Myrryr's page

Geb is seemingly bound in terms of where he can travel, and has managed to avoid starting any wars of conquest for a remarkably long time; his nation is undoubtedly evil (the whole 'eating living people at a massive scale' thing), but remains a pretty peaceful neighbor.

We have every reason to believe a returned Nex would show no such restraint, and would likely pop out of the Refuge with a blasting wand in each hand. I imagine just about everyone with any shred of power in the region wants to keep that from happening - this might be the AP where that comes up.

Interestingly, Geb is the largest agricultural exporter in both Avistan and Garund, as far as I know. Due to being very fertile land, and because a large majority of it's population doesn't require food.

So, amusingly, going to war with Geb has pretty major logistical issues. Beyond the fact that your own country might rely on importing food, you'd also piss off all of your neighbors that also import food from Geb.

It might not be enough to cause a famine across Avistan/Garund, but it would definitely cause some serious economic issues if Geb is attacked.

Food for thought. Though sadly, it's not all that often that authors tend to think on a large scale political/economic level for APs sadly. There's quite a few that would have more going on, but there's page count limits and stuff. Iron Gods is a big one for that, as is WotR.

Ones for Nocticula:
"Nocticula's T+##!" -an exclamation or curse.

"Fickle shades!" -as a curse or "The shades are fickle." -as a blessing.

"May Shadows cradle you." -a blessing.

"Accept the outcast, for you do not know when you may be ostracized yourself." -a proverb/warning.

"Why suffer the sun's heat when the shadow is cool and comforting?" -saying for shrugging off the insults or criticisms or others.

"Art can be found in the darkest areas." -a proverb to seek beauty in many places.

"Suffer not the torturous kill, kill swiftly and move to the next." -a saying regarding Nocticula's propensity for body count over needless cruelty.

"The shadows tickle." -a flirtatious saying.

"To survive it all, you must plan to survive it all, luck always has a limit." -a saying meaning to have a plan to betray even your allies in case they turn on you, from her CE alignment.

"Greetings sister." -used between succubi, referring to Nocticula as the First succubus and meaning to meet in peace or parley, not to explicit relations.

Ultimate Kineticist Compendium. Dear god, it does soooo much for the kineticist. It's amazing, and really really should've been something that Paizo did, but I'm glad that Legendary Games did it instead. Really makes the kineticist feel like a fleshed out class.

Myrryr wrote:

Eh? Your biggest bad, Tar-Baphon, is a human. The Runelords were all human. Lamashtu is a pregnant human woman. Asmodeus is a red human. Queen Ileosa is human. Areelu Vorlesh is human. Norgorber is human. Geb is human. Nex is human. Razmiran is human. Irovetti is human. Abrogail II is human. Unity was built by humans. Zura is a succubus who was, wait for it... a human Azlanti princess! And of course then there's Baba Yaga just for good measure, who not only is a human, but decided to just make a demon lord out of, you guessed it, a human.

<snip>

Eh? What? There's a lot in this paragraph that's not strictly true...

• Tar-Baphon: While he was once human, he is now a lich -> undead.
• Runelords: Mostly true (Zutha was a lich).
• Lamashtu: Is a demon & goddess, & I don't think was ever human.
• Asmodeus: Is a devil & god, & was never human.
• Areelu Vorlesh: While she was once human, she became a succubus -> demon.
• Geb: While he was once human, he is now a ghost -> undead.
• Norgorber: While he's assumed to have been human, there are bits of lore here & there that seem to hint that he might have been something else...
• Unity: As you've said, he was built by humans, but that doesn't make him human.
• Zura: While she was once human, she is now a demon (I don't recall her being a succubus, but that still wouldn't make her human).

All the others (including Baba Yaga, who is not a demon lord!) are/were human (iirc...), so your point applies to them.

*Also, I'm not sure that the Alghollthu(sp?) created humans - they certainly "uplifted" a specific group of them, but that's not the same as "creating" them.

The rest of your post (except for *) is... fine. Doesn't change what the Creative Director said, though...

The 'in appearance' is the biggest part of that. Asmodeus appears to just be a red human. He's not a Lovecraftian monstrosity. Same with the others. And being undead somehow makes you not-human anymore? Since when? I guess then that dracolich is literally identical to a human lich by that logic! No, he's human. He thinks like a human, acts like a human, looks like a human and is an a$!$### like a human. Same thing with Geb, Urgathoa, every single evil mummy pharoah from Osirion and the lich there too. Being undead doesn't make you not human, in fact, the point is that it makes you worse as a monster.

That's the entire point of this. The worst monsters are human or made by humans. By contrast, there's very few big AP enemies that wholly and completely disconnected from humanity... Hastur in Strange Aeons, the Algolthu in Ruins of Azlant, the drow in Second Darkness, the genies in LoF, Serpentfolk in Serpent's Skull, giants in giantslayer, hobgoblins in Ironfang, and Deskari in WotR. That's 8 out of 24. And of those 8, only the Algolthu, Hastur and Deskari do not appear human. Drow are just grey humans with pointy ears. Genies are red humans. Giants are big humans. Serpentfolk are humans with scales and fangs. And hobgoblins are grey/green short humans.

