Shadowlords's page

So looking though the other norlands saga comments i found my questions answered. I am updating my post in that regards.

Great review, Endzeitgeist! Thanks a bunch!

Two comments:

1. While it is fair to mention that it does not support the mass combat rules of Ultimate Campaign, I must point out that it was completed before Ultimate Campaign was out, so we were not able to use it. Which brings up Point #2 in regards to that and all the questions there have been about NS5.

2. The end of piece-mealing the awesomeness that is Kenneth Spencer's Northlands Saga has come. I don't have a set date yet, but hopefully later this year, Frog God Games will be releasing The Northlands Saga Complete. What is The Northlands Saga Complete you ask? Why it is two books in one. The first book is the Northlands Saga Campaign Guide, an extensive look at the many kingdoms huddled around the frigid North Sea, their peoples, their gods, a gazetteer of their towns and countrysides, extensive regional encounter generators, new PC races, feats, magic, and archetypes, and a host of new monsters. The second part of The Northlands Saga Complete is The Northlands Saga adventure path: NS1-NS10. A complete adventure path following the course of the PCs' wyrd through the harsh Northlands. It will include reissued NS1-4 updated with material from the new campaign guide plus some new encounters added just to spice them up, plus NS5-NS10 as all-new adventures to continue the players' epic campaign. Oh, and did I mention that included with the adventure path is NS0, a triple-length adventure for levels 1-4 to bring your PCs up to the 5-7 level range presented in NS1? I don't remember if I did or not. Oh well.

So that's the news. I don't know exactly when it'll release, I just managed to get other projects out of the way so I could devote the time to this one a couple months ago, but here's where it stands:

Campaign Guide (60,000 words) - DONE
NS0 (45,000 words) - DONE
NS1 (2,500 words added, 17,500 total) - DONE
NS2 (2,500 words added, 17,500 total) - DONE
NS3 (20,000 words) update nearly done
NS4 (20,000 words) next to be updated
NS5 (30,000 words) - DONE
NS6 (15,000 words) - getting started this month
NS7 (15,000 words) - half done
NS8 (15,000 words) - 90% done
NS9 (15,000 words) - pending
NS10 (15,000 words) - pending

I want to have the whole thing written before we start giving release date details since it dragged out so much as a series, but it is the project that is currently on my plate, so rest assured it is coming. It should weigh in at around 400-500 pages or so, I'm guessing. And maybe we'll even get to add in some of that Ultimate Campaign siege stuff. :-)

Anyway, I don't want to take the spotlight away from Endzeitgeist's excellent review, but we've been quiet on this topic for a long time and I wanted to let everyone know where it's headed and that the end is near! Thanks to everyone who has enjoyed the Northlands Saga so far, and here's to many more adventures there!

Greg

So in my reading i have come across this Wizard.

Eziah - Male Human - True Neutral - level 16 Wizard
Eziah is a most-reclusive wizard who dwells in his multi-storied tower on the sun known as the Silent Sanctum. He relocated there to be left alone after growing tired of Golarion's petty politics.

So how does a level 16 wizard survive on the sun indefinitely.

There are many dangers on the sun beside the pure heat and gravity. There are Fire Elementals and portals to the plane of fire all over the place.

I have parsed through the wizard spell list and nothing completely sticks out to me as this with this will allow you to survive.

So a human who acquires the shadow creature template becomes an outsider with the augmented subtype. What does this mean?

Outsiders breathe, but do not need to eat or sleep (although they can do so if they wish). Native outsiders breathe, eat, and sleep.

A creature receives this subtype when something (usually a template) changes its original type. Some creatures (those with an inherited template) are born with this subtype; others acquire it when they take on an acquired template. The augmented subtype is always paired with the creature's original type.

So the creatures original type is human would that mean he is considered native?

This subtype is applied only to outsiders. These creatures have mortal ancestors or a strong connection to the Material Plane and can be raised, reincarnated, or resurrected just as other living creatures can be. creatures with this subtype are native to the Material Plane. Unlike true outsiders, native outsiders need to eat and sleep.

A human is augmented with the shadow creature template, do you still eat and sleep and have a soul as an augmented shadow creature?

This next part is a little wacky and from lore not so much rules but outsiders also do not really age. So would a human who acquired the outsider type stop aging?

So we all know that a druid who put on metal armor loses his spells and abilities for 24 hours

A druid who wears prohibited armor or uses a prohibited shield is unable to cast druid spells or use any of her supernatural or spell-like class abilities while doing so and for 24 hours thereafter.

Now what if the druid is put into a metal box or cage, completely surrounded by metal. does he lose spell and abilities then?

Similarly what if the druid enters a room that is completely encased with metal walls. would the druid lose his powers?

