Diabolism

Eltanin24's page

** Pathfinder Society GM. Starfinder Society GM. 37 posts. No reviews. No lists. 1 wishlist. 47 Organized Play characters.


RSS

Sovereign Court

3 people marked this as a favorite.

Is 13 the number of victims needed to summon forth a Leukodaemon and bring upon the world a plague of massive proportion. One that will require social distancing of not 1 but 2 5 foot squares.
Is 12 the number of current sacrifices?
Inquiring minds want to know.

Please do a follow up,
also cudos to the artist.. I love how the blood is redder and thicker at the bottom of the clock and washed out at the top.

Sovereign Court

7 people marked this as a favorite.

So I don't know how closely Paizo is looking at the Beowolf Saga , but it has been clearly established by Beowolf scholars that Grendel's Mother looks like a sparkly Angelina Jolie. I hope for Paizo's sake, the art and any future adventure path's will reflect this fact.

Sovereign Court

The Attack of the swarm set looks hard to read on the left(with the white numbering) and much easier to read with the image on the left (black numbering). Which one is being sold?

Sovereign Court

9 people marked this as a favorite.

I guess the squirrelwind is a smaller version of the dreaded squirrelnado. Also not to be confused with the Polar Vortex which is the same thing but with Polar bears.

Sovereign Court 1/5 5/5 *

What if the pcs fail at the checkpoint and decide to fight the guards there are only 2? There doesnt seem to be any provision for this.

Sovereign Court 1/5 5/5 *

John Francis wrote:

Another typo ...

"You are an expert at using your resources to help other Stafinders."

Throw the book at him.

Sovereign Court

3 people marked this as a favorite.

This will require some set up. and it's technically 2 lines

DM: Me

3.5 Forgotten Realms Home campaign (CSI Waterdeep)

PC's were on a remote island miles south of Chult, trying to track down a lost group of wild dwarves. The PC's stumble into the lair of an awakened evil T-Rex Wizard. They know he was a wizard by his conical hat and a wand in his tiny hand.
They decide to talk to the T-rex, which I hadn't planned for. So I had the T-rex go into this spiel about how island life had become boring. And in reflection he realizes that boredom and anger over being trapped had affected his mental health and led to him doing some evil things. What he really wanted was to pursue his dream of getting off the island and get an apprenticeship under a wizard in Waterdeep.

So this exchange ensues:

Fighter: Can he fit on our boat, even, he's got to be many tons.

Cleric: can we shrink him maybe?

Sorceror: I don't know if we'll even have enough food.

Cleric: I can create water, but I don't know if I can create enough food.

Bard: We'll maybe he can swim behind the boat and hunt whales or something.

Barbarian: Are they going to allow him in Waterdeep?

Then the rogue (who later on, actively betrays the party and assists in the destruction of the Dragon mythal, and helping to build a planar gate that brought invading armies of dragon-like aliens, in exchange for gold.) says:

"I can't believe I have to be the moral compass for this party. NO, WE WILL NOT take an evil T-Rex Wizard back to Waterdeep."

Sovereign Court

I agree with both of the requests for .... more gear and more info on planets, moons and space stations.

I would like to add to that ...
more information on legal systems , advanced forensic information , security system information, also what kind of data is available on each person etc.

For example , if I write a murder mystery, what could I do to cover up a murder, what can I expect from authorities, what kinds of personal data is available, do I have full DNA libraries on everyone in the station, can I generate a hologram of what that person would look like from a drop of blood.

I would assume that there is more complex command structures and systems in place, but it's difficult to imagine what those might be.

Sovereign Court

Imps...

Your are all Imps in the City of Dis on the First plane of hell.
You work in a scribe shop copying text. but oh no..
you are one week late, translating the Necronomicon into infernal and you have to pull an all-nighter working on it.
There is no dice rolling instead you must actually work out a 40 page crptographic puzzle in real time. If you finish the puzzle in 10 hours then you will get a promotion to Lemures.
also Every 2 hours an ice devil comes in with a 5 page document and demands you re-copy it. again it's actual text that the dm created & you must copy the text word for word.

Sovereign Court

8 people marked this as a favorite.

I hate the name Norgorber (pronounced NOR-gore-ber)... I feel like it's baby talk.

also sounds like Golarion fast food...
"Welcome to Norgorber, Home of the Norgorburger"

Sovereign Court

1 person marked this as a favorite.

After fighting scarecrows, you find a locked chest... filled with straw.

Sovereign Court

An empty room with a lever can be fun.
The lever doesn't even need to do anything.

Also, rolling dice for no reason and laughing quietly to yourself.

Sovereign Court

1 person marked this as a favorite.

