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Silver Crusade

1 person marked this as FAQ candidate.

Have a question for you folks.

I've got a rogue player who picked up a Shadowform Belt for himself.

Now, the belt specifically grants the Incorporeality rules to the operator of said belt. The rogue intended to utilize this to set up touch based sneak attacks (using his magic, but not incorporeal weapon) and avoid damage from anyone not using a magic weapon.

I originally thought this would cause problems since with ghosts they can't attack physical objects unless they have a ghost touch item, but there's nothing specifically in incorporeal write up that forbids attacks.

It reads...

"Incorporeality wrote:


...they cannot take any physical action that would move or manipulate an opponent or its equipment...

I allowed the touch attack, but at 1/2 damage (since thats how magic weapons work on incorporeal entities).

Does anyone have any information on this?

Silver Crusade

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Tiny Coffee Golem wrote:

Am I to understand I can make simulacrum Constructs?

If so, do they have all the same features including spell immunities, etc?

Yeah, pretty much nothing changes except stuff based on HD.

This has the equally ridiculous thing where say an elder green dragon with a scroll and enough dosh can make a simulacra of himself that possesses his full breath weapon (age category not HD), and spell casting capability (age category again).

Their size doesn't even change, just the hit die.

Spell as written is kinda weird like that.

Silver Crusade

Jodokai wrote:

Superman killed Doomsday. They actually killed each other and in typical comic book fashion neither one really died.

I find it interesting that you mention historical context, it's almost like you're saying we shouldn't apply 21 century ethics to legends of old.

To further prove my point, let's take a look at Torag a Lawful Good god, wants his Paladins to do:

Quote:
Against my people’s enemies, I will show no mercy. I will not allow their surrender except when strategy warrants. I will defeat them, yet even in the direst struggle, I will act in a way that brings honor to Torag.
Bold is mine of course, but read that. Even if they run away. Lawful Good god demands that of his Lawful Good Paladins.

As has been stated, retreat is not surrender.

That being said, the old tried and true 'all killing is evil' nonsense is rearing its head again.

Death is an evil because it represents a privation of life, that is the absence of a good.

The act of killing however is not intrinsically an evil act as sometimes it is necessary for various reasons. In this case, the ape may be fleeing off into the jungle and putting an end to it might be construed as something unnecessary (but there are dozens and dozens of presented rationales for why it should be destroyed). The morality of the action depends here on those accidents associated with the act, notably are they killing it for an aforementioned good reason (its retreating to raise its master, to gain strength, I wish to eat it, etc) or bad reasons (I want revenge on the monkey, or it'll be hillarious).

To continue onto the subject of 'murder,' Words mean things.

Murder is defined as 'unlawful killing,' and in that regard one has to look beyond just 'what's legal in that particular district' but also to what is licit in a moral law sense (as an example the holocaust was entirely legal in Nazi Germany and was still murder.) Some claim executioners are 'murderers' but in most cases their actions are licit prosecution of crimes and representations of the ultimate punishment of a religious or secular authority (that authorities validity is a point of further discusion, admittedly). This is one of the reasons why the executioner's role is seperated from the individual who sentences. He carries out the sentence, he does not impose it.

For the average heroic adventurer, the issue is murkier. They are in situations where actual legal authority is difficult to come by, and where necessities of life make life-or-death choices a daily thing. Their position is somewhat more akin to a soldier in that regard (from a Christian perspective, keep in mind that while Jesus encountered quite a few soldiers, centurions and the like, he never demanded they cease their profession).

Most Good Adventurers tend to act in a way designed not to maximize death, but to minimize the loss of their lives. Or they operate to prosecute some sort of war against an evil aggressor (if the hobgobs have Evil on their alignment marker they've probably done some pretty nasty crap, not just squatted in ruins).

The concept of an adventurer's rules of engagement (when he fights, when he escalates, when he goes on the offensive, etc) is actually something that should help the player in finding his character's moral focus.

Silver Crusade

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captain yesterday wrote:
Tammy would prefer you not use "That being said" so much, no offense meant.

But its my only line! T_T

I'll try to be on the watch out for verbal tics in the future though.

That being sa.... Err....

Silver Crusade

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Guru-Meditation wrote:
Spook205 wrote:

...

Lichdom Assuming you don't screw it up (there's like two dozen monsters who are literally mages who bolloxed it up), you get to look forward to slow dissolution and ultimately becoming naught more but a head (Demilich) that wants to be let alone and brood over the crap you've accumulated over the centuries. It also costs a lot. On the upside, you can regen from your phylactery, on the down side your equipment can't, and while rejuvenating its easy for your enemies to find your location by scrying (since they have your sodding body).

Scrying you in your hideout?

Line it with lead-sheeting. Its a non-magical cheap metal that is easy to work on. Trivially easy and cheap to block this.

Without Scry the mos timportant part of Scry&Fry is lost. And you just "met in person" the dudes that crumpled your old body. And those adventurers are in the habit of not holing up in Scry-Save locations. And need to sleep. And get into fights regularly.

Just give it patience and time until you find them in a bad situation. And if it is on vengeance-seeker that has time and patience it is the Lich.

Obviously there are work arounds, but keep in mind there's a feasibility and cost issue. Liches aren't made of money. Their condition and typical mindset make them not astoundingly social creatures.

Also, the condition of storage for your phylactery are conditions of storage for you as well.

I've heard stories of liches who hid their phylacteries inside of animals and even in tiny cubes, which makes me wonder for the safety of the lich when he's busy knitting his ass back together.

Generally if you can manage the wherewithall to hide and equip phylactery chambers, you can manage the cost to have clone chambers (which are arguably more reliable, particularly as you don't need to rejuvenate, you just pop into the new body, chug a potion or two of lesser restoration and get on with life). Expensive? Oh hell yeah. More survivable in general.

That being said, clones or phylacteries start to encounter diminishing returns, and those returns go up when dealing with the folks who again, have the capability to whallop a lich in the first place. That being said I do have a clerical lich in my campaign setting who, thanks to her god, has her phylactery as an entire city. So long as the City of Apathy stands, she can regenerate anywhere within it.

The undead with the best survivability are ones that you just can't plain and simple engineer. Revenants and Ghosts. But revenants have a time limit, and ghosts are locked to something.

The lich spends a lot of his cash up front on phylacteries and research. The phylactery is pretty damn tough.

