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I'm looking around for an official Paizo inquisitor archetype without spells, but not having luck. Is there not such a thing? I really like the class, but something that replaces the spells would be nice. I know there's 3rd party things, but if possible I'd like to use official material.

My personal preference is for more modular. I'd even kinda rather PF ditch even having a default and completely going modular with at least some of the races (I can understand it for something like a human or an elf I guess, but for aasimar, tiefling, skinwalker, and such… I think they would be better at least with bloodlines being a required choice and no default). But going 100% modular isn't standard, so I probably should do a default. I am sure I can think of something that would have muddled psychopomp heritage the way the default tiefling and aasimar do but with fiend or celestial heritage.

I was not aware of that book… I should look at it I'm sure in order to make sure mine turns out sufficiently different. Looks like I should make some appropriate archetypes, and other things too, since that's the standard for PF races (though making one not too similar to something else out there might be tough).

I'll make the Catrina bloodline my next effort (along with a default).

Thanks guys.

Do you all ready have someone who is going to work on the PDF for this? Because, I would really love to help out with that somehow, and you are planning to release it as a PDF still correct? If I am recalling wrong then, well, I encourage you to consider. I would want to get a copy in any case.

I may work on getting this organized into a nice little PDF as well, but here's what I have thus far (these have actually been playtested, but only with my own group).

Here's the google doc, in case someone wants to offer suggestions there:
Necrophim Google Doc

Necrophim

The Necrophim are born of humans (or occasionally other races) and pyschopomps, a race of outsiders sometimes called “angels of death” or simply “death spirits”. Such beings are even more uncommon than aasimar or tiefling, and may be confused for a member of those two planetouched races.

Necrophim come from lineages that were somehow changed by the realms of the dead, often the exact circumstances are mysterious. First generation Necrophim may even have been born as ordinary mortals, but become altered, while others were children born in the realm of the dead, and it left a permanent mark upon them.

The appearance and abilities of necrophim vary depending on what psychopomp they most resemble, but they tend to have pale, even albino white skin, and be very thin, even to the point of having nearly skeletal appearance.

Like many other Planetouched they frequently find themselves not really fitting in anywhere, and they have no society of their own, though this tends not to particularly bother most of them.

Fascination with death and the afterlife naturally are common among these folk, and frequently they find themselves in professions dealing with the dead, and undead, this could mean anything from a cleric of a death god, to mortician, to a crime-scene investigator.

Most Necrophim have a rather unsettling presence about them, that they may find hard to overcome regardless of how powerful their personalities are, for this reason most of them have a penalty to charisma.

Universal traits:

Type: Outsider (native)

Speed: Medium

Darkvision: 60ft

Languages: Necrophim start knowing common and either Infernal, Abyssal or Celestial (choose one).

Those with a high intelligence score can start with Infernal, Celestial, Abyssal, Dwarven, Elven, Gnome, or Halfling.

Endurance of the Grave: Members of this race also do not lose hit points when they gain a negative level, and they gain a +2 racial bonus on saving throws against death effects, energy drain, negative energy, and spells or spell-like abilities of the necromancy school.

Necrophim Lineages (one must be chosen)

Below are some of the different types of psychopomps, and traits for planetouched descended from them. Please note that this isn’t an exhaustive list of possible varieties.

Nosoi

These psychopomps appear as avian beings with traits strongly reminiscent of ravens, crows, whip-poor-wills or various other sorts of songbirds. Necrophim descended from them will tend to have traits reminiscent of corvids, or other birds, particularly those associated commonly with death. Taloned hands and feet, feathers for hair, and even wings are not unusual.

Traits: +2 charisma +2 dexterity -2 strength

These necrophim have strong personalities, and tend to be outgoing and talkative, out of all the necrophim they tend to be the most approachable. However these necrophim tend to be on the short side, and have slight frames, built for grace but not for strength.
Skill bonuses:

+2 perform (singing) +2 perception

Nosoi necrophim get to pick one trait from below:

Fly, 20 speed, poor maneuverability
Speak with dead, 1x a day as a spell-like ability.
Hide from undead 3x a day as a spell-like ability.
Sound burst 1x a day as a spell-like ability
Cold resistance 10
2 claw attacks which deal 1d4 damage each.

