TarrentheShaded's page

This frustrates me consistently. I'll be using some resource, like a character builder, and see the description for a spell, item, feat, etc., only to later realize that Archives of Nethys has some differences for its description. And because Paizo has neglected to include the latest errata from 11/9/2020, nobody has any way of confirming and/or pinpointing what changes were made.

I understand that AoN is the official resource for rules, but that doesn't excuse the latest errata from not being available on the FAQ page. It's been over a year now, and I'm sure a lot of these resources and databases have not updated their information because nothing official, aside from buying a new printing of the CRB, has been presented by Paizo in regard to the errata from the latest printing.

I understand that Unstable abilities provide a powerful effect but are risky if used more than once during the same encounter. I’m not a big fan of a player having actions “wasted”, even if they took a risk. It just feels discouraging to ever try going for any unstable attempt beyond the first each encounter. It’s also VERY punishing to close off the Inventor from using several abilities/feats, or even a majority of their abilities if most of what they took were feats with the unstable trait.
Rather than having the actions wasted for failing the flat check, the effect should still get to happen, but then perhaps impart a slight penalty on the Inventor when using their innovation until they spend the 10 minutes outside of combat to retune it. Each time they fail the flat check this penalty would increase.
The penalty could start as simple as a -1 to attack rolls with a weapon innovation, -1 to AC for armor, and perhaps -1 to attack and AC for the construct? I think this would make attempting more than one unstable ability per encounter more usable and desirable than currently written. Yes, in theory you could spam a powerful unstable effect each turn, but with a DC 17 flat check you’ll likely incur large penalties on your innovation for doing so.

I'm just now realizing that, even after the release of Bestiary 2, it appears there is still quite a lackluster pool of common construct creature options for the Summon Construct spell. Hopefully Paizo is aware of this issue and has plans to provide more options in Bestiary 3? I think the idea of summoning a construct into battle is really cool, but per RAW the lack of options makes the spell less usable right now when compared to the other summon spells.

Quickened Casting is a free action because it's Quickened Casting. Unusual Composition is a 1-action activity, like many of the other metamagic and metamusic (my term, not an official game term) feats Bards have.

Oh it is 1 action? I was looking at the feat on Archives of Nethys and they don't have the 1 action symbol with it. Maybe they just forgot to include the symbol? I don't currently have my physical book with me to confirm.

The level 10 bard feat reads, "If your next action is to cast a composition spell, you can use a different kind of performance than usual for the composition to change any of its somatic components to verbal components or vice versa. As usual for composition spells, this changes whether the composition is auditory or visual."

I'm wondering whether or not this feat should require using a free action. Quickened Casting is worded similarly and is a free action:

"If your next action is to cast a cantrip or a spell that is at least 2 levels lower than the highest level spell you can cast, reduce the number of actions to cast it by 1 (minimum 1 action)."

The main part of the wording I'm focusing on is "If your next action is..." Because of this wording, Unusual Composition seems to imply that the feat itself requires using a certain type of action, similar to Quickened Casting. Most metamagic feats I've looked at seem to use some type of action.

This is a good question. As of now there doesn't seem to be anything official for riding an animal companion to use its fly speed. I'm going to be GMing a one-shot tonight and one of my players wants to play a druid goblin with a bird animal companion. We'll be playing at level 7, so his bird will be at least one size larger than his goblin, however because of that "Riding Animal Companions" rule he technically can't ride it to use its fly speed.

However, from a mechanical standpoint, a mature bird has a strength modifier of 3, which would make it able to carry 8 Bulk before becoming Encumbered. A typical small sized creature (like a goblin) is considered to be 3 Bulk before you account for its equipment. Tack for a companion is 1 Bulk. So if the bird is wearing tack and a small PC doesn't go over 4 Bulk with their equipment, they'd be within the mature bird companion's Bulk limit before making it Encumbered.

As a GM, I personally don't see anything wrong with allowing my player to ride his bird, so long as they stay within the companion's bulk limit. Most enemies will still be able to retaliate without issue during encounters, unless they have zero ranged capability. By level 7 certain classes will already have access to spells or equipment that allows them to gain a fly speed anyway, so I don't see anything broken about riding a flying companion. They'll only be able to do so effectively outdoors or in larger/taller spaces. In addition, that player will have to keep spending actions to Command an Animal in order to keep benefiting from their companion's fly speed, not to mention Nature checks if they don't have the Ride general feat.

