JosMartigan's page

If you want to play up the alien setting idea, take a look at Dark Sun. That setting's creatures would be appropriate. There's at least one homebrew Dark Sun thread here. Just search it up.

Creatures that thrive in arid climates like reptiles, creatures that thrive at night to avoid the hot sun, creatures that live in mountainous regions or subterranean areas.

Behirs

Monstrous bats

Monstrous insects, snakes, and rodents

Earth and Air Elementals as summonable creatures

Fiends if those planes are accessible as summoned creatures in the areas dominated by Cheliax.

1d100 = 5 Half-Elf with Kindred-Raised alternate racial trait
1d100 = 7 Gnome with Bond to the Land alternate racial trait
1d100 = 24 Ratfolk
1d100 = 60 Vegepygmy
1d100 = 84 Uldra

Novos-Ellaman

When the exiled half-elves spotted the lands that would be their home, they had no idea that others had once lived there. Landing in their weather-beaten air-ships, they found sophisticated ruins of a once thriving humanoid culture. On-foot and areal exploration uncovered a vast number of ruined cities almost fully reclaimed by nature.
Among those ruins and forests, the explorers encountered gnomes, ratfolk and tribes of savage but peaceful vegepygmies. The gnomes and ratfolk told of a great calamity orchestrated by the gnomes hated enemies: spriggans and goblins that lead to the destruction of the lands they new. Only by going into hiding had they survived. The vegepygmies were simply pleased that their lands were once again thriving as the forests crept back into once-cultivated lands.
Being who they were, the half-elves knew the best ways to ingratiate themselves among these unusual folk and soon the bonds of alliance were formed. They established colonies and soon found themselves face to face with Goblin, Spriggan, and Worg threats; plus a host of hungry plant-like creatures from the invading forests. A consolidated from of the 4 peoples allowed the half-elves to settle and lands were divided; the ratfolk keeping much of the lands beneath the ancient ruins and the others understanding a respect for nature must be maintained within their respective regions.
After almost a decade, the Half-elves (with their allies) were able to travel further north than ever; they found to their delight a cold-loving fey gnomish cousin-race calling themselves the Uldra. The Gnomes were quick to establish trade and cultural exchanges with this new friendly people.
Now exploration has turned to excavation; unearthing the knowledge of the old culture that occupied Novos-Ellaman. The Half-elves in a few generations have become a race unto their own; once exiled by their kin simply for their blood, they now are masters of their own fate.
The Gnomes and Ratfolk have found allies and are working to reestablish their own societies in this land made anew. The Vegepygmies have been able to find similar minded folk who respect their habitat allowing them to live as naturally as possible while gaining allies to defend their tribes against predation.
The once-isolated Uldra now live in a wider world with new sights to explore.

JosMartigan wrote:

Great job staying away from Tolkien-based races.

Is the cosmology appropriate for Aasimar and Tiefling characters? Or do you have your own take on how those races are created?

Planar shenanigans are a pretty big theme in Karden, since Sorcerer bloodlines are based on outsider interbreeding. As such you're most likely to find an Aasimar or Tiefling as a member of a Blooded family.

The good, evil, lawful and chaotic planes aren't quite what you'd find in the core assumption of the rules. I'll detail mortal understanding of those planes in a later update.

But put simply imagine the multiverse is a tower. The higher up the tower you go, the more lawful things become systems become more and more ordered until they reach stasis, the lower in the tower you go things become less and less ordered until they reach destruction.

The material Plane is on the middle floor of that tower. Precariously balanced between law and chaos. If the material Plane falls lower, systems such as Magic and physics become less predictable and yield more destructive results. If it rises up the tower these systems become more fixed but will lose innovation and become resistant to change.

At this point Karden mostly interacts with the floors closest to it analogous to celestial and fiendish realms.

However while this model of reality is quite popular in Karden, it is not the only paradigm, and the truth may be even stranger.

Fantastic analogy with a callback to Michael Moorcock in the law/chaos axis being prevalent in their thinking.

Having been such a prolific reviewer of a wide variety of content, I can say I trust your recommendations.

It would be great to see more of this kind of thing: offering 2 or three supplement ideas that cover all kinds of different fantasy genres (sword/planet, gothic horror, steampunk, etc.)

