Drychnath's page

Masquerading as some other class was high on my list. I was also looking into changing my aliases, outfits from location to location, and the like.

How early, do y'suppose, could a fellow lay his grubby Gnome paws on some sort of scrying detection/defense?

I am looking to play a Gnome Illusionist as a Paranoid Wizard. The inspiration is, loosely, the environment of Glen Cook's Black Company series, where sorcerers of whatever stripe were a secretive, murderous lot planning to usurp one another's power. I would like to spend considerable effort avoiding such possible machinations. The question is, at earlier levels, how best to go about it?

I think the most obvious solution is, while low level, to simply stay below the radar. I would think I could achieve that by obfuscating my role in party victories, and some judicious downtime use of Magic Aura and the like.

My question is, what could reasonably be done for levels 1-6, that is between not attracting attention to the character and the classic unkillable paranoid wizard shenanigans at higher levels of which I am so fond of reading?

Edit: Grammar

Consider the following feats of mind prowess that could be useful: the ability to focus surface thoughts on a definite topic (circumstantial bonus to Concentrate when faced with telepathy or other mind reading); the ability to willfully believe an illusion known to be false (making various Illusion spells explode in terms of personal utility); the ability to concentrate on two or more things at once.

I don't see anything similar in my 3.5 collection as it stands, though I don't have the books for Arcane options in Pathfinder. Can someone recommend a source? Or are they too useless/ absurdly game-breaking to consider?

Have the room under the influence of a powerful Emotion effect. Let the PCs try to work their way through when overwhelmed by apathy, impatience, rage, or lust. Have them encounter fey. A nymph would be interesting.

Divination is a bit trickier. Requiring the use of some artifact related to scrutiny, like a crystal ball, would be good. If it wouldn't trod on the toes of your Illusion encounter, making them defeat some invisible monster, via True Seeing or an Arcane Sight effect.

Imagining that the PCs are going to process things in a form remotely comprehensible to them, symbolic representations could abound. Things like:

The apotheosis if it was unpleasant.

The repetitive failure and extinction of his cult.

Personal impotence, such as being a prisoner, or an invalid, or a crippled beggar routinely abused in darkness. Bonus: kill the psychopomp to wake the god.

Periods of hugely jarring, soul and mind-stretching dissociation as the god dreams are briefly impossible for the PCs to interpret. Status effect bonanza; saves vs. confusion, various fear effects, exhaustion, and madness are all reasonable.

Make everything absurdly humongous. Have the PCs count as tiny or fine.

Perhaps a mechanical boost to all magic counter to the god's profile. Automatically heightened/maximized/what-have-you spells of the evil or shadow descriptor, for example.

I have never tackled it from a DM perspective, as I've only DM'd one-off adventures. From the player side, I try (these days) to be very conscientious of hijacking the campaign. I have two motivations really, both trend towards the self-serving. First, if I keep it small enough not to significantly deform the game world, the DM is more likely to approve it. Second, since the motivation for me is really the process rather than the end state, the sooner I can start, the longer I can drag it out. By way of example, resurrecting the cult of a dead or forgotten god, I imagine, might go something like this:

1) On the strength of something as small as a passing reference in a random book, the character can begin researches on the side, by conversing with priests of temples, combing convenient libraries during downtime. Special attention could be paid to searching for flavor materials in temple complexes, ancient tombs, etc during adventures. I could do this out of the gate, even first level.
2) Somewhere in the level five timeframe, I could begin recruitment efforts to aid me. Possibly with the aid of the leadership feat; someone charismatic, or violently capable, or perhaps a fallen cleric or Druid would make a good candidate, to aid in research and the recruitment of followers for the grand task.
3) Once my character starts getting access to spells that allow communication/travel between the planes, and the location of the body/essence of the god is discovered, the development of rituals can begin. Enter magical research, and the acquisition of relevant objects/components.
4) Upon successfully developing a connection with the deity, plot drama can enter the equation. Once the god begins to make demands of his cult, would the party be drawn into conflict with the PC? To what degree can my character control his relationship with the deity?

Everyone gets to participate more or less on their own terms, is the hope.

My curiosity is whether people actually want/attempt/succeed at such things, these days.

It may have been just my area, but I observed that having rules for so many things seemed to squelch interest in things still beyond their scope.