The entry for the Roc in the Bestiary hints at the possibility of capturing and training a Roc as a "flying mount," so I don't really see the harm in allowing a player to ride their flying companion.

Another thing to note is that while flying, that bird companion will more than likely be prioritized over the player for ranged attacks. And the bird is somewhat squishy, being only at 60 hit points at level 7. A character putting themselves in that situation might make it easier for an enemy to "kill two birds with one stone".

I came up with some custom rules allowing certain ships to be fitted with a cloaking system. I tried my best to keep it balanced and simple. Starships with the ability to hide from other starships would add a lot of flavor for smuggling themed characters.

Cloaking System, Basic

10 BP; 20 PCU

A cloaking system allows a starship to temporarily become invisible and travel unnoticed through the depths of space. During starship combat, as an added option for the Divert engineer action, a starship’s engineer can send auxiliary power to their starship’s cloaking system. If the check is successful, during the next helm phase the starship moves at half speed (in hexes) and all opposing science officer checks against it have their DCs increased by 2 and during the next gunnery phase it gains concealment (20% miss chance) against all attacks. Starship weapons with the array ability ignore this concealment. The cloaking automatically ends during the next engineering phase unless the engineer of the cloaked ship succeeds with another Divert action, in which case the ship remains cloaked for another round. With enough successful Engineering checks using the Divert action, a cloaking system can keep a starship cloaked for a maximum of 5 rounds per combat before it must recharge for 10 minutes outside of starship combat. A starship with a malfunctioning or wrecked power core cannot activate its cloaking system.

Starship sensors in passive mode cannot detect an actively cloaked starship unless the cloaked ship still has its transponder on. During starship combat, active sensors on other ships can easily identify the hex a cloaked ship is located in as long as the cloaked ship is within the first range increment of those sensors. If a cloaked ship moves outside the first range increment of another starship’s sensors, those sensors are not able to know the hex occupied by the cloaked starship until it moves back into the first range increment of the sensors.

A cloaking system can be set to passive mode outside of starship combat, which consumes significantly less PCU, allowing the starship to travel undetectable by passive sensors while flying with thrusters or through the Drift. Active sensors automatically detect a ship in passive cloaking. When observed by a creature, a cloaked starship can be noticed with a DC 40 Perception check if it is stationary, or a DC 20 Perception check if it is moving. The GM may decide to make these checks lower if a starship is particularly loud or noticeable through other means.

Only Medium or smaller starships can be fitted with a basic cloaking system.

Cloaking System, Advanced

25 BP; 50 PCU

An advanced cloaking system works just like its basic counterpart, but it can also be installed on large starships, the DCs against science officer actions increase by 5 instead, and the concealment bonus increases to total concealment (50% miss chance).

- The engineer of a cloaked ship must continue using their action to keep the cloaking active each round, which is not a guarantee.
- I not 100% sure about making a cloaked ship move at half speed, but since they can still attack while cloaked, half speed would make it more difficult to move into optimal arc positioning.
- My thought was that huge or larger starships should be unable to benefit from cloaking due to their immense size and focus on offense. Limiting cloaking to large or smaller starships would give smaller ships (especially fighters and racers) another option for becoming effective in combat defensively and having an easier means of escape if they get into an unfortunate tangle with a dreadnought.
- Some added strategy would be if a ship fires at another ship with a tracking weapon that doesn't reach its target on the first round, the targeted ship could activate its cloaking system during the next engineering phase to have a better chance of the tracking weapon missing in the gunnery phase.
- The BP and PCU costs are high because a ship with a cloaking system would have to sacrifice more offensive potential for defense.

I'd appreciate any thoughts or feedback.

Rides Water wrote:

Insane KillMaster wrote:

• The Thrushmoor Terror (Part 2)

Star Stelae Questions

• Does the Star Stelae consist of the steps and pedestal as shown on Page 7?