That being said, for a phylactery's cost, you could probably make a few clone/gentle repose tanks and leave bodies in out of the way places for you to pop out of. Congrats, you're not dead, you're still resilient and unlike a lich, people are less likely to go hunting for your magic soul box. Most players don't even consider their opponent has clone spells.

That being said.

Clone has one major disadvantage over lichdom. Its a sodding 8th level spell.

Lichdom therefore is more like the 'easy' path to immortality. Available at 11th level. Whereas unless you've got a nice boss, or good expensive scroll supplier, you aren't making clones til level 15.

Silver Crusade

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I generally portray simulacra as 'philosophical zombies.' Essentially, personality and intellect, with no real soul or guiding force outside of their directives and programming.

Essentially, a simulacra 'reasons' and 'acts on its reasoning' but its no more a real person then a game AI. Everything it does is essentially a function of its 'code.' Remember kids, just because you're smart and can process data logically doesn't mean you're an entity. And yes, this means you can be an intelligence 30 simulacra and still not be a person.

That being said I also don't allow for simulacra to do wishes or similar shennigans (such powers being a function of the entity's relation to the cosmos as opposed to something about the vague magical forces associated with the entity).

Silver Crusade

CBDunkerson wrote:
Spook205 wrote:

Cons: ... Dude, graveknight is the booby prize of immortality. Your soul is trapped in a phylactery of your armor. Your armor.

When you get dispatched, where does your super fancy armor end up?

Paizo has introduced graveknights that sent a small piece of their armor off someplace safe... at which point it is basically the same as a Lich's phylactery... which is not all that different from a Vampire's coffin if you have the sense to cast, 'contingency: teleport cloud me to my hidden coffin if I die'.

But yeah, ghosts win in the undead really truly indestructible except... race.

The graveknight thing seems like splitting hairs to me. Since the armor itself doesn't seem to rejuvenate.

Also I'd wonder how you could break pieces off of it without it being 'ruined.' I'd be monumentally salty if the graveknight showed up not wearing his armor, or with like a tiny eye patch of helmet with him.

Silver Crusade

I did a cursory search for this but didn't turn up anything useful (mea culpa if there's some thread that answers these questions that I missed).

A few weeks ago we had a situation where Rocs were engaging with knighted cavaliers. The Rocs have fly-by attack, as well as a grab attack. The player operating the rocs argued that they should be able to fly down, make the grab (and its damn near impossible to not get grappled by a roc), and then continue their movement returning to the air.

While I can see a Roc being designed to do this, I had trouble justifying this free movement with the monster now entering the grappled condition, that sort of put it in place.

I'm led to think the way this should play out is...

Roc swoops down, intendinga fly-by attack. Hits. Grabs. Grapples. Its movement ends.

On the following turn, assuming that the grapple is maintained, it moves away at half speed with its struggling quarry.

Anyone have better ideas on this then I? I'd really like some clarification. Thanks.

Silver Crusade

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A few thoughts on various means of immortality, before I get to the lich.

Immortality via undeath is tricky in and of itself as it only takes a sufficiently boosted controller and you might find yourself with a new boss (nightshade, cleric or whatever).

Now for specifics...

Graveknights?
You get a lot of pros, Stat boosts! Indestructible! Assloads of damage! Free minions!

Cons: ... Dude, graveknight is the booby prize of immortality. Your soul is trapped in a phylactery of your armor. Your armor.

When you get dispatched, where does your super fancy armor end up?

Anyone powerful enough to dispatch you is not going to have a problem finding a method to totally wreck your armor, especially since its going to be laying at their feet. Disintergration will fry your butt.

Ghost! Great for a charisma caster, but you have no control over it, and people can rob your body and take crap away from you. You are literally indestructible unless your method is accomplished, and you are hard to control (since you spring back to tether if destroyed).

Vampire
Your charisma goes up, you remain looking normal but... You usually need to get admitted to the club. You're also looking at odd weaknesses and a ceaseless hunger for blood (or other things). Vampires have variants too.

Vetala is the best option for you to be honest. Easier to hide, possession means you don't need to put your ass on the line, and you can still enjoy mortal things through mortal bodies. Downside, you get destroyed by someone burying you and essentially giving you a prayer.

Nosferatu, you're one ugly mutha. Also, you can't get admitted to the club. You needed to have been one. Also DR Wood. /Wood/.

Jiang-shi? Expressly no more eating for you. Hopping everywhere and you're warded off by bells.

Lichdom Assuming you don't screw it up (there's like two dozen monsters who are literally mages who bolloxed it up), you get to look forward to slow dissolution and ultimately becoming naught more but a head (Demilich) that wants to be let alone and brood over the crap you've accumulated over the centuries. It also costs a lot. On the upside, you can regen from your phylactery, on the down side your equipment can't, and while rejuvenating its easy for your enemies to find your location by scrying (since they have your sodding body).

If your plan for power involves 'have to kill self' usually its a bad plan.

Silver Crusade

Oh, the party expects no surprise.

And the dead mage spellcaster thing seems..a bit out there. Especially for the rapidly adding up price of scrolls of anti magic.

Getting down to the dragon's lair involved having to batter their way past a small army (consisting of marsh giants, trolls, a dominated adventuring party, giant squids, aboleths, and a veiled master) through elite trolls, a medusa sorcerer, a hag's coven, scrags, undead, another forbiddance spell, then they had to fight through a younger green dragon and a simulacrum of the green dragon in question. Basically, our Ancient Green Dragon made sure the party had to fight through damn near all of his minions and/or guests before reaching him.

As is, they're going to need to head down into the area, encounter the dragon, a veiled master who retreated there, and a few elementals and/or sea creatures.

I liked the kelp idea that someone gave on the previous page so I'm considering adding in a thicket of irritating seaweed for him to swim through and hide in.

Also, the dragon has his entire hoard chamber forbiddanced thanks to a friend of his who came by (with the intention of using the dragon as a weapon against the party.)

For the record though, the party's capabilities involve true seeing, and everyone has protection from evil up as a result of a nearly disastrous first encounter with the veiled master. Pro Evil shuts down pretty much all dominate shennigans, and ripping it off isn't worth the action economy cost when you've got six PCs breathing down your beautiful emerald colored neck.

