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SilverDingo wrote:

Okay, weird question, but does anyone have an idea of how Nikolaus Okerra would respond to the party while at the Tanager Jubilee?

He would recognize them even if they were diplomatic with them. Wouldn't he think something's up if they introduced themselves as the Betony heirs? Or would he just be like "This isn't really my business." and not mind if they were diplomatic towards him initially.

It would depend on how he interacted with the PCs. I don't think he would be the type to be immediasuspicious as long as Bartleby believes they're legit, but if they were rude to him or showed clearly chaotic behaviors he wouldn't take kindly to them. He's not the biggest fan of Bartleby either and if the PCs seem like they're capable of running the area he wouldn't pay too much mind. If they told him they lied he may get upset at them though.

Fair enough! So it might be a "Nice to see you again" unless the PCs really get on his nerves. Sounds good to me.

Okay, weird question, but does anyone have an idea of how Nikolaus Okerra would respond to the party while at the Tanager Jubilee?

He would recognize them even if they were diplomatic with them. Wouldn't he think something's up if they introduced themselves as the Betony heirs? Or would he just be like "This isn't really my business." and not mind if they were diplomatic towards him initially.

CeeJay wrote:

VORT: This is a weird one. House Vort are present as a fairly prominent player close to the epicenter of Eutropia's faction throughout the War for the Crown. Along with House Nazezi, they're one of only a few factions who haven't been folded into either the Loyalist or Imperialist camps by the events of Book Four, City in the Lion's Eye. So they must be one of the stronger independent contenders for the throne.

But we do see a character from Vort in Book Two. It's Calphidius Vort, who is a part of the Baron Telus storyline. And the thing is: there's never any mention of his being from a family that's making a bid for the throne. It never comes up. I don't know if that's an oversight, if he's just from a different Vort family, or what. Maybe the Vorts aren't that prominent at all: maybe they're in too much of a backwater part of Tandak Prefecture for anybody to care what they're laying claim to and come after them. Shrug.

My players were obsessed with Vort from the moment they heard his goofy name, so naturally I had to expand his role a little bit. I decided to basically play Vort as a bit of a kook, his claim to the throne comes from being Stavian's Great Great Great Grandnephew 4 times removed as well as his popularity among the peasantry after the fall of Jambis. I'm playing him as kinda a Vermin Supreme type figure, someone with no real chance of winning, has a lot of weird ideas, and has no clue when to throw in the towel. Of course the PCs are not harboring him in Stachys, and there's already talk of "removing the competition" so who knows how it's going to develop from here.

I know it's been a long time since this thread was posted in, and I don't mean to Necropost, but I have Vort as sort of a populist leader. a former University Chancellor who is very popular with students and young firebrands who seeks sweeping Andoran-style changes. His following is small, but very loyal.

SilverDingo wrote:

Something Space Western, akin to like, The Outer Worlds, or even New Vegas.

I know we had Fly Free or Die, but something that is more directly a reference to Westerns of old, like Seven Samurai/Magnificent Seven. Long cloaked drifters with revolvers, an old mining town on Akiton, a lawless frontier that must be tamed by a group of adventurers willing to get out there and tame it, all brought together by bandit attacks and a corrupt sheriff.

with the tech revolution vehicle rules, you could sub-out starship combat in favor of racing robotic steeds, atomic trains, etc.

A chapter with a train robbery could be super neat, so I totally agree. That's a great idea to utilize new tech rules.

Something Space Western, akin to like, The Outer Worlds, or even New Vegas.

I know we had Fly Free or Die, but something that is more directly a reference to Westerns of old, like Seven Samurai/Magnificent Seven. Long cloaked drifters with revolvers, an old mining town on Akiton, a lawless frontier that must be tamed by a group of adventurers willing to get out there and tame it, all brought together by bandit attacks and a corrupt sheriff.