• Would walking onto the stairs qualify as touching a Star Stelae for purposes of triggering the telepathic connection? If not, should this touching be much a more deliberate hand-to-pillar kind of thing?

• Do the symbols of Hastur need to be held in hand, worn, or can they just be anywhere on the person (like stored in a backpack)?
  

Right now a cleric has six symbols of Hastur tucked into his backpack. He definitely doesn't want to wear one and is totally unlikely to pull them out when near the Star Stelae. I really want to have the PCs learn about the abilities of the Stelae because I think it will be a hook to make them want to discover more and add to the desire to chase down Lowls; however, I don't want to do it in a manner that goes against their intended design.

Perhaps they are only to be understood by characters with a leaning towards the occult and not stumbled upon by someone lucky/unlucky enough to be carrying a symbol of Hastur in the right place?

The intention is that a character has to touch the actual stela, not just its base, and it should be deliberate. I think just having a Yellow Sign on one's person should be enough. You don't necessarily need to be wearing it openly.

It would work best if the PCs tried to actively investigate the Star Stelae, but having them just happen to touch one of these weird monuments and get a flash of insight doesn't hurt.

Another thing to mention is that if the PCs defeat Melisenn and acquire her copy of the Pnakotic Manuscripts, studying the book would likely reveal more insight on the capabilities of the Star Stelae.

"Melisenn got her hands on the copy of the Pnakotic Manuscripts the count owned, where she found confirmation of a primordial connection between the cult of Hastur and the trio of Star Stelae erected in Thrushmoor."

@TarrenttheShaded: Thanks for creating and sharing this - there's some really thematic elements here. Nicely done.

As a side-note prompted by reading your manifestations: I've been running Second Darkness and finding I really hate (PCs having) darkvision. It's pretty commonplace even among the core races and reduces the scariness of the setting (the Darklands bits, in particular). My feeling is that having darkvision would also reduce the effectiveness of the 'horror' aspects of Strange Aeons too. Seeing that a lot of manifestations 'gift' darkvision, it occurred to me that the prevalence of darkvision by default also decreases the value/specialness of these manifestations, e.g. Lurker in Darkness. I may house rule darkvision out or limit available races to ones without it when I run Strange Aeons.

I agree. Running a horror themed campaign with characters who have darkvision tends to ruin some of the atmosphere. I was just implementing the abilities provided in the seeded creature template found in Pathfinder Adventure Path #113.

You could easily swap darkvision out for low-light vision, which isn't quite as hindering to the horror atmosphere. You can also utilize the effects of deeper darkness where darkvision doesn't work.

For those of you incorporating elements of the Horror Adventures book, I came up with a corruption that might work well if any of your players go down a darker road at some point.

This is essentially a variant on the ghoul corruption, but I added elements of the seeded creature template therein.

Catalyst

Seeded corruption stems from a desire for forbidden lore and dark rituals never meant for mortal minds. It can also be contracted through knowledge of the Great Old One Xhamen-Dor.

Progression

You have a desire to share forbidden lore with suitable hosts. Each week, you must share the knowledge of Xhamen-Dor with another sentient creature and spread the seedborne infection to them.

After a week, if you haven’t corrupted another creature through some other means you must succeed at a Will saving throw (DC = 15 + your manifestation level) each day until you’ve spread enough of the infection. If you fail the save, you feel a burning desire to discuss the lore of Xhamen-Dor. When in this state, if a creature listens to you speak about Xhamen-Dor for at least 30 minutes, they must make a save against the seedborne consumption manifestation, even if you do not possess it. Additionally, the next time you sleep you emit a cloud of spores that expose other creatures within 30 feet to seedborne consumption (DC = 10 + ½ your HD + your Charisma modifier). If you corrupt an innocent creature through either of these methods, your corruption progresses to the next stage.

If circumstances make it impossible to spread the infection you start to slip into madness, taking 1 sanity damage per hour, and you continue to desire spreading the infection until you infect at least 1 creature. If your allies are able to restrain you and provide sentient creatures to corrupt, your corruption doesn’t progress. However, the DC of the Will save against your corruption progressing increases by 2. These increases stack each time this occurs, and they last until your corruption reaches the next corruption stage.

