Thrune Agent

Sean Brinson's page

Organized Play Member. 19 posts (40 including aliases). No reviews. No lists. No wishlists. 2 Organized Play characters. 1 alias.


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Rysky wrote:
Sean Brinson wrote:
Haladir wrote:
The empyreal lord Ragathiel is a LG redeemed devil.

Just want to correct this, Ragathiel isn't a "redeemed" devil. His story is more or less a "sin's of the father" thing as he's the son of Dispater, who is a fallen angel, and a fire goddess who afaik is only mentioned as his mother. By all accounts, he's an angel. Possibly half fire elemental I guess, his mom's only info is that she is a fire goddess who was "native to the plane of fire". He's probably influenced by this corruption though, since his lore says he fights against his baser urges constantly, and is always supremely pissed off.

Devil's that are "created" are pretty much elusively devil's, but the ones who were originally angels are basically super corrupt angels, but still technically angels.

He's been explicitly called an Ascended Devil.

Where, and by whom? Especially given that he's officially been stated in Bestiary 6, where his stats including no infernal, abyssal, daemonic or otherwise. He's got "Fire", "Extraplanar" and "Angel" which only further supports that he's half angel half fire elemental. It is still said that he's "More violent than the other celestial would like" and the such, which may owe to either him being born and spending a few hundred years in Hell, or to him being the direct son of one of the most powerful Arch Devil's. But again, his dad is explicitly stated to be a fallen angel. He's fundamentally different from any being created as a Devil.


Rysky wrote:
Uh, the Assassin Prestige Class predates the Red Mantis one by quite awhile (it's an update to the DnD one like most of the Prestige Classes in the Core book).

Actually, no, in the weirdest example of a retcon (I think) that I've ever seen. Campaign Settings was released in august 2008, while the CRB was released in august 2009; a full year later. The CRB had nothing about the red mantis assassin class that was featured in Campaign Setting, and instead had the prestige class. By simple publication date, it looks like they decided to drop the red mantis assassin class as it's not been referenced at any time since, at least to my knowledge, and have it's role filled by the prestige class.

As for what it's based off in DnD, I had only sparse experience with 3.5 DnD and don't really have anything on that.

EDIT: Here's the book I'm referencing https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Campaign_Setting


Melkiador wrote:
Meirril wrote:
As for cost being part of the 'requirements' section, its clearly not. Cost is detailed separately and derived from Market Price which is very clearly not in the 'requirements' section. Just because the standard templating places 'cost' after 'requirements' it shouldn't be assumed that it is a subsection. Especially since Cost has its own definition in the APG where these sections were given a definition.

No one is saying that Cost is part of the Requirements section. But it is unarguably part of the Construction section. The book is even more obvious about this, than PRDs. Check out page 500 of the CRB and look at the amulet of Natural Armor. The formatting of the text is more than clear. Cost is 100% a part of the Construction.

And it is the Construction section that identifies the text covered by it as being prerequisites.

AFAIK aiding another in crafting has no effect on the DC, beyond fulfilling the requirements you lack. E.G. if you're a good wizard, and you have an cleric who has Holy Aura in your party, the cleric can help you craft the item since you lack the spell "Holy Aura".

From the magic item creation rules outlined on the SRD: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items#TOC-Magic-Item-Creation

"Construction: With the exception of artifacts, most magic items can be built by a spellcaster with the appropriate feats and prerequisites. This section describes those prerequisites.

Requirements: Certain requirements must be met in order for a character to create a magic item. These include feats, spells, and miscellaneous requirements such as level, alignment, and race or kind. The prerequisites for creation of an item are given immediately following the item’s caster level.

A spell prerequisite may be provided by a character who has prepared the spell (or who knows the spell, in the case of a sorcerer or bard), or through the use of a spell completion or spell trigger magic item or a spell-like ability that produces the desired spell effect. For each day that passes in the creation process, the creator must expend one spell completion item or one charge from a spell trigger item if either of those objects is used to supply a prerequisite.

It is possible for more than one character to cooperate in the creation of an item, with each participant providing one or more of the prerequisites. In some cases, cooperation may even be necessary.

