Thanurel's page

Since Packing Heat replaces the Bomb ability, I might suggest allowing the Engineer to gain a "Grit" deed when a normal Alchemist's bomb damage would increase, rather then making the Engineer to spend precious Discoveries on these.

(Assuming you meant feats instead of deeds)

I'm not comfortable with 10 bonus feats. Honestly I'd like to give access to a few more deeds (especially from the Techslinger archetype), but I don't want to step on the gunslinger's toes too much, and I don't think there are any feats that grant access to additional deeds.

I do think the engineer might need a little something extra to make up for the lost damage dice of Bomb, as opposed to just the Amateur Gunslinger and Gunsmith feats.

Casts raise thread.

I'll be running Iron Gods in the near future, and one of my players was interested in playing an engineer-type class. Since the Technology Guide has come out in the 5 years since this thread was made, I've jury-rigged my own version of the engineer, using hida_jiremi's version as a starting point. This version is much more sci-fi than steampunk. I've also replaced the death ray ability with some gunslinger stuff, since the character will be able to find/build advanced weaponry in this adventure path.

The Engineer (Alchemist Archetype)

Not all alchemists are masters of chemistry and biology. Some prefer to focus their mad talents on the mysteries of mechanical engineering.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Engineers gain proficiency in firearms, as well as advanced technology firearms.

Class Skills: An engineer adds Knowledge (engineering) to his list of class skills and removes Knowledge (nature) and Use Magic Device from his list of class skills.

Technologist: An engineer gains Technologist as a bonus feat. This replaces Brew Potion.

Engineering (Su): Engineers are not only masters of creating mundane machines such as repeating crossbows, clockwork toys, and mechanical traps, but also of fashioning non-magical devices that can store spell effects. An engineer prepares devices instead of the alchemist's extracts by building small, single-use devices instead of the alchemist's usual method of drinking a vial of liquid. Unlike extracts, devices are not bound to the creator and can be used by anyone. Devices behave like spells, but their effects are unaffected by effects like dispel magic. An engineer's devices otherwise function identically to an alchemist's extracts.
Creating devices consumes raw materials, but the cost of these materials is insignificant—comparable to the valueless material components of most spells. An engineer can easily replenish his materials through scavenging and by cannibalizing his previously-used devices. If a spell normally has a costly material component, that component is expended during the use of that particular device, not during its initial creation.
When using Knowledge (engineering) or the Craft skill to create a clockwork or technological item, the engineer gains a competence bonus equal to his class level on the skill check.
This ability replaces Alchemy.

Packing Heat (Ex): The engineer gains both the Amateur Gunslinger and Gunsmithing feats as bonus feats. He also gains a battered gun identical to the one gained by the gunslinger.
This ability replaces the Throw Anything and Bomb abilities, and the engineer cannot select any discovery that would affect or modify that class ability.

Discoveries: The engineer can select Grit feats or Rapid Reload in place of an alchemist discovery.

Mutagen (Ex): An engineer's mutagens function identically to an alchemist's, but is based on chemistry and nanotechnology instead of alchemy, and thus is an extraordinary ability instead of a supernatural one. The reason an engineer's mutagens only work for him is because the nanites in the fluid are specifically programmed to modify his own biology.

Trapfinding (Ex): An engineer is a master of clockwork machines and technological devices. An engineer adds 1/2 his level to Perception skill checks made to locate traps and to Disable Device skill checks (minimum +1). An engineer can use Disable Device to disarm magic traps.
This ability replaces Poison Use, Poison Resistance, and Swift Poisoning.

Swift Engineering (Ex): Beginning at 3rd level, when an engineer creates mechanical or technological items of any sort, it takes him only half the normal amount of time.
This ability replaces Swift Alchemy.

Instant Engineering (Ex): At 18th level, the engineer can create mechanical or technological items with almost supernatural speed, and none can match his proficiency at fixing or breaking machines. He can create any such items as a full-round action if he succeeds at the Craft check and has the appropriate resources at hand to fund the creation. Additionally, he can perform any Disable Device check that would normally take up to a minute as a swift action.
This ability replaces Instant Alchemy.

