Maydris's page

A little about the adventure, well without getting to convoluted (as my stories often do, but my players enjoy it). The heroes acquired there mythicallity by taking some divine powers from several slain angels.

The angered a cosmic level being along the way and now it is coming to wipe them out. This being has a hold in the world already and sends perpetual attacks to try to kill them and the city in which they dwell.

The campaign is a heavy investment campaign, as in they are building a base, meeting people around a large metropolis city and occasionally venturing out in the world to eventually return to the city.

I came up with an idea to have everyone upon receiving there mythic power also received a vision of their death, a mythic death, doing something crazy like fighting the tarasque, hit by a meteor called by a wizard, thrown into a volcano ect. ect. I am going to use these as trail elements, where the players will have to figure out a way to prevent their deaths.

In addition to that I plan to tell the story from a heavy roleplaying perspective, taking turns doing stories in 2-3 session arcs around each character and things they are trying to accomplish. One example I cna give is we have an assassin character, so I might make a story where they have to pull off an incredibly complex assassination, maybe a whole group at once.

Either way, I am open to being given advice on how the mythic mechanics might break things for things like combat, but in all honesty I am more concerned about telling a good story. If they blow through a bunch of guys easily to do that, sure why not, so long as it serves the story.
One piece of advice I saw was attrition, if I really want to wear down the heroes just keep sending enemies to get them to the point I want then introduce the new element, be it a boss or whatever else it may be.

Hey, so I have decided that since my storytelling always seems to go over the top that I would finally give making a mythic campaign a go. My players are level 6, nearly 7 with 1/tier of mythic.
I am completely up to the challenge of running a mythic game, but since its still sort of new to me, if anyone has any suggestions for like making good encounters so they still feel strong but challenged that would be awesome. Really just any other advice you may have, I am not to worried about telling a mythical story, but I am always open to suggestions.

So it has been awhile since I played Pathfinder and I am looking at getting back into it as a DM after being disappointed at the lack of content Wizards is putting out for 5th.

I used to regularly play, but I know there have been some changes to the game since the last time I played. My question is this, what books are the primary books I should recommend to my players and what book should I be looking at for rules these days?

I want my players to have as many options as they want in character creation, but I don't want to overburden them with too many options all at once since some have never played PF and or have been away from it as long as I have. I am sure the Ultimate books are great as well as the advanced PHP, but should I still be using my original PF core book or is there a newer book or revised version I should be consulting for basic rules and classes?

Any advice or recommendations would be appreciated. Thanks!

I leave one morsel to the crows that feed on this thread: One thing I learned early on was that passing off all the make work of a session freed me up to focus on making a better game. I task Initiative to one player, mapping to a second, etc, with the last session's rules lawyer refereeing rules. Since my regular groups run minimum of 30 and (now) all college graduates, the rules job is not beloved. A few sessions back, I showed up and all the task slots were assigned and all were chomping at the bit to start. That night, I may not have rolled a single die.

I like that, the idea of diving up tasks to people does strike me as being a very helpful tool. To a certain extent my group kinda does that by themselves but there are likely things I have not considered that could be passed of to them.

Does this make me a good or bad GM? Depends on the players. I know a few people who I consider fantastic GMs, but they don't play in a style that I prefer to enjoy.

You know I had a talk with my players to kinda smooth out this exact thing. Defining what they wanted out of the game, how much story, how much combat. As you said it defiantly varies group to group and maybe even game to game.

One of the best ways I have found recently to learn new methods of DMing is playing in other peoples public games and getting a feel for how they run them. It has been interesting to observe all the differences between my normal at home group and the dynamics of the new groups I got to play in. What I am really looking to do is find a good series of questions to help me start up conversations with other DMs to learn how they do things and have the questions broad enough so that I may ask new questions in response to their answers and efficiently learn from them. I would love to say I had time to play in every persons game but being able to just sit down and ask about their GMing styles is I am sure good info in itself. Its partly a learning thing and partially just an interesting subject for me.

I dont ask about mechanics often because i've been using this system for a decade now so i got a really good handle on it. Wish I had something more substantial for you.

No worries, honestly its all about story telling for me, I am not so worried about mechanics. I am looking for questions to ask people to gain a better understanding of peoples methodologies in story telling. mechanics a great but any info worth having to me is stuff that I can apply to my pathfinder games or any other RPG under the sun. At the end of the day its all about the story and the characters.