So it seems very weird to me to say that you want to make serpentfolk as enemies because they're inhuman and it's easier to fight/demonize inhuman enemies... and then most of our enemies are either explicitly human or humans with minor aesthetic changes.

7) If we made serpentfolk a PC ancestry, we'd have to soften their themes as villains, and we've done that enough already with numerous other ancestries in 2nd edition; for a game that focuses mostly on combat, it's important to maintain combat targets for heroes to fight against, and the less human in appearance things get, the easier it is to maintain the creatures as monsters.

Eh? Your biggest bad, Tar-Baphon, is a human. The Runelords were all human. Lamashtu is a pregnant human woman. Asmodeus is a red human. Queen Ileosa is human. Areelu Vorlesh is human. Norgorber is human. Geb is human. Nex is human. Razmiran is human. Irovetti is human. Abrogail II is human. Unity was built by humans. Zura is a succubus who was, wait for it... a human Azlanti princess! And of course then there's Baba Yaga just for good measure, who not only is a human, but decided to just make a demon lord out of, you guessed it, a human.

Humans are by far the most numerous and successful villainous race on Golarion. Which stands to reason, considering that the only other race that compares are the algollthu... who basically made them.

It seems very weird to me to say it's easier to fight monsters that are less human when human is the number one enemy in most APs and easily the best overall choice for Ranger favored enemy.

Hrothgar Rannúlfr wrote:

Hi, everyone.

What level is the average human in PF2?

And, how rare are higher level human NPCs?

Just wondering if the assumption that 95% of the population is 1st level is accurate?

And, maybe 2% are 2nd or 3rd level? And, another 1% are 4th or 5th level?

And, higher levels are even rarer?

Just wondering.

Thank you.

The average human could be any level the GM likes in PF2, unless you're in Golarion.

In Golarion, probably 0-2.

I mean, even just looking through Sandpoints gazetteer, almost every NPC was 3-5, even the whore that ran the Pixie's Kitten was a level 3 sorc, lvl 2 aristocrat, the orphanage owner is a lvl 4 wizard, lvl 2 rogue, the general store owner is a lvl 7 commoner...

I'm not sure where people get the average person being lvl 0-2. Because it really doesn't seem to hold up on the actual examples in the campaign settings.

I still don't understand why they removed the ability for all familiars to just talk to you when you hit lvl 5. And why if you have a familiar like say, a spider, it randomly loses natural abilities and you can't give it anything because it was born being able to see in the dark and climb things.

F#%* I hate the familiar rules, they're such garbage now.

Myrryr wrote:

Ellias Aubec wrote:

I remember watching a show on Netflix where they were recreating a breastplate from just after guns were around. From the time to melting the original ore was several days. Hammering the raw metal into plates took several more, and then weeks to turn that into a basic breastplate. Then they took longer to make it fancy. And that was just the breastplate and no arm or leg pieces, along with using modern hammering tools to reduce that time as well.

Granted smaller objects should take less, but for the majority of things PCs would probably craft it is shorter than would be expected.

Sure. For a breastplate. This is why 1e crafting had variable craft times. They were done on price, which was hardly accurate, but it was something.

How long does it take to make a club? Well according to 2e, 4 days. I can make a club in ~10 seconds by picking up a stick from outside. Ok, maybe 20 seconds, I do need to put on my sandals as it rained earlier and I don't want to get my feet dirty.

You haven't made a club. You've picked up an improvised bludgeoning weapon.

Not in 1e. Clubs have a price of 0gp. You can walk up to a tree and instantly craft it into hundreds of clubs. Or do the same to a pile of ore if you wanted metal clubs.

I remember watching a show on Netflix where they were recreating a breastplate from just after guns were around. From the time to melting the original ore was several days. Hammering the raw metal into plates took several more, and then weeks to turn that into a basic breastplate. Then they took longer to make it fancy. And that was just the breastplate and no arm or leg pieces, along with using modern hammering tools to reduce that time as well.

Granted smaller objects should take less, but for the majority of things PCs would probably craft it is shorter than would be expected.

Sure. For a breastplate. This is why 1e crafting had variable craft times. They were done on price, which was hardly accurate, but it was something.

How long does it take to make a club? Well according to 2e, 4 days. I can make a club in ~10 seconds by picking up a stick from outside. Ok, maybe 20 seconds, I do need to put on my sandals as it rained earlier and I don't want to get my feet dirty.

I'm quite partial to the theory of multiple Gods having access to the same portfolio, but because of that, they are ALL responsible for it.

If two or more Sun Gods start to go to war over total dominion of their Portfolio, you could end up with sweltering heatwaves, world-wide drought or even two suns, smaller and weaker, in the sky. And that's where the other Sun Gods, and the other Gods whose domains are now at risk or under dire threat move, potentially creating an all-in divine scrum to stop the conflict and causing all manner of divine and mortal chaos as the world reels under all this Godly power being thrown around and warping the world and it's denizens in the process.