Grand Discovery (Su): The engineer does not gain access to the poison touch grand discovery, though he can still utilize the others normally. The following additional grand discoveries are available to an engineer:

Artificial Heart: The engineer removes his own still-beating heart and replaces it with an artificial one of his own design. The engineer gains a +4 untyped bonus to Constitution, and his age limits at each age category are doubled. Because of his mechanical heart, he gains vulnerability to electricity.

Ghost in the Machine: The engineer uploads his consciousness and soul into a computer, essentially becoming an artificial intelligence. The engineer's body is no longer needed, as he now exists only as data. The engineer can transfer his mind into the body of a construct with the robot subtype, existing as an AI aggregate (see the Technology Guide).

I'm switching my RotR game to 5e to try out the system, since I just started it. My players are just about to head to Thistletop, so I have no reason to convert anything before that. I figured I'd try converting Nualia first, to see how she turned out. I had to guess on aasimar racial abilities, so I just made them the opposite of the tiefling.

I only recently got my 5e books, so my familiarity with the system isn't extraordinary just yet. Haven't even run a session with it. I think I've got the design ideas behind NPCs down, though, if not the specifics.

Criticism is welcome. I'll be ignoring XP and just leveling the PCs according to the guidelines in each book. My players prefer it that way.

Nualia 5e, Google Doc (Burnt Offerings spoilers, obviously).

I tried to match the design of the NPCs in the Monster Manual as closely as I could. I added a section for her proficiency bonus because I really think it should be listed in the stat blocks, rather than having to look it up.

Thanurel wrote:

Lots of good stuff

Thanks for contributing, Thanurel!. I'll definitely study your Xanthir when my players approach the Sanctum (we are near the end of SoV). Nice work with the map, too.

I noticed that Vang no longer has mythic toughness, so you may want to remove the reference to that feat from the "Quick Reference" section.

Oops, missed that. It's been removed, thanks :)

Also, thanks for your entire document. It's going to make the AP much more challenging for my players. I'm just sad that I didn't see this thread until book 3.

Unfortunately, my group's paladin one-rounded Staunton before he could even act. Your upgraded encounters should, hopefully, prevent such embarrassing boss fights in the future. Crits with a x3 multiplier and smite evil can really ruin your day.

Unless you're going to call summons the same as teleports.

I think it's fair, they rely on similar principles. But you're right, as written, summons likely don't fall under the 'similar effects' category in the spell description.

May i suggest to fuse the two things, so that this red dragon does resurrect into a red dragon woundwyrm, mixing immunities and special abilities?

I didn't really like the woundwyrm to begin with. The idea of abyssal energies weakening true dragons to such an extent just didn't seem right to me.

I admit, their entropic theme was neat, but, I just didn't like the idea of the entire creature. It lacks age categories and 'feels' like it's not a true dragon at all, but one of dragonkind's weaker cousins. Also, it has a fly speed of 60, which is pathetic for a dragon. Yes, it's so it doesn't slam into the first mountainside it comes across, since its blindsight is only 60', but even with average maneuverability, it's too slow.

The fact that one of my players has a fairly high fly speed, combined with Arueshalae's arrows, played a factor in my decision to make Scorizscar so fast.

1. Xanthir likely created, not summoned, the retrievers.

2. Spell effects, such as summons, cannot be cast through a wall of force.

1. Retrievers are crafted by demon lords (and other high CR demons, no doubt). I think they're a bit much for a 12th level caster with Craft Construct to create, mythic or not. While he could certainly have figured out the method for doing it by working for a demon lord, he's not even high enough level to make an iron golem.

In the darkest corners of the Great Beyond, certain powerful demon lords have mastered the art of shaping the raw, protoplasmic flesh of the Abyss into hideous monstrosities devoid of life, emotion, and the will to resist control.

2. Rightly or wrongly, I was under the impression that summon monster and other such conjurations did not require line of effect. I know most spells require line of effect and can't be cast through the wall, which is why I had the adepts dimension door from behind it to cast their grease and magic missile spells.

