Awaken is a spell I seldom see druids cast because of it's costly, takes 24 hours to cast, and the roll for mental stats can either make the animal a genius or a complete dunce. The real payoff though is how glorious the outcome can be in some circumstances.
For starters, the druid in the party is a saurian shaman who spends a majority of his time in dinosaur form and can talk to reptiles as a bonus. The party had a few days to do anything they wanted for preparations before moving on to the next dungeon, so he decides to spend an entire day taming a dire crocodile. He succeeds of course, and in the process he decides to take another day to awaken the crocodile.
He rolls an 18 on the intelligence roll for a total of 19 intelligence.
He is the smartest crocodile to ever exist.
Behold Richard Montague the Third:
Richard Montague III CR 11
Awakened Dire Crocodile
N Gargantuan magical beast (augmented)
Init +4; Senses low-light vision; Perception +25
DEFENSE
AC 21, touch 6, flat-footed 21 (+15 natural, –4 size)
hp 175 (14d10+98)
Fort +16, Ref +9, Will +8
OFFENSE
Speed 20 ft., swim 30 ft.; sprint
Melee bite +24 (3d6+13/19–20 plus grab) and tail slap +19 (4d8+6)
Space 20 ft.; Reach 15 ft.
Special Attacks death roll (3d6+19 plus trip), swallow whole (3d6+13, AC 16, 13 hp)
STATISTICS
Str 37, Dex 10, Con 25, Int 19, Wis 14, Cha 4
Base Atk +14; CMB +31(+35 grapple); CMD 41 (49 vs. trip)
Feats Improved Critical (bite), Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Run, Skill Focus (Perception, Stealth), Power Attack, Critical Focus
Skills Perception +25, Stealth +0 (+8 in water), Swim +23, Knowledge(nature) +18, Knowledge(nobility) +18, Knowledge(history) +18, Survival +19;
Racial Modifiers +8 Stealth in water
SQ hold breath
A mysterious portal that leads to a 30ft by 10ft demiplane that has the dead magic and low gravity properties and is suspended in space.
As soon as the party walks through to the other side the portal closes behind them and a Mithral golem appears with the words: "NO MAGIC, DAMAGE ONLY, FINAL DESTINATION" etched into its body.
Raise your hand if you've ever heard/experienced this one before.
GM says:I want to play through my own campaign created from scratch that I've worked on for years and put a huge amount of effort into creating the story, the characters, and much more.
How it turns out: The GM begins the campaign by touring you through his New Zealand sized campaign world, dropping more exposition than an audio book on Moby Dick. All the NPCs are overleveled to the point where mere sneezing in the party's general direction results in a TPK. However the campaign villains are all under leveled goofballs that fold like cardboard when fought. BBEG is also fond of making guest appearances like he owns the campaign world on a silver platter, and any attempt at fighting them early on is shot down either by force or by them teleporting to their cozy siesta on the astral plane.
Playing through the first chapter of Serpent's Skull, the party had to activate a serpentfolk artifact to enter the next dungeon. One of the steps to activating it required an ordinary snake to taste the stones surrounding the artifact. The druid, being a saurian shaman, could talk to reptilian animals so the party sent him to collect various snakes in the jungle to do the job. His entire monologue had us laughing for a good 5 minutes.
"Come forth serpents, I need your help to activate this artifact"
ssssssnakes, it's always sssssssnakes
"I need you to lick these stones"
I'm not going to lick the ssssssstones
*shoves the snake's face against the stone*
"You're going to lick these stones right now!"
But I don't want to lick the ssssssstones
I enjoy playing and breaking the limits of my characters. Always have since 3rd edition D&D. It gives me a sense of accomplishment when I do incredibly well with a class considered to have weak class abilities. This is why the rogue is my favorite class to play.
So when the GM stops me during character creation and says "Why don't you just play a vivisectionist? They're so much better than rogues." I die a little inside.
So between 5th and 8th level spells which ones stand out the most? To get the most out of your spells its best to do research on where they will be most effective, like in certain campaign settings or with certain characters. I'll list two spells for each level 5th through 8th that are good in almost every situation.
5th:
Teleport: Incredibly versatile for its level. Good at all stages of the game and in many campaign settings. It allows instant travel from point A to point B provided you've already been to those locations. You can also use it in combat to re-position if you run out of dimension doors.
Overland Flight: 24 hour flight for yourself that turns you into superman. It also works as fast travel for yourself (and allies if you brought a portable hole)
6th:
Legend Lore: Saves your party a knowledge check which has the potential to fail or give false information. Never wonder anymore about the mysterious artifact. You now know not only which god got his lunch money stolen, but also the person who stole it.
