I've had to reschedule a game a few weeks from now instead of a few months from now. They intend to go visit the Sun Temple colony, and a Mordant Spire ship came all the way to the Inner Sea to retrieve them. Now, I just need to figure out who and what is on that ship, while I have no experience neither in nor out of game about sea, ships, or any aquatic area. On top of that, mythic is not excluded. And I'm no good at surfing the Internet.
Their travel should take about two months if they don't lose any time, and I intend to make them lose a lot of time, so it could easily be four or even six months. As many things will happen on that ship, I would like to have descriptions for about 40 people. There will be incidents involving pirates, green dragons, lost haunted lagunas, wild intelligent varech, clandestine passengers, aboleths, and so on.
For now, the ship is based on the Cetaceal (from Inner Sea Ships) with a wavecutter's figurine, and it's intelligent. I don't know what personality it has yet. We're playing a world with a lot of magic, so I'd like some ideas about making the ship special in both mundane and magical ways, in an azlanti and gray-elfish way.
All crew is mordant spire elves. It might be divided about this unusual mission. Some might just find it weird, others might want to investigate or even be ready to eliminate the PCs, while others might strongly believe there is a reason, and they don't need to know as long as they've been ordered to.
I need to have elements for all important crew - captain, quartermaster, sailing master, boatswain, carpenter, surgeon - as well as sailors, mates, and maybe unexpected people. Anytime I can go magic about something instead of mundane, I would prefer it, be it artillery, propulsion, reparations, cooking, healing, everything. Highest levels should be around 14-15 and lowest around 5. I'd like personal plot hooks for about 20 people from the crew, and I'm ready to take on unusual classes.
One party for whom I'm acting as DM (bad idea, very bad idea) managed to get assassins on their tracks. They'll be boarding a ship soon, and the assassins will be on the ship too.
The party consists of three people: two (illegally built) PCs and the NPC they're escorting.
PC-1 is half-elf, LN, bard 3, archmage tier 10. She's known for her use of frightful presence, domination and sonic spells, especially wall of sound (extremely destructive in her hands). She has unexpectedly low armour compared to her potentially destructive and mental powers.
PC-2 is a huge ice elemental glamoured into a medium size arctic elf, LG, magus 3. He isn't as well known as PC-1, but both groups of assassins have learned the harsh way his fortes are perception, climb, acrobatics, dual swording. In combat, he makes use of feints and elemental magic.
Their ward is some weird elf kid with an aura disturbing magic - like removing the weight cap of mage hand and enabling it to work on wore items, or making prestidigitation's fireworks into actual fireballs. Those effects are random and might serve both parties or not occur at all, but mainly it's making using spells around slightly dangerous even and especially for casters - except PC-1, for some reason (GM fiat, it's plot-related). He runs stupidly fast, but it might not be important on a ship.
First group of foes is from an atheous sect seeking the destruction of all divine beings and powers, and PC-1 is on the top of their list, with the ward somewhere below her. Second group is an assassin guild with a contract on the head of the kid. I would like to know how they would go about that. The party is shipping to a place with high security, and then to a restricted area, so they would like to deliver death before they reach their destination. Both groups of foes favour chirurgical action with minimum collateral damage, and the fanatics want minimum information leaks, while the guild wants to have the corpse bearing their mark and the boy to suffer. How could they go about it? What strategies, what builds?
This is a commission for my DM (one day, he'll read the rules books. Maybe). He likes the idea of going overboard with unrealistic situations, even in a high-magic game. And one of our recently defeated great villains one a vetala, so he asked me, if possible, to craft some mythic vetala template, since obviously the mythic vampire template cannot be applied to vetalas, since it relies on abilities the vetala does not possess. Here's the work:
Mythic Vetala (CR + varies):
"Mythic vetala" is an acquired template that can be added to any creature with the vetala template (referred to hereafter as the base vetala). A mythic vetala uses the base vetala's stats and abilities except as noted here.
Mythic Subtype: A mythic vetala gains the mythic subtype, with a rank equal to half the CF of the base vampire. A mythic vetala gains additional abilities depending on the base vetala's CR instead of the mythic abilities it would get for having a rank. The mythic vetala gains all other benefits of having the mythic subtype: ability score bonuses, bonus hit points, mythic feats, mythic power, natural armor bonus, and spell resistance increase (if any).
