Peat's page

As I'm prepping SoT, wanted to share some of the rewrites I'm making to try to better tie plotlines together and deliver a more satisfying arc for the heroes and antagonists. Obviously, this is with the benefit of the full set of published books, a year's worth of online commentary, and insights of what my specific table will respond well to, so this is not intended to imply that this is the 'right' or even a 'better' way to run it. It's just what I think will work best at my table, but perhaps some ideas will help at yours.

Changes to the Vesicant Egg:
I plan to have the Vesicant Egg continue to escalate the influence it has on pests from School (Book 1) > City (Book 2) > Region (Book 3). Book 1 focuses on pests being drawn to The Magaambya and can be run mostly as written. Book 2, I'll plan to reflavor a lot of the sidequests to show the influence is spreading. Some examples - Froglegs will use her knowledge of alchemical agents that are described to lure Giant Dragonflies to a much greater degree, flavoring how she sabotages Oba's cages with unnaturally large termites, or draws away attention from her muggings by redirecting swarms of flies who have recently appeared in town. In addition, Nantambu will be in really rough shape during Book 2, with pests and gremlins tearing down infrastructure and causing the various floods and collapses, made worse by Asanda's absence and lack of leadership to rebuild. Finally, things will come to a crescendo in Book 3, where Kiutu (and other towns in the region) will not be attacked (the first time anyway) by Knights of Abendengo, but instead by giant roaming beetles and locust swarms. The Knights will still act as the main villains and kidnap Kiutu's inhabitants during Chapter 2, but it and other encounters will be under the backdrop of the insect plagues - the Knights and others are taking advantage of that chaos to advance their goals. However, by Book 4, the Vesicant Egg will be mostly contained so the King of Biting Ants narrative can take a breath and shift focus to Mzali/Osibu temporarily thanks to changes I'm making to Koride.

Changes to Koride:
Koride is framed as a reckless and callous but an ultimately redeemable person by the end of Book 6. I think this is portrayed well in Books 1 and 2, but by the time she is making deals Norgorber slaver cults in Book 3 and stealing from and sabotaging the Iobane in Book 5, I don't believe most players will give her the benefit of the doubt or see those as the actions of an ultimately decent person you should try to work with - I certainly don't. I also worry the PCs will start to see her as the BBEG by the end of Book 3, and then will feel railroaded or push back when I say "Ignore her, go and do this unrelated quest in Mzali. She'll be traveling with you, but don't worry about engaging her." Because of this, she's my biggest rewrite.

As I mention above, my climax of the 'pest attacks' will be rampant destruction in the Sodden Lands in Book 3. However, as the heroes are preparing to escort the students there with the dual purpose of researching The Bloodsalt as written AND gathering more information about these swarms, Koride will offer to take the Egg away from the Magaambya similar to what's described at the end of Book 2, with the intention of ensuring the students' safety while she continues her research. She brings it to the Doorway of the Red Star, where she believes she can close herself away in an abandoned temple to learn more about it from some of the foremost reference materials on King of Biting Ants (though she wont mention the plan to anyone else - the PCs will eventually have to uncover Where and Why themselves). She wont join the Book 4 delegation, and the PCs wont hear from her at all in Book 4, but will presume things have stabilized as they work through the Mzali/Osibu storylines and hear reports from other allies back at The Magaambya that insect attacks are waning, and Nantambu is safe again. Metagame-wise the players may also think Vesicant Egg was a Book 1-3 plotline only, and then get to enjoy a little twist when it comes back with a vengeance in Book 5.

