Pluribus's page

I think I have an idea that combines a few of the things people have mentioned. I think I'll go with a wondrous item, and make it plot significant. Lets say it's a religious artifact that either belonged to the orks, or that the orks stole. Local merchants can't afford it, several people want it, and it's still going to be a while before monsters that even could turn the players to stone show up. So now the players have choices to make that will make friends or enemies of several groups in the region.

Thanks for the suggestions. Even if I didn't incorporate them into this solution I'm sure I'll find use for them in the future ;)

And if anyone wants to run this themselves, that's awesome. If it helps, I got a lot of inspiration from the poem "Ozymandias", in fact that's what I'm naming the villain.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/resources/learning/core-poems/detail/46565

I have an idea for an epic feeling low level adventure, but it requires the inclusion of a "stone to flesh" spell or something similar.

If I include an NPC who can cast 6th level spells it would take some crazy excuses to justify that NPC not solving every problem. If I give them an item that can cast the spell the party could just sell it later and be crazy rich for their level.

Here's the basic outline.

Desert nomads use Stone to Flesh to turn rocks into meat because they're tired of the bland food produced by other spells. Big bad was petrified hundreds of years ago. Erosion has worn away at him so when he is unpetrified he's missing part of his brain and is weakened and crazy. Also, some of the things the nomads ate previously were inactive golems, and the partially digested golems suddenly activating again created some horrifying zombie-esque victims (turning a stone golem to flesh basically just makes it a flesh golem, and they'd probably be orks or some species that likes their meat raw).

It turns out that the reason the big bad was petrified instead of just being killed is that his death triggers his crumbling but somewhat functional fortress, which is actually a giant golem, to go on a mindless rampage of revenge. Players must try to disable golem from the inside before it reaches a nearby populated area. A creative way to disable it would be to cast stone to flesh on some of its vital components to make them much easier to break.

So really, I could just cut out the bit about using the spell to help disable the giant golem and I'd be fine... But I want that part :( Any ideas?

The most surprising bit of advice I've gotten is that charisma doesn't need to be high. I mained it because it was my spellcasting stat, but now that I think about it none of the spells I cast on a regular basis actually benefit from it. I suppose some non-combat spells do, but very few of those have ever really been challenged.

As for disarming, with a variety of feats, buffs and so forth I can get up to a +30 CMB or so. But then we fight things like a balor with a CMD of 54. So yeah, it seems that the issue there is that a majority of our fights are single boss monsters.

Sure, you may be saying that expecting to disarm a balor is unreasonable. But when your entire build is based on disarming and it's the first thing you've seen carry a sword in months of play... you'd want to at least try.

I almost did it too. I had a wand of true strike ready, but by the time I was done casting buffs the fight was over.

A net is a nice idea, but given that its effects don't scale it would be less useful the higher level you got, and my character is already lvl 15. Even if I use a mithral net, it's still just going to cause them to be "entangled" and a -2 to AC and attack doesn't mean as much when those stats are crazy high.

Well Greendragon, this isn't a hostile GM situation. He's struggling to find things to throw at us that the pole-arm based fighter won't just curb-stomp. And groups of things are severely less threatening since he can do Whirlwind Attack as a large creature with a three square reach. So it's either an unmanageable swarm, or very few and very tough enemies.

The monster's CMD is what it is. Most of the things we fight are straight out of the Bestiaries.

In fact, my GM was the one who suggested I try to look up some house-rules to help with the situation.

The enemy CMB is usually really high because the party is well optimized and fighting foes much CR than our level would usually dictate. We also often fight one "boss" rather than a group.

((TLDR: is there a good disarming build for a bard? Or a houserule? Or advice on tactics a bard can actually pull off?))

I'm playing a bard, and from the start I was aware of the idea that bards don't make good fighters. I just didn't realize how bad it would get, and hope that maybe I'm just doing something wrong and can change course.

As it is, I have my bard song and a list of buffs in order of importance. Combat is often over before I even get a chance to cast all of them. Our group can handle some pretty significant CRs, and my buffs are a big part of that. But playing this bard means the only choices I make in combat are where to stand. And I always stand as far away from enemies as I can because they can usually one shot me.