Divine shenanigans and petty godling tantrums over having to share their 'toys' can be so much fun for a DM to use to really put the screws to a campaign, not just the PCs.

Gods are not responsible for things like that. Golarion's star doesn't give two s@**s about Sarenrae, Nergal or anyone else. It's a star and it'll be there for another ~4.5 billion years until it grows giant and red and eventually shrinks into a white dwarf as it's a G-type main sequence star, just like Earth's.

A god's portfolio is more or less just a very powerful being's particular interests. And very very few gods are actually powerful enough to affect celestial bodies (two have died just trying to stop a meteor and to move a moon, let alone affecting a star).

On top of that, most gods are generally planetary in scope. Many of Golarion's gods are only concerned with/worshipped by Golarionites. Nobody on Castrovel knows or cares about Aroden, Nalinivati, Irori, Nethys, Cayden Cailean or Iomedae. By contrast, there are demigods that are well known and worshipped throughout the entire material plane like the Four Horsemen or Archdevils because their scope is planar, not planetary, yet they are still 'merely' demigods compared to full divinities like Iomedae who's a tiny 900 years old.

Also, worship has absolutely zero effect on a god's personal power, it only affects their political/military power (more worshippers is more soldiers, but the god's direct magic is unaffected). James clarified that in multiple posts. Pharasma is the strongest deity.

Do add a lot from the CRPG. Notably Chapter 3, the entire Womb of Lamashtu, magical beast invasion and goblin village/fort was really good. Seconding, thirding, and fourthing the entire plot with Nyrissa from Chap. 1 all the way through Chap 7, including allowing you to romance her and join her in attacking the Lantern King as the final boss.

Allow more evil options, like recruiting the lich from book 3/chapter 4, and even make it so that he can help a possible PC undergo lichdom.

Please please please put in some of the unique magic items, especially the three magic items that add damage per damage die to spells, and rules in the back for crafting them. They are completely non-existent and impossible to build in the tabletop and would be amazing editions to the game. Blasters are already weak and control casters too strong, it would encourage more blasters, which would lessen the number of control casters.

Also, Tartuk and more kobolds. They're great. Allow Tartuk to be an advisor or an actual vassal state you interact with, can levy troops from, collect taxes, hire workers (I mean, what ruler doesn't want kobolds building their siege defense traps? Everyone knows kobolds make the best traps!)

Also, put in Kanerah/Kalikke as NPC's somewhere because that whole character is just really cool and really unique.

Bumping because I'd also love to know some Deific Obedience boons, and would this count for Demoniac (she's still technically also a demon, Lamashtu also counts for both Demonic Obedience and Deific Obediences, as well as the Demoniac prestige class and Evangelist/Sentinel/Exalted, and we know that Arushelae retained her Demon subtype when she redeemed all the way to CG).

Whites may not even be intelligent enough for that. Blacks and reds are most likely to have this kind of attitude. Greens and Blues might get more diplomatic and devious about it, extracting items from humanoids as taxes, ransoms (or get eaten), or even commissioning such items through patsies and trying to browbeat or convince others to pay the full price so they won't have to deplete their precious reserve of shinies...

Blacks explicitly hate things of beauty and rip them to pieces, are horrific torturers and mutilate pretty people just because, and even prefer rotten food. The idea of a black 'creating' anything is wildly out of character for the most misanthropic of the dragons.

Reds would totally seek out skilled craftsmen for slaves. Their slaves are treated as a part of their horde itself and often many adventurers that slay a red find their slaves are better hidden/protected than the rest of the horde itself.

A green that took up crafting would likely be one of the best magical artisans on the planet, with the way they're set up to super OCD about their particular obsession, as a point of pride to the dragon and their own innate discipline.

Blues would extort, steal, rob, and even legitimately purchase items, and like greens, also have enough discipline to learn crafting (Arantaros being a great example of an alchemist).

Whites... yeah. Feral and savage. Until they're Old, they're not really smart enough nor would they particularly care.

For the metallics, bronze's are noted scholars and authors and all of them have a library as part of their hoard. A bronze that's a scribe or has craft wondrous to make spellbooks and such sounds entirely possible. Silvers are basically paladins and would have zero qualms using some of their coin to gear themselves up in the pursuit of crushing evil. Copper and brass dragons are more social and pretty unlikely to shut themselves into a workshop for days to make something when they could be out having fun. And golds find themselves just too busy trying to help the world to laze about crafting with all of the suffering that needs to be alleviated.

I'll be sticking with PF myself instead of DnD 4.5. I already use multiple house rules to fix some of PF's issues, including replacing the vancian spell system with a modified spell point system.

I am looking over the playtest for things to cannibalize from it, of the ideas I do like, such as the ancestral feats. An additional feat line to draw upon new and awesome race-specific things that doesn't take from your general feats is a brilliant idea. Race feats in base PF1e are mostly ignored because they don't compare to general feats like Power Attack.

