RustedKitsune's page

Maybe. It would certainly explain the nature of game economics - it's like that because economancers want it that way, creating a common baseline that they can all benefit from (creating a single playing field for their schemes, as opposed to multiple different ones that may or may not interact)

What is a Tippyverse?
For those who don't know, I shall summarize the concept:
Back in 3.5, a person called Emperor Tippy took a look at RAW, and approached worldbuilding with metaknowledge and optimization, with a heavy dash of "everybody will do the rational thing suggested by the rules".
The result? Megacities ruled by spellcasters, connected by teleport circles, with all basic needs fulfilled by magical traps that focused on Create Food and Water and Fabricate, surrounded by monster-heavy wilderness and supported by truly massive armies of constructs. (original thread here: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?222007-The-Definitive-Guide-t o-the-Tippyverse-By-Emperor-Tippy )
Of course, the Tippyverse isn't actually all that interesting to play in, there being almost no reason to actually go outside the cities (as Raw allowed the use of fabricate to make all your material components required for magic item creation).

So let's look at what story restrictions we can put in place to make such a setup interesting, with a focus on what I did in my setting, where the ancient empire was a Tippyverse-style setup.

Reasons for using the Magic Trap creation rules:
In PF RAW, a magic trap is a wondrous item that has a cost of 50gp*spell level*caster level for a single use, or 500gp*spell level*caster level for a resetting one, and a total caster level equal to the highest level spell used. This is, according to WBL and plausible player advantage (and economic effects), broken. But I'll allow it. Why? Because a magic trap is a stationary magic item that cannot be moved without destroying it. They have to be built into a structure (bigger than a wagon is my ruling), and that reduces their utility to players (who typically wander around with no home base) and increases the power of villains (who typically have bases that get raided by PCs on a regular basis).

Limits on Fabricate: One limitation is common to both 3.5 and PF - you can't create magic items with the spell. It follows that you can't create inherently magical materials either.
So that's our first chance to make it logistically interesting: if you can't make those materials, and you require them in some amount to create any magic item (typically 20-90% of cost to create, depending on how good you are), a society dependent on magic items is dependent on these materials. This gives a reason to hold and work territory, in addition to giving something to base an economy on.

Limits on Spellcasters: This actually really doesn't work in PF, especially for magical traps. Just simply take Master Craftsman (Trapmaking) as the fifth level feat, then retrain the third level feat to Craft Wondrous Item (or simply take it as your third level feat, if the game allows you to take, but not use, feats you do not yet qualify for), and simply accept a +5DC for each spell you cast (remove the alarm spell and you're good). But this brings up a note in regards to other magic item: how frequent are spellcasters?
I run as follows, per 100 people:
84 commoners, 13 experts, 1 aristocrat, 1 Adept, 1 member of a PC class
Among the PC classes, 15% are dedicated casters (0.15% of the total population are PC casters). In a theoretical metropolis of 50,000, you will have 75 casters (and 500 adepts). This places a hard labor limit on how many magic items can be produced at one time.

NPC Level Limits: Paizo said that there are three tiers of NPC; 1-5, 6-10, and 11-15, with anything over level 15 being extremely rare (and existing via DM descision). I agree with this. In the ancient empire, there were 4 casters who 17th level (and could cast 9th level spells). But how common are the higher levels? 5% hit the third tier, 15% hit the second, and 80% never advance beyond the first. SO this means that our magical trapmaker will typically only be able to make items with a CL no higher than 5th (or 3rd level spells).

Those are the primary limits on any reasonable Tippyverse. SO what does this mean?
1: Only core or primary cities are connected by [/i]Teleport Circle[/i].
2: The Magical Empire must hold and work land that produces magical materials, and hold the land required to connect those industries to their cities (or have airships so they only have to hold just those areas).

Let's put one additional limit on Fabrication Traps: They not only need 100x the raw materials, they also need a template item, which is consumed during the crafting of the trap.