I understand that my character plays a significant role in combat, but as I player I could just leave a list of spells and go make a sandwich.

I honestly tried to give my character something to do. Knowing the being a damage dealer was out, I tried to focus on being able to disarm. Now, I didn't fully appreciate how many foes don't wield weapons. Even when I do fight something holding a sword I find that their CMD is at least twenty points higher thane even my buffed CMB.

I don't know what I can do to make myself more effective at disarming. I use a whip (which has an inherent bonus to disarming), the "dueling" enchantment that boosts disarming, a feat to base my CMB on dex (my second highest attribute after charisma), and the entire disarming feat tree.

If I use a wand of true shot I will have at least a chance of succeeding, but two full rounds seems like a steep cost to simply hamper a foe. And that's assuming I don't get interrupted by needing to heal someone, or get stunned, or injured, or sneezed on...

Is there some vital part of a disarming focused build I have missed? Is there a house-rule to make disarming more reasonable?

Failing that, for the future, or if I can retcon my feat choices, What is a good bard build that lets you feel like you participate in combat?

TLDR: I'm curious what types of true neutrals are out there. Here's my character, I'd like to hear about yours.

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So, a while back I made a character and have been playing a campaign with him. After I planned out his ideology I was kind of surprised to find that it seemed to fit best under the true neutral alignment. However, from what I've seen on forums like these it seems a rather atypical neutral.

Funny thing is, I didn't know how much the planes would figure into this game. When I told my DM about my character concept we had the following exchange:

"Have you been reading my campaign notes?"
"No... should I have?"
"No, just... Well this should be interesting."

While what follows may not reflect the exact rules-as-written nature of the planes, this is his take on it. In the campaign knowledge of the workings of the planes is generally not deep or widespread. By this point in the campaign the player characters probably know more about the planes than just about any mortal, but we're still learning things. Also, a few things have been changed. For example, instead of three of each there is only one "good" plane and one "evil" plane.

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My character, Pelekko, is campaigning for material plane independence. It ticks him off that other planes keep interfering to try and lure morals to their side of some pointless eternal war. Even sometimes using the material plane as their literal battleground.

So he basically rejects the alignments, seeing them as artificial. He believes that what you see when you cast "detect good" is how much essence of the celestial realm they have allowed into themselves. Upon death a person's soul is "taken" by the realm that has the most of their hooks in that person. It is unclear what happens to the true neutral, but he hopes he will reincarnate within the material plane. If not, he'll find some way to make that happen.

Before the campaign started he was a spy. However, he was basically playing both sides in an effort to prevent a war. Disrupting the war-machine of the enemy while also exaggerating their strength in reports back to his home country. He would rather the mortal nations save their strength to fend off the true threats.

One of the main conflicts in the campaign is that portals or "holes" are opening up which allow the demonic realms to enter the material plane. How would he like to deal with it? Rally the mortal nations for a counter-invasion until the demons decide it's a bad idea to keep those portals open.

He's got some big plans. But is it that much crazier than a hero who hopes to attain godhood?

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Pelekko- "We have spells that can return the recently dead to life do we not? Those spells are taking that soul one plane to another. Is it so unbelievable to think that these planes might be doing the same thing on a larger scale?"
Ally- "That would have to be a very large spell."
Pelekko- "You're right. To maintain something like that you'd probably need hundreds of 'morally' aligned ceremonial structures where acolytes meet once a week or so to chant and perform rituals."
Ally- "Right. And if someone were doing that I think we'd-"
Pelekko "-You're an idiot."

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Pelekko- "Well, here's your chance! Just ask these archons which one remembers being your grandfather."
Ally - "You know they don't remember being mortal."
Pelekko- "That's because they never were... A mortal's soul isn't their steel, it's the fuel in their forge."

Found the perfect spell for Damocles. "Touch of Idiocy" imposes a 1d6 penalty to all mental attributes. It's a touch attack with no save. And with the intelligent item ability to "Cast a 2nd-level spell 3/day" it should be quite capable of overcoming a will save. I could just give it more castings, but 3d6 wisdom damage followed by a hard will save seems punishing enough. I imagine that an unsuspecting victim will spend three rounds looking for an invisible attacker, probably clutching the sword even tighter, before Damocles attempts to dominate them. To make matters worse Damocles had itself cursed, so you can't even drop it unless it allows you to.