Silver Crusade

MeanMutton wrote:
Claxon wrote:

A dragon in an antimagic field is actually pretty powerful since that FAQ ruling.

Give him fly by attack and now he just does strafing runs on the party weaklings without risking any serious damage since most characters are unlikely to be able to hit him without the use of magic (natural fliers and archers excluded).

It's now how do you deal with a flying monster with DR you can't bypass and can't reach.

Why would 16th level martials have trouble with a DR/15? That's not that high. Any ranged built martial should have clustered shot. Toss a haste on there and your archer fighter / zen archer / musket master is going to be laughing off the DR/15.

If you have a smart caster, they'll have some conjuration (creation) spells. Your anti-magic isn't going to bother that too much.

You can still summon creatures with ranged attacks, still use buffs as long as you're more than 10' away. I think it would be easier than if you were fighting the dragon with the dragon's full set of abilities.

In my case? They're fighting the fellow in its lair, the lair which is forbiddanced which puts a handy kibosh on summoning at all.

Also, the party composition has no ranged martials (fighty types are a paladin, scout archetype rogue and barbarian), and no dedicated war caster (casters are a cleric (whose spent most of her spells on water breathings, freedom of movements and heals), a summoner, and a bard). The barbarian is mostly focused on totems, the paladin is saving up an Angelic Aspect, and the Rogue has extraordinary mobility (albeit he's underwater and the lair lacks a 'floor' so everyone's going to be sinking or swimming).

I'm intentionally having this be a lair fight since most of their previous battles have been with dragons on the wing. That being said, I know they'll be to grips with it in one round or less.

Meaning by round 2 or 3, the barbarian is full attacking, and the rogue may be full sneak attacking on it. Assuming the paladin doesn't merely waffle iron it with his paladin goodness.

I thought the AMF might be useful for the reasons above, but also because it tears off a lot of protective and buffing stuff within 10 feet of the dragon.

(Dragon's got back up in the form of a veiled master (not too useful since the party is under a PvE), and an elder water elemental or 2).

If I decide to not go with the AMF tactic, I'm going to 'spend' some of the loot to give the dragon a scroll of Arcane Disjunction, and see if I can't just outright turn off a lot of the party's loot (but it likely won't do jack against the cleric's stuff or the paladin's holy avenger).

That's my specific situation though.

I'm still trying to figure out, for academic reasons, if AMF is an overall benefit or drawback to dragons. Since it tends to take quite a lot away from them, but does leave them quite a lot.

Silver Crusade

No apologies needed.

I house rule epic level things to not lose their mojo unless disjuncted, even in AMFs. And it does make sense, but I always envisioned DR magic for a dragon representing its ridiculously resilient hide (meaning that normal weapons just have trouble getting through it).

Still, discussions like this stuff on DR ties in with the overall purpose of the thread which is..is Amf good for dragons or no?

And in my case, is it good for my ancient green who's fighting six guys underwater.

I figured the DR would give him a sizable advantage, since a 15pt hit is a big deal. Especially since to get near him, all of your attribute boosting gear would be borked and ranged options become significantly less effective underwater.

The fact for my guy that it'd turn off water breathing is a non-issue since well..the save isn't that big, and 14-16 rounds (plus all the rounds making DC 10+) is an eternity.

Wait, does AMF turn off a dragon's resistances? That seems kinda goofy too?

Silver Crusade

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swordfalcon wrote:
Spook205 wrote:

This is less a mechanical question then one for when its more beneficial to use the anti-magic fallback.

Obviously, this is a high level dragon issue, as the dragon has to have access to sixth level spells.

Now, I'm partially of the mind that the field takes away quite a lot, but also gives the dragon advantages he otherwise would not have against similar foes.

In my case, I'm planning to use it with an Ancient Green Dragon against a party of 6 15th level characters.

The pros I see are
1.) It disables the paladin's smite ability,
2.)pretty much all of the barbarian's rage abilities,
3.)removes the summoner's ability to use summoned creatures effectively against the dragon,
4.)makes indirect spells useless,
5.) Makes the dragon's DR 15/magic actually daunting as opposed to instantly bypassed,
6.) Renders elemental protections moot.

The cons are..
1.) It reduces the dragon to purely physical strikes.
2.) Dropping it to effect a magical escape, is a standard action.
3.) It robs the dragon of the capability of using its mirror image, displacement, mage armor, and shield spells.
4.) Inflicts on my players having to do math to account for their weapons and equipment all being turned off when they're within 10 feet of the gargantuan dragon.

Now I don't want this to just be about my Ancient Green but rather a discussion about whether its really in the dragon's best interests to pop an anti-magic field before getting to grips with a party of on par adventurers.

You are wrong on some things. Antimagic field will work on spells, spell-like abilities, supernatural abilities as well as any enchanted items a pc has. It will not work on Extraordinary abilities though. So your right about the paladin's smite ability not working in the field because it is a supernatural ability, but a barbarian's Rage and Rage powers will work in the field because they are extraordinary abilities. And your dragon's DR 15/magic will not work in the field either because it...

Now /that/ is new info by me.

So DR gets shut off in an anti magic field? That seems a bit bizarre since you can get DR by putting on entirely non magical suit of adamantine armor.

I admit, I always envisioned that as the primary reason you'd use the AMF as a dragon, to make your otherwise useless DR useful for something.

Silver Crusade

This is less a mechanical question then one for when its more beneficial to use the anti-magic fallback.

Obviously, this is a high level dragon issue, as the dragon has to have access to sixth level spells.

Now, I'm partially of the mind that the field takes away quite a lot, but also gives the dragon advantages he otherwise would not have against similar foes.

In my case, I'm planning to use it with an Ancient Green Dragon against a party of 6 15th level characters.

The pros I see are
1.) It disables the paladin's smite ability,
2.)pretty much all of the barbarian's rage abilities,
3.)removes the summoner's ability to use summoned creatures effectively against the dragon,
4.)makes indirect spells useless,
5.) Makes the dragon's DR 15/magic actually daunting as opposed to instantly bypassed,
6.) Renders elemental protections moot.

The cons are..
1.) It reduces the dragon to purely physical strikes.
2.) Dropping it to effect a magical escape, is a standard action.
3.) It robs the dragon of the capability of using its mirror image, displacement, mage armor, and shield spells.
4.) Inflicts on my players having to do math to account for their weapons and equipment all being turned off when they're within 10 feet of the gargantuan dragon.