When the players return back to focusing on King of Biting Ants and meet the Iobane in Book 5, Mpondo's displeasure with Koride and the Magaambya will not be that Koride stole the egg FROM them, but that she brought it TO them, and they have had to fight off pests drawn to the Plaza of the Door for the better part of two years while she conducts her research in an increasingly arrogant and uncommunicative way. They are not in the mood to do more favors for Magaambya professors after all this. Offscreen during Book 4, Koride's research HAS uncovered spells and runes that reduce the Egg's pull on local wildlife and has localized the effects just to the Plaza and nearby surroundings, but she has recklessly taken shortcuts in her approach that have allowed the Egg to feed on her protective magic and accelerate the Egg's growth, as well as opened her mind to the influence of the King of Biting Ants' Three Aspects after many sleepless nights of work alone with the artifact. If the heroes choose to confront her prior to their trip through the Gateway, she will refuse to meet face-to-face with them through a thick stone door protected by powerful traps, claiming she cannot emerge yet until she finishes her research, lest her runes falter and it threaten the safety of all of Golarion. If she hears of their plan to speak with Jatembe, she'll adamantly agree and say they should go to seek him so she can ask him questions (whether trying to send them to their deaths due to more overt influence by King of Biting Ants, or legitimately seeking his council, I haven't decided yet and I think will depend where I land with the nature of her 'influence' by the Egg.) However, by the time they return from Akiton with him, Koride will have left the Plaza and taken the egg back to the Magaambya, and Book 6 can play out largely as written.

Other Changes:
A few other minor changes I plan to make which I think will resonate better with my players:
-Rather than being advance scouts of an invasion, the Terwa Lords delegation will be a group of scholars who are investigating the pest attacks which are destroying settlements on their borders much like the PCs are. It provides a group of rival and morally dubious, but still empathetic foils to the PC teachers, and blunts the need to work closely with a nationalist group of conquerors in Book 3, just before you do the same thing in Book 4.

-Along the same lines of avoiding the takeaway of both Books 3 and 4 being 'Diplomacy is all well and good, but ultimately might makes right' (which seems antithetical to the goal tone of Strength of Thousands) I'm going to have Worknesh go rogue and launch the siege on Osibu himself without Walkena's knowledge, in an attempt to earn favor with the god king. There are several references about Walkena imbuing chosen with a fraction of power, so my idea is to say that Worknesh can summon an 'avatar' of Walkena himself via this gift. This way I can maintain the exciting final setpiece, but not need to handwave planet-scale mind wipes to remove the knowledge from Walkena and Mzali's inhabitants. Between the reforms of Chapter One, and removing an opposing piece from Mzali's chessboard during the Siege of Osibu, I think it leaves a much more optimistic view of the future as you wrap up that storyline.

-I plan to run Chapter One of Book 6 less as a celebration lunch, and more of a tense War Council where the PCs are lifted up as leaders, then need to begin the hard work of leading. They'll get some clues that the King of Biting Ants may not be fully defeated yet at the end of Book 5, as well as be suspicious when they find Koride missing when they return, so I don't think they will be in the mood to hobnob and 'enjoy their celebrity' soliciting gifts. Instead, the Influence minigames will be framed as planning and building consensus and unity among Nantambu for an unknown but inevitable danger hanging above their heads.

If you made it to the end of this novel, thanks for reading. Thoughts, questions, or constructive feedback welcome.

We are just kicking off Extinction Curse and we have relatively few front line characters - of our party of 6 we have only myself and a rogue in melee consistently. I wanted to play a Magus but am worried that as I will likely be taking the bulk of the damage that I will end up on the ground more often than not.

My thought was to go 18/10/14/14/12/10 and take Sentinel dedication at Level 2 along with either Sparkling Targe or Inexorable Iron (in which case I'd take Multitalented Witch at 9 for the additional spells to trigger Sustaining Steel.

What do people think, will this be enough to be soaking most of the damage or am I setting myself up to go down every combat as the Frontline anchor with a d8 HD?

On its face, Outwit reads as the most non-combat/skill centric of the paths which isn’t a bad thing to have options. That said, any interesting interactions with other Feats that folks have found beyond the obvious bonus to Monster Hunter chain to get it in the ballpark of the dual wield path (seems more well-balanced against the precision damage path trading damage for utility)

Please cancel my subscription. Just released it was still trying to charge an old CC from years ago. I understand I'll lose the discount on the previous PDFs that I did not receive.

Forward:
Strange Aeons is the fifth Paizo AP I've run, and one of the best aspects of running that type of pre-published material is the awesome community who shares their lessons learned and tweaks. For Strange Aeons, I'm going to try to pay it forward in the hopes that I can offer someone in the future some insight or idea to give their table a better experience. I'll be writing up my own summaries of each major 'scene' including what I changed, how my players reacted, what went well and what I would change a second time around.