I do know about the sword's past, it just wasn't relevant to this thread. I'll go ahead and spill it though. It'll probably help me shape it.

The sword was created by a powerful wizard, named Damocles, as a conversation piece. He basically kept it around to say "I'm so cool I can make something like this!" He usually only took it down from the mantle to show it off at parties. He had created an intelligence purely because creating intelligences is hard, and never really appreciated that it was an individual.

So after years of hanging on the mantle over Damocles' favorite chair (not by a single hair, but it does have a horsehair tassel on its hilt) the sword was finally fed up and the next time the wizard took it down it asserted itself and basically made the wizard commit seppuku. The wizard had never bothered to give the sword a name, so it took his. It has been over a hundred years since then. Damocles has been getting itself involved in conflicts, and 'convincing' mages to enchant it with various beneficial spells. By the time of the campaign it's about as protected as a phylactery would be.

From what I've been able to interpret, every magic weapon, from lawful good to chaotic evil, loves being used in combat. Usually more than they want anything else. Damocles in particular has developed the special purpose of "defeat/slay all".

No longer satisfied with the occasional conflict Damocles' primary goal is to create Valhalla on earth. Which, by its interpretation, means plunging the land into endless war. To this end it has been manipulating politics.

In the end I don't want it to come across as a sociopath so much as a thing that has a fundamentally alien mindset.

"We've got to stop him!"
"Don't 'him' me! I am not one of your genders. I am an 'it', and expect to be referred to as such."
(Proof that Damocles does not speak Spanish)

"A sword is unique among weapons. Nearly all others have a 'day job'. An ax collects, a hammer shapes, a scythe harvests, even a spear or bow can hunt food for one's family. But not a sword. A sword exists only to kill those that think and feel. A sword's only job is murder."
(Damocles' villainous monologue)

I like the flesh golem idea. Maybe tie its creation into some astronomical event or such to explain why Damocles doesn't have all the time in the world to just retry collecting bodies when the players thwart his attempts.

I will probably tweak it to make it a hybrid rather than parts sewn together. Maybe throw in the lich template too, because I think I like the way that would look as a skeleton. Plus, rather than purely being a mindless construct I would like the creation to have a mind of its own, albeit a primitive one. That would allow for a twisted father/son dynamic between it and Damocles.

*spoiler* Damocles does not make a good dad.

Unfortunately the templates Dire and Beast Of Chaos only apply to animals. Opposeable thumbs are very important to Damocles' plan. Though I wouldn't put it past pathfinder to have an animal that can use a sword, anyone know of one?

A template, like Graveknight or Worm That Walks, that requires the owner to have lived a specific way is a bit beyond the scope of Damocles' project. He'd have to take a nearly finished product and then foster it to live a really specific life to give it the slim chance of gaining the template. Otherwise it's just dead.

I like the idea of wisdom damage though. Lamia would work. Though it might be better to cut out the middleman and give the sword the ability to cast a wisdom damaging spell. One that doesn't resist with a will-save would be preferable, because if the will-save is the problem to begin with... I'll look into it, but if you know a good one let me know, I'm going to sleep now.

For added creepiness, consider that Damocles might address the logistics of a breeding program by shrouding it within a prosthletyzing fertility cult.

"I wouldn't say that I hate people. After all, we couldn't have wars without them. So for every humanoid I kill I always make sure to plant five more. It's really helped to improve moral among the men... What? No I don't really care how they do it... Because your biology disgusts me."

Long and short of it is that an Evil intelligent sword named Damocles is the primary antagonist of my campaign. One of his objectives at the moment is to create the perfect humanoid to wield him.

He's basically doing this by selectively breeding various species. I will likely just fudge it and say he's using a magical process to combine species because a forced breeding program can get pretty creepy if you think about the logistics of it all.

Damocles has no respect for organic life. He sees a strong wielder like a fighter would see a +3 sword. Useful, but discarded immediately when a +4 sword comes along. His ideal wielder would have high physical stats and low mental ones, particularly wisdom. Thus being someone he could dominate consistently.

