Revan's page

Trying to figure out the right placement for Trinia being named the prime suspect in the king's murder. I think Andaisin's involved in scapegoating her--both for the obvious benefit of having someone to pin it on, and with an eye towards inflaming anti-Varisian sentiment as a means of acquiring subjects for infection and reanimation. So she'd need to make that announcement before the PCs expose her Urgathoan ties and get her removed from power--indeed, trying to clear Trinia's name might be what prompts that investigation. But I probably don't want it to come up *too* early, and was definitely thinking of dangling the selection of a new seneschal as a background detail early on that the PCs might bite onto, so I've got to balance that all out.

Also, random idea from re-reading the Guide to Korvosa--it mentions a secret guild of ironworkers planning a riot/general strike at the next opportunity, so it seems pretty clear that they would definitely start causing problems when the other riots kick off. Possible ways to incorporate them might be that Gaedran Lamm purchased under-the-table shipments of weapons from them, arming his growing gang and giving the 'Ironsoots' capital to support their strike; and/or that one or both of the Arkonas manipulate the events of the strike to make the candidate they're backing for Seneschal look good. The PCs might also end up exposing corruption on the part of the guard captain leading the standoff with the Ironsoots as part of building their reputation.

I'll definitely be borrowing your idea of making Vorel's Phage/Blood Veil as a full-on zombie apocalypse. Provides the extra action and heightened, pulpy drama of a superhero event comic, and emphasizes Andaisin's spite and cruelty, wanting the entire city to die in terror as vengeance for being denied political power within it. (Political power she would *definitely* have used to experiment on the poor, but she doesn't see why that would be relevant to the conversation about how wronged she was.)

Killing off their Commissioner Gordon figure is spicy, and I like it. Frees up Endrin to become seneschal in Book One when Andaisin's Urgathoan colors are first revealed, and then get ganked during Book Two to open the way for Togomor. (If the plague/zombies don't get him, maybe she hires the Red Mantis to do it as a way to bring them onto the scene.) Of course, if Glorio was planning to get control of the seneschal position, that role could go to one of his cronies...or Marcus could be compromised by the Arkonas.

The Grey Maidens would not be directly aiding the false Physicians, except to the extent that they genuinely believe that the Physicians are actually working on curing the plague. But they will be overzealous and ruthless enforcers, exposed to Kazavon's influence through Sabina. Perhaps it's suborned members of the guard who join the physicians in the fight in the Hospice of the Blessed Maiden, providing Ileosa a pretext to shut down the guard.

It won't be vanity driving this version of Ileosa--that sort of pettiness will be mostly shifted over to Andaisin. Rather, Kazavon will be stoking Ileosa's paranoia and need for control. Neither the guard nor Sable Company answer directly to the Throne? In such uncertain times, that just won't do, and if they object, that just proves they were planning treachery. She won't let Korvosa, her last gift from Eodred, be taken away from her, no matter that it's full of traitors and people who hate her for no reason. They'll just have to learn to *fear* her.

Revan wrote:

* I wonder if there's a sensible way for Lamm to play yet another angle, trying to extort Ileosa with the knowledge that her husband is being poisoned rather than just sick, perhaps leading to her getting held hostage in her civilian guise early on.

This. Right here. You don't need Lamm to have Ileosa's broach, which is just a MacGuffin to give this street rat level 1 adventurer trash to appear in front of the queen and get passed along to the rest of Korvosan society via Field Marshall Kroft. I mean, if you want the broach to have some other plot significance like I did, where Lamm has the broach has insurance against Andaisin or Ileosa or something as proof they are supporting him (in case they decide to tie off his loose end), then sure that can be a later revelation that they find on his cold dead body near the end of Book One.

But here, at the start of the game, in the Old Fishery? The whole Harrow pulling everyone together through Zellara wasn't, in fact, to go kill Lamm at the Old Fishery that night of Eodred's death. Instead Fate was working to tie the party together to go and encounter Ileosa that night (and just used killing Lamm as the lure to get them all to go along with it).

Ileosa is lured there by promises from Lamm that he knows something about Eodred's condition, and that only his information (that Eodred is being poisoned and Dr. Davaulus is sitting on his hands) can save him. While maybe not a devoted loving wife to Eodred, even the villainous Ileosa would not want Lamm blabbing about the plot to kill Eodred, and so shows up in disguise to make a deal. Whether she insults Lamm, he was expecting the queen and got "just" her handmaiden and got pissed about the "insult", or whether Lamm was plotting the whole time just to kidnap Ileosa so he could completely decapitate the government after Eodred finally croaks, he decides to jump Ileosa and captures her.

He certainly can't have any idea who he actually has, or he wouldn't be just leaving her in the fishery with just Yargin and some goons to keep an eye on things. And he probably wouldn't want to *actually* sell his information to the Queen, since Eodred actually getting better spoils things. So probably the plan was to collect a ransom, and then just capture whoever brought it, in the hopes that they can either make a useful hostage, or have access to information he can use for the coming reign of criminal terror. Just his luck that the mark turned out to be the Queen herself, and he never even realized.

