Jerdane's page

Hmm...

[GM] The Great Gazebo Hunt: Have everyone in the party fail to identify a creature and never tell them what it really was.
[GM] When Suddenly, the Animator Suffered a Fatal Heart Attack!: Have an enemy spontaneously vanish mid-fight because you just realized they were much higher level than the party could defeat.
[GM]Unintended Consequences: Institute a houserule, then later revert to the regular rules.
[GM] Just Cross Your Legs: Create a sprawling mansion for the party to explore, then realize that it does not have a single toilet.

Out with a Bang: Simultaneously kill both an enemy and yourself with your own spell.
Ra-Ra-Rasputin!: Kill the same enemy three times in separate encounters.
Lovers in a Dangerous Time: Marry another party member in-game.
Shoot the Breeze: Critically hit an enemy who is Hidden from you. (This one is admittedly stolen from TF2)
It's Good to Be the King: Gain a royal title.
The Circle of Life: Open a tavern.
I Have a Cunning Plan, My Lord: Successfully execute a plan hatched by a creature whose Intelligence is less than 0.
Fiat Lux: Kill a vampire using sunlight.
Crusaders! We Are Leaving!: Exit a extra-planar fight by teleporting back to your home plane.
Take a Fricking Sip, Babes: Administer three potions in a single fight.

An item like that could also be used for the Locate spell if the serpentfolk go on the lam! As for petrification, that would be quite plausible too as the PCs capture a basilisk and return it to its owner earlier in that very adventure.

(Also, just realized that I referred to serpentfolk as "lizardfolk" in my previous post. Well, too late to edit!)

One option is to convince the lizardfolk to willingly undergo the geas ritual, which would only require the 3rd-rank version. If the lizardfolk were presented with the option of either doing 10 years of hard labour in a highly secure environment or taking the geas and doing 10 years of reparative labour somewhere with much lower security (maybe even in the community itself), they might take the latter. If the PCs want to be involved, you could make it a skill challenge to convince the lizardfolk and find them a suitable job in Nantambu.

Regarding it being worse for the enemy to see us, do you mean that if an enemy guard happens to notice a group of adventurers trying to sneak past, they may decide pretend they didn't see the adventurers because if the guard confronts them then they'll probably just get dismembered by the much more powerful adventurers? If so, that reminds me of a story I heard about a character who used Intimidate to sneak by walking up to guards and telling them "You never saw me" in the most terrifying tone possible...

WRT players who don't use QA, perhaps the player who wants to sneak separately does understand how QA works but they want to roll separately anyway because they consider it advantageous to split up the consequences of failure? If the PCs are using Quiet Allies then a failure on the group Stealth check would presumably make the enemy notice all of the PCs at once; conversely, if one of the PCs decides to roll separately then a failure on the group Stealth check wouldn't cause the separate PC to be noticed (unless they also failed their roll). Rolling separately obviously increases the odds of the enemy noticing at least one PC, but it might let the separate PC start combat unnoticed, which they might consider useful for one reason or another (not drawing fire, going around back of the enemy, using some specific ability that relies on being unnoticed, etc.).

Of course, if the separate player thinks that going separately actually decreases the chance of the enemy noticing at least one person, then they're very wrong and it's likely that they've misread the text of the feat. If they actually have a problem with the math, maybe you could point out that the group's attempt at Stealth will always fail if the PC with the lowest modifier fails, regardless of whether the other PCs use QA, so it's best to use QA to avoid more rolls. Alternatively, you could try an inverted argument and ask them to describe a situation where rolling separately would cause the group to succeed at Stealth where rolling with QA would cause them to fail. That might be helpful for rooting out exactly how they are getting the math wrong.

** spoiler omitted **

I agree that it's odd to bypass their AC like that, but it doesn't feel like an entirely free hit to me. The monk still needs to beat their enemy's Reflex save with Acrobatics to Tumble Through or Critically Succeed at DC 30 check with Athletics to High Jump, so the enemy does have some good defence against it. I'm not terribly familiar with the jumping rules, but I don't think running up a 2-3 foot obstacle would really help because the monk still has to travel 3-4 feet vertically (to account for the enemy's typical height of 6 feet) and at least 10 feet horizontally (to actually jump over them and not on them), which would still require the DC 30 Critical Success.

In terms of damage, it's also more of a half hit than a full hit. When a monk can first get the feat at 2nd level, its 1d6 results in an average of 3.5 damage, whereas a regular unarmed strike will do 1d6 plus the monk's Strength or Dexterity (usually 4 at this point) for a total of 7.5, which is over double. At 20th level, when the monk probably has a major striking weapon or handwraps, Waterfowl Stance increases to 3d6 or 10.5, but the regular unarmed strike increases to 4d6 plus 7 for Strength/Dexterity plus 6 for greater weapon specialization, for a total of 4d6+13 or 27, which is about 2.5 times the damage of Waterfowl Stance.