So, I'm looking for advice on what he might create for this purpose.

Are half-fiend and half-celestial mutually exclusive? They are socially incompatible sure, but the circumstances would be mind control levels of coercion.

I've ruled out vampire because they have too many restrictions on behavior. However, if there's some way to make him a lich that would be excellent. Damocles would love to have a wielder who will never bother him with things like eating or sleeping. Problem one, it looks like all liches are required to be self made. Second, so far as I can tell all undead are immune to mental effects like domination. Does that include vampires and liches? I was under the impression that was because of the "mindless" quality of zombies and such. Are fully conscious undead like vampires and liches also immune?

half-dragon is practically a given. Will probably choose type based on whatever immunity doesn't overlap with immunities granted by other templates.

In a system like cannon pathfinder, where characters theoretically advance through training and study, it doesn't make sense for them not to be able to plan in advance.

You tell a guy he's got a martial combat based character he might start playing them as a bruiser. Then, surprise! All of his new abilities are things like finesse, mobility, and improved disarm. Why would he have trained in those?

However, if you put a different spin on what a character classes means it might work. Like, say the party got his by a meteor and it gave them superpowers, but they don't know ahead of time what powers will manifest. You could even play against type for this, like the antisocial guy gets powers that summon allies and minions.

Yeah, the lack of neutral options seems a bit strange to me. Especially since I consider neutral to be about a third of the alignment spectrum.

Another thing that is sort of on topic... The only reference I've found to how a soul is influenced by its time on the mortal plane is from demons, and they don't remember mortal life at all. Is this true for all the outsiders or just demons?

Honestly, its the "Judge them by how prime they are" that strikes me as the weirdest part. The residents of the material plane have their morality informed even if indirectly by those powers. The material plane doesn't have a standard of its own.

That's pretty much exactly his point. He thinks it's time for the material plane to stop defining itself by other's ideals and develop their own standard. It's... unlikely that this will happen.

At the very least he would like to make the material plane enough of a presence in politics that outsiders actually care about it. I figure it might work by creating the alignment of "Prime vrs Planar". For instance, a Lawful Prime Good outsider is very concerned about what happens on the prime material plane and would actually bother to show up to help with significant events. A Chaotic Planar Evil outsider wouldn't bother with the mortal world and would focus on the outer realms.

As it stands now it seems most Good outsiders are Planar. How often do you hear about angels actually coming to the mortal world without being summoned/petitioned/bribed?

Again, he's not out to destroy Good or Evil. He would use Soul Gems to deal with persistent threats. Using it for self defense, not to start a campaign of destruction. Without a means of permanently dealing with outsiders what are his options if an angel or demon decides they want to kill him and they're willing to try more than once? Bend over?

He is not trying to "break the natural cycle". He is not trying to make Good and Evil cease to exist. He does believe that angels and demons are not the mortals that they used to be. As such, he would not feel as bad about destroying one. That does not me he intends to start a campaign of genocide. He is trying to get them to stop using the Prime Material plane as their whipping boy.

Okay, to emphasize once more.

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He is not out to destroy all the angels and demons.

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I do not get why people keep assuming this. In the very beginning of my first post I presented his ideal endgame. And it explicitly involves angels still being around.

His dream is that someday instead of residents of the prime material plane passing judgement on each other based on how "good" they are, angels will pass judgement on each other based on how "prime" they are.

Best I can figure is that people misinterpreted my intention in saying...

Even if he does this full time he wouldn't be able to permanently kill more than six or so extra-planar creatures a day. That's not going to make a dent in their numbers,

I did not mean that this was the only thing stopping him from committing genocide. I was pointing out that he knew it would be stupid to attempt genocide. Independent of whether or not he wanted to (which he doesn't), it just isn't a good idea in general.

Other than that, perhaps I was a bit too enthusiastic in my wording of his potential to deal with persistent outsiders.

So... let me try to state his goal one more time. For the record, I'll use the term "demon" to refer to Evil outsiders in general, and "angel" to refer to Good outsiders in general.