On another note, I was re-reading Guide to Korvosa, and I noticed that it says Marcus Endrin would be the presumptive next seneschal after Neolandus passes, so it occurs to me, especially if I do go with an Ileosa who's not fully off the deep end unti Boook 3, for him to have personal animosity as well as suspicions about Ileosa's good intentions, resentment for being passed over (multiple times, even) for a position he feels should be his, that prompts his assassination attempt.

I am leaning towards 'initially innocent Ileosa', so I might need some other openings to bring the Red Mantis in down the road...

One of my thoughts about Blackjack was to establish him as an inspiration for the PCs taking up Vigilante activities, but one who's been mysteriously absent for quite some time (i.e., Vencarlo retired from a mixture of injuries and shame after everything that went down with Sabina), so that when he shows up again, it's explicitly that the PCs have inspired him to don the mask again.

Oh, the Seneschal ideas are *so good*.

So I think a rough draft of what's running through my mind as to the tangle of schemes at the outset:

* Lady Andaisin has an existing relationship to Ileosa, and arranges to poison Eodred, both as a sacrifice to Urgathoa, and to isolate Ileosa to better manipulate the levers of power. (Possibly, she also fuels the rumors that Ileosa poisoned him, and/or selects Trinia as a scapegoat, figuring the arrest of rioting citizens or stoking anti-Varisian citizens will give her more test subjects for unleash and plague related experiments.) Her minion Rolth creates the poison and Dr. Davaulus oversee the king's treatment to make sure he doesn't get better.

* Rolth sources ingredients for the poison from his father/old partner Gaedren Lamm, tipping Lamm off to the plot. Lamm, ever the opportunist, sells the information to the Arkonas.

* Bahor/Glorio arranges the kidnapping of Senschal Kalepopolis, figuring he can get himself or a crony into the vacated position to become power behind the throne himself--especially now that he's got secrets he can leak about the obvious front-runner of Lady Andaisin.

* Perhaps Meliya/Vimanda decides to take bolder steps, investing in Lamm causing further chaos in the hopes of executing an all-out coup, or at least being able to make the case that she made the success of Bahor's plans possible as a victory in their contention for prestige and leadership among the rakshasha.

* I wonder if there's a sensible way for Lamm to play yet another angle, trying to extort Ileosa with the knowledge that her husband is being poisoned rather than just sick, perhaps leading to her getting held hostage in her civilian guise early on.

* In any case, Lamm is using this influx of resources to build a private little army, usurp control of the drug trace from Devargo, and generally go on a rein of terror, heisting from noble estates, and general vicious mayhem under the thin veneer of a peasant rebellion. Maybe he believes Vimanda will let him rule Korvosa, or maybe he just wants to be remembered as a big shot when age finally catches up to him.

Additionally, I can't plan this part until I know who the PCs will be, but I should definitely start with preludes in their Social Identities before they discover the Harrow Card invitations--that should give a great opportunity to establish various corners of the city and background characters.

Or . . . the most obvious solution is to just make Queen Ileosa a vigilante too. This is really hard to justify if you’re going pure villain mode Ileosa, unless she’s just been REALLY bored up in the castle and wants to go out slumming it to kill socially-acceptable scum as some sort of thrill. But for the less-villainous versions of her, it can really work – socially her ability to help the city is severed stunted, both by Eodred putting her in a gilded cage as his wife but also because the city HATES her and shuns her, leaving her with no real political power prior to Eodred’s death. Stymied in her attempts to help the city politically, Ileosa resorts to the desperate measures of sneaking out of the castle every now and then – to Sabina’s ever-growing consternation as she is NOT equipped to come along. Probably best to use my idea of Ileosa’s elven handmaiden “Elliana” as her alter-ego – as a Bard with access to disguise self and a ridiculous bluff score, even with the penalty from being a well-known figure she should be able to disguise herself pretty well (and you want the party to figure it out reasonably quickly if they put in any effort, so it’s fine if someone nat 20s their perception to beat the disguise). Assuming you just make her a bard playing at vigilante and don’t also gestalt her, anyway. And then once the campaign starts and Eodred’s dead, Ileosa is going out looking for Gaedren Lamm for revenge since presumably you’ll play up that he is the one claiming to have killed the king, whether that’s true or not. So while also hunting Lamm throughout Book One, the party vigilantes can keep running into this enthusiastic handmaiden of the queen who is competent but not really cut out for gritty crime-fighting (still being a pampered queen underneath), and hopefully they admire her intentions if nothing else (and if you do for some reason want to lean into the action girl damsel in distress tropes, as an inexperienced vigilante Queen Ileosa can certainly find lots of trouble for the party to bail her out of while Sabina is not there to rip everything’s head off). And of course, as the story progresses, that will be one of the stumbling blocks for Ileosa – she can’t handle everything personally, and she does have political power now, so she gradually has to stop slumming it as Elliana and be the proper queen . . . with an army of Grey Maidens to enforce the law on Gotham, er, Korvosa in her stead.

I’ve got some ideas for each book’s villains as well, but it’ll take me a little bit of time to type those up as well.

Oooh. That's intriguing. Get to know her as someone who does legitimately care about making Korvosa a better place, and see Kazavon's influence twist that into an obsession with punishment and order. And/or, the possibility that she did poison King Eodred partly due to Kazavon inflaming her resentment of Eodred trying to keep her penned up in the castle, and had used contacts from her secret slumming to source the poison, and now wants to get Gaedren Lamm out of the way to cover her tracks...

