Ethermagus's page

Thanks again, Zerzix. I really appreciate the work; keep it up!

Aah, I get it, I think. So these levels bring them up to the Bestiary description level. From there, we would use the normal advancement rules from the core book?

That makes more sense seen from that perspective.

BTW, thanks for the write-up. I may just have to go out and buy Savage Species. Is it PF optimized or converted from 3.0/3.5?

I would love to see all the most up to date versions compiled in one post or website. This work is great and I'd love to be able to direct my players to the racial templates without them telling me that they want to play an earlier version of *blah*.

@zerzix:

That looks pretty cool. I don't have the book, so I'm not sure of all the particulars of how that all works out, but it looks pretty cool.

Do you think you can do a Blink Dog write up and post it on here? I'm curious how they would play out with levels. I'm not sure why some pages had less than 20 levels and others had more, but could the Blink Dog page have 20?

I would let them start the process and, after about the third day of their folly, I would assume that the divine power that grants them the ability to cast such a spell will notice that there is a centralized NEED for holy water in that area.

After sending representatives to explore the situation, several punishments could be performed.

1. The god turns ALL the water in the area to holy water.
2. The god recognizes the abuse and withholds spell casting ability to the user for one week per vial abused.
3. The god gets angry and turns the representatives on the abuser.
4. The god thinks it's funny and makes all of the casters spells produce holy water -- instead of the desired effect.
5. A greater evil finds out that there is a ton of holy water being made and tries to take care of the problem before it gets too bad, destroying a town, driving the characters into hiding for being the cause.

No matter what, the market won't bear it for long.

Abuses will always appear; punishments won't always follow (unless the GM wants it to).

bittergeek,
Very cool leads for me to follow. They sound really interesting.

everyone,
This has been a really informative journey. I doubt I'm near the end for sure, so anything else you all have to add, please do. The more I have to work with, the better game I can run.

Now to dig into some of those leads. ~_^

Another trick I like to use it to allow them the freedom of the world, but give them the resources of an island.

That being said, I usually start them, literally on an island... or valley... or some other isolated setting. This lets them make decisions without too many variables being thrown in.

In time, give them a means to leave this "island." By then, you'll have a feel for the direction they'll take and can have more resources planned for those eventualities.

The key to a good sandbox is to always let the players FEEL like they're calling the shots, especially when you're railroading them.

As stated earlier, however, some players just don't sandbox well; they just need direction.

It's important to have pre-game dialog to find out what the players expect and would like to see. Back stories and plans for the future help give you the direction of where they'll likely go, but it's important to know if they like a lot of intrigue, combat, ROLEplaying, or just want a night with friends away from work, school, and family.

Now to pull it together in a single post to make more sense...

Whew, that was a lot of information. I really love these "spoiler" buttons for making it seem less daunting and more organized.

So, if I understand this correctly...

Does it appear to have any problems with it?

I've never seen this book before but have been directed towards it for a campaign I'm trying to put together. The idea is that the players will be Blink Dogs, but I'm hitting a wall with converting the monster write-up to a racial template.

The more I read online I'm not sure if this is a good book to get at this point or if it would just confuse the process.

Any thoughts would be grand.

Also, visit here to see the conversation on it so far.

Savage species rules? Is this a rule I'm missing or is it a supplement?

Do you think I should make the players take the feats listed in the Bestiary write-up or should I allow them to choose their own 2?

De- and reconstructing the blink dog's entry, I think this is what I think the race template would look like. Of course it's not balanced with the core races, but then again it's not meant to be; it has racial hit dice. If this doesn't look right, please let me know.

This clearly needs some work. I don't know how to translate the skills to a racial template. I need to figure out what to do with feats. Languages needs work too.

Of course, any advice is always helpful. Thoughts?

I suggest you make that Sorc's powers come from the Celestial bloodline. Sure it feels way off, but now you have a REALLY dark secret to hide from those who would manipulate you for it. The role-playing chances now jump through the roof!

I grandpa Celestial-dude trying to whisper sweet heavenly somethings in your ear while the demon lovers are sniffing you up and down to see what that light in your closet is?

Do you bend to the will of your lineage or take solace in the manipulations of your environment?