CR: Adjust the base vetala's CR according to its mythic rank (this template doesn't increase the base vetala's CR other than from the mythic rank). Note that a mythic vetala's abilities on the table depend on the base vetala's CR, not the final CR of the mythic vetala.
Tier: A vetala with mythic tiers that becomes a mythic vetala loses its tiers (and all abilities from those tiers) and gains abilities from the mythic vetala template, according to the base vetala's CR.
Up until now, except for writing "vetala" instead of "vampire", nothing changed.
Negative Energy Focus (Su): A mythic vetala's paralysis ability triggers once per successful melee attack with melee weapons or natural attacks, up to a maximum of once per round for every 2 mythic ranks the vetala has.
I change energy drain for paralysis, since a vetala doesn't have energy drain and has paralysis instead.
Overcome Weakness: A mythic vetala can ignore the sound of prayers or religious mantras recited by those truly faithful to a good deity.
Soul Traveler: At 4th rank, the vetala may receive sensorial informations from his real body while using malevolence or possess corpse. It means he hears, sees, feels and perceives through whatever sense his real body may possess in addition to fully inhabiting his host's body. He cannot still cannot use his body or communicate through it while using these abilities, he is only aware of what is happening around his real body. At 6th rank, when the possession ends or the host body is killed while its body is not situated on the same plane, the vetala's consciousness has a 20% chance of not being destroyed and returning to its body safely. This chance increases to 50% at 8th rank. At 10th rank, the mythic vetala is no longer at risk of dying when malevolence or possess corpse ends or the host body is destroyed.
A vetala's only weakness is the sound of prayers or religious mantras to a good-aligned deity. As such, there isn't much to do. So, since it might suffer some serious dangers from a bad handling of possess corpse or malevolence, I tried to make those two less limited. I hope they haven't become too good, even for a mythic game.
Fascinating Presence (Su). As a standard action, a mythic vetala can expand one use of mythic power to gain a fascinating effect over one target within 30 feet that can hear and see you, though it needs not understand you. This ability affects only creatures with fewer Hit Dice than the vetala has. A target can resist the effects with a successful Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 the vetala's HD + the vetala's Charisma modifier). A target who fails this save stops and stares blankly at the vetala. The vetala can then move in and, by touching the target, use Drain Prana without needing a pin. A target who succeeds its save can act normally, but the vetala has the benefits of a sanctuary against it (Will save, same DC) for 1 round.
If the vetala uses this ability in combat, the target gains a +2 bonus on its saving throw. If the target is isolated outside of combat, the saving throw has a penalty of -2. Once a creature has resisted this effect, it is immune to it for 24 hours. If the fail saves and the vetala doesn't consume its victim, the effect lasts for 5d6 rounds or until a great distraction occurs (such as a threatening situation or someone using a standard action to snap the target out of its daze).
This replaces scabrous claws. Vetalas already have claws. I took the inspiration from the yogi in A Thousand Years Ninetails. Thought it isn't Indian but Korean, and I couldn't find more information on it, from the manhwa, it is the "power to entrance people". It is more commonly used by evil foxes to hypnotize people and eat the livers alive, as the liver is the place were the equivalent of prana is most accessible. I thought it wasn't a too bad idea to make something rather offensive (as scabrous claws) but more thematic to a "mind vampire", dealing with souls and memories rather than intestines and blood.
I am not sure the power balance is good, in fact, I am almost sure it might very well be a lot more potent than a +1d6 bleed. At least I made it a one-target thing. I think I liked to much the cinematic effect in the manhwa... The inspirations for the designing are frightful presence (from the monster universal rules) and the hypnotism spell.
Channel Resistance (Su): At 3rd rank, a mythic vetala's channel resistance increases to +8. At 6th rank, it increases to +12. At 9th rank, it increases to +16.
