example, all members of the Trox race are inhabited by the souls of those who chose to stand with the Dark Lord before the time of creation. And now they walk among mortals to sow their darkness in the world.
The possibilities are vast, and often you don't even need to reveal the true reasons to your players. Better yet, make it one of the mysteries of the world that will be uncovered (and maybe remedied?) by the characters.
Good luck out there!
So what we are really talking about here is a class-less magic system.
That's a great thing for an RPG. But it isn't D&D/Pathfinder. The real reason that Wizards can't cast the Cure spells is that it is one of the truths of the game. Just like how Paladins are LG champions of good and Bards cast magic through performance.
Mark Hoover wrote: How experienced are your players? One of mine, going on 4 decades of gaming now, has a saying: "Never get attached to NPCs with names."
Y'see more experienced players automatically suspect that the more well developed an NPC is the more chance there is for the GM to pull some kind of shenanigans with them. They might go darkside and become the villain, they might get kidnapped or killed for a plot hook, etc.
That seems to be a strange response.
Realizing that NPCs make the story more complicated/interesting/dynamic should encourage players to connect with the NPC. After all, you are all there to tell a story.
Do they just not want interesting story stuff to happen?
Roran Strax wrote: Mathwei ap Niall wrote: There is no way in the rules to actually remove a body part in this game without pulling in some house rules that NO ONE wants turned against them.
Try again.
So I guess there's no amputees in fantasy realms lol.
And yes, there is. Called shots.
Try again. The called shot rules do not allow the removal of body parts. Even a called shot critical/debilitating hit to a head or arm leaves everything still there. Please read the rules.
By a technical reading of the rules, no. You can't make a Swift Action into a Standard Action and you can't take more than one Swift Action in a round.
Action Types
As a DM, I would probably allow it.
Only one rend, no matter how many claws you have.
Verteidiger wrote: Druid: Congrats, you just killed an apex predator that was probably helping to keep some sort of fast breeding, overeating, gluttonous pest population in check. In other words, it has been denying some low-level parties much needed XP!
Deadmanwalking wrote: Democratus wrote: Yiles. Don't play any Paizo Adventure Paths. There's murder-hoboing a'plenty.
Heck, the foundation of this RPG is hostile entry into the homes of often sentient beings, killing them all, and taking their stuff.
The Geneva Convention isn't in line with this idiom.
Uh...invading another country to conquer it and take it's stuff isn't against the Geneva Convention. Nor is killing enemy combatants when they object to this behavior.
That's just war. The Geneva Convention deals with war crimes, which are a somewhat different category of thing.
Also, having just recently re-read Legacy of Fire, Curse of the Crimson Throne, Reign of Winter, Serpent's Skull, and Wrath of the Righteous...at no point are you forced to make unprovoked attacks against the homes of other creatures. Unless those homes belonged to your countrymen before the creatures in question murdered them and took said homes, of course. And that's not exactly unprovoked, now is it? Provocation isn't an escape clause in the Geneva Convention.
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Deadmanwalking wrote: Scavion wrote: "This creature is a danger to civilized society and should be put down for the good of all. It attacks passerbys at random and quite likely wouldn't have given quarter should it have won. Can we guarantee that it won't go on to harm others after we've left?"
Putting others in danger is definitely an evil act if you're hoping this "brutish" monster is going to keep to it's word and not attack the next travelers who happen by if it is attacking first and asking for parley if it loses. I certainly wouldn't trust the word of a creature that attacked without warning.
Coup de grace is a bit much though better than just watching the thing bleed out.
Theres plenty of justification that can be made, the question is Stephen...
Do you want to punish your player for this action? Would this make the game more enjoyable for you and your players? When your Paladin is violating the Geneva Convention, you are doing it wrong. Yiles. Don't play any Paizo Adventure Paths. There's murder-hoboing a'plenty.
Heck, the foundation of this RPG is hostile entry into the homes of often sentient beings, killing them all, and taking their stuff.
The Geneva Convention isn't in line with this idiom.
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LazarX wrote: Democratus wrote: An excellent example of a generalist caster would be the Magister.