Memitin

These psycopomps look how one might expect an angel of death to appear. Necrophim of this lineage may have pure onyx black eyes, or even black feathered wings.

Ability Scores: +2 strength, +2 wisdom -2 charisma

Memitin are born of the powerfully built and fearsome angels of death, whom frequently watch over the bloodiest of battlefields.

Skills: +4 intimidate

Also select one ability from below:

Speak with dead 1x a day as a spell-like ability
Fly, 20 speed, poor maneuverability
Status 1x a day as a spell-like ability
Acid resistance 10
Bleed 3x day as a spell-like ability
Cold resistance 10

Yamaraj

These psychopomps bare the form of a massive black feathered dragon, with facial features reminiscent of a crow or raven. Necrophim of this lineage almost always have traces of dragon in their features, possibly with pitch black skin rather than the pale color shared by most necrophim.

Ability Scores: +2 Constitution +2 Wisdom -2 Charisma

Skills: +2 sense motive +2 perception

Also select one ability from below:

Fly, 20 speed, poor maneuverability
Breath weapon: A 15foot cone of cold wind. Does 1d6 damage. The save DC against this breath weapon is 10 + 1/2 the user’s character level + the user’s Constitution modifier. This can be used 3x a day as a standard action.
Detect thoughts 1x a day as a spell-like ability.
Mage armor 1x a day as a spell-like ability.
Tongues 1x a day as a spell-like ability
Cold resistance 10

Vanth

The Vanth appear as skeletal beings, with black feathered wings, with a vulture-like mask where their skull should be. Necrophim of this heritage likewise tend to have an emaciated look, they may even be confused with the undead. Some Necrophim of this lineage even grow a long and bony tail.

Abilitity Scores: +2 strength, +2 wisdom -2 charisma

Skill Bonus: +2 perception +2 intimidate

Also select one ability from below:

Fly, 20 speed, poor maneuverability
Deathwatch 3x a day
Reaper’s Scythe: Once per day the character can manifest a magical scythe. This weapon is a +1 adamantine scythe, and dissipates after 3 rounds.
Cold resistance 10
2 claws which do 1d4 damage each

Racial Feats

Psychopomp Heritage

The character gains cold resistance of 5, as well as +2 on saves against disease and poison. These bonuses stack with any others the character all ready has.

Prerequisites: The character must be a member of the Necrophim race.

Otherworldly Wings

Alternate Prerequisites: at least 8th level, and the Psychopomp Heritage feat.

You have wings which allow you to fly at your land speed, average maneuverability.

On Death’s Wings

Your fly speed increases by up to 20 feet. This feat cannot more than double an existing fly speed.

Prerequisites: The character must be a Necrophim which all ready has a fly speed & is at least 11th level.

I love Pathfinder, despite some qualms I have about it (and I don't think there's a system out there I don't). I do really like the new material Paizo is releasing as well. However, that said, after running it for years, I've decided it's just time to be trying other games, and expanding my horizons. I'm sure I'll always love Pathfinder, but for now at least, I'm taking a break from it (while still keeping my eye on new releases).

I've heard of Eclipse Phase (no, have not played before, but I like the genre so it has appeal to me) but I have not heard of the others in that list.
I actually went and got Ars Magica and Sorcerer's Crusade recently, and we'll be playing Mage the Ascension hopefully as well at some point (that's a White Wolf game I have not played).
I could see Golden Sky Stories being really appealing to a few players too and a few others maybe really disliking it, but I like the idea. I think Lace & Steel would probably be easy to get them on-board with though.

I'll suggest Traveller as one of our game options I think, and look into some of the others mentioned too.

We actually do plan to play Fate.
A few people have actually mentioned Mutants and Masterminds to me... my group isn't presently big on super hero RPGs really though, so, I suspect Hero system is the last one I'll play for a while, unless I try to find someone else to run it with a different group.

We have at least one fan of the Amber series in the group so I could see that one happening. I haven't heard much on the RPG at all really, so, perhaps I'll have to look it up.

I actually have the main Traveller book too, but have never gotten around to playing or running it (yet, so maybe I'll have to bring that one up as an option).

Paranoia I'd actually like to run (or play), seems like could be a great one-shot type game.

I've played CoC (and ran it) using a hybrid of Pathfinder and CoC D20 rules actually.

