Hobgoblin Shogun's page

How does the Titan Mauler and Bulk work? Does weapon damage actually increase? Tell it to me like I'm 5.

(And when can I play as an Urban Ranger? :o :O ;D)

Sounds like my middle school games where the PCs would polymorph each others' familiars into fish so they'd suffocate.

Soundtrack for Arcanum: Steamworks and Magic Obscura.

Absolutely! Perfect addition for tone and mood. I also use:

-Tarboy OST
-Silent Hill 1/2 OST
-Fallout 1/2 OST
-Final Fantasy VII OST
-Final Fantasy X OST
-Baldur's Gate 1/2 OST
-Madame Butterfly

Armors have their own version of Bane, Defiant. Champion could also work for Cavalier.

Determination is basically Auto-Life. Looks like a steal for 30k.

Hobgoblin Shogun wrote:

Dasrak wrote:

In all seriousness, you'll be spending copious sums of money duplicating what a wizard does naturally.

You need something to prevent the outsiders from teleporting, something to give you a fly speed, something to let you see invisible foes, something to let you bypass barriers or walls (likely teleportation of some sort), something to protect both you and your mount from horrific doom caused by Su and Sp abilities that will be coming your way, and on top of that you need a powerful weapon and staple items to boost your saves/AC/attributes. 1 million gold pieces doesn't go as far as you think when you have that many bases to cover.

Assume the DM isn't terribly smart.

1 000 000 gp should be able to buy you a smarter gm.

Well, see, gold pieces are fictional money.

In all seriousness, you'll be spending copious sums of money duplicating what a wizard does naturally.

You need something to prevent the outsiders from teleporting, something to give you a fly speed, something to let you see invisible foes, something to let you bypass barriers or walls (likely teleportation of some sort), something to protect both you and your mount from horrific doom caused by Su and Sp abilities that will be coming your way, and on top of that you need a powerful weapon and staple items to boost your saves/AC/attributes. 1 million gold pieces doesn't go as far as you think when you have that many bases to cover.

Assume the DM isn't terribly smart.

If you had 1 million gp for a lv 20 cavalier out to fight demons, what would you buy?

Who is that? I didn't play that game.

My player's just engaged Scarplume in combat. She nearly wiped them out due to their poor planning. They found out she was a Strix by subduing some of the Tieflings and intimidating them, but did nothing to prepare for her ability to fly. They then proceeded to stay on the roof while she blasted them. One of the characters was killed, and two more went unconscious prior to a lucky shot bringing her down.

Is this just an absurdly difficult encounter? Or should I chalk it up to the player's not making good decisions?

She does good damage. But if the PCs just sit there and take it, did mostly sounds like it on them. If they're gonna stand out in the open and get wailed on, really they're just banging their heads against a brick wall. Adapt or die sounds like a good credo to me.

She's nuts. What have been your experiences with her in your own games? Have the PCs defeated her? If so, how? She seems like a TPK machine. DMs, use spoilers if necessary.

Hobgoblin Shogun wrote:

What are the approximate numbers for each of the gangs? I gotta assume there are more Smilers and/or Steel Hawks than the ones explicitly placed in encounters. And then how many individuals are there in Scrap Wall that aren't part of any gang.

The module never says, but it does say that there are 'hundreds' of ratfolk and orcs in the lords of rust (add in some androids, humans, chokers, darkslayers, the odd ogre, maybe a wayward halfling).

When I ran the smiler's part of the module, I assumed that there were about 100 individuals affiliated with the smilers, with about a 3 dozen extra smiley smilers (who had modified their faces with soothe) ready for random encounters. I wrote up a couple of extra smiler leaders (a gunslinger, and a smiler orc barbarian with a bite attack) but never got a chance to use them. The one smiler random encounter I did was with a wanna be up and coming orc gang called the red hands. After Marrow had been killed, a few smilers tried to join this orc gang, and the gang leader decided to initiate them. The red hands surrounded the PCs, told them they were in red hand territory, and asked them to pick the weakest of them to fight the initiates. They picked Yule, the android gunslinger, who promptly shot all the initiates dead.

Wow, I really like that idea. The evolving political landscape of Scrapwall. I'm wondering about the Steel Hawks, because I think my PCs are getting ready to lead a gigantic gang war.

What are the approximate numbers for each of the gangs? I gotta assume there are more Smilers and/or Steel Hawks than the ones explicitly placed in encounters. And then how many individuals are there in Scrap Wall that aren't part of any gang.

My party just got to Birdfood. He nearly murdered one of my PCs in one round and almost wiped another. Why the heck does his bow do 2d6? That's not the Human Bane Arrows is it?

Death #1 : During the fight with Kullgra, he tried to parry her chainsaw attack, but he got beaten on the roll by 2, so he suffered a huge amount of damage before getting killed by a super critical hit!

Result : Sliced in half

That is so terrifying, brutal, and kind of hilarious.

Neongelion wrote:

so I'd imagine that the arachnid robot wouldn't be able to house even a fraction of his consciousness either.

Where do you get that?

IDK, he's a literally divine Artificial Intelligence? Seems pretty major.

