Icehawk's page

QuidEst wrote:

I like the approach on alignment.

LG for the playtest- get the basics right, and make sure the traditional Pathfinder Paladin is playable. But, still leave the other possibilities open, and (if they’re done) give them the space to be developed without drawing everyone’s focus during playtest.

Wonder if they'll continue this with Monk, Druid, and Barbarian. Wait who wants to be Lawful Barbarian?

Me. It's never made sense they were non-lawful only. Given a reliance on tribal laws, superstitions, and taboos, it's never made a whole lot of sense. It's a hold over from back when Chaos and Law were the only alignments and the Barbarians were basically savage berserkers.

When I saw the title I was hoping for people who turned into obsidian chunks.

There are several AP's with non-evil ghosts in them. Many in prominent plot positions.

Because npcs don't have levels anymore. The envoy thing is more flavoring than an actual class. She'll just have a bunch of abilities that are envoyish themed appropriate for her cr.

And given the comparative rarity of combat buffs in the game, every +1 matters a lot more. Of course, depending on what the rules in the bestiary in October says about how ac is decided, it might throw the calculations off.

Really annoyed that such an important book comes out two months later. If it comes out ac isn't beholden to gear but to cr or something it could change a lot.

A bigger variable is also what level they're at. And something that's going to be throwing us all off is the lack of bestiary rules as of yet. We don't have a whole lot to compare characters to the actual challenges thus far besides a few statblocks, and that's not a big enough pool imo.

Survival is very dependent on many factors, more than we can reliably all predict for. At best we can give you is some basic mechanical answers, but some things are very situation specific. AC won;t help you survive a desert after all, and flight won't keep you safe underwater.

Generally speaking there's a few rules you want to follow that you want in general.

Don;t take negative stats in dexterity, constitution or wisdom. The Paladin can get away with a low constitution or wisdom, but nobody else can. These stats affect all your saves, your hp, your ac, and your perception skill (the most important skill.)

Tying to this, always take perception, even if it's not a class skill. Being ambushed can get you killed very fast, and as a pc, 95% of the time, you'll be the ambushee not the ambusher. This also let's you find traps which could be a big problem sometimes. Just because you can't disarm it doesn't mean knowing not to walk into it is not useful.

Do not be the first to move into melee. This only applies once multiple attacks are a thing. How the game works is you can't move more than 5 feet and make a full attack. So if you run at them, you get one attack on them. Then they get all their attacks on you. Bad trade, right? There's nuance to this mind you. If you have pounce, then you want to charge every time you can, as if you get the full attack and take them down in one round, they do no damage to anyone. And classes with negligible physical attacks like primary arcane casters you can move into melee with without much concern. And Reach will force you to get in close, and take an aoo while at it, so be aware against large creatures you're in for a rough time either way.

Flank, don't be flanked. Flanking gives a +2 to attack rolls and opens them up for sneak attack if it's at play. Try to position so you can flank, but avoid it yourself. That being said, make sure not to over extend. Your positioning matters, and getting yourself surrounded can get yourself killed with no way for your friends to help you.

Focus defense over offense, but not to exclusion. Always get the best armor you can use, and if you get access to a shield it can be worth using. Armor and Shield enchantments cost half the amount weapon enchantments cost, meaning you get more defense than offense per cost. Just make sure not to ignore all offense, as someone with high ac and no offense is the equivalent of a stone pillar, and they'll sooner or later just start going around you. Be threatening enough to draw fire.

Defense is not just AC. Saves, Resistances, Miss Chances and Immunities are all very important. Cloaks of Resistance are considered a "staple" item for a reason, without them you tend to fail saves way more. Unless you're a paladin or maybe a barbarian but they do stack so can still be worth it. Resistances help a lot against enemies who spam nukes for chip damage over and over. Eat enough fireballs and it adds up. Having 10+ fire resistance helps a ton. 5 resistance isn't worth all that much except at level 1-3 though when alchemist fire can be dangerous. Buffs or class features that block debuffs are also very important. Freedom of Movement and Death Ward are very important to have access too through one means or another. Fortifications popular for saving you from critical hits.

Don't ignore consumables. Potions of healing aren't all that great but oils of bless weapon, magic weapon, or other potions and scrolls are all priced very reasonably compared to the permanent bonuses and might save your life and wallet in the long run if used properly. For healing, a Wand of Cure Light Wounds is usually the more economical answer.

Mobility matters. If you can't reach an enemy you're not going to kill them, generally. Archery allows one to circumvent this to a degree but for all it;s power, archery has several hard counters out there that have to be accounted for. As such, make sure you have a method to get airborne. Not only will this save you from land targets who don;t have ranged answers, it let's you chase down the flyers. Swim speeds underwater are the same way. There's not many answers to burrowers unfortunately, so your best bet is to stay off the ground and try to force them to the surface or circumvent them.

Not every battle has to be fought. While there are many times that leaving no enemies behind you is very wise, for unintelligent monsters like animals and creatures between you and a place may not have to be fought at all. Never underestimate the usefulness of means to circumvent danger to protect yourself and resources. Why travel through a desert when you can teleport to the other side? Why fight the beast in the moat when you can fly to the top of the castle? And so forth.