That's not a Paizo class, and we're not in the 3rd party homebrew forum. Else we can start talking about the entire content of the 3.5 netbooks, the PathfinderDB site, etc. We're not in the Rules forum either. In answer to a direct question, I said that it was an excellent example of a generalist caster. And it is.
In fact it provides a compare/contrast to the types of caster in the published Paizo material. Thus showing what a design philosophy that allowed all kinds of spells (arcane & divine) from a caster would look like.
Not sure how playing forum police is helping the topic.
Mikaze wrote:
Yeah but Torag is pretty bad at being LG. Many people find his code highly questionable.
This paladin was behaving far too bloodthirsty to qualify as a paladin. And is exactly the kind of character that makes diplomatic/redemptive PCs miserable.
But the fact remains that Torag is LG and has a code that allows this behavior.
And there is nothing in the paladin description that precludes being "bloodthirsty". A Paladin can be the hand of vengeance and the personification of his god's wrath.
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It sounds like you are making a world that is hostile to casters. But I don't see anything in that description that makes it low magic.
Low magic typically means that powerful magic doesn't exist or is rare. If a player can play a Wizard or Sorcerer as written in the CRB it will not be a low magic campaign for long.
An excellent example of a generalist caster would be the Magister.
RDM42 wrote: Democratus wrote: The paladin should not fall unless the player tells you that he wants his paladin to fall. It's a player decision. He should have all the agency in this call. ... So he can walk into an orphanage, start the slaughter, and not fall unless he decides he should? The DM and the player are not enemies. They are collaborating in creating a story. If either of them doesn't want to have the same story as the other - class features are the least of their worries.
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The paladin should not fall unless the player tells you that he wants his paladin to fall. It's a player decision. He should have all the agency in this call.
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The 'useless' bit about armor class is that it generally goes up as you level and BaB also goes up as you level. It seems like a zero-sum game sometimes.
You struggle to get your AC to stratospheric heights, only to face monsters who have a +25 attack bonus that will hit you most of the time anyway.
Still, I wouldn't really call it useless. Keeping that AC up can at least mean the occasional attack will miss. And that will save resources. At the end of the day D&D is a resource-management game.
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Zhayne wrote: Simon Legrande wrote: Zhayne wrote: Which is another way of saying 'It's useless'. If all you want to get out of it is some sort of mechanical benefit, then yes it's useless. If you want to use it as a role-playing guideline, then it's not useless. And if you don't need roleplaying guidelines, because you actually roleplay, then it's useless.
The game would be better served by stripping out alignment and using that page space to actually give hints on how to roleplay. Alignment is at best training wheels, and worst an outright impediment. As someone who constantly brings people new to RPGs into the fold, I think it's a good thing to have training wheels.
I've had multiple instances where the section on alignments has engendered some great discussions about what role play is and how playing someone with a different world view from the player can be a fun experience.
Knowledge(local) can represent your ability to find out the scuttlebutt in any given region. I see it as a replacement for the old Gather Information skill.
Studying religion in the world of PF includes learning about the abominations created by evil gods, often in the form of stories. In the same way that any educated person in ancient Greece would know that a creature dipped in the River Styx would have a weak point wherever they were held. They would also know that a mirrored surface is the only safe way to view a Medusa.
So long as everyone agrees to a system beforehand, you can do whatever you like with failed rolls. We often say you get nothing on a failed roll. But if you fail by more than 5 you get bad information. The worse you fail, the worse the information.
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Alignment is how you treat people who are not close to you. No matter your alignment, you can be decent and caring to your friends and loved ones. This is how a party with different alignments functions.
We have a synthesist who is re-connecting with a past life. Long ago, before the prime plane was solidified, he was a powerful dragon.
All of his languages, skills, abilities, are simply the character 'remembering' his past lives more clearly and manifesting more and more of his past glory.
anthonydido wrote: Let me give an example that may help clear things up. If I want to shoot an arrow at an enemy but there is someone in between us, does the arrow go "through" the person in between? No. But a magic arrow could go "around" the person in between.