Economic Considerations:
In a situation where almost anything can be made in infinite amounts, provided that you have the trap, what becomes valuable?
1: The magical materials. Be unable to be made via Fabricate, and required to make magic items, these are the only items with an actual, non-perceived, worth (and could be the reason why so many material components have a value in GP - it was how much of the currency it took to withdraw X amount from the government stores; the same base situation that created the first currency in ancient Sumeria where the coins were tokens used to withdraw from the city granaries).
2: Intellectual labor: If constructs are common, this also reduces physical labor requirements. This leaves Craft, Performance and Profession skills that cannot be replaced with a properly statted construct as having value. (and Artistry if you are using the background skills variant from Unchained). Unless you give the empire the printing press, books will still be rare unless potential volume of sales is high enough to justify the creation of a dedicated trap.
3: Magical Creation Labor: Constructs cannot obviously create magic items, unless they are intelligent. This places the creation and maintenance of the logistical basis for the empire squarely in the hands of the citizenry
4: Magic Items. The combination of cannot fabricate, requires materials that cannot be fabricated, and non-automated labor makes magic items have value (and thus be an economic force)
5: Handcrafted items. In a situation where everything is mass-produced at a rate of 1 or more per minute, items produced in small or singular amounts will be valuable. While every Imperial Soldier has a standard kit of an Adamantine Longsword and Mithril Chainmail, an Officer that rides with a custom forged sword, engraved with his name and encrusted with gems (even if all the materials came from fabrication centers), is wealthy. Anybody can order a set of standard diamond earrings, but a woman who makes her own jewelry from naturally found gems can command any price in the open market. Anybody can eat from the stores created by long lines of fabrication traps, but to have enough money to hire people to grow actual wheat and then make bread from it - when most people are adding mass-produced spices to the gruel they get from living in the city? That's being rich.

An example follows, from my setting (warning, elves are currently the most advanced race, and nobody has contacted other core species. AKA, don't expect humans):
The Tenadaerin Empire arose on an isthmus rich with raw materials. Already in a perfect place to dominate the trade routes, the elves of the Keva region arose to become an empire several thousand years ago. Sometime in their second millennium, a young genius had an idea: were there cheaper ways to make magic items? While unable to actually do anything magic himself (including make magic items), he could talk to them. Discovering that stationary magic items (commonly called traps, as they were meant for defense) were massively cheaper to make, he tried to convince the local tower to try his theory. A few apprentices took up the challenge and replaced the master mage's stairs with a controllable Levitate Trap. The idea quickly spread, resulting in the current Emperor deciding to focus all research into this area. With the rise in magic item crafting, the need to expand to discover new sources of magical materials rose in lockstep. The invention of the Fabricate spell in 1467, and the corresponding trap in 1491, reduced the needs of the imperial population just to the necessary materials. Most of the population began moving to the cities where the traps were being installed, creating a vicious cycle of only a few other places getting them, depending on strained trade lines from fabrication centers for whatever they couldn't make themselves. Imperial traders visited areas just to discover new magical materials and luxury items to fabricate (the legend of 1 out every 100 clover being magical led to entire noble estates being carpeted with them). The rise of Archmage Tendilus in 1543 created the next major shift. It took him a while to create an entire array of never before seen spells of unparalleled power (9th level spells), but when he created the Teleport Circle (and the methods to make it permanent), the Empress rejoiced and ordered him to connect the major cities of the Empire. Assassins cut him down after the 25th circle, and his genius was not seen again until 2442, when Menilda Astania proved her claim to the title of Archmage with the first casting of Meteor Storm seen. After a brief moment of familiarization, she set about connecting the rest of the cities using the recovered material stockpile used by Tendilus, who got them from an unknown area. The materials ran out after the 113th circle.