Familiarize yourself with your enemies when possible. Knowledge skills help there, but asking experts, going to libraries and gathering information is very helpful. Bringing weapons that strike enemies weaknesses, enhancing defenses against the enemies strengths, and leveraging what you have is always better than running in blind. Just make sure not to specialize too hard. One trick ponies don't work well in the long run, and enemies are likely aware of their weaknesses too and may shore them up. Just because white dragons hate fire doesn't mean it will work, because that white dragon may well have a ring of fire resistance. So be ready to counter such things as needed.

But one can continue with this for ages. That's how involved survival can be. Fact is, sometimes you'll just die to bad luck as well, and nothing can stop that. The trick is to try and tip the odds as far in your favor as you can. And that's always situational to certain degrees.

Clearly we need our own site, with blackjack, and hookers.

Maybe a zeta board. Then we got our own rules :p.

Icehawk wrote:

Ashiel wrote:

Lemmy Z wrote:

So, Ash... When are you starting an online Skype/Roll20 campaign and inviting me to play? It's been around two or three years since you promised! XD

Probably as soon as I get d20 legends into a place where I feel an alpha playtest would be viable. ^.^"

That said it would probably use Discord/MapTools instead of Skype/Roll20. :P

I keep saying it. Three mile waiting list. Celebrity Ashiel, haunted forever. Have to hire an internet bouncer :p.

It feels really weird actually, but mostly in a good way I'd say. It feels very complimentary and it's something I appreciate and am quite grateful for, and feel very honored to have people expect so much. It's a great ego boost, and it's a driving force behind my insistence to try to maintain a certain level of quality and effort put into things that I do (because not disappointing those who are supportive is a really big deal to me).

It can, of course, be a bit scary too. The concern that I might disappoint someone, or have a dull day as a GM (maybe a session just falls a bit flat or has a lull that isn't very exciting, etc), does float a bit over my head. It's one of the reasons I try to avoid letting the attention go to my head, 'cause as my head grows so too does that looming cloud of uncertainty, y'know?

Overall though, I like it, because I feel and hope that I'm providing something for others. That something might vary from person to person. Perhaps it is entertainment, perhaps a bit of shared experience, perhaps it's an insight, or it's a product (such as my revised marilith & balor, or the revised simulacrum, or a guidebook) that someone finds useful or enjoys having, or maybe even just the eyes and ears of a conversationalist who won't judge you for asking questions or talking about things - frankly - that are touchy subjects in the rather disgraceful social jungle we find ourselves in these days.

Also, much <3 for my cultists. I literally cannot seem to avoid smiling and...

For the record, long as you stick to the things you say you're about, I doubt many people will be that disappointed. Like all my games mostly consist of rushing from one plot point to another because if we take too long someone will b$~~*, but if we don't spend time roleplaying someone will b~%+* and someone will b&#@& about a railroad and so on.

I played several APs and it feels like a lot could be solved by slowing down and taking ones time with it yet we can't do that. So it's an endless cycle of complaints.

So, you know, I have a very very high tolerance and severely doubt I'll be disappointed :p.

Also cus it was asked, I... don't remember how I found this thread. I'm thinking I found it via Ashiel's profile. I am master stalker. I think I reach this thread via his profile more than any other way.

Lemmy Z wrote:

So, Ash... When are you starting an online Skype/Roll20 campaign and inviting me to play? It's been around two or three years since you promised! XD

Probably as soon as I get d20 legends into a place where I feel an alpha playtest would be viable. ^.^"

That said it would probably use Discord/MapTools instead of Skype/Roll20. :P

I keep saying it. Three mile waiting list. Celebrity Ashiel, haunted forever. Have to hire an internet bouncer :p.

Makes sense. That said polymorph any object is a very confusing mess right now in pathfinder.

Though that raises the obvious question. What if I polymorph them into a giant block of stone then carve a stunning statues out of them. Will they look like the statue or will they look like something out of American Horror?

If we body sculpt their corpse form, will their body still work when they revert? It's a bit... Grey area.

Also cus I just noticed now, Klara, the reason why the worship of Nocticula uprising surprised me is Calistria exists and fills the same niche so there isn't much reason to do so if all one cares about is sex drugs and rock and roll. Urgathoa is there for the same reason if you want an evil version. This implies a different reason for the worship.

Also that's a bit of a thing that irks me. There is... Way too many deities. Too many. Now having a diety for everything, fine. Having 5+ dieties for hedonism? Starts to get iffy because it takes away from a reason people would worship the evil ones except for those who are real hardcore into evilness.

I mean Urgathoa and Calistria have just enough divide that I can accept it (particularily since Calistria feels like a kinda pointless diety anyways. Pun unintended.). But then you have Nocticula for the demons, Arshea for the angels, several of the various CG ones, one of the devil archdukes, and probably a few others if I hunt it out. And then honor, oh boy honor...

Making evil dieties work as a major force requires them to have a realistic reason to be worshipped. But when good aligned dieties do what they do but good aligned, it just takes away why worship them. Though then again, I guess that could make some sense in the that's how you beat evil dieties. Invalidate them. Course why they would LET you do that...

If I take their head off then dispel them, does it reattach?

Not sure the spell let's you temporarily kill someone and then de kill them. I mean, it's then the best death effect spell if so.

YEah but for corpses, so that'd work if you were a necromancer. Corpse sculpt a corpse, raise as fast zombie, make good use of gentle repose, done! Magic jar it and run around!