Here's my take on Xanthir Vang. I added a new room to the Ivory Sanctum to account for the fact that the two existing summoning circles are in tiny rooms. It would be impossible for him to have summoned Huge retrievers in either of those rooms.
When alerted to the PCs presence, he calls the four blackfire adepts from Q15 and they head into the new room I added. There, they help him cast planar binding to summon a glabrezu. Once this begins, the PCs have 10 minutes to clear out the rest of the sanctum, or they have to face another glabrezu when they encounter Xanthir.

Slightly Modified Ivory Sanctum Map.

Modified Xanthir Vang.

I rearranged Xanthir's prepared spells and feats slightly to make him a bit more effective. He now has the Mythic Spell Lore feat so he has 8 mythic spells instead of 4. It came at the expense of a few of his hit points, but I doubt they would have made a huge difference once a mythic champion got their hands on him anyway, DR 15/- or not.

That's why I also completely rewrote his tactics. He no longer opens up with disintegrate against the most heavily armored target. That's... suboptimal to say the least, especially since that's the paladin in my group. Instead, he hides behind his mythic globe of invulnerability and mythic wall of force while summoning things. The globe should make him immune to virtually any spell the PCs can throw at him, as long as he stays inside of it.

I also gave him an ability called Blackfire Prodigy. All it does is bump his caster level up from 11th to 12th by giving him full spellcasting progression for the first level of the prestige class (doesn't affect later levels, if you decide to advance him). I wanted him to have a couple of extra 5th and 6th level spells without having to monkey around with adding another level to him.

The newly expanded Q18A is large enough to accomodate Xanthir's retrievers, his four blackfire adepts, and anything he wants to summon (like the mythic conjure black pudding spell I gave him). I think it will make for a much more challenging encounter than the tiny room he's normally in.

I'm Sword of Valor it's noted Aponavicius has three pets she subjected to the Nyhandrian Elixir, but only the chimera survived. But since there's a dragon shortage at my gaming table, her pet red dragon will have survived as well, and thanks to those awesome mythic dragon stats, will be a fight to remember.

On a very odd side note: I put a short sidetrek in after Worldwound Incursion, where they had to kill a demon-infested dragon, since one of my players said he thought dragons were cool. Long story short, at my table of gaming veterans, none of the PCs had ever fought a dragon.

Although I haven't run the encounter with the Woundwyrm yet, I've decided to replace her with Aponavicius' pet red dragon who was brought back to life with raise dead. I kept Scorizscar as the dragon's name.

I used the mythic red dragon as a base, but tweaked to taste here and there. Hopefully all the numbers are accurate. I gave her 3 negative levels, which I think amounts to a -1 CR. This brings her down to CR 16, which is close to the Woundwyrm's CR 15.

Scorizscar as a mythic adult red dragon. I tried to use a similar format as Sc8rpi8n_mjd, but some of it got borked when I uploaded it.

EDIT: I should note that I'm particularly unforgiving when it comes to dragons. My players know that I don't pull any punches with them. I'm a lot more forgiving when it comes to everything else, but I had too many bad experiences in 2nd Edition with pushover pansy dragons. :)

My wife was inspired to draw this picture after she read the encounter with Iomedae in Herald of the Ivory Labyrinth. Like some others here on the forum, she thought Iomedae's interaction with the PCs was a bit out of character for her and ran with that idea :)

Warning: her gallery has some potentially NSFW images, but this image is fine. So, don't visit her gallery if that's a concern.

Her Deviantart Page.

And here's the city of Drezen once it's been cleaned up and some of the ruined buildings have been rebuilt.
Again, some assumptions had to be made, some roads redrawn, and in some cases entire city blocks replaced. 75 years without upkeep will really take its toll on a town.

Awesome work!

Do you perhaps have a map of the original citadel without all the rubble and with no evidence of the stairs down, like the map that Aron Kir should grant the heroes with before their entrance?

That would be really helpful, as I don't have your skills with editing images.
Thanks!