You're right that Waterfowl Stance has its upsides though. With it, the monk can target a tanky enemy's Reflex DC instead of their AC, add some automatic damage to their movements, squeeze in another attack without worrying about the Multiple Attack Penalty, and more. I just think that these upsides are reasonably balanced by the low damage and other restrictions.

My theory involves some spoilers for Hell's Rebels regarding Mephistopheles:

To piggy-back on one part of what YuriP said, I don't find that there's a big power imbalance with the Fighter's weapon proficiencies (though there might be a bit of an imbalance), I just find it odd and inconsistent with other classes.

To reiterate, all weapon characters have a basic combat trick. Barbarians get rage, Swashbucklers get panache/finishers, Rogues get sneak attack, Rangers get hunter's edge, and Fighters get increased proficiency. The oddity that gets to me is that during levels 1-4 and 19-20 the Fighter's combat trick (increased proficiency) applies to all weapon groups, but during levels 5-18 it only applies to one weapon group. Of course, all other classes have their basic combat tricks restricted to certain types of weapons too, but these restrictions last all the way from levels 1 to 20. Only the Fighter has their combat trick apply to all weapons at lower levels, then have it restricted to a single weapon group at middle levels before having it again apply to all weapon groups at very high levels. It has the weird result of making the Fighter switch from being a master of all weapons to a specialist at one weapon group then back again.

Consider if this applied to other classes and their weapon tricks. Say the Rogue could use sneak attack with all weapons in levels 1-4, then was restricted to using Sneak Attack with only finesse weapons in levels 5-18, then was allowed to use Sneak Attack with all weapons again in levels 19-20. Or if Barbarians could use rage with bows at early levels, then couldn't use it with them at middle levels, then could use it with them again at later levels. That would surely be weird and inconsistent design for those classes and their combat tricks, but for some reason it is applied to the Fighter and its combat trick.

To be clear, I'm not sure whether the best option is to restrict the Fighter to a single weapon group for its combat trick (higher proficiency) or to let it use any weapon with its combat trick. I just think that it should be consistent from level 1-20 because the switching back and forth makes me twitchy!

For me, it is the storytelling in the Adventure Paths. My local chain bookstore had the first three books of Jade Regent AP, so I read bits of them and got enthusiastic at playing in those worlds. Took a while to actually join a group, though, and even after all this time I've only ever managed to play two APs (Age of Worms and Age of Ashes, weirdly enough). My other games have had the GM running a sandbox in their own world, which is less to my taste as I prefer scripted plots with foreshadowing, fancy set pieces, custom maps, and such.

I like using Hero Forge, as well, even if I don't plan on actually buying the minis. Very good tool for realizing your character concept, even if it doesn't have everything perfect I want (compromising is good practice in and of itself, I think).

For online VTTs, pretty much anything works, obviously. Meme images or official art, as long as you think it represents your concept properly. My Hell's Vengeance Oread Gnome named Chrysoberyl has a raw chunk of crystal as his token on Foundry.

If physically playing and money is a concern, Errenor's suggestion is pretty perfect, especially if you like to recycle old boxes you have lying around. We had a boatload of dice when I played 5e with friends a while back, and so we just used different dice whenever we had to pull out the battlemap.

Another use for Hero Force is to take a screenshot of a character and use it as their VTT icon. That's what I'm doing for my current campaign. They have a premium membership if you want to add some fancy effects too.

For fun, maybe Minkai? They're out from under the heel of the oni and Ameiko is probably a pretty chill empress, so life should be reasonably peaceful. It's somewhat isolated from the other countries in Tian Xia, so invasions are less likely. Ameiko is also apparently encouraging trade with the Inner Sea, so hopefully the economy is going upwards as well. If you have political ambitions, you might even be able to convince the imperial seal of one of the four extinct houses to let you restart the house.

I want the Galtan squash from Dance of the Damned: A squash carved like a severed head and drenched in a red sauce so spicy you have to make a Fortitude save to eat it properly!

Rival Academies: Piled higher and deeper.

Which is, for the record, a joking explanation for the acronym "PhD"...

Jerdane wrote:

Of course, a lot of things in politics and warfare do not operate on pure logic. Sometimes a country (either it's leader or it's populace) can let hubris, fear, or anger get the best of them and get into a war that a more objective observer would consider unwise. They also might start an unwise war if their knowledge of the situation is incorrect, either through poor intelligence or outright disinformation from their enemies.

As an example, maybe the leader of Qadria is so proud that he thinks he can conquer Taldor or at least take enough territory to cover himself in glory and convinces his superiors in the empire to allow it by staging a false flag operation that makes it seem like Taldor attacked first. Suddenly, Qadria is in a war they might well lose.

The satrap wants a war, it is the Padishah emperor who wants peace currntly.