In addition to sharing knowledge, you can’t resist attempting to discover dark secrets. Whenever you are in a library or see a book or journal you’ve never read, you must spend time reading to extract any potential secrets you can.

Corruption Stage 1: Once you corrupt 1 suitable host your alignment shifts one step toward evil and spells that detect undead or plants sense you, though the peculiar result they return informs the caster that you’re still a living non-plant creature. Other spells and effects don’t treat you as undead or a plant. You can use speak with plants at will as a spell-like ability.

Corruption Stage 2: The second time, your alignment shifts another step toward evil and you are affected by spells and abilities as if your creature type were undead or plant (including effects like bane and the favored enemy class feature). This doesn’t grant you any of the immunities of being undead or a plant, nor does it make you immune to effects that target living creatures or change how negative and positive energy affect you.

Corruption Stage 3: The third time, you become an NPC seeded creature under the GM’s control.

Removing the Corruption

Curing a seeded creature requires a special occult ritual to remove the parasitic infestation or use of a miracle spell.

Manifestations

Lurker in Darkness
Gift: You gain darkvision 60ft. If you already have darkvision, this increases your darkvision by 30ft

Stain: You take a –4 penalty on saves to resist seeded corruption.

Fungal Armor
Your flesh is unnaturally tough.

Gift: You gain a +2 bonus to your natural armor. At manifestation level 5th, this bonus increases by 1.

Stain: Your body begins to decay and makes it harder for you to move. You take a –2 penalty to your Dexterity score.

Fungal Defense
Gift: You gain channel resistance +4 and damage reduction 5/bludgeoning or slashing.

Stain: You take a –4 penalty on Fortitude saves to resist diseases.

Improved Fungal Defense
Prerequisite(s): Fungal defenses, manifestation level 5th.

Gift: You gain a +4 bonus on saving throws against mind-affecting effects, cold resistance 10, and electricity resistance 10.

Stain: You take a –2 penalty to your Charisma score.

Greater Fungal Defense
Prerequisite(s): Improved fungal defense; manifestation level 8

Gift: You gain fast healing 5

Stain: Whenever you take damage from a positive energy source, you are frightened for 1 round.

Fungal Limb
Gift: You grow an extra limb. This functions as a tendril secondary natural attack that deals 1d8 bludgeoning damage. You also gain a climb speed equal to your base land speed. Your tendril also has the grab special ability and a reach of 10 feet. Attacks with your tendril are treated as evil and magic for the purposes of overcoming damage reduction.

Stain: You are treated as an undead creature when subjected to channel energy, cure spells, and inflict spells.

Insidious Mind
Prerequisite(s): Seedborne consumption, Manifestation level 4th

Gift: When you succeed a saving throw against a psychic charm or compulsion, or any type of mind-affection spell or spell-like ability your dreams of dark lore infect the spellcaster’s mind exposing him to your seedborne consumption.

Stain: You take a -2 penalty to your Charisma score

Extra Fungal Limb
Prerequisite(s): Fungal limb, seedborne consumption, manifestation level 6th.

Gift: You gain an additional tendril. Your climb speed increases by 10 feet. Additionally, when you succeed at pinning a foe, you can spend a swift action to tie up the foe with a tendril. Doing this causes you to lose 1 tendril attack and you can only have one creature tied up at a time. Every round they remain tied up they are exposed to your seedborne consumption manifestation. The tendrils have hardness 5 and 10 hit points. If a creature tears free or destroys a tendril, it grows back in 1 minute.

Stain: You take a –2 penalty on attacks with manufactured weapons and on all ranged attacks.

Death Burst
Prerequisite(s): Manifestation level 7th, improved fungal defense, seedborne consumption

Gift: Your seedborne consumption DC is increased by 2. When you fall below 0 hitpoints you release psychic spores and all creatures within 30ft of you become exposed to your seedborne consumption manifestation.

Stain: The flesh on your hands is covered with pustules and fungal growths. The penalty you take on ranged attacks and attacks with manufactured weapons increases to –4.

Seedborne Consumption
Prerequisite(s): Manifestation level 2nd.