Symbiosis (Su/Sp): At 4th rank, a mythic vetala can drain prana on a willing creature without a pin, by a simple touch, as a standard action. When using malevolence on a willing creature, he may stay any amount of time. If the creature becomes unwilling, it receives a Save if it has been possessed for less that malevolence's normal duration, or the vetala is expelled if that duration has already been exceeded. For this ability, a creature can be considered willing while being affected by any spell or effect that could influence its opinion on the matter. Using these abilities may call for a new Save against the influence in action depending the description of that effect. At 7th rank, a mythic vetala may heal its victim immediately after having used drain prana, as the restoration spell. When using possess corpse or malevolence, it benefits from the Improved Possession feat. The target doesn't need to be willing for the abilities made available at 7th rank.
Okay, I designed this one because it is a dream of my good-aligned vetala character. But it does fit in what a vetala would do; it expands one of its abilities. The bit about coerced willing creatures is because, seriously, they are supposed to be bad guys.
Fluctuent Form (Su):At 5th rank, when using possess corpse, a vetala may freely use its special abilities. When using possess corpse or malevolence, it can use drain prana (in its normal version or in the enhanced versions presented in this template). When the vetala enters in a new body, and then at any point, it can modify its appearance as the alter self spell, except that in doing so, it can precisely mimic the physical features of any individual it has encountered within one size category of the body it is inhabiting (including its own true form). When doing so, in addition to the +10 bonus on Disguise to appear as the race chosen, it receives a +10 circumstance bonus to appear as the specific individual it is mimicking. This false appearance lasts for 1 min./CR of the mythic vetala, and requires a standard action to initiate.
Basically, I'm replacing an illusory ability with an illusory ability. Though technically it is a conjuration (polymorph) ability. As mist shapes, it has a duration similar to that of the spell. The part about mimicking a particular appearance is designed after Realistic Likeness (a kitsune feat).It seemed okay to give a creature absorbing people's memories and personalities to then be able to try and live those lives for real rather than by procuration (see the part about malevolence's duration for that too).
Imaginary Friends (Ex/Su): At 6th rank, the mythic vetala can communicate with the memories and personalities it absorbed. He can use all knowledge skills untrained and receives one Skill Focus (his choice) or one skill feat granting a +2/+4 in two skills, as a bonus feat. He can used commune once per day, as the commune with power universal path ability. When using his modify memory ability, he may modify, erase and create any amount of memories in 10 minutes, though this particularly intense use of the ability allows a Will save. The voices and images becoming stronger, the DM could make a personality or pack of memories grow a sentience, making them able to communicate with the vetala freely. They do not necessarily share the vetala's personality, goals or alignment, and can even be hostile to him. Since the commune with power ability establishes a connection with those voices, they may lie.
The infinite modify memory is a trick our foe did use, and the voices bit is in our campaign too, so while they are not static, the idea should stay around. Commune with power is a tier 1 ability, so making it alone at 6th rank seemed maybe a bit short, and I picked it because our vetalas are obsessed with fate and strongly believe in it, the way kids believe in the one upon a time and the happily ever after.
Telepathy (Sp): At 6th rank, a mythic vetala can expand one use of mythic power to use the spell telepathy with a caster level equal to the mythic vetala's CR.
More into theme, simply. The spell level is slightly inferior, though. Our mythic vetala foe did use telepathy freely with whoever he wanted whenever he wanted, or so it seemed.
Always Farther (Su): At 7th rank, a mythic vetala can create a psychic anchor. This anchor can be a creature or an item with an emotional connection to the vetala (when made into an anchor, the object or creature reacts to spells like detect psychic significance as if under the effect of charge object). The vetala can use such an anchor as the point of origin of its malevolence or possess corpse ability, no matter how far it is, and even if it is situated on another plane. If it is a creature, it must be willing (as above), and receives a Will save to negate the effects (both the aura and the vetala's access). By concentrating on one of its anchors, a vetala can know where it is, and initiate an empathic and/or telepathic link with the creature, item or item's wearer. Likewise, the anchor (if sentient) can initiate such a link to the vetala, though it cannot know where the vetala is in this way. The vetala and anchor can both refuse the empathic or telepathic communication, by succeeding a Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 CR of the creature wishing to establish + connection + said creature's Charisma modifier). Refusing the link doesn't count as becoming unwilling to be an anchor by itself, though both can happen at the same time. A mythic vetala can have a number of anchors up to twice its CR.