I have recently been trying to up my game in terms of DMing and have taken to playing in more public games to get a feel for how other DM's go about running their games telling there stories and presenting their characters, I have found it really helpful.

I was wondering though when other people go looking for the same stuff what kind of questions do you like to ask, what kinda information is most helpful to you to improve your DMing style and the stories you tell. If you sat down and talked to them and asked them questions what would you ask? I am planning to do just that and I am looking for some good questions that maybe I had not considered. Thanks!

Hey guys,
So I am new to society, I played my first time yesterday with a pre-made character and want to make my own, my only problem is I have a bad habit of making 'optimal characters', aka what can do the most damage. I like being able to do big damage and be useful in combat, but I don't want to do it at the cost of my skills and to be able to take part in the social experiences present in a lot of the modules. I also think being able to do fun and interesting things with the character is key, not everything has to be about combat. Does anyone have some good ideas of character classes, builds or just fun ideas that balance combat and the skill aspects that they are willing to share to help me make a decision. Thanks.

I had one game that ended in a stab-fest after some 6 hours... and a damn shame. the plot of mine was good...

OK, imagine, a group of evil humanoids, gnolls, orks, evil men and elves, even drow and druegar, maybe an ogre, goblins, hobgoblins, kobolts... you get the idea... they are captured by a fierce drow clan to fight in the blood-pits as slaves, offering to a menacing bloodthirsty god.
They are all outfitted with a special collar, tight around their neck, seemingly made out of sturdy metal and striped from all belongings.

The collars function is unknown until they first enter the pits in group on group matches. Players and a few puny goblins are on one team, while a similar group of humanoids is on the other. The field is littered with rusty knives, swords and spears. The task is simple, if they wish to live - they must kill.

Once the first goblin on the players "team" dies they all feel the collar tighten ad do damage, proportional to the creatures life-force. Same foes for the other group.As soon as they get their win, and exit the arena an explosion occurs. An enemy clan attacks with overwhelming force, most guards rush to fight the invaders, the pits are blocked off and only a few guards are left to stand guard.

The idea: despite them all being egomaniacal, evil humanoids, who, be circumstances any different, would kill one another in a blink of an eye... their lives are tied together now by these metal colors, and any one who dies might as well take everyone else with him, so they must now trust one another with their lives to escape this place or die trying.

I pitched an arena idea to the other guy too, he didn't like or dislike it so its something im keeping on the roster, I also had an idea for all the monstrous creatures being capture by a Lord who has a pension for hunting, he sets them all into the woods to hunt them down and kill them, only the players would turn it around or just escape then come back for revenge, I feel like revenge is always a good equalizer for evil characters. they can kill each other later, the point is to just start it off without killing each other. I had a campaign that ended up kinda like your stab fest, I was an anti-paladin of Orcus, I prayed to him for guidance and he gave me a cursed ring of zombie rot, I put it into the hands of some unsuspecting sap and began a zombie plague to kill the town and the other players, I worried that the town priests would stop it so I went to kill her, little did I know she was a Archon cursed to remain in the temple she guarded.....as you can imagine, which was ok because earlier I found a cursed sword that sucked out my soul and effectively made me a lich. Unfortunately for me I creeped the s~~% out of the other players (my character that is) so they threw the sword down into a pit, I cam back got it again and went to finish them off but they killed me again and destroyed the sword the second time round.

I did think of it as well. I'm not certain to be honest. I would tend to say yes, but they are highly persecuted & rare. I'm reflecting on to the technological state of this world. Maybe vaguely magical? Like magic based "technology", but based purely in magic, and not mechanics (steampunk, eberon). It's a recent idea, I think I'll put a post on the boards soon looking for ideas.

Other impossible class: the summoner. The class could not exist in such a world.

Could have them keep their powers but be actively hunted down like animals

I've been working on a little homebrew world idea. It could work for evil campaigns, though I've yet to determine where monstrous races are in the hierarchy.

"The world is called (now) Tyrannis. The Abraxan Empire, led by the immortal emperor Abraxus, has ruled this world for the last 2000 years. Through dark rituals, he succeeded in cutting of this world from the planes, making all divine classes lose their powers. Since then, it has been impossible to use divine powers on the world of Tyrannis. The original events of the empire’s creation have been glossed over, and the majority of the population believes it was a conventional victory. All the population is atheist, though they do worship the emperor Abraxus."