I'm leaning towards yes on a few reasons. Not from any rules i have found stating so but from lore within the game world

The metal interferes with the druids connection to the natural world, thus he loses his powers. this is why druids do not wear metal armor, not because of some belief that forging armor is unnatural other wise all metal weapons would also be unusable.

so being placed in a metal box would also sever that connection to nature. Now the extent of the metal surroundings would be up to debate, would a simple cage with metal bars and floor completely cut him off or would the box have to be solid, no gaps or holes anywhere.

Can my character put on an amulet that allows him to once per day cast a buff on himself. then take the amulet off an put a different amulet on and still benefit from the buff.

Ex.

Sihedron Medallion

... Once per day, as a free action, it may be commanded to bestow the effects of false life on the wearer ...

This effect will last for 5 hours, as the medallion is caster level 5 and the spell lasts 1 hour per caster level.

so i use that ability then take the amulet off and put an amulet of Natural armor on. do i still have the effects of false life on me for the 5 hours

I decided to change things up a bit and instead of prowling the Rules Forum and discussing RAW / RAI, I want to take a step back and talk about one of my favorite spells in the game. It was difficult to come up with a single spell and I have a lot of spells I really like. But the druid is one of my favorite classes, and I was thinking Goodberry is very iconic spell for a druid and a spell that every druid has cast at least a couple times, if not daily. Goodberry first appeared in 2nd Edition D&D and has been a cornerstone spell for druids since, although it was strangely absent from 4th edition. It really hasn’t undergone many changes since its first introduction other than the wording, the spell itself effectively does the exact same thing in every edition.

The stranger found us lost in the woods starving, he had a handful of freshly picked berries, we watched as he passed an old craved stick, that still had living leaves on it, over the berries, spoke some sort of incantation in a language none of us knew, and then put his hand out to us in an offering. We each took some berries and hesitantly ate, after a few seconds we felt full from a single berry and our wounds started to heal. As we looked back towards the stranger he was gone. We were able to find our way out of the woods a few days later, the berries he gave us kept us alive for those days, he never said a word and we never saw him again.

A similar food stuff is seen in Lord of the rings, Elvish Whey Bread or Lembas. Though not magical, at least it’s not stated to be magical, the bread works the same way as goodberry, a small portion provides all the nutrition you need for a full day, it is also stated that a single bite will fill your stomach. So it is not unreasonable to assume that goodberry could also make you feel full.

Below is the base Goodberry spell from the PF Core Rule Book, not much has changed since 3.5, I updated the text to show all spell lists it appears on with new content Paizo has released for their Pathfinder Line.

This is a spell similar to Goodberry that came out with their adventure path line. Again basically the same concept of Goodberry just with a little bit of flavor.

Revised / Homebrew
I revised the original Goodberry spell and added a new spell to sort of duplicate the mythic spell version, I cleared up the “provides nourishment as if it were a normal meal for a Medium creature” as there are no rules on what a normal meal actually means or how many “normal meals” a character must eat per day. Also tried to combine parts Ironbloom into the goodberry spell, and added in the Badberry reverse effect from 2nd Edition.

I really liked the Mythic augmented spell level 2 of Goodberry and its similar to the cleric level 4 spell Imbue with Spell like Ability so I created a similar spell for Druids involving goodberries. I kept the casting time of the cleric spell and bumped it up to 4th level as well, an argument can be made to make it a 5th level spell but I like it were its at currently. This spell currently makes the mythic version obsolete, but I hardly ever play in mythic games as it is, and really liked the ability. If I was to play in mythic games or wanted to make the mythic version valid, I would increase the mythic power of goodberry to a higher degree rather than take away from this spell.

Goodberry has also appeared in other media, Games such as the Baulders Gate series and Icewind Dale Series, which used 2nd edition rules and 3rd edition rules.

So commune with nature is a divination spell so by just that non-detection and mind blank should stop it from working on a target.

But when using commune with nature you don't really "target" the creature its more you like you gathered the information from what nature has seen of the target.

We ran into this problem in our game were i used Tectonic Communion, A stronger version of Commune with nature, to find a kraken, or something like a kraken. But the kraken had non detection. so GM ruled that it didn't work. Thats fine, kind of not how my vision of the spell works but moving on we ended up going around asking sailors and me going into the sea as a druid and speaking with animals and plants to find the kraken.

Now my vision of commune with nature is just what we did but packed into one spell. I become one with nature and look through the eyes / talk to the creatures, plants, ect. to find the information that "nature" knows of the creature.

What are your thoughts on this spell and how it should be used vs anti scrying methods as a "divination" spell.