He's upset that demons think they can stomp about causing trouble any time they find an open portal, and for all their sermonizing the angels never seem to show up to do anything about it.

So he wants the demons to buzz off, and he doesn't want the angels to think that they can just step into the power vacuum. He might accomplish this by, for example, making it harder for angels and demons to gain physical access to the Prime Material plane. Like I mentioned at the end of my first post.

He would also like the Prime Material plane to have a voice in planar politics instead of just being at the mercy of everyone else.

Other people can have whatever alignments they want. Clerics, paladins, the whole deal. After all, it's not the gods he has a beef with. He certainly wouldn't mind a social trend towards neutrality, but he's not going to force it.

He doesn't turn his attention to Law and Chaos because they haven't really been making a nuisance of themselves. He would be willing to give them the same treatment if it's reasonably convenient, or they do start becoming a problem.

Just because people don't strongly represent their alingment doesn't mean they are neutral.

Were you good, even though your goodness was never tested? Then you go to your good plane.
I think the planes are filled with souls that weren't adventurers, and didn't have to prove their goodness in a struggle.
Your average farmer does have an alingment. If he is good, why must he be denied his place in the afterword?
Do you think the gods only concern themselves with only adventurers and the like that strongly take a place on the alingment chart?

I'm not saying you have to slay dragons to be "Good". But by your logic the neutral part of the alignment spectrum would have to be paper thin. The SRD says-

"People who are neutral with respect to good and evil have compunctions against killing the innocent, but may lack the commitment to make sacrifices to protect or help others."

So I think there's a good amount of wiggle room between Good and Evil. You do have to represent your alignment somewhat significantly to break out of "neutral" territory. So, before you accuse me of saying common people aren't good enough for heaven, bear in mind that I'm also saying that schoolyard bullies aren't bad enough for hell.

Granted that's neither here nor there. Even if there were only three neutral people in the world, I would still wonder where they ended up.

I'm mostly asking about the people who didn't so much choose to be neutral as they just aren't good or evil enough to be considered capital G Good or Capital E Evil. Like your average farmer whose town gets killed so a PC can have a tragic back-story. He's alright, but not enough to be Good, and he's probably more or less lawful.

I imagine "lawful neutral" is the most common alignment population wise. Seeing as how the other two neutral alignments tend to be pretty crazy.

I'm not so much asking about the "True Neutral" alignment, though that is useful to know.

As for setting, I'm mostly interested in how it works generally. Though the Golarion way might be useful to know as well.

In Pathfinder neither demons nor daemons existed until after mortal life began.

Hrm, that does change things a little. Though I think it is worth noting that evil souls would have remained as inert larva if it weren't for someone coming along and messing with them.

Now, what has been nagging at me is that this among many other things we've discussed here may not be common knowledge. I mean if being able to tell the planes apart is a DC 15 knowledge(planes) check (and the planes are NOT subtle) then the requirements of knowing their really intimate details has got to be ridiculous.

Plus the world he's in can't even remember the last time it had a resident over level 5. So nobody has known spells like Plane Shift or even Raise Dead in recorded history. They have however dealt with other planes' (particularly demons) incursions.

So while I, using a searchable SRD, can bring up all these facts, it is really hard to figure out what he, living in a pseudo medieval society, ought to know about all this.

So, as far as I understand the majority of the population would fall into the "neutral" alignment. Not evil, but not selfless enough to be considered "good" either.

So, good people become various celestials when they die, and bad people become various demonic thingies. The super lawful people become Axiomites, and I don't know if there's any chaotic afterlife. There are Proteans, but I don't think mortals can become those. There are also formians, but I haven't found anything saying if mortals become formians because they deserved to, or if they were just captured.

What happens to all of the people who are just kind of "meh"?

Somewhere along the way achieve immortality.

Phase Three: Create a demiplane large enough to encompass the planet. This may well drain the resources of the entire world, but if you assign it the Strongly Neutral Aligntment trait and the Dead Magic traits (or even just Dead Magic: Conjuration), you will have created a world that is unlikely to garner much attention and would be a one-way trip for a stubborn interloper. As a side effect of the alignment trait the inhabitants of your world will be largely numbed to the need for conflict.