I envision the problem like developing a road system. You can get lots of places quite quickly, with freedom to stop off and dither anywhere else the roads go, and that's wonderful. Flip side of the coin is, no one goes into the woods anymore.

Thanks for the boxed set suggestion! I am tormented by these sorts of ideas with some regularity. I bring up the dead god issue because one of my character concepts is a necromancer who seeks to resurrect a god, exhume a forgotten god, or harness forgotten powers in a similar fashion.

And my conception of magic has grown more and more sophisticated with time; these larger projects seem the most fun way of exploring some of those ideas as a part of the story.

I set to wondering, when planning new spells for some wizard I'll doubtless never play to research, about the power levels of various achievements that the game world permits but the PCs usually do not undertake. Rituals to awaken dead gods or open terrible portals, the manufacture of a dread weapon, turning the peasants into abominations, things of this nature a often confronted by PCs while in sub-epic levels despite not having access to ready-made magic or convenient knowledge of any where near that sort of power.

The reasons the bad guys get to attempt such shenanigans seem pretty straightforward: they invest their treasure and research in accomplishing these bigger-picture aims, rather than the pretty specific kill-you-in-the-face habits of PCs.

So does anyone attempt to do these sorts of things, or their good or neutral equivalents, as PCs, or permit them as DMs?

Whenever I think of a charachter concept for a wizard, and often for other casters, I imagine some huge magical project that will serve as a centerpiece of their professional achievement.

But what about other things that commonly feature in stories? Like a weapon crafted to slay a singular individual. Or other one-off magical rituals and large spells. Because of the time and money entailed, even very modest projects like this fall outside the scope of the average adventure, but the second I'm a caster in a campaign that is remotely sandboxy, I'm having a chat with my DM about these things.

That is superb news, Thanis. Thank you for the heads up!

I would suppose the optimization would depend on what tasks you actually plan on having the cohort carry out. The two obvious courses are to have them be a specialized agent to gather intelligence directly, or to have them manage the intelligence that you and other agents acquire.

Since the former is more basic class optimization, and the latter detailed social skill optimization, they have rather different focuses.

Very true. Related to the fun journey towards completion:

Since I envision the character's attitude as basically being that of a Druid towards natural creatures only extended to virtually all lifeforms, how far do you think I could reasonably carry that out without getting to be a substantial wrench in the party's progress?

Lacking a party or a DM to consult, I thought personal opinions of board members was a reasonable solicitation, especially since my next campaign is likely to be conducted online, and so from the same community of people...

The discovery of Irori as I perused the handbook was something of a *ahem* revelation.

I suppose it would come down to what I want to emphasize when the time comes to play the character; I'm relying pretty heavily on the idea of Wisdom being key, based on the distinction from Intelligence (which acquires and retains knowledge) vis-a-vis comprehension.

I suppose the only real hold-up for the Monk (or Monk-ish classes) is the emphasis on physicality in terms of flavor. I am presently enamored of thinking about the idea of the continuum of all things through the unity of existence, and the concept of being able to manipulate external things handily by virtue of understanding that continuum as a character is appealing to me.

So I haven't read very much that discusses the details of how Divine magic is supposed to work in the Pathfinder conception; the closer it gets to 'ask, and ye shall receive' the less appealing it is. But if the power is simply available to tap into for those of the appropriate comprehension and disposition (read: alignment and understanding of the god in question), the more successful a solution it becomes. Particularly in the case of a deity like Irori.

Of course, I proceed from the school of thought that Arcane magic in the DnD universe is an advanced form of metaphysics, representing the same intellectual sphere science and many branches of engineering would serve in real life.

To what degree, do you think, does magic entail specific mental disciplines? I find the memorization system, in particular, as leaning heavily towards practices like modern memory champions, requiring a disciplined mindset functionally alien to that of regular people.

Would a feat called Twin Mind, allowing one to cast spells normally while maintaining a concentration effect, given a certain DC check, be inherently overpowered? What if it allowed the maintenance of two concentration effects simultaneously, with another DC check?

I have an interest in creating a character who pursues mental discipline and higher perception.

The first question is, which class would be best for this purpose? The two obvious solutions are Wizard and Monk. The Wizard was my first thought, having obvious uses for and abundance of mental discipline feats, and magic itself can serve as a stand-in for elements of perception. Monk comes in a close second, by virtue of the various unique qualities of the class and its general flavor. Some fashion of cleric or related Wisdom caster comes in third, but I find it least favorable as a consequence of drawing power from an outside source, rather than through comprehension or internal discipline.