I've played a lot of Rifts and (old) World of Darkness (Vampire and Werewolf mainly) as well as Pathfinder/3e. Mainly this was because, those are the three that have been the most popular in my area. Recently however Savage Worlds has taken off in popularity around where I live so I tried that one. 5e is gaining popularity too, but isn't honestly a priority for me to try right now.
So far I've also played Numenera, Fudge, Hero System and Shadowrun, and (though it was a long time ago) D&D 2e.

I'm going to try Fate as well. I own Burning Wheel so maybe I'll actually get a chance to try that at some point.

So, I want to try more RPGs, I love PF but, need a break from it and want to branch out.

But, what I'm wondering is, what other RPGs would you recommend I look into? Ideally I want to try ones that are very different than what I've all ready listed.

It is a rogue replacement for me. I like sometimes to play skill-monkeys without magic or certain other themes (otherwise I'd go ranger or bard). I could be a rogue, but then, would be ill-able to keep up with the characters everyone else is playing when it came to anything aside from skills.

I'm glad Paizo is fixing the rogue in unchained though, if that is decent enough I may use it instead of the slayer next time I make a roguish character.

There is a metagame element sure, that is accurate, but there's reasons beyond that.

I do think it is OK in quite a few places for the party to split up. In nice parts of town, or a typically serene section of forest, and places they are familiar with which are known to typically be safe, unusual circumstances aside, players should feel free to have their characters wander off there with little chance for repercussion. But... strange new places, well, more caution is reasonable. It's the same reason why in RL people will make a point to travel in groups in certain parts of town, or why scuba divers always should have at least one buddy with them.

These things also serve the same purpose as random encounters: if they happen, it serves to illustrate how dangerous or not this particular part of the game world is.

Yeah... I just had one of my players decide to go off on their own in a town that the group knew was dangerous, and now he's been gnabbed and tied up. Sometimes they just have to learn the hard way. This isn't the only time bad things, or even character death have occurred while a character decided to wander off away on their own in a place that they KNEW was dangerous (I'm going to sleep in the woods where we've all ready been attacked by monsters all by myself!). You can only hope that eventually it clicks that doing that is a bad idea, but it can be baffling sometimes how much it takes to click.

Obviously all groups have their own standards for how risky the game overall should be, but, it is only reasonable for decisions like that to have some sort of consequence (and I would either have had dangerous creatures confront the character with the risk of death, or something else befall them too).

The characters may very well have been able to hear the signal as others have mentioned, but, if she was far enough away getting eaten probably would have taken place before any help could arrive anyways.

I wear pentagrams, I game, but funnily, rather than getting asked if I were a Satanist I used to get people asking me if I were Jewish (yes, people really did now and then, get the pentagram confused with a Star of David).

I do actually know Church of Satan members though, granted, only one of them that comes to mind is also a gamer.

The fellow wants to find a long term group, but mine is pretty full, so basically they are coming to observe the game, and then pick up the character and play a bit (we've done this a few times with other players whom just wanted a chance to game with a group for a session or two, but they have been people comfortable with building their own characters). I'm not 100% against adding a 7th person, though I've ran games with up to 8, but I did make it clear to him it would really depend on how the game goes for the group if we add another. He's played the game before, but said, it's been long enough and few enough times he really doesn't know how to play or make a character. So this is kinda a chance for him to meet some other gamers in the area really.

The rest of the group is pretty rules savvy at this point, almost all the other players have been in the group for at over a year at this point and we game almost every week. We aren't perfect to be sure, but, have tools like combat manager and Hero Lab to help us too.

Thanks for the suggestions guys.

For now I have made a ranger (did go with the archer focus for the ranger, and no animal companion) and a bard for him. I've had a slayer and bloodrager sitting around so those are options too.

hmm, I would not have thought of bard, but, I'll offer that as an option so I don't just have things that are focused mainly on hitting stuff available.

Gunslinger, yeah, I'll avoid, I've just noticed of all the non-caster classes that seems to be the one people stumble around with the most with.

I'm thinking
Slayer, bard and one other... maybe barbarian or bloodrager. I all ready have a bloodrager built so that could work.

I have a newbie player showing up to check out Pathfinder, and I want to give him the option of jumping and playing rather than just observing and will make a few characters for him to pick from.

