Reksew_Trebla's page

Hallow

It normally has a casting time 24 hours, so you can't normally use it in battle, but with Contingency, you can have it ready to instant cast (after spending the 24 hours to tie it to Contingency for each time you use it) and have the condition to activate it be some nonsensical word.

You said you follow Pharasma, so this works really well, because dead bodies can't rise as undead in the area of a Hallow spell.

EDIT: Oh, just saw this was necro'd. Gonna leave this here in case anyone wants to see it, and also add Unhallow, which is the evil version of Hallow.

You could just put a half-fiend and a vampire template on her.

Not even illegal since a half fiend is a native outsider still, and can iirc RAW be vampirified.

You could also, on top of that, use Azlanti as the base race, as Zurah is/was Azlanti rather then human.

Carefull, the DC of the spell like abilities is going to be pretty nuts.

Especially that of the unholy aura.

I'd rather not make the daughter a straight up Vampire. At least not at first. I kinda want her to show up and dip out a few times, while growing in power alongside the players. So she might become a full Vampire at a later time. I'm also considering making her a Mythic Vampire, but I'm not 100% sure I want to use Mythic right now, because then it becomes harder to guarantee her multiple appearances unless I save Mythic for the end.

It's not quite the same, but I kinda imagine her like Venger from the D&D cartoon, in terms of attacking a bit, deciding she doesn't have a winning situation, and leaving to try again later.

Amalgam Creature.

I'm thinking of using this to combine Dhampir and Tiefling, then sticking the Half-Fiend Template on the end result.

The reason: Daughter of Zura. She is the original Vampire, who as a Vampire became a Demon Lord. So since she is both a Demon Lord and Vampire, her child would be both a Half-Fiend and Dhampir. Except that is what they would be if she were a regular Demon and Vampire combo, but again, she isn't just a Demon, but a Demon Lord, so there should be more Demonic powers than just Half-Fiend. Which is where Amalgam of both Tiefling and Dhampir comes in.

Anyways, is there some easier way to do this that I'm not considering?

I'm also considering giving her a Superior Mythic Amulet of the Abyss (read below) (keyed to Zura,of course).

So basically, there are two ways I could see this, but first, I'll explain the shared way this works.

Basically, take what the Ability Modifier is for an Ability Score that is an odd number, and add 0.5 to the modifier. For example, a Strength Score of 13 is normally a Strength Modifier of 1, so under this change, it would be 1.5

Now onto the two ways this could be done.

1: Partial. You only round down AFTER calculating everything, and you recalculate everything whenever you gain a level like normal. For example, a Con Score of 15 would give 2.5 bonus hp per HD. Your first HD would give 2.5 bonus hp, rounded down to 2, then your second HD would give 3 hp, because 2.5+2.5=5, and you already got 2 points of that 5 from the first HD. Another example, with the Str Mod of 1.5 from the Str Score of 13, if you wield a one-handed weapon, you get +1.5 damage, which rounds down to 1, but if you wield that weapon with two hands, you get 1.5 times Str Mod, and 1.5*1.5 is 2.25, which would round down to 2 damage.

Another example, if the creature takes extra damage from that damage source (say, via vulnerability) you would calculate the extra damage to get the full damage BEFORE you round down.

2: Full. Simply remove the concept of rounding down altogether. Makes math a LITTLE bit more annoying, since now you are always dealing with stuff after the decimal point, but I mean, if you are playing Pathfinder 1e for fun, you probably don't mind the math.

Anyways, does anyone have experience with this? I don't know if I actually want to play like this, just sometimes I like to imagine a hybrid of real life with Pathfinder, like maybe applying a template to real world humans or something, and well, there is no reason in real life that math would just magically round down like that just cause something went past the decimal point, so it got me thinking about possibly actually playing like that in Pathfinder.

Taja the Barbarian wrote:

Oh, and this is an ARCHETYPE, not a 'kit'...

"Kit" is what the 2nd Edition alternative packages for core classes were called, and what these things put me in mind me of ever since they were introduced - also, I spend a lot of time on a totally-unrelated game wherein the term "Archetype" has a very important and quite different meaning, so I find it less confusing.

Kit has a very specific and quite different meaning in Pathfinder. So no, you are not being less confusing, you are being MORE confusing. Please don't be confusing on purpose.

Yeah, I was way up past my normal bedtime last night. I know I'm an adult, but it's still good to maintain a bedtime, though unfortunately I haven't been doing so very well since my mom died in October.

Anyways, I bring this up, because I'm pretty sure I don't want to do this. At least not using Lilo, because as this is Pathfinder, she could die. Stitch on the other hand can take care of himself, and it doesn't literally have to be Stitch, but just a generic monster based off of him.

That said, since he can take care of himself there is no need for the PCs to really help him out, unless he chooses to stay with the group, and I don't feel like playing a super Eidolon as a GMPC. I mean, I'm fine playing GMPCs sometimes, because I know how to let the others shine, it's just I usually do so by making them a support character, but Stitch is definitely not support material, but rather the main attraction.

So both Lilo and Stitch wouldn't work well in this case.

Maybe I could repurpose the super Eidolon as the pure evil Experiment 627, or as a Leroy clone that escaped galactic capture. Actually, both of those could be fun encounters, but that's a different topic altogether.