Fair few options I figure. The usual answers that make anyone good at disguise still work. Disguise self, alter self and so forth. Polymorph any object would be a superior but way harder to achieve option to begin with. Those less moral could also use magic jar.

But specifically in dealing with the elixir... Disguise would be as good as ever probably, but one could use surgery too. Possibly fleshwarping or demonic implants too :p. Equip succubi bits, maximize femininity!

...Damn it I'm thinking of too many ways for a villain to do this stuff. Darn brain! Mm. Another method could be hypnosis perhaps. Or a modified version of that one psionic ability that makes everyone think you're beneath notice. Claim to be a tiefling, they're all mutants anyways.

I sorta have a different take on this stuff. To me it seems a little weird, depending where you are, that it is considered unusual.

One thing that the game has a lot of is shape shifters of various types and tokens. Tons of them. Never mind the illusionists and people with various items and so forth. The psychology of entities without a strong tie to a specific form is quite fascinating because of how hard it is for us to conceive of it.

Now obviously regions that don't have a strong magical presence probably would find it weird, but areas that do often have to share space with creatures from beyond mortality in every form that may take, as well as people who generally defy gravity and so forth. Probably becomes about as remarkable as every other crazy wizard who does things for reasons. Might not be conducive to true understanding, but it'd be less remarkable, particularly since compared to the guy who animates hedge animals it's on the grand scheme way less flashy.

But I definitely get the issue of Anevia and Irabeth. Anevia's origins just never came up for the pcs when I ran it. I didn't see a reason why she'd bring it up, and they never asked. Far as they cared, she's just a tomboyish girl who sleeps with the half orc lady who takes care of their city when they aren't there. They spent way more time wanting to get to know the CE Barbarian who surrendered to them in book 2 who I have absolutely no background information on and thus had to invent things for.

Honestly, they never seemed interested in any of the listed npcs and gravitated to any I had to invent. Well cept the demon lord anyways. Who always seems to end up more popular than Iomedae from the threads I read. Funny how that works out. You've no idea how many faithful of the succubus queen I've seen since I ran that now.

I had two.

My first was Valerie Castell, a half-orc assassin cultist of Kabriri. She wanted to become a demon, so she decided on a crazy plan. She'd go and found a nation, and then tunnel all the way under the city and undermine the whole capital, so it'll collapse all the way into the Darklands, creating the world's largest open grave and full of food for ghouls, nice and mashed. she fully intended this to take a long time, so everyone who helped her make it would die of old age or be her undead servant friends and help her. Then she wouldn't feel bad about breaking what they made together.

She was an ninja, bone oracle, Demoniac, shadowdancer. I wanted an sneaky character that can manipulate undead and such.

She was kind to friends, vicious to enemies and enemies were anyone who messed with her friends. She was friendly and protective and often stalked others to watch over them. She used disguises liberally and posed as a noble to her own castle and balls to get influence and keep a thumb on the undercurrents of everything.

She also loved eating people. She wore a magic hood that hid her features but made her teeth glow brightly whenever she wanted them too to give herself a means to terrify her enemies.

Also when she first met all but one of the other npcs, she pretended she was a zombie for the necromancer. Because she could. Dedicated to it too. Told to eat the soup, face plant in the hot soup and held it. One doesn't get demon convertees from the undedicated after all.

My second was in Ravenloft based campaign.

Friedrick the Life-shuffler.

Friedrick was a Lifeleech Soulthief Vitalist with an affinity for tarot cards. He didn't think he had powers, he figured it was the cards. To connect others to the Collective, they had to be carrying a card.

Stealing life from others in Ravenloft is an evil act. Friedrich was good aligned. Because rather than steal life from others, he would give them his own, and take their injuries upon himself instead.

Friedrich was very protective of others and tended to put them first. He came from a nation where it's people are strangled with taxes and had a very communal mindset to try and protect and help everyone.

As the group he was in was really amoral, he was basically group conscience. Unfortunately this ended as after an mist incident they all ended up in a heavily psionic region, and in protecting the party, he was murdered by a blood elemental.

In a sequel adventure however, he comes back, his body and mind fuzed and altered with the blood elemental into a woman with lots of hole filled memories, vaguely recalling a corruption of the name, so called herself Friedrica.

Friedrica was a Crimson Countess Harbinger. Her collective was corrupted to instead of drawing others ills to her, instead drew their blood out to her. Friedrica was unstable and mercurial in temperament. She'd be calm one moment and amused another and cruel and aggressive the next. She often would say things she wouldn't get the full context of and just knew she felt a kinship with these people but not entirely why.

Her urge to help others had changed to the eradication of threats to others in as brutal a fashion as possible. She was a tank of sorts. She built herself to be supremely durable and dodgy. The untyped endless damage on enemies around her that wouldn't end til she died put the fight on a timer. Enemies had to make a choice. Deal with the squishier enemies and constantly be stripped of their vitality, or try to focus down the incredibly evasive longspear wielding blood lady and ignore possibly more imminent threats.

Icehawk wrote:

dysartes wrote:

Ashiel wrote:

Andreww wrote:

Provided you arew willing to take the feats for them as even when wild shaped you are taking the penalties.

Relevant FAQ

Things I love that people hate.

Real FAQs.
Real Errata.

Because the wild enhancement doesn't work that way. The FAQ is wrong. The enhancement only says you retain the armor bonus and any enhancement bonus while wild shaped.

It's not even an interpretation thing. The FAQ is just strait up lying. That's par for the course with the FAQ though.