This cycle continued onwards, with small settlements being created just to harvest magical materials, imperial forces holding just enough land necessary to create a safe trade route, unsatisfied citizens creating more settlements with nobles backing them just to gain bragging points, their descendants trying to go back to over crowded cities, and their children trying to create a new settlement. A few developments to note were the creation of Magic Farmers: citizens trained in the deliberate creation of magical materials; the enslavement of goblins (in 1129); the dropping of magic item creation costs to 10% of previous generations of the market; and the slide of the Royal Family into incest and the veneration of unknown (presumably evil) gods sometime around 3510.
The empire fell from a combination of the following factors:
1: A civil war started in 4312 by two royal brothers over their only sister.
2: A civil war started in 4313 by a group of nobles who felt the need to get the empire back on track
3: A peasant revolt begun in 4310 over the lack of magical amenities outside of the cities
4: A goblin slave "revolt" that started around 4313 and continued until 4315, when a noble named Amilius Denetri beat their leader in a grand ping-pong tournament by the cunning method of flipping the table onto his opponent (no one knows how goblins got the idea for this sport, but it's the only one they can all agree on the rules for. And properly treated goblin snot makes for a great rubber substitute).
5: A "Back to nature" terrorist group (The Kanlinda) that began war operations in 4314, taking advantage of the civil wars, focusing on the destruction of arcane knowledge.
6: A magical resonance cascade in 4316 that destroyed on the order of 99% of the magical items in the empire (often very explosively. Most of the core cites are cratered ruins now). Nobody knows who released it, but it was the ending of the empire.
In the end, about 80% of the population was dead, and all spellcasters over 4th level were dead as well before the destruction caught up with the Kalinda and made them collapse.

Aftermath: SO obviously I don't run a Tippyverse (as noted by the fact that it was the ancient empire that had all the tippyverse shenanigans). But what's to prevent someone from trying again?

Fabricate Traps changed: Obviously any old Imperials ones still work as they did. But now Fabricate traps work differently: When given a template item and enough raw materials for X copies, they will produce X copies. Still economically powerful (in that you skip the crafting stage), but not world breaking (you still need the raw materials). Attempts to craft Imperial style ones have not worked yet, but will simply produce the raw material input over a limited time.
Social Changes: With the huge amount of deaths from the cascade, the prevailing opinion is that magic items are fine in small amounts (the fact that it was mostly the traps that exploded gives handheld magical items a free pass), but the people need a logistical solution that almost everybody can learn the basics of. Enter the growth of Science and Alchemy. The people turn to magic after science can't help.
Lack of Knowledge: Currently, nobody can make a magic item with a CL higher than 6 without spending 2-5 times as much in workarounds and dead-end research. Most powerful items are from the Imperial Period (with the fact that they spent 10% of the listed creation cost to make anything... Magic items were everywhere)

Various Traps that might be found:

Summon Cow: A variant Summon Nature's Ally that uses the fact that a summoned creature can be made permanent by giving up all control over it (that's my houserule, but it does require the permanency spell). The reason for the cow is simple: this trap is cheaper than Fabricate (Dead Cow) and the meat is fresher!
Imperial Armory: This huge installation (20'x30'x15') is activated by a person stepping into a glass-doored 5x5 room. Upon activation, they are given a full set of Imperial Legionary's Equipment, perfectly sized to them (includes weapons and armor determined by the position of various levers next to the door.
Rejuvenation Room: Utilizing a corrupted form of Reincarnate (to ensure you remain an elf), this coffin-like bed on top of a 5x5x5 block of magical mechanisms also uses Restoration to remove your negative levels
Teleport Pad: Restricted to the Imperial Special Legion, this small room has two sections - an area with 12 pads on it, and a table with a crystal ball between multiple sets of switches on it. Upon viewing the area to teleport to through the ball, the pads are activated, teleporting the people on them to the area.

92. Salt Grub and Firespit Beetle
This large (2-3 inches long) beetle larva is typically found in ocean-side swamps, where the saltwater meets freshwater. There's really nothing special about them, except that they taste really good when fried.
Its adult form, the Firespit beetle, is mildly poisonous, can spit an extremely hot substance, and is a great component for alchemist's fire.

Advanced Race Guide has rules on modifying racial traits, including alternate racial traits.
Since my game includes multiple subspecies of elf, I actually built about 6 elven races off of 10rp, each one having the Humanoid (Elven) subtype.

85. Lover's Head Mushroom
A rather phallic fungal phenomenon (alliteration! I can't help it!), this inherently magical growth is a potent sexual aid when dried, ground, and boiled into a swallowed paste; and a primary ingredient in love potions.
To grow it, a holly tree must have mint growing within ten paces of the circle defined by the limbs, and at least five instances of sexual activity must have taken place within 50 paces of it over the last season (animal mating counts). Many a village nymphomaniac has turned herbalist after accidentally growing these. However, if the holly has ivy growing on the trunk, any love potions made from the mushrooms that grow under it will instead use dreams, directed intuition, and physical urges to push the imbiber into a quest that leads them to their true love.

