I like the first illustration. It has a real old school AD&D look to it.
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This book will be a great addition to my low magic, home brew setting. I especially like the Channel Foci and Alchemical Power Components. I have a clarification question regarding the flambard; am I correct in the following interpretation of its function? A character with only martial weapon proficiency can only wield it two handed and does not gain the bonus to sunder. A character with Bastard Sword Proficiency but not Flambard Proficiency can wield it one handed and does not gain a bonus to sunder. A character with Flambard Proficiency but not Bastard Sword Proficiency can only wield it two handed, but does gain the bonus to sunder. A character with both Flambard and Bastard Sword Proficiency can wield it one handed and gains the bonus to sunder. Also, shame on Paizo for publishing that bats are rodents in one of their products. Bats are of the order Chiroptera, not Rodentia. I'm surprised no one has pointed this out yet.
Sorry, I guess I misunderstood. They are two distinct deities with opposing viewpoints on man's relationship with nature. One represents man cooperating with nature, the other represents man and nature in opposition.
Since the culture that worships this pantheon views nature holistically rather than as separate elements, I'm probably going to avoid the elemental domains. You misunderstand. What I meant was that they don't classify matter based on what it's made of, but rather by what it is. To them, nature isn't a combination of elements, nature is nature. A storm isn't a fusion of the elements air and water, it's a force of nature all its own. From a mechanical point of view, I don't want clerics of this pantheon having single element domains because, if they do, then they aren't nature clerics, they're fire clerics or they're ice clerics and that's not what I want. I probably wouldn't have such a problem with it if the elemental domains weren't so boring and cookie cutter. There are also four of them, which doesn't leave much room for anything else on a deities list of domains.
I had considered a devouring worm type deity, but as I currently have the mythology written the two nature gods created the world together, they just have different ideas of what the world should be like.
Since the culture that worships this pantheon views nature holistically rather than as separate elements, I'm probably going to avoid the elemental domains. I would also want to give him all the elemental domains, which wouldn't leave much room on his list of domains without it getting bloated. I like bigkilla's idea that both nature deities can have the animal and plant domains, so I'll probably go with those. Strength also seems like a good choice. So far his domains are Animal, Chaos, Destruction, Plant, and Strength. It's tempting to add Weather (it's a very wrathful domain), but I worry that six domains may be to many. I also want to keep his number of domains equal to the nurturing nature deity, so I would have to choose a sixth one for her.
So I'm starting a new campaign pretty soon, and I'm writing my own setting because I have more time than money. I'm starting small and just fleshing a single geographic region. The religion of the regions dominant culture is a civilized form of dualistic nature worship. The two main gods of the pantheon respectively symbolize nature's nurturing aspect and its savage aspect. I've got the nurturing goddess more or less worked out. She's your typical earth mother, fertility goddess: Neutral Good alignment, Animal, Community, Good, Plant, and Protection domains. What I'm having trouble with is the savage nature god. I had planned for him to be chaotic neutral, and for him to have the Chaos and Destruction domains, but I don't know what other domains to give him. I'm reluctant to give him the weather domain because I don't want him to seem to much like Zeus, and the god of the after life rides across the world atop a thunder head, hunting for the souls of the dead. To sum things up: What domains would you give a god of nature's savagery? P.S. The pantheon's other gods include a god of civilization, a god of storms and the afterlife, a sun god, and a goddess of the moon and the seas.
The big question is...will there be a Volume 3? I'm kind of skeptical there will be a volume 3. Daemon (Yugoloth) have never been particularly interested in the affairs of mortals, at least in former editions. Since yugoloth aren't formed from the souls of mortals, they have no reason to corrupt them to bolster their numbers.
Arbitrary, non-negotiable player suffering is truly ambrosia. There's nothing quite like a power gaming prick loosing a hand at first level, and then not being able to rules lawyer his way out of it.
When Greater Magic Weapon states that it "gives a weapon an enhancement bonus on attack and damage rolls of +1 per four caster levels (maximum +5)" is that rounded up or rounded down? I know these things are usually rounded down, but were this the case this spell would not provide a +2 bonus until level 8, at which point most characters already have +2 weapons.
Calm down everyone. I didn't mean to stir up a hornet's nest. My DM wanted us to roll our stats, and I got 8, 16, 15, 5, 16, 14. With that nasty little 5 I was going to have to dump stat something. I figured why not put the 5 in intelligence and play a Paladin, they're all idiots anyways. I was just wondering if there was any advantage to playing a human and putting my favored class bonus towards skill points, instead of playing a half orc and choosing to apply my favored class bonus towards hit points.
I guess that makes the choice between Human Paladin and Half Orc Paladin a bit tougher. On one hand you could dump stat int (as all good Paladins should) and still get three skill points per level. On the other you could stay conscious at negative hit points and lay hands upon yourself as a swift action to rejoin the fight.
Were activating Arcane Strike a free action it wouldn't interfere with an EK's ability to use Spell Critical, or any other arcane spellcaster's ability to cast quickened spells. What do all y'all think?
Do the bonus skill points a character gains for being human or taking a level in their favored class apply after a negative intelligence modifier or before. For example, would a human with an intelligence of 5 get three skill points per level (2 for being a paladin, minus 3 for being dumb (minimum one), plus 1 for being human, plus 1 for taking a level in his favored class) or one (2 for being a paladin, plus one for being a human, plus one for taking a level in his favored class, minus three for being dumb)?
