Would Pharamsa have issue with the "Fiendish Apotheosis" ritual which allows a mortal to become a demon directly and without dying? What other creatures or forces would likely have issues with it? Aeons?
I've been hearing variations on that explanation for going on two decades now. And there are cases where I buy it - but not in a game that is supposed to be about having a really cool character creation process where I can make a character that is mostly unique to me, and where the mechanics of the game system reinforce that. There are far too many examples of heroes from fiction who are mostly mundane with a little bit of magical talent from one source or another, but who are able to use that magical talent to accomplish goals reliably - not often always, but reliably. But when I can't (or have to use more resources to) make a rogue shadowdancer who can effectively fight alongside his shadow double, or a dragon instinct barbarian dragon disciple can't use his breath weapon? That strikes me as wrong. It sucks that my Runescarred Monk isn't good at using his runescars because he didn't go to the fine school of grandpa had sex with a dragon. Not just logically wrong - that's case by case, character by character - but wrong from the perspective of trying to let everyone at the table feel good playing the character that makes sense to them and the other people at the table. If I spend a feat on an ability available to everyone, and you spend a feat on the same ability, it doesn't make the game better if I now have to invest two additional feats trying to keep up with you when using the exact same ability.
My group is gearing up to try pathfinder 2e. For the most part, people are reserved. I've generally been the one most excited but I think I've run into something that has pretty well taken the wind out of my sails so I'm wanting to make sure I understand all of this correctly. First point - Modifiers are much more impactful in PF2e. A -2 is a pretty big deal. A -4 or a -6 would be enormous. If I'm wrong on this, please correct me. So the DC of a spell is Spellcasting Ability Modifier + Level + Proficiency Rank + Other Bonuses + Penalties. Spells: the Ability Modifier is determined by your class. For characters without a spellcasting class feature (mundanes) they have a Class DC that is calculated in the same way, almost always based on the stat that is most likely to be their highest. The problem I see comes with Innate and Focus spells - the methods mundanes can use to get some magical flavor. Innate Spells: Almost always use Charisma as the ability score (not a problem for half the spellcasting classes), and starts at Trained (+2), but goes up with your spellcasting proficiency if you have some. Focus Spells: Seems to default to Charisma generally, but there are exceptions (ranger's Warden Spells). Focus spells have a tradition, and usually grant proficiency in their focus spell type. Okay, so the part that confuses me. Let's say I am playing a bard.
If I'm playing a swashbuckler and I want to pick up the same archetypes/ancestry feats as my bard did. My Charisma is high, but it's not my highest.
If I'm playing a Barbarian, picking up the same archetypes/ancestries as my bard. My Charisma is probably middling at best. Let's say it's a 12. I wanted to play an ugly, temperamental type character. Hard to love, but has a heart of gold type.
When a -2 is such a huge modifier to an attack roll or a DC, being 5 behind seems...kinda like telling me just not to do that? Definitely not in a boss fight. This seems like a very strange design decision. I understand why multiclass casters are always 2 DC behind the actual class. A -2 is enough to secure that the best bard is, well, a bard. That makes sense. But why the decision to make ancestry spells, feat-gained cantrips and archetype spells all weaker for non-spellcasters and especially the uncharismatic characters? So what is the reasoning behind this design decision? Has Paizo spoken on it?
I'm looking for ideas for ruins in Numeria and I'm hoping the community can help. I've read the book on Numeria and looked through the adventure path - but so has one of my players. And unfortunately he's the type to excitedly spoil something for everyone when he recognizes it - unintentionally, but still. The basic premise is that three different clans (details on the clans are flexible) are in a standoff around a ruin that they all have laid claim to as their rightful home and have built settlements around it. The problem I'm having is why? I want it to be something cool and something desirable. So far the only idea I've come up with is a fallen greenhouse section of a ship. Very desirable, but not really cool. Can anyone help a time-crunched GM out?