I know fighter or rogue is really easy to pick up, and caster classes, especially full casters, I should avoid.
Slayer too I'm thinking could be a good option.

Any other suggestions for classes for a newbie?

The other issue with public venues is you have 0 control over who shows up, and sometimes some people with very serious issues show whom are incredibly hard to deal with. If they are problematic enough, they might get kicked out of the venue, but, otherwise, they are there and hard to avoid. That as well is a major reason why I seriously limit my gaming at any sort of public venue/business or the like.
However, a lot of people for a variety of reasons have no where else they can game, so have to use such a venue. I really doubt it is gender specific, but, I am sure it's a serious turn off.

Yeah... in fact, I'm sure it isn't gender specific, because, lots of women at LARPs and I've encountered a lot of the same sorts of people there too.

Reminds me, in my PF game the player characters found a bunch of funky potions (funky and generally horrible) one of them was indeed a potion of horrible B.O. Just waiting to see if they somehow actually make use of it (yes, they did make a point of keeping it).

thegreenteagamer wrote:

According to my wife, and I have to agree heartily with her, it would go a long way to getting women gamers to show up if gamers regularly showered before and wore deodorant to games.

It's a stereotypical thing to address, yes, but I have found it to be annoyingly true, and honestly, it's almost gotten me to leave, too.

Smelly stereotypical jerks bringing the rest of us down via association.

It would go a long way to getting me to show up in public gaming venues if this were so.

That's to everyone's benefit, really.

Oh me too... this is why I host games at my own place, otherwise my experience with public venues has been that they tend to fill up with a lot of people whom smell horribly and generally have no real respect for the venue, so they make a big mess of it.

The group I was with for a long time (granted this was Rifts and not Pathfinder) was usually pretty evenly men and women. LARP groups I've seen tend to have a lot of women.

D&D groups and Pathfinder groups though, in particular from what I've seen, tend to be predominately men. I'm a female DM, but, I've had almost all male players.

So, my experience has been, with the exception of PF/D&D there are in fact, a pretty solid percentage of gamers whom are women. Not 50% sure, but, not far off.

Why PF/D&D has so fewer than the other games I've had experience with, I don't know.

Why cater to requests for a specail snowflake race that is even more special than the existing special snowflakes?

A player character that is a goblin-slash-octopus??? Really? You really want this dude hanging out down at Joe's Bar & Grill looking for a new quest? I mean, most savvy folks would shoot that critter on sight. Not to be racist, or anything, but monsters are monsters and this "octoblin" or "goblipus" looks like a squirming abberation if ever I saw one.

We've already got a few aquatic races in PF, let him play one of those, if he must (merfolk, gillmen, undines). We've also got loads of Lovecraftian horrors, let him play a deep one throwback - human for starters, but that fishman transformation is just waiting to happen.

Or just make him a deformed gnome. That alone is curse enough to slake anyone's thirst for a special snowflake race. <g>

I rather dislike the whole way special-snowflake gets used on these boards in such a negative way. The the one exceptionally weird character amongst a group of otherwise probably mostly human (or some other relatively common-place for the setting race) characters is a trope which certainly has a valid place in fiction, and I think in gaming too... for that matter so do parties full of oddballs (X-Men and Inhumans immediately come to mind here).

Anyhow, I actually like the deformed gnome idea... because it immediately makes me think gnome alchemist whom had a alchemical mishap happen. Playing the result of that could be fun.

Yeah I can buy outfits that make someone look like a larger creature much more easily than a smaller one. I seem to recall in a Dragonlance novel someone using an elaborate dragon disguise to fool a populace for instance, which, would be amusing in game, and something similar being done in a Lamentations of the Flame Princess adventure too. So... really elaborate costumes (if they can even be called such, they are more like really well made puppets of the sort you'd see as movie props) could fool someone in the right situation I imagine.

Still... I like the idea of this being very hard to pull off, since, even an elaborate costume or "movie prop" is going to be pretty hard to really make look real enough. It makes more sense to me to add steeper penalties like Calth suggested.

I think the thing a lot of people miss with low magic setting is that they seem to presume that the players in one will be meeting the exact same challenges as the PCS in a higher magic setting. If you tailor one end, you have to also tailor the others. You choose the opponents, they might even be a lower cr than pcs of their level would normally face. But I don't consider that particularly relevant as long as they ARE challenging.