If two or more characters cooperate to create an item, they must agree among themselves who will be considered the creator for the purpose of determinations where the creator’s level must be known.

Cost: This is the cost in gold pieces to create the item. Generally this cost is equal to half the price of an item, but additional material components might increase this number. the cost to create includes the costs derived from the base cost plus the costs of the components."

I'm gonna be honest with you, I would never allow you to skimp on materials to create a magic item like that. Despite the insistence that you can raise the DC by 5 and ignore requirements, I have never seen or found that rule and I'm pretty sure that it's nothing more than a widely used house rule. And one that I would not use, as it both makes extremely powerful magic items far too easy to obtain, and also negates any triumph for successfully crafting one. I won't stop a lower leveled player from trying to craft something, IF they can meet all the requirements, but I'm not going to make it easy for a level 12 paladin to get a hold of the single strongest pally weapon outside of major artifacts. I want players to WORK for magic items they get, that's why some magic items have such a disparity between their creation methods. A +6 belt of strength is much easier to make compared to a Holy Avenger, for a good reason. And while any caster who could make a +6 belt of strength could make a holy avenger, they are going to have a LOT harder time making the holy avenger.

You can do what you want with house rules, but all I'm saying is the rules as written are there to prevent power creep, and they work pretty well with only the the REALLY lucky few who gamble on it getting such items early.


Rather than the bestiary, you might invest in one of the adventure modules. The modules are premade campaigns written with all the content you need in them (mostly, there are a few small examples where it references a bestiary) and all the work is generally done for you, and so all you'd need is the core rule book, dungeon masters guide and players guide. Maybe ultimate equipment/combat or the advanced guides if you wanted more options.

The game is a bit of investment, and most of the bestiary content is made with the idea that you are going to write your own campaign. As is most of the supplementary material. Start with an adventure module first imo. Mummy's Mask, Rise of the Rune Lords and Hells Vengeance/Hells Rebels are good starting points if you're new to it.


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Nope. For starters, I've not gotten to really try it myself, but after looking over it I can say I'm really not a fan of anything it's bringing to the table. I'm not a fan of the whole "dumbing down the game for dummies" approach, and I actually enjoy the combat and leveling in pathfinder. I absolutely LOATHE systems like milestone leveling, and these inspiration point things, and the changes they are making overall.

Like. I have a friend who genuinely hates combat and exp in pathfinder, he thinks it takes away from the game, but he likes inspiration points because "They make the game interesting". A game where you can role play an adventuring wielder of reality warping magic, and an inter-dimensional corpse bamfing into your dimension to grab a random peasant and pull him to the negative energy plane to chase him like a horror movie slasher villain out of it's sheer hatred of the living is not only accepted as a possibility, but a fairly normal occurrence... Is not interesting to this man. That's not a problem Paizo needs to address, that's a problem with the player, as I can tell you he does not make characters that mesh well with the world (his current character is a wizard, who worships zon kuthon, and is a "emo goth poser". Which to him, translates into only preparing pit, grease, invisibility and enlarge person, and sitting in the back whining about how the universe is pain while invisible.) and honestly, it only creates real problems when the developer tries to cater to this mindset.

Our DM has been using this system called "Drama Points" which is functionally inspiration, where he makes something "Dramatic" happen and will give you a drama point to spend later, which have been used to save the party members from death or trade in for feats. We're in the mummy's mask module, just finished book

