Nyarai's page

We've been sleeping in a rope trick since level 4. They'll need extraplanar spells to 'port into our bedroom. What's more, should I have reason to believe the enemy figured out what happened (a guard who witnessed the kidnapping survived, let's say) then you can bet your butt that I will be using anti-divination magic from now on.

Kind of hard to port-nap someone if you don't know where your target is.

In any case, I never expected it to work more than once. Smart army leaders tend to put up anti-teleportation magic after something like this, if they hadn't done so already.

"Our incredibly fat high-value agent disappeared in the night without provisions or the guards hearing/seeing anyone pass through the door of his tent" is not a far logical leap from "Someone kidnapped him, using magic to enter and escape." Plus a lot of the nondetection magic I see is (Will negates, harmless) and good luck getting him to sleep for a while. Hope you like staying in Rope Trick for the entire duration of Toade's captivity. (Oh, and any information Toade gives you is going to involve having him alive for a loooooooooooooooong time, if your DM is clever, so it could be quite a while.)

Plus, I don't see where Rope Trick protects the NPCs the game world needs to function. There are a few people I can think of that would really cause a problem if they were to be grabbed by a wizard and transported directly to the heart of Tiamat's lair.

So you're (mostly) good to go, since Jason is not GMing for you.

Also keep in mind that NotMousse has a point - if you open the door to "Wizard Teleportation Kidnappings," your DM has every right to walk through it. So once Toade goes missing, the Dark Chain of Command is activated. Someone who's incredibly smart will come in and put two and two together to make five (for sufficiently large values of two). They'll figure out what you've done. So not only will this never work again, but the Forces of Evil will have your creative plan and they have more wizards. So, when all is said and done, you're going to have one treacherous general, who may not know much and has a five-headed dragon goddess who can make him suffer eternally if he talks. You will also have Black Robes (and the occasional pragmatic Red) carrying off damsels, mission critical NPCs, and your own party members (if you're not careful) in the night.

Gotta ask yourself if the limelight is worth all the possible consequences.

Interesting thread. I'm curious, fearless houserulers, how would these new sleep deprivation rules interact with Diehard?

Agh! My first attack of the postmonster as a member of these boards! T_T

Inevitables aren't omniscient. They don't have portfolios like deities that allow them to know any time something related to their portfolio happens. They have to do legwork just like a mortal investigator does (except that they have air walk, dimension door, locate creature and true seeing at will, naturally). If you lay low enough, it's quite possible you'll die of something other than a marut attack.

The idea of a bunch of inevitables running a modern-day police station or private eye's office makes me giggle.

Anyway, this is what 3.5 has to say.

When an inevitable is created, it receives its first mission, then finds the transgressors and metes out appropriate punishment.

That to me says, "Someone higher up is telling the maruts who to strike down." Now whether that's the god of death (who would be omniscient) or some middle-management celestial, I haven't a clue. Either way, if I got kicked out of a factory with a transgressor's name and maybe a small description, I'm pretty sure that I could persuade a wizard/cleric to scry for me in a jiff. Granted, there are protections against that, but not all immortals will have them in place. Especially if the City of Brass is as ruthlessly efficient as I would expect them to be.

A shame there isn't more source material about the inevitables that might provide more insight about how they operate (ex. Will they strike while a transgressor is weak, how do they prioritize kills, etc).

{Incidentally, if these books exist and I'm just not aware of them, lemme know. ;P}

I'm currently in one Greyhawk game and one Golarion game. More a fan of the first, but that's mostly because of who I'm gaming with.

I'm a huge fan of Eberron, and hopefully my second group will get back to that game someday. *wistfulsigh*

Good, since that's precisely what I have suggested multiple times now :)

Gah, sorry. Most of these posts sort of blend together in my brainmeats. Didn't mean to seem like I was jacking your idea, just adding a +1 to "the most sensible way to deal with unaligned PCs."

The way I see it (and apparently the designers agree) smiting is something that involves conviction. Neutral is a decided lack of conviction, you aren't committed to destroying evil, you are perfectly willing to sit aside and let it happen. From the rules -> "She doesn't feel strongly one way or the other when it comes to good vs. evil or law vs. chaos. Most neutral characters exhibit a lack of conviction or bias rather than a commitment to neutrality."

Excuse me, sir. You dropped the second half of that rules entry.

Some neutral characters, on the other hand, commit themselves philosophically to neutrality. They see good, evil, law, and chaos as prejudices and dangerous extremes. They advocate the middle way of neutrality as the best, most balanced road in the long run.

Now explain why that kind of person couldn't be universally opposed to uppity aligned folk and smite them silly.

I agree, meatrace, but I see the TN inquisitor as less of a philosophical problem and more of a mechanics problem. If they can smite everyone, then that isn't fair to inquisitors of other alignments. If they can't smite anyone, then there's no point in taking the class.

Personally, I'd say they get to pick one point on the axis (Law/Chaos/Good Evil) at character creation which cannot be changed. After all, True Neutral characters aren't perfect and can still hate people of certain alignments without losing their neutrality. What if an inquisitor's childhood village was annihilated by demons and he wants to exterminate as many as he can? Naturally he'd decide to Smite/Resist/etc Evil. But maybe he's perfectly fine with the NE necromancer in his party. Maybe he pays his taxes to the LE emperor without much fuss. Maybe, he even allies with some devils to oust a particularly irksome demon. Once you start thinking outside the "True Neutrals cannot oppose anything without an alignment shift" box, the idea of a TN inquisitor becomes a little less blasphemous. ;D

While a lot of players run their TN characters as apathetic and convictionless, that is not the only way to play it.

Some neutral characters, on the other hand, commit themselves philosophically to neutrality. They see good, evil, law, and chaos as prejudices and dangerous extremes. They advocate the middle way of neutrality as the best, most balanced road in the long run.

Couldn't you see *that* kind of person taking up a sword and opposing the overzealous enemies of balance? I'm not sure how you would go about balancing it mechanically against differently aligned inquisitors, but it's not wholly unreasonable. I think that if TN inquisitors miss out on some of the better class features, Paizo might as well put an "Alignment: Non-True Neutral" requirement on the class and call it a day.

Maruts pursue those who violate the sanctity of the grave. Naturally immortal races don't trip their triggers. I'm not familiar with elans in general (never used psionics much), but they don't, as a race, violate natural laws to become immortal, do they?

Elans are humans that undergo a ritual transformation. Basically, they get imbued with psionic energy that allows them to rebuild tissues that would otherwise break down, keeping them eternally youthful and without a maximum age (they still get aging penalties every few centuries). They're also classified as aberrations in the XPH, so in my opinion, yes, they violate many natural laws.

{Also, I was mostly trying to provide a counterpoint to "All immortal PCs must be systematically exterminated" statement that NV was making. I love elans! My psion is one, but don't tell my party because they have no idea. ;P }

yeah, the diplomacy is because they gather info, talk to people and ask where you are, find out info about you, ect.

if anything it could be to talk to other group members of yours and give the "leave me to my mission lest thee suffer the same fate" speech

and yes 1 immortal pc does make a huge difference. Its called precedent. they use it in court. "well so-and-so did x and didnt get punished so neither should my client", so its kill'em all or kill none in a sense. Letting 1 live is playing favorites and such.

Thats why most immortal pc's are no longer adventuring, they are hiding from these things or protected by gods or other higher powers

Since PCs cannot be subject to Diplomacy, I'm pretty sure it's for gathering intel.

Also, I'm curious. If these constructs must annihilate every single immortal and inordinately long-lived player character, why does the elan exist as a PC race? Are DMs supposed to smoosh poor newmade psions under massive brass fists?