Contingency: Takes practice to use effectively but you will love this spell forever once you create a contingent event that auto-casts your win condition.
7th:
Limited Wish: Son of the almighty wish spell. Take it, even if you don't have the gold on hand to cast it. Even late game the power of the wish should never be underestimated.
Mage's Magnificent Mansion: Gives your party a place to hide, to gear up, and protects them from the elements of whatever plane you create the mansion. Plus the materials components only cost 5gp which is a huge value.
8th:
Moment of Presience: Protects you from three things: Save or die/suck spells, attacks that have the possiblity of killing your wizard in one hit, or rolling a 1 on a skill check that could save your life. Use it at the start of every day and never forget to cast it.
Polymorph Any Object: Turns anything into anything, even capable of making permanent changes. It also doubles as a transmutation swiss-army knife that you can use on friends and foes alike.
Name: Saurkos
Race: Half-Orc
Classes: Druid 9 (saurian shaman)
Adventure: City of Seven Spears
Location: Sozothala's Fortress
Catalyst: I told you bro! I told you about the wights! It keeps happening!
The Gory Details:
So chapter three was coming to a close. The party was about to face off against Sozothala and his undead minions in the fortress of doom. Saurkos found the perfect opportunity to turn into a celestial dinosaur and charge through all the undead minions to get in the necromancer's face. He even displayed his prowess by devouring the mummy in two rounds taking minimal damage himself. He thought the fight would be a cakewalk.
He focused all of his attacks on Sozothala the rounds after, ignoring the wights surrounding him which he could have easily dispatched. Fun Fact: Even though Saurkos had damage reduction that negated the wight's damage entirely, energy drain only requires that you hit the target to take full effect. Before long he eventually failed a fort save against paralysis, died, and was turned into a wight a few rounds after that.
Pooling together resources in the form of both prestige points and gold the party was eventually able to resurrect Saurkos' remains.
I also hate campaigns that are homebrewed from scratch.
Does this mean you only prefer pregenerated worlds (like Golarion) or pregenerated campaign arcs (like Adventure Paths)?
Just curious. ^_^
Campaign settings, APs, and modules. The published campaigns are good source material not just because they are pregenerated, but because months of work and playtesting were put into them. The worlds have great lore woven into them, heroic/villainous characters you sometimes get to meet in the campaigns, areas unexplored, artifacts yet to be uncovered. All tools for an aspiring GM to use in their campaign.
Yes, constructed campaign settings can be fun at times, but over the years I've found them to be one-dimensional if not enough time is put into them. And that trope of 7/10 homebrewed campaigns starting in a tavern? It's true.
Mage's disjunction is ridiculous. Removes every buff with no check, turns off all your items and has a chance to destroy them? it turns anyone into a joe, considering that at 19th level you can have upwards of 10 buffs running at a time, conceivably more
It's more an annoyance factor than actually game breaking. Like walking into an anti-magic field and having to recalculate all of your modifiers, you now have to recalculate all of your gear that was disenchanted. Other than that it is a balanced late game spell, one which several enemies who don't have magical gear or use SLAs won't be affected by.
Imagine if the DM for real life didn't run encumbrance rules. Airport security would take forever and the bellboys at hotels would cease to exist.
What's more? You could arm yourself with rocket launchers, machine guns, grenades, and medieval weaponry while sporting a suit of super heavy ballistic-proof armor and still move at a running pace. Imagine the permits you would have to sign to lug all of that around.
Imagine you are a wizard toiling away in your laboratory while your apprentice is practicing spells, mixing chemicals, or doing other equally dangerous things. What's the worst possible phrase you dread hearing from him/her?
If you were a lich, would you rather keep your phylactery well hidden in a remote, dangerous location or keep it close at hand and make it as indestructible as possible?
DM under the bridge's forum history suggests true neutral.
I think my alignment is NG. I like to do as much as I can to help both in real life and on the forums. Nothing is more satisfying than helping a person in need. That doesn't mean I don't know how to have fun, just safe fun that everyone can enjoy. Though my posts on this forum would lead someone to believe my alignment is...
I would rather play in their garage, their "basement" is 2 ft tall and made of dirt...
You and a group of friends find a real "Deck of Many Things" but only you realize it. Everyone has to draw a card (for one reason or another) do you draw first or convince a friend to?
The real trick to a deck of many things is that you have to announce the draw in order for the card to have any effect. I'd do that in a heartbeat and hope to get the emperor or the moon card.
Would you watch an arm wrestling contest between Gorum and Torag, or watch a debate between Abadar and Erastil.
