Necroluth's page

I am doing a similar thing in a campaign that I am soon to start. One of the civilized nations is strictly monotheistic, and they differentiated by their orders. Much like Franciscans, Jesuits, Dominicans, and the other Catholic orders venerate and follow the examples of specific saints and holy figures, these orders follow the narrow teachings and examples of old high priests, heroes, and martyrs.

One thing I am doing to differentiate the cleric a bit (particularly within this religion) is to give all caster spontaneous domain spells and take away spontaneous cures. This means that those that follow a healing order are particularly respected, and no one asks the crusaders to patch up their scrapes.

I have to cast my vote with urging you to stick with the Shadowrun system. I've played both from their inceptions, and the systems are tuned well to their respective genres. Pathfinder characters are high-fantasy heroic, able to shrug off massive wounds and keep fighting to the end. Wizards are like gods to the man on the street, and the actual gods will bend the rules to keep great heroes alive. The rules support this well (well, fairly well).

Shadowrun, though, is necessarily different. Fights are brutal and fatal. Wounds HURT, and magic is taxing and can turn on you. The system helps to support this feeling of desperation and menace.

Years ago, I surprised my 2e campaign players by dropping them (via gate) into the Shadowrun world. I converted all their characters over a weekend, and the next session, I just started off with exposition. They were in an abandoned warehouse that had huge holes in its walls. Several bodies were seen huddled around the open room, snoring. When the party paladin approached one, he was shocked to find an orc. All of a sudden, a noise like a swarm of angry dire wasps was heard from outside. The orc squatters all panicked and tried to run, as a band of cybered-up bodyjackers crashed the squat, looking to take a few captives. The paladin (a bit of a swashbuckler) leapt to the defense of one of them, yelling something like, "Unhand that man!"

At which point the bodyjacker looked at him, sneered, and unloaded half-a-clip of SMG fire into his stomach. I handed them their new character sheets, gave them a second, then said, "You just took 9 boxes of physical trauma. Welcome to the Death Spiral."

They treated Seattle like a g!%!&+n warzone after that.

Shadowrun might have magic, but it is a cyberpunk game at heart. The ruleset for Pathfinder just doesn't fit.

Tie up the party using the party's own rope (they are adventurers, they GOTTA have rope). If they have any manacles, even better. Use Aid on the party member LEAST likely to have any healing powers; he should be able to guess reasonably well from their gear and fighting skills. Everyone else is still out.

Look the fighter in the eye, growling a bit, and say, "I could have killed you all, you realize this. As it is, I can see that you and your companions are misguided rather than truly wicked. Had I the time, I would take you bound and humble to a priest for atonement, for you have slain a noble spirit in your fumbling. Instead, I offer you this small chance for redemption.

"You will find your arms in one of these trees. When I am gone, you will be free to retrieve them, and to travel on to [name of local town/city]. Go there to the priest of [LG god] and confess your rash deed. Do what he bids you, and we will be done with each other.

"If you do not..." Lean in close, exaggerating a canine sniff. "Know that there is no place you can go where I cannot follow. And I do not sleep."

Most of the Knights of the Round Table, Arthur included, should be either Cavaliers (Order of either the Dragon or the Lion) or Fighters. Those that are mentioned as being champions in the joust or with the lance would be Cavaliers, while others (like Kay) would be Fighters. Only a select few would be Paladins, as their holy talents were miraculous, not commonplace. Lancelot, Galahad, and Percival are the obvious choices for this.

Mordred is NOT an anti-paladin, but a Cavalier of the Cockatrice. He had no magic his aunt didn't give him as a boon, and was a war-leader and fairly good tactician.

Merlin should properly be a druid, except that wild-shaping doesn't show up in the stories much (Disney's Sword in the Stone notwithstanding). Nimue and Vivienne (the Ladies of the Lake) would be Sorcerors with the Fey bloodline, and Morgan is definitely a witch. Many stories say that she dallied with strange and unknowable forces from either the Faerielands or from Hell, and Witches cover that part of the story very nicely with their familiars.

Hmm, I suppose that it's true that real gods should be untouchable. I don't really want to set off a wave of follow up campaigns of god murder.

I suppose then the dragon could be considered to have stolen a small fragment of divine power? Something that makes him rather more formidable than the standard setup. I sadly lack access to the mythic book, so I can't really make use of them.

I like the volcano suggestion, and was already thinking along those lines. The addition of the sneaky nook is a good, and evil, touch that will really make my players sweat.

Is there anything in particular that could be done to the dragon itself, rather than with environment and setup?

If you are willing to use 3.5 materials, and are insistent on having this change statted up (rather than by fiat), then you might want to check out the Draconomicon for the Dragon Ascendant prestige class for dragons. It is based entirely around a dragon ascending to godhood. The dragon gains Dr/Epic, a more powerful fear aura, immunity to several spell effects, and its hit points become (eventually) maximized for its hit dice.