Things like humanoids with class levels, or even higher monsters edited to account for magic lowering ... You can balance it, and if you have a lot of practice with that sort of setting, you can balance it pretty easily.

This exactly. I really like using humanoids and low cr monsters with class levels, and they are actually very well balanced for a lower magic game. In games I've DMed that have a higher magic item availability, more casting, etc... around monsters without class levels are really ideal to focus on in my experience, and put up a nice solid challenge, while, things that rely mainly on class levels in comparison don't do so well beyond pretty low levels (at least that has been my experience).

Monsters, including tough ones at higher level can work well in a low magic setting too, but, ideally with a little tweaking, like altering how their DR can be overcome for instance (very few things in my game have dr/magic). I tweak monsters in other ways, but, that's as much or more due to me just liking to modify monsters.
Players deal with humans (which are the overwhelming majority in the game I'm running) a lot more than they deal with monsters though.

Combat Manager is excellent for if you need a bunch of humanoid NPCs though, I use it a ton.

really depends MMCJawa with your player group there... my group will complain if I flub rolls to keep them alive in an encounter, believe me, and that can mean that bad luck results in death in something that really is not a major fight/plot point (it's unlikely, but bad enough luck does happen). This is in games where resurrection spells are not entirely banned but likely to go interestingly (and much more likely in a bad way than good way).
At least some of them will tend to complain about any sort of Deus Ex Machina to save their butts too.

Really, it comes down to knowing your group. Some prefer things to be much nastier than others. The main problems I've had have been when I have a player that has a very different idea about how deadly the game should be than others, I've lost players that wanted death or other severe consequences to be very very unlikely to take place, while the rest of the group thrives on dealing with those scenarios. Of course, it isn't really possible to please everyone, especially if you want to be fair and not go easier on some players than others (though, this kinda gets into another sort of topic).

I've found that the rogue can work great in multiclass builds, but, yeah, on its own it is a weak class.
But I've seen a few levels of it taken along with soulknife (from Dreamscarred Press) and with Shaman (Advanced Class Guide) and it worked great in those builds. I think I've seen a few other characters with a few levels in rogue, but, not recalling the details at the moment.

When I have time for my home games I'm going to be coming up with a new class feature for rogue and playtesting it like mad (hopefully I'll have the chance to) in order to make the rogue more, well, roguish, fun, interesting and effective.

I for one have always interpreted "low magic" to mean "GM doesn't like players to have options/wants the players to struggle/or wants to play out actual medieval history using Pathfinder rules (this will end badly)". And I've found that most of the times, those are the real reasons for "low magic".

You might be right in as far as "most of the times those are the real reasons for "low magic" though I can't say this 100% confidently, but I love both really high magic and really low magic games, and enjoy DMing in as well as being a player in both.

The current game I run is indeed Renaissance Europe, and the no magic game was CoC during the 20's using Pathfinder rules (as a basis at least, classes were based on the ones from the 3e CoC rules).

Now, for the current game, I do have a lot of house rules regarding what magic items they do get their hands on and how they work. Since they can't just be bought and are so rare I like to have them be more than just your typical +1 sword for example. I have other setting specific houserules as well. However I find it rather fun to make and playtest such houserules and then see them in play in an actual campaign, if I didn't I would probably have just kept things much simpler and largely just refluffed a lot of magic stuff to be mundane instead.

As far as resurrection spells, I've ran the full gamut from games where PCs can just auto-resurrect, at least in certain conditions (which can make things interesting in its own way) to the current game where resurrection has a good chance of not working or going horribly wrong. They both lend a very different feel to the game world. The current group as a whole really has veered towards wanting a more "hard mode" sort of game, to the point where if I'm going to get any complaints it will be that something didn't have severe enough repercussions and was too easy to deal with.

Out of the way is fine, these sites are interesting ones, and I think could be used as a basis for something found in Syria.

I'll have to look at Karnak too... sounds really familiar.

I found some sites around the area of Aleppo itself that are pretty interesting too, I like the Ain Dara Temple, I might have to include it as one of the smaller sites players can go to.

