Revan's page

So! I've had my Session Zero now, so we've got the identities of our little Justice League:

* "Triskelion"--A half-elven daughter of House Endrin, using the cover of a frivolous noble brat uninterested in the family's military affairs in order to pursue arcane and alchemical studies unmolested. Now using those skills to investigate the disappearances of servant children she befriended--abducted into the Little Lambs. (I'm potentially thinking some of these more recent disappearances may have been with the idea of pumping the kids for information about the noble estates their parents work at, as Lamm plans a rash of heists for when the s!$& hits the fan.) Marcus Endrin would be one of her brothers, I believe.
* "Whisper"--An elf capable of communing with the spirits of the dead, and Triskelion's half-sister. She masquerades as Triskelion's lady-in-waiting/nanny/minder in their civilian identities. She's searching for her missing brother--specifically, she has in mind an older brother who went missing, so that's probably more recent, and he had some skill or knowledge that Lamm wanted to tap for his schemes. I'm trying to get some more specifics about the brother to finalize my plans there, but could be fun to encounter him as a (reluctant?) ally to Lamm that the party has to confront at some point.
* "The Crimson Blade"--A human who deserted the Molthuni army when he became disillusioned with war; he settled into a peaceful life as a street entertainer, until his wife was found dead, victim of a random mugging by Gaedren Lamm. He took his sword back up and made a pact with Ragathiel to bring righteous wrath upon the wrongdoers of Korvosa.
* "Bloodline", a half-orc who woke up in an unmarked grave, caught somewhere between life and undeath. In times of stress and anger, his wounds may reopen and a vengeful, semi-undead personality comes to the fore, and even when he passes as a normal man, that other self lurks in the back of his mind. He believes Gaedren Lamm knows who killed him, if he didn't do the deed himself. (I'm thinking Rolth and/or Andaisin may have been involved in the death, with Gaedren either providing the body, or disposing of it afterwards. And/or, there's the idea that the 'other half' may be someone else entirely who latched onto a random dead body to claw back to some semblance of life.)
* "The Artful Sidestepper"--A halfling who escaped a childhood under Lamm's tyranny by forging a connection with something like the collective unconsciousness of Korvosa, a la the Shivers skill in Disco Elysium--though the process seems to have stunted or entirely frozen his aging, perhaps because Korvosa's still quite a young city, all told.

Trying to figure out some little scenes to introduce them for the first proper session--little day-in-the-life snippets that culminate with finding the Harrow Card messages calling them to Zellara's. If anyone has any thoughts, I'd be delighted to hear them.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

You left out curses and mental manipulation from your list, which I'd say are the *most* common archetypes of witchy magic, and coincidentally, the ones that base witches absolutely have in spades. Combined with the Hexes and Patron spells that dip a lot into those other capabilities, the complaint feels rather cherry-picked to me.

Yeah, while some could have used better wording, I *much* preferred the 'moderations'; the inversions don't fit with their schools of magic anywhere near as well and make the Runelords the more cartoonish for becoming the complete opposite of what they were supposed to be. As well, the moderations spoke to a certain different cultural sense of morality for Azlant and Thassilon, which is a more interesting angle.

This reminds me of the time, when my 13ys old me played AD&D, 2nd Ed, for the very first time. During one of our misadventures I overenthusiastically messed up and destroyed some cool magic item .. the thief of the group went "Yikes ... Idiot!" and hit me once with his dagger. The fighter chimed in "yeah, that was really dumb." and hit me with his longsword and so did the ranger and even the mage with his walking stick. When I objected, that this was leathal force, they laughed and said "don't make us laugh, you are a lvl 4 cleric and have d8 hit die."

After that I healed myself back up and had learned to be not too overexcited, but careful and respectful, when dealing with unknown magic.

Of course, the whole situation was super meta, but I took the in-game equivalent of a disciplinary beating and took a lesson out of it, that still holds true to this very day. I bet that Iomedae wouldn't use the equivalent of 20 shortswort strokes to discipline a farmer who somehow had the gall to mock her in the face, but it seems like the appropriate amount of force to wack some sense into a highlevel, mythic PC. Just deal with it, take your lesson and move on.