Gift: Natural or touch attack; save Fort DC = 10 + 1/2 the seeded one’s HD + the seeded one’s Charisma modifier; onset 1 month; frequency 1/month; effect 1d2 Charisma damage (this damage cannot be healed while the creature is infected); cure 3 consecutive saves.

When a creature’s Charisma is reduced to 0, instead of becoming unconscious it falls into a feverish mental state where its mind is scattered and inattentive. The creature can still move and perform actions, but it can concentrate on only a single action, and for only a few moments. It takes a –4 penalty on saving throws; Intelligence-, Wisdom-, and Charisma-based checks; and skill checks. Within 24 hours of a creature’s Charisma score reaching 0, it dies and rises as a seeded creature.

Stain: The stench of the spores flowing within you allows creatures with scent to notice you from twice the usual distance, and makes it extremely difficult to disguise yourself. Any living creatures that have a sense of smell have their starting attitudes toward you reduced by one step. Your supernatural scent is not affected by the negate aroma spell.

I will be implementing the new Horror Adventures rules for fear in the Strange Aeons Adventure Path. I'm wondering if these new fear tiers were intended to only be reached through multiple "stacking" from fear-inducing effects. As these rules stand, the Horrified condition could only be reached from several instances of being Frightened, which is probably a good thing since its just inches away from coupe de grace. Or is it intended that the GM will determine which story events justify as more Panic-inducing, Terrifying, or Spooky events?

I'm also wondering how to appropriately implement these with previous existing creatures that have fear-inducting effects. Some creatures with fear auras might be arguably more suitable to giving the Panicked condition instead.

Does anyone have suggestions for house rules of Remove Fear within the Horror Adventures fear rules? The book offered the optional rule for changing immunity to fear to fear resistance, so I'm curious if anyone may have had some similar changes with Remove Fear, such as lessening the effects of your current fear level.

If you wanted to make removing fear more difficult for a horror setting, I think a fair house rule for Remove Fear would be to simply allow the target another save with a +4 bonus instead of automatically removing the condition.

Just reviewed the Horror Adventures rules for sanity and madness again. Hadn't realized this before, but total sanity damage can exceed sanity score:

"if your total sanity damage equals or exceeds your sanity score, you become insane as per insanity (no saving throw) until all your sanity damage is healed and all your madnesses are cured"

So if they see Bokrug, not only would they obtain a greater madness (possibly immediately), they'd also be permanently confused until ALL sanity damage is healed and ALL madnesses cured, which would take months, maybe a year without restoration spells, assuming they've taken the full 54 points of sanity damage from seeing Bokrug. Yikes!

Still not sure what I'll do about this if it happens to my PCs. I may simply omit the permanent confusion effect of sanity damage in this particular encounter. Or only have the PCs take the sanity damage if Bokrug kills them in the Dreamlands. Or have the Mad Poet pull off a deux ex machina and cure them with a wish spell before they wake up, leaving them with their madnesses dormant. The 1/4 chance to act normally at any given time from insanity is essentially a game breaker for the players.

So far this adventure path has been amazing to read through. I'm excited to run it in the next month or so. I'm planning on implementing the rules for sanity from Horror Adventures. While the party's physical bodies are relatively safe from Bokrug in the Dreamlands, this still has potential to be a total party kill of the mind.

The rules for sanity suggest that each time a character encounters a Great Old One they must make a Will save with a DC of 15 + the Great Old One's CR. When the party encounters Bokrug, not only do they have to make a save for sanity, but they also have to save against his Unspeakable Presence beforehand, which they will more than likely fail at levels 7 or 8. So they have to make a DC 42 Will save with a -4 penalty or become afflicted with a greater madness, since they would reach max sanity damage from failing the sanity attack. Over half of those madnesses have an immediate onset, which is a concern from a role playing perspective.

Hopefully at least one PC would contract a madness that doesn't fully develop for a few days, allowing them to help their allies shake off their affliction before their's takes over. But logically, if all 3 of my PCs end up immediately insane, I don't see how the adventure could continue. It could essentially be a total party kill of the mind instead of traditionally being slain in combat.

Depending on how generous I'm feeling, I could automatically assign one PC a madness with a longer onset so as to allow the party a chance to regain their sanity. It seems that Paizo knows a Great Old Ones encounter is not to be taken lightly.