Great post.

Inspired by expansive cities such as Waterdeep, The Free-City of Greyhawk, & Fritz Lieber's Lankhmar, I'm tentatively thinking of a city-based setting.

I'm not a terribly big fan of Tolkien races so right now Humans & Ratfolk are on my short-list of playables. Any that people would like to offer; I'm open to listening.

I AM however super interested in grim, sword & sorcery novels. My idea of a gigantic city is not all clean streets, parks & war wizards patrolling neighborhoods. More like narrow labyrinthine streets choked with masses of citizens animals. Wizards rarely see the light of day, priests appease fickle gods & roaming thugs prowl slums & alleys at night. Nobles live a part from the masses, guarded by hardened mercenaries.

Classes are a hard one for me as an old school player: I see Fighters & Rogues. Urban versions of barbarians & druids also seem to fit. Clerics seem like a no-brainer, but inquisitors, shamans, & warpriests - not so much.

I have a wild hair to add Mediums & Occultists because spirits would be abundant in a city-setting & implements would also be likely. Besides, thematically I like those classes a lot. Oracles, Brawlers, Slayers, also all fit.

Classes like Bards, Investigators, Swashbucklers, Gunslingers, Monks, Ninja, Skalds, Samurai, Cavaliers, Vigilantes all have a tech/social/cultural level either higher or too foreign than the gritty rough & tumble environment I'm interested in offering (i.e. Renaissance Europe, Ancient Japan, Old Norse, don't feel like sword & sorcery.). Theme is important to me but kitchen sink-style has never been something I've liked about published settings.

So I'm just opening this to the forum for the heck of it. Anyone who wants to toss out ideas are welcome. Sorry about the Wall o' Text

Lot's of Love/Hate for the Bulette. Not surprising, it's iconic.

And yes, a lot of different spelling (more authentic vs. anglicized being most common) issues for similar or essentially same creatures.
What I hadn't expected was the translations from English into other languages causing so much chaos. That's really interesting.

I try not to let class descriptions dictate roleplaying. A character's reputation should be determined by their backstory, not their levels.

While there's merit to the "class is just a chassis" school of thought. I think OP is stating that his world has distinct delineations of class.

It stands to reason that a class such as paladin (ALL ARE LAWFUL GOOD) or monks (ALL ARE LAWFUL), would have a generalized reputation about them.

Groups like Evokers, Necromancers, Illusionists would all act in a similar manner if for no other reason than the flavor of magic they pursue and again generalizations about them would be commonplace.

In a world where no one identifies themselves by these group terms would obviously not have those generalizations heaped upon them.

If the character has already applied the aging modifiers to it's base ability scores, it stands to reason that those modifiers should not be applied again to the static modifiers you add or subtract in animal or hybrid form.

If the character is using completely different ability scores for hybrid or animal form, then the modifiers would be applied as normal.

3.5 has a write up in the Realms about them. They mention that before men, the Aboleths ruled everything. Once other races popped up they took over and the Aboleths are jealous basically.
This seems pretty small and dumb in scope for an alien intelligence.

Take a look at Lords of Madness (which has a section on Aboleths) from 3.5 and Elder Evils from 3 or 3.5 for some ideas to add to your game.

I have always found it's as much the players as it is the world itself. Players are super-jaded and most can recite the powers of common monsters, effects of common spells, etc. by memory.
Very few understand that their 1st level characters are actually wet behind the ears, and even fewer respond as their characters would to weird, scary or just plain evil things.

Roll around in an ooze or jelly living in a magically tainted area . . . .hope for super powers?

High profile or paranoid targets could gave their wooden floors rigged to squeak. Shogun used to do this in their fortresses to deter assassins.

Another option is dummies. High profile targets might use stuffed dummies or living body doubles. Ancient Central American tribes used to create dummy guards that were filled with hornet nests. At night attackers would strike the duties and release swarms of angry hornets that would attack back.

3.5 unearthed arcana has rules about using spell points. They incorporate a fatigue/exhaustion dynamic that might be helpful for you to develop a system. There's also the horror rules incorporating corruption and insanity.

He has eaten 9 other 10 hp commoners and absorbed their power?

So when does the Colossal Dire Ape make an appearance?