Now I don't want this to just be about my Ancient Green but rather a discussion about whether its really in the dragon's best interests to pop an anti-magic field before getting to grips with a party of on par adventurers.

Silver Crusade

Well, the party made first contact with the green dragon's tactics last week.

They fought through two layers of trolls, and the paladin blew a lot of his anti-dragon mojo on wrecking a simulacra the dragon made of himself. Also the Forbiddance effects make the party leery about entering or leaving areas.

The simulacra didn't survive too long though, mostly thanks to the paladin giving a huge bonus to hit and damage against it.

As usual, AC really stacks up poorly against a high level party. Giving the dragon Mirror Image though really made it last longer, especially given the caster level bonus.

I still felt kinda dirty about the way simualcra interacts with dragon age categories though.

This week, the final encounter.

Ancient Green Dragon, Veiled Master, A few Elementals, and no floor, all underwater.

I think the lack of floor is going to be the major problem for the party, ironically enough.

Silver Crusade

I've never strictly applied it in a fantasy setting.

In sci-fi settings, I tend to portray the gradual lack of humanity that comes from those who tear and sunder their own bodies and minds hunting for the horizon of 'the new man.'

I always have Weston and Ransom in the back of my mind when transhumanism stuff comes up.

Weston's loyal not to man's form (which he views as utterly changeable) nor to man's mind (which he believes must be changed to 'evolve.') Folks like Dr. Weston have no true love of humanity, and this path leads inexorably to becoming monsters. They've thrown aside real things for false things.

Essentially, I tend to portray transhumanist and methuselahization specialists as guys who throw the baby out with the bath water, abandoning greater goods for smaller ones. Men stop mattering instead for "mankind," but "mankind" is a fungible thing to them, they care not for its art, nor its thoughts or loves, only that on some benighted hellscape of a world some mindless atrocity of a thing raises its appendages against the night and claims the moniker of "human."

I think there's a good quote for that..

G.K. Chesterton from Chapter 7 of Orthodoxy wrote:
Nietzsche always escaped a question by a physical metaphor, like a cheery minor port. He said, 'beyond good and evil,' because he had not the courage to say, 'more good than good and evil,' or, 'more evil than good and evil.' Had he faced his thought without metaphors, he would have seen that it was nonsense. So, when he describes his hero, he does not dare to say, 'the purer man,' or 'the happier man,' or 'the sadder man,' for all these are ideas; and ideas are alarming. He says 'the upper man.' or 'over man,' a physical metaphor from acrobats or alpine climbers. Nietzsche is truly a very timid thinker. He does not really know in the least what sort of man he wants evolution to produce."

Silver Crusade

I'm Hiding In Your Closet wrote:
Ventnor wrote:

By chance, did anyone get a look at the Elongated Cranium feat?

Yes, I'm not sure how I feel about it all, but I can't help but find it hilarious that you can turn yourself into a Conehead now (or a Metalunan, even).

May your forehead grow like the mighty oak.

I need to pick up a copy of Occult Adventures, but the more I hear about it, the more I'm inclined to just keep my third party psionics handbook.

Silver Crusade

HWalsh wrote:


The goal is defend the temple, not the altar. No leaving the field.

A sensible assumption, yes. But...

HWalsh wrote:

The goal of the Defenders:

Kill anyone who invades the temple.

The goal of the Attackers:
Kill the defenders and steal the altar.

People are going to find loopholes or 'misunderstandings' if they choose to take this thing seriously. Might want to shore up the details of the experiment a bit.

By the established terms, the ECs (evil casters) could choose to defeat the MPs (Martial party) by spending a lot of time leveling up, getting the Immortality discovery and waiting them out before walking into the temple.

Also, the 100k, is that just for traps and "furnishings." Do a wide variety of magic items count as 'furnishings.'

Silver Crusade

lucky7 wrote:

" In case you people have forgotten, this block operates under the same rules as the rest of the city. (Main Villain) is not the law... I am the law. (Main Villain) is a common criminal; guilty of murder, guilty of the manufacture and distribution of the narcotic known as (Narcotic Name), and as of now under sentence of death. Any who obstruct me in carrying out my duty will be treated as an accessory to her crimes... you have been warned. And as for you (Main Villain)... judgement time."

Dredd.

Man, now I need to think of a quote to use myself..

Silver Crusade

I'd suggest Leadership for the Paladin.

Other then that, not going to get too involved, I'm not great with super optimization building.

I'd also point out there are a few Ender's Gate solutions to this already.

The party could defeat the bad guys by using their higher physical scores to lift the altar out of its place and just leave the temple. (Can't be killed if you aren't there, altar can't be stolen by the enemy if its stolen by you).

Also is the altar actually 10X20? That's like a city square sized altar.

And the 100,000gp for furnishings and defenses I presume doesn't account for WBL on the part of the martials?

Silver Crusade

Thanks for the feedback guys. And yeah, I know they're jerks, hence why I wanted to make sure I don't take away any advantages my players might have.

Now, for the goofball pedantic question.

Lets say our shining child companion gets hit by deeper darkness. Is it safe to assume that his immunity to blindness does not prevent him from becoming effectively blind because of his inability to see in the deeper dark?

Silver Crusade

Just a few questions on our friendly lovecraftian demon-flashlights.

1. First question, burning touch...

Shining Child Write up wrote:

Burning Touch (Su)

A shining child corrupts the positive energy within a living creature into an unnatural burning light. For the next 5 rounds after a successful touch attack by a shining child, the target takes 2d6 points of fire damage. The burning light can be “extinguished” by casting darkness or deeper darkness on the target, or by entering an area of natural darkness (not counting the light from the burning target).

As the Shining Child's Searing Rays are also touches, do they also ignite per burning touch? Or does it need to be specified as a ranged touch?

2. Searing Ray does 'double damage' to undead, is that best adjudicated by rolling 20d6, or doubling a 10d6 roll?

3.) What level of light effect is the blinding light (su) aura considered to be? Will a darkness spell douse it?

Thanks.

Silver Crusade

DM_Blake wrote:
Spook205 wrote:
The DM can try to steal your land

The easiest way to make privately owned land disappear? Two words: Eminent Domain.

OK, the land doesn't disappear, but your ownership of it does, and often with zero compensation - you just "donate" your land to the government of the region whether you want to or not.