Sounds interesting, i'm curious though would Druids still work in your world. Typically speaking they draw there powers from nature, but are technically classified as divine casters. (Just the first though that came to me)

Hey guys,
so me and another one of my guys have been discussing doing a evil campaign likely where we play as some of the sub races (Goblins/ Kobolds/ Ratfolk ect ect). The problem i'm encountering though is ideas for the stetting or the big picture, so far we have thrown around a few ideas like "everyone play as goblin minions working your way up through goblin ranks", "everyones a ratfolk we live in the sewers of a city" (though I couldn't think of a big idea for that one, though I like ratfolk), or a campaign where everyone plays a different monstrous race, or maybe even one of your atypical races.....just evil in some way (but having a hard time figuring out why they would all be together let alone working together). There isn't really any constraints to what we are looking at doing these were just some ideas thrown around,any ideas you guys might have would be great, or maybe some ideas that could help improve what we have already thrown around might be nice too.

Channeling is based on alignment, typically. Good gals/guys get the positive, bad gals/guys get the negative, neutral gals/guys get a choice.

PFS, you can't be Evil so if you're doing society play, it isn't an option (but it doesn't sound like that is the case).

Life Mystery is restricted to Positive Channeling, it doesn't matter which alignment you are from what I'm seeing on d20pfsrd.com (no notations). Paladin, is unfortunately only good. There is the antipaladin, but they are granted negative energy strictly.

Closest I can see to blurring the line.

That all being said, the GM is doing a little in the way of house rules by allowing a free feat, you can always talk to them about it. I mean it is their game after all, just because the rules say something, doesn't mean the GM won't entertain the idea.

More of a curiosity then something I was planning on doing, was wondering more what derived it than anything else, I don't play a lot of clerics or paladin's type characters very often. i'm usually the fighter, caster, or rouge

I am glad to see I am not lacking for options, back in my last thread I was looking for ideas for a Tank/ DPS character (before I thought I had to do a healer) who was able to wield large size weapons because I took tiefling with over sized limbs that allowed him to wield a weapon 1 category size larger. Not a single person replied to the thread.

Actually was just writing up a character to be used in an AP like this.

Tiefling (Kyton variant, Prehensile Tail - to hold things like your holy symbol, while using shield and weapon. Loses Fiendish Sorcery.)

Str 14, Dex, 10, Con 18(16+2), Int 10, Wis 8(10-2), Cha 18(16+2)

Traits: Exalted of the Society, (2nd up for grabs)
Favored Class Paladin; Tiefling: +1 hp healed when using LoH on self/level

(1)Paladin (Hospitaler)1: Fey Foundling (Heritage feat), (Level 1 feat up for grabs)
(2)Oracle (Life, Legalistic Curse)1: Life Link Revelation
(3)Paladin (Hospitaler)2: Extra LoH Feat(3rd level)
(4)Oracle 2:
(5)Oracle 3: Channel Revelation, Extra Channel Feat (5th level)
(6)Paladin (Hospitaler)3:
(7+)Paladin (Hospitaler)4:

What it does:
Paladin gives you the Heavy Armor, Shield and Martial weapons you want for the 'tank' aspect. Fey foundling heals you an additional 2 hp per die of magical healing (also +2 vs death saves, but makes you take 1 pt more of damage from cold iron). Keep Smite for the BBEG-types, you will hit and you will do damage while it is up. Charisma increases, increase saves, channels per day, and your few spells. Constitution increases, well give more HP so you can soak more damage. Balance the two and maybe bump the STR for melee combat if needed.

Life Link allows you to target an ally and take up to 5 hp from each link at the beginning of your turn (one link per level of Oracle), use Cure Light Wounds from Oracle spells at first, or Wand of same.

Once you hit 3rd level, you have LoH. This allows you to heal yourself as a swift action. You can now heal yourself and still do your 'normal' melee/tank-y stuff, and your LoH heals you for even more on top of the Fey Foundling because of the Tiefling Favored Class bonus.

4th level, you gain a channel from Oracle, more AoE healing. Start looking into begging/borrowing/crafting/stealing a...