Having just read the entries on Wild Shape, Beast Shape I, and the Polymorph school, I'd pose this question - where does it say that while your gear is melded with you, you no longer take any penalties from it?

If anything, the bit of the FAQ that appears to be wrong would be the bit that says you don't take penalties while not gaining bonuses.

And I'm fairly sure that given they write the game, Paizo FAQs are real FAQs, even if you don't like them.

The problem is that if something doesn't say it happens, it doesn't. Humans can't fly because it doesn't say we can. You don't get the armor bonuses. It says so. Unless you have the Wild enchantment. Then you do.

The FAQ adds a bunch of unstated rules to a book that does not contain them. That's why it lies. The book does not say what the FAQ says it does. It's an Errata that isn't actually written into the books.

Often when these FAQratta are made they make things worse to boot.

And these "FAQ" aren't even solid, they change back and forth. Remember the spell-likes allow qualification for spellcasting? It went away after too.

FAQ are supposed to be clarifications of rule text that are unclear. It isn't supposed to conjure up new rules out of the ether.

I agree they are using the FAQ more as erratas... However the FAQ is on the main Paizo site and published by the creators... So it's not official... arguing it's not is madness. That...

I prefer psionics myself as well, though Vancian has its place too.

As for the druid's strength, the ac stacking is a little absurd, but this doesn't solve that problem if that's their goal. It just makes it annoying for druids who take the less optimal pure caster route. It punishes a playstyle that's already kinda hampering itself. Battledruids who can fall back on casting have no trouble with these issues.

Incidentally the counter to druid ac stack is nuke spam and touch attacks. They can't deal with touch based assaults very well so spellcasters and summons and undead tend to have an advantage, as well as the usual spam em with alignment nukes.

As for it being official, oh it's "official" in the sense of the source. It's not "official" in the sense that it's the final word. Hell they often go against their own errata's later on, like with the previously mentioned spell-like errata.

It's a lack of consistency combined with often a lack of foresight. And if they want erratas, they have a place for them. People ask questions cus they want it clarified. They don't want rules completely rewritten suddenly. But that's often what they do get. And that's why a lot of us ignore it if we have the option. Least til it's written into the books themselves and make a lot of people sad.

Also the druid thing makes no sense anyways. If the armors not on you anymore, why does it restrict my movement? If it's all part of my body, why does it still weigh me down?

Ashiel wrote:

Andreww wrote:

Provided you arew willing to take the feats for them as even when wild shaped you are taking the penalties.

Relevant FAQ

Things I love that people hate.

Real FAQs.
Real Errata.

Because the wild enhancement doesn't work that way. The FAQ is wrong. The enhancement only says you retain the armor bonus and any enhancement bonus while wild shaped.

It's not even an interpretation thing. The FAQ is just strait up lying. That's par for the course with the FAQ though.

Having just read the entries on Wild Shape, Beast Shape I, and the Polymorph school, I'd pose this question - where does it say that while your gear is melded with you, you no longer take any penalties from it?

If anything, the bit of the FAQ that appears to be wrong would be the bit that says you don't take penalties while not gaining bonuses.

And I'm fairly sure that given they write the game, Paizo FAQs are real FAQs, even if you don't like them.

The problem is that if something doesn't say it happens, it doesn't. Humans can't fly because it doesn't say we can. You don't get the armor bonuses. It says so. Unless you have the Wild enchantment. Then you do.

The FAQ adds a bunch of unstated rules to a book that does not contain them. That's why it lies. The book does not say what the FAQ says it does. It's an Errata that isn't actually written into the books.

Often when these FAQratta are made they make things worse to boot.

And these "FAQ" aren't even solid, they change back and forth. Remember the spell-likes allow qualification for spellcasting? It went away after too.

FAQ are supposed to be clarifications of rule text that are unclear. It isn't supposed to conjure up new rules out of the ether.

Well in that case.

Card games

Fluxx
Munchkin
Poker
Blackjack
Go Fish
War
Texas Hold'em
Magic The Gathering
Yu Gi Oh
Hearthstone
Uno
Gloom
Pathfinder Adventure Card Game
Solitaire
Free Cell
Hearts

What tabletop RPGs in particular and boardgames in general have you played in your life?

TTRPGS

Dnd (3e, 4e, 5e)
Pathfinder
Call of Cthulu
Mutants and Masterminds
Vampire the Masquerade
Apocalypse World
D20 Modern
Hc Svnt Draconis (Here There Be Dragons)
Dark Gate
Don't Rest Your Head

Board Games

Chess
Checkers
Sorry
Monopoly
Battleship
Snakes and Ladders
Connect Four
Risk
Scrabble
Tic Tac Toe
Clue
13 Dead End Drive
Hungry Hungry Hippos
Zombicide
Arkham Horror
Payday
Chinese Checkers

TriOmegaZero wrote:

Ashiel wrote:

Meanwhile my sister and I joked and laughed while playing chess all the time.

Pretty much. I got bored of chess pretty quick when I realized the plays were fairly rote. Then I found this.

You should have heard the laughter when my Discord friends and I were playing Heroes of the Storm. Didn't matter if we were winning or losing, we were having a blast.

Meanwhile another friend of mine gets really tense if losing, to the point of shouting and being like "this match was horrible!"

Different strokes I guess. :)

Yeah know how both of those can go. That said HotS is so team based compared to other MOBA's that it's way easier for groups to do well.