Yeah but depending on your level, you can make this an issue. Possession is 9/10s.

The land doesn't quite /cease to exist/ the same way stolen money does. Stolen gp might as well be deleted from reality for how recoverable it ultimately is. If you own a 20x20 square acre holding somewhere, its less likely to up and vanish even if someone tries to 'steal' it from you. Also you'll probably know exactly who did it (so not as many options for random pickpockets).

Silver Crusade

Land.

They don't make any more of it.

You lose liquidity, gain territory (and all the trouble that comes with it) but become landed, and that counts for a lot.

The DM can try to steal your land, but generally its difficult for it to up and disappear unless some evil archmage literally flies away on it.

Silver Crusade

Aberzombie wrote:
USS Colorado (BB-45) survived two kamikaze hits during the Battle of Leyte Gulf.

The Yokosuka "Ohka" MXY7 was a specially designed flying bomb developed expressly for kamikaze attacks. "The Cockpit" an anime directed by Leiji Matsomoto actually features a section dedicated to one of these pilots.

The Japanese dubbed it the Ohka after the cherry blossom, a usual symbol for the ephemeral nature of a samurai's life.

The Americans dubbed it the Baka-bomb, from the Japanese word for "fool," believing that the pilots were poor dumb idiots tricked into operating the suicide devices by their Japanese superiors.

Silver Crusade

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As a side note, us older gamers should get a little more respect, after all, our charisma, wisdom and intelligence have usually gone up by at least one thanks to the age modifier chart.

Silver Crusade

1 person marked this as a favorite.

I'd go with Green. Greens are conniving, sneaky backstabbers who are also very caring and friendly towards 'their' family. So it would fit for a pirate lord who was an absolute jerk, but still compelled loyalty in his (somewhat expendable) men.

Greens also get water breathing, and sufficient spell casting to hide in human form.

Silver Crusade

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I was once the young guy, now I'm old.

So the perspective from the old vet side, in my case at least, is less 'you feckless whippersnappers with your horse overheads!' and more 'don't break what isn't broken' and 'don't tear down the fence til you know why its there.'

Also, trying to rank everyone into 'old' vs 'new' is futile since my generation has just as many number crunching rules-engineering raw maniacs as fluffy carebears like me.

That being said, if we're defining 'original gamer' as the convention minded individual what needs to be remembered is that these folks in general..

1.) Have seen a wide variety of things, including what people's attempts at novelty have wrought. Thus most don't see it as 'change is bad!' so much as 'novelty for the sake of novelty is stupid.' The ethic here is 'don't tear down the fence til you know why it was put up.'

2.) Have played with a variety of people and experiences. We've sat across from the cottage cheese swilling weirdoes, the perverts, and eons worth of plucky kids who are going to 'fix' things with their bright ideas. In general the bright ideas turn out to be garbage. Newer things aren't always good. Hegel was a hack.

3.) Tend to realize that its the game, not the system, that really makes for an entertaining situation.

4.) Have heard different flavors of snake-oil over the years for new builds, new ethoses, and new approaches and found out the ones that work tended to be variations on themes, as opposed to anything "revolutionary."

The RAW for RAI thing is a different axis. I'm a RAI oriented old-timer. I get into arguments with RAW oriented old-timers. The RAI-RAW thing doesn't go away with age.

Silver Crusade

Freehold DM wrote:
Pluto's a f~#!ing planet.

Hear Hear!

Incidentally!

On September 26, 2014, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics,had a popular vote insisting on the reinstatement of Pluto's planethood.

Pluto is a planet. Lest the curse of the fifty worlds descend upon you!

Silver Crusade

James Jacobs wrote:


1) Explain what you mean by a "Watsonian" explanation?

Oh, its an old thing relating to Sherlock Holmes that got applied to larger fiction.

I don't have the exact option but if say people wondered why Sherlock managed to survive a fall off of Richenbacher Falls the Doylist (as in Arthur Conan Doyle) answer is 'I wanted the character to live,' the Watsonian answer (as in Holmes' friend Watson) would be 'Holmes managed to grab onto some of the rockface and then faked his death while recuperating in turkey.'

Basically Doylist is the out of character reasons. Watsonian is the in universe explanation.

Silver Crusade

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My two cents here.

You seem to want to portray the kobolds as organized and competent. That's good. The current plan though is way too conditional, rope nets at the bottom of a river in a specific location, and kobolds hiding for hours on end submerged breathing through straws.

Set them up with pickets, innocuous little traps. Make them run into some obvious snare traps, lull them in, and then have the kobolds at the ford/crossing be prepared for a different sort of crossing (like boats or traps for horses). It shows the kobolds are prepared, that they can think strategically, without having them be custom built for party smacking.

Kols are one of the brighter humanoid species. Also traditionally, cowardly, so if things go badly or their plan doesn't seem to work, have them start peeling out.

Silver Crusade

Thanks again for the answers in the past!

1. I know you chimed in briefly over on the 'why aren't the drow extinct' thread, but I was somewhat curious. You provided the Doylist explanation for the continued survival of the drow despite having a somewhat crazy backstabber culture, what do you view as the Watsonian explanation?

2. I've noticed that the challenge rating of fey tends to result in creatures who are principally threats to low level parties (CR 3-), an occasional mid level one that operates solo, and high level fey. What would your suggestions for a campaign (APL 1-20ish) that heavily involved fey antagonists be?

Silver Crusade

Challenge Rating was designed on the assumption of a party of four people, comprised of 1 wizard, 1 fighter, 1 rogue and 1 cleric. Since party compositions tend to differ, CR needs to be approached somewhat differently.

Personally, I find that in general the CR system overranks certain attributes. I've seen monsters pegged as CR 14 who struggle to hit 14th level PCs and seem to gain their high CR just for their defenses (such as such grandiose nonsense as a DR 20/magic or something).

On the issue of the aboleth or other mind controllers, keep in mind certain spells can render the aboleth's principle attack methods basically useless (pro evil), similarly I've seen aberrations and magical beasts whose attack routines fall apart when they end up fighting a PC's undead servants.

Other monsters (like dark folk) can be rendered nigh useless rapidly just by having a lot of darkvision.

The CR chart none the less ranks abilities on the basis of spell level and their perceived effectiveness against the golden four.