Quick note: We’re using Pathfinder Rules for a game set in Sengoku Japan, just because it’s the system i’m used to. I’ve limited races to Aasimar, Tieflings, Humans, and Half-Elves with some flavoring. Also, all players are level 6 at the current moment.

Anyway, I’m running a campaign based on Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice where the characters are trying to escort a young prince out of a war torn province, however, this is in order of the emperor. So far I have an NPC who is based on the One Armed Wolf himself (Level 5 Ninja/Level 1 Constructed Pugilist Brawler).

What I’m trying to figure out is some enemies based on enemies and bosses, specifically:

Genichiro Ashina: He’s a bit broad as he’s a bowman, a swordsman, and can summon lightning. This means he’d Be a Jack of All Trades but Master of None. Is there any way I can fulfill his legendary status? (Was considering two separate builds, one was Swordmaster/Bowman samurai and the other was a Kensai Magus)

Headless: Not the Guardian Ape, but the headless enemies that must have Divine Confetti used to actually be hit. Can take some mechanics fudging if a special item is not possible.

O’Rin of the Water: The Shamisen playing specter who dances around and fights with a Wakizashi in her instrument.

Also, are there any books with monsters of Japanese origin that I can use?

Thanks! I know I’m asking a lot, I’m just a bit stuck.

With a fireball you usually know where the nice smells are coming from, and it's often a little traumatizing.

"Anyone else smell bacon...?"

This then leads to a damage roll for the caster because the fireball obviously burned the caster, if this is before it makes contact with the target.

If you really wanted to, you could just homebrew or flavor it so that they don't. I can think of several spells, especially psychic ones, where it wouldn't make sense or would be prudent to hide magical effects. i.e. telekinesis or something.

Another good way to challenge your players is to add conditions to the encounter. Generally speaking there are two main ways to add conditions to an encounter. The first and most common is altering the battle field. This is pretty straight forward and most GM’s are familiar with this. Adding in difficult terrain or other adverse situations are examples of this. The second is to alter the rules for victory. This is more difficult but can also be a lot more challenging.

The standard encounter usually involves the party facing a variety of opponents and they achieve victory by simply killing them. The party is usually free to use any method to achieve victory. By altering either the condition or the allowable methods you can significantly increase the challenge to the party from the same foes. Just be sure that the party actually does have a way to achieve victory. This is why knowing what your players can actually do is critical.

One of the most difficult encounters I ran was one where the party had to avoid killing the BBEG. They did not find out about the condition until after the battle started which made it a lot more difficult. His dying by violence was the last step for him to gain a template. His power level was such that if he had gained the template he would have easily been able to kill the entire party.

Limiting the methods the players can use often requires more work, but can still be done. If you wanted to limit the use of fire spells you could have the battle take place in an area where there are a lot of valuable combustible items. Using a fireball in the library where you are trying to research the weakness of the BBEG is going to be costly. Having innocent people around the opponents that would be killed by powerful area of effect attacks is a classic plot device. Another classic plot device is having to take down the opponents without alerting anyone. In one encounter it meant that wizard had to avoid most of his usual spells, and the cleric had to waste...

What about like, alternate solutions as well? Like, instead of hurting the big Oni that’s on fire directly with swords (which would work but risk fire damage), you can trick it into stumbling into the lake? That feels like it would require logic and some thinking without being too difficult.

Also, side note, I changed it from Minkai to just an alternate fantasy Sengoku Era Japan with different clan and character names. Just a note, since I didn’t want to deal with elves and dwarves. The Aasimar is just reflavored to be part Deva.

I apologize for not being clear on some stuff and not responding to feedback. Been kind of a long week. So thank you all for the feedback! It’s been super super helpful!

The party consists of a human ninja, a human wizard who fights via touch (utilizing Ofuda), an Aasimar oracle, a kitsune shrine maiden (a sort of Cleric/Shaman hybrid), and a human samurai. They are all level 6.