2. SPOILERS AHEAD.:

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And in the room right before the final boss of the book, our level 6 party (Fighter, Paladin, Wizard affected by Blindness, and Medic) finds a crypt thing that guards the door. The fighter failed his will save when the Crypt Thing tried to teleport us away at the start of combat. Normally it sends you 100 feet in any direction. BUT because the player accepted 4 drama points, the teleport ended up putting him 88,903 feet IN THE AIR. He had a ring of slow fall, so he'd survive, but it would take him 17 minutes in game to reach the ground again, assuming he took the ring off for most of that fall. Trust me, we did the math. And the rest of us had no way of knowing this, as far as we knew, he was warped 100 feet in any direction since we knew how the Crypt Thing worked, and was either going to run back to us in about 30 seconds, or be stuck on the other side of the door where my pally sensed great evil. So, we quickly busted into the room and engaged the boss fight, a mummy, a greater mummy, and a wizard with a wand of enervation and a major artifact mask. And our wizard was blind, and played by the guy that hates combat. He cast enlarge person on me then cast invisibility on himself and tried to leave the room, wandering blindly in random directions. I had to fight this boss functionally alone until the fighter used SEVEN drama points to smash through the ceiling into the boss room. Medic died. I dropped to below 0 at 5 separate instances during that fight. Used all my lay on hands, both prepared spells, even my bonded mount. The only reason we won is because the DM got tired by this point, got bored, and purposefully played the boss like a literal moron. I mean literally, he didn't use hardly any of the spells that the guy had or the wand and spent the 9 rounds that I was stuck in the pit with a pair of mummies that the emo wizard stuck under me chasing the medic, who was afflicted with 6 rounds of fear, MONOLOGUING AT HIM. The fighter landed in the pit, immediately got dropped by the greater mummy, and I was at 3 hp by this point with one lay on hands left. I managed to kill the greater mummy with the fighter at -9, and we were still in the pit for 3 rounds. 5 rounds later, the wizard finally attacks the medic, and then landed on the ground in front of me to taunt the medic. Only reason we killed him, the DM let us kill him.

And honestly, all I see in 5e is this horror story becoming the norm. I have no interest in that, because 5e from what I have seen, rewards bad DM'ing and bad play. It rewards players who are too lazy to write a decent backstory for a character, or who want to play a lawful stupid paladin, or a chaotic stupid rogue, who thinks being actively detrimental to his team is funny or who simply don't like how the rules work. That's dumb. A beer and chips campaign is a beer and chips campaign, but even then there's etiquette. You can expect people to be more crazy, with weird concepts, but at it's core any pathfinder or DnD game is about adventurers, going on adventures. There's a point and a limit for everything, and 5e absolutely caters to the worst kinds of players who aren't interested in adventures. If they think the game is boring, or not interesting, then that's their problem, and I don't want the game to change specifically to suit them.


Xavram5 wrote:

Can a player create a magic item with a caster level higher than their own? One of our players is talking about wanting to make a Meta Magic Rod, the Lesser Dazing one. Look at it, it says that its a Caster Level 17 item...but he's only 10th level.

Can he do this? If he can, is there a penalty to trying to create it?

Also, in "normal" non-magical crafting, it says you can add 5 to the DC to cut the time in half...can you do this for Magic Items? No where in the rules for magic item creation do I see this rule, but the player is saying it exists. I'm not sure that they're not combining the two types of "crafting", which have VERY different rules for how long things take.

Thanks!

So beyond the feat requirements, every magic item has a list of unavoidable requirements. Those requirements are the ONLY things that cannot be ignored. For example, the Holy Avenger requires the following:

1 - it's creator must be "Good".
2 - Possess the 8th level Cleric spell "Holy Aura"
3 - 60,630 gp

The finished product is a CL 18 item, so the crafting DC would be 5+18 with an additional 5 for every level lower his CL is than the items. So technically, yeah anyone who has the feat and enough scroll of Holy Aura can craft it, but you'll add 5 to the DC for every caster level that you don't have. If a 14th level good cleric tried to craft a holy avenger, he'd have a DC of 5+18+20=43 and he would need to make that check 61 times. However, no Evil aligned anything could ever craft this item. AFAIK the "add 5 to avoid materials" does not count on anything in the requirements section.

EDIT: I should specify that this rule applies for specific magic items. If you wanted to put Ghost Touch on a +1 mace, you could add 5 to the DC. and not have ghost touch according to the rules, but personally I think that's asinine and that's one of the very few things I'd genuinely not allow if I was running a campaign. And I'm a guy that has no problem with permanent true strike on a weapon.


Green Smashomancer wrote:

Desna. She comes across as the one god one developer really liked and bugged the rest of the crew to put her in the game, then she got all of the exposure they could possibly cram in to golarion books.

