Spellbound's page

So, now that I've finished with the book, I've collected all of my posts into one gigantic super-post, which allowed me to correct any errors and add Archives of Nethys links to all of the original versions of the reprinted items for quick comparison. This will hopefully be my last and final say on this book.

Pathfinder Adventurer's Guide Reprints

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First I want to thank you for this work. Finding this thread saved me a lot of effort. One thing I noticed that was missing is that the HellKnight Signifer's Arcane Armor Expertise got one other change besides the typo fix, namely the use of the feat is changed from a swift action to a free action, rather than the immediate action in the original printing. Small buff, but it not having to burn the swift action ever time you want to cast is nice.

More reprint changes:

2. Erodaemon: Better combatant, worse at its seduction and death via heartbreak routine.

Combat changes: bite went up a damage die, strength increased by 2, and it picked up 2d6 sneak attack damage. Picked up combat reflexes (but no reach even with the tail, so why?). Quickened SLA changed from Crushing Despair to Suggestion. Still has 3/day enervation, one of its best tricks.

Out of combat: Detect Thoughts went from constant to at will, which is awful given the manifestations FAQ and that it needs this active to assume the form of a new humanoid and seduce someone as the object of their desire. The quickened suggestion change arguably helps, though.

Best combat play is still to cast Unnatural Lust on a bad will save/low Cha target, take the AoO (if your DM rules it that way) when he tries to kiss the daemon, then free action Wilting Kiss. If it's successful you can teleport a decent distance away to start the Charisma drain for being 30' away and target someone new, if it fails might as well full attack and put some Cha drain on via the tail attack.

Perhaps the reason they switched detect thoughts to at will is because they added the shapechanger subtype, which to me implies the Erodaemon being able to shapeshift at will, instead of only being able to change form with it's Object of Desire ability (The original book of the damned ecology text states they change forms at will for practice when not hunting mortals so I assume the goal of Object of Desire was for the Erodaemon to easily have that knowledge instead of having to have them stalk their victim for a while like a Succubi or Lilitu would have to in this situation). That change would make the Erodaemon more able to play the long game of causing death by heartbreak as well as giving the Daemons a subtle option like the Demons and Devils have. However despite adding the subtype the special qualities line doesn't include change shape so it seems the only thing the Erodaemon can do is change into the form of a person someone lusts after (Amusingly neither the Succubus or the original Lilitu have the shapechanger subtype but both have more shapechanging abilities than the Erodaemon). However since the Erodaemon doesn't have a time limit on Object of Desire so as long as the Erodaemon doesn't attack anyone it can in theory take on a form unrelated to the particular person it is targeting and use this to approach them undetected.

Also the Wilting Kiss does cha damage for some reason. (original did cha drain)

Second side note, the new art for the Erodaemon and the Lilitu are gorgeous.

So I was reading the Archdevil stats and I couldn't for the life of me understand why Beelz had so few attacks relative to his peers. Then I noticed that he can swift to and from swarm form as a free action. So his full attack is followed by enclosing the poor schmuck, dealing swarm damage and forcing a save versus suffocation. Combined with being resistant to basically everything you can throw at him, and having some of the nastier spell-like abilities out of the archdevils and Beelz went from feeling underwhelming to one of the nastiest critters I've seen stated. <3

On a more general note I would like to just say that the Archdevil stats are awesome in general and that the art is wonderful.

(Also really happy to see the Devils among the archdevils receive Dictum over Blasphemy. It's the little things like this that make the stats really work for me within the world. The focus on law over evil actually coming through in the stats, the abilities of most of the Archdevils focusing more on debuffing and controlling the movements and abilities their opponents are allowed to bring to bear, rather than just crushing them beneath mounds of damage.)

Still going through the rest of the book but so far I'm ecstatic.

Queens of the Night. I can get behind that.

James Jacobs wrote:

Nope; no exceptions. At least not yet. That's merely has a typo. An Empyreal Lord is, by defintion, a demigod in the CR 26 to CR 30 range. They are intended to be analoges to the Horsemen, demon lords, archdevils, Great Old Ones, and other demigods.

The CR 21-25 range is for quasi-deities, such as nascent demon lords, maelbranche, qlippoth lords, mythic characters with the divine source ability, and others.

Infernal dukes are the weirdos that cross that barrier; most of them are CR 21 to 25, but a few are higher than CR 25. Those who are above CR 25 are demigods and could, in theory, some day be an archdevil.

So now we can use the term quasi-deities for these lesser beings with a small spark of divinity. Thanks Mr. Jacobs! It's actually refreshing to know that there's no chance that Ragathiel (or any of the empyreal) is a CR 25 creature. =P

I can't express how much I appreciate when you Mr. Jacobs (and many other members of the staff) come here to clarify our doubts and dilemmas. (*-*)b

Just a clarification question, do the Whore Queen fall in the quasi-deity category, or are they full fledged demi-gods? They are stated to be equal rank to the Infernal Dukes within Hell, but as you've stated individual Dukes can end up on either side. Thank you for your time.