I actually had an idea for Stitch. The Bestiary 3 Unfettered Eidolon, who takes levels of Synthesist Summoner, representing him having mild shapeshifting (turning on and off his Fused Eidolon form/his normal state vs his "dog" disguise).

But Lilo is the problem child.

She successfully befriends Stitch and turns him from Chaotic Neutral leaning Chaotic Evil to Chaotic Good (so something like Charm Monster could be at play), has a deity bring Stitch back to life for her (Cleric, Breath of Life spell could be the answer, but also Raise Dead since his body was fully intact), is very strong on music (Bard). Actually she can probably Inspire Courage considering sometimes she has to rally Stitch's cousins to save the day when for whatever reason Stitch can't.

Heck, she even made successful deals with her enemies to save Stitch before, at the cost of surrendering Stitch's newly activated cousin, so something that makes her exceptional at Diplomacy.

Also, she is way better at survival (not talking about the skill but the actual English word) than she should be. She clearly has a luck bonus of some sort on AC and maybe Reflex saves.

But she is 6 or 7. That puts her in the Young (Ultimate Campaign option, not the template) age group at best. While I could promote her to early adulthood per the guidelines in those rules, that just feels wrong. I guess I could mix the two states. Keep her in the Young age group, but allow her to have PC levels, and put a maximum number of ranks in a single skill equal to half her level (minimum 1). Also give her 2 traits instead of the suggested 1, because she has enough trauma life experience to have 2 traits.

Actually, I may give her a Drawback too, because she does have her flaws, but I haven't even begun to look at traits yet, so I don't know what I'd pick for her.

Anyways, I've rambled on enough. I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for this. I'd take suggestions on Stitch too, but I'm really liking the idea of him being a double Eidolon.

I guess I could make Stitch a regular Eidolon, and have Lilo as a Summoner, which could work, but it just feels cheap. Like I didn't put enough effort into the build to actually make them. Stitch should be able to function independently from Lilo, which an Eidolon can't, so yeah. Plus I'm not sure off the top of my head if Summoner is a good spell list for Lilo's purposes. Because she should only have spells that could reasonably be explained away as "Disney Magic". Like how Snow White was loved by animals, which could be possible without magic, but the level they were friendly with her was still a little suspicious, and thus could be handled with certain spells that she just subconsciously casts on herself. Stuff like that. Because, yeah, Lilo could theoretically rally a group of unprepared monsters to fight a likely losing battle, but it is much more likely she did a Bardic Performance than simply used Diplomacy.

And there I go rambling again.

Interesting. Though I confess you got my hopes up. I thought you had a proposal ready for how those last two builds could work in a PC group.

Anyway, what's your win condition for this fight? Fighting a Kaiju could be fun for a bit, but with that much strength/rage/size/power stacking, head to head hit point whittling seems futile, or at least tedious/untenable. Are there ways for the party to split the fusion? Maybe get the forms to turn on one and other. Or, enter the Kaiju and diffuse the rage from inside.

Right now I'm just in the planning stages. Things like this are good for me to think about, because, yeah, a straight fight is not in the PCs favor.

I may wake up Mogaru (Golarion's version of Godzilla) for the fight, and have the PCs control Mogaru through his Susceptible to Song weakness, and strongly push this to happen if nobody takes ranks in Perform (Sing) by having all the Headbands of Intelligence give ranks in said skill. Of course, if nobody decides to use such a headband and nobody puts ranks in the skill naturally, I'd have to come up with a different solution, so I should still come up with a backup plan.

Or, maybe Mogaru could be the backup plan in case the battle goes poorly, as I haven't exactly playtested this monstronsity before.

Anyways, I like the entering the Kaiju and diffusing the rage source idea.

I also sort of was thinking about the Ragechemist side causing the Kaiju to take enough Intelligence/Dexterity penalties to go comatose, since every turn they get hit, they have to make a save or take stacking penalties to said Ability Scores.

I could even combine that with them entering the Kaiju to destroy the source of the rage, because the players would learn over the course of the adventure that simply killing the rage avatars causes them to be reborn sooner or later, and start the cycle of destruction all over again. They would need to weaken the Kaiju enough to enter it, at which point living dungeon time to get to the rage source.

If the players struggle a bit, I could give the Kaiju the Wound Thresholds optional ruleset, which gives various penalties when you reach certain levels of wounded (and them getting worse the more wounded you are), thus speeding up them weakening him.

How do they fare against my spider and bat swarm bleeding them dry?

Kidding :p

Yeah, that's fair.

Hulk, Hulk, and more Hulk.

Classes:
Alchemist (Ragechemist) 10/Master Chymist 10
(Unchained?) Barbarian (Beastkin Berserker + Wild Rager) 20
Shifter (Rageshaper) 20
Vigilante (Brute) 20

Race Options:
Half-Orc with Orc Atavism
Duergar with Blood Enmity and Daysighted, and if playing as the Brute Vigilante or Rageshaper Shifter, then also with Ironskinned
Orc with Dayrunner and Feral
Primitive Human (if an Alchemist's extracts count for overcoming the Frightened by Magic trait, then they should be the Alchemist)
Trox (if not playing as the Brute Vigilante, then with Tremorsense)

So, how does this look? I know there is a lot of potential for in-fighting from class features, but I think that adds to the charm of the Hulk concept. I'm uncertain if the Primitive Human would overcome their own magic fear if they can use extracts, since it specifically says being able to cast spells let's them do so, but extracts aren't really spells, they're extracts. I'm also unsure if you can take Core Barbarian archetypes with Unchained Barbarian, but I am seeing nothing that wouldn't work right if I did this combo, so that is what I am considering.