Lol don't care if its your idea, its pretty solid as far as most things go. I am curious if you might be able to answer a question that just occurred to me, does pathfinder require you to be good to channel positive energy, can you be evil? would it be a DM choice or is layed down as law in pathfinder?

paladin is the most obvious option (IMO)- they're really solid tanks and your high point buy will let you really up your Cha without sacrificing physical stats; that high Cha will give you more LoH, which equates to more Channels @4th, and bonus spells to shore up the (limited) casting of cures/status removers- plus you can take the dangerously curious trait and be able to use all kinds of wands. the sacred shield archetype even replaces smite evil with a shield other aura, which is awesome for a tank/healer.

barring that, you could take a summoner (since they're the most overpowered class ever)... focus on Cha but take 13 Int and whatever else you want. build your eidolon to be a tank/combat-monster (halfway done, and easy to do), and take the rejuvenate eidolon spells to heal it. take eldritch heritage [arcane] for a familiar, improved familiar to make it a good one (with thumbs and the ability to talk), and evolved familiar for the skilled[use magic device] evolution; load up your familiar with wands for cures and status removal. now you have a pet the tanks, a familiar that heals, and a summoner that does whatever he pleases (mostly cracking wise and tossing around random buffs probably, maybe waiting to get AoOs with his longspear if you took some dex and combat reflexes).

The summoner Idea is pretty neat, when I was just thinking of doing a tank i was thinking a synthesis summoner. as far as the familiar part goes, I read over the feat and am slightly confused by it, so you have to take skill focus in something specific to get it and one of the bloodlines you select gives you a familiar is that right?

Druid with one of the better animal companions in barding then. Pick something that people wont go nuts over in town, like a wolf, or maybe a dog (since alot of the adventure deals with sandpoint and being in town). Give it at least light armor proficiency, put it in the best barding you can afford. The 25 point buy will also be great for a wildshaping druid, you can have good wisdom and physical stats.

Results: To start with your companion makes a great tank, and will offer support and some damage in combat (or alot of damage if you can get away with something like the big cat).

Druid can also fight, especially once wild shape comes into play, has a good selection of spells including those healing spells.

Your rogue has 2 new buddies to flank with, you can 'tank' and 'heal' at the same time when needed, or tank twice over when you get to mid levels as a druid. And it doesnt matter what the 4th person chooses, because you wont loose out on the action economy either having both you and your companion.

Not a bad idea, I was thinking about druids for the wild shaping, i'm curious though I have never armored my animal companion, is there something special you have to do to do that? and would you say the basic druid would be best or is there an archetype you would suggest?

Since these terms tend to get mixed up a bit in games as complex as pathfinder, what do you mean by tank, and what do you mean by healer?

What does a 'tank' do in your group? There are lots of ways to be a frontline fighter, is that all you mean? Someone who can survive in the front line and dish out damage? Is a high ac mandator? Is that all that matters? Does he need to be a damage dealer as well?

Also what do you mean by healer? Do you mean someone who is going to go about fixing every injury allies recieve during combat? Is he just responsible for negative conditions (ability damage, diseases, negative levels, blindess etc) and the rest is handled with cure wands? Can you expect to have healing items at all in your game?

Being able to heal in some forms and being able to fight, is really easy to do and you have lots of options, but depending on what your answers are to the roles of 'healer' and 'tank' your options may be considerably less. And honestly I'd wonder what the heck there actually is in your party if they have no frontliners and no divine casters. 2 wizards and a rogue?

I define tank as high AC able to take damage, being able to deal damage would be nice but is not essential. I define a healer as the one who is doing the majority of life restoring and able to cure of things such as illness and some negative effects.

so far the party has a rouge, a sorcerer and one person who is not yet decided, but I am not going to depend on him to choose something helpful, I have other ideas for characters, but I need one to fill th hole if he doesn't choose anything helpful

Roan: Paladin was the first thing that came to mind but I thought the extent of there healing was lay on hands?

Hey guys I need some ideas for a healer/ tank for a Rise of the Runelords campaign I will be playing in because as of now we have no tank and no healer in our party, so I will fill the roll's. anyone have some neat ideas how to do it?

The criteria is a 25 point buy with base 10 stats, cant reduce stats lower than 7 (other than with racial modifiers). I start at level 1 though the campaign will go till level 18. I can have 2 traits and a heritage feat (any feat that does not have a pre-requisite feat, even stat prerequisites are not allowed)the heritage feat does not count against my normal level 1 feat.