Oh yeah, I think that's what I meant but I was too lazy to look up the proper terms, oops! The leader of Qadira (the satrap) is hankering for war but is being held back by his superior in the Padishah empire (the emperor himself). If he manages to trick the emperor into believing that Taldor attacked first, he might be able to start the war that he's been hoping for.

Anyway, it's true that it's pointless to speculate what would happen with extreme amounts of disinformation and irrationality since that could be used to "predict" a war between any two nations on Golarion. I just think a little bit of disinformation and irrationality can be used to explain why a country might go to war based on its existing prejudices and desires even if war isn't actually the best way to achieve them. For example, everyone knows that the government of Andoran strongly dislikes Cheliax for both ideological and practical reasons, but they haven't fully gone to war with them yet because they know that Andoran's army is not strong enough to comfortably win that fight. Add a little disinformation (not even a whole lot) and the picture changes. Perhaps an Andoran diplomat gets offed in Egorian with Cheliax framed for it and Andoran hears rumors that Abrogail has been beefing up some diabolic champions with warshards, so the Andoran government mobilizes its armies to prepare to be invaded. Cheliax notices and mobilizes its armies too, the Andoran population panics and demands a pre-emptive strike against the "obvious" Chelish invasion, and suddenly Andoran is in a war it will have a hard time winning. So I think it's reasonable to imagine how a little irrationality and disinfo might cause a country to act on its existing desires without adding so much irrationality and disinfo that countries start wars that they'd never had any reason to even consider before, like Osirion deciding to take on the Linnorm Kings or something like that.

Of course, a lot of things in politics and warfare do not operate on pure logic. Sometimes a country (either it's leader or it's populace) can let hubris, fear, or anger get the best of them and get into a war that a more objective observer would consider unwise. They also might start an unwise war if their knowledge of the situation is incorrect, either through poor intelligence or outright disinformation from their enemies.

As an example, maybe the leader of Qadria is so proud that he thinks he can conquer Taldor or at least take enough territory to cover himself in glory and convinces his superiors in the empire to allow it by staging a false flag operation that makes it seem like Taldor attacked first. Suddenly, Qadria is in a war they might well lose.

I think the difference between Andoran and Cheliax here is that Cheliax controls the Arch of Aroden, so they can let the pirates into the Inner Sea on the agreement that they only prey on ships under the Andoran flag. If the pirates wanted to take the same offer from Andoran, they'd have to either sail all the way around Garund to enter the Inner Sea from the eastern side (and then back again to return with their loot), or force their way through the Arch on their own. As such, aligning with Cheliax here makes much more sense for the pirates.

As for why pirates would risk their lives for Cheliax, I assume that the deal would be that the pirates could keep most of all of the booty they stole from the Andoran ships and then drop off any Andoran officers to the nearest Chelaxian port for a nice fat bounty. Money talks, and it speaks Infernal!

Kavlor wrote:

I think we will have this sides:

Cheliax, Ravounel, Nidal, Isger, Katapesh goverment, Mzali, Shackles, Korvosa, Molthune, Oprak

vs

Andoran, Nimrathas, Katapesh Firebrands, Senghor, Vidrian, Nimrathans, Kraggodan, Five King Mountains

I don't see the Shackles teaming up with Cheliax.

Also, many nations and groups would probably stay neutral until their opposite take sides, with some "play/trade with all sides" types in between.

This is also asuming A vs B, not some A vs B vs C thing.

For the Shackles, maybe Cheliax doesn't do a full alliance but instead offers the pirate lords letters of marque that lets their ships through the Arch of Aroden so they can prey on Andoran shipping? Privateering like that was pretty common back in the 1700s, so it would make sense that nations might do it in Golarion as well. Would make for some fun mini adventures as well, where the PCs can engage in ship combat!

Alynia wrote:

vyshan wrote:

So with this war, are we going to see Cheliax take more beatings and stop being a threat, or be utterly defeated and another big bad empire is removed from the board?

I am afraid about the same thing to be honest. "Hellbreakers" sounds a lot like Cheliax will loose this. And removing the last "Big bad evil empire" might feel good while doing so in the story itself, but leaves a big hole afterwards narrative-wise.

To be fair, Cheliax works as a bogeyman but every time they appear in APs they get the stuffing kicked out of them and end up taking the L (which makes sense, since they're villains).

Even if we take into account that they win in Hell's Vengeance, this is counterbalanced by how thoroughly they got trounced in Hell's Rebels.

However, I don't think the AP will see Cheliax gone. I think a much better bet, given the geographical positions involved, is that Andoran takes part or the entirety of Isger, which has already tried rebelling before.

That would deal a blow to Cheliax without removing them from the board, so to speak.

Yeah, though if Cheliax loses Isger then they would have very little left of their empire except Nidal, who are pretty independent anyway and are only staying under Abrogail's thumb because pulling off a revolution would be too much of a pain (and not the kind of pain that Kuthites usually enjoy). Cheliax would seem like a new Taldor, a has-been empire restricted to their home country, and in that case it might be better to destroy them outright than turn them into a punching bag.

