Thalandar's page

If you are still looking for a game contact me at thalandar01@gmail.com

Ditto from me at thalandar01@gmail.com

Looking for players for Pathfinder in Blue Springs MO area:

thalandar01@gmail.com

I am looking for players for Pathfinder and ModPath. I am running at my house in Blue Springs, MO.

thalandar01@gmail.com

That makes sense, cool-thanks for your input.

In a game I am running PCs are going up against a vampire. Said vampire is reduced to 0 hit points and turns to gaseous form.

Under the vampire stat block it says that while in gaseous form they have a speed: fly 20ft (which is better than the spell, sure but still).

I have been looking for the flight rules in PRD to help but can't find them. Can a creature with a fly speed run (i.e. x4 or x5 to move speed)? Even if that's posible, the PCs can out run the gaseous form, so they could just follow it to its coffin....so that seems kinda lame.

Another point this brought up, "Additional damage dealt to a vampire forced into gaseous form has no effect." It seems by that statement, the age old way to destroy vampire is out. I'm in sunlight, no problem, I'll just turn to gaseous form and now I am immune.

Someone help me out here, what am I missing?

Arrgh, I make sooo many 3.5 assumptions...thanks

"This ring continually provides its wearer with life-sustaining nourishment."

I am assuming this means food and water, however, my players think it means air as well.

If it DOES provide air would they need a Water Breathing spell?

Would they be immune to gas weapon, such as a Silver Dragon's paralytic gas breath weapon?

Simply tell the PC's enemies where the PC's base is, and sit back and watch the fireworks start.

This is kinda where I was going with this. LG NPC knows parties weakness and where PC's base is and how to overcome PCs defenses and tells the other evil party.

Thalandar wrote:

The Crusader wrote:

The Lawful Stoopid thing to do, I suppose, would be to march your armies of good, loyal, innocent people into the teeth of your two enemies, and let them die in "Honorable Combat". Even if he were a Paladin, I would say this is probably ok (though, an atonement spell wouldn't be a bad idea). This is the difference between being an adventurer/group leader and a head of state.

Wait, what? Marching innocent people into the teeth of your eneimes IS lawful good but manipluating your two enemies to fight each other, saving countless innocent lives is not lawful good?

Ummm, no. If you read what you've actually quoted, it says it's the "Lawful Stoopid" thing to do. I even misspelled stupid to underline its stupidity.

Gotcha

The Lawful Stoopid thing to do, I suppose, would be to march your armies of good, loyal, innocent people into the teeth of your two enemies, and let them die in "Honorable Combat". Even if he were a Paladin, I would say this is probably ok (though, an atonement spell wouldn't be a bad idea). This is the difference between being an adventurer/group leader and a head of state.

Wait, what? Marching innocent people into the teeth of your eneimes IS lawful good but manipluating your two enemies to fight each other, saving countless innocent lives is not lawful good?

If and when his morals and ethics are put to the test, he employs deception and manipulation tactics to serve his ends (or, in this case, the ends of "justice"), is lawful good truly his alignment? Such things are really only revealed when it becomes expedient, convenient or profitable to act otherwise.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.....which is why I don't play LG well, because IMHO it tends to be boring and in most cases stupid, especailly tactically. Thats the problem, the NPC IS Lawful Good, so I as the GM have to run him as LG.

Sigh...

Thalandar wrote:

The Human Diversion wrote:

A true lawful character would never compromise his morals/rules or those of any authority over him.

Reminds me of a quote: "As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, then their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil that they set out to destroy."

So your arguement is basicly, "Might makes right"? If the LG NPC cannot defeat the players on his own, then justice won't be served?

How did you come to the conclusion that's my "argument"?

... because it's not.

I'm merely pointing out that a true lawful character will not, under any circumstances, compromise his values/laws/morals/credo/etc. If he does it would be, for him, a horrible act requiring atonement. If said character can't possibly defeat evil under his current set of laws, then he would bide his time or accept defeat. However, as I pointed out, said character could seek help from others, including evil others, if it fell within his code.

Ok, I see what your saying. Dang its sooooo much easier to play evil bad guys than good "bad guys". The LG NPC is just one individual, but he understands he would have a good chance of being defeated by the combined party.