Any published RPG material that make use of sites similar to these that perhaps I should look at?

humans, half-elves, aasimar and tiefling seem to be the most popular. Humans easily are the most popular at all, at least from what I've seen.

Those do look like good sources of inspiration, I'll have to read a bit more on them. Seems reasonable to base the subterranean aspect of the dungeon on them a bit, at least some of the levels.

Oh, I totally agree, but, if something is clarified in a reasonable way in RAW then I prefer to use that.... plus I'm giggling a little envisioning a PC wearing a gorilla suit to disguise themselves as an awakened gorilla (which still should be probably really unlikely to fool an actual intelligent gorilla).

So, it seems to me like it shouldn't even be possible, but, looking at the disguise rules on the PRD there's nothing covering players having their characters do something like disguising a human as an animal or an extremely different looking race like a strix (or for that matter something like a strix as a human). So, what is the RAW for this? Seems like if it is allowed at all should be much more steep than just a -2, maybe like a -10 or -20.

My Pathfinder game takes place on a fantasy version of earth during the very tail end of the 1400's. The group is currently 12th level, but will probably be 13th by the time they get to their destination. Their destination is Aleppo in Syria, they are going to be exploring the ruins around the region (the so called dead cities).

I mostly make my own dungeons, but, for this, I'm curious if anyone has some suggestions for dungeons to look at for inspiration. There will be above-ground ruins as well as underground complexes.

The Shredder is awesome too... I know it's a Dhampir archetype but I could so see a tiefling taking it. If you have ever played Brutal Legend, Eddie, is totally that, granted he's just one example of the fiendish metalhead..

Exploitation is also defined as "the act of exploiting" which is a form of exploit. Pathfinder all ready reuses terms, or uses similar terms across different classes quite a bit anyways, so eh, nothing new there anyhow I suppose.

See, to me, part of the appeal of having the rogue worsen conditions, or take advantage of ones caused by a teammate is that it encourages teamwork, but, I can also see the flaw in not allowing the rogue to also inflict those things on their own (which, yes, is a very roguish thing).

Yeah, I agree with Avon on this. It would take a pretty hefty boost in power, or just something that a player can figure out how to exploit (sigh) in just the right way to break the rogue. In my opinion it is one of, really two classes that simply needs a boost in power.

Funnily I've been strongly considering doing a writeup on new class features to tack onto the rogue specifically to boost its power, and make the rogue more, well roguish and was considering calling my options exploits as well (I was going to go in an entirely different direction though). However, I now recall that the arcanist gets exploits, which is just another form of the same word, might want to find a new name for our rogue goodies in both our cases to keep the distinction clear.

Anyhow, I would really want to see this rogue paired up with an antipaladin, that would be a great team... antipaladin inflicts cruelties making the target fatigued, so on, rogue takes advantage of this to sneak attack them.
At least, if I'm understanding right, that's how it would work.

Concept wise the Black Star is awesome, so is the Antagonist for that matter. The final ability (Elemental body) seems like an odd pick to me though, not seeing how it fits with the theme really.

I'm tempted to agree with Kestral287 on the damage of Black Star, but, I think I'd actually want to see it in play first before claiming to be too confident it isn't fine as is.

Anyhow, glad to see the aasimar antipaladin, and a tiefling, two of my favorite races (thanks in no small part to what they were like in the 2e Planescape days).

I all ready asked for the aasimar antipaladin on page 1... but in case someone else asked for it too and mine wasn't counted as a vote, my vote goes for Black Star.

aasimar antipaladin (one of my players played one, we did a weird archetype for it, it was a fantastic character from an RP perspective. I'm super curious how someone else would approach an aasimar antipaladin), plus, there's so few antipaladin archetypes, more would be nice.

Or dhampir druid (because dhampir and druid seem like such an odd combination)

In some of the older D&D settings reincarnate had its own quirky behavior. In Planescape for instance, on certain planes a character could get utterly corrupted by the spell and transformed into a true fiend by it. In Ravenloft there was a small chance of it going wrong and bringing you back undead (that was with all spells that could bring people back to life though).

So there's some precedent for weirdness, even really horrible weirdness, but, it was more circumstantial and tended to be a bad thing to be avoided (kids, don't cast reincarnate when you are adventuring in the Abyss, unless you want to fight your old friend when he comes back as a demon).