The theory is generally to take feats that maximize or alter Concentration, in particular, as well as certain Knowledge (Arcana or Religion), and any sort of Perception enhancements.

I suppose for the Monk I would be curious whether it would be possible to transform him into an anti-caster of some sort; whether there is a Perception feat chain that would, for example, allow some sort of detection of magic.

Has anyone an obvious preference and solution?

Indeed, and that's a reasonable position to take, but I will not pursue it for two reasons: one, unlife is still different from life, over-arching order or not; two, and more importantly, lots of players like making Undead.

Which is not to say a character dedicated to the long term creation of a particular Undead wouldn't be worthwhile. That sounds like a good mash-up of a regular necromancer and my Master of Ceremonies concept... consider that idea in the chamber.

So there's been considerable support for Constructs on the thread. Apart from the direct Pinocchio approach, I was having visions of a method to steal Constructs from other sources, and then giving them the fleshification and Awaken treatment.

For a Gnome interpretation of the character, perhaps a Construct that can construct a duplicate of itself. I wonder if something like that on the Plane Of Law already exists.

I am going to be tickled if my prospective future DM decides to have my little Aberration devastate the local ecosystem.

Are there any descriptions of a counter-ecosystem among the Undead books? Most of the Undead I can think of represent a terminus, and players, at least, seldom encounters anything that feeds upon them.

Enchantment - I'm not seeing your logic; if you don't want to control the creature, I don't see the need for enchantment.

Abjuration - this one you didn't mention. I'm personally loath to give up. At a certain level I've internalized it as the "school to rule all schools" due to having the dispel magic chain.

Regarding Enchantment, my logic was two-fold and possibly outdated. In 3.0, an Enchantment spell was necessary for virtually every magic item creation process that could be attempted; choosing it as an opposition school therefore eliminated a character from solo magic item creation, save for scrolls and the like. A new monster would be more involved, so I inferred that it would be more, rather than less, necessary. Second, though I don't intend to control the monster once made, it occurred to me that during the research and experimentation process numerous spells would be useful. I expect (and want) a menagerie at some point during the research process.

You are quite right on Abjuration. Never crossed my mind to drop it.

I take your point on Evocation, but blasting is still the centerpiece, so the question becomes, "Is there anything from Evocation apart from blasting that another school wouldn't serve me better in?" And the answer, near as I can tell, is no.

Edit: so in Pathfinder, the only penalty to an opposition school is it takes two slots? But I could still use magic items requiring activation and the like? That changes things a bit. I could afford the loss of Enchantment, at that stage, since I could still do all the casting myself.

Aha! I knew Necromancy would hold the key. Clone is an excellent suggestion for a base. A touch of instantaneous Transmutation here, a dash of Conjuration there... viola, new Aberration!

Meanwhile, hunting down the Epic handbook for 3.5 - did it get reprinted for 3.5? Makes no nevermind if it is 3.0, I suppose. Mostly for flavor instead of balance.

Of course, what I read about becoming a lich recommended the dungeon master impose a long, expensive research process composed of many stages and complex, challenging adventures. That sounds like something that could be worked in during a character's progression to me, presuming a similar level of complexity.

I have no objection to making him a summoner per se, it just runs a bit roughshod over a different concept I had wherein either as a summoner or a conjurer (or possibly a sorcerer) the character was hugely enamored of exotic (read: extra-planar) cultures, and would be intent on pursuing a position that amounts to planar diplomat.

Ashoten: those are the same resources I came across. My plan, should I need to execute one, is to use one or more of those sources to loosely structure the process of making a new creature.

I suppose I should be more specific; the creation of a new independent creature that breeds true. The operative moral idea is that all life has inherent value, created or otherwise, and so the apex of achievement would be contributing original life. Frankly, a detailed mechanic is not especially necessary, as it could very much be a terminal event. I have no real desire to control this new creature, or use it for a purpose; the whole idea relies on the beast being self-sustaining.

The fascination of the character is centered on a system level of analysis, so rather than balancing the merits of scales vs. feathers, the question is much more how the creature interacts with its environment, what that means for the creature group and environment, etc, extended unto the largest scale possible (epochs across multiple planes).