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Kirth Gersen wrote: I tried that once, and found that the game turned into an ongoing stuggle for better divinations and transportation blocking/enabling, and that no one else really had anything to do 90% of the time. Eventually I went for almost the exact same solution that Claxon did, which also has the advantage of explaining why there are anachronous castles and dungeons all over the place. It really is elegant in that it makes the world more consistent with itself. And it retains the utility of these spells for rapid transport.
jimibones83 wrote: Democratus wrote: I would say that you fall, but gently (feather fall). Much in the same way you fall if the spell timer runs out.
But it would be a house rule. fly's not dispelled nor is the duration up. There is absolutely no reason to feather fall. You slam to the ground and take your 30 damage or so That is why I said it would be a house rule.
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I would say that you fall, but gently (feather fall). Much in the same way you fall if the spell timer runs out.
But it would be a house rule.
Zhayne wrote: Democratus wrote: Zhayne wrote: Democratus wrote: Zhayne wrote: Democratus wrote:
None of that is relevant to Galorion. It is, however, to the many people who don't use Golarion. Having majored in geology is relevant to people who don't use Golarion? Please explain. You keep saying 'In Golarion, gods did this'.
If I'm not using Golarion, then that answer is irrelevant, and thus, discussions of planetary movement and tectonic activity is relevant. The post you quoted said nothing at all about gods. The part I quoted was 'None of that is relevant to Golarion', which is precisely what I was responding to, and the reason why I only quoted that part of the post.
Are you being intentionally obtuse? You were taking part of a post that stated only that the study of geological process as they happen in reality on earth wasn't relevant to Golarion. Which is true.
Don't know why you responded to it like it meant something else.
Zhayne wrote: Democratus wrote: Zhayne wrote: Democratus wrote:
None of that is relevant to Galorion. It is, however, to the many people who don't use Golarion. Having majored in geology is relevant to people who don't use Golarion? Please explain. You keep saying 'In Golarion, gods did this'.
If I'm not using Golarion, then that answer is irrelevant, and thus, discussions of planetary movement and tectonic activity is relevant. The post you quoted said nothing at all about gods.
Zhayne wrote: Democratus wrote:
None of that is relevant to Galorion. It is, however, to the many people who don't use Golarion. Having majored in geology is relevant to people who don't use Golarion? Please explain.
Howie23 wrote: Spell components strictly are aspects of generating the spell effect at the time of casting, not for controlling the spell after it is cast. I can dig it. I concede the point.
Do we have a RAW definition of what qualifies as a "purely mental action"?
Interesting point, Howie. But the fly spell has V/S/M components and thus requires somatic motion.
It never states that the somatic portion of the spell is no longer needed once you are flying - only that it requires minor concentration.
"A paralyzed character is frozen in place and unable to move or act."
You can't act. So you can't take a Move Action.
But you can teleport onto a moving ship so long as you can scry it and immediately cast teleport. So the casting time doesn't seem to be too much to get there.
LazarX wrote: Democratus wrote: Galnörag wrote: beej67 wrote: Moglun wrote: In my experience, by the time a high level encounter starts going badly someone is already dead. Meh, just bring them back to life when the combat's over. This actually is probably a splinter thread, but what do you do with the players while there characters are dead. I've always found one of the best ways to ruin a gamers night is to kill/incapacitate there character. It isn't so much the death of a beloved character that is bad, since they know they can come back. It is the disconnection from participation while the rest of the table is having fun.
but I digress It only takes 1 minute to cast Raise Dead or Resurrection. They shouldn't be down for much longer than that single combat. Might be a bit of a problem if it's the cleric that went down. :) It should be on a scroll. That's what Use Magic Device is for. ;)
Galnörag wrote: beej67 wrote: Moglun wrote: In my experience, by the time a high level encounter starts going badly someone is already dead. Meh, just bring them back to life when the combat's over. This actually is probably a splinter thread, but what do you do with the players while there characters are dead. I've always found one of the best ways to ruin a gamers night is to kill/incapacitate there character. It isn't so much the death of a beloved character that is bad, since they know they can come back. It is the disconnection from participation while the rest of the table is having fun.
but I digress It only takes 1 minute to cast Raise Dead or Resurrection. They shouldn't be down for much longer than that single combat.