I actually used to work on balancing for one of the first standalone MOBA's, HoN (Heroes of Newerth). It was purely a sorta fan thing that the devs allowed to do some things, but we held the devs to decisions and got to work on a patch, even if they refused to do a large portion of it :p. Frustrations with their methods and decisions eventually had our group fall apart though we still talk at times.

So I totally get the emotions that led to D20 Legends.

No, it's literally that. It is not better, it is a +1 to attack and damage. It going to multiple weapons is kind of a joke because as a fighter you are pigeonholed into using one weapon to keep up with the other classes.

It doesn't matter if I have Weapon Training: Axes and can use all axes if I have Weapon Focus and Specialization in Battleaxe. Weapon Training may as well just say battleaxes too.

This lack of ability to spread out and thus making almost all following Weapon Trainings useless is why Advanced Weapon Trainings can be a thing. Because they were dead space before so they gave them something useful to replace them with. I personally would consider taking one weapon training into a ranged option, or a melee one if I started on range, but otherwise the rest are dead space.

Icehawk wrote:

Ashiel wrote:

Klara Meison wrote:

Ashiel wrote:

Newly Converted Ashiel Cultist wrote:

Ashiel wrote:

Swordsaged by Klara. :P

Too slow, my lord.

I would also like to say that your post was so beautifully eloquent and hit on everything I was trying to much better than I was managing to do so. Many props.

Do I get to sit in on one of your games and see the famous master of deadly encounters in action as a reward? :)

I would be fine with that. I'm not actually running any games at the moment though (much to the chagrin of my friends on Discord I fear). In an effort to force myself to be more productive the next game I run will be with d20 legends, even if it's a barebones version of it. :P

Think I said it before but when that happens you're probably going to have a small army watching, including myself :p. Probably just as many wishing they could play haha.

I'm really not sure it'd be all that interesting to watch. Most of my online games are text-based over maptools (I type pretty quickly and I feel like I give better descriptions and a more immersive RP experience with presenting NPC dialog like that), so unless you enjoy reading the interactions between PCs and NPCs and such, it'd probably be pretty boring. ^.^"

I like it though. It's really easy to get immersed when the succubus that's teasing the party's Paladin isn't a slightly obese guy with a beard. I mean, imagine what Game of Thrones would look like if every character in the show was played by the writer. It would be simultaneously hilarious and horrific. :P

I do most my not pathfinder via text. Course that;s all free form sos tory based and such. Not sure there's mechanics that could accept the uh... Activities some of the chars get up too :p

Klara Meison wrote:

Ashiel wrote:

Newly Converted Ashiel Cultist wrote:

Ashiel wrote:

Swordsaged by Klara. :P

Too slow, my lord.

I would also like to say that your post was so beautifully eloquent and hit on everything I was trying to much better than I was managing to do so. Many props.

Do I get to sit in on one of your games and see the famous master of deadly encounters in action as a reward? :)

I would be fine with that. I'm not actually running any games at the moment though (much to the chagrin of my friends on Discord I fear). In an effort to force myself to be more productive the next game I run will be with d20 legends, even if it's a barebones version of it. :P

Think I said it before but when that happens you're probably going to have a small army watching, including myself :p. Probably just as many wishing they could play haha.

Well it hardly needs editing to make work out in a sense.

Once there was a great goddess, who provided for her people all they should need. And the people were happy. Each week she would arrive and bestow bounties upon they.

But one week, she did not come. The people waited, but soon their fear and rage took over. Where was she? What barred her path?

Their ire became directed at those others whom the goddess shared her company with. Surely they had done something to keep her from them and hoard her bounties for themselves! And so enmass they lashed out, assaulting those chosen few the goddess associated with.

When the goddess did arrive, she saw the carnage and was enraged by the harm her people had caused, and threw them out for their crimes, to become self sufficient and learn.

But the people did not learn. Embittered, they chose instead to embrace the anger that had arisen rather than take responsibility. They would not grow, but take instead. If they were to be forsaken, then forsaken they would be. Yet in their hearts they would never forget what they had lost and never know peace.

Why does this make me think about the origins of harpies and their banditry?

Aliizsa Sylvari wrote:

Puh-leeze. The situation is entirely under control. Maraketh fell by my hand once before, she'll do it again--after all, there isn't a being living or un that could resist going down for me~ Ahuehuehue~

for = on.

Lood.

Tels wrote:

Actually, I was curious for opinions of the creature as is, not in context of the AP. I've heard this guy can be murder in the AP to any party without ranged. But I'm more curious as to opinions without specific scenarios or terrain.

Well if you have any business fighting something CR 11+, and "without ranged" can be used to describe any member of your party, you deserve to be murdered. :P

I really like mummies though, especially those with class levels (see end of the post for some home commentary).

That aside, the dread mummy template is from Green Ronin Publishing, which is the first red flag. Flip through their templates and such sometime. I can't even think about Green Ronin without remembering their assassin's handbook for 3.5 which features a level 20 assassin base class that can use the coup de grace action on non-helpless foes (even going so far as being able to perform it as a standard action during a surprise round, which means an invisible assassin has your number).