I always find it more useful to use the CR as a ballpark, and then just look at the stat line to see how useful they'd actually be.

Paizo's encounter design (NPC Codex, Monster Codex) seems to actually believe that having a large group of enemies who are literally incapable of touching the PCs should raise the encounter. I kind of disagree with that.

Silver Crusade

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Tarrintino wrote:

I thought about this some and came up with a few ideas.

First, I would suggest that Drow birthrates are much higher than those of their surface kin. With their hedonistic tendancies and need to replenish their numbers amongst their families that are murdered and killed in conflict, families would take all measures (magical and mundane) to ensure the fertility of their women and that copulation resulted in pregancies as often as possible.

Second, if you review several pieces of fiction about the Drow Noble Houses (most of them from the Forgotten Realms line), open warfare between houses occur occasionally but often mostly involves warrior slaves of other races (orcs, goblins, giants, humans, dwarves, surface elves, gnomes, etc.) that are led by a smaller group of powerful drow warriors. Most of the casualties are slaves, and not the nobles themselves.

Pregnancy is a disadvantageous situation to be in. Drow are presumably still like normal humanoids and becoming pregnant robs them increasingly of agility and overall 'combat' effectiveness.

Even if we presume safety within a family unit (a presumption I'm not willing to make given what we've heard of the drow of golarian), this means that its fundementally disadvantageous for a CE character to become pregnant as it puts her head on the block so to speak. She either has to hide, act through intermediaries (who she has no reason trust), or put herself into dangerous situations that make it less likely that she will successfully bring her child to term.

Also. And I don't want to belabor this point. Not every drow is a noble.

They don't all have houses.

How do you raise children when every night that passes is essentially an elfish re-enactment of the Purge movies in your neighborhood? When you don' have stout walls and enslaved warapes to defend you and yours?

And if the answer is to throw behind houses, this enters into the world of feudalism at which point things only work if the higher ups are CE and the low level folks are NE and even LE. And were that the case, the drow racial alignment probably shouldn't skew CE.

After all, if your vassals can't be counted on to reliably hold to oaths then their own loyalty to you is until the next bigger guy shows up, and thus you have no rational reason to admit them, waste resources defending them, and so on.

Silver Crusade

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I'd like people to think on these grandiose magical solutions they come up with (simulacra, geased, charmed, dominated people).

This stuff is not available at the downtown drowmart.

Yes, a high level wizard or cleric might have this stuff but not every drow can afford it, and if we're being honest, the drow shouldn't be choc-a-bloc with high level guys anymore then normal people are.

THis would result in drow having to..
1.) Have a desire for the overall strength and growth of their community and/or race. Not customarily something chaotics are known for.
AND/OR
2.) Having to trust that the higher level person who can cast the geases/dominates isn't going to decide your kid is the one who arbitrarily gets fed to the dominated umber hulk to keep it more compliant.

Basically, as a CE drow wizard why would I bother with cultivating the serpent's nest of my own people if it basically just represents an expenditure for no gain? And even if its a whim of mine, is the collective whim of certain individuals sufficient to maintain a race? And to be particularly evil, why not just dominate an entire harem and just use magical compulsions from start to finish of the entire exchange?

The drow reducing themselves to some sort of eusocial spider hive is a potentially terrifying prospect, but might work better (sadly for that, drow males and females lack built in capabilities to compel the other).

Salvatore's stuff might have issues, but he did give us a semi-plausible framework for a CE society of drow. A framework which I believe falls apart when you put too many demons in the mix.

Silver Crusade

Dracovar wrote:

Of course in a society where the powerful rule and terrorize the weak it's not out of the realm of possibility that those in power, knowing the demographics don't exactly favor the Drow, force certain "population creation methods" onto their subordinates, for the "good of all".

Thus - there could easily be a large underclass of Drow whose sole purpose is to reproduce. Their hedonistic lifestyle would help perpetuate the race and perhaps this underclass is the reason behind the Drow reputation for hedonism to begin with. Any power mad matriarch could also use this as the basis for some eugenics experiments too. Breeding stock, essentially. The promising results are integrated into Noble Houses. The so-so stock join the Merchant Clans.

Add some customized magic into the mix to help with fertility rates and you can probably boost up population growth while maintaining a rather bloody CE society.

I also think that Drow would have to temper their destructive impulses to be a bit more refined, targeted, specific and intermittent. Drow, despite some literary portrayals, don't have to function on the level of "black mustache twirling, MUAHAHHAHAH I'm Evil so I'm going to backstab you for the LULZ at every opportunity with no regard to consequences " cartoon level violence. That's just as bad as Lawful Stupid for Paladins.

Ah but the point of the thread is, based on the canonical information provided for them, they are that level of 'for the evulz.' Hence this thread's existence.

They're cutthroat, backbiting, betray you at the drop of a hat, murderous, flesh manipulating monsters.

I keep thinking of the Phil and Dixie strips where every day drow comment on whipping their children, and husbands and wives end sentences with 'I hate you. AAAAAARGH.'

And there are cleverer drow, but the cleverer drow are going to have to deal with the stupider drow. For everyone who wants to be sneaky, and think his plans through, there's another gang of idiots who decide this is the day to honor Jubilex by releasing the plasma oozes.

As I said, the problem stems from them worshipping /all/ demons as a superficial way for Pathfinder drow to differentiate themselves from DnD Drow.

"We're still underground dwelling, dark skinned, CE hedonistic matriarchal jerks! But we don't worship spiders anymore. No sir, except for a few of us."

Without an infernal Kim-Il-Jong they lack a real guiding power in their society. Without a power so large and unassailable that you're better off capilutating with it as opposed to trying to overthrow it, the drow end up hopelessly segmented and lack a real cohesion.

This means, realistically, they're either they're a race in decline or someone somewhere is literally funneling order and capital into their society to keep it from self destructing. I have difficulty seeing why drow make 'cities' and not loose colonies underground.

It doesn't improve their survival at all when their "defenders" are just as likely to make lunch out of them as anyone else.

Silver Crusade

More of a general world building ethos question as opposed to golarian specific but..

1.) When developing a nation state or country, do you take the approach of "geography is history" and start with a map as a guide point for developing the culture and relationship of the nation with others, or do you take the approach of trying to build exciting locations even if this causes some geographic weirdness?