You can also abuse certain other stats, and assuming the Golarion-verse, abuse wording too. I made a witch that abused the fact that there's a quasit witch in RotR book 1. Since both the Abyss and the Material plane are canonically stated in The Great Beyond sourcebook as being infinite, there are an infinite number of CE souls that would become an infinite number of lvl 1 quasit witches with the coven hex.
Since outsiders do not need to eat, drink or sleep, you grab a simple air freshening magic item and stuff as many quasit witches as you need to into bags of holding and slip one of your prehensile hairs into it so you're within 30ft of them so the coven hex functions.
Grab more bags of holding with more quasits until you've reached the numbers you need/want (I got up to several million).

Then, with your Caster Level of XXXXXXXX, cast numerological evocation, choosing one of the elemental damage types that has no immunity because it doesn't exist anywhere but that spell such as 'water' or 'earth', modify the range to whatever you want, and the damage to whatever you want, because it has no caster level cap.

Congrats, you can kill anything with HP. You can bore a hole right through the planet if you want, with your massive spell laser as a walking witch Death Star.

This is why you don't give things stats if you don't want them to die. Because there's always going to be a fiddly little rule somewhere that an author forgot to cap, or didn't think through with the other 100+ books that have things it could combo with.

Some canon dragons are experienced craftsmen. Arantaros for example is a master alchemist (just not quite good enough to make the Star Orchid Elixir). The beastiary entries for creatures only ever have combat feats because they're supposed to simply be used for combat.

If you're creating a dragon for a campaign, *you* should be the one creating and designing it and putting thought into the dragon's lifestyle and personality and what that given dragon would choose to study. As another example, there's the green dragon Aethervox in Cheliax that's a noted astronomer and spends a great amount of her time studying the heavens and actually lives in an observatory near a town. The bronze dragon Tiruvinn, living off the coast near Sandpoint, is a noted librarian.

Dragons do not only live in caves far from civilization. Several dragons, especially brass, silver, gold and blue, are known to work with people on a daily basis to expand their influence, power and wealth.

There very much are dragons out there who have crafting feats, and dragons who have levels in wizard too. One in particular, Aashaq, is a cleric. Just because the beastiary entries don't have those doesn't mean every dragon is the same, anymore than every single human is a lvl 1 commoner because that's what the beastiary says.

So Jiggy, are you going to tell us what this magical game is, or just describe what sounds like freeform imagination?

Just on a side note...

Whenever I think about the Outer Planes, in any D&D edition and Pathfinder, I don't like them focused on the alignment chart. I prefer that the planes are better remembered by their inhabitants. So Heaven is the home of archons, many angels, some deities, etc. while Hell is the domain of devils, hellish deities, and so on.
There would be no need for changes in the cosmology at all, but it would fit the (theoretical) new scheme of codes quite well.

Doesn't fit magic however. Magic as a force of nature can be aligned, so you'd have to individually say what each evil, good, lawful or chaotic spell is now. And then there's alignment DR. Should a devil's DR only be bypassed by azata, or should mortals still have a way to do it by making their weapon 'good'?

I'm trying to wrap my head around how long it takes people to write up a monster, NPC and PC for Pathfinder. A monster takes me about 15-20 minutes, less for NPC and maybe 20-30 minutes for a PC. What are these hours people talk about to create them? How does it take hours to write down the numbers and do arithmetic for a 10d10 HD outsider with some SLAs and resistances? NPC's are super easy because there's literally hundreds of them that you can easily modify from the NPC codex, modules and AP's and then rename them if you're that concerned about time.

That's what the resources are for, that's why they're on the completely free PFSRD. If you want to make one from scratch, then hey, you don't have to learn a completely new system, you already know it because it's the same as the PC one.

This isn't even getting into SF's horrid rules about skills and the like for it's monster creation and how ridiculously unbalanced they are. Monsters only get three skills. Oh you want to calculate that big monster's stealth? Sorry it doesn't have a stealth in it's entry and it has no HD number and it's dex is meaningless so you can't do it the normal way of calculating ranks+Dex mod. Just make something up. Oh your PC's complained it was too high? Well have fun explaining that you don't have rules for it, you just made up a number, I'm sure they'll appreciate that.

Guh, I don't want to see this monster system because I already know Paizo is going to ignore the people who want their monsters using the same rules everyone else does.

Please for the love of god Paizo do not use Starfinders disgusting monster rules. I cannot state enough how much I hate taking a table based on the CR you want and slapping art on it and calling it a 'unique monster'.

The PF system for monster making is infinitely better than SF's terrible system. Alien Archives was a joke and you want to ruin our glorious monsters from PF too?

Cuz it's so much fun for a monsters stats to have literally no effect on it's combat numbers. Oh 500 dex? Still doesn't change it's AC! Int of 0? Still has precisely 3 skills and one of them is *always* perception. Yeah... that's not fun. That's not a monster with a personality, history or backstory, it's just walking XP numbers and a treasure generator. I don't do Pathfinder to rollplay, I want to actually roleplay.

Since when did dragons become immortal in Golarion? According to Dragons Revisited, Arantaros was specifically so focused on dying of old age that he was working on the Sun Orchid Elixir, and got Haagenti's help (which turned him into a ravener cuz demons), but that's pretty clearly indicative of dragons dying of old age.