My college roommate put me through this in first edition:

Deep underground, You come around a corner, the tunnel you are in continues another 10 feet and stops at a 5' wide chasm that drops 80 feet or more . Across the chasm the tunnel continues for another 15' and turns right.

Perception check (DC 10) to notice a shadowy humanoid figure peak its head around the corner and start to run as soon as it sees you. roll initiative.

The far tunnel and the shadowy figure are illusions. and all that is across the chasm is a solid rock face.

For some reason, the shadowy figure running away makes players throw all caution to the wind and jump into far wall.

Sovereign Court

Obama or Cosmo... or both

Sovereign Court

3 people marked this as a favorite.

95. A mob of farmers and peasants following the PCs at a safe distance They are waiting for them to kill something, hoping to pick up a discarded shield or a backpack and "strike it rich".

96. Ship captains that refuse to give adventurers passage because their ships only get attacked when adventurers are on-board.

Sovereign Court

The trickery domain gives you mislead and copy cat both of those are good options.

You have heal, and probably a few scrolls of heal as well.

Since you are an evangelist how about adding glamour to your armour and buckler and making it appear as robes and a Holy book. you can get pretty high acs... considering you have lower lv priests at your command.

Since he has faced the pcs before ... I believe it is fair game to have counters for the things the party does well.

and of course he should have a few acolyte clerics .. warpriests, inquisitors antipaladins as bodyguards.

if you want to mess with the party .. you could send a lower level priest to cast a few Persistent or bouncing suggestions that ... that pregnant woman/ barmaid/ noble's son is reaching for a knife and really an assassin.

persistent or bouncing murderous command can also be pretty evil if their nearest ally is a loved one or noble.

Sovereign Court

3 people marked this as a favorite.

Back in my day you got paid in electrum pieces and you liked it...

Sovereign Court

I like Prot. Evil... u can pass that around to people and the spell doesnt benefit that much from levelling

Feather step - in case you get stuck somewhere in a jungle

produce flame - if you run out of spells does one more pt on average than magic missile and you can attack with it at 120 feet

air bubble - can get you through clouds etc.

comp languages - scrolls are prob better, but u will have it forever.

long arm - its personal, but it means you can stand 5 more feet away if you need to buff/heal. if you have others that have umd its a good buff to have

Sovereign Court

It's clear that what ever happened to Galorian... The aboleth's did it.

Sovereign Court

5 people marked this as a favorite.

I don't like to throw darkness spells and clouds. Not because they are difficult for the players. It just adds an hour to every encounter.

Sovereign Court

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "the pattern" of enemies... but i'll try to answer anyway.

if you are worried about ...throwing easy encounters, then one that is too hard then..
There is a CR listed for each monster in its description, that will give you a rough idea of how powerful a creature to throw for each party. and there are rules for how to calculate that for a group of enemies in the main book. Try to find monsters that are both appropriate for the terrain and place you are in and in the CR range that your party can handle.

if you are asking about what order of difficulty to put the fights in...
For a given session I try to use (CR + 2 or +3) for the first encounter, (cr +2 or +3) for the second then cr+4... that way they get to feel powerful for a couple encounters then are really challenged more by the final encounter..
CR isn't terribly accurate, but it gives you a place to start. You will eventually learn by trial and error what monster constitute a decent challenge

If you are asking what monsters to throw...i think its good to throw a variety of monsters. It gets tedious for players to fight the same thing over and over again also the monsters should make sense to be in that area. but.. You shouldn't have an otyugh in the bar or dire tigers walking alone down the street in the middle of the city unless there is a reason for them to be there.
or for your example .. I think it would be perfectly fine for you to be fighting a number of low level barbarians only to find out that they have a wormling dragon that they have been feeding and worshiping as a god.

As long as the encounters are in a reasonable range .. I wouldn't worry so much about that .. The most memorable fights tend to be the ones that go down to the wire between life and death.

A bigger issue for new dms is letting campaigns get out of balance...
because
... you gave out too much treasure or one item is unbalanced
... one pc becomes too powerful and half the table is bored

another common mistake is to take it personally when your players ruin your careful plans... It will happen
let it go..