Grumble, grumble back to th drawing board...

The Human Diversion wrote:

Reminds me of a quote: "As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, then their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil that they set out to destroy."

Best lawful good quote ever.

I understand your point, but just to be silly, the LG NPC isn't a man... :)

A true lawful character would never compromise his morals/rules or those of any authority over him.

Reminds me of a quote: "As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, then their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil that they set out to destroy."

So your arguement is basicly, "Might makes right"? If the LG NPC cannot defeat the players on his own, then justice won't be served?

Using Evil Means to fight evil is not a good action, it's the easily justified and expeditious way out.

===Aelryinth

Can you support this? Why is it not "Good"? It is good tactics, divide your enemy. See this is my problem, Lawful Good doesn't mean stupid. The NPC knows that the players are powerful, and that combine they have the ability to defeat him.

What's hard for me is that I am used to GM the bad guys, so this is a differnt situation for me.

See, I have problems with the "its not lawful" side because the player characters are outlaws and the other evil enemy represents an evil kingdom that is directly opposed to the LG NPC.

My ideas are having the LG NPC indirectly, through cutouts, supply information and intelligence to both parties to cause battle between the two, weakening both parties.

So my players have ticked off a powerful Lawful Good NPC (Not a paladin) in my game. The players are evil and have also made a few powerful evil enemies as well.

The NPC isn't Lawful Good Stupid, so is playing off the players against their enemies out of character? Deception and manipulation tactics are not exactly strong LG behavior, however no innocents are being harmed, justice is being dealt.

My hang up is the statement: Good implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings.

On the other hand, it serves the overall greater good to use the two evils to destroy each other, protecting innocent lives.

Thoughts?

One of my player is running his black blade like a multiple personality. The blade has certain personality traits and the magus has certain traits. He even uses a different voice when he switches between them. Its quite entertaining...

Gentle repose will keep you looking fresh as the day you died, true seeing wouldn't see through it because it is your natural state.

Hang in there man! I was through have my deployment before I realized about six or seven guys in my unit were gamers. What I learned is, don't be afraid to put it out there you might be suprised how many others are interested.

I tried to do a play by web cam game with my group stateside, but time differences and scheduling problems killed that fast.

Soldiers are willing to do anything to pass the time, so I convinced several to give RPGing a shot. Lead to some interesting situations, as I was the GM and one of my players was my first line leader!

Good luck and come home safe. Thanks for your service.

I havent read it yet. Are the first 2 books in this series required reading. I was a big RA Salvatore fan before the jump in time. I miss those supporting characters.

Salvatore's books have really lost that special something. I think this series peaked with Seige of Darkness. From what I have read in the reviews his new stuff is more about killing off the old characters and wrapping up the saga. A shame, Double D deserves better.

10 years Army Reserve, and counting...

Yeah, I play paladins as judgmental. Because that's a class trait don'tcha know.

No, its not. In fact of the matter being judgemental is not in character with Lawful Good alignment, or at least shouldn't be. I will agree that that is the way most people play them.

Lawful Good: A lawful good character acts as a good person is expected or required to act. She combines a commitment to oppose evil with the discipline to fight relentlessly. She tells the truth, keeps her word, helps those in need, and speaks out against injustice. A lawful good character hates to see the guilty go unpunished.

Lawful good combines honor with compassion.

I didn't see judgemental anywhere in there. I saw COMPASSION, I saw punish the GUILTY (which by the way is not the same as kill the guilty

The bad guys here are the evil brain things, they are guilty of controlling the innocent children and causing them to be killed.

Thalandar wrote:

They would have not been there had they not been "possesed" by evil brain things", the paladin had already said they were evil, and " but it felt hostile at first, so I just reacted" is a very CN action.

And the paladin has to take accountability for the fact he told everyone the creatures in the room are evil. You don't know the rocks were harmless, they could have been a serious threat to the party (considering any Pathfinder world, were anything is posible with magic).

I don't condone the killing of innocents, but this situation has a lot of circumstances that scream "fog of war".

"Fog of war" is not a license to kill innocent children by the roomful. And you are still, deliberately I believe, ignoring the stated attitude of the OP that his character doesn't really care much about all the innocent bodies she's leaving behind.