Having finished running Strange Aeons a while back, I'm starting to gear up to run a new campaign. I had it narrowed down to Curse or Hell's Rebels, and after presenting abbreviated pitches to some of my potential players, there seems to be a slight preference for Curse--so time to buckle down and start getting a handle on how I'll be running it!

I've GMed Curse before, but I ran it pretty straight out of the book those times, besides some stat block rewrites. I'm feeling a bit more ambitious this time around, and I've got a particular theme in mind. I'm planning to run a gestalt game where all players mix a progression of Vigilante levels with another class, developing into Korvosa's own team of superheroes. But that's definitely going to require rewriting and reworking more than a few sections. One that immediately comes to mind is reworking the quests in Edge of Anarchy (and to a lesser extent Seven Days to the Grave) to be more self-motivated than *directly* working for the state, emphasizing a more Commissioner Gordon type role for Cressida Kroft--but I don't want that to come at the expense of the opportunity to get Ileosa and Sabina's faces on-screen before it becomes obvious Ileosa is the antagonist.

I also want to expand the roles of various minor and one-arc villains like Lamm, Rolth, 'Emperor' Pilts, Bahor, Andaisin, Cinnabar, and the Cinderlander to create the feeling of a proper comic book rogue's gallery. I'm inclined to take some inspiration here from Inspectre's magnificent thread pn these same forums (linked here), especially making Lamm the main arc villain of the first book, and possibly Andaisin's zombie apocalypse version of Blood Veil. But I am torn if I want to also adapt their more sympathetic version of Ileosa. It's a fascinating conceit, and one that gives the lesser villains a chance to shine--but on the other hand, the way Ileosa's envy and vanity leads to the creation of the Gray Maidens is a character beat that's right at home in the superhero genre, and if the players lean into their secret identities, that might make for fewer opportunities for them to get to know a 'normal' Ileosa before Kazavon gets his fangs in her.

So, yeah, lots I'm still going back and forth on, so if anyone has suggestions, advice, or ideas--whether on any of the specifics I've named, or more generally on running gestalt games or tailoring the story more towards superhero genre conventions, I would love to hear it!

Council of Thieves certainly has premises which would be a magnificent fit for suoer hero themes, between power plays in an entrenched crime family, the Shadowcurse, and the small-v vigilante revolutionary group. They never seemed to quite mesh together very well on my previous read-throughs of that AP, though, and the last point definitely feels like it was done better in Hell's Rebels. Vigilante secret identities do make it more difficult for the Thrunes to figure out who the Silver Ravens are, but it doesn't strike me as so foolproof as to be problematic, and there might even be a benefit to the players having a ready-made explanation for why the Thrunes can't track them down as easily as their resources might suggest.

A lot of those are definitely not what I expected. I'd love to hear your thoughts in more detail about what makes those good options, and why you think Vigilante stuff would be counterproductive to Hell's Rebels.

Edgewater and Blood Lords do seem tricky, since I'd have to back-convert them to PF1E.

So, there's this idea that's been in my head for a while, of running a gestalt-style campaign where all the players take Vigilante levels on one side of their build, really lean into a 'party as superhero team' idea. Having recently wrapped up a long term campaign, and now getting the itch to DM again, I'm trying to decide what the right AP to use for the concept would be. The various urban campaigns--Curse of the Crinson Throne, Hell's Rebels, and War for the Crown--seem like obvious choices, but if the party's going full four-color heroics, there might be something to a more gonzo tale with higher stakes. Curious if the community has any opinions, suggestions, or advice!

Since the Yellow Sign spell functions similarly to Symbol of Death, does it inherit Symbol of Death's HP limit for how many creatures it can affect on activation?

In the original publication of Rise of the Runelords, the Seven Thassilonian Virtues of Rule which the Runelords corrupted into the Seven (Deadly) Sins that power their magic were described essentially as more 'moderate' version of the same impulse as the sin they became, and were also to an extent held as 'virtuous' less in a strictly moral sense, and more that these were conditions a good ruler would create in their nation--i.e., the concept which the likes of Karzoug would eventually pervert into 'Greed' was originally about a ruler's duty to build the wealth of the nation. Later information about Thassilon instead made the Seven Virtues the direct opposites of the Seven Sins.

When I ran Jade Regent, I subtitled it 'Journey to the East' to put the emphasis on the travel aspect which dominates the AP, and of course as a reference to the classic of Eastern literature which (as Overly Sarcastic Production puts it) kind of originates episodic anime encounters. In that context, the polar crossing seems a lot less disconnected, I think. (Although I did also throw in a Nogitsune assassin as they were getting close to the other side of the crossing.)

I'm running a Strange Aeons game on Roll20, and we're starting What Grows Within next session. Does anyone have suggestions for battlemaps I could use for some of the semi-random encounters in the streets of Neruzavin, like the ambushes by Seeded creatures, or the fungal Juggernauts?

So, with the Guardian Mirror, is there any more detailed means of deactivating it besides just breaking it? It says Dispel Magic just shuts it down temporarily, and just hitting it a bunch seems a bit anticlimactic a solution. How did other people handle it?

