I posted this over in the Homebrew section, but since Wrath of the Righteous is what started this whole project, I thought I'd post it here too.
I have been running the Wrath of the Righteous AP and the one thing that really left me lukewarm was the Mass Combat rules. It seemed like there was loads of configuration in the setup and building of an army (none of which you actually get to do in the campaign!), but during combat you just wind the two armies up (selecting tactics and strategy) then let them go at it and watch them roll attacks at each other till one falls down. Not very satisfying!
So, in an effort to improve the experience, I decided to make my own!
I have been looking at a lot of different homebrew and third party mass combat systems, including from the great 3pp book Ultimate Battle, but none of them were quite what I was looking for. The ruleset I came up with, and which is posted below, is a hybrid of ideas from many other sources as well as entirely original ideas I came up with on my own.
The key differences are that combat takes place in rounds, each of which has 4 phases (tactics, ranged, melee, rout) and that Tactics are an army's actions. Each round an army picks one tactic to use, and that determines which phase the army acts in.
There is also lots of other stuff... in an effort to make the system truly comprehensive I have included all of the army based things I could think of, including several that were left out of the Kingdom Building rules. There are rules for terrain, weather, visibility, more leadership boons, more leadership positions, mythic abilities, overland travel, recruiting/disbanding armies, upgrading/downgrading armies, and so much more!
If any of you feel so inclined (and want to read through the massive 73 page pdf), please give me feedback on this! I am playtesting these rules with the group I'm currently running through Wrath of the Righteous, but if anyone else wants to take these rules and playtest them yourselves feel free!
Campaign Spoiler:
So far book 2 has gone quite well using this system, and I plan to add more mass combat battles through book 3 (i am thinking 3 different armies attacking Drezen over the months the party spends exploring and downtime), and then also expanding on the army side of things for book 6. It never sat right with me that you do all this stuff with leading an army on the march to Drezen, then you just park them there and forget about them till the very end.
Plus, by facing some demon armies in the field the PC's will get to see just how terrifying the Teleportation special is, and they will appreciate the power of the Sword of Valor so much more when the demon armies besiege Drezen and loose their ability to teleport!
Just please give me credit if you distribute this to your friends, and don't distribute this pdf for any commercial purposes >_<
I have been running the Wrath of the Righteous and Kingmaker AP's and the one thing that really left me lukewarm was the Mass Combat rules. It seemed like there was loads of configuration in the setup and building of an army, but during combat you just wind the two armies up (selecting tactics and strategy) then let them go at it and watch them roll attacks at each other till one falls down. Not very satisfying!
So, in an effort to improve the experience, I decided to make my own!
I have been looking at a lot of different homebrew and third party mass combat systems, including from the great 3pp book Ultimate Battle, but none of them were quite what I was looking for. The ruleset I came up with, and which is posted below, is a hybrid of ideas from many other sources as well as entirely original ideas I came up with on my own.
The key differences are that combat takes place in rounds, each of which has 4 phases (tactics, ranged, melee, rout) and that Tactics are an army's actions. Each round an army picks one tactic to use, and that determines which phase the army acts in.
There is also lots of other stuff... in an effort to make the system truly comprehensive I have included all of the army based things including several that were left out of the Kingdom Building rules. There are rules for terrain, weather, visibility, overland travel, recruiting/disbanding armies, upgrading/downgrading armies, and so much more!
If any of you feel so inclined (and want to read through the massive 73 page pdf), please give me feedback on this! I am playtesting these rules with the group I'm currently running through Wrath of the Righteous, but if anyone else wants to take these rules and playtest them yourselves feel free!
Just please give me credit if you distribute this to your friends, and don't distribute this pdf for any commercial purposes >_<
I have been reading through the Mythic Adventures book, and I just found this little item.
Pasted from the PRD:
SANDS OF TIME
Source sands of time
You age the target by two categories instead of one. The damage dealt to objects, constructs, and undead increases to 5d6 points of damage + 1 point per caster level (maximum +20).
Augmented (8th): If you expend four uses of mythic power, the duration changes to instantaneous. If the target is a living creature, its age increases to venerable, regardless of its current age. A non-mythic creature receives no saving throw against this, but a mythic creature can attempt a Fortitude save against the spell's DC to reduce the duration to 10 minutes per level and the effect to two age categories instead of automatically changing to venerable.
If the target is an object, construct, or undead, it takes 30 points of damage per caster level. A mythic creature that succeeds at a Fortitude takes only half damage.
Was this spell intended to do 30 points of damage per caster level, with no save unless you are mythic (at which its a fort for half damage)? Was it mistyped and supposed to be 30 points per tier? I don't know of any other spell that deals 30 damage per level, with or without a saving throw.