Back when I played AD&D there were limitations. Some races could never be certain classes. Dwarves had resistance to magic, but that came at a cost, where magic items might not work for them unless they were forged with Dwarven runes and they couldn't be wizards. It made individual races very distinctive in tone and in feel, but came with some limitation to choice. Back at that time, everything came with some limitations and some lines you couldn't cross. Base clerics used blunt weapons, paladins had specific, brutal codes, Monks were basically hobos with sticks until they had some levels and that monk mysticism kicked in. Druids had to be neutral. A lot of these things had variants (kits) that did away with elements of them, but many of those strong, distinctive tones are carried to this day. - How much cleric art involves a mace or blunt weapon even now? Basically, choice mattered. It came with good and with bad. It opened doors and closed them. In AD&D, Dwarves were distinctive by mechanic as well as fluff. Fluff and mechanics went hand in hand. They were often religious societies - as divine magic was their only real magical avenue - and clerics were respected members of society as a result. Dwarven rune crafted magic items were rare and valuable - they were the only magic items a dwarf could reliably use. And these items were rare elsewhere as the dwarves were notoriously hard to deal with. Distrustful and gruff - as represented by their poor charisma. They often lived in far away places, mountains and I hospitable lands where they thrived despite odds - thus their improved constitution. As a result, a dwarf PC always felt like a dwarf. He knew the value of keeping ties to his people for pragmatic and personal reasons. His low charisma made it hard to build relationships outside of his society. No matter what part of the world he went to, he felt like a dwarf. Today, I see threads like this where the idea is that all negatives or restrictions are bad. Restrictions limit character. Of course the core assumption is that the player, when given infinite choice, will be happier and thus have more fun. I'm not sure this is reasonable honestly, but that's not something I'm planning on arguing. The question I have, is how this affects your world and the strength of time in your game? In a world where orcs have no penalties to mental stats, why are they tribal or primitive? They are just as intelligent, self-controlled, sociable and reasonable as humans, so why should they be primitives and barbarians? Why are dwarves gruff, distrustful and hard to deal with? They're just as charming as anyone else after all. Stats reflect your world. The bonuses, penalties and limitations are made to represent the world the player plays in, and those mechanics impart a feel to the game. In a world where the dwarf has no restrictions or penalties, the dwarf character is very different. Your fluff may say that dwarves are a hardy people, gruff and short of patience who trust slowly. They shy away from arcane magic, insisting that it is unreliable and finicky, instead trusting in divine blessings by Gods as old as the mountain. They favor Dwarven crafted weapons and keep close ties with their kin regardless of distance. But my PC? He doesn't feel that. He's hardy, sure. But why shy away from arcane magic? It's awesome. In fact, I'm playing a sorcerer. Why have a god? I'm a sorcerer. I don't need to have some God telling me what to do. Why go for Dwarven crafted items? Any old thing will do, and the elf gives better prices. So I'm going to do business with elves. Now, most players will try to keep some measure of RP going, they will pay homage, but none of that fluff matters when the dice comes out. In the end, my choice to play a dwarf had no impact on the character beyond mechanical bonuses. He could have been an elf or an orc or human or a frog person and how he plays doesn't change. How he interacts with the world? No difference. Ultimately, my argument is not that the new philosophy is wrong - that penalties feel bad and restrict options and thus should be minimized and removed - though obviously I don't share it. But instead, I want to impress the importance of how mechanics change the feel of a game world during play and while dice are being thrown, both the pluses and the minuses. The choices that open up new paths, and those that close some off. All are important. If you are going to do away with penalties and minimize restrictions, how do you make sure that your world feels like your world not just in fluff, but also in play. I can assure you, the choice to play a half orc wizard was far more memorable and distinctive in 3.5 than it ever will be in Pathfinder simply because there was a hard mechanical choice.
Mmm. Alignment debates. Let's take a swing. The ritual to become a lich varries from but of fluff to fluff, but the core idea is that it is a personalized one which requires horrific acts to be performed. This fairly guarantees a starting lich to be evil. But with enough time can a lich learn to live, to laugh, dare I say, to love? I'd say no. Not really. A lich is animated by negative energy which while not expressly evil can be perhaps closely described as "Anti-life". The very nature of his being puts him at odds with the living and life itself. He is a walking abomination, but as we've seen, negative energy is voracious. About as voracious as life itself. Both are forms of energy at infinite odds, but similar in that they seem to naturally drive towards propagation. Good on the other hand is decidedly life bias. In many, though not all, the good decision is the one which improves, saves or provides for the most lives with sentient lives taking a bias over pseudo sentient or non sentient. So, could a creature who is fueled by the very essence of anti-life, after embracing the concept and sacrificing morality entirely, move back on the path to a pro life state and morality? I'd say no. The hurdles go against his very nature and at some point as a gm I would argue his pro life stance would become incompatible with his anti life nature and one or the other would give. He would die, or he would go evil.