There is also a secret plot twist at the end. They all merge into one being that is a 4 way Gestalt. Capable of a three/four way stacking Rage (Rage Mutagen, Devastating Form functioning as Core Barbarian (Mighty) Rage, Unchained Barbarian's Rage, and Trox's Frenzy), stacking the size increases (to a max of Colossal with the Massive trait of the Kaiju subtype (adding 15 feet to Space and Reach for each increase above Colossal)), and otherwise being ridiculous.

EDIT: Oof. Forgot to mention this is for a boss fight, not as the players. I mean, I'd hope you'd pick up on that from the overpowered 4 way fusion that happens from this, but I still should confirm that yeah, this is a boss fight.

Doesn't have to be done at level 20, but earliest level is 9, because you need 8 levels of Alchemist to take your first level of Master Chymist.

EDIT 2: Figured I should explain why I'm bothering to stack the size increases to such a ridiculous degree in the fusion. The answer is Mangaverse Hulk. There was a manga of Marvel Comics, and they made things more Japanese fiction like, and in Hulk's case, they made him a Kaiju.

Yeah, likely those posts were from before Advanced Class Guide. The ruling came about in April 2015.

https://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1gw#v5748eaic9t91

The Ragechemist creates a rage mutagen... pretty sure that counts as "a form of rage".

Gotcha. Thanks for the quick answer.

Dumb question, I know, but I saw a lot of people on older posts talking about multiclassing Ragechemist with Barbarian, but nobody said anything about it not stacking the rages. I don't know when the official ruling that you can only be under one rage effect at a time came about, just that it was after both Unchained Barbarian and Skald existed, because people were stacking their ally's Raging Song with their own Unchained Rage, so maybe those posts were from before the official ruling, but I just wanted to make sure first, cause I am making the Hulk for fun right now, and want to know my options.

Okay, I see I'm being a bit silly about this. I just thought it'd be interesting to use the Monster Advancement rules to make a 0 racial HD race have racial HD.

Thank you all for the responses.

So this is of course as the GM, but I just wanted to see if there was anything that forbid this before I do it.

I know if you add class levels to a creature with racial HD, they get a +4, +4, +2, +2, +0, -2 assigned to their ability scores in a manner that best benefits their class levels, but would that still apply if they started with class levels and gained racial HD later?

Also, would the general rule about increasing in size for increasing racial HD by 50% or more apply, meaning even a single racial HD increases 0 racial HD races' size?

I'm probably overthinking this, but I thought it would be a fun experiment to advance by racial HD for 0 racial HD races.

I thought of another great one.

Mutant Creature, the one from Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Numeria, Land of Fallen Stars.

Unlike the later version from Bestiary 5, this version gives immunity to radiation, and has the following option for a mutation:

Radiation Affinity (Ex)
The mutant gains the advanced simple template when in areas of medium or stronger radiation.

So this template 10 times, put a +4 into Int for each template, and alternate the remaining +4 per template and both -2 per template between the 5 other ability scores so that there is no change for them.

Take the deformities Fragile and Spasms for each template, stacking the duration of their effects to 1 minute as a result, and take the mutation Radiation Affinity for each instance of the template, and then Celerity, Fast Healing, Mental Armor, Resistance (Acid, Cold, Electricity, Fire), Rugged, Sonar, and Telepathy for your remaining 10 mutations. If you had 4 or more HD before this, then take Increased Speed 10 times, to become the fastest human alive.

You can easily make a lot of money by being a boxer or something, then figure out a way to contaminate yourself with enough radiation to always be in medium or stronger radiation without effecting the rest of the world. Now that you have a +80 to your Int score, you will easily be able to invent anything you want, and learn any skill you want.

New rule, because I realized in a sort of poetic way, I am my own enemy

I don’t know if I even have “enemies” like that, but young is the strategic template to choose, as you would be inconvenienced, while your enemies would be vegetative.

I believe you misunderstood the title. I meant that both you and your enemies get the template 10 times. I used the word one to specify it has to be the same template, instead of being able to choose 10 different templates.

So it with the Young template, you would also be vegetative. Actually, I'm pretty sure the Young template has no text saying minimum Con of 1, so with a -40 to Con, you and your enemies would straight up die, unless a real world Kaiju comes into existence and becomes your enemy, because most Kaiju have a Con > 40 before the Youngx10 template, and a Str > 40 as well.

Anyways, if you don't want to die straight up, but want to take out your enemies, you could do the Degenerate template, which is a -4 to all ability scores (minimum 1).

Meaning you and most likely all your enemies have a full set of ability scores at 1 due to gaining a -40 (min 1) to all your ability scores.

Assume the multiple copies of the template stack where appropriate, in spite of them being the "same" source. So like typeless bonuses between the copies stack, but a natural armor bonus wouldn't, unless it specifically increases your natural armor bonus like the Advanced template.

Also, once someone gets the templates from being your enemy, they keep them forever even if they stop being your enemy. This way you won't have any infinite loops where having the template would make them no longer your enemy due to a mental change, but losing the template reverts them back and thus they are your enemy again.

And finally, even if they are your enemy, they have to be a valid recipient of the template (except for inherited templates, which will be able to be given as acquired templates to everyone involved) in order to receive the templates.