As some background into why I am so worried about this spell; I am GMing a Carrion Crown adventure right now, and there are only 3 PC's (Summoner, Cleric, and Paladin). To make up for their low numbers and because we have all been wanting to play with the Mythic rules, I upgraded them to mythic during the lightning storm at the end of book 2, and now they are having fun tearing it up in the woods, and battling mythic werewolves. So far, its a blast, and upgrading select enemies to mythic tiers has just heightened my player's sense of accomplishment.
I am really worried about later in the adventure path though, once my cleric player discovers this spell. He is 9th level right now, and the ability for a cleric to deal 270 damage, no save, to any undead he touches is crazy strong. That far outstrips the healing or smiting abilities of the other party members, even the Heal spell suddenly becomes obsolete when he gets this.
Admittedly, you cannot augment the spell till 4th tier, but by the time the players get to tier 4 they will be right at books 5 and 6 and fighting primarily undead enemies, none of which are going to have the 450 hp required to survive even one casting of this spell O.o
For the numbers people:
Mythic Finger of Death: 15 damage/level (no limit), 3d8+1/lvl damage if they make their save.
Mythic Heal: 15 damage/level (limit 225), Will save for half. (against Undead)
Mythic Sands of Time: 30 damage/level (no limit), fort for half (only if Mythic).
It seems that while Sands of Time takes 5 uses of Mythic Power instead of 1 for the other spells, its also both lower level and deals twice the damage, and doesn't even allow a save unless the target is mythic themselves. That seems crazy powerful for a third level spell, even a mythic one.
I had planned for the PC's to maybe end up fighting the Whispering Tyrant in some expansion after the adventure path ends, but I can already see how it will go.
Tar-Baphon: "Foolish mortals! You stand before the closest thing to a God you will ever see! Meet your doom!"
Cleric: "I make a touch attack. *hit* Okay, take 600 damage, with a save to reduce that to 300. Oh btw, I heightened it to 8th level to bypass that pesky globe of invulnerability of yours. Also, I am casting it again as a quickened spell. Take another 600 damage!"
Tar-Baphon: *death noises*
I have a question that came up recently at a local game, namely can the "free" purchases of 1 or 2 pp be used to buy items off a chronicle sheet?
One example would be a chronicle sheet that has several wands, including a 10 charge wand of Magic Missile for 150gp. Would this be purchasable for 1 pp?
A second example is a chronicle sheet that includes a wand of False Life with 8 charges worth 720gp. Could this be purchased with 2pp?
I can post details of which chronicle sheets include these items, but I didn't want to give spoilers :)
I apologize if his has been answered already, but I couldn't find anything in the forums that says whether chronicle sheet items are valid for prestige purchases or not. I have had some local GM's say it was fine, and others say they weren't legal so I was hoping for a definitive answer.
I am starting up a new campaign with a brand new level 1 summoner (going Master Summoner) and I'm trying to decide on what feat to take at first level. I thought I'd post this to the boards and see what you clever folks can come up with :)
Our party is going to be going through Reign of Winter (which I haven't read, no spoilers please!) and consists of a bow Ranger, a caster Druid (using domain instead of companion), a Barbarian, and me. As the only arcane caster I'll be focusing on casting rather than melee or ranged combat, and I will be going Master Summoner for extra versatility; using my Eidolon as our skill monkey and trapfinder.
Race is Half Elf, 25 point buy:
Str 7
Dex 14
Con 12
Int 14
Wis 10
Cha 20 (18+2 racial)
So far for feats I am planning on going
1 (bonus) Skill Focus (Kn(Planes))
1 - unknown
2 Augment Summoning
3 Eldritch Heritage (Arcane) for Bonded Item for that extra slot/day
5 Superior Summons
7 Leadership
9 Persistent Spell
11 Imp Eldritch Heritage (Arcane) New Arcana to learn Paragon Surge
13 Heighten Spell
15 Quicken Spell
The build only goes up to 15 'cause that's what an adventure path is supposed to bring us to, though we may end up going higher.
Some notes:
I plan on taking Leadership to get a Wizard cohort, who can be loaded up on knowledge skills and item creation feats. Probably craft wondrous item, wand, and arms/armor at least to start, with skill focus Spellcraft he should be able to make us most of the gear we might need, since the rest of the party is not keen on making magic items.
The idea for the feats is to make (somewhat cheesy) use of the Paragon Surge spell to do things like:
-Pick up Expanded Arcana adding whatever spell might be useful from the Summoner list, thus opening up all those situational spells that would not be normally learned
-learn Spell Perfection (notice how at lvl 15 I have the 3 metamagic feat prereq as well as the 15 ranks in spellcraft) for whatever spell is most advantageous. This allows things like using Charm/Dominate monster Heightened up to 9th level for better save DC's than would be possible with just the spell focus line, or casting Quickened Summon Monster VI in the same round as a Summon Monster SLA, or casting Persistent Dominate Monster spells to make it more of a sure thing.
I think the ability to pick a different Spell Perfection each cast of Paragon surge opens a lot of interesting options for the summoner list, since you can apply metamagic up to 9th level to spells like Dominate Monster that summoner gets at 6th.