I'm actually a big fan of solo Xp, but even I have to agree that was a bad call. If everybody was there and helping in whatever reasonable capacity they could, give them Xp. Even the fighter who didn't do anything because it was smarter to let the cleric handle the situation. You don't just give trap Xp to the rogue. The only time I do solo Xp is if only one player shares the burden. If the rogue goes ahead to scout, ends up screwing up and handles an encounter by himself? He gets solo Xp since he was the only one at risk.
The cost to make a teleportation circle permanent is 22,500. The cost to do the actual spell itself is 1,000. That makes the total cost 23,500, but we'll just bump it up to 25,000 because I like mentally satisfying numbers. That is a huge cost, but it's less than the cost of a Galley (30,000) and the benefits are huge. No danger of pirates, no loss of goods to storms, don't have to pay for crews, food, repairs, anything. No kraken tearing your ships apart. And it replaces potentially dozens of galleys. So let's assume two major trade cities manage to make the deal - they'll both build and defend the teleportation circle in their own cities to allow for instantaneous, no threat, low upkeep trade. Almost immediately people will start adopting this new approach - it's fast, safe, increases trade. Sure, somebody could dispel it, but there are ways to defend against them, and its easier to defend against than, say, dozens of pirate ships roaming the ocean, sea monsters, storms, and scurvy. Add 100 years and you have the tippyverse - the result of this thought experiment back in 3.5
When I first started running large groups one of the things I did was, in my own campaign prep, put in specific elements I knew would cater to certain players. Work in their own story threads, items I knew they would like, things like that. If the fighter playing an ex-mercenary type didn't get any screen time last session, then I have an NPC this session be a mercenary who used to work in one of the same mercenary bands as said fighter - naturally prompting him to step up and show his face. I strongly suggest running through skype. Roll20 is a big pain without voice, and skype helps out a lot with that. Having a group of people running off the same computer however is a huge problem as it does limit that. I found voice chat to be a big benefit, though with a group of 9 people in call, invariably a small handful will start to steal most of the attention while the less vocal types stay back. In this case, its your job as the GM to listen for people being talked over and call attention back to them. "Shush, Rob was trying to say something, we'll get to you in just a moment. What was that Rob?" Then let Rob say his bit and go "Okay, sorry for interrupting, now go ahead." If somebody starts going quiet, specifically call on them. As time goes on you'll learn to recognize them by voice (took me ages - I'm horrible with voice / face / name recognition) and that'll help out. For campaign balance, don't up the power of enemies you are fighting. If you have a group of 8 level 3s, their average party level is actually 5, which means they should be able to handle CR8-9 boss fights. However, if you throw them against a CR6, they'll destroy it with action economy. The way I handled it was to make encounters with MORE monsters, not more powerful ones. It also helps to give monsters max HP instead of average, lets them soak a bit more damage instead of being blown up in round 1. I also suggest having your encounters utilize tactics. Barriers that provide cover, the cleric buffing them, using potions to prebuff, tactical spells from enemies, mixed groups, whatever it takes. Remember - your NPCs shouldn't be stupid, and with a group of 8 players, they REALLY shouldn't be stupid. Assume your enemies want to live as well. Oh, a suggestion for mapping? You know how normally you make the default hallway 5-10 feet? Yeah. Avoid that. Default hallways should be 15 feet wide if you can make it make sense, a 5 foot wide hallway ends up with a 50 foot line of players, animal companions and hirelings, which means the back half gets to sit on their thumbs for the full fight. Set a timer for yourself as well. Just use a website and set for 30 minutes to buzz in your ear. Every 30 minutes, take a second to think "Okay, who hasn't gotten any action?". When I first started GMing a larger group I had a list I checked on every 30 minutes. Who hasn't seen any action? Have I handed out xp and loot recently? Force players to use macros. Seriously. This speeds up roll20 so much. Here are a few of my favorites: Initiative: [[d20+1.01+?{Modifier|0} &{tracker}]]
For GM usage:
The double square brackets will make a more compact roll, which is really great. When you make NPCs, just learn to make their attack roll macros while you go - most of the time it's a simple
Anyway, good luck! Great love for roll20, helps make gaming possible for those of us who live in the middle of nowhere.