My Table and Session 0:
We play every other week for 4-6 hours with 4 PCs. We did 20-Point Point Buy (instead of standard 15-point), all Paizo-official Class material open, but races limited to Core, Goblins, Orcs, Changelings and Dhampries (a mix of Ustalav-centric races, and more monstrous races that might have been good muscle for their past employer.) Idea behind 20-point point buy was to allow them not to feel as restricted about taking 'bad' class features in the interest of RP (We have a Waves Oracle and a switch-hitting Gunslinger with 14 Strength and a penchant for Crowbars for example) and also since it seems like this AP has a uniquely-strong hook to the original PCs so wanted to give them a little more early-game strength.

In the interests of intensifying the blank slate 'fugue' for my players, I had each one of them come up with four Defining Events in a Character's life. I told them their character would have two or those events in their past, and two of them would be randomly assigned to another character. In that way, both the Player and the Character would be thinking about those events during the game, trying to piece together which of their four they kept, and which were assigned to others (i.e. which of their hazy memories and recollections were real and which were misremembered or unrelated).

Given the theme of the AP and knowing they started in an Asylum, the Players took this in a somewhat dark direction. Examples include "Sustained a serious injury trying to protect someone they didn’t know from a mugging" "Watching your father and uncles kill, skin and dress wild game has stuck with you and you think about it often " and "I'm the first person in my family to leave our town since it was founded". I tried to steer people towards objectively-described events, rather than declaring how someone felt about that event, to still give the person who ultimately received it the final say over their character. For example, being the first person to leave your town could be exciting...it could be terrifying...you could have been leaving for a big city job, or leaving because you were exiled...

Once I scrambled the between the players and spoke with them a little about what type of personality they were planning to portray, I fit the four events for each player together in a rough backstory outline only I knew. I wrote a short (around half a page) summary of what the character felt and remembered immediately upon waking up (with a few choice details from the backstories included) put them in envelopes, and gave them to the Players at the very start of Session 1, to be opened after the nightmare introduction. I also assigned them one of the Traits from the Player's Guide based on the combined backstory (they only picked one trait at character creation).

Our party includes:

• *A Varisian Human Gunslinger, modeled loosely after The Joker. Not murderously psychotic, but certainly unpredictable and with a disconnected "I bet we are all still dreaming, none of this matters" nonchalance.

• *A Varisian Paladin of Sarenrae. The player told me they wanted to be confused, conflicted and guilt-ridden about their past. In pursuing that, I made it so when the character awoke, they found that there was a terrible and painful burn wound across their back, in the shape of Sarenrae's angel wings. However, they also found a holy symbol of Norgorber amongst their belongings when they found their equipment.

• *A Changeling Oracle. I assigned her the Trait where she's "seen it all" and isn't phased by these creatures, based on the fact that one of the random Defining Events she received had to do with previous exposure to Elder Mythos creatures on a mining expedition. At this point a few sessions in, she seems more concerned with the Paladin she saw pick up an idol of Norgorber than she is the Zoogs and Dopelgangers.

• *A Goblin Alchemist. This was another one where they player told me they were looking for something specific - in this case the character is convinced that he is in the wrong body, that he was a prestigious scholar and chemist was somehow mind-swapped into a Goblin in some cosmic injustice. I assigned them the 'Yith' mindswap Trait bonus mechanically, although it remains to be seen if it was a Yith or something else...

How the players reacted:
Several sessions in and I'm very excited by how this turned out. Scraps of information about their past are treasured as much as equipment as they try to (both in character and out of character) figure out which of their 'hazy' memories of the four Defining Events they wrote are true. I think the best thing is it has added a very cool element of mystery that doesn't just rely on the players RPing forgetting their backstories (which can be challenging for some) and even our less strong RPers are talking in character more and narrating little events to show who they think they are.

Anything I would change?:
Nothing at this point, will see how things continue to progress.