Gish is the name of Smashing Pumpkins first album.
I suppose if Paizo is alright with having one of the orders be known as the "Order of the Cock," then I have no problem with it. Cockatrices are horrible little beasts and I always thought naming the teamwork oriented cavalier after them was kind of a weird choice. I still think that Dragon and Teamwork don't fit together that well. If I were to name any of the heroic orders after dragons, it would be what is now called the "Order of the Sword" (unless you were really going for the Arthurian Knight - Excalibur link with that one). Sword cavaliers are heroic, while at the same time solitary, just like many of the good dragon varieties.
I agree with you that not all dragons are greed and selfish, but most varieties are fairly solitary. I just don't think that a dragon would be the best choice of heraldry for a knightly order based around teamwork. Some sort of pack animal would probably be a better choice. "Order of the Wolf" has a nice ring to it.
I think it was a mistake to swap the names on the order of the dragon and the order of the cockatrice. First of all, dragon's are solitary creatures, so I doubt a knightly order based around teamwork would name themselves after dragons. More importantly, naming the fraternal order of knightly jerks after the cockatrice will lead to constant lewd jokes at the gaming table along the lines of, "Man, that cavalier is such a cock."
For the sake of furthering the conversation, I'll acknowledge that chaotic organizations can persist for an extended amount of time. The question at this point becomes: "Would any of the long running chaotic organizations that have been mentioned above spawn something akin to a cavalier?" My answer is no, a biker gang or orcish horde (like there is a difference) would not include an oath making, order joining knight in its ranks. This is not to say orcs could not be cavaliers, they would just be NE lackeys of a more powerful evil cavalier.
I would prefer the cavalier be a base class over a prestige class. I feel that prestige class overload was one of the worst aspects of 3rd edition. They reduced base classes to nothing more than segways into prestige classes and could easily be exploited with game breaking results. Anyhow, There are plenty of other base classes that are just as specialized as the cavalier. Monks, are pretty much always going to be some sort of Asian martial arts master, even if the particular martial art they practice differs (they also have no place in medieval fantasy). Paladins are essentially cavaliers that are limited to a lawful good alignment. Pretty much every base class currently in existence aside from Fighter, Rogue, Cleric, and Wizard has a narrowly defined roll and a skill set that overlaps with at least one other class to some extent.
One of the many things I really liked about the Greyhawk campaign setting was that the common tongue was an amalgamation of Old Oeridian, Suloise, and Ancient Baklunish. Since 90% of the NPCs you encountered knew either an Oeridian, Suloise or Baklunish dialect, you could engage them in rudimentary communication even if they did not actually know common. It could also lead to hilarious misinterpretations (hilarious for the GM anyways).
I think you misunderstand what Order of the Dragon means. They don't worship dragons any more than Order of the Cockatrice worship cockatrices. They are called the Order of the Dragon because they exhibit behaviors common to dragon kind, such as avarice and arrogance (even good dragons amass hordes and have large egos). This is just speculation on my part, but I think the names of the cavalier orders has more to do their heraldry than it does with the the qualities of the order (Order of the Shield being an exception).
Please elaborate. You've stated an absolute assertion (it's impossible for chaotic characters to cooperate long-term) and provided no reasoning to back it up.Untrue.Choatic Orders don't however make any long term sense, they would by their very nature fall apart.False. I disagree. Just because criminals break the laws of a particular community does not automatically mean that they are chaotic. Guild thieves instead follow a different set of laws, the laws of the guild. Doing what you want without paying attention to the law is chaotic, intentionally breaking the law for profit is evil. For those of you who doubt me, I present the following as proof: the Mafia. The Mafia has both a strict power hierarchy as well as its own codes of honor. While organized criminals break the law on a regular basis, they do it for profit, rather than out of rebelliousness or free spiritedness. Thus, organized crime is, at its heart, a lawful evil enterprise.
I too saw the the dragon cavalier as having the potential of being non-lawful. Dragon cavaliers are all about selfishness, which is the defining feature of the neutral evil alignment. Even they, however, must follow a code or be cast out of their order, which would certainly chafe a chaotic character. That's why I suggested that the cavalier be limited to non-chaotic characters rather than lawful characters.
As someone who has played a fighter specializing in mounted combat in D&D 3.5, I have no gripes about the cavalier's mount. The extra hit dice that your mount gets for being an animal companion alone give it a huge boost in durability when compared to a normal horse or riding dog. In my experience with non-animal companion mounts, higher level mounted combat characters have to hire an NPC herder to manage the half dozen extra mounts you have to take with you when you go on an extended quest. The cost of riding dogs can also really add up after a while.
The alignment entry for the cavalier in the beta testing material states that a cavalier may be of any alignment, which I don't think fits the flavor of the class. It is my opinion that the cavalier class should be restricted to non-chaotic characters. Cavaliers put a heavy emphasis on making vows and adhering to the tenants of an order, neither of which are actions chaotic characters are particularly fond of.
Is there any chance that Paizo will ever be able to release the collected "Demonomicon of Iggwilv" articles in a style similar to the "Dragon Compendium," or at least in a PDF? I loved those articles, but due to lack of finances I missed out on the last year and a half of Dragon's publication, and therefore missed several installments. |