Ultimately, that's the difficulty that tends to come up if APs are considered canonical: Since good/neutral campaigns are more popular than evil ones, evil threats slowly get eliminated one by one. At the start of the Golarion setting we had foes like the Runelords, the King of Biting Ants, Deskari, Irrisen, the Technic League, and so on, but all of them have been beaten or at least convinced to be less of a jerk. Even in the first evil AP, Hell's Vengeance, the PCs didn't actually make Cheliax more powerful, they just prevented it from collapsing entirely to the Glorious Reclamation.

But of course that doesn't mean the APs should stop being canonical, since people really enjoy seeing their characters have a real effect on the world. Maybe the best option is to to provide new threats or bolster old ones by writing APs like Tyrant's Grasp, where the PCs have to react to a new-ish threat (a freed Tar-Baphon turning Lastwall into the Gravelands) and are just trying to prevent the antagonists from taking over the whole world. In that vein, maybe Hellbreakers could see Cheliax start losing the war with Andoran, so Abrogail spitefully invokes a last-resort option in her covenant with Hell to let devils directly take over, turning Cheliax into a Hellish sort of Worldwound, and the PCs have to evacuate Chelish citizens outside the country and prevent the infernal tide from flowing outside of its borders? Something like that would let the PCs affect the world while still allowing some threats to flourish for future APs.

Yeah, I think C would be RAW but I would certainly allow A since the feat swap does not actually result in the character having an excessive number of high-level feats, which is the actual balance concern.

zimmerwald1915 wrote:

Dragonchess Player wrote:

sort of like the entwined succubi statuettes that appear every so often.

I thought we knew their provenance?

New people are still coming into Pathfinder.

Also, just because we know where they're coming from doesn't mean they aren't an Easter egg. We know where the Vandercaskins come from, for example.

The Raven Black wrote:

I feel that if Arazni (a lich) and Nocticula (a demon lord) can change their ways, surely a human such as Sorshen can change too.

I would also argue there is a big diffrence in that those two never really had a choice in the matter whilst Sorshen willing chose to do all that stuff (Also dosent help in the ap itself it comes across less as wanting redemption and more sick of the other runelords with a dose of not wanting ganked by the next adventuring party that comes along)

Arazni certainly never had a choice in going evil, though I'd argue that Nocticula probably did since demons come from highly sinful souls that almost certainly did something awful in their mortal lives.

As for just being semi-redeemed, they all sort of fit into that slot in one way or another, though Sorshen seems certainly the most self-interested and coolly pragmatic about it. I think it's good to see some variety among all the redemption stories, though; some people give up evil after being in enforced evil, some people live in evil happily before gradually deciding against it for moral reasons, and some people live in evil for a long time before realizing that it's no longer cool (or safe) and so decide to avoid it for their own survival. Lots of ways it might come about, though in Sorshen's case if be worried that she might switch back to evil if she saw a great opportunity for it.

That all said, I do agree that Sorshen's redemption story is somewhat less satisfying that the others'. I'll grant that humans would have an easier time of it than demons or undead of course, but my issue is more to do with the story and it's foreshadowing. Specifically, Arazni was portrayed as an unwilling servant of Geb for a long time, especially once it was shown that the Council Libertine were her jailers not her lovers, so it wasn't surprising that once she finally broke free she quickly took a more moderate ethos. Likewise, Nocticula's interest in redemption has been hinted at in multiple APs for years, so everyone who read them was expecting it to become a plot point somewhere along the road (though there was always the possibility it was a ruse for her to assassinate a full deity and take their power, which certainly added some spice to our guesses). On the other hand, Sorshen didn't get an awful lot of screentime before her redemption, and I don't recall any particular hints about her being interested in it beforehand, so it came as a bit of a surprise to me. Of course a person in Sorshen's position could certainly come to redemption in the way the AP describes, it just that Sorshen's story didn't have that nice lead-up over the years to tickle my interest.

A few ideas off the top of my head:

1) I agree with yanking info from other creatures, especially creatures of the same group. If a PC fail RK against a Jiang-Shi vampire, they learn that they're vulnerable to ringing hand bells (true) and people announcing their personal secrets (false, that's vetalarana vampires). Kind of hard to come up with those ideas off the top of one's head, of course.

2) If the creature looks reasonably natural, you can make it more or less unusual. If it's a normal bear, say that its fur pattern indicates that it's actually a were-bear in its animal form, or maybe a kind of fey-touched bear that has a roar that causes confusion. On the other hand, if they meet a magical creature like a Silvanshee Agathion, say that it's just a regular cat, people around here are just fond of breeding kitties with funky fur patterns.

3) Meddle with their movement abilities. Yeah, this guy can totally fly, or climb, or burrow, or sprint, or make massive leaps, or run on water, or teleport.

4) If the creature has abilities that only work in certain situations, subtly alter those situations. Hounds of Tindalos can normally teleport to/from any angled surface, so tell the player that they can only teleport to/from surfaces with a gentle curve.