***MAJOR Spoilers for BOTH Ustalav adventure paths below, careful if you plan to play either Strange Aeons or Carrion Crown***

A few years ago, I ran Carrion Crown for my group, which was the first time we made it all the way through a full 6 Volume AP, and had a blast. After a couple other excursions to Cheliax, we're back in Ustalav for Strange Aeons. But as I read through the books, I can't help but feel some strong similarities from the Big Bad perspective - a maniacal and egotistical wealthy mastermind who's not much of a combat threat on his own terms, but is always one step out of reach of a direct confrontation until he activates Armageddon. Granted that's a somewhat common trope of Fantasy, but given the similar setting it hit a little too close to CC for my tastes.

I started brainstorming how I could differentiate it a bit - not to the point where I'm going to abandon the 'chase-style' plot line, but to at least make the villain a bit different.

My thoughts are along the lines of the following, but if anyone else has gone through a similar exercise, I'm very curious!!

Lowls has been dead (if not physically, mentally/spiritually) since he left town at the start of the AP. He certainly was not a good guy (as evidenced by keeping slaves and ruling his lands with an iron fist) but things took a significant turn after he went to the Dreamlands. It was not just a coincidence that the Yellow King fragment which broke off from his journey to the Mad Poet is aloof but overall friendly - Xhamen-Dor purposefully ripped the innocent intellectual curiosity away from Lowls and left it locked in the Dreamlands, leaving a massive void for Xhamen-Dor to fill and leaving the Egotistical and Fearful sides of Lowls remaining.

While the AP references a 'seed' infesting Lowls, and by the end referencing them as a 'merger', I'm going to make it a bit more direct, adding a couple of points (and some heavy foreshadowing/hints) where the PCs can perform the Dream Ritual again and go to other places in the Dreamlands where Xhamen-Dor ripped the other two 'facets' of Lowl's mind asunder. Perhaps the Egotistical/Power Hungry shard can be encountered in the Mystereum, while maybe the Fearful (Why gather power if you're not afraid of something you need to be powerful against?) side was left in the Parchlands at the end of Book 4 to whither in agony forever.

By the end of the arc, I feel this makes Lowls' tale into more of a tragedy than someone who just was power-hungry (and conveniently out of reach) for 5 books of the AP and then was consumed. And while I might need to more heavily introduce the link between Xhamen-Dor and the PCs earlier to keep them motivated to stay on the hunt after they find the last 'fragment' of Lowls, I feel it gives the through-line of the villain enough of a different feeling to to our old friend Adivion Adrissant, who also spent 5 books just out of reach before merging with something to become a super-BBEG in Book 6.

Thoughts? Other watchpoints? (I've only skimmed the books and haven't started playing yet, so may be missing details) Other ways you've tackled this problem (whether or not you played CC?)

Looking for critique, other options, or general Mechanic discussion. Aware this is not SFS-legal, but it's for our home AP game. Thanks in advance!

Level 7 Dwarf Mechanic (Spacefarer)

14 Strength (18 in Battle Harness)
12 Dexterity (+2 @ Level 5)
15 Constitution (+2 @ Level 5)
20 Intelligence (+2 @ Level 5, +2 Mod)
14 Wisdom (+2 @ Level 5)
8 Charisma

Swoop Hammer, Tactical: +10, 1d10+11
Battle Harness, EAC 20, KAC 22

Feats: Advanced Weapons Prof (1 Racial), Heavy Armor Proficiency (1), Advanced Weapons Specialization (3 Racial), Weapon Focus: Advanced Weapons (3), Barricade (5), Powered Armor Proficiency (7)

Skills: 7 in Athletics, Computers, Engineering, Mysticism (Not class skill), Perception, Physical Science. 4 ranks Medicine, 1 rank Profession[Wis] (Brewer), 2 ranks Pilot.

Mechanic Tricks: Energy Shield (2), Visual Data Processor (4), Overclocking (6)

Stealth Drone

Arc Rifle, static: +10, 1d12+7
EAC 19, KAC 19

Skill Unit: Computers
Mods: Longarm Proficiency, Weapon Mount, Jump Jets, Manipulator Arms
Feats: Longarm Specialization, Weapon Focus: Longarm, Mobility

Commentary:
---To Hit +10 is around 50% Hit Rate against a CR 6-7 creature per First Contact. That's going to be around the same as a Soldier who's Full Attacking.

