Journ-O-LST-3's page

So my players are a session or two away from air combat abroad their airship. It's gonna be cool with ladies landing with two pistols out and opening fire, and dudes are gonna get too close to the grumpy chained air elementals and get splatted and the pilot banks and everyone gets thrown around and then someone (me) is likely to say: "Imma gonna send you overboard." And I don't have rules for that.

I'm not talking about Bull Rush. That's great but this is as simple as a dude seeing another dude on the rail and giving him a good hard shove.

I'm thinking of just doing a CMB vs CMD check and saying you can shove someone five feet plus another five for every ten over or something.

Has anyone else come to this problem? How'd you handle it?

So my players have decided to hit the Elder Thing pumping station on Akiton (it's for pumping water, not elder things). Therein lies the fabulous treasure of the First Born which will have many shiny bits in it and gleam in the light.

I want to make the treasure into it's own guardian.

What would be a good base monster to appropriate for this? I'd love a shoggoth but the players are too low level for that kind of monstrosity. I'm thinking of kind of reworking a kinder gentler CR 12 shoggoth and maybe give it construct traits because I am awful.

So is there a good ooze type monster I can appropriate or should I just stat something up?

So a thing happened in my game. Super quick background: The city of Tin Holes, a prosperous mining town of 1600 ish was murdered by an incredibly powerful being. However the being, a living wish spell with class levels and mythic tiers, was at the time pre-full sapience. Later when it spoke to the PCs "You are my eyes, why are you leaving this world?" "We're you're what now and where are we going?" They told it that they were unhappy it had murdered the town, and later a Thaire hive.

So it decided that was reasonable, summoned a hill of skulls from Tin Holes and began mass resurrecting the dead. All 1600. Which as was planned freaked out the two PCs (the other two were affected by a time stop).

It also annoyed Pharasma and the Steward of Skein popped in, walking through the time stop effect to put the blob down. The PCs didn't see the battle (they were activating the transport platform as the time stop kicked in, when it faded they were sent off to Akiton.

However, the rule for Heralds seems to be CR 15, as for the Steward of Skein being a pair of linked CR 13s, neither will stand against a thing with infinite wishes, vast alien/naive intelligence and mythic ranks.

So the long winded question: How should Pharasma respond as well as the other gods? The thing is likely to resurrect again if asked nicely and has at the moment a minimal understanding of the "balance" of life and death.

It has a small cult (it is unaware of them kind of) but no desire/concept of godhood. However it will build an understanding very quickly based on divine actions and with the power it has would be one hell of a cat's paw for the god willing to take the effort to nudge its' actions.

I've ruled out direct intervention, I just don't let gods pop in to smack down things and half measures would make a hell of an enemy.

So how does a god react to something loothing her graveyard on that scale? How do other gods react? Should some god of life give it a high-five?

Imma run a Numerian game and I've got players:
Rush: A half-orc gunslinger with amnesia who speaks in the third person and calls all animals "cockroaches".
Batu Bane: A human barbarian with druid ideas who's father was killed by the Black Sovereign.
Lucky: A first time player running an elven sorcerer of the efreet bloodline who likes whisky. As GM I ruled he was wearing a vest, puffy pants and pointy slippers, not sure if this'll stick.

They begin in the South East of Numeria in Gladshire, an ironically named town. About a hundred years ago there was a bandit fort there, then the bandits moved their families there, then merchants showed up, then the bandits kids stayed there, now it's a town of around 3,000. They pay tribute to the Black Soverign regularly and no one gets hurt.

The town has a quandary now. As the PCs sat in a bar with Rush shouting about wanting work, there are these weird android things hanging around. About three months ago they showed up. Being all android-y and not knowing where they came from or anything much. They work cheap enough and haven't made much trouble but they build a shanty town and by now there's over 200 of them.

So the players were hired by Malcolm Gladwell, assistant to the alderman, to go and ask the nice "bee-ladies" what to do.Apparently the town asked them for advice before and it's easy, just go and ask. We'll totally pay a bunch of money. A horse even when they get back.

Being not on their guard, the PCs were completely unaware that the Thraie want tribute for future.

With the promise of a horse, they headed out into the badlands.

So there's a town the PCs are going to be sent to on a fact finding mission. It's a three layer deal. Long ago a few dwarven clans and their human allies found some rich veins of ore in Numeria and they pooled their resources and went hog wild getting rich. Then the dwarves hired some spellcasters to show up and stone shape the hell out of the played out upper tunnels leading to having more or less a two story underground city, the floor and roof both having buildings hanging or standing. The humans kind of didn't want to go all morlok and kept mostly to the aboveground city.

Then one of my campaign's big bads drifted through, murdered everythingish and opened a gate to the plane of water.

So a second level band of adventurers (sorcerer, barbarian/druid and gunslinger) are going to find a ghost town with half of a flooded city underneath to explore and loot.