I just wanted to say I LOVE this adventure. One of my favorite Paizo adventures of all time. Awesome job, guys!

Man, I can't wait. I'm barely starting my PCs on Book 2.

Had a TPK tonight. I was running the adventure through the last few sections of the lords of rust compound. Hellion unleashed all of its AOE attacks as they advanced through the compound. Kulgara gave the party a bit of trouble and one member had already died so after defeating her they decided to go back and rest and recoup their supplies. This also meant Hellion got all of it's spells back and was at full power when the players came back.

They cleared out Zagmander and the remaining dark stalkers/ettin and started heading towards Hellion. I had the observer robots waiting for them by the entrance, and after they took some damage they started retreating farther down the path towards where Hellion was waiting. The glyph traps popped doing some damage, but what really put them in was Hellion entering and managing to hit 3 of the 5 party members with confusion. Only one of them rolled to act normally in the five rounds that they continued to live. The remaining two had difficulty getting past his hardness. With Hellion's dual initiative he just chipped away at the confused party members and watched them slice into each other or themselves.

Oh man. Total horror show. Dual initiative sounds way rough.

All of the above. I know that's not very useful, but it's true.

cameronst wrote:

Voting begins: 10 minutes ago...

Is there a link somewhere? What am I missing?

SRC

When it appears, it will appear on the main page where the entry dates are listed. In the fine RPGSS tradition, it appears that there are goblins in the works. We'll just have to be patient.

There be goblins.

Magnus, Robot Fighter

and to a lesser extent:

Kamandi, The Last Boy on Earth

Magnus is clearly a Steel-Breaker Brawler.

Best of luck, everyone! I sure hope I got all the formatting correct...

I recently just watched "The Machine" on Netflix. One of the characters looked like Meyanda and I enjoyed all the android stuff.

Hobgoblin Shogun wrote:

Neongelion wrote:

Hobgoblin Shogun wrote:

Is Ghartone around?! Are there more Gearsmen?

Yes to both. CR 10 Gearsmen, in fact.

You have made me very happy.

Here, be more happy at their artwork.

That's a big.... gun.

Hobgoblin Shogun wrote:

Is Ghartone around?! Are there more Gearsmen?

Yes to both. CR 10 Gearsmen, in fact.

You have made me very happy.

Here's James Jacobs with an answer:

Worldwound Terrain

Yes, awesome. Thank you.

Is Ghartone around?! Are there more Gearsmen?

Worldwound Geography

Yeah, see I read that. So "Desert"? I was wondering if anyone had personal experience in the AP or DMs would might make a call on it.

The encounter with Birdfood and his orcs almost resulted in TPK for my group, in fact i had to use a deus ex machina to save them, don't get me wrong they had earned a deus ex machina in the 1st book but still it was needed, i didn't even played him at 100%, i followed his tactics as best as i could and i didn't even use his human bane arrows.

Maybe this encounter won't be such a problem for a party that has a little more diversity than mine (which has 3 humans and a half elf).

What did you do?

For the purpose of Ranger stuff.

Or just other anecdotes of whimsy and/or danger

So it looks like Meyanda is gonna stick around as an ally of the PCs, after events in Scrapwall convinced her Hellion is a blight on this world that needs to be put down. However, I'm currently not sure what to stat her as now. I'm avoiding any religious classes like cleric or warpriest; after having her zealotry shattered by the PCs, she does not like the idea of being the conduit of any god, regardless of alignment.

(I am also not sure if this is the place to post this but eh, rather not make a whole new thread, and this is the book where she's the star.)

I'm doing something similar. Maybe a ranger? She has that gnarly thing on her arm, but I'm playing her as a Steel-Breaker Brawler.

And will it have any significance to the plot? My PCs are dying to know more about the Gearsmen...

Also, will there be more Gearsmen? Like lots, lots more?

...cause that would be so totally awesome.

Is Ghartone, rival to Khonnir Baine, in the book?!

I'm thinking about doing a between book mini-quest for one of my PCs who happens to be an android. Returning to the place of his "birth" as it were. What do you think it would be like? Details and specifics are always welcome. And if you want to throw in details about the campaign, too, feel free, just add the spoiler bit.

I'm amazed nobody has said Samurai Jack, though that concept might be a better fit in a Numenera type setting.

Lol. Samurai Jack isn't really a genre. That's why it's so cool. It was set in the future to allow for dismembering violence of robots to get around censors for a children's show, but often there's no technology or marks of civilization at all, with Jack doing his endless walk through pristine forests and beautiful, untouched landscapes.

Though I can where you're going. Sometimes there are desert voids, but really it's "a guy with a sword killing robots" ("Jack and the Ultra-robots" comes to mind as having the right setting). Not unlike an adventuring party, using "antiquated" weapons to fight "futuristic" robots. Jack absolutely has the fish out of water thing, and really the point of all the tech in Numeria and Iron Gods is to make discovery wondrous and foreign again, with everything to be encountered marked with that alien strangeness.

That said, Samurai Jack *is* my favorite animated show of all time, barely beating out Batman.

Love it, Greyfire. Your PCs sound a lot more powerful than mine!