---Other party members are an Operative and Solarian, so idea is to be drawing fire, eventually making it up there with my stumpy Dwarf legs (or Jump Jets in my battle harness), and raising hell. Drone is on the wall/ceiling/etc blasting down for extra damage or when melee isn't possible.

---At lower levels, will use a Combat Drone to maintain the Drone using Longarms and having Manipulator Arms for utility throughout the build. Once 3 mods unlock at level 5, switch over to Stealth Drone.

---Took Weapon Focus at level 3 to stay relevant with To Hit, since I wouldn't plan to put points into Strength beyond 14 in to get more benefit out of the Powered Armor.

---Higher Level Mechanic Tricks continue to focus on working up the Energy Shield and Visual Data Processor trees. We don't have anyone else with Perception or high Wisdom so it's even more important to have high Perception.

Of all the classes in the CRB, Mechanic is the most interesting to me just in the number of possibilities and flexibility you have with the class. Wanted to talk about what people decided on and why they decided on it.

For my character, I'm going to be playing in the Dead Suns AP with a 3-player group (Operative and Solarian are the other two). I figured this meant a) There would be a lot of extra gear floating around that didn't make sense to sell at 10% cost and b) Having an extra Standard action would really help with only 3 PCs.

Because of that, I'm going with a Dwarf Drone Mechanic...going to use Advanced Melee Weapons and Heavy Armor (and pick up some of the defensive Talents if I'm still not feeling tanky enough), and then outfit my Drone with whatever shiny Longarms/Heavy Weapons we happen to come across that no one else is going to use anyway.

What's your Mechanic and why?

Hey all - Was interested in other people's takes on the Mechanic class as a combatant, since I really like the class overall.

Having a hard time finding any way that an Exocortex build can keep up with a Drone build in combat because of the Weapon Specialization feat. Since it adds such a large amount of flat damage on every attack, it seems like having an extra Drone attack is almost always better.

Example Math (assuming all Mechanics and Drones take Weapon Proficiency, Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization in relevant weapons, which is possible by level 3):
Level 5, 16 Dex Drone Mechanic with 2d6+5 (avg 12) Longarm, +7 to hit. Level 5 Combat Drone with 2d8+5 (avg 14) Heavy Weapon, +6 to hit. Against the CR6 Orcoran (EAC: 18) from First Contact, that's 5.4 expected damage from Mechanic, 5.6 expected damage from Drone. 11 damage total. Full attack by Mechanic at +3/+3: 6+5.6=11.6.

Level 5, 16 Dex Exocortex Mechanic with 2d8+5 (avg 14) Heavy Weapon, +9 to hit Exocortex target. Against Orcoran, 7.7 expected damage total. Full attack at +5/+5: 9.8.

This is just napkin math that I'd *love* to be proven wrong about it or find something I missed, since I was expecting that giving up all the flexibility/extra HP/extra action of the Drone would make the Exocortex stronger in combat, but it doesn't seem that's the case (or my expectation was wrong). This also seems to stay fairly consistent Levels 1-12 (which was my focus since that's the range of the first AP).

Only big assumption that you can't math out and may vary in actual play is whether it's likely both the Mechanic and the Drone can keep relevant higher-end weapons (or whether one would need to drop down to a previous tier, using a Equipment Level 2 weapon at 5th Level or something). However, since treasure only sells for 10% of its value now, my guess is it will make a lot more sense to keep gear you find rather than convert them to GP to buy your next big upgrade as we did in PF - so there will be more 'extra' relevant guns floating around to strap onto the Drone and keep its damage very close to what the Mechanic is using. And all that said, even in the example above if the Drone mechanic is using a Weapon Level 1 1d8 laser rifle, they still come out ahead on expected damage vs. the Exocortex.

Also worth noting that in the example above, the Exocortex Mechanic is going to have 3 extra feats to play around with, but in the absence of Feats that boost effective damage output beyond Weapon Prof/Specialization/Focus at this point in the game's lifecycle, that doesn't mean much. I'm sure once Ultimate ____ books start coming out that will change.

Maybe my expectations were wrong and the Exocortex has another area that it excels at instead of combat, but I would have thought the one that gave all the combat-related BAB and Feats would be the superior option.