The campaign is set to tie into our eventual run of Jade Regent and is set 200 years prior. Based around the Sengoku Era, and follows the murder of the Shogun and a civil war that has erupted from that, with the players being called upon by the emperor to not only help put down the civil war but also keep Yōkai from terrorizing the people. (Honestly it could have been homebrew but the eventual Jade Regent DM really wanted it to tie in.)

I have taken the resurrection with consequences idea, with 10% HP loss per resurrection, (restorable through a rare item) but I may add in a world-related consequence as well.

Most of the boss enemies are either Yōkai such as Jorogumo, an oni with barbarian class levels, and wizard based on Tamamo no Mae. The basic yōkai are basic oni and tengu and such. The human enemies are mostly samurai, ninja, and a group of foreign mercenaries with maybe the occasional bandit thrown in.

I hope all this info helps!

Balancing encounters in Pathfinder is extremely hard when there's intra-party variance. One level 20 PC can literally be an order of magnitude stronger than another level 20 PC. Restricting the game to lower levels narrows the band a bit, but doesn't fully solve the problem- you may still get situations where any encounter that meaningfully threatens the Cleric will almost certainly kill off the Rogue.

I would suggest playing at around level 6, where most PCs can do interesting things but can't yet break the game. I'm also going to shill for the Spheres of Might and Spheres of Power third-party systems: they are significantly better balanced than first-party classes, which makes fine-tuning encounters easier.

I'd also suggest softening the consequences of death for player characters, maybe by some in-universe conceit of them returning to life over and over again. If the PCs have even a 10% chance of losing each fight, then after just seven or eight fights it's a coinflip as to whether they've completely wiped and had to make new characters.

If you're running a sheet-grinder campaign like that, most players will naturally lose emotional investment in their own characters since they know they won't last more than a couple of sessions. They'll play in a more paranoid and "gamey" way, and this may keep them from appreciating the atmosphere and aesthetic you're trying to cultivate.

I was considering Level 6 or Level 8 since those seem like good enough levels to start with kicking ass as well as several monsters I want being around there (Drider, reflavored as a Jorogumo, is CR7, for example)

I don't plan on it being a Sheet Grinder (though I will add in some Souls/Sekiro-esque resurrection mechanics if or when players die) since I like a good story and the aesthetic more than the difficulty of the settings.

Thanks for the help!

I am a big fan of difficult but aesthetically pleasing games such as Dark Souls and Bloodborne. I like some dark fantasy and have recently been planning something similar to Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and Nioh but set in Minkai.

I’m just wondering how I set the starting levels and encounters so they’re not too difficult where TPK is incredibly easy each battle, or too easy, where CR is low. We tried a campaign at level 20 and well, it just ended up with a lot of cheesing past enemies and such, and I don’t want that again.

I just don’t know what to do because I feel trapped between mechanics and aesthetic. I know what level to start at (enemies I like and that fit range around various CRs).

Oh, great! That helps a lot! Thanks!

Basically, the character I want to grapple with is within a crowd of people and I want them to be grabbed from behind, but the enemy doing the grabbing does not have Grab or Improved Grapple.

Is there a way I can use stealth to stand in and prevent AoO, or... what's a good solution here?

A bloatmage that can cast the skinsend spell.

Going to have to agree with this.

Bloatmage+literally anything is a really horrific combination that ends up really disgusting just by virtue of being a Bloatmage.

So, I've been trying to work out character for a gestalt Jade Regent campaign when I came upon a character I liked:

Kasumi from the Dead Or Alive fighting game series.

I'm assuming some kind of Ninja/Monk Gestalt, but I'm not really sure how to go about that, since:

1. I don't know how well they mesh
2. I am not used to building a gestalt character.

ANy help would be much appreciated!

I always feel in these type of threads that the OP should at the minimum put forward their own suggestion to get the ball rolling.....

I actually do have my own suggestion!

The Dreamthief Rogue Archetype.