What template would you pick?

For me, I could see myself doing the Advanced template. Even though that is just a +40 to every ability score and a +20 increase to natural armor, that is more than enough to make me the smartest human alive, if not very close to the smartest human alive. The good I could do with such a massive increase to my intelligence would far outweigh any possible bad my enemies could do.

Plus, I have to imagine that this would let me live longer, because in real life, you don't die straight up from old age, but rather just get more and more frail, and thus more and more susceptible to death from natural causes, but with a +40 to my physical ability scores, it will be a long time before I actually become frail enough to succumb to death from natural causes.

However, I like the idea of the Half-Celestial template. That is only a +2 to 3 ability scores and a +4 to the other 3 from each instance of the template, but I can stick a +4 into intelligence with all 10 Half-Celestial templates, a +4 four times into each other ability score, and then those same other ability scores each get a +2 six times so the end result is Int +40, every other ability score +28.

The Smite Evil and Spell-Like Abilities that affect evil creatures might seem useless, since the template makes your alignment "any good", and I definitely have anything evil aligned as my enemy, until you remember that in order to get the template, you have to be a "living, corporeal creature with an Intelligence score of 4 or more," and there is nothing preventing someone with the templates from becoming evil at a later date, which means those with the templates can stop them from becoming super villains.

Anyways, again, what would you pick?

So I (re)learned about the spell Blurred Movement, so I thought I'd give an update to this idea. It is a level 1 spell, so in the power level I was thinking for changing Blur with the Alchemically Quickened template version of augmenting the Agile template.

So I think instead of the part about when moving more than 10 feet in a round you get the Blur spell for 1 round, it instead gives you the spell Blurred Movement with a permanent duration, and if it is ever removed, it can be reactivated as a swift action.

The swift action cost was based off of the Mental Armor Mutation of the Mutant template, which gives you Mage Armor while conscious, and if it is ever removed, you can restore it as a swift action. I figured this was a similar situation, so might as well make that the action cost.

Anyways, I just thought I'd keep you all updated on this.

So an idea I had for a template is "True Crossblooded". Basically, instead of the drawbacks of the crossblooded archetype, and only choosing from one bloodline or the other, you get everything from both bloodlines at the same time, at the appropriate amount for the amount of levels you have in sorcerer and/or bloodrager.

As for alternate capstones, I'm guessing for bloodrager their capstone is mighty bloodrage, so there is no issue there, but for sorcerers, their capstone is their 20th level bloodline power. This means they would have two capstones. I'm guessing since this is a template, one of the bloodlines is from the sorcerer class, and the other is from the template, so that means they can only replace the capstone from the actual class, and this would solve the issue there, but I'm not sure if this is the most appropriate way to do this.

I'm guessing you shouldn't be allowed to take wildblooded bloodlines from the template, but then, there really is no reason not to allow that if you really want to. I guess for argument's sake, you can't take a wildblooded bloodline at the same time as its base bloodline, nor can you take two wildblooded bloodlines that both have the same base bloodline, if you allow the template to take wildblooded bloodlines too that is. You probably shouldn't be allowed to take the crossblooded archetype, but then, there again is no reason not to allow it. Probably the best way to handle this would be to say only the bloodline from the actual class would be considered for the purposes of archetypes.

Anyways, I'm unsure how much of a CR increase this template should be, including whether or not it should be a different CR increase depending on how many levels of sorcerer and/or bloodrager you have and/or whether you are a sorcerer, bloodrager, or both.

Any advice would be appreciated.

So say a medium character is subjected to a huge sized creature's swallow whole ability. Now the huge creature itself gets subjected to a colossal sized creature's swallow whole ability. What happens to the medium character? Do they suffer both swallow whole damage, or just the huge creature's swallow whole?

This is just curiosity right now, as I doubt this will ever happen in one of my games, but I honestly don't know if the rules cover this.

Thank you all for the words of wisdom. I'm going to go ahead and do this though. I'll keep in mind how strong this ends up being, so I don't make it too strong.

This is indeed not for the players, but I wouldn't be completely opposed to them playing one at a higher level (treating them as being one level higher than they actually are, so having the xp and wealth of +1 level).

I'm going to look through the options now to see what I can make. Wish me luck on this. Thank you all again.

So the Race Builder has two special subtypes: Half-Construct and Half-Undead, which can be added to any of the type options except Construct and Undead. Now Half-Construct and Half-Undead are not the Construct nor Undead types. Like I said already, they are SUBtypes. The section on them also says if you add them to the Humanoid type, you need to choose another subtype to pair with them. Could you add both of them as your two (and only two) Humanoid subtypes?

This would be the closest I could get to a Half-Construct, Half-Undead creature. I'm not 100% certain on what kind of Construct/Undead they would be, but the idea is that this could be used to make something like Cyborg Zombies, which is cool, so I want to do it.

I guess as the GM I could just say it works, since I'm not seeing anything that says it doesn't, but it feels like I'm breaking the spirit of the rules, which might mean there would be a balance issue I'd have to account for.

So the Mythic Simple Templates all give 2 total Mythic Ranks at 11 or more HD, except for Agile. I wanted to fix this, and I have two solutions, one of them probably a bit better than the other one.