5) Add some on-death effects to creatures that don't have them. Yeah, this guy gives you a death curse, or explodes a round after death (especially funny if the PCs run for cover after killing it and spend an awkward amount of time waiting for it to blow up but nothing happens).

6) If they have fast healing, change what counters it (to avoid player frustration, tell them that the fake counter does not work the first time they try to use it, or else they may spend a painful amount of time trying again and again).

7) Alter the creature's personality. If an NPC is actually very prim and proper, tell the player that they can get in their good books by telling a bawdy joke. If a creature is highly untrustworthy, tell the player that they aren't nice but will follow any agreements they make to the letter.

Howdy!

I'm just putting something together for an upcoming session and I was wondering if anyone knows any good sources about the dimension of time. I'm aware the wiki has a bit, but it really isn't that much. I can obviously make my own stuff, and I most likely will, but if there's any more additional content I can draw on, I'd love to have a look.

Thanks!

Hmm, for books, The Rise of New Thassillon is largely set in the Dimension of Time. That's the 6th book of an entire adventure path, so you'd either get an just that book (which may be unsatisfying) or the entire adventure path (which would be expensive).

Basically the explorable region of the dimension is the island of Stethelos, which is not terribly large and is inhabited by guardians like time flayers and time dragons, plus whoever else has the actual power to get to the plane (it is NOT easily accessible by any stretch of the imagination; in the adventure the PCs need to use a powerful artifact and obscure ritual to manage it). This makes it a good place to stock any ridiculously powerful NPCs you want. Note that people who stay too long have to avoid falling under the spell of the anima mundi, a kind of green moss that covers the whole area and and constantly whispers to people. The whole place is ruled by the god Tawil at'Umr, who is very powerful and capricious, and may ask for PCs to make odd sacrifices if they want to travel into the past.

The other place people could theoretically go is the woods on the Desolate Shore, which are implied to lead to wherever the Hounds of Tindalos come from. However it is obscenely dangerous. The PCs would probably need the blessing of Tawil to even think about venturing there...

The removal of the hag deities is interesting in itself. Wonder if the devs considered their presence to be a bit misogynistic, especially since Kostchtchie is no longer around to represent their opposite. Maybe we'll also see some more benevolent/less malevolent hags as a result.

(It would also be really funny if their sudden absence somehow catapulted Baba Yaga into godhood involuntarily as all their former followers start praying to her out of desperation!)

Bombes, on the other hand...

Sarenrae is the god of the sun, she is not the sun itself. There are also several other sun deities in the setting.

True, though given that she at least represents the sun in some sense it would be reasonable that she might be more easily killed in a way that would suit a sun more than a warrior. Like, maybe she takes on too many responsibilities or power and she explodes (like a supernova) or collapses in on herself (like a black hole), or maybe she uses up her reserves of strength and becomes bloated and powerless (like a main sequence star). None of those things sound like something that Achaekek would be good at, so Sarenrae might do OK against him.

Oh, also, I believe the First Edition Book of the Damned had a series of rituals by which a person could gradually transform themselves into a fiend without needing to die, so it's apparently possible in the lore though if you want to mechanically represent it in Second Edition you'd need to convert it.

Skelms from Bestiary 3 sort of work that way, as are transformed from extremely angry men without dying first. The transformation process apparently includes an existing skelm to manipulate the target into a supernatural level of vindictiveness or rage, but it might suit your needs. See https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=1301 for one example.

Regarding foes not going after downed players, there's an odd interaction there with some of the dying rules. While PCs and significant NPCs get to survive dropping to 0 HP, the rules explicitly state that most creatures just die (or are destroyed) at 0 HP. If I were a GM, I'd probably explain away the fact that enemies don't go after downed PCs because they've probably never seen someone be healed from 0 HP before, so as far as they know they'd just be wasting time attacking a corpse. Of course, if an enemy sees a PC get up after hitting 0 HP, they'd probably figure out that the PCs are unusually durable and might start double tapping...

batimpact wrote:

I know Enervation got changed to a 60 ft range 10 ft burst spell from a 30 ft line. It also had a name change that I remember can’t right now.

Edit: It’s called Whispers of the Void now.

Doesn't Live Wire damage only scale 1d4 on a critical hit?

The spell says "Heightened (+1) The slashing damage, initial electricity damage, and persistent electricity damage on a CRITICAL HIT each
increase by 1d4."

I think everyone is assuming it gets +1d4 per Heightened +1, but to me it reads that only critical damage gets the +1d4.

That makes Live Wire a crappy spell, because my caster never crits against AC.

Note that part that says they "EACH increase by 1d4", which to me clearly indicates that all of the damage types increase by 1d4. If the intent was that only the critical damage increased, then the Heightened (+1) description would probably just say "The persistent electricity damage on a critical hit increases by 1d4" and it wouldn't mention the other damage types at all. Also, I can't think of any spell or cantrip that only increases the critical damage and not the regular damage, so that would be pretty unprecedented.