It doesn't help that her whole theme is this very vague "freedom" thing, but also luck for some reason? Besides the fact that it's a powerful domain along with the travel one, I don't see the two having anything in common. It feels more like a miscellaneous pile of traits than anything else.

THIS.


Uh. No. Not really. But if you REALLY wanted to stretch to reach for it, you might get Urgothua or Zon Kuthon. That's the closest I can think of.

Urgothua - CE deity, the first undead ever. She basically was super hedonistic in life, didn't want to give that up when she died, so she spontaneously became a deity of undeath. She likes her minions to indulge in excessive sex, violence and mayhem, as by the time she died she was well past the threshold of being able to get off from anything even remotely normal. Super self destructive, chaotic stupid/stupid evil crap.

Zon Kuthon - Pain and suffering is what makes life matter, so you should make yourself and everyone around you suffer. A lot. Basically loves it when his followers go out and bring untold pain and suffering to others in his name. He was once a good deity, Sheylyn's brother IIRC, but he went beyond the edge of infinity and came back. Turns out that really, REALLY screws you up, since now he's more or less an insane version of pinhead from Hellraiser, pushed to the extreme.


As other's have said, pretty much only Nethys and Gorum. Nethys doesn't care about your morality, only that you really like magic and push it's boundaries. Likewise, Gorum doesn't care why you fight or for which side, only that you fight hard and against worthy opponents. That's all I can think of.


Nah fam. Sin Magic is a long lost form of magic that bit the dust along with ancient civilization, and really the only ones who know enough about it to use it are the rune lords themselves.


The issue with finding the majority of information is that it's extremely spread out over multiple books, due to the writers adding and expanding on it over time. Let's see... If you want just source books you can find info in all of the following:

The Great Beyond - A guide to the Multiverse
God's and Magic
Guide to Absalom
Seekers of Secrets
Inner Sea Faiths
Jnner Sea Magic
Inner Sea God's
Artifacts and Legends
Inner Sea World Guide
Lost Cities of Golarion
Lost Kingdoms
Lost Treasures
Planes of Power
Divine Anthology
Faiths of Balance
Osirion, Land of the Pharohs
Osirion, Legacy of the Pharohs
People of the Sands
Ultimate Magic

And you can also find some stuff in several adventure paths:

Rise of the Runelords
Shattered Star
Strange Aeons
Ruins of Azlant

But uh... Yeah, you'll find bits and pieces of the overall content throughout all the stuff. It takes a pretty long time to get through it all. Can you be a little more specific about what you want to know? that'll get the attention of the lore hounds.


MageHunter wrote:
I haven't really seen any James Bond movies but does he ever kill the innocent?

No, but a lot of arguably innocent people invariably get killed by the baddies when Bond is in the general vicinity, or as a result of Bond using them to get somewhere and a bad guy just wanting to spit him. Especially in the Daniel Craig era, where bond became more of a bad boy anti-hero... Watch the earlier Bond films for a much better, less edgy depiction.

Anyway, the assassin prestige class is weird because it's drawn from a really old class, the Red Mantis Assassin, which appeared in the first Campaign Setting (P. 230) book and is still a thing in the lore. The Red Mantis are an organization of assassins who basically view the act of targeted killing as an art, and want to be as good at it as they can possibly be. They differentiate it from murder or needless killing, and they model themselves after the Mantis God Achaekek, who the other gods created specifically to assassinate anyone who aims to steal a deity's divinity but as a caveat is literally incapable of harming a true deity, E.G. the Red Mantis assassins will NEVER kill a rightful monarch. However they'll kill anyone else if they deem the task worth their skill, and for the right price, and they'll remove anything that gets in their way in much the same cold efficiency as Achaekek himself.

Lore wise, they tend to be Some combination of lawful, neutral and evil, but there ARE a number of members who are pretty easily put in the "Good" category. The big thing is just that their profession is to kill for money, complete the contract regardless of who it is, and never kill a rightful ruler. Assassin Prestige Class is more or less an updated version of the old class. Honestly if I ever run it (which I have, assassin is hands down my favorite class in the game) I ask the DM if I can be chaotic/neutral good. Assassins in the Red Mantis are free to refuse or accept any contracts they want, and it's entirely possible to be a contract killer who only accepts contracts for villainous targets.