Do you throw the secret away, just to blind someone long enough to run away? Do you begin using daylight spells on your clothes to make your presence screw with people's vision, allowing you a sort of anonymity while being blatantly obvious about your presence?

Yup, a drop of heaven in a sea of hell is way more challenging to ROLE-play than the one that fits in the most.

Eleron H'byrd (pronounced L Ron Hubbard)

You could always give magic items that can be used for healing, say a gift from a guildmaster or a concerned grandmother.

Another option is to have a healer NPC go with them. Perhaps the local adventurer's guild requires that young adventurers have a chaperon until they are deemed capable of taking care of themselves. Of course the guild would charge a fee for this service.

It's sometimes hard to get a player to be the healer; that's a fact of gaming. Perhaps you could even bribe one of them to do it.

Good luck in your adventures!

Oh wow! I had no idea such a resource even existed for me to work with. Thanks for the Blink Dog Nation link.

What do you suppose their racial modifiers to ability scores would be?

Maybe it would be best to deconstruct their stats with the buy-in system and allot each player that many points to re-construct themselves.

Thoughts??

The Personal Star Chart idea really cleans up npc gear too. Since the dogs don't use the items, it's just man-junk to them so they should leave it behind.

Also, treasure doesn't have to be so carefully minded since I can just give them what they want/need instead of trying to reason why a scroll would be in a chest of coins to give the wizard something to get excited about.

Magic item creation feats would still be useful for enhancing Stars they have already received.

I guess the big question now is: Can a single Star be used by more than one dog or do they need multiples if they each want one of the item/effects?

I'm leaning towards Stars being individual "things" that cannot be used by multiple beings at once. They can gift them to each other, but can't use them simultaneously (just like an item).

Lots of great ideas! I'll try to touch on as many as I can.

Regarding Okami, my initial vision did get some inspiration from that game. The image in the book made me think of the game and then the gears started turning.

Regarding items/armor/etc, I think I've figured out the system I'm going to use for that. Each dog has within itself a "Personal Star Chart." This chart maps out the "Stars" that guide them through life's experiences and can change over time. Each item slot a normal character would have corresponds with a "Star Position" that is then filled with a "Star," or blessing granted by another being who is a part of their lives. What "Stars" can be used by a blink dog is based on its "Personal Star Chart" and class.

As an example: The blink dogs are granted the "Iron Defense +1 Star" from a patron for a job well done. This "Star" equates to a suit of plate mail +1, with the associated traits -- altering AC, lowering speed, etc. It is positioned in the "Defensive Star Location" or armor slot. Since the dog is a warrior, he can do this, but his party member who is a wizard cannot.

"Stars" can be modified just as a magic item can, and they can carry multiple "Stars" that fit the same "Star Position" but only use them as they would item slots.

For setting, I planned to make most adventure involve settlements and natural sites, with a little inter-planar activity. I really like the idea of a major humanoid city being found but empty. Perhaps a summoning ritual went awry.

The dogs would be trying to maintain the balance between the material plane and the other planes while agents from other planes try to destroy the barriers between. Eventually they discover it's all part of the plans of a potent other-planar entity who is trying to rend the barrier so it can control the material plane and they have to take down the big baddie.

Those are some great points. Thanks for the replies.

Does anyone know if there has ever been anything posted about running a hand-free campaign? That would be a great resource to peruse.

Of course, keep up the comments. Anything I can use to make this work out would be awesome, and anything to point out bumps in the road before I get there would be great too!

I'm considering building a campaign for my players where they will play blink dogs. I figure that since the species has human level intelligence and follow the stars, they should be a great pick-up game for a pack, finding new tasks as the stars move them.

The mechanics is where I have some questions.

For a party of 4 or 5, I would usually average their class levels, but it seems in this case it should be the average of their class levels plus their 3 racial hit dice. Therefore, a group of 4 or 5 level 1 (player class) blink dogs (4*(3 hd + 1 class level)/4) should face CR 4 encounters, right?

The next question has to do with class compatibility. It seems magical classes that don't require spell books would be easiest. How should I handle weapons and armor? I could make magical armor fit the wearer in any form as a rule, but that doesn't really change weapons. Thoughts?

Those are the big questions, but what else can you think of that might cause a snag for me?

Any thoughts would be great!