There's also Daralathxyl, whom Dragons Revisited mentions is 'cause for concern for all of the dragons because they don't understand how he's still alive at 2k years old', which seems to indicate their lifespans are between 1200 (great wyrm) and under 2k (Daralathxyl being too old).

Granted, that hardly prevents the innumerable undead, constructs, and other immortal creatures from living through the gap. God knows there's plenty of liches, vampires, fey and the like on Golarion or Castrovel, etc., that would easily have the lifespans to have been on Golarion before it vanished and still be around in Starfinder.

Just forcably wake casters up every six hours. Can't regan spells. For technomancers you just take their spellbook thingie away from them and they're out. I mean, I know the book says they can make a new one, but I as a GM would say that pre-supposes that they can get their hands on. . . Well, anything useful. I mean I'd rule that you can't make a spellbook thingie out of a fork tine and a bar of soap.

Ok, now let's say you've captured a spellcaster who only managed to get 2 of his entire repertoire of spells off in combat and he's lvl 10, so he's got a whole bunch left.

And, let's say your party is all good aligned, so you can't torture the guy to keep him from spellcasting with constant painful repercussions without putting your alignment in danger.

And btw, sleep deprivation is totally a form of torture as it will slowly drive you insane and then kill you.

The game just doesn't really give you any options for this. If your DM doesn't make something up, the party's available options for spellcasters are basically death or torture.

Yeah, the monster stats appear to be completely arbitrary in regards to everything except it's CR. Which is really dumb imo. Their AC doesn't match their Dex/gear, their skills don't match their ranks/stat mods, their hp doesn't match their lvl/Con, their attack bonuses don't match their stat mod/BAB, their saves don't match, nothing matches. It's just made up numbers thrown together that sounds good.

I'm really hoping there's some actual math/formula for calculating things in the Alien Archive because the GM section certainly doesn't have anything for these calculations. If the calculations are just 'a CR 1's AC is X' and ignores everything else, monsters are going to be incredibly boring.

Myrryr wrote:

David knott 242 wrote:

Spooky Vampire wrote:

Flipping through the book, I don't believe Anti-Magic Field is a Starfinder spell, meaning not even that is an option.

Not for PCs -- but sufficiently wealthy NPCs might be able to build a prison with an anti-magic wing for spellcaster prisoners.

Yeah, which basically means the PC's can't effectively capture a spellcaster. You have to KO them and keep KO'd without killing them, and it's really hard to do that.

Not really. Just use a nonlethal weapon and hit them again periodically. Nonlethal damage always knocks you unconscious with no possibility of killing.

Every hour you shoot the guy with a taser? Ignoring the fact that requires you to interrupt your own sleep and schedule with rotating guards even still to do that, do you think it doesn't hurt like hell? That's effectively torture, and sure if you're evil, go ahead. But if you're good? Yeah, you're gonna have some alignment issues shooting someone every hour with blinding electrical pain to keep knocking them unconscious.

Spooky Vampire wrote:

Flipping through the book, I don't believe Anti-Magic Field is a Starfinder spell, meaning not even that is an option.

Not for PCs -- but sufficiently wealthy NPCs might be able to build a prison with an anti-magic wing for spellcaster prisoners.

Yeah, which basically means the PC's can't effectively capture a spellcaster. You have to KO them and keep KO'd without killing them, and it's really hard to do that.

Myrryr wrote:

You can now only keep a character from casting a spell by knocking them unconscious, killing them, or having them stuck inside of an anti-magic field. Nothing else prevents casting.

uhm, a regular AoO should knock the spell away right?

page 331: "Normally, you can concentrate even in a distracting situation, but if you’re casting a spell and you take damage from either a successful attack that targeted your AC or from an effect that you failed a saving throw against, the spell fails."

Or they just, ya know, walk away from you. Oh no, you AoO'd them, there goes your reaction and they cast their spell. Oh you didn't AoO so you could keep your reaction? Well they're outta range. Sucks to be you.

Also, do you think every ramshackle prison is going to have someone sitting next to a caster to punch them in the face if they try to cast their spells? What happens when they have to use the bathroom? Sleep? Is it going to take a rotating shift of 3 people to guard one caster to prevent that knock spell? (Incidentally, knock in PF requires a CL check against the disable device DC)

The original intent regardless of source is 10% of purchase price when selling used gear. This is done primarily to balance and thwart the MANY buy item x strip it of batteries and sell them for profit schemes that exist.

Assuming the game / wealth by level is balanced around the party getting 10% of the value of anything they sell I feel it would be extremely dangerous to house rule this as you will likely see problems cropping up in the game economy that will only further create headaches for the GM.

In the end its a number and that is what they chose to balance around. Once the party gets used to it and see's that they will be able to purchase stuff just fine without murder hoboing everything it will be fine.

Rules as intended is better than rules as written, news at 11.