Setting aside that I don't think 'disciplinary beatings' are either Good-aligned or even productive: what's the lesson? The PCs are getting 'sense whacked into them' for not knowing a detail of theological history that is *completely irrelevant* to the matter at hand, or for having a firmly set opinion on redemption (but they'd better not be *too uncertain about it, either!) And all to judge their worthiness for a task they're going to be sent on one way or another and whether they get useful tools for that task.

inflammable basically means easily inflamed. so 100% being used incorrectly

the correct word would be nonflammable or flame retardant

on a side note, they should really fix it. anyone who has ever done work in chemistry or biology, knows that a lot of dangerous chemicals are labeled "highly inflammable", it's a bad idea to give people in a publication being seen by many, some of which may end up in a lab or setting with such chemicals one day, the wrong idea of what the word inflammable actually means.

Or here's a thought, we could use actually clear language to label chemicals, and recognize that Paizo is not responsible for lab safety?

Using inflammable to mean flammable may be technically correct, but it is inarguably confusing to no benefit. There's not even any nuance of meaning between the two. It's the height of grammar snobbery, really, since it's a 'mistake' which is made by correctly applying the general rules of grammar. Or if we must keep the word, at least start spelling it 'enflammable' instead.

There's also every possibility that the Paladin *wasn't* a paladin before he woke up from the fugue. Especially apt if they're a paladin of Sarenrae, she's exactly the sort who might try to take the opportunity the fugue provides to try to 'pull a Revan', as it were.

In my game, the Dhampir Inquisitor of Sarenrae had been an Inquisitor of Nyarlathotep before, for example.

Tasfarel wrote:

Risi is a pain in the ass, as it is the revenant. Both encounters can easily kill of one character. The lack of resurrection spells in that town make this even worth.

I'm not sure why you would characterize Risi and the revenant this way in view of the campaign itself. For that matter, there are challenges even later into the AP that PCs *definitely* won't survive if they make the wrong choice or even have lingering bouts of indecision. These are exceptional threats, yes, but they're designed to be. It's a Lovecraftian-styled AP, after all.

As such, hero deaths to things that can't be recovered from fits comfortably into the theme. This ain't your Rise of the Runelords.

Somehow, my players escaped harrowing doom with both Risi and the revenant, but only because doses of luck and quick thinking came together to make it possible. Each case brought someone within a hair's breadth of the grave. It's SO memorable because of that, however. After the survival-horror that was Chapter 1, and the sort of surprise-doom being thrown at them in Chapter 2, they realize they are never safe in this AP and death awaits around every foggy corner.

That said, anyone intending to run this AP should warn players that it is a more challenging path that will probably result in the deaths of at least some PCs along the way. If the group doesn't like that, they probably don't really enjoy the Lovecraftian themes of overwhelming struggle and terror either, and it isn't the best AP to play anyhow. It loses a lot of its impact and the sense of reward if its dangers are toned down.

This is all my humble opinion, of course.

The problem is that the unique hook of the PCs' amnesia means you really want the original crop of PCs to survive at least until the fourth book.

Thebazilly wrote:

The problem that I think James Jacobs was addressing in his post is labeling real-world concepts in the game world "good" or "evil." Which is how we get into icky territory that's liable to offend people.

That is indeed correct. We gamers are the alignment systems worst enemies in this regard, I think.

As for its potential removal, that is STILL a very remote possibility. I'm pretty sure we'll keep it in the game, since it's such a useful tool for things like paladins, evil monsters, whatever... but it does get exhausting wading through the endless alignment argument threads or trying to remind folks that if we publish details on a character or group or whoever who does reprehensable things we're not actually endorsing those things.

Anathema/codes of conduct, allegiance a la d20 Modern and other such things are far more nuanced tools.

Rysky wrote:

Dracala wrote:

Rysky, Life is about shades of gray, shades of gray bring far more nuance and ambiguity than hard lined black and white dichotomy between good and evil... Sure there's neutral in between, but know what? Everyone has their reasons for doing things, and no person is an island for we are All shaped by chance and circumstance.

And Pathfinder is a fantasy game. Where you can have unambiguously good and evil things. And all the grey in-between.