As I said, play as you like. You SAY you "don't condone the killing of innocents" but as far as I can tell, that's exactly what you are doing.

Whatever, AD, its a fantasy game, not real life. And its easy to paint things as black and white when you are sitting in front of a table rolling dice. Our morals don't apply to a fanatasy world without CNN and youtube, or for that matter trail by a jury of your peers.

What should the paladin do? Be judge, jury and executioner right there?

So what you have is a very intelligent woman with above average insight and perception who has twice killed innocent people and show almost no signs of remorse. With these stats you are not a dimwit or stupid. Even if your character was stupid she should have still been wracked with guilt. The fact that it looks like you don't even want to change makes me say this character is at least Chaotic Neutral with very strong evil tendencies if not outright evil.

How would you feel if you read about a cop who while trying to apprehend a criminal opens up with an assault rifle in a crowded theater and ends up killing a dozen people including children. Would you be Oh well no big deal? I realize this is only a game but your character is not supposed to realize she is in a game. It is a role playing game so get into your character. If she is the type that does not give a damn about people that is fine but you are going to have problems with the paladin in that case.

If you want to use the cop analogy, the cop was told that everyone in the room was a valid target (i.e. evil) by a respected source, the paladin didn't use a free action to say "check fire" or "don't attack."

The real world isn't black and white. Sometimes bad things happen to innocent people at the hands of good people.

This is why, as a Paladin, if you see a behaviour, i.e. burning in the spider room room make sure the loose cannon who burned those innocents last time has info to make smarter decisions.

It was a tragic situation... lose, lose...inocents died, excessive force was used. However, the evil brain things were defeated some more innocents cannot be put into the same situation.

Now, learn from it so it never happens in the future.

Thalandar wrote:

This is a great time for good roleplay. The impulsive character, wracked with guilt, starts to see the direct impact of not thinking before they act. With the helpful and patient guiding hand of the paladin, they manage to respect the arcane power within them.

Or the paladin is a jerk and issues an ultimateum, which cause the character to feel...

But instead of "wracked with guilt" we get

Master Trip wrote:

Oops I did it again and feel bad, but not really...

As I said, after the second time the PC did this and had this reaction, my paladin, ultimatum issuing jerk that he is, would definitely be unwilling to continue on with a "teammate" who casually killed innocents and was "not really" worried about it.

Play as you like. My paladins take innocent death quite seriously. Dead children by the roomful might well be an opportunity to teach, but they are first and foremost dead innocent children.

They would have not been there had they not been "possesed" by evil brain things", the paladin had already said they were evil, and " but it felt hostile at first, so I just reacted" is a very CN action.

And the paladin has to take accountability for the fact he told everyone the creatures in the room are evil. You don't know the rocks were harmless, they could have been a serious threat to the party (considering any Pathfinder world, were anything is posible with magic).

I don't condone the killing of innocents, but this situation has a lot of circumstances that scream "fog of war".

Thalandar wrote:

What kind of undead is he? If you look in Blood of Night it has rules for undead who don't "feed" their "hunger".

It is a custom job from the write-up. I don't want to give any more details at this time since I know a couple of my players read these forums.

{ Sorry to disappoint you Jym and Aggy, but I don't want to spoil the rest of the surprises! }

If I remember after it is over, I will come back with more details and what they ended up doing.

I would run it like this: the church will do it, after the party does a,b, and c. Meanwhile they will keep tabs on the player, and if it shows signs of its true nature...well, destroying it will release the soul too.

Perhaps even secretly going to one of the party members, saying if it strays, you must destroy it.

1. The spider room isn't an evil act buy any stretch. Killing the innocents was an unintended consequence of reasonable actions(lots of enemies with no obvious friendly's is a perfect time for fireball). If you didn't know they were there you will probably feel horrible about it but that doesn't make you a bad person and the pally should back off.