Besides, that doesn't matter to society play, which works off RAW no matter how ridiculous it is, and the Starfinder economy is already totally ludicrously nonsensical. All you have to do is be born rich and you become a god at low levels.
Rich corporate 18 y/o: "Daddy, can you buy me a Paragon Seeker Rifle so I can go on adventure this weekend?"
"Sure Son, here's a million credits because I happen to own a successful stock company and am worth billions. Go have fun."
The economy is beyond screwy and let's not even into the fact that ships magically become better or worse if someone of a higher or lower level steps onto them.

The merchant can sell it for 10% when he's on an adventure, and 100% (minus running costs) when he's being a shopkeeper.

Not RAW he can't. The gear itself is what automatically drops to 10% value if it's acquired in an adventure, not the fact that it's sold by an adventurer. If you buy gear from a merchant at a point in your life where you're not adventuring, then you should be able to sell it, RAW, for full value, with this statement:

You can now only keep a character from casting a spell by knocking them unconscious, killing them, or having them stuck inside of an anti-magic field. Nothing else prevents casting.

So what happens if you own a weapons emporium with the profession skill? Oh sorry, you gained a character sheet so now your business goes under?

Why can't I play a character, of any class/theme, who's dad owns a weapon shop on Castrovel or w/e, and part of the backstory is that he was murdered and now I own the shop and would like to find the murderer, but also keep the shop. GG, it automatically goes bankrupt because I can't sell anything?

They are fluent in over six million forms of communication.

I would be one of those people that love seeing new things in APs. Beyond the fact that I already need to tweak every single monster there is from bestiaries due to my player's having high system mastery, it's just nice for diversity and the 'wait, what did he do?' moments from my players. They're good at not-meta'ing (mostly), but even so, they still instantly assume cleric if they see an inflict, instantly assume barbarian if they see a rage, instantly assume wizard/sorc if they see a fireball, etc.. So busting out class features that aren't those will surprise them and defeat automated tactics and such... it's nice.

On top of that, I just like continued increase of customization and versatility and choice in stuff to make, both as a player and DM.

Soo... Nyarlathotep inspired Tobit! Tobit created Asmodeus ~2800 years ago. Or thereabouts. And then muddied the history of the Book of Tobit because he's a dick. Damn you Nyarlathotep, damn you and your meddling to make history vague and difficult to determine.

Hrmm. I wonder how many other historical Earthling figures could be easily mixed into Golarion history the way they imparted Rasputin and Baba Yaga. Perhaps Merlin is actually Jatembe after he succumbed to the same skin condition Michael Jackson had?

Snakers wrote:

Well, vigilantes have to be within one step, so that theory doesn't work.. The idea of Nyarlathotep just being a level billion vigilante is hilarious though.

To be fair, given the example given with the vigilante, it is more of a matter of 2 steps, just not in the same direction.

When Nyarlathotep went to vigilante school he had to go in different directions every day! Uphill, downhill, overhill, throughhill, aroundhill, and otherhill! Thrice ways! In the snow! That was on fire!

Then he gave his protege Batman the ability to manipulate time so he could learn ~600 years worth of martial arts and college degrees in 10 and fool everybody into thinking he has no superpowers.

Weird that my last post answering the divine obligation issue disappeared (with no indication from a moderator of anything wrong with it), even though a reply quoting it is still here.

The Last Question wrote:

I'm Hiding In Your Closet wrote:

That would be f@*#ing hilarious - push comes to shove, Sarenrae calls Asmodeus's bluff, Asmodeus makes good on His threat, opens up Rovagug's prison...and a Chaotic Good butterfly-goddess - who is possibly still powerful enough to take the other gods on all by Her/Himself and give them a run for their money at the least - flies out. The ULTIMATE POETIC JUSTICE!!!

Now why is Groetus passing out cigars...?

Maybe because Groetus knows that just because Rovagug metamorphosed, it doesn't mean that THIS space butterfly is going to be Chaotic Good, and Asmodeus is going to be off somewhere laughing hysterically while Sarenrae is left in the lurch . . . .

Imagine instead going LG. Space butterfly flies over to Heaven and sits down with archons going 'ok, we're to wreck the lower planes, no more of this eternal stalemate b!*&%~++'.

...Still trying to figure out why Pharasma is more powerful, yet couldn't just beat Rovagug on her own when she was called out as helping to fight him.

Thinking of Apsu... maybe I'd find a particular great wyrm brass dragon and try to convince it to achieve apotheosis, just so there's a CG dragon god to worship. While it's out of date, the original fluff for the brass dragon was amazing, and the gregarious socialite 'good guy of the party' as a dragon god would be so badass.

Well, while none of the Outer gods have anything resembling a humanoid (or even Euclidean) shape, both Cthulhu and Hastur are definitely 2 legs, 2 arms, upright body with 1 head shaped. Though, it begs the question of whether or not the Dark Tapestry gods are from this multiverse or not. Probably have to wait until Strange Aeons for that answer.

But yeah, otherwise hard to beat the Manasaputra.

There's also Zura, the Vampire Succubus, and come on, everyone knows that Charon is always ready for a bonin'. Socothbenoth is also attractive by default. Dispater and Belial are definitely attractive. Fairly certain that Belial has a hot daughter too... I'm sure there's a demigod lvl Erodaemon harbinger somewhere.