One benefit of alignment I notice for myself is that there is far less effort to 'subvert' the image of a 'Good Guy' and draw everything toward that center grey. Easy example: Superman. Yes, I'm aware that because of his horribly expansive library of stories, you can always find one where he sucks, but as a baseline, he's an All Loving Hero who wants to save the world. Hooray! So in Pathfinder, he's Good aligned. Which good, debatable, but there he is. When you strip out alignment, there's so much temptation to say "What skeletons does Hero Person have in his closet." because they don't have to maintain their Good alignment. So you can say he's actually the Plutonian, and he's going to snap and go nuts because he's actually a villain mad with power!

Eberron has moral ambiguity, where a Good aligned leader wants to restart a horribly devastating war, and an Evil aligned leader is desperately trying to keep the peace. But having those alignments forces you to think deeper about them. You can't just say "She wants war, what a horrible person she must be!" How does she maintain that Good alignment even with those intentions? She doesn't want to rule with an iron fist, the post-war landscape of Khorvaire is vulnerable and broken. It has to be re-united so it can heal, by some views. And the Evil guy may want peace, but he is going to do horrible things to keep it.

And I'm not saying alignment is perfect, but I've never had any trouble with moral ambiguity when using it. The turning everything into shades of...

I mean, Eberron as a system went to *great pains* to make alignment as vestigial as possible--most relevantly to this thread, stressing that a cleric could be of *any* alignment.

So, reloading requires a free hand. Weapons lke bows have the 1+H quality, indicating they take two hands to fire, but you can freely use one of those hands in between shots for reloading. Crossbows, excepting hand crossbows, are 2H weapons as well as having the Reload quality, meaning they take one or more actions to reload. Since they lack the 1+H quality, does this mean that you need to spend actions on shifting your grip as well as on the reloading itself?

Does seem like if Assurance was an automatic part of T/E/M/L, that would go a long way towards more inherently distinguishing the proficiency levels. Maybe with the feat allowing you to add modifiers to your Assured result?

RangerWickett wrote:

Darigaaz the Igniter wrote:

What about my CN inquisitor of Desna who was working his way to becoming CG by bettering himself? Does that personal evolution no longer count because he's not good enough (or Good enough)?

Exactly!

Good narratives need nuance and ambiguity.

one last thing to mention....

I agree that nuance and ambiguity are great for stories, but the mere existence of the alignment system fights against that. Taken to an extreme, readers can (and have) interpreted our version of an NPC or deity who does certain acts as Paizo taking a firm stance on rendering judgment on a real-world act as being not evil or good or whatever, which makes for some really frustrating and eye-opening situations in this age of increased visibility and awareness.

If we want to further embrace nuance and ambiguity... the problem might actually be that the alignment system is the fault and it should, perhaps, be abandoned...

Yes. Yes it should.

I totally understand you. And yes, spending a resonance point for opening the Bag of Holding may seem a bit much if you just want to throw something into it from the last loot.

But with a bag of holding with no restrictions you are making so many items obsolete. Why the need for a backpack? What is a Belt Puch for? Why use Saddlebags? Satchel? Scroll Case? Water Skin? And so on... The bag of Holding is so great, that you do not need those items anymore.

Belt Pouch: For things you need immediately to hand.

And again, covering most storage issues is exactly the fantasy people want fulfilled by a Bag of Holding.

I think this rule is a good one. For the first time the Bag of Holding feels like a real magic item. Something people think about if they need to open it or not. Something that makes people think about where to put a latern, where a crowbar, where does they store the rope, what is this thing called backpack... They look for alternatives, they improvise and maybe they treat the Bag of Holding more conscious.

I do understand, that if something was for free and suddenly it isn't anymore, people will feel betrayed.

But I think the rule makes it way more interesting where to store your stuff, then just the universal answer: "I just put it in my Bag of Holding."

Being able to say "I just put it in my Bag of Holding" is exactly what *makes* it feel like a magic item for me.

This is one of many things we're following in the playtest to see how folks like/dislike a change.

Wall of text below!