OTOH, it could be the other way around: The horrible volume of death in WWI made someone sick enough of war that they put plans in motion to kill its god. Given WWII, it obviously didn't work...

Wish spell while strong is not anywhere near what some earlier versions of D&D are power wise. This is not erase reality levels of power.

You can basically replicate a 9th level spell effect of your own spell list or 7th level of some other spell list or an effect that replicates similar levels of results.

So you could wish yourself a ton of money and it would likely work like a teleport that grabs that money from somewhere and dumps it in front of you. It is not an end the world power it is I would like to drop a really big rock on a castle type power.

The original 2e version of Wish was limited like that, yeah, but during the remaster the developers renamed that spell Manifestation and created a ritual version of Wish that can literally do "anything" the caster desires. Ascending to godhood is explicitly listed as a possibility, for example. A Wish could therefore do quite a lot of damage to the universe.

Regarding the original question, the ritual takes 1 day to complete and the description does note that "The GM might decide a wish draws the attention of deities or other powerful creatures, leading to interference with the ritual or attempts to undo the wish." So, I would explain the continued existence of the universe by saying that that deities often interfere with wishes that go against their areas of interest and that the annihilation of the universe goes against just about every deity short of Rovagug. As such, even if someone could coerce a genie into casting that wish, they'd end up with every other god on their doorstep within minutes of starting the ritual.

(For less-destructive wishes that don't warrant godly intervention, the spell is theoretically balanced by the fact that the caster only gets exactly what they wish for if they critically succeed on the rolls to perform the ritual. If they merely succeed, their wish has "unintended consequences" that complicate but don't entirely ruin the desired effect. The descriptions of the genies' abilities only says that they "succeed" at the attempt to cast the wish, so the wisher is always going to get those unintended consequences.)

As a historical tidbit, back in the day governments would debase the coins they minted by adding in other metals so they could create more coins, so you often see phrases like "Emperor Blorbicus Maximus debased the coinage yet again to fund his many wars" in Roman histories. Apparently the Roman denarius went from being pure silver to about 2% silver in the end.

In that vein, maybe the treasure that adventurers find in the dungeons is valuable because it dates from a time before the government debased the coinage? OK, yeah, probably not the most compelling plot point...

Ah shoot, I think I mixed up Pharasma's opinions with those of her psychopomps. The wiki does say they sometimes work against those trying to achieve immortality, but doesn't say anything about Pharasma caring much about it.

Kinda feel that Pharasma should have the harm font. Obviously you can't use it to heal under, but she is still the god of death so it would make sense for some of her clerics to finish off people who are trying for immortality...

keftiu wrote:

I mean, Szuriel's waving her sword around on the cover of War of Immortals... it feels like that makes things pretty clear.

EDIT: ...though now that I think on it, both Prey for Death and Curtain Call are part of this event. The former's about Achaekek devotees, the latter seems to have Norgorbor-following villains; that's two murder-gods in the air at the same time.

All of them are involve someway in mercenary/assassin work. So a collab for the right price is not out of the question.

The question is that divine murder is a very serious crime and a overstepping of bounds even more then Desna’s murder of Aolar and that almost started a interplanar war before Calistria used her seduction skills to cause the demon lords to fight amongst themselves.

It’s possible that it’s someone else disguised as Achaekek. As Achaekek is the Assassin god and Assassin tend not to kill people in the open in front of the whole multiverse. Trying to get people mad at Achaekek.

Of course exepctions apply. Like how Lincoln was murdered in a play.

It’s worth noting Gorum lived in Elysium and had a military defense pact with them. A attack of Elysiuem is an attack on the whole plane.

Oh, I like the idea of Achaekek bring framed for it! I think the Prey for Death AP involves some of his worshippers trying to clear their names of something, so maybe someone's framing the entire religion? Perhaps Razmir convinces his patron Sivanah to impersonate Achaekek and assassinate Gorum so that Achaekek is prevented from stopping Razmir's attempts to attain godhood...

Whenever I see this thread title, it comes across to me as "Pathfinder 2 options for dummies"

Whenever I see this thread title, it comes across to me as someone trying to start up a Pathfinder 2 game at their local Tim Hortons.

Do we know what levels this will be for? Maybe Wardens of Wildwood would be a good lead in since they're both (maybe) focused on nature...

Arachnofiend wrote:

Wait, why not? Taunt is the whole class. Taunt is what you're getting instead of rage. I don't know why you're playing a Guardian if you don't expect to have Taunt up most of the time.

The point of Taunt is to get the enemy to focus you instead of an ally. If an enemy's already focusing you and you feel they're going to keep doing that, then you won't be needing to Taunt. Taunting all the time, even when you're already being focused, means you'll just be wasting actions and making yourself easier to hit. If you sense that an enemy is going to deploy AoE, you're really not going to want to Taunt, because you'd be making yourself much more vulnerable to that AoE without actually redirecting anything.