Yor Hunter From the Future.

Good one! He's like a caveman who fights dinosaurs and later gets to shoot stormtroopers-knockoffs with laserguns, as I recall. That's the sort of thing I'm thinking about. The weird superscience, wasteland, highmagitek-low-life sorta thing.

There's no magic in it, but I think Hardware is another good one.

ARE YOU SUGGESTIN SARENRAE MIGRATES?

I see your Fallout and raise you Mad Max.

You bet. Mad Max definitely has the wasteland stuff, and certainly predates and influences Fallout. But I name Fallout as being more similar to Iron Gods since it has stuff like laser guns, mutants, super science, even some aliens, where as Mad Max does not.

Update on my game.

Since everybody and their mother seemed to be TPKing on poor Hetuath, plus I felt that seeing the sun (thus ending the effect of his ancient curse) might make for a more compelling story. I figured I'd avoid the fight altogether since Hetuath would just see the sun and thank them. Done and done.

Only. That didn't happen.

Also a major reason for this is that my party has been struggling with combat. Only three PCs: a wizard, an investigator, and a bard. Not exactly heavy-hitters. Just fights with CR 1/2s make them breath hard. Plus they all have the Technologist feat, so I've kind of decided they're the Ghostbusters. Their lives will be easier once they get laid down with proton packs.

Anyway, they make it to the environ room, examine everything, read that the controls might control weather, seem to get it. I even describe specific buttons that say things like "Rain", "Sun", "Cloud", etc.

...then decide not to touch anything and move on.

Wat.

I feel the TPK coming as they saunter into the next room and see Hetuath, who immediately goes to town on them. I have Hetuath screaming things in his alien tongue about "how he needs the sun" and "wants it all to end", and the investigator, still under the influence of "Comprehend Languages" passes it on to the party. The bard tries to Intimidate him then swashbuckles a little with his longsword to no good result. Hetuath drops him. The wiz tries zapping Hetuath with some lightning (to which he is immune) and then Hetuath drops him. The investigator retreats and keycards the door shut. He makes it back to environ room and I do some scary "huge banging on the door, it's slowly wrenching it open" stuff. The investigator turns on the sun just as Hetuath breaks in. Light floods the chamber. Hetuath places a hand on the investigator's shoulder, and gives a wistful "...thank you..." before dissipating into ash.

Things like:
-Thundarr the Barbarian
-Heavy Metal

come to mind. But most any post-apocalyptic scenario with mutants and/or robots work well.

-Fallout series

As well as anything with

Any others?

Hobgoblin Shogun wrote:

A quick Hetuath question.

The way the map functions, it seems to me that the PCs will hit the enviro room *before* they run into him. So if they turn the sun back on first, shouldn't Hetuath then be less inclined to straight up murder them?

Undead tend to be single-minded and hard to reason with; his rage and anger would either keep him going and make him attack anyway... or you could instead reward the PCs for accomplishing that task first and have him rise up to attack, only to thank them in his alien language before crumbling to dust. Award them his XP in either way, but whatever feels the most dramatic and interesting story-wise for your group is the right choice.

Thanks, Mr. James Jacobs, Sir.

(Guys, OMG did you see that?! That was so cool!!)

I'm thinking of going so far as having the glowing-eye-switch-thing he does to one of the PCs and their body go stiff, and do like a memory transfer to tell the story of his people and his dark deal with the god of death.

...and THEN have his body crumble into dust. :)

That's one of my issues with the great modules and APs. So much great backstory goes untold. One of my main motivations to also have guest PCs play Meyanda and Khonnir!

But do they know what it means to love? ;)

Constructed (2 RP): For the purposes of effects targeting creatures by type (such as a ranger's favored enemy and bane weapons), androids count as both humanoids and constructs. Androids gain a +4 racial bonus on all saving throws against mind-affecting effects, paralysis, poison, and stun effects, are not subject to fatigue or exhaustion, and are immune to disease and sleep effects. Androids can never gain morale bonuses, and are immune to fear effects and all emotion-based effects.

So, they're both constructs AND humanoid. But the fact remains: are they "technology?" Here's the spell:

This spell wards a creature from attacks by technological objects and creatures of the robot subtype, and protects against mental control from technological sources. It creates a magical barrier around the subject at a distance of 1 foot. The barrier moves with the subject and has two major effects.

Ex-Warpriests

A warpriest who grossly violates the code of conduct required by his god loses all spells and class features, except for his armor, shield, weapon proficiencies, and bonus feats. He cannot thereafter gain levels as a warpriest of that god until he atones for his deeds

Here:

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/hybrid-classes/warpriest/archetypes/paizo-- -warpriest-archetypes/sacred-fist

Keep Flurry of Blows, but lose AC bonus? Other features?

A quick Hetuath question.

The way the map functions, it seems to me that the PCs will hit the enviro room *before* they run into him. So if they turn the sun back on first, shouldn't Hetuath then be less inclined to straight up murder them?

nighttree wrote:

What's the scoop on the DOMINION ???

** spoiler omitted **

So they're like

a League delegation that came to Torch shortly after the heroes re-lit the fire

I like it.

See above.