Mad Jackson's page

Playing in an occasional when-we-have-time mini adventure.

Half-Orc Invulerable Rager 2 / Sorceror (Draconic) 1 (yes, going for Dragon Disciple). We (me and rogue 1 / wiz 2) infiltrated a giant tower full to the brim with undead and used as a generator / control node for thousands of undead roaming the grounds outside the tower. Which is in a gigantic cavern underground.

We find the necromancer conducting a rite in front of "the Machine." The "Machine" is an altar with a big glowing green hole in it that the necro feeds dead bodies into. After a lot of loud grinding and some green glowing, an mindless undead of some sort exits from one of the sides of the altar. The necro is standing in front of the altar, having just fed another corpse into it. Several rows of cultists are off to either side, chanting and watching the necromancer.

We found an .. informant .. of sorts who informed us that the way to destroy the Machine and break the control over the army of undead was to feed a living creature into it.

We entered the room with the Machine and necro, and cultists. We're using minis and a battlemat and I notice that the necro is standing directly in front of the hole in the altar. I'm about 40 feet directly behind him and there are no obstacles.I'm sure you see where this is leading.

I decide I'm going to bull-rush the necro into the Machine. I was going to cast enlarge but the GM informed me that I'd have to squeeze through the aisle and wouldn't be able to charge. Fair enough. I also had a full blood reservoir of physical prowess. I burned all the charges in the reservoir, popped rage, and charged.

I have a tendency to roll poorly when everything is on the line. The GM knows this so queued up his phone to play this as I rolled, anticipating that I'd fail and be chased around the room by the necro and cultists while my ally attmpted to kill from hiding.

Nope. I think I rolled a 7, but with all the buffs, I beat the necro's CMD by 5. Slammed him 10 feet into the Machine hole. Machine makes horrible noise, huge flash of light, then dies, taking the necro with it. I was stunned. We started laughing. The GM reveals that the necro was a lvl 5 cleric of Urgathoa and was supposed to lead a desperate, heroic battle. Heh.

Proceed to pop claws and turn on the cultists, screaming "You're not the only scary thing down here!" Cue GM laughing again while the other player just holds his head in his hands.

Earlier in the game, this same character got tired of trying to track down an evil cleric in an underground complex, so he marched into a large room, drew his axe and shouted at the top of his lungs, "Hey! You! My name is Varg Blackscale! I'm here to kick your ass and take your stuff!" Overconfidence is fun when you have a greataxe and rage.

Also, what about undead? Or antipaladins? How would this affect them?

EDIT: What happens if you change creature type while you have a disease? Do you immediately overcome the disease, or did your disease just jump ship and now affects a new type of target? If so, did you just create a new super-bug?

Behold the magically engineered super disease. It's not actually magic, but we managed to get it to jump ship to several different creature types, and by various breeding, templates, and so forth have managed to concoct a super disease that affects everything using an odd mixture of outsider to humanoid to animal to human to androids to lizardfolk to...

Oh, gods, it's all the fault of the druids. By wild shaping while infected with diseases (unknowingly or not bothering to cast remove disease) over the millennia even the most common diseases have evolved to infect all natural species on Golarion. Constant exposure to magic allowed the evolution of ... magic energetic bacterium and viruses which thrive in high magic environments like outsiders and other magical creatures.

Stupid shapeshifting druids.

Or, you know, a God dedicated to disease "encouraged" the diseases to jump types. Yeah. Much better than blaming the druids. They can all go home now and stop giving me dirty looks.

I'd try a slight refluffing of the Aegis and the Soulblade from Dreamscar's psionic stuff.

Soulblade creates psychic weapons and the Aegis creates psychic armor.

There is a Soulblade talent that lets you alter properties of your soulweapon on the fly which would allow for creating multiple different weapons and the Aegis armor is highly customizable for multiple suits of armor

Multiclass the two and spend some time writing up different combinations so that you don't bog down game time swapping things out and you are good to go.

Agree. Ezra Scarlet is basically Soulknife --> Aegis --> Metaforged (a prestige class that blends the two).

Natsu is an unarmed archetype fighter, red or gold dragonblooded sorceror, Dragon disciple.

Lucy is a master summoner while Mirajane is a synthesis summoner.

Grey, not sure. Probably sorceror / unarmed fighter, eldritch knight.

Most shonen characters can usually be refluffed as some kind of psychic warrior.

279. You're listening to a witness in court and you think that he just failed his bluff roll.

How did the troll full attack on a charge?

Don't recall exactly. It was a while back and all I remember is that we all made a check of a tactical blooper. I could call the GM but where's the fun in that? It may have just had to make a 5 foot step. I remember thinking that I needed to make one before my turn ended but forgot to. And down the stinky gullet went the mage. Even though it was my character, I had to laugh (later), because we were so cocky going into that fight.

By the way, Turin, your avatar gives me the screaming willies.

I've seen retreat a lot, especially in my King Maker game I ran. As GM I don't always have the enemy chase the players. Sometimes it happens but it's not all that common.

Kingmaker has gone a long way in breaking our group's habit of never falling back. In the early days of the campaign, we ran a lot. Then we got stronger and we started falling back into bad habits. However, last session we had to run again. :)

We were out exploring hexes near a potentially rival kingdom. We had just finished breakfast and between the time dismissed the secure shelter and the time to summon the phantom chariot (we explore in style and comfort), an adult black Dragon lands and demands all of our magic items in exchange for our lives.