2.) As bestiaries expand, and sometimes give us new humanoid races, do you see existing areas getting progressively more 'crowded?' This especially goes with all the giants, since as giants they make a pretty big impact on the local area.

3.) Given that dragons/giants and the like leave such big footprints, do you typically assume that there are say a small handful of them (like three tribes of fire giants in the whole world) or do you not concern yourself with such census questions and instead just have them show up as you need them?

Silver Crusade

Icyshadow wrote:
I bet they have servants / slaves taking care of the children while the actual parents are busy with their political plots and backstabbings.

Assuming as a drow you can trust anyone to look after them, and assume that they fear you more then your enemies can bribe or cajole them, or overwhelm them with an attack. Or that you don't just do them in yourself for some sort of gain.

The problem with chaotic evil societies is that they don't have much going for them in way of security. Ogres and trolls have this too, but they're bound together at the family level (and even that low you get mothers eating their children).

Drow society, in order to function would need the more dutiful and responsible members around its outskirts, keeping the enemies out, while it rots from within.

Instead since they're a bad guy race, their armies and raiding parties are composed of blackhearted sneaks and their cities populated by people of almost cartoonish evil. And again, this would work if they had one unifying despot of such considerable power that the drow would have to capitulate instead of overthrow. And again, I don't think that works with 'demon worshipping drow' unless they have one chief demon. Otherwise when you get orders from one, you just go demon shopping until you find a patron you agree with, and this starts us in on the assumption that the demonic patrons give a damn about retaining a drow race.

Silver Crusade

Guru-Meditation wrote:
Spook205 wrote:

Wait, wait, when did the breath weapon become lvl in d6s?

PRD reads:

Half Dragon from the PRD wrote:
A half-dragon retains all the special attacks of the base creature and gains a breath weapon usable once per day based on the dragon variety (see below). The breath weapon deals 1d6 hit points of damage per racial HD possessed by the half-dragon (Reflex half; DC 10 + 1/2 creature's racial HD + creature's Con modifier).
Your racial HD counts as one if you're a PC race. A 20th level half dragon paladin has a 1d6 breath weapon.

A typical player character race has ZERO racial HD (Elf, Dwarf, Human, ... etc.).

Untrue. Baseline folks have 1 racial.

PRD's entry on humanoids informs us.

Humanoid Type wrote:


Humanoids with 1 Hit Die exchange the features of their humanoid Hit Die for the class features of a PC or NPC class. Humanoids of this sort are typically presented as 1st-level warriors, which means they have average combat ability and poor saving throws. Humanoids with more than 1 Hit Die are the only humanoids who make use of the features of the humanoid type. A humanoid has the following features (unless otherwise noted in a creature's entry).

If they didn't have racial HD, you couldn't make skeletons and zombies out of them. Notice it states they 'exchange the features,' they don't lose the racial HD although that equates to the same thing.

And getting 1d8 hp is one of the 'features' for the humanoid type. Before someone tries the 'I should get 1d10+1d8 hp' thing :p

Silver Crusade

DeathQuaker wrote:
Krensky wrote:
Reading the spell descriptions helps in telling you if it does friendly fire or not.

Also, IIRC, the target markers indicate it clearly. If the target is red, it will hurt your party. If it is yellow, it will hurt foes only.

Regarding the creatures with dominate abilities --- the problem I have in my game is Grieving Mother keeps being the one targeted by those spells. Which first, is annoying just generally, and secondly, it seems like a HUGE problem that the most susceptible character to charm-like spells is the cipher. I don't know if it's programming or just my luck or what, but it's gotten really frustrating. I've done everything I could to boost up her Will too.

I haven't played since some recent patches (got sucked into some other games) so maybe that's helped things.

The game has knowledge of who the best target for spells are it seems. They used to go after Aloth for me, until I blew one of his level ups on a perk that gave him defense against charm, domination, etc. All of a sudden the game stopped targetting him.

Since I put similar upgrades on Eder, Durance, GM, and Kana. The game now targets /me/ which as I'm a barbarian is really annoying.

On the upside if you glut the field with summons, they'll go after them first. I got through the dank spore battle by summoning in three groups of summons to let me deal with the non dank-spore enemies, and by the time the wyrms and beetles were winnowed out, the chaos and insanity was annoyance and not terror.

Summons seem to be the breaking method for pretty much all Baldur's Gate style games.

Summon abuse and stupidly powerful charm effects seem to exemplify the BG ethos.

Silver Crusade

Its an intentional design. Apparently the Paizo folks didn't like seeing half-dragon PCs and NPCs, and wanted more half-dragon monsters.

Silver Crusade

Wait, wait, when did the breath weapon become lvl in d6s?

PRD reads:

Half Dragon from the PRD wrote:
A half-dragon retains all the special attacks of the base creature and gains a breath weapon usable once per day based on the dragon variety (see below). The breath weapon deals 1d6 hit points of damage per racial HD possessed by the half-dragon (Reflex half; DC 10 + 1/2 creature's racial HD + creature's Con modifier).

Your racial HD counts as one if you're a PC race. A 20th level half dragon paladin has a 1d6 breath weapon.

Silver Crusade

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Krensky wrote:
Reading the spell descriptions helps in telling you if it does friendly fire or not.

That one is on me for missing it then.

I've found that I tend to almost universally use the missile spells, acrid cloud and the like for Aloth. Durance tends to get healing, buff and 'de-brain screwing' duty since almost all the fights late in the game involve mind control.

Going through Od Nua I actually have a fight that exemplified my deep and abiding hate for mind control effects in this game.

The giant dank spores have a ranged attack that has a dominate attached to it.

I used summons to eat the initial attacks while we dealt with the giant slimes and such the dank spores were paired with. Then I proceeded to use grieving mother to mind control one of the dank spores. At this point, for the next ten minutes, the battle consisted of perpetually changing allegiances as everyone's dominate effects were firing willy-nilly all over.

My PC, a barbarian got dominated by one dank spore, and then dominated again by an allied dank spore which de-dominated her and then re-dominated again.

Silver Crusade

I admit I actually enjoy the fact that there are species that are dying out. Like Dire Corbies.

They're a race of suicidally aggressive bird people who live in the underdark, they murder one another constantly, live in filth and squalor and their favorite meal is their own young. I'm frankly amazed there's any of them still around and the only logic is that somehow they breed enough to barely not instantly disappear in a generation.