2. Room with children is an evil act. Kids throwing stones is a pretty weak provocation for AOE death. If you were actually taking damage from the rocks that some how posed a danger maybe but that is still an extreme response(maybe not evil but definitely not good). In this case the Pally is fully justified with giving you a hard time. I would have been turning you in to the local sheriff personally. This probably isn't enough to shift your alignment but if you do this often your eventually going to fall to evil.
3. My biggest issue is that your not role playing your char. Your stats do not fit the character your playing. So why are you doing it? If your char really was that ditsy maybe your not evil/cn but to me it seems like the char is going out of their way to act recklessly and that makes her actions worse. Play your stats thats what they are there for.

Wait, sorry, hold the phone. I don't care what stats say, the player IS roleplaying because he/she said that's the way the character is. They are in fact, very much roleplaying an impulsive (perhaps young?) niave character why has no idea just how powerful they can be.

And inocent people died. It sucks. Doesn't make them evil. If they continue to act that way, perhaps they will slide that direction.

This is a great time for good roleplay. The impulsive character, wracked with guilt, starts to see the direct impact of not thinking before they act. With the helpful and patient guiding hand of the paladin, they manage to respect the arcane power within them.

Or the paladin is a jerk and issues an ultimateum, which cause the character to feel resentment-and once again the dark side has another pawn because the paladin was high and mighty.

Inner Sea Bestiary: Android

Well, only if your friend here is only MOSTLY undead. There's a big difference between mostly undead and all undead. Mostly undead is slightly un-alive. With all-undead, well, with all-undead there's usually only one thing you can do.

** spoiler omitted **

"THIS is the cure for being undead?"

"The chocolate coating helps it go down easier."

What kind of undead is he? If you look in Blood of Night it has rules for undead who don't "feed" their "hunger".

Story-wise I'd prefer making it a quest in itself. As far as you (or perhaps the players) can come of with some alternative way to do it, it is going to be a lot cooler than just spending 10k on a ressurection spell.

Characters take the undead creature to local temple, to see if that ceature can be Resurrected. "We don't have 10,000 pg." Ah, well, if you complete this quest.....

Brad McDowell wrote:

ask your GM if the 'target' appears hostile. For example...

A wild west pistoleer...are his arms crossed, or does he have a hand on his yet undrawn pistol?

Well they were throwing rocks at us (which I now realize would have done nothing to us) but it felt hostile at first, so I just reacted. I swear I thought the collateral damage was the chaotic part of her alignment but she really does feel bad if innocent people are hurt. She wont seek and destroy innocent people on purpose is what I'm saying.

I do agree there could have been better communication through the DM to give a hint they were not hostile, but hey they threw rocks. Thing is how many "accidents" does it take before an alignment change is in order?

This is why Rules of Engagement, ROE, have to be well defined in real life. But, we are talking about a fantasy game. So honestly I'd tell stick up his bum paladin to define the ROE to you.

I have played a paladin in this situation before. The wizard was is a guilt racked fit because he had killed mind controlled innocents. I told the wizard, (and any good paladin would do the same with your character) he didn't cause this to happen, the BBEG did. It is unfortunate that innocents died, but focus on destroying the BBEG so more more don't have to die.

The charactger doesn't have the deficiency in mental stats to excuse its actions.

By all accounts, the character is Chaotic Evil, because it simply doesn't care how she flings her magic... or who it hurts.

I don't agree, CN at worst. She cares, just didn't know...if she had bothered to think about it before acting, she might have done something different. Impulsive and dimwitted? Yes. Evil, no.

The only thing that makes me question this is the requirements:

Vicious
Construction Requirements

Cost +1 bonus

Craft Magic Arms and Armor, enervation

Life drinker has enervation as requirement, too. Sure sounds like negitive energy to me.

Piccolo wrote:

Psion-Psycho wrote:

If any one of my players ever managed to actually accomplish what YOU did with your Paladin, I would outright hand an experience level and a fancy magic item to the sneaky bastard. No joke. Of course, I'd b@$@* about one of my players getting one up on me, but I'd *privately* congratulate the PC on their feat. That was damned impressive, it was an act of lasting Good.