As written, the mummy is in a kind of strange place. On one hand, it has a lot of incentives to try to kite enemies using its spells and breath weapon, but those things are fairly standard for parties around this level to deal with (death ward makes the breath weapon a non-issue, for example). Yet on the other hand, the mummy really doesn't shine very much unless it gets into melee and starts trying to hammer people with its physical attacks. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing (monsters with more than one fighting style option are a good thing IMHO), but at that point it's mostly just a mummy with class levels who has a really irritating ability (the resistant to blows thing).

Speaking of which, resistant to blows is just a terrible ability. Not that it's not strong. It's hella strong. But I think it's a terrible ability gameplay-wise. It neuters martial characters horribly since there's no way to overcome it and it essentially translates to "This monster has DR = to 1/2 the damage you deal +5"....

The pathfinder updated version of the Advanced Bestiary lacks the Resistant to Blows ability, as does the Anniversary Edition stats, where he instead has 2 more monk levels, his ring of protection traded for a Ring of the Ram, reducing his ac to 29, -1 worse accuracy but two more attacks, and 10 less movement speed and more and different feats. He seems easier to deal with by a large margin, but that was a running theme of the Anniversary edition.

Also, I know it specifies attacks, but you'd think attempting to coup the undead would end Halt Undead. I mean it's still an attack in the same sense invisibility would consider it for ending itself. I guess the question would be would it end when you attempt to do so, thus preventing it or would it end after the attack.

If you could have any race as a playable character race currently not available what'd it be and why?

An actual decently made Gnoll race would be nice. And Lizardfolk. I don't count the ones in the ARG. Succubus would be interesting, always wanted to make a succubus berserker. Dragon is fun, though I do like In the Company of Dragon's Taninim for that so in a sense I already have it. Drider could be an interesting one too.

Oh, but most of all, the various Lamia-kin. Except the Hungerer. I'm okay leaving that as being a nightmare.

For even more context, that guy there doesn't even move. He's literally a tied up bundle. He has to fly everywhere. While he does punch people, I like to pretend he instead has his arms locked up too and he just body checks into people as a full body telekinetic beatdown.

The stats were a bit different from that in the anniversary edition though.

Also, something weird occurred to me while I was mucking about with magic jar and possession. Vampire's blood drain is SU. This means someone possessing a vampire can't drink blood, and the vampire cannot drink in an anti-magic zone. But can walk on the ceiling as spider climb is EX.

This helps me with my bitterness.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DErurte4CE

Tels wrote:

I always wanted to play chrono trigger, but I'm a little worried that it may not "hold up" to its legacy and people are remembering it through rose tinted nostalgia glasses.

I actually have very little worry about that, honestly. I've gone back and played some old classics for the first time and I've consistently been pleased with the results. So much so that when I played FF9, I agonized for a while as to why this game was so much more somehow than anything I could recall playing in recent memory.

I've come to the conclusion that a lot of old games didn't have the luxury of, or perhaps weren't forced to have, graphics and voice acting to be the selling points of their game. That's not to say they didn't push boundaries but nobody was going to buy your RPG blockbuster if it had the best 16bit graphics but sucked and had no content.

I haven't myself played Chrono Trigger but it's my understanding that it has like 7 endings, and I think some are joke endings (based on my hearsay), and memorable characters and events. A lot of that is pretty special in today's world. I doubt I'll be disappointed, honestly.

I've also returned to play some old games with a critical mind (keeping aware of those nostalgia illusions), or even played games I didn't enjoy growing up (now being older and having a better grasp of what I was supposed to do) and found them to hold up just as well and in some cases better than they did by comparing them to more modern games.

It holds up very well, and it has a lot of subtle little things in it that can affect other things. Some more obscure than others.

There are 12(13 in the ds) endings. One at least can only happen in New Game Plus though. A couple of these are indeed joke endings but most are not.

There are some games that aren't quite as good going back. Final Fantasy Mystic Quest isn't the greatest game in retrospect (though holy crap does it have a good soundtrack), though I'm always gonna be fond of it.

Other games like Final Fantasy 6 are a masterpiece that stand on their own very well. There's so much subtle stuff in that game's design. Many people who played it still don't realize why it's the way it is. I had to think about it awhile myself. Also had fantastic music. Celes theme still makes me tear up a bit. Damn you video game!

Completely unrelated to anything but...

A friend of mine just noted that Harley Quinn has a pair of granddaughters in Batman Beyond, with Blonde and Red hair. He noted that perhaps "Grandpa" was actually Poison Ivy. I had never thought about it but given Ivy's mastery over manipulating biology, the idea that she could have used some of her own cells to produce offspring with Harley is an interesting idea and one not terribly out there.

EDIT: Here's the pitch.

Arcane Knowledge wrote:

So.... You know in batman beyond it was revealed that Harley had grand children

And they had red blond hair...
I think her an poison ivy had children...
Pretty certain actually

Because the only thing the joker had a boner for was batman

And poison ivy actually used plants to grow children of mixed dna
But they all came out looking the same... Like clones
And Dee Dee both look the same
With features that vaguely match both ivy and Harley
So... And you know... They were sorta in lesbians with each other after Harley finally left the joker

I choose to think of a lewder method instead.

And this is what I mean. When you only care about the numbers and not about the character's mentality really. If you are good, you wouldn't want to cast evil magics or worship an evil patron. However, if we are only going off the numbers than all that matters is the numbers. Lets play spreadsheets. Compare numbers against another person's numbers, tally with the variables, and see who has the higher numbers. If yours are higher, reduce some of their numbers by a variable and do it again. role-playing games sure sound fun when you ignore the meaning behind things and solely play the system.