Last time I almost TPK'd them with a young owlbear and again with one of the fin backed dinosaurs. I don't want to TPK them per se but I do want to challenge.

They'll be sick of elementals (small) after the game before this but I can justify any form of water thing with the gate open. Or underground people/things showing up to see what the deal with the sudden waterfall into the underdark is.

Suggestions?

So another thread made me decide to go ahead and try my hand at magic item creation:

Headpieces of communication:

These items can be made separately but must be attuned to a Helm of the Leader to have any effects. Any number can be attuned at one time but there can only be one Helm of the Leader active.

Attuning is done by submerging a helm in a basin of salt water with a Helm of the Leader and electrifying the water.

All gear grants the following abilities:
Cannot be surprised unless every creature in attuned gear is also surprised.
Gain a +1 competence bonus on any Aid Another action as long as aiding a creature in an attuned helmet.

Helm of the leader
At will:
Telepathy communicate with any creature wearing an activated piece of the headgear.
Mass messages: the leader can send out messages of three words or less to all creatures wearing an attuned item.
Locate creature: the wearer is always aware of the general location of any creature wearing an attuned helm within one mile.
Observe: Call up a silent image showing what any other member sees. This image is good enough to allow perception checks and make the leader subject to visual attacks, perception checks are at a at a -2 for quality degradation and saving throws against visual effects are at a +2 bonus.
Big Picture: As a full round action the wearer may create a silent image showing the locations of each creature in attuned gear and their surroundings as seen by the creature. These images are merged for greater clarity and awareness.
Teamwork: May choose one teamwork feat to grant all creatures in attuned gear. This must be a feat possessed by one of the creatures but not the wearer of the Helm of Leadership. The feat can be changed as a full round action.
Leadership: Any command check is made at a +2 bonus for other creatures in attuned gear.

Mask of the infiltrator
A black knit cloth hood with reddish lenses in it. The wearer of this hood can at will place an arcane mark like mark on an object or person, this mark is only visible to others wearing attuned gear and not on the person, it is undetectable outside the gear. The wearer can change the appearance of each mark as wished.
The following function as long as they are within sight of others in attuned gear:
The wearer gains the benefits of a Tactical Acumen spell.
The wearer may treat their level as 4 higher for purposes of Uncanny Dodge's immunity to flanking.

Helm of Support
This helm provides a constant status spell on all other creatures wearing attuned gear.
Locate: at will the wearer can use locate object on another wearing attuned gear.
Percisce rays: any spell targeting a creature in attuned gear that requires an attack roll instead automaticly hits.
Aid: any ability that grants bonuses within a certain range has its' range changed to "on sight" for all others in attuned gear.

Lenses of the Arcanist
Observe: Call up a silent image showing what any other member sees. This image is good enough to allow perception checks and make the leader subject to visual attacks, perception checks are at a at a -2 for quality degradation and saving throws against visual effects are at a +2 bonus. They may also use this to make Spellcraft checks to identify spells and effects at a -2 penalty through others eyes.
Aid vision: Divination spells may be cast through the eyes of other members. Treat this as the Share Spells power with any creature in attuned gear. Both the caster and target gain the benefit of the spell however the wearer must be observing the new target, if they look through the eyes of another, the spell ends.
Targeting: As long as they maintain line of effect, the wearer may use the vision of another through the observe power to target spells.

Helm of the follower
The wearer of this helm gains the effects of a Tactical Acumen spell.
Flanking the wearer of this helm only gives a +1 bonus.
Both of these powers only function within sight of another creature in attuned gear.

So those are some of the ideas, how do they work for a group of linked magic items?
Some of the abilities may be too powerful or need tweaking.
ALso what kind of cost/CL/spells should be needed to make them?
Other comments?

So I may be running Pathfinder for my group. If not Eberron I'll use the standard world. But I will add the living spells, this is important because one of the obstacles is an awakened living wish spell. This is also important because the society the PCs meet uses living spells for much of their needs similar to nanotech.

The spell calls itself Twelfth and wants to build contemporaries for itself but does not want to create more awakened living spells. It wants its' creations to evolve into something it can feel are equals. It's based on the TITANs from Eclipse Phase.

So here's my idea. In/near Numeria people are noticing a lot of those Android fellows showing up at once. Hordes of very confused droids are wandering around and don't know what to do. Also the locals don't know what to do with them.

The PCs get hired to deal with the Androids, not kill, there's a lot of them, but just figure out what to do with them, they're just wandering around doing nothing and stuff.

Armed with the hundred gold the townsfolk raised and a writ from the council the PCs have to find a purpose for the androids. (The town is pretty short sighted here). This will be using stuff from the UC book though I'll tweak it a bit. This is a big gimmie to the PCs who can if clever turn the androids into their own army/students/acolytes/guild/mini-city.