The big issue is that while at mid or even high level an optimized martial can more than beat a caster in single target damage, the caster can often replace you entirely with minimal effort. Why play a rogue when the wizard has knock, pass wall, detect magic, detect secret doors, and a wand of find traps? Your amazing acrobatics? He can fly. Bluff? Try charm person. Intimidate? Dominate person. Sleight of hand? Stealth? Invisibility. Now sure, there are situations where you might do better, but why should the wizard be a better rogue even half the time? Why be a fighter when you could be a conjuration specialist, or a Druid? Feels bad to have the wizard show you up at your thing regularly. Now, casters have their own issues, but none to the degree of a high level fighter who can go buy pizza and the only impact is the wizard burns an extra spell slot.
I'm somewhat confused about the battle poi. 1) Does the battle poi get a bonus to damage based on the users strength (or dexterity for the agile enchant)?
It's a silly, lighthearted game with everybody playing halflings and gnomes with builds like a gunslinger using a redrider BB gun who only has one eye. It's mostly just a game to keep things going during the holidays until people's schedules stabilize in January and we can get back to the normal game. So not a lot of material for deep drama.
While an awesome idea, not fitting for this game in particular. Not very long lasting.
Last week they had to win a game of calvinball (a game where everybody was making up rules on the fly) vs owlbears who had been given sentience by the last Druid of the Order of the Owlbear (owlbear being the replacement for turkey in this game's thanksgiving) and then subsequently rebelled against their "Father" and became highly civilized and gentlemanly. Next week I plan to work in the Grinch. Eventually they will have to defeat the Saint of Claws to prevent him from enslaving the halflings and gnomes and forcing them to create toys for human boys and girls across the world.
In the next week or two my group will be starting a holiday campaign. The players will be playing (mostly) halflings and gnomes who ultimately have to defeat the Saint of Claws who seeks to enslave the artic short races and force them to craft fine toys for the humans in an attempt to bring joy to the greatest race and show the halflings and gnomes their place. The game will be level 12, and the characters will be pre-genned - mostly because it's only a 4-5 week game. I've set my mind on 10 characters in total, enough to give my players some room to play. 3.5 feats and content is largely allowed aside from classes and prestige classes, as is psionics from dreamscarred press and third party content (again, no classes or prestige classes). Problem is? I'm out of concepts. So far I have the following -The one-eyed halfling gunslinger Markle Redride, creator of the RedRide Ballistic Barrel Gun (RedRider BB gun).
Anything you guys can think up?
And thankfully nobody has ever used the reasoning "it's part of the Pathfinder rules so I'm using it". In fairness, if you as a gm allow that to fly, it's your fault. Artifacts exist too, but you shouldn't let your players have one because they are in the rules. This goes double in homebrew settings.
Unless I'm mistaken, a bloodrager with the primalist archetype gets everything a barbarian gets, except the following -
Now, being that some of the bloodline abilities are vastly better than any rage power, this allows the primalist bloodrager to pick the best of the bloodlines and the best of the rage powers, while retaining every other benefit the barbarian had. I have this feeling that I'm completely missing something, what is it?