Sure, no problem. Probably should have made this version to begin with, come to think of it.

Here is the unmodified citadel, as it exists on Aron's map and before its fall 75 years ago. Note that I had to make some assumptions on where some walls and doors should be, and it may not reflect exactly what Paizo's cartographer intended. This is especially true of the tower's second floor, which had to be totally rebuilt.

This post contains spoilers if you look at the maps. Fair warning

When it came time to rebuild Citadel Drezen, my PCs went a little overboard with Knowledge (engineering) checks, make whole and stone shape. They reshaped entire rooms and hallways to suit their needs better.

The citadel's layout is mostly the same, but some minor changes were made for convenience or to fit the things they wanted (or thought should have been there in the first place). One of the major changes is that the entrance to the dungeon no longer requires guards, workers, and servants to walk through the potentially sensitive Planning Room.

I spent a few hours photoshopping their changes, as well as removing all the rubble and repairing damaged areas. I figure this might be helpful for other DM's who need a map of the non-ruined citadel at the beginning of Book 3. Seriously, 75 years and not a single person living there could cast make whole to spruce the place up? Lazy cultists :)

The only things that are open content in Paizo are generally settings- neutral rules. Things in the category of place names, like First World, Golarion, are not open, unless they were originally in the PRD or SRD, such as Fire Elemental Plane.

Also Settings based PRC's are not open, but the rules mechanics can be. You might notice that when D20pfsrd went commercial, they replaced the listings of Golarion specific PrC's with generic labels.

I know that the majority place names are Paizo's IP, including 99.9% of Golarion, the Abyssal realms of various demon lords, the names of roughly half the demon lords (the ones that aren't in mythology, previous OGL content, or other public domain sources), the names of the empyreal lords (and probably even that title), etc. There are, however, some place and creature names based on mythology that are public domain. I've noticed that Paizo generally spells them slightly differently than the source material, likely so that their version is more clearly part of their IP. I definitely noticed this in the Land of the Linnorm Kings, but that might be because I'm a huge fan of Norse mythology and noticed it more easily.

I wasn't sure if the First World was one of the names they made up, or if it was based on a pre-existing plane that I hadn't noticed. Like I said, I figured it was their IP, I just wanted confirmation. Mostly, I just wanted to know if there was an open content name for it that was 'official'; no sense re-inventing the wheel. I'm grateful for the other authors who chimed in with the name they use in their products.

And yes, I did notice the setting-based PrCs on d20pfsrd have setting-neutral names, though they forgot to change the file names in most of their URLs. :)

Thanks for the replies :)

Since the term First World doesn't appear anywhere in the PRD, I'm assuming it is not considered open content?

If the name is Paizo's intellectual property (as I presume it is), is there an open content name for this realm that I'm just not noticing somewhere? I'm referring to the way some of the planes were renamed in the PRD, such as Axis being Utopia, the Boneyard being Purgatory, and the Maelstrom being Limbo.

To avoid confusion, I know I can call it whatever I want in my own home game. That's not what this post is about.

1) I had completely forgotten that Lamashtu was a Demon deity, since she's not a well-known figure. We're not talking about a "popular" demon lord, across all versions of D&D, that ascended, but a brand-new lord created by Paizo themselves.

3) My question is as legit as any other. Paizo could totally have made Asmodeus an archdevil with a stat block, as they could have made Lamashtu a demon lord with a stat block. However, they didn't... and they didn't explain why. Not that they need to, but I'm just curious.

Lamashtu is actually an ancient Mesopotamian demon who, unlike other demons, is identified as being a goddess in her own right since she is the daughter of a god. Pazuzu is also from the same mythos and is Lamashtu's arch enemy. Paizo certainly didn't make her up; the majority of demon lords take their names from various mythologies.

Her Wikipedia entry

While I'm enjoying most of the mythic spells, there is definitely still room to add the ones that weren't included.

I've come up with one, just off the top of my head (well, six, technically) - mythic versions of the ability score buffs. The buffs don't just have higher numerical bonuses (that's boring), but let the target drain the relevant ability score from others.