Sovereign Court

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Did you hear about the cleric who was killed by an icicle?
He died of cold cuts

Sovereign Court

How about boredom.
If the city/Nation is ruled 5 godlike mages who have planned the next 5000 of the nations evolution. They will have systems to deal with natural human greed, aggression, etc. They will have extremely regimented food, water, legal and administrative systems. since no outside threat is really possible with 5 gods presiding over the city, that pcs could be expected to handle.
Really , the threat has to come from inside the council.
Maybe one of the council members gets bored. Just because he has a 40 wisdom doesn't mean he/she has to use it. Perhaps the bored council member wants to pit his mind against the others. He begins by creating a race of doppelganger-like simulacrums, that could sow discord, creating a perceived conspiracy between two groups, which escalates on its own. creates more discord by systematically murdering individual to break the redundant systems. The doppelgangers are magically untraceable and blink out of existence if killed, so no bodies are left. The Pc's are called in because magical means of determining their nature are not working. And of course the bored council member would set up another council member to take the fall.

ooh ... give the pcs orders to arrest one of the council members... that would be fun.

The council should begin tearing itself apart with suspicion .

Sovereign Court

1 person marked this as a favorite.

One other thought,
... you kind of still have to specialize into one or two types of spirits when you assign your stats. This is counter to the design for this class as I understand it, which is for it to be able to be a back-up to almost any role.

as it is now..
I'm going strength/ charisma & con, in that order and maybe I put some points into intelligence if I want to use the knowledge spirits..
because I would like to do some damage at lvs 1-4.

so I have to drop the dex & con & int spirits if they are doing something that is based on a dice roll/ skill check / maneuver check be cause the stat bonus is not there.

The other option is to crack out my charisma & just resign myself to the fact that I don't get spells until 4th & i'm going to be "bear" with a low strength.
When I think of a medium, I think of a fortune teller or some guy in Victorian-style clothing. Schwarzenegger is not someone that comes to mind.
I think this is a problem.

I don't think it would be too outrageous to have a power that let you substitute the Medium's charisma score or (charisma score -2) for either their dex, st, int or con based on the primary spirit's type. As long as it applied only when using the Medium's powers.

Sovereign Court

There seems to be quite a few spirits missing like...

. one or several stealth spirits ... please have this... the ability to make a party more stealthy or at least be able to quiet the walking tanks would be nice.

. possibly something that adds precision damage could be a murderer whose compulsion is to make you want to kill everything

. several types of healing spirits
( positive energy channeler & one that removes or suppresses conditions)

. a basic blaster type

. a de-buffer maybe witch-like
. ice & cold based
.aquatic based
.flight based
.something daemonic/ diabolic/ angelic / demonic/ kyton-ic?
. something undead ... compulsion being you want to taste the blood of ur enemies
. something sight/perception based
. some sort of maneuver master (grappler or disarmer)

i really think there should be 3 -4 or more different variations on fighting spirits... at low level I really don't think it is possible to be that effective and not have "the bear".
some thoughts... maybe a Shillelagh, flame blade type that creates weapons out of magic
a ranged attacker..

I'm not sure these are in the cards not appearing in this playtest.
I think more variation in the abilities would be good for the class.
With what's available for the playtest, i think it kinda fails
Hopefully they are ...

Sovereign Court

I like the concept, but you should talk to your DM, because parties' tolerance for inner table conflict varies. You should also be able to accept that if you have a good party, your character will be confronted and probably killed, or kicked-out of the party. But if you are in an evil party they may not care and may join in ...which makes for some disturbing role playing.
If it were me, I would not tell the other players your concept and kind of let the horrible vicious side ... come out slowly , maybe 2 or 3 levels later.

Although posting it here may tip them off.

Also I would love to see you role play what happens when you realize the first time, that you detect as evil. Do you deny the results? Do you assume the character that tells you is a liar and is out to get you? DO you assume the gods are against you.

Sovereign Court

I like it.

just a couple of things to look at:

1) look up the dc's for the monster statues... so u don't have to go digging through the books when they try every knowledge check in the book

2) you are probably going to get an argument if one of the pc's is a rogue when he tries to disable the statues and you say they are not trapped. my way of dealing with that would be either to make all the statues trapped with dcs in the 25-30 range

3) I might change some of these that are categories of creatures to an actual creature .. for example a genie could be considered either a djinn, efeeti etc the inevitable is a marut.. or the demon if they couldn't figure out the the type would make it difficult .. u could use a dretch..except it has hands for one of these.

I like that the puzzle rewards the pcs for figuring it out ,but if they can't they can pass it by trial and error

Sovereign Court

F. Wesley Schneider mentioned in the Secrets of Galorian forum at Gen Con that they would like to keep the number of base classes at the current leveland currently have no plans for expansion. One, Paizo believes in supporting their base classes in all their products and 2 he said they are difficult to do.

Sovereign Court 1/5 5/5 *

James Jacobs wrote:
Mark Moreland wrote:
Oh, that Creative Director, always ruining surprises.