So every 2 Mythic Ranks is worth +1 CR, so 1 Mythic Rank is thus worth +1/2 CR, which rounds up to +1 CR until you get another Mythic Rank, and is actually +1 CR. I bring this up, because it means if I can easily halve a +1 CR template, then I can just add that into the Agile template at 11 or more HD, and add a second Mythic Rank then.

So there are two such templates that are generic enough to possibly fit with this:

The Advanced template. Half of it would be +2 to all Ability Scores (no restriction on Intelligence though since it is a Mythic Simple Template) and +1 increase to Natural Armor.

And the Alchemically Quickened template. It is a first party template, but not on aon as far as I can tell. Half of it would be base speed increases by 5 ft (retroactively apply this before the +30 ft increase to all movement types (so if the base creature's base speed is less than 30 ft, it'll technically increase by 10 ft total), and each round in which the creature moves more than 10 ft, it gains the effects of a blur spell until it's first turn next round, except the blur spell only gives a 10% miss chance, and is treated as a level 1 spell. I already included some changes in the text to accomodate it being added to the Agile template.

So obviously, in keeping with the speed theme of the Agile template, the second option should be better, but I wanted everyone's opinions on all of this. Thank you for any words of wisdom you can give for this.

Update.

I'm now thinking between the following:

Option 1: Samurai (Yojimbo) X//Witch (Witch-Watcher) X-4/Fighter (High Guardian) 4, with Order of the Guard, and taking Unconquerable Resolve as much as possible. I'll spend at least one feat on either Combat Reflexes or Stand Still (High Guardian gives CR as a bonus feat, or SS as a bonus feat if I already have CR).

Option 2: Cavalier (Honor Guard) X//Fighter (High Guardian) X-10/Ulfen Guard 10, with Order of the Guard, and taking Stand Still.

Option 3: Samurai (Yojimbo) X//Ranger (Witchguard) X, with a similar plan to the first option, except I'll have to spend another feat to get both Combat Reflexes and Stand Still.

Anyone have any advice on which option I should take? There are probably other combinations of these 5 classes that could be good in a Gestalt, so if I missed an obvious one, please let me know.

There's the Sentinel from Spheres of Might. It's a real tank.

Thank you for the suggestion, but the GM isn't using Spheres. I also don't know the first thing about it, so I doubt I could convince them to incorporate it.

High guardian fighter, Guiding blade swashbuckler, Sixth wing bulwark warpriest, Honor guard cavalier, Ulfen guard PrC, sacred sentinel PrC, and I suppose sensei monk could be used. Warpriest blessings, cleric domains, and cavalier/samurai orders have several good options for team support.

Skalds, barbarians, fighters, monks, and brawlers all have general abilities that can make a good gestalt. Heavier armor and shields, or have some good combat maneuvers like grapple or trip that hurt their ability to attack allies.

I like a lot of this. I don't think I want to lock in worship of either Ragathiel or Torag though, and I'm also unsure about being of Ulfen descent, Sixth Wing Bulwark Warpriest, Sacred Sentinel, and maybe Ulfen Guard are probably not going to be used.

-----

I'm thinking of either using Yojimbo Samurai or Honor Guard Cavalier, along with Witch-Watcher Witch for occasional support with spells. I'm leaning towards Yojimbo, so I can take Unconquerable Resolve several times, and with the ability to use my Resolve on my ward, I can stay afloat much longer. With Witch-Watcher, I can give temporary hit points to my ward as well, so we'll both stay up longer.

I was wondering if there were any other bodyguard themed classes/archetypes out there. I'm going to play in a gestalt game, and want to double down on the theme, and maybe even multiclass between them a bit if there is any synergy.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

So I was reading the description for Krampus, and realized him being evil is actually not his own fault. The portal that summoned him from the First World was corrupted by the hateful emotions and bitter resentment of the villagers he was originally spawned to help during the harsh winter months. They had one too many bad winters, and Krampus's soul was stained because of this.

So I was thinking about what it might take to redeem him. Obviously powerful, maybe even deity level or deity-like level magic could do the trick, so unless you believe that is the only way, let's try to think of something else to redeem poor Krampus.

My take is a Mythic character who can't be (permanently) killed by Krampus could forcibly befriend Krampus. They might have to help him out a little, but as long as they play their cards right, and keep at it, Krampus will get something akin to Stockholm Syndrome, and see them as his friend. At which point they can start to help him.

Of course, you don't need to go all the way to Mythic for this, it's just that would be the easiest way to guarantee it would happen through a battle of attrition.

Anyways, what do you think?

So as the title says, I'm thinking of looking through the Prestige Classes and seeing if any of them would work nicely with monsters, without adding any normal class levels first.

This works because a lot of the Prestige Classes only have something like a minimum skill rank requirement to take the class, and due to having Racial HD, monsters can sometimes meet these prerequisites without taking regular class levels first.

However, I wanted to hear stories of this first, to see if maybe others have already done this, and how it went for them.

Spring heeled jack from bestiary 4

I like this. It's being added to the list. Thank you.

get Combat Manager, open the moster tab, sort by CR, enjoy

I would, but I only have my phone (and my Playstation 4 if I get brave enough) to access the internet, and it doesn't seem to want to download it. Thank you anyways. I'll try sorting that way over on aonprd.com and (for 3rd party monsters) d20pfsrd.com.

Sanguine Ooze Swarm

Creatures will likely never escape.

Beheaded
Suped-up severed head which can have multiple abilities.