If it resulted in good ends, a good character may well use evil magics. Some might not. That's up to the character in question.

The problem is this rule opens a can of stupid that cares more about means than the ends. Which can be valid for certain monstrous acts and such, but when you start having people who save many lives and protecting people pinging evil because they made corpse robot defenders for people, or started healing them or called up some angels to help you, your morality system starts to break down in it's validity.

But hey, when your heroes are immune to the bad guys trick cus they are also "evil" I don't think anyone is gonna complain :p. It's just gonna mean you'll need a new alignment catagory for actual bad guys. Maybe M, for mustache.

Technically one can argue it's not "hardcoded" because it was in a sidebar a bit amidst the spell descriptions.

This still irritates me.

Alignment: A blood alchemist trades the lives of others
for more power when using his lifeblood ability. A nonevil
blood alchemist can’t use the lifeblood ability, but he can use
his other archetype and class abilities, and he can continue
to advance in alchemist.

Basically, when you coup an intelligent humanoid, you can take their lifeblood. This can then be used to make a free extract anytime in the next 24 hours up to a spell level equal to 1/2 the targets hd, but only once for each extract level.

Doing this is solely the thing of evil because trading lives for power is evil. Much like trading the lives of dragons for armor that protects from dragons. Or the lives of elementals for golems. Or the lives of fiends to save orphans. And so on and so forth.

The druid one gets even better. They only have to be non good, but get to murder people to make plants grow, save their own lives, and the ability to cast her domain spells for free. And they get leadership to get a bunch of willing sacrifices.

I guarantee to address this confusing message, they'll just make this druid evil only too rather than the obvious fact if adventurer's can kill someone and take their stuff cus they are dead and don't need it anymore in the course of their adventure, who cares about the blood being taken for the same reason?

I learned someone else has similar tastes in CoC as me, so yeah educational :p

Well he plays CoC so obviously he's a missionary for the sole purpose of procreation with a sheet with a hole in it between the partners kind of guy. :p

This reminds me. What breed of dragons is your favourite?

Green. It gets woodland stride, hide in plain sight in the woods, is amphibious and can see through foliage like it's not there. With some minor to moderate investment in stealth related things you have a 40ft ninja stalking you through the bayou with casting power and can just hit and run through the trees like they are not there. And then dive under water if things are getting dicey. Or dart up through the foliage and out of sight. And thats without getting into exotic locales.

A giant tree lair it's stuffed an infinite water bottle who's name I forget inside so it spews water out of the knotholes and such, creating a surrounding half sunken forest region to rule over.

Having to actively change between your identities to activate your abilities is stupid. It means that you can never have to make that decision to reveal yourself for who you truly are in a moment of dire need because you just can't. It's like forgetting you know kung fu, when in reality you just choose to not demonstrate your kung fu except when in disguise. Except for the vigilante, you really do just forget kung fu.

If the vigilante uses any of these talents while in his social identity, he must succeed at a Disguise check against the Perception checks of all onlookers (without the +20 circumstance bonus from seamless guise) or the onlookers will realize that he is more than his social identity appears to be and perhaps discover the social and vigilante identities are one and the same.

He can do that part. Honestly I just wish some of these abilities were stuff any class could do.

So, is this one of your games or just eerily close to something you would do?

Definitely something I'd do. One of my chars in a different game was a war healer from a nation at war with a necromantic tyranny. Real star chamber, inquisitorial nation with a fake deity invented just so they could maintain further control and abuse a certain class of caster. So the nation char is from has very strong feelings on the matter of necromancy due to it.

So character is trying to heal people, being a medic mage, and she finds out the enemy is fielding walking corpses. She;s been frustrated lately because it's one thing to know that metal pieces cutting parts inside is bad, but if you can't see how everything works while it is working, some things are hard to treat. And she's no sadist so she isn't going to cut someone open while they are alive and look about. So she joins the war front to maybe get a chance to see these corpse men in action as a healer.

Course, that's not the safest idea and while she;s trying to heal people, enemy warmages drop a firebomb on her medic tent and collapse it half on her, frying her legs. So she has to use what she;s seen of the undead so far to reanimate her own legs and such. She ended up learning necromancy from defected enemies, and they forced the enemy back, but there was tons of bias against them from their own side.

So she bailed and went full on hermit, animating zombies and using her skill to keep them incredibly life like so she can make their anatomy still work and study it and use that to help others with surgery and such. She has to really force herself to use cauterization though. She doesn't even like lighting a fireplace anymore. Heavy fire phobia.

I don't know who that is. Double uninitiated! Though it'll be relevant just cus all the cultists.

Icehawk wrote:

Aratrok wrote:

Hey, do any of you folks play Dominions 4? We could always use more players. If you don't have it, it's on sale on Gamers Gate for 9 bucks for another 5 days.

Think I'm probably the only one then heh.

I <3 the benevolent Utopia that is Ermor. :3

What a difficult burden you must share with the world.

Hey, do any of you folks play Dominions 4? We could always use more players. If you don't have it, it's on sale on Gamers Gate for 9 bucks for another 5 days.

Think I'm probably the only one then heh.