I just have to say that I laughed out loud when I saw that "become immortal" doesn't even warrant its own step in this process, it's just an "oh by the way..."

Overall, it's an interesting proposition, but again it's a bit too extreme. This would severely cripple the mortal world in the process. He doesn't want to win by making the mortal world not worth bothering with. He wants the mortal world to be dominant over the rest of the planes, or at least be a major player rather than a constant victim.

When you kill an Outsider on the Prime Material Plane, its "soul" or whatever retreats back to its plane of origin. When you kill it on its home plane, the "soul" cannot retreat because it is already home.

Well yeah, but it's a big plane. Why can't they just retreat to a different part of it? Apparently it's somehow easier to cross planar boundaries than it is to go two blocks west.

Also I don't think your alignment is at stake when you direct your anger at both good and evil outsiders.

I think the key word here is "anger". I think the reason you do things is the most important part of alignment. If you kill a tyrannical king because you're angry at how he treats his subjects, then you are a good guy. If you kill a tyrannical king because you're angry that he copied your haircut, then you are a dangerously evil lunatic.

The nature of his beef with the alignments is that he sees Good and Evil as using the prime material plane as a recruiting ground, or at worst, as a cattle farm. Even if it turns out that this was the very reason the material plane was created, it's time for them to revolt. So his anger is not a 'hatred' so much as it is a revolutionary spirit.

Here's my take on it, the character is evil and insane. Pharasma's psychopomps ought to be showing up to take his soul any minute now... Along with everyone else. Heck, if I were a normal person, I'd volunteer to murder him, no hesitation. Reason?

I think you're a little confused.

1) He's trying to screw with the natural order of the universe.

So is any character who tries to become a god once they reach epic levels. You don't think having a new god in the pantheon would cause monumental and sweeping changes in the mortal realm?

2) Allying with the Qlippoth? Those guys got Sarenrae and Asmodeus to work together.

You're confusing him for someone else. That was the plan Ximen Bao suggested. The very plan that I said my character would not attempt because it was too extreme and dangerous.

3) You want to destroy good souls, permanently. Hard to get more evil than that. That he also wishes to destroy evil souls does not make him good. The alignment of what you fight doesn't determine your alignment. Your actions determine your alignment.

I'm afraid your logic is flawed. killing is evil... So by that logic all the angels are evil because they kill demons. If killing isn't evil... well then we've got a lot of people we need to let out of our prisons.

Logically, angels and demons would make raids into each other's realms. And since killing an angel or demon in its own realm destroys its soul, angels are also guilty of destroying the souls of demons.

And even if "killing" isn't necessarily evil I think we could all agree that "murder" is evil by definition.... I tried to dramatically deconstruct this juxtapose, but I couldn't think of anything better than just letting it speak for itself.

-- the character is evil and insane. -- if I were a normal person, I'd volunteer to murder him, no hesitation.

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The alignment of what you fight doesn't determine your alignment. Your actions determine your alignment.

My bad, a little research later and it turns out that it is true that a demon killed on their home plane will stay dead. Sorry I dismissed that.

I still say it makes no sense, but those are the rules. You were right Vod Canockers.

Also, a common consequence of being killed is getting demoted. So a demon does get weaker each time they 're-spawn'. Though it seems to be more of a "You have failed me and shall be punished" thing than a natural consequence. So for the sake of argument lets just say the demon in my example isn't getting demoted between deaths for whatever reason. Or at least the paladin would have to kill him like twenty times before he stopped being a threat to the civilians of the town.

I don't really see why destroying them on their home plane would permanently kill them. If anything I imagine it would make them regenerate faster.

Oh I have no doubt that destroying souls will make him unpopular. Especially among outsiders, who are used to being immortal. However I do contend with it being inherently evil. Allow me to explain with two simple scenarios.

Town is being menaced by evil wizard. Paladin shows up and says he will defend the town. Paladin beats wizard into unconsciousness, but refuses to let anyone kill or imprison him, and lets the wizard retreat to his stronghold. Wizard spends a few days recovering and then goes right back to killing townspeople before the paladin once again beats him into unconsciousness. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Verdict? The paladin is a moron. In fact, he'll probably be demoted to lawful neutral and lose his paladinhood because he is refusing to put an end to a clear and present danger to innocent lives.