I've wanted to make more charts like this, but, never have gotten around to it, and in my current game handle it totally differently anyways.

I think it would be interesting to have reincarnate influenced by where and how you died though... like if you died a firey death coming back as an ifrit. If you died valorously fighting demons coming back as an aasimar. Granted, I don't think that sort of thing could be handled as a chart.

William Bryan wrote:

Alex Smith 908 wrote:

Now look the one person on earth who liked faction war will argue with me that the metaplot was good.

Faction War is the only adventure that really rubbed me the wrong way. There were elements that were intriguing but ultimately disappointment for me.

Tales from the Infinite Staircase was amazing as were a few of the oneshots for Planescape. I'm rather disappointed that there was no real elaboration on the ancient Baatorians.

Oh it was, I used bits and pieces from Tales from the Infinite Staircase a ton in my last Pathfinder campaign. I also have the main Planescape box set, and the main Sigil book, and also a bunch of the Planescape PDFs, most of them are really great.

Wizards is apparently working on Planescape... part of me is really wishing they'd let that license go so I could see how someone else would handle it. Planescape was very weird, and had some rather adult elements (not so adult compared to some of the stuff White Wolf and other companies have put out to be sure, but still), somehow I just don't see Wizards pulling that off.

Indeed, the race builder and RP points are useful as loose guidelines, but I've seen it is rather easy to build races with lower RP and races with higher RP and have the lower RP ones be notably stronger than the higher RP ones.

There's two ways to think about this with the undine though.
Either breath weapons when they scale the way it does only cost 1RP
Or the designers don't stick strictly with the race builder's concept of RP when making alternate traits. I think the later is more likely.

But, if you are really needing for some reason to stay within a certain RP, I guess just figure a breath weapon that scales like that one is worth 1rp, as, there's no official source I'm aware of that clarifies this.

yeah... RAW for this is questionable, but personally, I would treat the animal companion as all ready having the appropriate base form as far as prerequisites for further evolutions is concerned.

So, a big cat animal companion, I'd just treat as having the quadruped base form for example.

If you were concerned about treating it this way resulting in things that could be considered silly because the base form has it but the animal doesn't (let's say for example your quadruped animal doesn't have claw attacks, but the quadruped base form does) then, you could just say that in that particular instance, it doesn't have that specific feature that the base form would usually grant.

If you are DM, do what makes the most sense to you, if you aren't, I suggest asking your DM how they handle it though.

I don't see why not, 12 is considered to be high average/slightly above average or actually equivalent to an iq of 120 (which is definitely above the average of 100) depending on who you ask.

You could also write what amounts to game session notes, which would just go over the important details of what happens each game session and doesn't have to be done in first person as your PC. I keep session notes as a DM and it is helpful to have to reference. Your DM might appreciate you keeping something like this (whether it is done in journal form or not) as well.

New version for PC is working well for me so far.

Any plan to update the one for Ipad? Being able to sort monsters by class would be super helpful.
It also crashes a lot on Ipad since the OS update. I did try deleting redownloading and reinstalling it, twice actually, but it still crashes often.
I love the program so am really hoping for an ipad update soon.

I may have to check out Warhammer, sounds like their magic system could be interesting.

My favorite form of magic with consequences so far though is Ravenloft's powers checks. In most of Ravenloft only certain spells required checks, in Masque of the Red Death all magic was tainted so powers checks were always required when casting. Oh, failing a powers checks gives players bonuses, which may even be enticing to some, but, they are bonuses with a downside, and especially after that first enticing gift, it just gets worse and worse. The character basically loses their humanity, picking up downsides along with the mechanical benefits of becoming monstrously warped by magic. Not appropriate for Golarion, but could be for other settings.

Balance wise, yeah, casters are more powerful, especially certain ones, than other classes, and I get that perhaps, they should be to some extent. So just flat out nerfing them all the time probably isn't the best solution IMO (though I do think the argument Anthony Kane presents is not a bad one), but, power with consequences can be an interesting one.

Yeah, I don't look at thread dates either.

For a while I was being pretty mean to casters and requiring people to roll a concentration check as if defensively casting even if casting outside of combat. People still played casters anyways. I will admit, that check was rather painful for casters to always have to make though, and I did eventually decide to make it easier.