The most cruel part of all this? It has to destroy its hoard to begin this class. All that power, and if the party wins, it doesn't get the reward it was expecting.

While I can see where the OP is coming from, and I understand his POV and concern that this might hurt the image of Pathfinder somehow at some time, the only thing I can think of when I see the Mwangi Expanse is Gorilla City from DC Comics.

My current character is an Infernal Sorceror from a nation where the nobility all have some sorcerous background to them. Rather than getting jiggy with some Erinyes way back when, one of his ancestors provided great service to an arch-devil, and was rewarded with a patron. So long as the family continues to enhance Hell's agenda, to any degree, and forsakes the worship of any deity, they can draw upon Infernal power for their magic. The entire family has become lawyers and landlords, drafting and enforcing contracts in the mortal realm. They combat anarchy and promote legalistic solutions. Hell is still pretty happy with them, because contracts warm a devil's heart.

On a related note, I've played in groups where the GM "gifts" the PCs with unique magical items, such as an intelligent magical greataxe that grows in power alongside the PC, but can never be traded, sold, or destroyed. Much like a cursed item, it can't be easily removed. The GM thinks it is "cool" and that the players will "love it." However, the player who gets "stuck with it" specializes in greatswords, not greataxes. Furthermore, the axe bestowed upon its wielder a permanent physical change (such as glowing eyes or scales on one arm) that is purely for fluff. How cool is that? Not very cool if you don't like being unable to shop at the local blacksmith because he thinks you are a monster or a demon. Suddenly, the player in question has lost control of his character. In the worst case scenario he is forced to use a weapon he doesn't want to use and won't get appropriate (or realistic) reactions from NPCs. In the best case scenario he forever has 12 pounds of worthless counting against his encumbrance.

How do you think a player should deal with situations such as this? Do they have any right? Or is the only recourse to find another game?

I have only perpetrated one instance of such a monkey's-paw type artifact in my game, and the player rolled with the punch and came up swinging. In preparation for going through the classic GDQ series of modules, specifically the latter half which takes place in the Underdark, I had the party fight a band of orcish raiders led by a powerful warlord. He carried a powerful spear that (unbeknownst to the player) transformed the wielder into an orc. I did this so that everyone in the party would have some form of enhanced vision, as the skald (warrior-bard) in the group was human. He took it, as he had nice bonuses with spears, and slowly began to transform.

Instead of b*!%~ing about how he was ugly, or unable to deal with normal society, he played up his orcishness, posing as a high-ranking servitor of the rest of the party (surface elves disguised as drow). He even wound up inspiring a short-lived but spectacular slave uprising to serve as cover for the party's assault on the fabled Vault of the Drow.

I may be lucky in this regard, I know. Many players out there may be less willing or able to take lemons and make lemonade. I just think that a good role-player would be able to make the bizarre twists of fate that happen in magical worlds work for them.

Also, in your first hypothetical, if I were GM, I would likely change him from celestial bloodline to infernal. No loss in the flying feats, there. (I also expanded the infernal line's bloodline arcana to cover [Fear] spells as well as [Charm] spells. There are too few of the latter in the game.)

What this also does is change the basic reality of movement. Currently, with 6-second rounds, a 30' movement rate provides an average overland speed of 3.4 mph walking (a normal pace of one movement action per round), or 7.2 mph hustling. If flat-out running, this can be bumped up to 10-14 mph (x3 or x4 speed). Someone with the Run feat can bump this up to 17 mph, barring any class or spell-based boosts (monks, barbarians, etc.). This is pretty darn close to real life.

If you change the length of the round, you have to adjust movement to match, or people will be CRAWLING across the battlefield. Basically, you would take all of those speeds above, and reduce them by 40%. No one in the game would be eligible for even high-school track-and-field, let alone the Olympics. And this includes the monk.

Sucking is relative to the campaign. Not every DM bases character or plot advancement on combat, and not every character has to shine in combat to contribute.

My wife is playing an Int-based rogue opposite my Infernal sorceror/lawyer in an intrigue and plot heavy campaign. She's going for a concept that combines Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler in one package (essentially, their daughter). She gets 14 skill points per level, and is putting her level ups in Int as well, until she gets to 20 Int at 8th level. She has almost all knowledges, can breathe on locks and traps and disarm them, and still can stealth well enough to always get at least one (or two) sneak attacks off before or during a fight. She also speaks something like 10 languages at 6th level!

No one in the party thinks she sucks.

I've used Arcane Mark to convince a mercenary that I made a bargain with that he would be cursed if he broke his oath. I made the Mark flare visibly as we sealed the deal, and then used Bluff to do the convincing. He never betrayed us once.