The second part is figuring out where they're coming from. The PCs go off to find the source and discover a semi distant (300ish miles) mountain is infact a large vault/ship/something. The androids are being created in here and teleported off with "standard gear." Getting inside is a whole thing but the things that should stop the PCs are not working.

Inside they find the place is huge, a massive ship landed/appeared here long ago and automated processes turned the rest of the mountain into a fortress on the inside but didn't alter the outside because one of the orders was to keep a low profile.

Several mindless monster types have moved in with the defences turned off and the PCs have to deal with them and a few wandering living spells as they explore. Then those start dissapearing and things get more dangerous.

Here is where they will encounter the first work of the now free living wish, it is experimenting with building new life forms, the first is a hive minded creature similar to bugs but larger which it dumps into the citidel to observe. Twelfth will be pleased as the PCs provide a challange and test of the creations, the next version will correct any flaws it sees. So if the PCs have one tactic that works every time, Twelfth will make its' next creations immuse or adapted to it.

Assuming they survive they now have possession of the top levels of the ship and the whole citidel above. They can move the androids in if they want to make their own burb. They also can begin to explore the lower levels of the ship. Here they find that while humans or human like things built and brought the ship here, they're all dead and soul-less. (Twelfth soul gem'd all of them to enhance its' knowledge). Down here they must also contend with the things that killed the civilization, some minor enemies, similar to the xenomorphs and infected with an End Plague prowl about the lower levels awakened by the presence of living things. (End Plague not too bad for PCs, I'll get into that later).

After clearing out the ship, the PCs have control of one of the most advanced things in existance. They just need to figure out how to turn it on. When they do (feed spell slots into the engine, as many as they can) the ship's living spell systems are emowered. They now can try to build their little city state if they were clever and got the androids as buddies to populate it. Otherwise they have to figure out what to do with it.

They have a month before the first army/guild/faction shows up to take it from them. Then the second. Then the third and forth may have a battle on their doorstep to claim it as well.

Next, Twelfth will dump its' next creations into the citidel to see how they do. I haven't designed these yet because I don't know how Twelfth will build them.

The next part is trying to understand/deal with Twelfth. It is alien in every sense of the word but also human in that it wants equals. The PCs can learn about it but as it is a Wish spell every round if it needs, they're a little short of taking it down yet. They should also be trying to understand the civilization that created the ship.

Because the end-game of this is starting. The ship has a room with a dead stargate in it. The stargate comes to life and survivours of the civilization come out. They were awoken when the End Plague was erradicated from the ship and they want their ship back.

They are the races from the CRB but advanced (built on 25 points with levels). However they are not the top of their chain, but instead the normal everyday folk. They come from a time and place beyond scarcity and need. None of these survivours are engineers of great knowledge but they know enough to subvert the PCs control of the ship. The PCs have to either beat them or find a way to co-exist (they can be servants).

After this, Twelfth needs to be dealt with. The PCs should have gained some understanding of the living spells if they want to fight it or they can try to talk it down or at least convenience it to go build life forms on the moon or somewhere else.

So that's the vague structure of the game, thoughts?

Notes: The End Plague is a pretty bad hemorrhagic fever/grand mal seizure but it's not targeted at people as the PCs are. It's built to target people with latent magic effects. It is immune to magical healing but easily countered by the Heal skill as well as weaker than the diseases that lie in the PCs immune system.

Ship systems: can defend the ship, attack as well as scry. There are numerious creation nodes that can build most things but they all need to be activated and fed spell slots.

I'm in a Jade Regent game and noodling around with backup ideas for when I die.

I'm not too worried about optimized since right now I'm playing "The worst cleric evar," and just obliterated an entire encounter more or less on my own.

So, here are my ideas:
Col. Psmith: A Cheliaxian (the GM said they were the most British) who after spending his time putting the colonial boot to the face of Mwangi is now hunting big game up north. I'm thinking some kind of gunslinger/??? combo, ranger is out because nature exists to be tammed, turned into useful land or shot at, also the GM said I can't take "foreigner, native, tribal or lower class" as favored enemies.

Grunghvor: a half-orc barbarian/alchemist who practices "Traditional Orcish Medicine." TOM does not work but costs a lot of money and involves the genitals, spleens etc of rare animals ground into powder etc. This is hilarious if you've lived in China. He's pretty easy to stat because he came into being when the GM told me the Warlord class from the d20pfsrd was overpowered and I should make a nice balanced thing from the main books. That said, for 6-9 level, what's the best class combo to get the most numbers?