I ran a Masque of the Red Death game (using PF rules, though there is an actual 3.5 version), where not only do casters have to make a check to cast, but if they fail it badly enough then the spell has negative consequences. Oh, and even if they succeed, they have to make a powers check, and failing that... makes things interesting. I actually tried to get people not to play casters in that game (it's more akin to CoC, where magic is this exceedingly rare and dangerous thing that you should stay well away from dabbling in), and they still wanted to. They had fun even with the consequences (I'd say in the case of power checks part of the fun was with suffering the consequences).

For my game, where I want magic to be a rarer thing that people tend to distrust, having magic be slightly harder to cast, and sometimes having interesting (not always bad, but certainly potentially bad) consequences helps give the setting the feel I want. However, while having magic act a bit differently for the setting I'm running is a must, it wouldn't really work well for Golarion or several other settings that come to mind.

I have used it (alignment) in certain settings, but, I like to involve more real world-influenced moral debates in my games, and make what is good or evil/right or wrong to be something that can't be verified by means of magic. I think alignment just tends to cutout too much potentially interesting philosophical and moral debate (which my players like to engage in).

My current game setting is based on historical earth, but with the introduction of creatures out of legend (dragons and such). Since morality in the real world is something that will forever be debated and can't be absolutely proven, it should be that way in my game (which is despite having fantasy elements added on, otherwise historical earth) as well.

As for things that are currently in Pathfinder tied to alignment (smite and detect spells) I have them instead be vs. creature type. So, smite dragons, or undead for example. Paladins I actually have gain favored enemies as rangers do, in order to determine what they can smite or not.
I've been using this system for about 4-5 months, and it has worked quite well.

Definitely talk to the DM. I know I as DM want feedback from my players. Granted, to a certain degree a DM can probably tell if you are having fun or not, they may very well assume if you aren't saying anything that there's not a big enough issue that it is worth discussing.

So, talk to them, and just try to be diplomatic and offer constructive criticism.

Also, there's pretty clearly different expectations in the group, and it's best to be on the same page about that. Find out if your DM can still have their fun if they change things up more to what you guys would enjoy.

Celanian wrote:

IOW, you agree that not all 3+ int creatures with a spoken language get literacy for free. So a literal reading of the CRB is wrong. It would've saved a lot of time if you acknowledged that from the beginning.

Where do you get that, from what I wrote?

'I could read when I was three.'

Nope, nothing there. Quite the opposite, in fact.

'The summoned creatures aren't children, they're adult creatures, who could easily be decades, even centuries, old.'

Nope, still nothing. Just refuting your increasingly desperate attempts to bring children into the argument.

'A Small, 2HD elemental isn't a 'baby elemental'; it doesn't arrive wearing a diaper, and suckling a pacifier, and cling to the summoner's leg, wanting to be read a bedtime story.'

And...still nothing. Humour, used to deflate the tension.
Obviously wasted.

Now you've just made me really want a character to be able to summon a baby elemental, it's such a silly idea, and yet, sounds so cute.

RE:xeose4
The master summoner and broodmaster can be a problem simply because they involve so many things to track and have the potential to really slow down encounters, though, that potentially is a problem with other classes as well.

I really prefer players to not have more than one pet around for this reason, unless they are just exceptionally good at keeping track of everything and not bogging down encounters a whole lot (especially compared to other players because I prefer that everyone gets a fairly even amount of "screentime"). Most players, just don't succeed at this in my experience however, and it especially is a problem if you have multiple characters with a pets to deal with.

Classes that function like those archetypes can be awesome for in video games, where the computer handles all the numbers and keeps track of things for you (I love playing such classes in video games) but in tabletop games they can be a real problem.

Paizo's Ultimate Campaign book covers downtime, kingdom building, buying and managing buildings, teams, and a variety of other things. I recommend it.

You can also see at least some of what it includes on the PRD here:
Downtime on the PRD

If the Spiritualist is a sneak peek at the new Summoner, it's interesting to see that Haste was moved to 3rd level for the Spiritualist.

I hope the spiritualist is closer to the direction they are going with the redone summoner (though I'd like the summoner to have more customization options for their pet than the spiritualist does at present). The spiritualist is definitely a better balanced class as far as I can tell by just looking at it than the summoner.