The OP does seem to imply that there will be trouble with more than just Teleport spells. It sounds like the foray from the "E6" style of play into the world of high power magic is jarring for him.
My advice overall would be to read a few high-level modules and see if the play style implied works for his table. If not, then he will either need to cap levels like E6 or will need to do a great deal of work eliminating powerful abilities and spells from his game.
Good luck to him in either case.
RDM42 wrote: Kirth Gersen wrote: RDM42 wrote: You honestly think that the people drawing Golarion's maps were placing tectonic plates and simulating mountain formation based on plate tectonics? Kirth Gersen wrote: Presumably the people who drew the maps looked at real mountain ranges and copied them, with some artistic license. By doing so, they either (a) are fobbing them off as being "realistic" (i.e., geologically formed), or (b) are setting up a trickster deity scenario as outlined, if they then turn around and claim no tectonics exist. Or they are just putting in mountain ranges and the question of wether or not plate tectonics was involved was irrelevant to the process. Ding. We have a winner!
Kirth Gersen wrote: Democratus wrote: You said regarding setting specifics for plate movement: "Don't have to read it; you can tell from the mountain ranges."
Not sure how else you meant this to be read. That's because, with all respect, you're to a fair extent ignorant of how orogeny works and why mountains look they way they do. Either that, or you're wilfully misrepresenting my post. Geology major at the University of Texas here. I know orogeny, uplift and tilt, and the processes involved in creating the mountain ranges on Earth.
None of that is relevant to Galorion.
Kirth Gersen wrote: RDM42 wrote: You honestly think that the people drawing Golarion's maps were placing tectonic plates and simulating mountain formation based on plate tectonics? Kirth Gersen wrote: Presumably the people who drew the maps looked at real mountain ranges and copied them, with some artistic license. By doing so, they either (a) are fobbing them off as being "realistic" (i.e., geologically formed), or (b) are setting up a trickster deity scenario as outlined, if they then turn around and claim no tectonics exist. Or the world was created with intent to give it all the ecological niches desired by its creators. Epic worlds tend to have mountains. Nothing "trickster" needed in the process.
Kirth Gersen wrote: ryric wrote: I was responding to your statement that the mere existence of mountains implies plate techtonics. Not their mere existence -- this is a strawman people keep trying to put in my mouth -- but their disposition and layout. You said regarding setting specifics for plate movement: "Don't have to read it; you can tell from the mountain ranges."
Not sure how else you meant this to be read.
The world has mountains. In a magical world with a short history, active gods, and intelligent design there is no need for plate tectonics. Unless specifically mentioned in the Galorian source material then they aren't an issue for teleportation.
Kirth Gersen wrote: Democratus wrote: In a world with active gods you don't need geologic processes to create any geographic feature. As I replied earlier, if the features are made to LOOK like they were geologically-formed, that means the only active gods are Coyote and Loki (out to fool you just for the hell of it), not Torag and Iomidae. Presumably this would have a more drastic effect on the campaign world than merely nerfing ship-to-ship teleportation. Unless the world is tens of millions of years old (has this been established?) then the gods only needed to be active when the world was first created. Geologic features such as mountain ranges would not have changed much in a few thousand years.
The point here is that mountains, ocean basins, hot spots, etc. do not imply tectonic plate movement in Galorian unless it is stated in the world rules somewhere. So no tectonic movement to prevent teleportation.
The rotation of the world is another issue altogether.
Kirth Gersen wrote: Democratus wrote: Is it established in Golarion that there are continental plates that move? I don't recall reading that. Don't have to read it; you can tell from the mountain ranges. In a world with active gods you don't need geologic processes to create any geographic feature. Is it ever stated how old Golarion is? Is it at least 50 million years old (long enough for a tectonically active planet to generate such features)?
I'd always had the impression that it was literally an Intelligent Design universe.
Lead is cheap. Wouldn't be hard to "gild" an entire lair with a thin layer of lead.
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I like Brown Mold, Green Slime, et. al. because it brings back the old AD&D feeling when encountered by low level characters.
It only takes one party wipe from a hazard to give the entire campaign a sense of peril throughout.
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