Hey guys, so originally I was looking to build a magus with a tiefling, but I rolled for the alternative ability's they can start with and ended up with "oversized limbs that allow you to wield weapons one size category larger", because of this I started thinking of other things I could do with it the might be neat, and I was curious to see what you guys think might be good.

The criteria is a 25 point buy with base 10 stats, cant reduce stats lower than 7 (other than with racial modifiers). Tiefling of any variety, but with the over sized limb replacing the spell like ability. We are doing Rise of the Runelords so I start at level 1 though the campaign will go till level 18. I can have 2 traits and a heritage feat (any feat that does not have a pre-requisite feat, even stat prerequisites are not allowed)the heritage feat does not count against my normal level 1 feat.

I'm fine with ideas that don't have to do with the tiefling, but I think the over sized weapon thing would be neat.

Maydris wrote:

Captain K. wrote:

This is PF though.

Almost any PF class 20/Mythic 10 could chop down Tiamat as statted in those 3.5 books.

True enough, they aren't really up-scaled to match pathfinder, the thing that really got me onto the idea of the topic in the first place was the new pathfinder mythic adventures book. I thought slaying a god would be pretty mythic, but since there aren't solid numbers for gods in pathfinder like 3.5 closest thing I could think of was the Tarrasque

When the Bestiary 4 comes out, they are going to have demigod level creatures in it (CR 26-30). Specifically demon lords, Great Old Ones, and Empyreal Lords. In addition, the new Adventure Path, Wrath of the Righteous, will have a new demon lord statted up ever issue. Those might be good places to start in terms of what you want to see a god as.

Personally, a level 20/MT 10 with some friends should be a match for a god. Without stats for a god, I'd say as a GM, have an artifact that can trap a deity and depower it to a demigod level. That way, you can still have the deity fight in Pathfinder without really needing new rules.

hmm hadn't read anything on the new bestiary, sounds great. A lot of times I keep getting stuck with dm's who play it small (low level, generic kill the lich kill the orcs blah) i'm glad to see all these new books pop up making easier to do much more epic kinda stuff, things of legends.

This is PF though.

Almost any PF class 20/Mythic 10 could chop down Tiamat as statted in those 3.5 books.

True enough, they aren't really up-scaled to match pathfinder, the thing that really got me onto the idea of the topic in the first place was the new pathfinder mythic adventures book. I thought slaying a god would be pretty mythic, but since there aren't solid numbers for gods in pathfinder like 3.5 closest thing I could think of was the Tarrasque

Depends what you wanna do, and how you wanna do it.

RAGELANCEPOUNCE and other techniques can produce just disturbing amounts of damage.

Dedicated summoners can get hordes out to deal good amounts of stuff.

Paladins can smite through DR and get absurd bonuses if well built.

And of course, the broken high-level wizards...

Even a Commoner Chaingun could work.

You know I would question how well a wizard might do, a lot of higher up things seem to have a lot of spell resistances and outright immunity's, though I haven't dabbled enough in high casters to know.

im not familure with RAGELANCEPOUNCE, and I agree with you and Captain K Paladin seem to be a good choice for the job (or an Anti-Paladin depending on what side of the fence your on), and I've never really looked to much into summoning as a strategy.

Maydris wrote:

Hey guys i'm looking for ideas on how to make a god slaying character (or at least might stand a chance against a god. It's more of an interest than anything else, i'm starting a new campaign as a level 1 so I mean i'm not planning to go stick a god in the foot with my rusty dagger or anything but I thought it might be interesting to see what classes or builds you guys might you to address the idea.

You'd have to start by defining what it takes to slay a god. Without that, you might as well go home.

lets use 3.5 just to simplify the matter, how would you approach slaying someone like Tiamat, or fighting them

well its primarily a hypothetical anyways, I would take how you would build a demigod slayer, hell I would take how you would build a character to approach slaying the Tarrasque.

Hey guys i'm looking for ideas on how to make a god slaying character (or at least might stand a chance against a god. It's more of an interest than anything else, i'm starting a new campaign as a level 1 so I mean i'm not planning to go stick a god in the foot with my rusty dagger or anything but I thought it might be interesting to see what classes or builds you guys might you to address the idea.