Ren Hori: This is the hardest, ment to be the last if I can, I'm thinking of her as a hard boiled detective type, I'm thinking 2-3 levels of gunslinger and a few levels of Monk then moving to Sleepless Detective. The monk manifests as a zen like detached cynicism and brawling, while the gunslinger brings in dogged determination and the SD brings out the ability to solve crimes like Sam Spade. Is this at all possible? She's for the later parts (since I think I make it to Tian on three characters) so she'll have a few more levels to toss around, I was going to add rogue in but SD does most of what they do for what I want.

I think it's mostly Ren who's a puzzle to build but Psmith is proving a bit odd as well.

So I want to play idea sci-fi. In a Pathfinder setting let's make magic more common, every time someone gains a level they get a free "level" of sorcer/oracle (must choose one at creation) not the feats, skills, saves or hit points, just the spells and bloodline/mystery powers. Everyone, Bob who was orphaned by orcs, willie the wizard, bob the shopkeeper, bob the farmer, king bob, every class.

The premise is that in this new world, everyone has some spells. Let's say all smart races on the prime plane (screw outsiders). Throw in a few rules that make item creation a bit easier or less money consuming.

Now you have a world where decanters of endless water feed desert cities, the stone masons use stone shape, wall of stone and dig spells to build cities in weeks, teleportation is treated like an airplane, outsiders with the greater teleport power are summoned to deliver packages across the world...

So what kind of civilizations would exist here? What kind of systems would they use? How does a magic industrial revolution effect the world?

So, I've accepted an unspoken challenge from my DM(1). It's a ways off but, here's how it plays out:

As a 9th level mage (transmuter) I have access to:
-Teleport
-Shrink item
-Fly
-An Iridescent Spindle Ioun Stone
-Iron (10lb/gp, 16000lb=1600gp*)
(-Scrying)

*(I may need to use a more dense material as I only get 18 cubic feet)

You see where this is going.

Without scrolls I can use 3 Shrink item spells on 3 giant arrow shaped 16000lb ingots of iron and one Fly spell on myself. Then I teleport above my target and send the projectile off to deliver all the damage (just under Fat Man/Little Boy) to my target.

So, is this enough to become a mass driver? Do I need to find some kind of math spell to make it land on my target city/dungeon/Xin-Shalast.

So how would you make it work?

Would using scrolls to summon helper demons (or other outsiders) work to have them guide the projectile?

True Strike might not work since the range increments will be too many.

If I max out Int at 28 can I just make a Knowledge: Math roll to do it?

Since gravity is constant, should I avoid enlarging it and fly it down to within a mile or two before enlarging it and peeling off? (This means I have to use all three at once or have more teleports, also what are the best spells for atmosphereic entry?)

The other option is to try it with Teleport Object and just trial/error where the things land, which is tempting but kind of a little bit into mad wizard raining destruction for laught/SCIENCE and a teensy bit evil).

Also, if it works is it worth it to take the Eldritch Heritage feat for the Divine bloodline so Rodrick the wizard can legitimately call himself "Rod from God?"

(1) He wants me to think well outside the box, and I need an ace to deal with NPCs later on.

So long ago in the game the players skirmished with an Adult Blue Dragon. They drove it off.

Then it attacked their airship convoy over the jungle and they drove it off. Mostly because the Cleric got an Oathbow and Smite Evil 1/day from her PrC.

Now they are doing the PC thing and planning to find and kill it.
It has the Ravenous template so is a CR 14 but the party is 4 lv 15 (Paladin, cleric, mage and Wilder).

I've given the dragon lightning immune lizard man servants who have levels in Cleric or Barbarian.

But, with two cheesy smite evils at the dragon it's almost not worth rolling for.

So here's the set-up for the lair, let me know if I missed anything.

The dragon has scrying spells active so will know their approach.

When they show up, a lizard man shaman will be sitting there with Form of Dragon II or III. He's mostly to use up the big guns.

Then other lizard men engage, the shamans using scrolls of Greater Dispel Magic on the buffs, as the dragon burrows up to attack the mage.

Now this next trick is one I'm not sure about. A Simulacrum spell, would it produce a CR 6-7 young blue dragon or another adult? I'm thinking of having two or three of them also around (party is good about preparing spells etc. So breath weapon is only a threat to the mage really). (Also have one simulacrum invisible near the first dragon so PCs with True seeing get "rewarded" for seeing through the Form of Dragon spell.

What do you think?

How does this encounter look?

So the party is about to head into an ancient giant outpost looking for directions to another ruin. Little do they know that a fire giant was left behind as a guard, and made into a Dread Mummy in the process. 40,000 years later it's just insane. Anyhow, the dread mummy takes 2x from fire and gains resist cold 10. The fire giant is immune to fire and takes 1.5x from cold. Soooooo, what this means is they are immune to fire and take damage-10 then x1.5 from cold right?

(Spoiler, I'm going to run with that anyway because the paladin is mouthy and I'm a dick like that. but I am interested in overlapping vulnerabilities and resistance.)