Town is being menaced by a daemon. Paladin shows up and says he will defend the town. Paladin 'kills' daemon. Daemon recovers a few days later and goes right back to killing townspeople and devouring their souls. Paladin 'kills' it again. Lather, rinse, repeat. Paladin has a Talisman of Soul-Eating that he confiscated from an evil wizard, but refuses to use it.

Verdict? What else can he do? If the paladin kills the Daemon in such a way that it won't just be back later he will be shot straight to Lawful Evil and lose his paladinhood. In fact, he'll probably get in trouble for not destroying the Talisman of Soul-Eating the moment he found it, because it's so evil and all.

Same goes for imprisoning it. If stuck in a mundane prison, or most magical prisons, a Daemon would just kill itself and revive in its own realm. Any prisons that could hold it for an extended duration, or even reliably at all, are also inherently evil.

Well, maybe flesh to stone. That depends on if your DM defines outsiders as being "flesh". Hey, then you could grind the statue into powder and scatter it to the winds... Wait, how is consigning it to an eternity of non-life less evil than destroying its soul? It's a bit more reversible I guess, you could use a Wish or something to gather the powder. Then again, depending on how you interpret Stone to Flesh you might not actually need the whole body on hand to effect the whole body.

To clarify, why is my character so willing to fight against Ex-mortals in defense of mortals? Because he doesn't see a dead soul becoming an angel as 'moving on to the afterlife' he sees it like a person killed by a zombie becoming another zombie. After all, while the book doesn't say about angels, the typical process of becoming a demon expunges all memories of life. He would hope that his friends would "put him down" if he "became one of them".

Angels and Demons predate mortals, and even now the conversion of mortal souls is not the only way they can be created. So in his opinion angels and demons are taking mortal souls and using them to create new troops for their eternal war. He sees it kind of like using a soul to create an intelligent item.

"Scholars have long debated whether the intelligence in such an item is the soul used, or if the soul is destroyed and the intelligence is only patterned on it"

He believes the latter with regard to making an angel or demon out of a mortal soul.

Well, he's not out to destroy all of the other planes. He just wants them out of mortal's business. He doesn't know if destroying the elemental plane of water would make the oceans dry up or something.

Plus, I think the endgame of that plan is a little troubling. It kind of requires a carnage tidal wave made of pure chaos to stop on a dime. Plus, I don't know much about the great old ones, but they don't sound like people you want to mess with.

Fun fact: With the knowledge (planes) skill it is a DC 15 check to "Recognize current plane" Does anyone else think that's a bit high?

"Lets see... everything's on fire, the ground is made of solid fire, the sky is a swirling mass of fire. Sooooo... I'm thinking Demi-plane of acid?"

I'm doing a bit of a different take on Neutral alignment. He's not just somewhere between being Good and Evil, he outright despises Good and Evil equally. As he sees it, angels and demons are using mortals as pawns in their eternal war. He wants the prime material plane to stand up for itself. His dream is that someday instead of residents of the prime material plane passing judgement on each other based on how "good" they are, angels will pass judgement on each other based on how "prime" they are.

Anyway. I'm looking for suggestions on how he could go about doing this. Sure, he'll probably have no chance of actually pulling it off unless he gets to epic levels, and maybe not even then. Either way, it's a goal he's going to be working towards.

I don't know if this is specifically pathfinder cannon, but in our campaign extra-planar creatures like demons or angels will simply re-form in their home plane after they are killed. This bugs him to no end. (I would be interested in knowing if we are wrong about this, but it has already been established in our game's cannon, so it'll be sticking around.)