Arshea is Calistria without a grudge or thing for wasps. Beyond that, he has precious little support unfortunately.

Honestly, of all of the sexually oriented deities, I'm fairly certain Lamashtu has the most information. But then, that's basically true of everything evil in Pathfinder because that's what you fight. One of the reasons I can't wait for Hell's Vengeance is to hopefully see a new slew of angelic, archon and azata creatures for the bestiary, and maybe even a Campaign Setting for Heaven, Nirvana or Elysium to match the Hell Unleashed book for Hell's Rebels.

Not at all. They're supposed to be far more dangerous. As it is, poisons are basically 'eh, we've got a wand of lesser restoration' and diseases are 'sick? Hahahaha, that's funny Mr. DM'.

I use the unchained poisons/diseases, the PC's don't laugh at snakes and non-classed ghouls anymore.

Also, Dex poisons are rogues best friends. When the wizard gets a scratch 1 damage blow dart and hears 'make a fort save', seeing his face go white and he instantly makes perc check... ah, it's delicious for rogues to be scary again.

Ok, so I know this has been awhile, but I finally think I've got a good solid on the Deck.

The Deck of Sin and Virtue! Keep in mind, that as Lust is a Sin, it is represented on the Deck and some things mentioned, while not explicit or anything, are still adult. (About as adult as the succubus entry in the bestiary at least)

Ahh... Nocticula. Our Lady in Shadow could use some nice, tender loving. And by nice and tender, I mean pretty much the opposite, but the loving is still there! (Sex and love being very very different in her case of course)

Not the first that thinks she can be redeemed, though I'm not entirely sure she needs to be. I'd be content with her just managing to murder Lamashtu and I, as a competent and helpful, loyal worshipper, would happily dwell within her harem on the Midnight Isles. And go out spying for her. It just sounds fun.

I can't really call Heaven a perfect Order. By definition, good acts can disrupt Order for the same reason evil ones can... because they're personal. Good is intrinsically personal while Order is not.

So yeah, the Hellknights, if they really wanted to emulate perfect Order would emulate Axis, the axiomites and the inevitables, while trying to fix Heaven and Hell and destroying the rest.

Dotting this awesome thread of awesome!
Also, Idea!

The Blue Experimentress
A sign stands next to a pair of squiggly metal poles in the ground, a large orb at the top of both, lightning arcing between them constantly. Reading: "Experimentering! Arcane magic, the Scientist dwells within. DO NOT CORRECT SIGN, BEWARE OF EXPLODING RUNES", the sign is not an encouraging one. Large enough for a fully grown frost giant to step through the 'arch', you find yourself in an arcane lab. One with so much soot, ashes, acid burns and general hastily repaired destruction that even a goblin alchemist would be proud.

Inside this massive lab are dozens of caged creatures, each of them some strange amaglamation of two or more relatively normal terrestrial creature... though terrestrial is fairly meaningless to creatures that walk the planes as aliens are far more common here than just the relatively small number of combined animals from Golarion.

This is the demesne of the fey creature that calls herself Scientist and will ignore anyone that refers to her otherwise. The Scientist is a very strange creature. Her torso is that of a shapely female humanoid, complete with fairly large and uncovered breasts, though she has six tentacles each around five to six feet long protruding from her shoulders instead of arms. Her head is that of an octopus, smooth, bulbous and with two enormous eyes, though the eyes are the unblinking amber of a large viper in shape. Her face has no other distinguishing marks, no nose or mouth leaving you to wonder how she eats or breathes. Beneath her torso she's tauric, her bottom half looking like the abdomen of a giant hornet. Unlike her grey rubbery skin up top, her lower part is chitin and black and white. Her six insectile legs are each tipped, not with claws, but more 8 inch long tentacles that easily grasp at the floor or walls. She has no wings and where her stinger would be is instead a pulsating writhing ovipositor tube that doesn't seem to want to stay retracted.

The Scientist communicate telepathically and is highly intelligent with a dry, sardonic sense of humour and a love of the spontaneous. She will sell the knowledge of unique spells she's crafted, so long as the buyer can survive the spell being cast on them, and only sells harmful spells for this particular price. For other, non-harmful, spells, she charges unique creatures that she can use in her breeding experiments with other creatures she owns. Rarely, she'll offer to sell one of her trained amalgam creatures, but the price for this is much higher than most will pay, as the Scientist loves creating amalgams of her customers and herself or her other favorite pets. Only females can pay this price, but she will generously allow a male to use her stock of elixir's of sex shift for free in this case.

Despite the Scientist's... frightening appearance and obsession with creating combined creatures, she despises Lamashtu and is neutral good. Her lab is on the First World itself, in a relatively small zone that she keeps influence on, all of the effort spent on maintaining the area to be hospitable for breeding. No creature dies in birth here, and nothing is born with any debilitating conditions.

For those rare scholars of aberrations, rumours abound that the first Drakainia was a failed experiment of the Scientist's, an evil daughter that is a twisted perversion of what the Scientist works to do.
(It's a sort subject, don't ask her about that.)