In Canada, it's sorta the difference between statutory and indictable offenses. Statutory offenses are always fines, and include things like trespassing, speeding, etc. If you;re caught, you get the fine. You can dispute it at the court but they don;t need evidence beyond catching you initially. Like you can;t say you are unaware of the speed limit, they are clearly marked regularly. If something was obscuring it and you bring evidence you can argue against it, but it's no guarantee.

But indictable offenses require Mens Rea, or intent, UNLESS they are crimes of Negligence. Negligence instead has to prove that you failed your responsibilities. Like for example, if you leave a gun around and a kid gets it and hurts themselves, you are under negligence, because you went to a training course on gun safety and should know better. This is your fault. You can't say well I didn't intend for them to do that. That is what you were trained for. You cannot excuse it on that.

So, it boils down to this. Did our little email screw up get informed and trained beforehand on the matter? I almost am sure she did but if so she should be charged under negligence.

But then, our laws are not your laws.

Completely unrelated sidenote.

I've discovered that in Corruption of Champions...

Anemone Hair + Naga Body = Success.

My naga has been wrecking everything. Anemone hair gives you poisonous tentacle hair that debuffs your foe's Strength and Dexterity in addition to poisoning them. Naga can constrict (an opposed Str/Dex vs Str/Dex thing, or something like that) and incapacitate foes while taking them apart.

It's awesome.

You playing the original or the mod? The mods quite neat.

Kinda wish I could pull that sorta stuff in dnd and such. Kinda why the summoner has that sorta a ppeal, being able to play a critter who relies more on natural innate abilities than wizardry or whatnot. It;s why I like Rite Publishings In the Company of Series. Particularily the dragon one :p

Well, I said psychotic just meaning crazy. I'm aware of psychopathy, and know that psychopathy doesn't equate to killer (in much the same way gray doesn't equate to elephants :P).

I might even be a psychopath, shhh...

I've played a few characters that were psychopaths but they still weren't killhappy. :)

According to my fifth grade teacher I'm one. But I wouldn't take that very seriously. And fair enough. Still, plenty say one and mean another, and Paizo's version of psychotic makes you CE and plot against everyone around you and be a general misanthrope, and gives you a bonus to bluff to hide the fact you're not sane. Which does that sound more like? Mind you it doesn't make much sense to turn into a psychopath but magic etc.

But I'm off topic at this point.

I also get the sense that a lot of people are very nonchalant about killing. It makes me feel a bit of an odd one out, given that my characters actively avoid killing if they don't have to. If they do kill someone, it generally means self defense or there was something funny going on (funny may include a mercy killing, or a dark-side moment where the normally well-adjusted character kills someone out of an act of revenge or sense of justice, such as killing someone who murdered your husband), and those moments aren't usually played for laughs.

Even my evil characters don't kill for the hell of it. Killing's a really big deal. They might kill more quickly than the good ones, but even then they're not psychotic.

Psychopathic. Psychosis is a description of certain conditions that lead to a separation from reality. Hallucinations, both auditory and visual, alterations in behavior and thought patterns etc. The Confusion spell mimics a rather extreme version of this.

Most people misused Psychotic to mean Psychopathic, which also doesn't actually mean killer. This misuse of terminology irks me. Not exclusively your fault, Pathfinder makes the same mistake when they made their madnesses section.

Incidentally I really dislike the madness' that Pathfinder has in it, much like I dislike Call of Cthulu and VtM's ones. Not jsut for terminology reasons.

2 questions,

Have you ever had a player with such bad luck that they roll 6 times more fumbles than d20 rolls of 15+? (I have, literally)

Asking as a designer, what would you like to see changed about d20 and why?

Welcome to the fumble club. I lost my first character to a combination of that and paladin being a jerk.

Happy 4th of July everyone!

That is not Freedom Harpy. That is not Freedom Harpy at all.

Thanks for the great feedback everyone (and Icehawk, who sent feedback via PM). :D

Yeah, the bubble butt was something I wasn't super happy with (squishy bits are difficult sometimes XD).

Quote:

I like the implied feeling in the Suggestive Pose. When I look at it, I get the feeling like she's in a shower, and she's either been taken recently (and it was either good or hard enough to leave her with wobbly knees, hence the pigeon toe), or she's in the process of getting a good thorough shagging, giving her the pigeon toe. Other than the bubbly butt, everything seems to be well proportioned too.

Pretty psyched about that since that's kind of what I was going for as well. Trying to get skilled enough to draw pr0n, so I can use that to make cash using Patreon so I could quit my day job and focus more on art & developing my RPG. :o

Quote:

What I liked most about Aid-Another is the expressions. The girl looks almost demure, or subservient, while the man seems to flip between adoration of the girl, and smug pleasure at the power he wields over her. Possibly both. Depends on how I tilt my head while looking at it.

Super psyched about this 'cause the characters in question are from a roleplay my friend Raital invited me to, to run some guest NPCs. The setting includes a region, which they are in, which has a society that is excessively human supremacist (when I say excessively, I mean it's not even mild racism, it's literally everyone else is a slave or worse). Cassandra is a half-elf whose elven features are very prominent and is owned by her mistress, Nalise Ivoryclade. In this hypothetical illustration, Nalise is having Cassandra help a nobleman out of a bit of a hard spot.

So at least I captured some of that concept. :D

Heh, it has been a fairly lucrative business for several people now I noticed. Certain demographics are more profitable than others though I've noticed.

Nooo, I don;t spend a lot of time thinking about this stuff, why do you ask? >.>