Two words: Mantis God. AKA Achaekek.


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Haladir wrote:
The empyreal lord Ragathiel is a LG redeemed devil.

Just want to correct this, Ragathiel isn't a "redeemed" devil. His story is more or less a "sin's of the father" thing as he's the son of Dispater, who is a fallen angel, and a fire goddess who afaik is only mentioned as his mother. By all accounts, he's an angel. Possibly half fire elemental I guess, his mom's only info is that she is a fire goddess who was "native to the plane of fire". He's probably influenced by this corruption though, since his lore says he fights against his baser urges constantly, and is always supremely pissed off.

Devil's that are "created" are pretty much elusively devil's, but the ones who were originally angels are basically super corrupt angels, but still technically angels.


A lot of mortals who follow anything in the dark tapestry are already a little insane.


172 - Aroden cast pit on himself, but forgot he had a handy haversack on.


Reduxist wrote:

There’s also the fact that the Horsemen are willing to work with other planes for their own ends. Szuriel struck up a deal with Moloch and the armies of Hell to send daemonic aid in return for the souls of the dead on the battlefield. And Charon already makes deals with mortals that ends up in his favor. What’s stopping Charon from striking up deals with gods?

Also, Charon is the patient type. He is willing to wait eons for his plans to work. He’d be more than willing to send a few of his clergy into specified locations, both physically and morally, so his plans can work. A non-evil member would be an excellent proselytizer.

AFAIK, Charon has the same goal as the rest of the Horsemen, which is the extinguishing of all life. This is kind of a flaw in the way people often interpret the horsemen, they aren't aspects or personifications of "death" so much as they are of the concept of the concept of "end". Charon himself is more or less just patient when compared to his brethren, since he knows that time will end all things eventually.

Expanding off that, Charon doesn't seem to have that many followers. He's known to make deals with mortals and help create lich's, but mostly because he knows that these beings will cause massive amounts of destruction, and end up back at the river styx. I don't see how you could make anything work, as Charon himself would simply kill and eat your soul should you go near him, unless he was trying to make you into a lich. In that case he'd be sending you to the mortal plane specifically to commit mass murder, and then get killed yourself, at which point you'd end up back in the river styx and he'll eat your soul. He's pretty blatantly just evil.


Hmmm. Generally speaking I like most of the deities as is, but I can come up with some tweaks here and there.

Pharasma - I don't think she's lacking in power, I think she's just completely absorbed in her work. Make her more proactive. She genuinely hates undead, but she doesn't go out of her way to stop them from being created or to destroy them even though she's the one who said their creation and existence hastens the end of all things. So, have her actually go after Urgothua, or have Urgothua try to attack Pharasma. Legit I've always thought of her as being weaker than Asmodeus and Sarenrae, just smarter and phenomenally more patient. It's not that Asmodeus isn't strong enough to take her on, it's that he knows how many ways she'll have planned accordingly.

Asmodeus - Legit I like him as he is, but maybe have him do a heel face turn. His lore established that he and his brother were the first two God's, and when the latter decided to give free will to mortals and create "Chaos" he warred against and eventually killed his brother in the first act of betrayal. After that he simply left the universe as is as a final act of sympathy or possibly regret for that act, but promised to someday re-write the entire universe to be super lawful. Instead, maybe Asmodeus has been tormented and wracked by the regret over killing his brother, and now he's finally snapped. Even he can't really keep to his lawful ideology if he goes insane, but he is quite literally the strongest deity. Also, he ain't gay. I dunno where you guys got that. Also Hell isn't "misogynistic" it's militaristic and authoritarian, and there are plenty of powerhouse female demon's and devil's.