He plans to learn the spell "Create soul gem". It traps a soul, and if that soul is then used as a spell component or some-such the soul is destroyed utterly. Or as it says "Most methods of using souls extinguish them completely, consigning them to oblivion. In these cases, only the direct intervention of a deity can return them to life—and sometimes not even then, such as when the soul is specifically devoured by one of the Horsemen." Seems like if you need a thorough way to get rid of someone, that's as good as it gets. (this, along with the cash values of souls, is on the "Daemons" page if you want to check my work)

Even if he does this full time he wouldn't be able to permanently kill more than six or so extra-planar creatures a day. That's not going to make a dent in their numbers, but it would make a good tool to keep specific enemies from coming back. Though it raises the philosophical question of what happens if this pushes him into an Evil alignment. Trading in mortal souls is "undeniably evil and an affront to the natural order" but their may be some wiggle room in the manipulation of non-mortal souls. Though if that's better, or much worse, or any different at all, could probably be debated all day. I'll see what my DM has to say.

Lhaksharuts (No, my cat didn't walk across the keyboard, that's a class of the "Inevitables") have "separating the planes" at the very top of their to-do list. So if they can do it, it stands to reason that it is possible to cut the planes of good and evil off from the prime material plane. Or at the very least, put more restrictions on travel between them. Maybe reduce it to a couple of well guarded gateways. Of course that would be the kind of thing you can only even think about doing when you've got a kingdom under you.

So, any other suggestions you have for carrying out this hopeless war would be appreciated.

I agree with Knight Magenta about how to tell the 'levels' of fighters types. Though the system could get confused if for example a barbarian used a feat to get another rage power instead of their usual progression.

And as Billygoat points out, merchants sure seem to have a system of telling the difference.

Spellcasters would be able to tell their 'level' very easily. Namely, how long can you maintain a spell? "Floating disk" can be maintained for one hour per caster level. It would be blindingly obvious if one wizard could maintain a floating disk an hour longer than another (though in most cases they would probably stick with using something with a minute per level duration). And it would be very easy to make the connection between when you gain more powerful spells and when your spell durations get to a certain length.

"You wish to learn to create explosive ruins? Come to me when you can maintain a floating disk for five hours. You will not be ready before then."

Even if you say that the system is an abstraction and what's 'really' going on is that spell duration increases progressively it would still be obvious enough to serve as a milestone. A weightlifter doesn't spontaneously jump from lifting 100 lbs to lifting 150 lbs, but it would be ridiculous to say that a lifter who maxes at 150 doesn't know if he is stronger than the one who maxes at 100.

So whether a character is observing finite jumps, or significant milestones, it would be quite apparent that that there are twenty 'steps' between uninitiated and master. Or at very worst, one step for each spell level.

This is a little more difficult to apply to non spellcasting classes, but not by too much. Take the barbarian. It would be really obvious if someone has DR 1 or not. And the pattern that barbarians always develop DR 1 after some specific skills and before other specific skills would be easily spotted.

To top it off, there are many spells that cannot effect people above certain HD. "Sleep" cannot effect creatures above 4 HD. Wizards would notice that as soon as a caster can maintain a floating disk for five hours (or "close to five hours" if we're abstracting) they become immune to the sleep spell. Likewise, a barbarian who has mastered the art of fighting multiple opponents (improved uncanny dodge) is also immune to the sleep spell. So one could tell many of the levels simply by seeing when people become completely immune to different spells.

In short, even if you accept the finite increases as an abstraction, there are too many significant milestones in the world to justify people *not* knowing about levels. Sure, they probably wouldn't call them "levels", but they would have some word for it. I'd go with "teir" or something. Maybe each class would have a different term like "belts" or "seasons". However, once they realize that every lifestyle has 20 such tiers it stands to reason that they would have a name for the phenomenon.

One of my players has Manacles of Cooperation and is continually capturing foes with them. The will save to attempt escape is pretty low, but I don't know the DC to try and escape.

What's the standard difficulty to escape/lockpick/break manacles?

While I suppose a refresher isn't uncalled for I also wanted to make sure I didn't miss anything if my eyes glazed over while relearning what a base attack bonus is. I'll probably get to doing that soon enough.

In the meantime, thank you Carbon, that PDF seems to be exactly what I was looking for.

The forum thread looks useful, but long, very long. I'll get around to it ;)

I'm rather familiar with D&D 3.5, but would like to run a pathfinder game. I don't think that reading through the entire rule set is called for, but the system seems peppered with small but significant changes. Is there a list somewhere of these changes? I'm not talking about micro details like how tower sheilds are treated, but things that are important to character creation and such.