And that's also why a fireball was always so daggum deadly.

That makes me think I should house rule fireball and lightning bolt as 1d8 per level. LOL

MAKE FIREBALL AND LIGHTNING BOLT GREAT AGAIN!!! :)

UnArcaneElection wrote:

Another weird one from old times (AD&D 1st Edition to be precise) was the Monk -- a martial class, but with d4 hit dice (except it got 2 of them at 1st level) and terrible Base Attack Bonus (although they didn't call it that back then, and didn't even yet have the name THAC0 introduced by 2nd Edition). And only a limited number of them were allowed to exist starting at 8th level.

There was even an argument in the class description that the d4 HD was okay because by 17th level the monk would average 45 hp, which is obviously plenty for a 17th level PC.

IIRC the 1e bard had levels where they literally gained no HD.

1ST Ed was MUCH different than 3.5 or PF. Characters stopped getting HD rolls after 9th level (getting only 1 or 2 HP per level and no help from Con). Everything (including dragons) had half to one-quarter of the HP they do now. Also AC and hit bonuses were at best half of what they are now. A D4 martial was roughly equivalent to a modern D8 martial. Not the best option, but flavor should be considered over sheer power.

A high Con means healthy. That annoying guy in the cubicle next to you who never gets sick and makes everyone else look bad is the jerk with the 18 Con score.

At least the Battle-Hardened and Engineer alternate racial traits give GMs opportunities to create hobgoblins with more traditional traits found in an army.
Between those 2 traits and the Authoritative and Bandy-Legged alternate traits, you can create a wide variety of hobgoblins built for different aspects of war.

Add in goblins as skirmishers and bugbears as burly but sneaky tanks and you have a terrifying army.

Well it seems Vidmaster was attacking Kileanna pretty aggressively back there. I see that A LOT on here. One person doesn't like another's opinion and then it turns into bickering that doesn't address the point of the thread.

Now I'm dying to see spells based on phlegm

I feel like one of the major pitfalls to this mechanic is the GM letting the players create anything they want.
The GM should be directing the game and making sure that the players are somehow connected beyond "meeting in a bar" to start the game. A GM that takes care to bind the characters together will have no issues with languages unless the players are actively trying to create havoc in the game.
Additionally, as the game progresses, the players that don't try to learn languages of the other players are being unrealistically stubborn. I've never been in a group social situation with someone who spoke poor English and not tried to learn something of their language just to better communicate. I think it's natural to want to learn so that communicate is easy and comfortable.

Well it's obvious the player of the half or isn't actually playing his 7 cha and 7 int. I wonder how they would take it if you brought up that he was literally ignoring those stats in regards how he should be playing the character?

I like the idea of regional common based on groups of nations all within a particular area and somewhat isolated by geography. A northern area with a major nomadic tribal region and a few settled realms would have a very different common than a southern region dominated by island nations connected by sea trade.

Culturally, the indigenous values might be different based on the region as well. A slick speaking urbanite might get nowhere with nomadic tribes folk while a rough and tumble woodsman may gain more respect.

I would give them all explosive diarrhea.

So what you're saying is...a void exists. ;)

Yes, so a 3PP for PF-based game material could make some cash filling that obvious lack of a coherent fairy tale setting.

I think homebrewed specialty priest archetypes would be fun to make. Removing some armor and/or weapon proficiencies or limiting domains to create a specific type of priest for a particular god. Even changing the nature of channeling based on the deity's area of control could be an option. Of course for the PF core that would be exhausting. But a homebrew setting with a small pantheon would be perfect.

Inspired from another thread, A Bard/Paladin that gives up spells but adds increasingly effective buffs to their inspiration abilities (like mercies but not healing related)? And adds their charisma bonus to saves?

Still need a non 3PP option for a PF Hexblade (Fighter/Witch maybe)

Turns out, the hardest part about drawing maps, is getting started.

The last time, I just started drawing and naming places as I went, this time I have an idea of what places will be (kind of) but not of how exactly I want it to look.

bangs head against glacier.

I read somewhere, just take a blank grid sheet and start making mountains (upside down Vs) in the middle of the sheet somewhere, then draw rivers from there heading away from the range, things can sort of fall into place from there.