===

Mythic (ability buff). For the duration of the spell, the target can use ray of enfeeblement as a spell-like ability at will, except the spell affects (relevant ability) instead of Strength. The target uses your save DCs, and the effect is treated as a 2nd level spell.

Augment (3rd): For two uses of mythic power, whenever the target uses the ray of enfeeblement power, they gain an additional bonus to (relevant ability) equal to the (relevant ability) penalty they inflict. This bonus stacks with (ability buff), but not with itself - use only the highest value rolled.

===

Has anyone else come up with other mythic spells yet?

Thanks, that helps quite a bit. I'm working on his stats right now, and I was wondering what sort of fighting style to give him. It never even entered my mind to give him aristocrat levels, though it makes perfect sense (I was working with rogue 3/fighter 4). I'll add that level now :)

Thanks for the quick reply :)

I'll build him as a fighter/rogue with a couple of items that help his saves. I want him to be a challenge after all the party went through to find him. I think I'll give him a couple of low-level Lotus Dragon lackies for them to fight through to get to him.

I figured the path wouldn't have the party running into Vanthus in the near future, so his true stats would be a bit too high level for my party.

I'm running There Is No Honor and The Bullywug Gambit, but I don't plan on running The Sea Wyvern's Wake or anything beyond that. I enjoy the adventures quite a bit and I think they're great, but my game takes place in my own homebrew setting and I don't want to take the campaign thousands of miles away from the established area (not to mention it’s more of an urban campaign). I need to end the adventure path prematurely, and this pretty much means the PCs are going to have to catch up with Vanthus and put an end to him, one way or the other. The PCs have already reached Kraken's Cove, so I need to wrap up the adventure path with the fight at the Vanderboren estate, or at least tracking down Vanthus somewhere within or near the city afterwards.

That being said, I was wondering if anyone had any idea what class and level Vanthus might be? Although it would be great if Mr. Jacobs could post Vanthus' stat block, I know that's probably not possible. So if I have to come up with Vanthus' stats on my own, I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions. My current party is made up of a 6th level human rogue and a 6th level human wizard (enchanter). The wizard plans on scrying Vanthus out as soon as he reaches level 7 and he learns the spell. He can easily get some of Vanthus' hair from a brush at his room at the estate (-10 to the save); at the very least, he has some of Vanthus’ possessions (-4).

Now, we know that Vanthus didn't think he was a match for Harliss Javell, so that means he's very likely lower level than her. He's younger than his sister, but his experience on the rougher side of life probably gave him a few more levels than her. We haven't been given any indication that Vanthus has magical ability, so spellcasting classes are probably out. Since the enchanter can end the fight fairly easily with a hold person or suggestion spell, I wouldn't mind giving him levels in a class with a decent Will save; that would also make it more difficult for him to scried out. I don't want to resort to the cheesy Amulet of Proof Against Detection and Location shtick, though I’ll probably give him a cloak of resistance or something similar to help with the Will save. I also really can't justify giving Vanthus monk levels just for the good Will save, considering the life of vice he's led.

Suggestions?

I subscribed to Dungeon on Aug. 18 (Canadian subscription) and I still haven't received an issue. I thought that I would get #115 as my first issue (since it didnt' get mailed until Aug. 24), but apparently #116 (which came out over a month after my subscription) will be my first copy.

It's now Oct 7 and I haven't received #116 yet, though after reading the message boards I can see I'm not the only one. It's very frustrating to subscribe in mid-August and still not have anything by Thanksgiving.

I subscribed because the only store that carries Dungeon is on the other side of town, and I wanted to save myself the hassle of a long drive. It's been disappointing to check my mailbox every day for the past six weeks and not find a magazine. Had I known the wait would be this long I would not have subscribed.

I really hope that you can improve shipping times. Unless they do, though, I doubt I'll be renewing once the year is up. I realize it's going to take longer for me because I live in Canada, but reading the posts here isn't really getting my hopes up. Sorry if this sounds accusatory; I know you aren't personally responsible, Jeremy.