I'd say the kiss 'disguises' the energy drain enough to not be seen as obviously harmful by the target, but the more direct attack of Vampiric Touch would break the effect.

Revan wrote:

Freehold DM wrote:

Revan wrote:

...I really have to think you are being deliberately disingenuous at this point if you can't see the inherent contradiction in 'power doesn't let you ignore morality' and 'It's OK for a God to do something immoral to you for a minor offense, because they're a God, and you're not.'

1) Mocking someone is not necessarily immoral, especially when that person is *more* powerful, rather than less powerful.
2) Doing physical violence to someone because of an insult *is* usually immoral, especially if the power balance is in your favor, because it is a wildly disproportionate response.
3) Doing physical violence to someone because they didn't answer an inane question in exactly the obscure way you wanted to, which is *actually* what people are complaining about, is *definitely* immoral, because it is entirely unnecessary and pointless harm.

If you are enforcing mortal constraints on an immortal being, things are not going to end up going the way you think. But hey, if you want to play a game where the players get no repercussions for telling gods to pull their finger, go for it.

And you go right on ahead playing in a nightmare world where the personification of justice and honor acts like a petulant, Chaotic Evil brat.

hey, at least I know of a setting where I can relieve myself on a God's shoe for yuks and have nothing happen.

You know that was never the action that has been under discussion. You also know that even if it were, if someone did that to you, it wouldn't justify stabbing them a dozen times.

Revan wrote:

...I really have to think you are being deliberately disingenuous at this point if you can't see the inherent contradiction in 'power doesn't let you ignore morality' and 'It's OK for a God to do something immoral to you for a minor offense, because they're a God, and you're not.'

1) Mocking someone is not necessarily immoral, especially when that person is *more* powerful, rather than less powerful.
2) Doing physical violence to someone because of an insult *is* usually immoral, especially if the power balance is in your favor, because it is a wildly disproportionate response.
3) Doing physical violence to someone because they didn't answer an inane question in exactly the obscure way you wanted to, which is *actually* what people are complaining about, is *definitely* immoral, because it is entirely unnecessary and pointless harm.

If you are enforcing mortal constraints on an immortal being, things are not going to end up going the way you think. But hey, if you want to play a game where the players get no repercussions for telling gods to pull their finger, go for it.

And you go right on ahead playing in a nightmare world where the personification of justice and honor acts like a petulant, Chaotic Evil brat.

...I really have to think you are being deliberately disingenuous at this point if you can't see the inherent contradiction in 'power doesn't let you ignore morality' and 'It's OK for a God to do something immoral to you for a minor offense, because they're a God, and you're not.'

1) Mocking someone is not necessarily immoral, especially when that person is *more* powerful, rather than less powerful.
2) Doing physical violence to someone because of an insult *is* usually immoral, especially if the power balance is in your favor, because it is a wildly disproportionate response.
3) Doing physical violence to someone because they didn't answer an inane question in exactly the obscure way you wanted to, which is *actually* what people are complaining about, is *definitely* immoral, because it is entirely unnecessary and pointless harm.

Vital Strike Tyrannosaurus wrote:

Freehold DM wrote:

Revan wrote:

Freehold DM wrote:

I hope it is still in there. It continues to weird me out how good must equal nice and actively insulting a god means zero consequences whatsoever.

Not having the right answers to inane questions is not an insult, and even if it were, assault is not by any reasonable standard a proportionate consequence to insult.

wasting a god's time is not wise.

But she's (supposed to be) Lawful Good. She was a mortal Paladin. The Goddess of the iconic Paladin, to boot. Would you let a PC's Paladin inflict lethal damage on innocents for not answering his questions, or not answering them correctly, without falling?

The rules of what is Good and what is Evil are no different for the gods. Their actions and the intent behind them still determine their alignment.

This isn't a mortal. Its a god. The rules are different here.

OK, so power means you get to ignore morality? You'd let the Paladin do it if they were 20th level questioning someone first level? Or if they had Mythic Ranks? Maybe if they had the Mythic Power that allows them to grant spells like a God?

The problem with No Cause for Alarm isn't that it's narrow, it's that the dissonance of the Frightened condition means that now there are two kinds of fear, one which you can just calm people down from by talking to them in the normal way and the other which has a status effect and can only removed if you have a feat to let you to.. talk to them.

...Sounds to me like it's the Frightened condition *being a condition* that does that.

I hope it is still in there. It continues to weird me out how good must equal nice and actively insulting a god means zero consequences whatsoever.

Not having the right answers to inane questions is not an insult, and even if it were, assault is not by any reasonable standard a proportionate consequence to insult.

Ending the AP Early?

My PCs have decided that they don't particularly care about chasing Lowls to Carcosa, and would rather just destroy all the Star Stelae and leave him stranded there, saving the world in the process.

So, given that they'll have the Necronomicon to justify using Spellcraft and Knowledge: Arcana to determine the means of the stelae's destruction, and they'll likely have the means to do it (necromancer and flying polyps), are there any repercussions from taking that route?

Seems like you kill Xhamen Dor, destroy the stelae, and save the world, all without having to do Book 6 at all.

(I'm looking at Possession to take ownership of the polyp until such time as the necromancer can buy a pile of 15-20 Dominate Monster scrolls, at which point the polyp'll eventually roll a 1.)