Music in an AP has become the norm with my regular RPG group. It can set the right tone you want to portray and makes moments quite cinematic. It also gives players a certain drive with their characters and helps combat go faster when waiting for your turn.

I've used quite a few different songs so far in Iron Gods. The sci-fi genre opens so many doors. My list used so far is as follows:

Torch Theme - Welcome to Lunar Industries, Moon OST
Inside Chrysalis - Dead Space Theme
Fighting skeleton kasathas - space pirates theme, Metroid Prime
Fighting robots to save Khonnir - Keys to the Kingdom (instrumental) Linkin Park
Meyanda - I am Machine - Three Days Grace
Torch is saved - Guardians of the Galaxy theme
Fighting the Smilers - Take Out the Gunman, Chevelle
Scrapwall - Phazon Mines, Metroid Prime
Helskarg - Driving with the Top Down, Iron Man OST
Infiltrating the Lords of Rust - Lemurian Star, Captain America: The Winter Soldier OST
Kulgara - Lights Out, Breaking Benjamin
Hellion - Kill Everybody, Skrillex
Iadenviegh - Kakariko Village, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Aurora - Unauthorized Entry, Elysium OST
Seerath - Battling Robots, Robo Cop OST
The Choking Tower - World War Z theme
Furkas Xoud - The Necromorphs Attack, Dead Space
Thought Harvester - Omega Pirate Battle, Metroid Prime
Scar of the Spider - Into the Wasteland, Fallout 3
The-Stars-Whisper - Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites, Skrillex
Fungal Caves - Humanity Pt. 1, The Thing OST
Dominion Hive - Title + USCSS Nostromo, Alien OST
Maukui - Ascendancy, Halo 4
Dweller-in-Dark-Places - metroid prime battle, Metroid Prime
Starfall - Heaven and Earth, Elysium OST

I'm also planning on using songs from Oblivion, Deadpool, Tron: Legacy, and The Matrix. There are several other songs I've used that I can't remember. And you can probably tell I'm a fan of the Metroid series.

I like the previous suggestions, especially Blade Runner and Mad Max: Fury Road. I'll have to listen to those soundtracks and see where I can fit them into the last two books in the AP!

How does a missed attack roll work for a rocket launcher when aimed at a target creature?

If two characters are on a level playing field and one fired a rocket at the other and missed, would the rocket keep going for its range increment? Further? Would the rocket keep going until it hit a solid obstacle, or maybe another creature in line of fire?

What if the rocket is being fired at a target from above? Does the missed attack still detonate in a nearby square as per the splash weapon rules?

I don't think a rocket launcher is technically a splash weapon like alchemist's fire (certainly not a thrown one), but if it were to fall under the same rules, attack rolls on a target creature would seem pointless when firing from above. Per the splash weapon rules, a missed attack within a rocket launcher's range increment is more than enough to make up for the 1 square it missed the target by due to the 30ft radius explosion. Though I suppose the intended target would then be allowed a save for half damage.

Yes. This AP has been quite lethal to my players. My group has seen seven deaths so far, three of them permanent character deaths, all permanent deaths were unfortunately characters played by the same player. The party was overrun by the kasatha skeletons in book 1 that took the life of his shaman during the first session. In book 3 Seerath made a successful death attack on his arcanist after some poor perception checks and a natural 1 rolled on his Fort save... Also in book 3 the aurumvorax in the Choking Tower scored two critical hits from a full round attack on his inquisitor, thus killing him with vast amounts of bleed damage from its Bleeding Critical feat.

There have been a few other deaths as well, but they have been countered by raise dead and breath of life spells (that player now plays an oracle and takes every heal spell he can get). The most notable of these was in book 4 facing the yangethes where the party's android gunslinger was bludgeoned to death by a fellow party member who had fallen victim to confusion. The saddest part was that this fellow party member had a strong interest in his newly met android companion.

I haven't GMed any other Pathfinder book APs, but this one, with the inclusion of mythic enemies pitted against non-mythic PCs, seems to be on the more challenging side. I would personally only recommend this AP for more experienced players, but my group has been loving the challenge so far. I just hope they don't make poor decisions in book 5 and get overwhelmed by the technic league.