Going back to this, I suspect that's the way the designers assumed it would be used. If an enemy is threatening a squishy team-mate and the Guardian uses Taunt to draw an attack, the threatened ally isn't intended to just hang around within reach of the enemy. If they did, the enemy can just go back to attacking them, so the Guardian needs to use Taunt again and again, greatly reducing their own defences. Instead, the squishy team-mate is probably intended to use the opportunity given by Taunt to get to a safer spot or activate some defensive ability like Invisibility. In that case, the Guardian can probably forego Taunt on the following rounds and keep their defences high.

If that's the case, maybe Taunt could be changed so that it is more powerful* but also makes each affected enemy immune afterwards, maybe for couple of rounds? This would let the Guardian momentarily draw attention from foes more reliably, but also discourage allies from using the Guardian as just a permanent meat-shield.

* For a buff, maybe increase the foe's penalty against the ally by 1 and/or prevent them from using reactions against the ally on a failed save?

Yeah, while Guardian does have one feat (Armor Break) that lets them break their armor for damage, I don't think they can destroy their armor with it unless I'm misunderstanding something, so they still get their proficiency bonus with medium/heavy armor.

As for using this to prevent new players from trying to use no/light armor, I don't think that's really necessary. A large proportion of Guardian feats require you to be wearing medium to heavy armor, so the player should get the message about using such armor anyway. Also, the fighter doesn't have reduced proficiency in simple weapons despite their main shtick being martial and advanced weapons.

Frankly, my one hope is that Gorum goes out, y'know, FIGHTING, rather than just getting cosmically-ganked by Achaekek. I'm definitely sad that the "fight for the fight god" is gone, but looking back was there ever really a lot done with him?

Per his lore, Achaekek only goes after mortals trying to become gods rather than actual gods, so presumably Gorum would be quite safe from any attempted assassinations from him at least. But yeah, one hopes that Gorum goes down swinging (and hopefully takes out a demigod or two with him...)

Xenocrat wrote:

Grapple wouldn’t work because damage is required.

Well the no damage slap wouldn’t either then

I think there's some confusion (pun legitimately unintended) about which spell/condition we're talking about. Confusion ends on a successful a flat check after "damage from an attack or spell", but calm emotions ends on being "subject to hostility". For confusion, neither a slap nor grappling would work because they don't do damage. For calm emotions, I think grappling would be sufficiently hostile, but a slap would be a bit arguable. It's somewhat hostile, but it doesn't cause any actual damage or negative conditions so is it really hostile enough? It's certainly a matter of interpretation. If it ever came up for me, I might house-rule that a slap allows the slapper to make an Intimidate check against the slapee's Will DC to make it seem sufficiently scary, but YMMV.

Separately, I agree with Xenocrat's comment that if people want to remove the Strength from their damage rolls then they need to remove it from their attack rolls too.

My gnoll ranger Green Stag currently follows Cernunnos but grew up respecting Cernunnos' dad Erastil too, so I always thought there could be a pantheon that covers their entire family. Here's a first draft. It's mostly focused on the idea of existing peaceably in a family, but since they're all nature deities in one form or another that kind of bleeds into it too.

The Ties that Bind
Deities: Cernunnos, Erastil, Halcamora, Jaidi
Edicts: Be part of a family, encourage peace in all families, work nature by hunting, farming, or the like
Anathema: Ignore your family in their hour of need, make nature unusable for future generations, aggravate others for fun
Areas of Concern: Family relationships, wild or rural areas, social animals
Follower Alignments/Sanctification: LG, NG, CG, LN, N/Can choose holy
Divine Attribute: Constitution or Wisdom
Divine Font: heal
Divine Skill: Diplomacy
Favored Weapon: shortbow
Domains: nature, family, protection, repose
Alternate Domains: duty, wood
Cleric Spells 1st: soothe, 3rd: wall of thorns, 4th: telepathy

Not sure about the first part, but I strongly suspect he was a full-blown deity by the time he killed Deskari's avatar because that happened over 4000 years after he ascended and under 300 years before he died, so you'd figure he'd have reached the peak of his powers by then...

Magic, obviously!

Nah, it's just healthy living. You too can live for centuries if you eat your kale, jog each morning, and quit smoking pesh!

If Lamashtu dies raining the afterbirth of bestial horrors down onto Golarion, I will personal devote all future characters to her worship, even if they can never possibly cast a divine spell. If it is her, and she dies any other way, my characters will all forsake all gods forever.

Whoever dies, Paizo should title the relevant AP book "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs Godsrain".

As long as we get a good reason I may not like it I can accept it. I may have liked the amount of gods that were killed off in FR 4E yet even I knew it was needed imo. Way too many goods and not enough worshippers, 6-7!pantheons if not more.