Gozreh - Maybe embrace the dual force of nature aspect more literally. Forces of nature are constantly working AGAINST each other, not with each other, and their combined effects are what make nature function. Gozreh is one entity with two mutual aspects; the water and air personas. Rather than have them both simply be "aspects" of the singular entity, make them two separate entities that share the same existence, constantly fighting each other for control and influence. One could even give them separate alignments, one neutral one good, both chaotic. Or one chaotic and one lawful, both neutral/good.

Gorum - Only one I'd actually change. Have him be more hostile to the other gods, indiscriminately. Gorum is the god of war. He doesn't care WHY you are waging war, just that you're waging it. He doesn't like cowards, and he makes a distinction between murderers and warriors, but he's absolutely OK with just war in general. Ever play Asura's Wrath? Right now I picture him a lot more like Argus, running around constantly talking about how much he absolutely loves fighting and screaming about how he doesn't fight for good, or evil, but instead he just fights... But rarely ever actually getting into fights. Instead of this, make him actively seek out fights with other deities and instigate wars. I mean, Cernunnos in comparison makes regular descents into Hell or the Abyss just to kill some fiends because he hates them and they tend to corrupt nature, and his raids generally cause a lot of damage. And he's just an Empyreal Lord, WITH STATS mind you. Gorum loves war and battle, yet he does next to nothing to actually engage in or promote war, nor does he really battle much.

Lamashtu - Only thing I'd change is have her make more actual attacks on other deities. She became a full deity by devouring the previous god of beasts (desna's friend) and it's openly stated that she considers effectively all other deities to be her rivals and enemies... Yet she doesn't really do much to get at them. And she's pretty easily the most likely candidate to make attempts at killing the other gods and steal their divinity. And she is now the most powerful Demon Lord, as well as the only full deity among their ranks. She could do something with that.

Iomedae - Honestly, I'd have her switch alignment with Sarenrae on morality and change her to Neutral Good, while making Sarenrae Chaotic Good. Iomedae was the herald of Aroden back in the day, and more or less took on his ideals. Aroden was a god that championed HUMANS in particular, but was also really active on the mortal world and had no issue screwing with tyrannical laws and regimes. Iomedae is much the same, and most of her paladin code is about freedom and protecting the weak and Iomedae just seems to in general keep a calm, decisive head about circumstances. Also I'd make her more active in the mortal world, like Aroden was.

Sarenrae - Like I said above, Sarenrae doesn't strike me as a "Neutral" deity, but more of a "Chaotic" deity. Or at the very least skirting the line between chaotic and neutral. I'd make her the chaotic good deity, and focus more prominently on the "fiery and slightly crazy" aspect she's got. She's one of the older deities, she was strong enough to battle Rovagug, and her personality is all over the place. She's firmly cemented in the "good guy" department, but she's far more chaotic than neutral.

And I'm gonna point out that there's a LOT of info on most of the deities, at least the major ones. It's just not all in one place, not by a long shot.


So I'm getting ready to run a one shot campaign that I hope to make into a 3 part, or more. I've got some of the stuff down, but I'm running into an issue with some of the locations and stat blocks.

Campaign setting is basically a small party of evil PC's have been tasked by Garyon to infiltrate Nirvana and place "The Great Lie" in the heart of Eritrice's domain. I've expanded on her lore so that she's secretly and unknowingly a rogue avatar of Garyon, possessing a sizable chunk of his power, and he wants to reclaim it now that he's aware of it. To do this, he has the PC's plant the great lie, which is in the form of a black rose, in her Garden of Truth.

Problem is there's very little information on most of the sub area's in Elysium and Nirvana, and I want to give some life to the zone. I'm avoiding the whole "bust down the wall and slaughter the villagers" stereotype but I want the party to have opportunities to commit acts that will please Garyon. I've got an alarm level system built for it, where each act they do can gain favor with the arch devil, lose favor if they fail, and raise the level of awareness that the denizens of the planes have. To make this work though, I really need some more information on the areas within the zone. I've been drawing most of my info from Inner Sea God's, Chronicles of the Righteous and Pathfinder Chronicles: The Great Beyond, but you'd be surprised at how little there is.

Can anyone give me some details on any of the locations on the map in Elysium/Nirvana, or just the ones listed on the wiki? I've got a few months before I want to run it.

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