86. Geode Oyster
This giant (3-5 feet across the broadest point) oyster prefers to settle in ocean areas where magical residue and power abounds. So named for the brilliant crystalline growths that form on the outer shell (which make great focusing components for wands), the true prize are the pearls they form: rainbow hued spheres of physically bound magic. So far, no wizard has found a spell or magic item that couldn't use these pearls in some form. Spellcasters are the most common farmers of these, often spending an entire days worth of spells to feed them.

And while I'm at it, I'm going to fix those damn rituals too.
As a caster supremacist, I say "let the martials have access to our toys!"

Also, as the name and material components suggest, my idea for the spell are the sort of sleight of hand tricks real-world magicians use (pulling a coin out of someone's ear, making a card vanish, and so on), as well as the 'shell trick' scam, (where a pebble is moved between covered objects, making the mark guess wrong for where the pebble is hidden).

That's what prestidigitation was originally for: a variety of useful minor magical effects not covered by other cantrips.

I have used all of the skill unlocks in a recent game and for a flavorful extra I found them to be both fun and balanced. Yes they are slooooow and the DC tend to be a bit high BUT they are not a primary class ability so it should not be equil in power and utility. However if you want them to be a larger focus in a campaign RustedKitsuni has some great ideas for making the unlocks more attractive.

I actually made these because I wanted them to be a more attractive option - My current character was built on the idea of "I have this skill that can give us more plothooks" using Automatic Writing.

Sorry, I rolled with my dice
It's in the west, built over ruins, and the primary race is Kitsune
Biramoto
NE Large City
Corruption +3; Crime +3; Economy +3; Law -2; Lore +2; Society +10
Qualities
Adventure Site [Terrain Bonus]
Broad-Minded
Defiant
Holy Site
Notorious
Prosperous
Danger +20
Government Council
Population 21,500 (12,000 Kitsune, 3000 Human, 2500 Elf, 1500 Half-Elf, 1000 Gnome, 1000 Dwarf, 500 Drow)
Notable NPCs
Masauchi Yuki, Kumicho Take Kumo Guki LE Female Kitsune Rogue 9
Nanba Hoso TN Female Kitsune Wizard 19
Yonezu Takaie, Kumicho Kuroi Okami Kai NE Male Human Swashbuckler 8
Alice Ashford LG Female Elf Paladin 14
Maeno Yutori, Kumicho Midori Sasori Kai LN Female Elf Investigator 10
Marketplace
Base Value 12800 gp; Purchase Limit 125000 gp; Spellcasting 9th
Minor Items 4d4; Medium Items 3d4; Major Items 2d4

Built into the ruins of an ancient city-state that fell prey to the inevitable outcome of Tippy-Syndrome (Everything goes boom when you start a magical cascade failure in such places] in an attempt to wrest their secrets from scattered fragments and death traps, Biramoto is a blob-shaped wedge in the north end of the ruins; crawling up tall walls, growing inside half-fallen towers, delving into the basements and service corridors... And building over the streets. In many places you really can't even see the sky for the buildings above you.
Shortly after being founded and gaining small town status, Biramoto got taken over by rival Yakuza gangs. Currently, there are 3 gangs:
Take Kumo Gaki (Bamboo Spider Association), lead by Masauchi Yuki; Kuroi Okami Kai (Dark Wolf Association), lead by Yonezu Takaie; and Midori Sasori Kai (Green Scorpion Association), lead by Maeno Yutori. The three lead a council that makes the laws and tries to collect taxes ("Donate to your city! You never know how unsafe these buildings are!"); they're joined by 3 businessmen and 2 clerics.
Acting as a force to understand the ruins (and try to apply the principles herself) is Nanba Hoso, the only power center that everybody agrees to not kill or harass. It was she that identified this city as the probable birth place of an Eastern faith, leading to a holy mission of 200 faithful lead by the Paladin Alice Ashford (Give her a god!). Said holy mission is to create a cathedral over the point of probable first worship, and to bring some righteous justice into the lives of these criminals. Alice guesses that the place her cathedral will be around the teleport circle on the outskrits of the town, as that one connects to a half-forgotten building of her home cathedral (It also connects back).