Nilbog (3pp)
With higher max hit points, it can gain more temp hit points.

I like these. The Nilbog though seems a bit iffy. I don't know if I can trust my players to figure out its only weakness, you know. Either way, thank you for the suggestions. I really like the Beheaded idea. So yeah, thanks.

So I know what someone considers to be interesting is subjective, but I still want ideas. I found a 3.5 template (Paragon Creature) that adds +18 to CR up to 6 HD, +15 to CR at 7 HD to 15 HD, and +12 to CR at 16+ HD, and I wanted to find some interesting weaker monsters or NPCs to add this to.

I already have Inevitable, Novenarut as an option, since they are cool samurai like Outsiders, but any other options you could give me would be much appreciated.

So Regeneration 0 (lethal damage) would get turned off any time they take normal damage, but not non lethal damage, thus won't keep them immortal. It also doesn't actually heal them, since its value is 0. But it makes it where they can take an infinite amount of non lethal damage without it converting to lethal, and makes it where they can regrow lost body parts.

DR 0/epic similarly does not actually reduce damage, but due to how DR/epic works, allows them to count as an epic source for their natural weapons, thus overcoming DR/epic themself.

Is there anything else like this that I can bundle with these for a template?

So an idea I had, that I will likely never get around to, is that mortals (nearly anything that has a stat block) have a -12 penalty to each ability score, and a further -8 penalty to attack rolls, saves, ability checks, and skill checks. Furthermore, they age 1 year every day that passes.

However, despite this, not a single stat block will be changed, and maximum lifespans do not change either. This is because the canon version of creatures will retroactively become the already cursed versions.

The idea is that some entity, maybe a deity, but also maybe some specific creature (I'm imagining combining dragons with age categories in a manner similar to gestalting classes, but with dragons instead of classes, but that is a lot of work on the GM's part), has done this to enhance themselves, which the players will have to defeat.

Bonus points if at some point, the PCs can break the curse on themselves, especially if done right before the final battle, thus essentially giving them a +12 to each ability score, and a +8 bonus to attack rolls, saves, ability checks, and skill checks, and vastly increasing their maximum lifespan in the event the enemy can forcefully age their enemies with a special attack or special ability.

If you are wondering why those specific numbers for the curses, I just took Greater Bestow Curse's -12 to an ability score, applied it to each ability score, then took the same spell's -8 penalty to attack rolls, saves, ability checks, and skill checks, and finally, applied the Curse of the Ages, which coincidentally can also be applied with Greater Bestow Curse. If you want to, you can instead make it regular Bestow Curse's -6 penalty to ability scores and -4 penalty to attack rolls, saves, ability checks, and skill checks.

Anyways, as I said, I will likely never get around to doing this, but wanted to share it with all of you in case you could make use of it.

Here's Abserd a character in DnD 5e that multiclassed every level in a game that started at 14th level. Don't know if he counts, but when I eventually buy Baldur's Gate 3, I'm going to play him in it. Apparently there is even an achievement for doing so, so that'll be fun to get.

I second the thank you.

I don't know if it counts, but the Technology Artifact Powered Armor states there are rumors of other versions of it existing, including versions that are pretty much mechas. While it wouldn't be a monster, there are similar things in magic items that function somewhat like a creature that you pilot, including having statistics, so I would have loved that for the Powered Armor.

A "psychic creature" template would have been cool.

It's third party, but here you go. It's got multiple versions of being psychic too.

Irii, Agile Template, Temporal Accelerator

So 3 turns, each with double the actions, per round. Have fun with this.

Thank you all for the input. I'm putting this on the list of things I'm going to try in a later game I run.

Again, thank you all for the input. I thought I was being dumb, cause a lot of my ideas end up being such, so I'm glad to see that wasn't the case this time.

It's not really to make things easier or harder, I just like creating things, but simply crafting encounters doesn't always scratch that itch, you know, and while I could just change their original feats (assuming they are generic enemies and not a specific character), the feats given already are often pretty reasonable choices, so I don't actually end up changing them that often.

In theory, this should make the game harder for the PCs, since monsters usually have HD>CR (once you get high enough CR), whereas PCs are essentially HD=Level=CR, so the monsters would get more feats out of this, but let's be real, not even expert players, just players familiar enough with the game, can easily break the game in the right circumstances, so this would let them make stronger PCs without having to worry about making things completely unfair for the GM. Hell, with the level of extra customization, I could see a Fighter getting really capable, despite usually being seen as the weak link of martials.

Anyways, has anyone done this before?

Reksew_Trebla wrote:

Oli Ironbar wrote:

If it’s X-Men like, regular humans.

I meant other than humans, because the Hatred racial trait has you choose two different subtypes of humanoid or outsider (or one type that is not humanoid or outsider).

Mysterious Stranger wrote:

The whole idea behind the mutant prejudice is the idea that mutants will replace humans. It is basically an analogy for racism in society. That being the case a second subtype does not make sense.

Yeah, I get that. I was just trying to find someway to not screw the evil superhumans out of some of the value of their alternate racial trait.

Maybe I could make it where they only get one subtype of humanoid, but still keep a +2 dodge bonus against humans (so half of Defensive Training, Lesser, and half of Hatred)? I guess I'm now back into homebrew territory, which is unfortunate.