As above, willing isn't always willing. And a mythic vetala can create "friends" that will be willing. But as aforementionned, those friends can have other objectives and even if their loyalty is absolute, they can believe that refusing such a connection (or any other ability requiring the target to be *cough* willing) is beneficial to the vetala.
Children of children (Su): At 8th rank, once per day, a mythic vetala may leave a copy of memories, emotions, strives it has absorbed in a dead body it leaves after a use of possess corpse. The zombie or squeleton then subsists as an animated dead, possessing a personnality and capable of learning and acquiring new abilities and memories. It is fully loyal to the mythic vetala who raised it, though each of these followers may have its own additional goals and its own reasons to vow himself to his vetala lord.
A particular personality might be harvested by the vetala before it is infused in the new undead. A harvested personality is that of a dead creature, the vetala chose to harvest by a standard action upon its death. The harvested personality may be infused in its late body. This functions like true resurrection, except the creature is now an undead. No material components are needed. In addition, the bodies of undead created with the method made available at 7th rank do not decay.
I really like the feel of this ability. I'm not so sure about the frequency, though. It has already been used a few times in our campaign's back story, so the core concept is to stay even if I must change its rank, frequency or any over aspect of it.
Soul Omen (Su): At 9th rank a mythic vetala can expend two uses of mythic power as a standard action to drain prana from all creatures within 30 feet. Each creature must succeed at a Will saving throw (DC 10 + 1/2 the vetala's HD + the vetala's Charisma modifier) or the affected by the vetala's drain prana ability. The mythic vetala gains the normal benefits of all prana drained in this manner.
No name: At 10th rank ?
The mythic vampire template enhances the original vampire's abilities and make them into truly fearsome abilities. That, with my lack of imagination, made me enhance the vetala's abilities too. Basically, it is taking the base creature and make it what the worst (or best) tales tell, and as I am not familiar with Indian culture, it became what our campaign's world says they are and do. But I lack a 10th rank ability, and I am not sure it is balanced, hence my post and asking for advice and reviews? Thanks in advance for your time!
I have a blind character in my party (long story). He's a rogue, so it ain't that good. Hence, since the party has the ability to research spells and create magic items, and since the spells and magic items we know aren't of much help, they want to go at it. I'm wondering if what we came up with is balanced :
Detect Light:
School divination; Level bard 1, cleric 1, druid 1, ranger 1, sorcerer/wizard 1
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S
Range 120 ft.
Area 10 minutes/level
Saving Throw none; Spell Resistance no
You detect light in the surrounding area. This comes as an additional sense, and thus doesn't rely on vision, scent, hearing or other senses you might have. You cannot know shadow's forms, and thus cannot decipher what the environment and people look like by using this spell, but you can detect areas of bright, normal, dim light or darkness.
White Cane:
[Aura] faint divination; CL 1st; Slot eye; Price ?+3000 gp; Weight -
Despite the name, this really is a blindfold. Curse the constructor for having a bad humour sense. This item gives its wearer the constant benefit of detect light and sift (the later is by default a 10-ft. cube cornering the wearer's square, in the direction he's looking at; he may choose a new square within the spell range as a move action).
RequirementsCraft Wondrous Item, detect light, sift; Cost half the market price
I designed detect light from detect radiation. I'm worried the item might not be balanced : first there are warnings everywhere about continuous spell effects, then I didn't know what CL to make. Both spells can be cast at first CL. I'm not so sure about the move action part, since sift is cast as a standard action, but on the other hand moving spells already in effects generally is a move action.
So, what to you think ? Are they balanced ? How should I price the item and should I add something about not allowing just anybody to use it ? (By the way, any better name for the stupid item ?)
So. After making my character the possibly unique example of a LE character warpriest of a CG deity, my GM is making said character a vetala.