Thanks to the massive ruins (125 square miles of city, and who knows how many towers and basement levels), and a working teleportation circle, Biramoto draws adventurers and trade like crazy. Many have even tried to create rival settlements, but the magically created monsters usually get them. And if those don't... Well, ruins are dangerous places to live after all.

58. My Other Crossbow Fires Twice
59. [a skull in the middle of a triangle made of arm bones] Reduce, Reuse, Reanimate - Necromancy, Reducing Our Society's Dependence On The Funerary-Industrial Complex
(http://s275.photobucket.com/user/TheWoodenBlock/media/rrr.jpg.html)
60. [on the back lower section of the tabard] SMITE THIS

0-value traits and feats are ridiculous. You're expending a limited resource, your result should be distinctly better than not having it. [Twice as much so for a feat as for a trait.]

Apologies - I personally run 0-values as free-ish. You get a limited number of them, but they don't take up trait or feat slots.

Rename Charisma to Presence. Seriously, a rename can change the entire meaning of it. Your Presence doesn't care about how hot you are, it simply demands the attention of those around you, making you fascinating, intriguing, and giving you a greater chance to manipulate them.
Then you have a trait/feat that gives bonuses for appearance.
Here are two completely 0-value (for every bonus, an equal penalty) traits/feats
Attractive: +2 to diplomacy checks against people who find your race and sex attractive, but you have a -2 versus those who are jealous of your looks. [Story] You may also find it harder to pass beneath the attention of others without a disguise check.
Hideous: +2 to Intimidate checks when dealing with people who find your appearance disturbing, but you also take a -2 to diplomacy attempts against them. [story] You might need a disguise kit to interact without fear, and some people may decide that no matter what you or do, you are a truly gentle giant, making it impossible for you to intimidate them.

Has anyone else noticed that the skill unlocks from Occult Adventures are kind of... Useless? Especially at low levels.
There are a few that aren't useless: Dowsing, Faith Healing, Phrenology (sort of...), Psychometry, and Read Aura are pretty much usable right out of the gate.
In case you can't tell, my main issues are Automatic Writing and Prognostication.
Automatic Writing currently has you spending 1 hour a week to effectively cast a spell that can tell you Good/Bad consequences within the next 30 minutes. In short, useless.
Prognostication has the same issue (But once a day taking 10 minutes), but the DC to tell a fortune (as Augery, so the same issue as above) is 25+HD. Hard to hit at low levels.

Fixing Automatic Writing:
There are two tasks you can use Automatic Writing for
1: Predict an Outcome
2: Predict a Situation
When attempting to Predict an Outcome, you may ask three questions ("Will we survive the dungeon? Will there be great treasure? Will the taxmen be after us?") with a timeframe of 3 days. The Linguistics check deciphers the entire text (A mix of gibberish, riddles, cryptic statements, and information that pertains to someone else), but each answer rolls for coherency and meaning separately. As per Divination and Augery, you have 4 possible answers:
1: Weal (Generally good)
2: Woe (Generally bad)
3: Weal and Woe (Both)
4: Nothing (Neither or failed)
As with Augery and Divination, player actions may change the circumstances enough to make the answer useless.
At 10 ranks, you may roll against DC 30 to ask 6 questions with a timeframe of 2 weeks (Divination would be this powerful if you could only cast it once a week in an hour long ritual).