Depends on which interpretation of the Lovecraft deities you're looking at. Sometimes, time and space warp when within Azathoth's or Yogg Sothoth's presence, unwinding and breaking down the fundamental laws of nature. In a few interpretations those two literally ARE space and time respectively. Really just depends on what mythos you're reading and the actual Lovecraft books on them were very vague (deliberately so). Which makes sense, as a human mind simply cannot actually comprehend the vastness of time or space, so being near something that physically is, or that warps them, would drive you insane by proximity. We have difficulty imagining how many drops of water are in a liter because the brain simply doesn't work at the scale to measure volume, let alone trying to imagine even just how big the ocean is. Then to compare that to all of space? It is, literally, unimaginable. Same thing with time.

Now, whether or not the Outer Gods represent 'beings beyond the material plane' or space and time themselves within the Golarionverse is another question as it hasn't been answered. In my particular canon, they do, but that doesn't mean they are in the actual 'verse.

I choose the demi-plane of chocolate and banana pudding!

The anti-paladin in Elysium would be a hilariously fun campaign. Just a sandbox with the entire goal of 'don't get kicked out or killed by Brijidine or Veranallia'. See how much fun you can have pushing the envelope while your goddess watches on, amused.

There's a place in Pharasma's realm for false souls (i.e. people that are not of the same alignment as the god they worship)

James Jacobs warned in another thread that the one step rule, while great from a gaming perspective, can have serious story implications on a character's soul upon his/her death...

I would certainly imagine that this would apply to antipaladins in regards to Elysium. Pharasma be like, "where you going? No i said THIS way!"

James also mentioned that Golarion gods don't gain power if they gain more worshippers i.e. no mortal world arms race for souls necessary. I could certainly imagine Calistria turning away from an antipaladins soul upon its death.. "Thanks that was great. Hope you liked all the free sex and booze. Now i can't have you storming around my nice wittle rose garden in Elysium. You have my thanks! Now gloriously go take your revenge on other souls of your choosing be they in the abyss or wherever Pharasma deems fit! Go travel the Great Beyond in my honor and paint whatever you like in a deep shade of crimson!"

Yeah, problem with that. There'd be no Calistrian anti-paladins and Calistria would become chaotic evil for effectively betraying someone who put their faith and worship in her. That is NOT a neutral act no matter how you cut it.

Whether the deities directly communicate, in person, in dreams, or in avatars, depends a lot on the deity itself and the location. For example, all of the Starstone ascended will communicate directly and in person, up to and including setting foot on Golarion as not only were they mortal, they simply aren't that powerful or disruptive. Plus they can easily get away with violating the divine intervention laws (if they choose) as they're so young and new in comparison to other deities as to be completely unknown and unwatched.

Deities like Pharasma, Asmodeus, Apsu or Desna (and similar ones), all enormously powerful and very very very old and important almost never speak to any but the absolute most powerful of their followers... and the only reason Golarion has anyone that triggers that response is because it's also the Prison, so they pay attention to it... despite the fact there's no one on Golarion nearly powerful enough to deserve their direct attention. These are deities who's spheres of influence encompass an infinite material plane with worshippers who can only be counted via scientific notation, and even with power letting nearly be omniscient, they still have a limit to being in a few billion places at once, let alone the 1.45 x 10^34 worshippers they might have (random number pulled out of my butt and probably still too small for the material plane).

For more intermediate deities it really depends on the individual, their power, and their personality. For example Nethys... he really wouldn't interact directly with almost any mortals except for the most magically powerful or magically inventive/innovative simply because he's probably too busy doing magical research himself. Irori however might interact with promising 'students' (I like to think that's how he dubs his worshippers) because he wants to see them succeed like any martial arts master does for their disciplined students. Deities like Calistria would be capricious in their attention. She might ignore a lvl 20 cleric of hers for it's entire life, then dote on one particularly handsome 80 y/o elf for it's entire life, up to and including laying with them repeatedly just because she likes how good he might be with his hands or something.

Oh man, that just gives me sooo many visions of him. Now I'm thinking he's Evilly Affable instead of Affably Evil. The type of guy who will sidle right on up to the heroine, paw at her chest and invite her into his windowless white carriage pulled by ponygirls in a fast talking salesman tone. Like Xykon with a insatiable sex drive.

"Hey babe, ditch these holy losers and get in here to ride on me. Or I'll ride you, I'm cool with anything. I've got candy in there too, but only the kind you suck on, nothin' to chew. Don't worry though, you don't need teeth anymore," as the demon lord grins widely at the horrified paladin. "And man, we totally need to you some better armor. I can't even see your nipples in that thing! Bring your brother also, I've got room for two! Call me!" as he drops a Sending scroll into her hands and disappears to his appointment with other Big Bad Evil Things.

Yup. I'm going to have to find a magical radio thing that in a campaign he uses to constantly call and f*ck with the PC's now. Thanks for that. He was specified as claiming Pride as his sin too, so it makes sense he'd be overconfident and not just kill the PC's after having his fun with them.