290. PCs encounter a migration of harmless, but possibly creepy, animals (crabs, beetles, frogs/toads). They are migrating right through a populated area and the locals are getting ready to start killing them outright.

Um... you could go without the Trapfinding ability? Anyone can find and disarm traps if they have the skills and they remember to search. You'd just have to use something else to disarm magical traps (like 'Dispel Magic' or 'poking it with a stick and hoping for the best').

Oddly enough, "poking it with a stick and hoping for the best" is the preferred method of a number of players I've gamed with.

I think they did away with the classifications because they don't stay avatars anymore. The system in 3.5 that created stats differentiated between the different divine tiers

A tumor figment familiar sounds like the familiar of a hypochondriac spellcaster.

Guttural names is a theme I did not expect to see in this thread xD

I know, I'm weird lol.

Honorable mention: Asmodeus because he's tied to real world Europe (I know he's not the only one, but he's core.) I prefer my demon names to sound Aramaic or something like Lovecraft "releasing the beast" after a night of too much tequila and taco bell.

I'm definitely not in the majority because of this, but I feel PF has overstuffed their classes. You don't need a special ability every level. I like 3.5 for their take on classes a little better.

I prefer to approach things from the opposite direction: start with 3.5 as a base and modify with select things from PF

Cayden Cailean - because **OOPS** "I'm a what, now?" is the best divine origin story I've seen so far.

Abadar because a god of materialistic things is so counter-intuitive to so many christian beliefs. Also gods of civilization make the most sense in my head

Groetus because he's the size of a moon and the concept is fantastic.

Great to know. I have Nobles and Ushers of Porphyra, and even outside of the game world (which is great btw), they're very useful sources for homebrew ideas.

I love what you guys are doing, keep it up!

Threeshades wrote:

There's no merfolk in the random race generator.

Oh noes! Discrimination!

To be fair, they smell like fish

My 1st Third Partymas. Thank you Forest Guardian, Purple Duck, and Taig! Gratz all around to the winners.

Whatever tradition you follow as your end of year celebration, or if you're just thanking the Gods of Golarion that 2016 is over, be safe, have fun, be thankful, and have a great 2017!

Sorry for the lack of crunch assist but I had to weigh in on the concept. I think this is a brilliant character concept and would make fantastic creepy npc swamp sorcerer

194, In the square in the middle of town a dance competition is taking place. A group of bards* provide musical accompaniment, while four people sit on a raised area, pronouncing judgement on each couple at the end of their routine. The players are asked to join in... as are their characters.

* - What's the collective noun for bards? A racket?

The only collective term I know is a group of hobos is called a "murder"

I think a great aspect of intelligent undead PCs is the struggle between their new nature and their fading humanity. Trying to fight against the darkness and rise above their circumstances creates great roleplaying opportunities.

If your GM can capture this, you'll have a fantastic game centered around personal horror.

Nice

113. An abandoned treehouse.

114. An abandoned farm.

115. A horse caught in briars.

113.75: A horse caught in abandoned tree house

I'm interested. Lot's of good stuff in the store

Wow. I knew about the social caste versus "class" issue. Sort of how PF & D&D have the aristocrat class with is a social class, not an occupation.

I'm sure a number of instances occurred similarly to how your family was allowed to wear a sword based on their deeds, importance to a specific person or other reason to elevate their caste.

Just like actual medieval Europe, PF & D&D does a poor job of emulating the nuances of that time period. From social class, to mythological creatures, to occupation.

And I always knew L5R was kind of a mish-mash of ancient China, Japan and Korea with some SE Asia on the outskirts. Plus some outright western fantasy (Unicorn Clan - and Kirin doesn't equal unicorn of course).

Thanks for the history lesson though. I love learning about cultures.

When you think barbarian, what words come to mind?

Honestly, before 3rd edition, barbarian meant Celtic, Goth, or Cimmerian to me. None of which meant "rage" to me. "Rage" is berserker in my head, and berserker is directly attached to Viking first in my head (although I think Celts had a version)

I think it's sad that a class has to be connected to a shtick to be interesting to players. Although I might be wrong, Unearthed Arcana 2nd Ed Barbarian never seemed preoccupied with rage. And Conan the RPG certainly had no problem developing a barbarian that wasn't cartoonish.