** spoiler omitted **...

I think Asmodeus in particular has a vested interest in having *exactly* that sort of person prominently in his church. The Big Lie of the Church of Asmodeus, after all, is that his doctrine *isn't* really evil, just the brutally pragmatic and realistic approach a dangerously chaotic world really needs.

Meanwhile, I think being wholly devoted to the teachings of Nethys or Pharasma or (looking forward) Brigh has no reflection whatsoever on alignment.

Revan wrote:

CorvusMask wrote:

Err, you do know that Socobenoth's worship involves very specific "taboos" right? Including stuff that I'm not sure if forum rules even allows mentioning

According to his wiki write-up he appeals to 'deviants of all kinds'. Obviously, he's going to especially favor the de Sade/Dark Eldar stuff. That's why he's Chaotic Evil. But does every cult *start* at full-throttle Slaanesh? Or do some start out just trying to thumb their nose at society like an admittedly cursory reading suggests was the main intent of most real-life Hellfire Clubs, or even as a gathering for those with tastes that are mostly harmless but socially unacceptable looking to loosen up and enjoy themselves? Obviously that's gonna go downhill sooner or later; Socothbenoth doesn't want his clerics to *stay* at Neutral, he wants to drag them down into the proverbial muck with him.

Sure on paper that makes sense, but the rub of the matter is if you've already won the worship sweepstakes (aka got cleric powers) what incentive do you have to drop up/down an alignment rung beyond just osmosis of hanging out with legions of pure degenerates/good guys? The corruption/redemption angle really needs something to the effect of appeaser/seperatist mechanics where those N gits actually get the short end of the stick power wise (if any at all). You want the real good stuff friend? Here's the list of taboos to break/list of good deeds to follow and THEN you get the sweet sweet mojo.

The need to keep to certain restrictions to *keep* the cool powers for one, and less tangibly, the fact of now being in effectively an echo chamber of depravity, the simple temptation of how the cool powers could be used, and of course, whispers of encouragement coming over your connection to your divine patron.

Also, at the risk of invoking tired stereotypes, there's no base class I'd associate more strongly with the 'eerie Romani fortune teller' archetype than the Bard, and that's the imagery that leads to mind when you consider tarot readings and seances and many similar occult trappings.

Also, on an unrelated note: fingers crossed that Bards get a spell or composition to animate objects or the dead for as long as they keep playing.

Personally, I feel like Sorcerers should be freely able to upcast everything, and Spontaneous Heightening should go to Wizards, tweaked a bit to allow them a limited ability to heighten a spell without having prepared it heightened ahead of time.

Thematically, it also feels backwards to me for the Sorcerer to be the one with the big focus on item 'batteries'. That seems like a more appropriate niche for wizards, lacking as they do the innate wellspring of power of their sorcerous brethren.

LAWFUL: Paladins are Restrictive. That's how they are, and that's how I like them. It's HARD to be the Ideal of Good, and that is how it's supposed to be. Opening them up to Neutral or Chaotic loosens the reigns of the restrictions.

No it doesn't. *Maybe* Neutrality does by virtue of there not being a 'tension' between the two halves of the alignment. But even that isn't really a certainty. As has been observed countless times, it is 100% canonical to Pathfinder that *anyone* can have a personal, restrictive code of conduct, completely regardless of alignment, and Anathemas in PF2 are doubling down on that. It's just going to be *different* restrictions.

Igwilly wrote:

CrystalSeas wrote:

I always found it strange that my 'mountain man' survivalist ranger had to also be a spellslinger, which was confusing and impossible for me to work into my understanding of such characters.

That's what I'm saying about 3.X and PF1's ranger: it got his spells out of nowhere. There was not much (if any) explanation behind this.

Of course, the previous explanation was lost in the edition change, so we had spellscaters that got spells from the game's designer itself just so an old artifact, which made no sense now, could be maintained.
If people want Rangers with divine magic, at least give Rangers a pretty good reason to have so.

What I want is the option to have rangers who brew potions and poultices and such to take on the healer role without being a spellcaster. I expect I'll just have to be satisfied with ritual casting.

I mean, that appears to be anyone who invests in the right skill feats in PF2.

EDIT: Swordsage'd, I see.