The logic behind moral approval of Aberrations is extending the concept of the natural order beyond the expected boundary of 'native to the Material Plane'. After all, a migrating apex predator can catastrophically disrupt local ecosystems. Geological events obliterate them entirely. Why should this continuum of acceptable consequence terminate at the local plane and planet? If the system is truly fundamental, it should continue beyond, in much the same fashion magic doesn't stop working even when on a distant plane. Is this covered by in-game philosophy? Nope! That calls for wizardly research of the question.

Dasrak: I am heartened by your estimation of the level requirements. I agree with you on the including all three schools assessment; it was merely a matter of primacy. I should think that none of those schools should be opposition schools, whichever one I choose. Evocation is easily forsaken, as I hate blasting anyway, but it would sting the soul to give up Illusion or Divination, and Enchantment was basically a requirement for all creation processes involving magic.

What about villains? There are dozens of monsters that have come from mad wizards, sorcerers, or cults. Can anyone think of any adventures that contain bad guys who seek to manufacture / use manufactured monsters? This is a much harder criterion to search for than through splatbooks.

Even if it requires mechanical improvisation between me and the DM, or is flat unworkable in the context of the adventure, I think it provides fecund roleplaying opportunities. A fascination with all different orders of life, a chance to pull the reigns on the party to prevent cases of total extermination of creatures, pay close attention to monsters made by others, and the ability to treat monster-maker-villains as an additional reward and valuable source of information...I think my glass would still be mostly full.

Despite my best efforts searching, I have come up with very little, and that little leads to broken links. So I turn to the community for help.

First, some personal background: Former 3.5 player, never played Pathfinder, started looking into it after 4th Edition turned me off so hard. Presumably will carry on planning for Pathfinder unless Next wows me. I have no game or dungeon master from whom to seek approval, I just like having a variety of concepts in the chamber, should I have the opportunity to pull the trigger.

Second, some character background: Elf Wizard, called 'the Apostate'. Expelled from a prestigious academy of magic with close ties to the priesthood of [insert Elvish god of nature/natural order] for disrupting a presentation of a representative of the temple by engaging the priest in a debate. During the course of this debate, the character repudiated the conventional concept of 'the natural order', asserting that a larger or more fundamental order applied and that consequently the lives of monsters such as aberrations, oozes, outsiders, and others have equivalent value to that of humanoids and animals approved by the priesthood specifically and Elvish culture generally. Hence the nickname.

Third, the problems I am having: the alpha problem is that I would like the character's ultimate ambition to be the creation of a new creature. I am having trouble finding a pre-existing set of feats, or spells, or magical apparatus amongst the literature for the purposes of making this a functional mechanic in the game. Epic spells exist that I have found for creating whole creatures that are old, which are then permanent rather than summoned; I had rather hoped that 'wait for epic' wouldn't be the answer, but it wouldn't shock me.

The beta problem is what sort of wizard to make the character. A solution to the alpha problem would simplify things by allowing me to specialize in whatever school the core spells are or feats require, but lacking such guidance I am forced to consider it in light of what sort of research avenues would be most appropriate. Based on the Creation subschool falling under Conjuration, a conjurer would seem appropriate. Secondarily, should using other creatures as base stock be a more prudent route, Transmutation could apply. Lastly, and my first choice by virtue of being different and provocative, is Necromancy, as the creation of new life would seem to be heavily influenced by the study of the nature of life and death.

Necromancy was my first choice, simply because it reinforces the provocative nature of the character, and most people who make necromancers go deep down the Undead route. I thought it made the most sense for creating an Aberration creature as the end result.

Conjuration is my last choice of the three, namely because I have other conjurer concepts that both endorse and flout the expected primary focus (summoning). It would probably, by virtue of Creation, be the best option for creating a wholly new Animal or Humanoid, thematically.

This leaves Transmutation smack in the middle; I have no other transmuter concepts to speak of, and it seems the best suited to making some kind of Magical Beast (as this seems to be the most common type of creature explained away via the 'mad wizard' origin), although this feels slightly derivative as I would be recombining old monsters into new monsters in the most expedient solution, and half breeds abound anyway. This isn't as provocative a concept; I had envisioned the character as carrying out the all-life-is-similarly-valuable shtick to just shy of absurdity. It pleases me to be able to construct reasonable challenges within the context of the norms of D&D, and this feels like a bit of a cop-out.

Thoughts?