Unless... Maybe I could say a different subtype of humanoid (or outsider) created them, and thus they blame their misfortune on that race, thus hating them too? It actually works with the backstory of mutants from Marvel, as... well I don't remember the full details, so I might get somethings wrong, but I vaguely remember mutants (and inhumans) being the result of someone from ancient times tampering with ancient humans' dna, causing such superpowers to (eventually) emerge. Of course, normal people don't know this in Marvel, but if it was just an ordinary(ish) race doing this here, the Superhumans might know.

My first thought was Drow, but they just have the elf subtype, and regular elves would not earn their hatred, so that doesn't really work. Hmm. Anyways, if you have any suggestions, please let me know.

Half-Elf seems a possibility or Tieflings who hate them for being able to hide their differences?

I think I'm going with human (of course) and native (as in native outsiders). It could work well. A lot of the native outsider races are part human, yet the majority of them are accepted by society, so that could earn the hate of the evil superhumans.

I think I'll also use the idea of half and half (half Defensive Training, Lesser, half Hatred) to represent neutral (good/evil axis) superhumans.

Anyways, thanks for the help everyone.

If it’s X-Men like, regular humans.

I meant other than humans, because the Hatred racial trait has you choose two different subtypes of humanoid or outsider (or one type that is not humanoid or outsider).

The whole idea behind the mutant prejudice is the idea that mutants will replace humans. It is basically an analogy for racism in society. That being the case a second subtype does not make sense.

Yeah, I get that. I was just trying to find someway to not screw the evil superhumans out of some of the value of their alternate racial trait.

Maybe I could make it where they only get one subtype of humanoid, but still keep a +2 dodge bonus against humans (so half of Defensive Training, Lesser, and half of Hatred)? I guess I'm now back into homebrew territory, which is unfortunate.

Unless... Maybe I could say a different subtype of humanoid (or outsider) created them, and thus they blame their misfortune on that race, thus hating them too? It actually works with the backstory of mutants from Marvel, as... well I don't remember the full details, so I might get somethings wrong, but I vaguely remember mutants (and inhumans) being the result of someone from ancient times tampering with ancient humans' dna, causing such superpowers to (eventually) emerge. Of course, normal people don't know this in Marvel, but if it was just an ordinary(ish) race doing this here, the Superhumans might know.

My first thought was Drow, but they just have the elf subtype, and regular elves would not earn their hatred, so that doesn't really work. Hmm. Anyways, if you have any suggestions, please let me know.

So I'm making a Superhuman race with the race builder. I kind of envision X-Men and The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, in terms of lore of the race, not powers, and so I have Defensive Training, Lesser (Human) as a default option, which is 1 RP, and it can be traded for Hatred (which is also 1 RP), for the group of Superhumans that do more than just try to survive, by actually taking the fight to those that discriminate against them.

Hatred, however, says to pick two subtypes of humanoid or outsider, so I'm having an issue on what to make the second race.

I would make it Superhuman, but I'm giving Superhumans the human subtype, so they can take human only options like the feat Racial Heritage, so even if I give them superhuman as a second subtype, it wouldn't matter, as the bonus isn't going to stack with itself.

Which brings me to the title of the post. Which races, if any, would have a problem with Superhumans?

Alright. I guess this is a little too much for the game. I just liked the idea of it, and wanted some way to represent it. Thanks for the feedback everyone.

Hi, I couldn't seem to find any rules for how old you have to be to reach each age category for races you make with the Race Builder, so I decided that meant I get to choose. I'm currently making a Superhuman race, which is similar to what the Drow Noble is to the Drow, but towards humans instead, and I wanted them to have as high of a lifespan as possible. It may seem a little Mary Sue-ish, but I didn't want them to die of old age. Part of the race's backstory is the trope of humans fearing superhumans, so I wanted to have obvious tells for who is born a superhuman, without forcing them to look different, which is where I came up with not dying of old age.

But that is obviously a really good thing. You can't use any ability or spell or whatever to force them to age to the next age category, because there is no next age category for them. Just child and adult.

So here is the solution I came up with:

Anyways, let me know if this is balanced. I know it is a big price, but remember, they are effectively immortal so long as they don't die to violence, had at least an 11 in all physical scores (before penalties from aging), and don't take too much Str, Dex, and/or Con damage/drain.

So NPC wealth to PC wealth is +1 CR. Gaining another level (for a 0 racial HD race) is +1 CR. So trading PC wealth for NPC wealth to get an additional level, assuming the campaign wasn't normally going to go to level 20, should just straight up be a fair trade.

Unfortunately, this would put extra work on the GM. They have to adjust treasure, which is designed to be valued enough to support PC wealth, to instead only give the PCs NPC wealth. This can make it much harder to use NPCs, since you can easily blow through multiple levels of gear in a few battles against challenging NPCs.

Anyways, I was thinking of doing this for fun, but I wanted to know if anyone has experience with this, so I could avoid making as many mistakes.

The Race Point system is a guideline for GM's making a first pass on creating a custom race. It is not particularly accurate, and it is very easy to create races that are significantly stronger or significantly weaker than their RP would suggest. You really can't use it as a hard rule, and every race needs to be analyzed on a case-by-case basis.