Predicting a Situation:
There is only 1 question asked here, and it is this: "What may happen within X weeks/months/years/Decades?". In short, you are attempting prophecy. You have no control over the information, which is more detailed than the four answers above, but it is generally more cyptic. Example: -[Gibberish] 3 [childhood riddle involving days and sicknesss]- Mrs. Darling suggests [fragment of upstairs neighbors argument]- Goblins do not wake [gibberish involving triangles]- THERE MAY BE BLOOD [beef pie recipe in a different language]- do not romance the innkeeper's daughter [list of criminal charges, including treason].
Timeframe is restricted by your total ranks in Linguistics, and each timeframe has a separate DC.
1: 1 week (DC 15)
2: 2 weeks (DC 15)
3: 1 month (DC 20)
4: 3 months (DC 20)
5: 6 Months (DC 25)
10: 1 Year (DC 30)
15: 1 Decade (DC 35)
20: 1 Century (DC 40)
Each attempt is split into 5 pieces, and each piece has a base 60% chance of being coherent, meaningful and relevant, with a +5% bonus for every 1 by which you beat the DC (Max 90%). The pieces may or may not be connected to each other.
In short, this is a GM tool to dangle a plothook in front of the players (In three days, the upstairs neighbors will fall ill. Their friend, Mrs. Darling, will come bearing a beef pie. She will ask the PCs to help her gather ingredients from a nearby forest. THe PCs discover the ingredients are guarded by goblins that have a peace treaty with a nearby village - killing them will break the treaty and the village will be raided. Mrs. Darling is the inkeeper's daughter, and her husband is jealous. The criminal charges are against a person that does not live within 100 miles of them.)

In either task, it may only be attempted once a week, taking 1 hour per attempt. Attempting to perform this more than once a week may invite misfortune.

Fixing Prognostication:
To begin, decrease all DCs by 5. Telling a fortune becomes very different however, and its DCs will change. AS with the base skill unlock, you may only attempt this once per day, taking 10 minutes per attempt. Trying to use it more often may lead to a Fate Slap.
When telling a future, you have a chance to predict a general pattern and two specific pieces of information. The pattern and information follow the rules for Augery and Divination (Something Good, Something Bad, A Bit Of Both, Make A Bluff Check to Keep Their Money), and roll separately for being coherent enough to give a relevant meaning at a base chance of 60% and +5% for every 5 that you exceeded the DC by (Max 90%).
The base DC for telling a fortune is DC 30, subtracting the creature's HD (the more powerful you are, the more of Fate's Attention is on you), with modifiers for Timeframe as below:
The Currents of Fate are Fresh... (1 week) -15 to DC
... Very Fresh. (5 Days or less) -20 to DC (For a joke, scroll down*)
As The Moon Passes... (1 Month)-10 to DC
Before The Sun Stands as Today... (1 Year) -5 to DC
Within a Season of Your Life... (1/4 subjects total life span) -0 to DC
By The Midwinter of Your Time... (1/2 subjects total life span. Replaces Season of Life if the subject is between the two) +5 to DC
Near The Twilight of Your Days... (Subjects entire lifespan. Replaces Midwinter of Time if the subject is between the two) +10 to DC
*... Like, Breath Mint Fresh... (Less than 12 hours) -25 to DC
Once a fortune has been attempted for a given timeframe, no other legitimate fortunes can be told for that person in that timeframe until it passes, even if the circumstances change the relevance of the fortune. (a young lady doesn't like that her fortune for the week is Weal involving grapes and a stranger. She attempts to gain a different fortune, but any attempts to do so just reveal the same fortune as before until the week passes. Unfortunately, by that time she has grown frustrated enough to attempt a forbidden ritual in her family vineyard and is skewered by a passing paladin).
All information, however, is even more vague than Automatic Writing (Dungeons, Castles, Inns, and Tents all count as buildings, for example), and piecing it together is even more difficult (Sense Motive against DC 20 for a 40% chance, with a +5% bonus for each 1 you exceeded the DC by, Max 80%).

Fixing Phrenology:
No Game mechanics here (except decreasing all Dcs above 10 by 5 to match Prognostication), but a fluff change: Phrenology is closely to related to Psychometry (an unlock they expected to see in common use, judging by the DCs), and you are instead reading the psychic impressions left by the soul and mind of the person.

Read Aura: Drop the time required to 5 minutes.
Dowsing: With a related item attached to your rod (or pendant, as some prefer), you may roll against DC 25 to find a particular item (A child's toy to find said child, a dried goblin ear to find the largest group of goblins in range, a piece of deer hide to find a herd of them, etc.).

Additional Unlocks: At 5, 10, 15, and 20 ranks, gain one additional use of your skill unlocks.

Thoughts, questions, ideas?