That's a real kind GM, he just tends to go overboard, which, honestly, I love about his GMing. That was a LG oracle worshiping the LG goddess of healing, which got cursed into LE rogue, which didn't suit said goddess, neither her CG husband god of thievery and luck, so after a long (real long) time, said god took the occasion to force a warpriest level on the rogue. Which the rogue didn't like, stating, quote : "such a low-life as me, misbehaving, having no remorse after torture and murder, can never come back to you or your wife". After nearly having the group TPKed because the warpriest had not prepared his spells and refused to use any warpriest class abilities, said god's daimon and the group ganged up on him to get him to just do it, since it was given, and a few sessions later we had him back to LN. Not perfect, but better, and on our way to LG.
So now there's that rogue/warpriest of a CG deity going vetala (we do know the conditions of creation of vetalas, but that's an even longer story than previously, problem's not here).
CR, type, armour class, most of it is fine. Even alignment is safe, because gods got annoyed enough the first time, they won't let it happen a second time, so no problem. We're having real fun launching a climb speed to a character fearing highs. He does get blind midway, but since some retrain will get most of blind-fight and one level will be enough for the last feat, we don't care, it's super-flavourful (and it does rise his Perception to +43... it's a very specialised character).
*Problem is that :*
"Vetalas cannot tolerate the sound of prayers or religious mantras recited by those truly faithful to a good deity. Any character with a good-aligned deity can force a vetala to recoil by dramatically praying as a standard action. Praying doesn’t harm a vetala; it merely keeps the creature at bay. A recoiling vetala must stay at least 5 feet away from a praying character and cannot touch or make melee attacks against it. After 1 round, a vetala can fight past its revulsion and function normally each round it succeeds at a DC 25 Will save. The prayers of those who worship non-good deities or worship no deity have no effect on a vetala."
So we're having a character whose faith to the good-align deity of healing resisted a brutal shift of alignment... not so much demonstrative, but actually preparing his spells (to good-aligned deity) and praying from time to time, performing missions for his god which most of the time imply body-guarding clerics of said healing deity or playing messenger for them... How I am supposed to deal with that ? I suppose he doesn't have to stick together with the others when they perform there obediences, but for his ?
*Then there's that : Malevolence.*
We're talking about a group where everyone knows exactly what a vetala is, not only the main characters, but also a large quantity of former PCs turned into retired adventurers, some who were retired but wait for the first opportunity ro come back. And we're talking about a group where that L-something character showed so fanatically loyal and adept at taking blows rather than letting others do, helping them with anything from choosing meal's menu to going into the Negative Energy Plane to retrieve them (true, that was epic), that they turned fanatically loyal to him, and we're pretty sure that he'll be invited in by some and allowed in if he asks. So, it says :
"The vetala can remain in control for a number of hours equal to its Charisma modifier or until it decides to end the possession. Whenever the possession ends or the host body is killed, the vetala’s consciousness instantly returns to its body, regardless of distance, so long as it remains on the same plane."
I'm getting the feeling it was written assuming that possession was unwanted. If he's actually in with authorisation and all, of course we're forgoing the Will save, but does he still go back abruptly to his own body when he's out of time ? or does he stays until he or the body's owner doesn't want to ? or something wierd along the line ? If it matters, we're using the occult version of the ability.
*Lastly : Possess Corpse.*
I'm no English native speaker. Does it mean the body's special abilities or the vetala's special abilities can't be used ? (Just to be sure, it includes class levels, right ?) What if the corpse happened to be sentient, such as another vampire or a zombie lord ?
*Really Lastly this time.*
Do animals have prana ? We're using vampiric hunger rules so it is important. The real life prana seems to be owned by everything, even possibly plants, if I'm not too wrong. But pathfinder vetalas are described as feeding from memories and cunny-ness.
So, to sum up : how do I manage a vetala with divine class to a good-aligned deity ? what happens when the target of malevolence is willing ? how should I read the possess corpse ability ? where does he feed from ?
the question is in the title. English is not my native language and this is my first message, so please be patient if I mess up or am downright uncomprehensible.
The rules and forums I've read adress whether and how to retrain favoured class bonus, but I don't think I saw how to change the favoured class from, say, oracle to rogue.
I know there's an important rp component in choosing your favoured class, and our game is highly dependant on rp, but it would actually be logical in our case to retrain this. I don't think it's the place to explain that, so I won't unless someone asks. I'm simply asking whether, by the rules, you can or cannot change your favoured class. Thank you in advance for your answers.