We decide we can take it and combat begins. Fighter moves in, cleric moves in, mage starts casting resist energy on people. Fighter takes a chunk out of the dragon, the dragon returns the assault, looks like we're going to win when the second one lands and breathes on the fighter and the mage. Mage goes down. Fighter is hit hard. Shadow of a third dragon crosses the clearing and we realize that we are in a "tactically inferior" position. Cleric heals the mage to consciousness, cleric and fighter dog pile on the mage and he teleports the party back to his quarters in the capitol city.

I always keep a teleport spell readied. A tactical withdrawal is always easier to achieve when you plan for the possibility.

I think I've been in three different parties that self-destructed after finding a deck. They've been pretty much perma-banned by our group since we apparently have no self-control or survival instinct when faced with one.

The PC's are all very young and inexperienced, but have been summoned to a secret meeting of the Winbourne Alliance (think Harpers from Forgotten Realms) where they were told that they were the chosen ones to stop the great evil that is emerging on the world, blah blah blah...

btw, they all have an item that allows them to grow in power quickly... meaning they will be hyper-leveling in order to play this thing in only a few months.

while prophecies have chosen them and says that they will be called when they would be needed most, they have not been informed of what exactly the evil is.

Tomorrow they are off to find the sage that is familiar enough with the ancient prophecies to tell them what they will be up against.

The Problem: I don't know what they should be up against!
...

Any help or advice is very much appreciated!

I always love to screw with my players' heads. I'd like to make the following suggestion:

prophecies have chosen them

Make this a lie. Yes, they were gathered together and told that they were needed to save the world, but they were lied to. In reality, the prophecies have marked them as a threat or harbingers of something terrible. The Alliance didn't round them up to turn them into heroes, the Alliance gathered them to keep an eye on them and try to avoid the future (being good guys the Alliance didn't assassinate them upon identifying them). All the "missions of prophecy" aren't the result of oracular or prophetic vision, the missions are chosen by the Alliance as a way to get the party to solve problems that need solving, buy time, and hopefully get them killed off in the process by sending them to defeat extremely dangerous foes. From the Alliance's point of view if the party dies, then problem solved, and the bad guys did it. If the party survives, well, at least they made the world a better place by eliminating something evil.

Furthermore, the artifact doesn't allow them to level quickly - it's something else tied into the prophecy (maybe a key or a weapon) - they level quickly because of the nascent power that is quickly growing within them.

They should get the occasional clue that they're being lied to (like never getting to see the prophetic writings or meet the seer while every other fortuneteller they meet goes crazy at the sight of them) but it shouldn't be revealed until about halfway through the campaign - maybe 2/3rds of the way. About that time, the Alliance would decide that the characters are too dangerous to live and turn on them and try to kill them outright (by which time it should be too late for the Alliance to succeed).

I think that the prophecy would be one of a world-destroying (or close to it) apocalypse. The secret truth behind everything is that a Greater Power (or the universe, or it just happened) caused the characters to be born divine. Their destiny is to become gods - it's inescapable. after a certain point, they might not be able to die. Their ultimate enemies? The current pantheon. The inevitable war between the current gods and the characters will devastate the world. The characters are growing in power so fast that the gods will eventually strike first (but again, too late) and the characters will have no choice but to fight back if they want to survive. I suppose at the last session or two the characters could willingly sacrifice themselves for peace, but I'd expect that the current gods would have disgraced themselves in fear for their power and prestige and the characters probably wouldn't want to lie down and die for them anymore (even if they would have at the beginning).

This way you can justify the Alliance throwing them at every enemy in the book at lower levels (cults, undead, monsters, and even the occasional political enemy) and they can face demons, devils, dragons, and angels at the higher levels as the current rulers of the universe take note of a new threat. Everything in the Bestiaries should be on the table.

The ultimate outcome should be up to you - do the characters become new gods or fall to the old ones? But the characters should see the world grind to an inevitable and massive war for everything at the end. And while it's not their fault, they are the cause. What will they do to save the world - because it's their responsibility now.

Reincarnation and You!

Chapter One: Getting Used to Your New Body

First, let me say "welcome back!" You are one of the lucky few people to be reincarnated. You will find a host of new experiences await you in your new body. However, before you begin (or return) to your adventuring career, there are a few things you need to take care of.

You may feel uncomfortable in your new body. Don't worry, that's a natural response and will fade after a few days. During that time you should take it upon yourself to examine your new body. You may be surprised at what you find!

Let's begin with your organs. While most bodies available to the newly reincarnated share a basic similarity to each other, you may notice several of your internal organs are not where you expect other to be. In more extreme circumstances some organs may be missing altogether. Do not worry. Your new body will work fine without them.

Since you're reading this, we will assume your eyes, or their functional equivalents, are working fine. Next ...

(This just popped into my head when I read the thread title. I couldn't resist sharing.)

So, the wizard murdered a guard, who was helpless, asleep, and no threat, because it was expedient? Definitely an evil act. Doesn't look like there was any evidence that the guard was evil, and if there was, there was no process of determining guilt. I don't even think a lawful evil character would have committed that act.

The murder was an evil act. More than that, it was not a lawful act. The PC violated both components of his alignment.

One thing to remember about Pathfinder is that there is a clearly defined absolute morality. Moral relativism does not exist when you have gods and other entities setting / bound by the same rules. In my book, the killing of a helpless individual outside of a coup de gras in combat is an evil act (and barring lawful executions after a trial).

I agree with blackbloodtroll, though. This single act should not drop him to an evil alignment, but it's a hell of a step. I do disagree that he has to hit neutral first - I think that it's possible to skip neutral entirely with a significant enough act.

You are inadequately inebriated. Heretic!