I think someone up thread touched on this though. Dire corbies are screeching insane bird people. Drow are 'hot' and thus they get a different pass on the suicide train.

Pathfinder Drow are like 40k's dark eldar, I've said this before, but they lack the dark eldar's means of keeping their numbers up (rampant cloning and breeding). The resource expenditure on your average dark elf is far too much to have a 'life is cheap' mentality, unless you have fall backs.

Silver Crusade

noretoc wrote:
Black Dougal wrote:
bought it a week ago..finding a bit of a challenge, since not sure how to effectively use some of my npcs..Durance in particular keeps dying.
Same issue here, I quit playing after a few days. I hated this game. Cant use any good magic, because after you give the command, by the time your characters cast the spell the enemies have moved. then they swarm the party so close to your other characters you will hit them too. If you put your casters in front to get off their spells, they are dead before their next turn. Divinity was so much better.

The magic thing is partially because the AI likes to grab area effect spells. Some of the area effect spells don't harm your guys, some do (good luck telling which, the game doesn't tell you).

Because of the melee locking system, you can use a background mage to skirt around to the side once the melee guys lock down the baddies and start spraying with areas (game loves its sodding cones).

Also, the spellcasters need to wear really light armor or their casting gets delayed. This is particularly annoyign with guys like Durance since the game prioritizes him as a healer, but he's usually wearing sack-cloth compared to others.

I did have Eder, as an almost fully specked fighter literally fight off an entire encounter that took out the rest of the party though (damn banshees).

I like the game, but the combat system is so bloody opaque that I have no idea what I need to do, or what does what, in certain cases.

Silver Crusade

Luna eladrin wrote:
You could adapt it. Perhaps the simulacrum was not really dead, but Rasputin had an accomplice who declared it/him dead. Perhaps the simulacrum was buried and died then, or Rasputin retrieved it later and it is still running around (which offers interesting possibilities in having the PCs encounter it).

Yeah but see, if he had an accomplice for a closed coffin funeral...why not just bury an empty body anyway? The simulacra's not going to survive being buried alive, so it'd pop to snow after a few hours anyway and not cost hundreds of rubles.

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I had an odd thought when I was reading Rasputin must die, or rather, a nitpicky feeling.

Its described in the story how Rasputin faked his death, by utilizing mind control spells and a simulacra of himself that got autopsied and buried instead of him.

Now if the simulacra died, it should have reverted to snow, correct? Or is the assumption that it somehow 'survived' the autopsy process, or that Rasputin made a pre-dead simulacra (how does that even work?)

I know this is nitpicking, but it seemed like an oddity to me. What say you all?

Silver Crusade

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Darklord Morius wrote:

Well, minotaurs don't get lost in mazes, so, in their mind, a maze could be as good a lair as an normal one. If they would contruct one, it could be maze-like.

Giant Ants or monsters with Hive mentality could build maze-like lairs.

Consider 3d dimensinal mazes, with diagonasl, ups and downs, also consider non square mazes. I made one maze back in 3.5 made by Beholders and Grells, very cool.

Also, don't minotaurs build their own mazes?

I just had this image of adventurers opening a door to a minotaur in a hardhat and carrying a pickaxe crying out pitifully, "Noooo, its not ready yet!"

Silver Crusade

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Orfamay Quest wrote:
Spook205 wrote:

DnD Drow were expressly indicated by Salvatore (who's responsible for most of the houses of drow, thing) to not be a functional culture. They rely on Lolth coming in and basically acting like a lifestyle commissar to keep things operational (do not kill those children today, we need them! Yes I told you to kill all the kids you came across, that was then, this is now!)

That goes a long way towards the explanation of why a society that is so rigidly structured was still CE. The entire society existed a the ever changing, unpredictable whims of a deific despot. Dungeons and Dragons drow basically live in magical North Korea, albeit with better economy.

Pathfinder drow have this sort of ridiculously malicious thing designed around making them seem horrible.

And yet the drow's demoniacal patrons are still capable of providing them with all the support they need, for their own twisted amusements. Whether you call that patron Lolth, Abraxas, Mazmezz, or Snugglebunniefoofoo is rather beside the point.

Yeah but in DnD, the drow were basically Lolth's belongings. Society followed the theocratic aims of Lolth. There was one cook stirring that pot.

Put in a bunch of different houses worshipping different CE demons and all of a sudden that ability to administrate and control the cat's nest would seem to logically start having trouble.

If your house worships multiple demonic patrons, it just gets odder. Mazmezz might demand you have a moratorium on male child murder for a year, meanwhile Baphomet might be demanding it. And the demon lord of fire ants might be demanding the house next to yours go on a random 'arson for fun' spree.

Silver Crusade

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DnD Drow were expressly indicated by Salvatore (who's responsible for most of the houses of drow, thing) to not be a functional culture. They rely on Lolth coming in and basically acting like a lifestyle commissar to keep things operational (do not kill those children today, we need them! Yes I told you to kill all the kids you came across, that was then, this is now!)

That goes a long way towards the explanation of why a society that is so rigidly structured was still CE. The entire society existed a the ever changing, unpredictable whims of a deific despot. Dungeons and Dragons drow basically live in magical North Korea, albeit with better economy.

Pathfinder drow have this sort of ridiculously malicious thing designed around making them seem horrible.

They're honestly more like 40k's Dark Eldar then anything else. The dark eldar though get around the birth-rate issue by making assloads of vat-bred children, and everyone is still viewed as disposable meat for the consumption for pleasure of everyone else.

Mr. Jacobs is going for the Doylist explanation when we were asking for the Watsonian one. We know the drow stick around because they're baddies and we want them to, but in a society where roasting your own children alive for fun or having children poison knife fight spiders for your cruel amusement while you rearrange grandma's internal organs for giggles, a low birth-rate spells destruction.

There's only one other species I can think of similar to the drow in mindset and that's the dire corbies. And the corbies literally are slowly dying out because the males are driven to eat their own young.
Honestly, I can see the drow of golarian being a sort of interesting thing, a hedonistic society, drunk on its own advancement, slowly burning out like a flickering torch light in dark caverns. You just need to survive their gyrations or attempt to reform their society away from one driven by selfish hedonism, perversity and sadism.

In summary, I'd argue the drow should be portrayed as if they were dying out, but it takes a while for a civilization of creatures so long-lived to perish.

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