I don't like derailing my players when they have a good idea, and we have a bookcase full of other APs to run, so I just want to make sure we don't get a classic Call of Cthulu, "You thought you fixed things, but you actually destroyed the world through your ignorance" kind of thing.

I believe Book 6 indicates that Lowls' actions will pull Thrushmoor into Carcosa if Book 6 isn't done. Not world-ending, but not great. Plus, he'll become a new Xhamen-Dor, where killing him in book 6 *might* eliminate the threat of Xhamen-Dor permanently.

Squiggit wrote:

Claxon wrote:

From what I understand, the biggest thing is that Paizo has no desire to implement a power point based "magic" system because it's very hard to balance against the traditional slot based casting system.

Which is kind of a shame because it's a much better system than spell slots.

I couldn't disagree more. Bear in mind I respect your opinion but I want to offer my own counterpoint to it.

Mana/Power Points/Magic Pool systems have ALWAYS been incredibly unbalanced and susceptible to characters doing one of two things:

1) Investing in improving a VERY low/near free cost magic effect and having infinite resources to blast all day long.
2) The ability to Nova and pose a threat far exceeding their Character Level while proceeding to make the character near useless for the rest of the day.

Beyond that, it's just Meta as all get out. Don't get me wrong, Spell Slot systems aren't perfect, but they are very much like Democracy in that they're the best thing anyone has come up with to-date.

A psion dedicating all his power points to blasting one cheap effect would be akin to a sorcerer dedicating all slots to Magic Missile. Worse, in fact, by 3.P implementations, because psions have to spend extra power points to scale damage dice.

Likewise, they had specific rules against Nova, as there's a hard level-based cap to how many PP they can spend on a single effect, including both the basic cost and further augmentations. Combined with the fact that they're drawing from a single fungible pool of 'slots', I think they're rather *less* nova-prone than Vancian casters.

If they want to wait and see then let them arrive at Cassomir. They can still complete the Dream quests at Cassomir but will have to essentially "gauntlet" them since there won't be any ship events to break up the dream segments.

My issue has been that it takes so much time between Illmarsh and Razmiran that there *haven't* been ship events to break up the dream quests, and most of the ship events are probably going to happen after they've completed the main meat of the book.

Possibly, I should have encouraged them more to take crafting feats...

Frankly, while the tech--nor even the magi equivalents--aren't all the way there, societally speaking, Golarion largely feels 'early industrial' more than even Renaissance to me.

He can teleport in front of the pit, though.

They don't remove 'become a straight-up god' from the menu, though. Starstone's still there, and nothing the PCs do actually ensures Tar-Baphon can't access it, just that he can't do so *right now*. No given reason he couldn't just teleport there.

Regarding the last part of your spoiler,

** spoiler omitted **

-- BTW: someone on another thread was fussing that Tar-Baphon is a boring villain. Are you frickin' kidding me? Given what happens in books 2 and 3, your players should HATE HATE HATE this guy. The clear thrust of the AP is that the players should be willing to throw themselves at TB in order to take him down, and... yeah? I should think?

It's like if you watched Star Wars and saw the Death Star blow up planets, but any scene involving actual conversations or character moments fom Darth Vader and Grand Moff Tarkin were cut. The Empire is obviously despicable and massively dangerous, but we'd be given no *personality* to hang it on. Tar-Baphon is a big fat cipher, a Generic Doomsday Villain without even the entertainment value of offering sadistic taunts. He's a villain that Paizo's been hyping for years, but I couldn't offer any new insights on his character after reading the whole adventure path dedicated to him. 'Scariest lich hates everything, has magic nuke' may be impressive, but it's not *interesting* on its own.

TheWanderingM wrote:

I have a question and maybe you guys can give me a heads up if anyone already ran it.

Reading through the adventure what is the motivation for the pcs to go through the gate in the beginning? Just because it is there, so the trigger would simply be curiosity?

The primary trigger is intended to be a mix of curiosity, and as the adventure path continues, a need to fight against other forces who may be interested in using the portals.

But the main thing is curiosity. If your players aren't "self-starters" feel free to have one of their favorite NPCs in town be curious for them and hire them to go through the portals. We were deliberately trying to get away from the "NPC hires you to do things" model for this one.

There's not intended to be a feeling of urgency. It's kind of a good thing if the party takes its time between adventures to do downtime stuff in town or at the castle.

Reading through for me, the issue that came to mind was that the initial ambush might leave some players might leave players expecting some big attack on Breachill that they need to stay around to defend against, or, since they don't know the key they acquired last adventure goes to Ravounel, they might try to set up traveling there overland or something. Basically, that initial encounter *creates* a feeling of urgency, but disconnects that urgency (without metagame information) from the act of portal exploration the adventure actually depends on.

I'm saying, someone being evil-aligned is not, and never has been license to attack them, and you certainly can't attack them *to find out if they are evil.* That is, in and of itself, evil and grounds for any Champion-sponsoring deity to retract those powers. This is one of the oldest discussions about paladin powers there is, and J can't remember the last time I saw someone seriously suggest that a Paladin had a license to assault people for the crime of 'being evil.' But then, given the fact you are trying to seriously invoke Iomedae in Wrath of the Righteous as not being massively out of character, let alone suggesting that it is any way binding or informative to GM decisions, I suspect you're not arguing in good faith to begin with.

tivadar27 wrote:

Gaterie wrote:

In Golarion, casting Magic missile on your subordinate because you don't like their answer isn't evil. This is an established fact.