Killing gods off for the sake of it not interested and definitely won’t be canon in my campaigns. Leave Torag alone or at least make him go out in an blaze of glory taking 2-3 evil deities,

I believe Paizo has mentioned that some additional deities outside the core 20 will also be kicking the bucket, so a blaze of glory is not out of the question for whoever dies.

Yeah chickens can be scary. Ever seen one nab a mouse? They are descended from T-rexes and they know it!

(Ok not directly descended from T-rexes, but close)

My Kitsune bard/cleric of Shelyn would have a sickening sense of deja vu. When she found her mom murdered as a kid, she immediately ran to the local shrine of Shelyn in a panic because it was the safest place she knew. Now the one who provided comfort in her darkest hour is herself dead? She's going to go to a dark, dark place, one that she'll only start getting out of when she realizes that there are still people who need her help.

As a player, I would hope that this event would shock Zon Kuthon out of his current state. I wouldn't expect him to go Team Good exactly, but maybe he would start fighting with whatever entity is influencing him a bit more. Maybe he would "accidentally" let the Prince in Chains go to mourn his daughter. In any case, it would make for an interesting development...

OK, I was working on a list of how each deity might die but with an announcement tomorrow I better just put this up now. Can't think of how Abadar, Irori, Nethys, or Pharasma, might go, but oh well. Remember, this is 100% serious!

Asmodeus: Neglects to read the EULA on his new iPhone and just hits I Agree, thus leaving the entirety of Hell in the hands of Apple.

Calistria: Turns out that you can develop an allergy to wasps after multiple stings.

Cayden Cailean: Wanting to relive his adventuring days, he decides to try and solo a fun little dungeon he heard of called the Tomb of Horrors. Unfortunately, resurrecting a deity requires a diamond about the size of a planet.

Desna: Takes a left turn at Alberquerque and gets well and truly lost.

Erastil: Ignoring the warnings of his wife Jaidi that he'll shoot his eye out with it, Erastil has a few pops with his new Red Rider longbow in the backyard before a ricochet makes his "Old Deadeye" epithet much too literal.

Gorum: While strolling through another ravaged battlefield, Our Lord in Iron steps on a rusty nail, develops tetanus, and dies in bed.

Gozreh: Who? Never heard of him. Maybe you were thinking of Gorum, the god of warfare and iron? Nature? No, that's the Green Faith you're thinking of. Please don't invent fake gods just to rile people up.

Iomedae: Runs out of worshippers after dealing 20d6 sonic damage to anyone who fails a Religion check.

Lamashtu: The abyssal bureaucracy finally approves her retroactive maternity leave and she decides to take a few eons off to care for her 1,043,392,422 offspring.

Norgorber: Civil war. Father Skinsaw gets direly sick after drinking his post-slaughter cup of coffee and accuses Blackfingers of poisoning it. Blackfingers says that if he had administered the poison personally it wouldn't have left Father Skinsaw alive so the Grey Master must have stolen the poison and used it on him. The Grey Master says that sure he stole some poison on behalf of an anonymous buyer but that must have been the Reaper of Reputation for who else could hide their identity from a god. The Reaper of Reputation says that's poppycock, the Grey Master just didn't vet his client well enough, and anyway maybe if Father Skinsaw took his coffee black instead of with all those frou-frou spices and syrups then he'd have noticed the poison in it anyway. Father Skinsaw says you take that back you pretentious twerp, and it all devolves into a melee. When the dust settles, Norgorber is lying on the ground with multiple self-inflicted stab wounds while Thamir quietly tosses an empty vial into the bin before hopping onto the now-empty throne.

Rovagug: His cultists finally manage to open a crack in his prison only to find out that the other gods had forgotten to poke any air holes into it.

Sarenrae: After hearing about the dying-sun prophecy, she decides to hit the gym to make sure she can fight off whatever might try to kill her. This pushes her muscle mass WAY past the Chandrasekhar limit, causing her to go supernova.

Shelyn: Turns out she was dead all along. Zun Kuthon killed her when she tried to take the Whisperer of Souls, but the guilt made him re-imagine her as alive so vividly that he's been acting as both gods for several thousand years.

Torag: Passed peacefully in his sleep in his 232,398,492nd year. At his side were his wife Folgrit (nee Jones), his brothers Magrim and Angradd, and his children Kols, Bolka, Trudd, and Grundinnar (his ex-wife Dranngvit also snuck into the hospital room, but she was shown out). He will be remembered as a gruff but generous grandfather, skilled smith, ale aficionado, and absolutely not a war criminal in any way whatsoever. The family would like to thank all of the nurses, doctors, clerics, and alchemists at the Qi Zhong Hospital and Hospice for their tireless care in his final months. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to the Highhelm Heart and Stroke Foundation.

Urgoath/Orthagoa/Ur-geatho: With James Jacobs switching roles, there's nobody left on the lore team who can spell her name.

Zon Kuthon: Forgot the safe word.