Goodberry
Casting Time 1 standard action
Duration 1 day/level

Casting goodberry makes 2d4 freshly picked berries magical. You (as well as any other druid of 3rd or higher level) can immediately discern which berries are affected. Each transmuted berry provides nourishment as if it were a normal meal for a Medium creature. The berry also cures 1 point of damage when eaten, subject to a maximum of 8 points of such curing in any 24-hour period.

Mythic
Each berry provides a full day's nourishment and counts as 1 hour of complete rest for the purpose of removing exhaustion, fatigue, or nonlethal damage.

Augmented (2nd): You can cast the spell to affect only one berry, imbuing into that berry any harmless druid spell you have prepared. The spell remains stored in the berry for the duration of the goodberry spell or until the berry is consumed. A creature that eats the berry gains the benefits of that spell as if you had cast it upon her. The maximum level of the imbued spell is equal to half your tier, and you must expend one use of mythic power for each spell level of the imbued spell (in addition to the one use needed to cast mythic goodberry). Similar to imbue with spell ability, you can't prepare a spell in that spell's slot until the berry is consumed or the mythic goodberry spell ends.

Now to the debate:

"Normal Meal for a medium creature" were in the rules does it say how many normal meals a medium creature needs to eat a day to not starve or start having to do fort saves from hunger?

In the food and drink section of the rules under meal it states that a meal consists of all the food you need for the day.

Many other places this statement of "normal meal for a Medium creature" has been replaced with "enough food to sustain x people for a day" or 24 hours. -From Create food and water

Fruitful sash from pathfinder unchained when talking about the goodberrys the sash provides uses the statement "One piece of fruit has enough nourishment and water to sustain one humanoid for 24 hours"

I could make the argument from real life that a person only "needs" one meal per day to survive and many do.

The contradiction comes in when looking at mythic were it then states that it provides nourishment for 24 hours, but also 1 hour of rest..ect. I could argue that the counting as 1 hour of rest is the true bonus to mythic goodberry. Now is this finally an update to the wording to remain consistant and do all goodberrys now count like this or a clarification meaning you need to eat more then one good berry a day to survive. If the latter is true i repeat my first question, how many berries must one eat to not starve and were in the rules does it state this.

This is the item I designed. I also added a little flavor text to the creation of it to limit the items availability. Let me know what you guys Think.

Everlasting Fruit Vine
CL 1, Faint Conjuration / Transmutation, Slot Less, 2 Lbs. – 360 Gp
Looking like a small cluster of grapes cut from the vine, these uniquely colored grapes each taste and feel like a different random fruit but are no bigger or shaped differently than a normal grape without seeds.
The Stem has enough spots for 8 berries to grow and once picked will be replaced 24hours later as a new piece at a rate of 2d4 berries a day. These Magical Berries each provides nourishment (Food + Water) as if it were a normal meal for a Medium creature. The berry also cures 1 point of damage when eaten, subject to a maximum of 8 points of such curing in any 24-hour period. The Berries Last for 24 Hours once picked before losing their magical quality. To remove one berry from the Vine and eat it takes a Move action.
Construction Requirements: CL 1, Goodberry, 180 Gp
Spell Level (1) x Caster Level (1) x 1800gp (Use Activated) /5 (for number of charges per day = 1) = 360 Gp
(Slot Less Items Should Double the Price but for a non-Combat Item / doesn’t provide a passive buff or effect on Player Characters so I didn’t include that)

To grow this unique item a druid must gather up seeds from all the fruit plants that it wishes the berries to taste like, at least 4 different seeds need to be used, as well as 180gp worth of unique soils and fertilizer. Growing takes 5 days and during that time the druid must water it and cast Abstemiousness, Goodberry, and Plant Growth, every day on the plant and tend to it for 4 hours a day. During this 4 hours a druid must attempt a Nature check DC 20 every day or the plant dies and all materials are lost and must start again, at the end of the 5 days the druid must carefully cut the fruit cluster from the plant. Once cut the rest of the plant dies in a matter of hours but the cluster of fruit will forever remain ripe. It is possible to grow larger fruit clusters, in increments of 8 and that grow an additional 2d4 berries per day, for each additional increment it takes an additional 5 days and an additional 180 Gp.

I want to increase the price 180gp -> 250gp and 360gp -> 500gp seems a bit more reasonable but we will see.

A druid or ranger always knows what type of fruit a berry is duplicating. If a berry is planted in the ground it will grow into the plant that grows that fruit, the plant will grow more quickly and be more bountiful and last longer than normal for that type of plant.

The item can be easily destroyed by fire and the berries can be crushed, although not as easily as normal berries or grapes, the stems cannot be broken or cut easily so accidently destroying the item is not possible.

//This item is a very common item for Druids, Rangers, Hunters, and Shamans, it is quite difficult to come across for anyone else and are greatly sought after

Are there any Pathfinder books or D&D books that focus on a druid as the main character or as a primary suplement character?