Umm, wut?

... i second this.

He seems to be taking the position that Iomedae's appearance in Wrath of the Righteous was actually indicative of the alignment system, and not a massive, massive writing fail.

Look, we all know that it was already a fall-worthy offense, not to mention something that would get your character arrested, to spam Detect Evil at everyone in town and attack them if they pinged. This is even worse because the detection is in and of itself an assault.

'Follower alignments' only refers to Clerics, Champions, and other characters who are directly receiving power from the God. It's the replacement for the one-step-removed rule in 1E. A layperson can worship whomever they like, but Pathfinder's current thinking is that someone who channels the God's power needs to be pretty thoroughly in sync with them.

That said, in my Golarion, Asmodeus will absolutely still empower LN worshipers, because the way I see it, that's an essential strategy for his Big Lie.

I have a question about the Oasis. Is the doubles fight going to be too easy if I don't do the tree fight? The tree really just seems unnecessary for the story, and it really doesn't make sense for it to occur and then the Mad Poet walks out and is all like "oh hello, didn't know you were here." So is the party going to be too strong for the final fight without it? Any unique experiences in general that anyone had with this section would also be appreciated.

Haven't gotten there yet myself, so hard to say for sure. But if you want to tune up their doubles to compensate for them going into the fight fresh and full, you could probably give the doubles an extra level.

I shall watch with great interest.

Perhaps part 5 needs the same. I was underwhelmed, although I appear to be in the minority here.

I'm with you there, honestly. I adored the Arcadian setting and want to see so much more of it, but as a brief visit in the midst of an apocalyptic crisis in the Inner Sea, it felt disconnected and unsatisfying to me in sum. Sort of the issues people had with the Cinderlands excursion in Curse of the Crimson Throne writ large, especially as I had previously been ignorant of Arazni's connection to Arcadia, or even that the Inner Sea and Arcadia had any significant contact beyond one Ulfen colony, let alone stretching back so far as predating the Shining Crusade. And especially the presentation of the reveal of how the obols could be used to engineer Tar-Baphon's defeat felt... lacking to me. I'm sure some of that is the difference between text and play, but despite her characterization as a magical expert who had made a study of the tree the shares were made from, something about the expository NPC felt off in being the one to outline things, especially given the enormous sacrifice involved. Maybe something to do with how newly she's introduced and the general potential sense of disconnect from Whispering Tyrant activity, the idea that someone the PCs have just met and doesn't really know who Tar-Baphon is, is telling them they need to annihilate themselves completely to stop him. Or maybe it's how hypothetical the whole plan feels, given how much of a sacrifice it requires.

This was literally the first I'd heard that Arazni was from Arcadia or that Aroden had ever been there. My impression was that Arcadia was almost entirely uncontacted by the 'main' setting, aside from a relatively recent Ulfen settlement. I assume that this information was mentioned in other materials, but I think I would be far from alone in finding it confusing.

And my point is that the information about Tar-Baphon's fate is not *in the adventure*, which is where it needs to be if you're asking the PCs to *annihilate themselves completely* to achieve it. The Radiant Fire is a monstrously powerful weapon, but Tar-Baphon is so powerful even without it, that if it's not perfectly clear that he can't go right back to sieging Absalom the moment he's put himself back together, it becomes very easy to get the sense that the PCs have destroyed their souls just to be a speed bump. That's not the intention or the actual outcome, but it is, IMO, the presentation.

Val'bryn2 wrote:

It's not a sacrifice, it's the bad guy, who has literally been stuck with this artifact in his hand for 900 years, suddenly not knowing how it works. This is RFED because, as we established, in 1d10 days, Tar-Baphon is back, no longer has the thorn in his paw, and the world is short a few more legendary heroes to stop him. We can't even say his soul was destroyed, because that's from the interaction of the Radiant Fire and their obols. This is a villain victory. It may be Pyrrhic, but Tar-baphon wins.

It’s not. He lost his superweapon, he lost large parts of his army, he lost his assault and a chance at godhood. Just because he survives (in a fashion) doesn’t mean he won.

“suddenly not knowing how it works.”

I don’t think he ever knew about the Obols in the first place.

“This is RFED because, as we established, in 1d10 days, Tar-Baphon is back,”

That’s an assumption, he’s also constrained to his island so something’s up there.

The problem is, we have *no idea* what that something is. Technically, from the information present within the Adventure Path, we have no idea that something *is* up, because the fact that he does not stir from the Isle of Terror after rejuvenating is contained in separate material. So far as the adventure itself tells us, he loses a portion of a portion of his army; a weapon which was powerful but rapidly running out of uses, and which specfically did not factor into his attempt at gaining Godhood; and however much time it takes to rejuvenate and regather troops. There's no indication given that he loses any personal power, and his army is by its nature replaceable. He certainly hasn't lost his chance at godhood--he failed at one attempt, but the Starstone is still there. (And frankly, a full-scale assault on Absalom was the stupidest way of pursuing it, when all he had to do was teleport to it.) So far as the text of the adventure goes, the PCs accomplishment is wildly asymmetric at best. Getting rid of the Radiant Fire is huge, sure, but utter annihilation of the self is an out-of-proportion cost when it seems that Tar-Baphon could be back at the gates of Absalom in a month at the outside. Some specific mention, if only to the GM, that the lich's rejuvenation would be prolonged and that he'd lose a significant chunk of mythic power in the process, or damage his phylactery, or *something* would have gone a long way to mollifying the complaints.