While I'm a huge fan of Persona 5 and a fan of rogues so seeing them together is great, and it might not be mechanically as bad as some others, I feel like it's bad because it's an incredibly niche archetype that relies on the enemy being asleep in order to work its magic.

I’m wondering: What would you consider the worst archetype in the game?

Not just “Oh it’s bad for its class” or “I don’t like it’s features.” And not in a specific class (though I am curious about that as well) but what archetypes are just so rotten, so bad, that not even the most skilled Min-Maxer could fix them to be usable?

What puts them above ALL the others in terms of their badness, and not just worse than the others in their class?

I was wondering:

How do I go about finishing my build based around Isaac Clarke. I got the character all statted out: A Dex-based soldier of the spacefarer theme who will take ranks in Engineering every level. Low WIS because, let's be honest, Isaac sucks at Will Saves.

All I'm really asking about is:

1. What feats should I take for this build?
2. What armor should I take? I know it has to be heavy, but I'm blanking on ideas as to what to use.
3. IS there anything I can use to simulate His Telekinesis and Stasis? Any armor mods or anything?
4. What Soldier Fighting Style would be best?

Thanks for the help!

So, we fixed the issue. I was WAY too focused on being Richter when I realized that there were other Belmonts that exist that would be way easier to emulate than Richter.

We based my build on Leon Belmont, made him a Virtuous Bravo Paladin, did some serious buffing to the whip, making it essentially a minor artifact, and gave him some Holy and Bane weapons, and some Holy Water.

Thanks for your help, everyone!

I remember someone telling me to mix the rules of a whip, spiked chain, and flail, and it can reach when one handed, but hit adjacent targets when two handed.

take all the item mastery feats

Maybe be a weapon master fighter or inquisitor instead?

Inquisitor also works due to the fact that Richter has more than just the whip, and has the Item Crushes which do significant damage with his sub weapons, and I can flavor as magic.

So, in another game, we’re also doing a level 20 characters, and I wanted to do a build based on Richter Belmont from Castlevania.

Now, Richter is the first Belmont to use Item Crushes which can be flavored as spells. According to other sources, the best class to build him would be Warpriest.

I’m just wondering how much sense this makes, and how I can go about building this character.

Thanks!

I settled on the 10/10 PrC build. The whole mask of the Signifiers fits the aesthetic I'm going for as well (The Judge From Far Cry New Dawn is my faceclaim)

I don't know. Maybe I'll change later. I'm unsure.

SilverDingo wrote:

TClifford wrote:

There is always the Hellknight Signifer

So, make him a Psychic Detective over Empiricist and let him prestige into signifier?

I can do that...

That or questioner. Questioner would really benefit a lot from the reduction in arcane spell failure.

I didn’t even realize they had an Arcane Caster archetype! That really helps!

There is always the Hellknight Signifer

So, make him a Psychic Detective over Empiricist and let him prestige into signifier?

I can do that...

I agree with Secret, better to keep as a pure investigator, between extracts and studied combat you really don't want to neglect them. Is there something specific that hell knight will give you? Otherwise things would go the way you expect, high int and str..decent con...dex/wis min 12 cha would be your one dump.

Just flavor, honestly. The character is dedicated to his work in terms of serving and upholding law and made good friends with some Hellknights throughout the campaign.

So sort of juryrig the Hellknight for flavor?

What is a feasible Hellknight Prestige Build where the original class was Investigator (specifically Empiricist). The flavor is that he was so dedicated to law, he joined the Hellknights as an inspector. Kinda like a local cop joining the FBI, I guess.

I am completely willing to take the feat taxes regarding armor proficiencies, I’m just wondering what stats I should have for this build before stat boosting items like headbands, belts, and tomes (25 point build), specific weapons I should use, and anything else I need to know.

The starting (and ending level) is 20.

Thanks!

I don't think I'd come across it before - is it this one?

Abigail’s Player here: It is, yes.