While I understand that players who favor paladins DO want to be able to play characters as lawful good... I'll go to my grave with the opinion that a paladin who never has to make a hard choice about alignment and what's asked of him or how to solve a tough problem in a game will never know if he's TRULY a paladin, because without the opportunity to fall from grace, there's never an opportunity to uphold one's morals and ethics in the first place.

You could not have expressed my opinion better.

Sovereign Court

I played a Gnome Paladin in LG, and I tell you from experience ... find a way to get you mount Iron will or something to boost it's fear saves.

Theres nothing like getting ready to charge an ice demon only to have your faithful mount charging the other way.

If you a chance to get an ebony fly don't pass that up either.

too bad there's is no divine might/ divine shield in pathfinder...

Sovereign Court 1/5 5/5 *

I used to think that re-playing a scenario was a really bad Idea, until I played it in LFR. In fact, I don't think I've played an LFR scenario where there wasn't at least someone who has replayed it. I have to say that I still don't enjoy re-playing a module as much as the first time, but it makes mustering tables sooooo much easier, particularly at conventions. Also, I haven't witnessed the player that ruins a mod, for the rest of the table. So it may not be as much of a problem as you think.

I would like to see some mods designated replayable, and others that are non-replayable. I would not like to see mods replayed with the same character, but I would be ok with the ... another character different faction stipulation. Maybe this would help appease both camps, pro & con.

In my mind, the mods that are pure investigation mods... should not be replayed. But I really don't see an issue with replaying mods that are straight forward with a different character & a different faction.

Sovereign Court

Paladin -
Feat to extend immunity to fear to you mount

Fighter -
a pole arm set of feats like you've done for the two handed, sword & Board and two weapon style fighters, but for those using pole arms

Spell caster feats -

something else to help with fighting defensively

a pathfinder equivelent to practiced spellcaster

Bard -

a feat to increase the number of rounds that songs can be used

Other songs/ dances/ performances that actually do something -
examples off the top of my head

lullaby - some sort of sleep effect or slow effect or calm emotions effect

forte - grants an extra swift action

maybe something that increase damage of a particular element over a large area like any ice spell cast within a given area of effect is increased by 1 die or points per level - (could work for both allies & enemies)

- songs that temporarily eliminate fatigue or exhaustion

songs that do minor area damage like acid rain for a minor amount of damage or conjures small blades over a large area

songs that make it more difficult to cast defensively or concentrate on skills or to grapple

a rain dance - not sure what this would do

Monk -

I would like to see paths for monks similar to what you have done for sorceror bloodlines. They would instead be separated into various martial arts... like one for each of the animal styles for shou lin kung fu

maybe a grappling style art like judo or jujitsu

several completely fantasy related styles

Sovereign Court

on page 342
Shield of Faith says
... with an additional +1 to the bonus for every six levels you have(maximum +5 deflection bonus at 18th level)

the math doesn't make sense

a + 1 for every six levels should be a +3 at 18th level
or
is it a typo
that should read
for every three levels

Sovereign Court

Dude Go Desna,(dreams, travel, Luck & stars) she doesn't live by societies "rules". Heck , she's not really big on the whole "temple" thing
plus you get drugs. and you your holy water becomes crushed rose quartz.

Once you Kiss the butterfly all other dieties pale in comparison.

Sovereign Court

No one plays Bards anyway.

Sovereign Court

I think there are some minor changes that would help the Paladin.

1) This scenario is far too common:

... Brave Sir Hennet lowers his lance and says a quick prayer to Iomedae, to protect him from the carnage that surely coming his way. He screams "Death to Azgorizhad", the foul dragon from the depths of the Abyss, scourge of the known world. His celestial stead, Vengence, charges full speed toward an uncertain fate.
Vengence then takes one look at the dragon... stops, turns around and runs the other direction, Sir Hennet, helplessly shakes his head.

There are few things more frustrating or humiliating to a paladin then to charge the mighty dragon only to have your mount miss its fear save (not hard at all), turn around & run away.

Please give paladin mounts immunity to fear.
Or if not outright immunity, Something like an additional + 4 sacred bonus that stacks with the paladins aura of courage(+8 total).
Additionally, THe change of Heroes feast to a morale bonus (doesnt stack with aura of courage)rather than immunity (excellent change btw), combined with really low wisdoms of the animal makes it really tough to avoid.

2) change the paladin caster level from 1/2 class level to paladin level - 4.
This atleast makes them comparable to the Pious Templar, who becomes a better paladin then the paladin. Also, dispel magic & remove curse aren't laughable spells for a paladin

3) Remove disease really isn't that useful, isnt there a better choice?
maybe remove fatigue or remove exhaustion instead & remove paralysis & remove curse at higher levels