Lol thanks im glad some1 read it. In a sense i did get a great rewarded because i got to play a 3.0 Goblin Druid later in the game when i retired the paladin. Btw if ur wondering y i retired the character its because i was put into a situation were i thought would be best and was greatly rewarded for the action i took since the DM did not expect it. The character ended up sacrificing it self as a last defense against an army of demons to grant safe passage for the party to get back home and seal the gate behind them. I the player was sad because it was an awesome character but it was some thing the character would do so i did it. Cool thing is the party meets my character later as an ascended champion of the LG deity of the game. So it was well worth it to me even though i would not be able to play the character ever again. It was nice to know that the DM saw my character as a being worthy of such a high title it really did make me feel accomplished that i was able to play the paladin as well as i did.

Yay, someone who actually knows the correct way to play a Paladin! kudos, Psion!

SO, I certainly didn't read all the comments, but this offers a pretty awesome chance to have the Imp pull in a favor.

** spoiler omitted **

This is by no means an ideal solution, but the oracle can redeem herself, the imp could show its true nature and the fighter's player still has a chance to resolve the departure.

One little problem is the orcale entered into a lawful contract with the Imp......

That's my read on it to, but i am checking here before I inform my player.

So would the Dhampir:
1) Be damaged by the Vicious weapon backlash if he is weilding it
2) Be healed?
3) Be uneffected?

Vicious: When a vicious weapon strikes an opponent, it creates a flash of disruptive energy that resonates between the opponent and the wielder. This energy deals an extra 2d6 points of damage to the opponent and 1d6 points of damage to the wielder. Only melee weapons can be vicious.

Dhampir
Negative Energy Affinity: Though a living creature, a dhampir reacts to positive and negative energy as if it were undead—positive energy harms it, while negative energy heals it.
Resist Level Drain (Ex): A dhampir takes no penalties from energy drain effects, though he can still be killed if he accrues more negative levels then he has Hit Dice. After 24 hours, any negative levels a dhampir takes are removed without the need for an additional saving throw.

Yes and it can be fun. It really depends on the players and what they are doing. Conflict is great for creating drama, and the storyline CAN get stale with combat now and then. That being said, yes we have gone entire sessions without combat and they were fun.

None of your descriptions fit what I like. How do I pick a number?

What you like as a player or what you run as a GM?

Wow, I never thought I'd say this but I REALLY appreicate my group. Smokers respect the non-smokers, drinkers respect non-drinkers and no one direspects the host (or his wife).

Is this "Magic is Space" Pathfinder, or is it "Spaceships with Hyperspace drives".

If it is the former then isn't it a remake of that stuff from 2nd Edition?
If it's the latter, it changes the makeup of the current universe and you can't just plop a spaceship on a Golarion.

Hmm, someone hasn't read through the Numeria part of the Inner Sea Guide, have they? Or seen the enteries in the Inner Sea Bestiary? Androids, and force fields and lasers oh my!

Long live Star Frontiers! The rest of you go play Traveller if you want to compute all that crap.

Why is it I keep thinking of the movie Highlander when I read this thread?

Connor macLeod: "No one will fight me, they all run away!"
Dugal MacLeod: "Great laddie, stay by me!"

If you notice the rest of the Characters hovering next to you all the time, you could be right!

I am a 6, most of the time.

Thalandar wrote:

To get back on topic, Lawful Good "can" be a paradox when you approach it from this direction: Can two predomitately Lawful Good kingdoms go to war against one another?

Sure, especially since not every member of the kingdoms will be LG.

No, no..lets presume to pretend 100% of both Kingdoms are Lawful Good. Most of the time, in standard fantasy games its good vs evil or law vs. chaos.

I realy want to see a GM run a game where two lawful good societies war with one another. It's real easy to see. Just because you have two lawful Good Kingdoms, doesn't mean they have the same LAWS and that those laws can't bring true conflict.

Good heavens no! Alignment is contentious enough without them!

what is contentious about alignment threads is that people of different alignments all have a different take on alignments but want you to believe that their view is the only right view.

That, and a whole lot of people wish to engage in a battle of wills, however they come unarmed.

Jhereg series by Steven Brust (gotta love a multi-class assassin/witch/sorcerer/chef/criminal mastermind with an even more sarcastic familiar).

I liked Jhereg and Yendi, but the rest were a little.... meh

Guardians of the Flame, Rosenberg

Love the first three, went way downhill after that.