I prefer Spies since gathering intel is far more valuable than petty theft. Imagine all the cool spy gadgets you could use!
You come into possession of an orb of dragonkind. Do you try to find the other orbs to destroy them or use it's power to enslave dragons.
EDIT = Ninja'd, sorry...
Trigger Loaded wrote:
Would you rather get a powerful intelligent magic weapon that's arrogant as all hell and lords it over you, or one that's a sad sack emo that constantly cries over how worthless it is?
I'd take the powerful magic item and threaten to throw it at the bottom of an icy lake if it ever attempted to control me.
The story revolves around the players so much that the GM forces them to take actions they otherwise would not do. There are also situations in which absent players are taken over by the GM to move the story along. This can evolve into railroading should a player have all of their actions taken away from them on trying to derail.
Ex.
Player: I'm sorry for missing last session. What happened?
DM: Well your character got lost in a bottle of whisky and started a fight with the guards. He is now in a jail cell with nothing but a poorly made loincloth to keep him warm. They are holding you for execution.
Creating the universe. Destroying it causes all sorts of problems for the locals. There may also be a chance that a bunch of gods will imprison you within a planet for all eternity. We're looking at you Rovagug.
Would you rather have a dragon boss fight in every campaign or fight an eldritch monstrosity from the far realm in every campaign?
Not mine but a member of my group designed a zombie behemoth that had a longspear with the upper half of a corpse impaled through it. When the zombie stabbed you with his spear, the corpse on the spear would make a grapple check which, if successful, would impale you on the spear. It was such a memorable encounter.
DM: You finish fighting the demonic wasp queen and her thralls. How do you proceed?
Players: What about the larvae in the nest? Are they EVIL?
DM: They aren't evil. They're just ordinary giant wasp larvae.
Thank god there was a druid in the party. I'm certain if he wasn't there the players would have set fire to the whole building.
Remember this: a boss is 5% creature and 95% flavor. You have to play then up plenty of times before the party fights them. Make them hate the boss or at the very least sympathize with it before fighting it.
Also, for the love of D&D don't make them monologue happy. I've tried it multiple times. It doesn't make the fights any more dramatic.
Assuming you know the location of each adventuring party: lead the weakest ones into death traps involving enemies disguised as the other parties. That way any of the survivors will only be helping your cause.
Become infested with Xill eggs or kissed by a Vargoyle?
I would prank both and make it look like the other did it.
Would you rather play a wildshaping druid that changes into a huge dinosaur in a campaign where many of the buildings and caves are too small for a 15ft tall dinosaur to fit inside, or a barbarian in a campaign where you fight on the open plains a lot and enemies start several hundred feet from where you are standing?
Depends. Take any ghost with high charisma, stack on some adept levels and you have yourself a low CR monster that can potentially TPK an entire party.
There are hundreds of monsters in the pathfinder universe. Which ones do you think are unfair for their CR and why?
Here's two that come up very often.
1) Wisp
Immune to most spells, high AC, invisibility, situational fast healing, and a touch attack that's a guaranteed hit on any level 6 character. Even though they aren't nearly as deadly as other powerful creatures they can be incredibly annoying to fight, especially if they have friends who can dish out fear effects.
2) Shadow Demon
Depending on the environment you battle it in shadow demons can easily kill or incapacitate a party unprepared to fight it. Having low hit dice means nothing if you boast abilities that synergize so well that it defeats the purpose of hit points. Incorporeal + DR 10 + demon immunities/resists. At will deeper darkness combined with invisibility in low-light conditions. Attacks that target touch combined with pounce. Magic jar once per day that doesn't require a focus. Summoning another of its kind with a 50% chance of success. For any party less than 6th level the fight will more than likely end in a TPK. Even at 10th level and beyond they can be a pain in the rear to fight against.
Some nights when you're GMing on a half hour of sleep, you tend to forget the rules a lot. So was the case when I ran an encounter with a serpentfolk cleric and her raised blood skeletons. She tried to escape but was followed by the party Alchemist who backed her into a corner.
GM: "The snake takes a five foot step before reaching into her scroll case. She draws a scroll and begins to cast from it."
Alchemist: "Drawing a scroll is a move action."
GM: "Ahem...What I meant to say was the snake withdraws five feet before reaching into her scroll case. She pulls out her obituary and begins to read it: "HERE LIES [NPC NAME] WHO DIED A MOST PAINFUL DEATH AT THE HANDS OF [PLAYER NAME] FOR NOT FOLLOWING THE RULES OF COMBAT. MAY HER SOUL REST IN SVERNAGATI WHERE SHE CAN COMPLAIN ABOUT IT ON THE RPG.NET FORUMS.""