The Wyrwood is a good example of why you can't rely on the RP system to balance a race. It's "only" RP 20, which is probably why it got published without a CR adjustment, but it achieves this by using a single trait that costs 20 RP. This trait was not intended for CR+0 races, and is blatantly unreasonable in this context. Let's actually break down what the construct trait does: immunity to mind-affecting spells, bleed, disease, death effects, necromancy effects, paralysis, poison, sleep, stun, ablitity damage, ability drain, fatigue, exhaustion, energy drain, non-lethal damage, anything that requires a fortitude save (that doesn't affect objects), don't need to eat/breath/sleep, and 20 bonus hit points. That is very obviously too much for a race without level adjustment. The Wyrwood is a great example why you can't blindly rely on RP, as it can obscure that the suite of traits really isn't appropriate for a CR+0 race.

The Svirfneblin is a good example of the opposite. It's 24 RP, and rightly so because it does have some really nice abilities. +2 to saves and AC along with 11+level SR are some really good defensive bonuses, but its ability score bonuses are underwhelming and its other features have no real synergy. We can see why it has its CR+1 adjustment, but it's not really offering enough to make it worth that CR+1 enhancement. Defensive bonuses are nice to have, but in terms of its active abilities it's actually severely undertuned. It has too many strong features for a CR+0 race, but it doesn't have the power of a CR+1 race. This puts it in a bit of a no-man's, where it's just a little too strong for CR+0,...

Actually, Wyrwoods are Small size. They only get 10 bonus hit points. Sure, at level 1, that is equivalent to a Con score of 30, but at level 5, that is the equivalent of a Con score of only 14. At level 10, that is equivalent to a Con score of only 12.

But there is 1 major problem with this: They are dead (destroyed) at 0 hp, due to not having a Con score. So in actuality, those bonus hit points are not an equivalent of a Con score of 30 at level 1, because someone with such a Con score can take 30 extra points of damage before anymore damage kills them (0 hp down to -29 hp while still being alive).

So in actuality, that 10 bonus hit points is closer to non existent, since they don't have the ability to (potentially) survive into the negatives. And it never increases with level like bonus hp from a Con score would.

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EDIT: If anyone is still here, I think I figured it out. RP 21-40 is more like CR +0.5, which almost always rounds up, so following the pattern, RP 1-20=normal CR, RP 21-40=CR +0.5 round up to +1, RP 41-60=CR +1, RP 61-80=CR +1.5 round up to +2, RP 81-100=CR +2, and so on.

So I'm looking, and a Wyrwood, which is RP 20, is CR 1/2 for 1 level (rogue) and NPC wealth. Which is the same for a human. But a Svirfneblin is CR=level for NPC wealth and PC class levels. They are RP 24. Okay, so it seems that RP 1-20 is normal CR, RP 21-40 would thus be CR +1, RP 41-60 would be CR +2, and so on.

But then, Drow Nobles, which are RP 41, which according to the pattern, is CR +2, is only CR +1, not +2.

Unfortunately, there are no RP 21-23 races, so I don't know when the turning point is for CR +1, so I'm now left with RP 1 up to 21, 22, or 23 is normal CR, RP as low as 22, 23, or 24 and up to 42, 44, or 46 is CR +1, RP as low as 43, 45, or 47 and up to 63, 66, 69 is CR +2, and so on.

I'm just trying to figure something out so I can make a high CR monster that has no racial HD, because I think it would be fun to build. Any advice on this would be appreciated.

The Unfettered Eidolon has specific rules for how to advance it. It has an amount of HD at each CR equal to the amount in this chart. Would this still be true if you changed its creature type to, say, Fey, and used the HD per CR for Fey on that chart instead of Outsider?

I'm not going to change it to any creature type that doesn't make sense though, like Animal, but I think this could be interesting to use to make new creatures.

What do you all think?

Something like maxing out HP is probably ok, but giving all creatures a specific feat or item is usually not.

To add to this, sometimes this isn't true, if there is an in universe reason for it. All Red Mantis Assassins specialize in Sawtooth Sabres, and there is a relatively limited amount of unique options just for that weapon, so if you want to show that this particular group of RMA extra specializes in their weapons, you're options are kinda limited.

But yes, you shouldn't be giving every little thing specialization in the exact same thing if it doesn't actually make sense in universe for them to have it.

I have to disagree with Khan. At least their first point. You should use exact experience, divided equally between all participants. That means more players will be stronger at the start, since they were going to be level 1 anyways, but they'll keep leveling up slower and slower because the xp is being divided between more characters, causing them to round off as about equal in power to what they would have been if they had only been 4 players.

What's more, is that the treasure is now divided between 6 PCs instead of only 4, making them INDIVIDUALLY underleveled and undergeared once you get to the point of the final dungeon of book 4 of an AP.

That is, if you run it as is.

You should never run any pre-existing module exactly as is though, since that makes backstories for the PCs next to useless, due to never being a part of the module.

The simplest one I make is changing the size category of a creature. No, I don't mean adding the Giant/Young Template, nor the Monster Advancement rules for increasing size. I literally just said: You know what, I think that real world animal is the wrong size category. Let me fix that.

The most complex change would probably be that time I made Mogaru a Guardian Spirit. For the record though, I told my players I was gonna do it, so they knew what they were getting into.

Well, there also was the time I made Mogaru (I know, I have a problem) an Imperial Foo Creature. I didn't get to use him, since he is good aligned thanks to Foo Creature, and I rarely ever get to run evil campaigns (so running one that lasts till epic level is pretty much impossible for me), but man, he would have been so awesome.