To say nothing of how the information about how this heroic sacrifice is received half a world away from someone who had no idea who the Whispering Tyrant even was. Like, I love the Arcadia setting that we got, but it's presence came right out of left field in this adventure path, and something about it makes the whole explanation feel that much more tenuous for me.

quibblemuch wrote:

Yeouch. [...]

Hoo. I think I'll have to do a dry run of this AP to see just how lethal it is before we get started.

It's a funny thing--this narrative is much more PC-oriented than most APs, but on the flip side it's extremely likely that one or more PCs will get eviscerated along the way. I'm not yet sure how to reconcile that.

I have vague plans on employing Corruptions as get-out-of-death-not-quite-free cards if necessary. Also, in the second book, Klazcka might be able to get in contact with her superiors in the Church of Pharasma to arrange a Raise Dead or two, and in Book Three most of the really lethal encounters are in the Dreamlands where they won't fully 'take'. After that,they're starting to get to the levels where they can arrange their own ressurections more easily.

By my reading, Unbreakable basically adds 10 ft. to the safe fall distance under Cat Fall, where you would be taking no damage--you subtract your Cat Fall distance, at which point you'd be taking damage as if falling 10 ft. Unbreakable then makes you take damage as if you fell half that distance--i.e., give feet, at which point, you're below the threshold at which damage is taken from falling.

Yeah the half damage on falling is really the long term benefit. Falling is more common than people think and is one of the more common PC killers.

Now if you also take catfall and legendary acrobatics, then you have wasted your heritage.

On the other hand, the lower levels of Cat Fall seems like it would combo fairly well with Unbreakable for making someone who can hurl themselves off fairly significant drops from earlier levels.

As far as it goes, the tribe in Hellknight Hill has specifically had a fairly significant period of peaceful coexistence with their neighbors in Breachill, with a personable and bookish Goblin ambassador living in town.

It may be worth keeping Corruptions in your back pocket as a tool for saving a character from death with a cost before the party can get reliable access to Raise spells; the story being told can be tricky to bring new/replacement PCs into, given the central mystery of shared amnesia and the reasons behind it, so having a means of keeping the party alive that still emphasizes the horror instead of feeling they're under the DM's protection could be most useful.

Cavall wrote:

That seems rather anal to say it has to be a diplomacy roll rather than a bard using his class given abilities to use perform to have a diplomacy result. That's what versatile performance does. Why punish the class for doing what it's supposed to do? Especially the archetype whose sole purpose is this?

?

I'm just following the wording of the ability.

Versatile Performance wrote:

At 2nd level, a bard can choose one type of Perform skill. He can use his bonus in that skill in place of his bonus in associated skills. When substituting in this way, the bard uses his total Perform skill bonus, including class skill bonus, in place of its associated skill's bonus, whether or not he has ranks in that skill or if it is a class skill.

There is nothing in the description that states that the check suddenly becomes a perform check. There are abilities that do that kind of thing and they clearly state it.

Detect Disobedience wrote:

You gain a +2 trait bonus on Sense Motive checks to detect when an underling is trying to hide something from you, and can attempt such checks instead of Perception checks to notice and react to a subordinate’s surprise attack against you.

If it actually allowed you to make a perform check instead of the related skill it would just state it. Instead of going out of its way to state that you get the entire bonus regardless of your ranks in the original skill. As for argent voice, nothing I'm stating takes away from the ability. It augments the perform sing option for versatile performance.

Surely 'total bonus in a skill' would include any circumstantial bonuses to that skill?

Any addlepated GM out there who'd rule that "Channel Positive Energy" (paladin class feature at 4th) is not a subset of "Channel Energy" would also rule that paladins couldn't take Extra Channel in the first place because they're not meeting its "Channel energy class feature" prerequisites based upon the same twisted rationale.

Good thing I didn't say either of those things, then. I rather specifically said that the paladin ability is a subset of Channel Energy, which makes it rather presumptuous in the first place to think that it's giving them special bonuses it's not giving to other people who have the same feature. What Paladins do not have is *discrete uses* of Channel Energy in the same way Clerics do. A Cleric gets a certain number of Channels per day, while a Paladin must expend two of the discrete uses of their seperate Lay on Hands ability to use Channel. So a Paladin has the Channel Energy class feature to qualify for the feat, but the benefit that it gains must be written in terms of its Lay on Hands ability, because it cannot use Channel Energy without the Lay on Hands ability.

Also, until you pointed it out, I had thought the Paladin ability was just Channel Energy. Observing now that you are correct that the Paladin feature is specifically called Channel Positive Energy, your reading becomes even more indefensible:

"Special: If a paladin with the ability to channel positive energy takes this feat, she can use lay on hands four additional times per day, but only to channel positive energy."