In my games I give bonus Xp out as a reward. Normally, this just means that a player might reach a new level a session or two earlier but it has happened that the divide has grown bigger. Most of this bonus Xperia comes from players doing things like coming up with really good ideas, great rp, or the occasional solo job. Sometimes I've had parties split up as well. If everybody is kept to the same Xperia level, then bonus Xp is not worth pursuing. If people get full Xp for not even being present, it tends to grate the other players the wrong way as they had to suffer increased risk due to being down a player. As for not contributing in fights, it mostly hasn't been a problem in some time, but I did once have a player who was a low level wizard and would literally do nothing in mook fights. Not even a sling or crossbow. There were a few other examples going back to a monk in a d&d who would hide in fights and leech Xp to get to higher levels without risking himself, and a rogue who did something similar in 3.5. Being behind a level doesn't mean you can't contribute. It just means you are a touch behind and have to find ways to catch up.
I always have avoided the level ups at set times approach to Xp. When a single player does something awesome on his own, he should be rewarded. If a player does not contribute to a fight he should not receive xp. This is fair, but sometimes life happens and the game goes on. My traditional method is to let the player fall behind to a maximum degree of 2 lower than the average party level, or 3 lower than the highest party member, whichever is higher. Now, if you have friends who just have wonky work schedules, you can go a bit softer. Possibly run side 1 player content to help him catch up.
You should also think about why a 500 year old creature that is smarter and stronger than you naturally, and more importantly one that is known for, above all else, it's ego, is willing to give up its own goals to put on a saddle and degrade itself into being your pony. Unless dragons are very different in the game world you play in, this is a huge problem. More than the mechanics. You may want to look into wyverns which are basically stupid dragons that can be tamed.
So this is a problem I'm actually working on myself right now. I realized not that long ago that there was a sort of weapons race going on with my players. It used to be that in order to sort of challenge my players, I would create a handful of encounters of various difficulties, but nothing too bad. Each encounter my eat up a spell or two, take off a few HP, no big deal, by the end of 4-7 of these, they are getting a bit weak, time to rest, don't want to run into the BBEG on accident. Then they got to the point where they could craft wands of cure light wounds for cheap, or buy them from the store for 750. As the GM, I can't justify being "Oh no. Nobody in the entire city of 50,000 has a wand of cure light wounds for sale. Nobody knows how to make them.", so okay, that's the situation. Now they feel more okay saving their spells, just sort of tanking it up, using their wand of infernal healing or cure light wounds to top off the people who took damage and keep chugging. 3 charges down, roughly 45 gold. Next fight? 1 charge. Next fight? 2. For like 80 gold, they've negated all threat. Now as a GM, I want to challenge them a bit. They need to work for their loot. Fights should chip away at them a little bit, traps should be a bit scary, enemies should make them stop and think. That isn't happening. I try other methods. Traps? Trapfinding, pumped perception. Diseases? Cure disease. Poisons? Easy to take care of after the fight. So I start making more difficult encounters. Now, each encounter is more or less a mini-boss, it's threatening, they are working for their loot again, expending resources. Problem is, where it used to take an impressive span of bad luck to kill off a player, now it just takes some notable bad luck. Somebody is losing a character every other session, because the mini-boss type encounter crit and took him from half to dead. S+**. Now my players aren't making flavorful weird characters, they are min/maxing in order to survive. More s%~+. I miss fighters with flails because nobody uses flails. I miss evokers because I want to throw some damn fire. I miss rogues at all. That's the way things have been for a while, finally I realized that I just wanted it to go back to minor encounters with a bit of expenditure of resources. I pulled my players aside. These are the changes we've agreed to make. 1) Wands of cure light wounds and similar can't be bought or crafted. They can be found. This makes charges a bit more precious, more of a situational thing.
We'll see how it works out. More fixes are in the way, but I think it should help cut back on the arms race. Things will be tweaked, but still.
One of the ways I've taken to spicing up my games is to work in randomized elements. I'm working on making a proper list of some of these themes, ideas and elements and was running into some writers blocks. These can be places, types of NPCs they will deal with, or tonal elements. With monster manual entries, it is assumed those are non-combat encounters. In my current game the players are in a position where they have to discredit a prominent bishop, the random element for this quest is Circus." So somehow I have to work in the circus. Perhaps the Bishop used to be a carnie and his skeletons are hidden in the closet of the big tent so to speak. Maybe every year there is a carnival in the city and he makes an appearance, a perfect time to plant something on him. I'm not sure yet, but these random elements have really spiced up games. Going to start 1) Circus
I know as a GM I generally take the view that a new character should get a good kick start up to being on par, but should be a little behind for a bit. Not behind enough to hurt, but enough to make it advantageous to not swap out characters every other level. Another element that hasn't been mentioned is that, in some games at least, a player doesn't have complete control over what items they get. Usually there is room to spend some wealth on specific tailored items, but part of your wealth per level is "spent" by the GM. Some of the items you get will not be optimal for you. When you make a new character, you can spend that gold in exactly the way that is most optimal for you. A player with 100,000 gold spread optimally and one with 100,000 and only 50,000 optimal will have a notable difference in power.