The thing I'm stuck on is what feat to pick up at first level though. Any suggestions would be welcome.
If anyone has ideas on the rest of the build then I appreciate those as well :)
I would also appreciate any suggestions on what second sorcerer/wizard spell to learn at lvl 15 from the New Arcana bloodline power.
The situation is this, I am running a group of friends through Carrion Crown and they have stumbled across a flesh golem manual which they are now discussing whether to acquire, which has raised a whole bunch of questions about how they actually work.
1) What is the cost for making a golem using a manual? If they get the manual does it only cost 500gp for the body like it describes under the flesh golem entry, or would it be the full cost of making the golem (10,500)? Does the 500gp include all the bodies that need to be scrounged, or is it in addition to that?
2) What is the time requirement for crafting this golem using a manual? Would it be 21 days according to the base price of the golem, or would it be 1 day according to the cost of the body? Building a golem in one day seems really fast to me.
3) Can UMD be used in this process? The party consists of a cleric, a summoner, a bard, and a paladin. None of them have all the spells required to create the flesh golem (most importantly limited wish) on their class lists, so none of them can use the manual since its spell trigger. The summoner has UMD though; can he use that to activate the item and bypass the spell requirements for it? What about the caster level requirements, does UMD let him bypass that also?
4) What would the skill required be, and what would be the DC? I am having a hard time figuring out which skill rolls would be required for something like this. Maybe Heal or Craft(Leatherworking) for putting together the body, and Spellcraft for using the book? What would the DC's be for both?
The big concern here is that the party is level 4, and I feel like letting them craft a cr 7 flesh golem for 500gp, in 1 day, using UMD to bypass the spell and level requirements, will be slightly gamebreaking.
My instinct is to just say that UMD can't be used as this is part of item creation rather than magic item activation (just like a spellcaster can't substitute a UMD check for a spell requirement when crafting a wondrous item; they must raise the crafting DC instead for a spell they don't have). However That seems shaky to me as its pretty much the same as using a wand to help in magic item creation which can use UMD to activate. Not sure I want to set that precedent.
Any advice on how to limit this (or even if I should) would be appreciated :)
Just as a disclaimer: I know I know, the consensus for metamagic on a summoner is Don't. If you can, try to suspend that automatic reaction and bear with me here on a thought experiment.
The idea is to find the best spells and feats for Spell Perfection on a summoner.
Some background for the idea. This would be a half elf, taking the Eldritch Heritage(Arcane) bloodline abilities. This gives them an arcane bond for effectively a bonus spell slot of whatever level they want (a premium for summoners) and at 11th level they get to pick a spell from the sorceror/wizard list to add to their spells known. My first thought for that was to get Paragon Surge (which half elves qualify for) and thus to be able to pick a new Spell Perfection with the single cast of a 3rd level spell (at 15th level of course)
So assuming this, which 3 metamagic feats would be most useful (in order to meet the pre-reqs to pick up Spell Perfection with paragon surge) and which spells would you pick to perfect?
I was looking at a Master Summoner build the other day for an upcoming adventure path, and it struck me; with the way Summoners get spells so much earlier, Spell Perfection could be an interesting idea. The wording on Spell Perfection states that you can apply any one metamagic feat to a spell as long as the modified level is not greater than 9th, which means a Summoner has some unique opportunities.
Some Ideas I had:
-Charm/Dominate Monster heightened to 9th level for high save DC's
-Magical Lineage Trait, then casting Quickened Maze.
-Since this is a Master Summoner, using Quickened Summon Monster VII (or Magical Lineage + Quickened Summon Monster VIII) + Summon Monster SLA in the same round for maximum nova
It seems to me that Heighten, Quicken and Persistent would be the most use, helping to either spam summons quickly, boost the otherwise low save DC's of the great SoS spells summoners get, or force extra saves for the same overall effect.
I apologies in advance if this is covered somewhere else, but I could not find anything covering my question in my (somewhat cursory) search of the message boards :P
Anyways, I'm working on making an application for iPad that acts as sort of a general GM's helper, it creates maps and provides a place to store monster and npc stats, notes on campaigns, etc. I had planned for one of the features to be a search screen, that provides a customized web view allowing users to search the pathfinder wiki (at www.d20pfsrd.com) for monster stats, spells, feats, etc. I plan to implement a feature allowing users to copy the stats from say, a monster, into the application to use in their game.
Does this fall under the Community Use Policy?
Bear in mind that I there will be no Pathfinder material that comes with the application, or is in any way part of the app, other than what users search the website for and manually copy into the application. The app functions as a way to store data, (which the users can either copy from the website or enter manually if they want to make up their own monsters) but the app does not include that data in itself.
I am working on this project primarily for my own use, but if it ends up as polished as I would like it, I would like to post it on the app store for others to enjoy, and I want to make sure I can implement the search feature without running into licensing troubles O.O
Saraiso