With Channel Positive Energy being the *literal name* of the paladin ability, you'd have to resort to nitpicking about capitalization to think that sentence is not very specifically referring to that precise Paladin ability--and even that wouldn't hold up, since the cleric ability Channel Energy is *also* not capitalized.

Extra Channel wrote:

Prerequisites: Channel energy class feature.

Benefit: You can channel energy two additional times per day.
Special: If a paladin with the ability to channel positive energy takes this feat, she can use lay on hands four additional times per day, but only to channel positive energy.

(snip)

Revan wrote:

Why do you think a separate 'Extra Lay on Hands' feat exists that provides two extra uses if you think this feat provides four without restriction?

But it does have restrictions: for example, Antipaladins (among other possible non-good and/or bad-touch classes) can use Extra Lay on Hands -- so that feat is broader, but weaker (it's also older, dating from 3e, whereas Extra Channel debuted with Pathfinder). Antipaladins cannot use Extra Channel to convert LoH into Touch of Corruption because Extra Channel specifically calls out only paladins as gaining any additional utility beyond additional basic channeling uses, while painstakingly clarifying that there'll be no negative energy LoH (since Paladin is the only class who'll be receiving those).

At the time Extra Channel was written,the Antipaladin did not exist, no class besides the Paladin had a Lay on Hands' ability, and it was (and so far as I'm aware, *remains*) impossible for a Paladin to multiclass into something which can use negative energy and retain Lay on Hands due to alignment constraints. Lay on Hands', while using positive energy, has never elsewhere been referred to as channeling positive energy, that terminology exclusively applying to the specific Channel Energy class feature. Your reading requires assuming an extraordinary level of future-proofing which would make it unbalanced at the time it was published with the assumption that future options would empower Extra Lay on Hands by making it 'more broad'.

Paladins have a specific class feature called Channel [Positive] Energy. This is shared with Clerics, with the exception that while clerics get a set (but scaling) number of usages per day, Paladins sacrifice two uses of Lay on Hands to use theirs--but while Lay on Hands fuels Channel Energy, they are still distinct abilities, with only Channel Energy referred to as 'channeling positive energy'. The stated purpose of Extra Channel is to allow the Channel Energy feature to be used more often in a day. You can't give a Paladin two extra uses of Channel Energy, because they don't technically *have* uses of Channel Energy. You can't give them four extra uses of Lay on Hands, because that would be extraordinarily powerful, especially in light of another feat which exists to grant two uses of Lay on Hands. Giving them four uses of Lay on Hands *which can only be used to fuel their Channel Energy feature* gives them the same benefit as a Cleric--two extra uses of the Channel Energy class feature.

Extra Channel wrote:

Prerequisites: Channel energy class feature.

Benefit: You can channel energy two additional times per day.
Special: If a paladin with the ability to channel positive energy takes this feat, she can use lay on hands four additional times per day, but only to channel positive energy.

With this feat....

-- Anybody who can channel can channel energy (of any type they are previously able to) two more times daily.
-- Paladins may also, instead, LoH several additional times per day, and we-the-reader are reminded that paladins may not channel negative energy (whether by "channeling" directly, or via LoH, which is a type of positive-energy, as laid forth in previously-mentioned FAQ)
-- You don't get four extra channels per day if you're a paladin.

The wording is typical bad-Paizo, but it is parsable in this case. It's there to preclude oddball builds, such as a paladin/cleric multiclass (of a cleric archetype that forfeits channeling), from using Extra Channel to distribute negative energy -- since the only class portion of the build capable of channeling is the paladin part, and paladins are only capable of positive channeling. Or, if you're a cleric(negative channeling)/paladin multiclass (of a paladin archetype that forfeits channeling and LoH), from using it to gain LoH (since the build is only capable of negative energy).

That is a deeply tortured misreading. You really think that 'but only to channel positive energy' is there to preclude an oddball build that's already precluded by alignment restrictions, and not a straightforward reference to the fact that Paladins have a Channel Positive Energy class feature which is fueled by uses of Lay on Hands? Why do you think a separate 'Extra Lay on Hands' feat exists that provides two extra uses if you think this feat provides four without restriction?

The scholars might be more reluctant to help the first time the ritual goes awry :) Those Animate Dreams are nasty...

But yeah, other than that, perhaps convince someone to retrain, or just drop the DCs to suit the group. Just don't make it an auto-success. Normal items can't increase the Skill Checks, but you could allow the group to buy Masterwork Ritual tools, to get +2s. Also remember you only need half of the checks to succeed to pass the ritual. The Chains of Night book from the Asylum can also provide some bonuses on relevant skill checks.

As can the Pnakotic Manuscripts looted from Melissen at the end of the last module, though you need to study that for a week to get its bonus.

I think the 'time loop' gimmick will be a bit easier to deal with, since the whole original party is there, and the new party member would have been sacrificed by the Thrusmoor cult if the original party members hadn't been around.

Dream Hag might be a little powerful...but doing a quick PFSRD search for monsters from the Dimension of Dreams, the Dream Spectre might actually be perfect--call it an unfinished 'template' the oasis spits out since it doesn't have full access to his memories. And if I'm feeling particularly nasty, if the Dream Spectre drains the Mesmerist fully of his Charisma, it can spontaneously metamorphose into a nightmare doppelganger of him!