Reincarnation is a druid spell of level 4, but it has it's risks. Delicious, delicious risks. Of course the modern reincarnation table has no entry for "badger" which makes me sad. Still, it only requires a bit of the person's body. So, if you can find some blood spatter you should be good to go.
In the end the character decided to go with a half-drow, half-orc. The character background was really well crafted, the idea being that low-caste drow were paid or threatened into mating with orcs and other "brutish" races in order to create a strong slave force but smart enough to be somewhat tactical. It was an interesting enough idea I just grabbed the Advanced Race Guide and worked it out. This is the end result: Brute-Blooded Drow
Elven Immunities-Immune to sleep, +2 vs enchantment spells and effects-2 RP Integrated: +1 on bluff, disguise and knowledge (local)-1 RP Static Bonus Feat: Improvised Weapon Mastery: You do not suffer any penalties for using an improvised weapon. Increase the amount of damage dealt by the improvised weapon by one step, to a max of 1D8 (2D6 if it's 2 handed). The improvised weapon has a crit threat range of 19-20/x2. - 2 RP Orc Ferocity: Once per day, when a member of this race is reduced to fewer than 0 hit points, but is not killed, it can fight on for 1 more rounds as if disabled. At the end of its next turn, unless brought to above 0 hit points, it immediately falls unconscious and begins to die - 2 RP Darkvision 60 feet - 2 RP Light Blindness: Abrupt exposure to bright light blinds members of this race for 1 round, on subsequent rounds they are dazzled as long as they remain in the affected area - -2 RP Total RP: 7 (shot a bit low to account for the feat and personal bias)
It seems to me that demons would see the PCs retreating as a sign that it was time to hit while the iron is still hot. The PCs are hurt, if they could have sent an army they would have, but now that the PCs probably have proof of a bigger problem, they would get some help. Time to make a move before an actual army shows up. The is still in chaos from the news. Sure, guard may have been doubled but it's unlikely that proper defenses have been erected yet. Plus, demons can summon up some more fodder. The guard house suddenly is set on fire, taking out half the defensive forces in the town, at the same time the opposite wall is attacked by stealthy demons, only thing that stops that from being the end of things is a single guard who managed to ring the bell before he had his insides become outsides (this rewards the player who had the foresight to prepare for an attack on the town-it's going down but the increased guard let them warn the town even if they couldn't handle the horde). Normally towns people are running, buildings are on fire, the PCs have to find a way to stop it. Only then can they head back to the dungeon and have the boss fight with the big bad who is simply making preparations to move into a town he is quite confident is now his.
Work has finally calmed down and unfortunately in the time since my old game has gone the way of the dodo. Looking for new players for a pathfinder game I will be starting up in the very near future. -Will be played through roll20
This game is set in a custom game world using the pathfinder ruleset, primarily focusing on sandbox exploration of a mesoamerican inspired world. The party will be comprised of the primary of two expiditionary forces, effectively the “swiss army knife” of the operation, expected to explore, defend and keep the peace with the natives at any cost in order to ensure the success of the colony. In exchange, they are promised a minor percentage share in the control of the colony, giving them potential to guide its development over the potential months or years as the colony grows, or dies, by their actions. With the Rum Reef pirate safe haven nearby leery of the increasing mainland presence, the Halfling colony of Freyport already having growing roots in the region, and a wealth of unknown entities within the jungles, the players have to find a way to not just survive, but thrive in the hostile environment. I'm looking forward to this and I've already got close to 30,000 square miles of jungle for the party to explore. For some further information, check here |
