The Shifty Mongoose's page

I looked over the stats for Belimarius in both editions, and I appreciate the differences between them.

"How do we make her like a PC, then give her enough plausible things to put her at this CR" vs. "Here are her spells, but she also throws a reactive snit to resist whatever you just hit her with" works so well in both sets of rules.

I just like the idea of her being forced into compromise with Sorshen despite constantly inventing reasons why Sorshen's ruining everything so much that I hope, when I play or run this, Belimarius shows up at the end, claiming that her plan to kill Xanderghul was sabotaged or something.

To me, the power fantasy of convincing a toxic man he's wrong via debating him at his Prove Me Wrong debate kiosk is so much more satisfying than fighting him, but you will know if that's also true for your table or if they'll have more fun by playing the combat.

It also works the other way around: if you expect the toxic man to Not Listen and resort to violence, you can have the satisfaction of beating him in both battles of wits and arms.

While convincing an embodiment of entropy to stop trying to destroy the world is a mythical achievement, I also expect some PCs will still want to give the Ashen Man what's coming to him. Either way, it'll be satisfying to watch his minions turn away when he demands they fight for him.

I always thought they were just smart little dinosaurs who associated themselves culturally with dragons as a way to suck up to them. Mostly due to my presumption of influence from James Jacobs.

I'm okay with this new kobold diversity, while also enjoying the kobolds who continue to suck up to dragons.

Hear me out, I ran Rise and Shattered, am running Return, and I have Revenge. I really liked these APs, and my players do too.

But I'd accept it gratefully if no PC ever gets into a fight with Sorshen, or if there's never an attempt to conquer Varisia by what's left of Zutha. They return to history once more (or Sorshen just gets really into modern statecraft and diplomacy), while their legacy continues to influence Varisia and the world.

There's room for, say, a Rise of the Wannabe Runelords where a bunch of people start picking up the Swords of Sin so they might use them upon each other, or mentions in surviving texts about what Azlanti movers and shakers Sorshen and Xanderghul must have been, deciding to support Xin.

...but wherever the APs are set, I like reading them about as much as running/playing them. There's stuff to enjoy whatever might happen.

Something I did was set up the "Yet of Return of the Runelords".

Each time a PC used their Campaign Trait, I gave them a brief aside of their future selves helping them, then wrote down the general situation and the response of the PC.

When they get to Stethelos, the Steward will help them all go back in time and help their past selves, in reverse order. I'll reply to them as their past selves, right down to the first time it was used in Chapter 2, when the Paladin was cursed with stupidity and didn't know what was happening.

The players were confused at first, and thought "Once per adventure" meant "once ever" instead of "once per chapter". So they didn't use any of them throughout Chapter One, until we discovered the misunderstanding.

I like the outline, and always appreciate anyone's attempts to smooth out inconsistencies.
Ever heard of Continuum? It's an RPG about time travel that tries to make it make sense to the players, but few people ever play it. I used its ideas to work out what goes on here: time isn't deterministic, but altering the past gives people involved conflicting memories of both timelines, as you wrote. A similar thing happened in the Therassic Library, where the whole area was Temporally Fragmented ("fragged" as the Steward would say it). Due to altering the historical past multiple times, Alaznist ends up fragging all of Varisia and outlying environs for millenia; the Steward notices the New Heroes and their attempts to fix things, so she goes Down on the timeframe to give just enough aid to preserve the Heroes' free will while trying to fix things on "her end".

My idea for the Temporal Wounds went similarly: Alaznist destroys Xin's Clockwork Reliquary before going further back to prevent him from building the Sihedron.

It always seemed to me like the Swords of Sin were more for homebrew adventures in Varisia, or for a Runelord to have a bodyguard to keep the wizard out of hand-to-hand combat. Having them and a potential Collect Them All goal in an AP would take up a lot of its word count.

That's why I put them in Rise, even adding a smaller chapter partway through so that PCs could collect them all and even Reforge them to potentially become Virtuous. They're showing up again in Return, and Sorshen got to hold conversations between her Sinuous Guisarme and Asheia, Sword of Love before giving the latter to one of the PCs.

I'd like to see the Alara'hai get 2e rewrites, but considering my instance, wherein four of them are Virtuous and Baraket might end up destroyed, it might be tricky for me to use the eventual hypothetical adventure with them in it.

Name: Tifri Aumon
Race: Homebrew PC-friendly Love-spawn
Class/Level: Time Oracle 11
Adventure: Runeplague
Location: The Isle of Xin
Catalyst: Having to do the Entire Ritual by Herself; Zutha
Details: Even though a second PC received the Smooch of Sorshen, nobody else could succeed on any of the Checks with a result of less than 14, while Tifri could make any of them with a 5+.
So she breezed through it, not knowing that Runelord Zutha, furious at having been tricked, would open by giving The Finger to the one who tricked him so.
Thalassa Pasha, the Druid from before, did promise to cast Death Ward on her at the end of the ritual, but after having sat around for an hour, she had forgotten to do that.
Tifri failed her FORT Save, but spent her final Hero Points to get a Resurrection from her future self.

The original Runelords building a huge mausoleum for themselves and their successors makes sense.

Then it's mentioned that Xin was put to rest there, when that couldn't have happened; they sent Shasthaak to assassinate him, whereupon his Death Contingency teleported his corpse into his Clockwork Reliquary.

I admit I haven't finished reading Chapter 2, but it should be easy to just mention a monument there to the First King, and possibly one to Shasthaak.

All my players liked the part I kept referring to as the "Sorshen Date Sim". Every good party in an RPG should have multiple events and activities, encouraging PCs to split up and do multiple things at once.
I especially liked the Rest activity, so that a PC who rolls a 1 at another activity isn't down in the dumps for the rest of the event.

They also liked when Blackjack showed up to fight some of the Peacock Spiriters - some of the players had been through Curse of the Crimson Throne, and I figured they could use some help since the whole plan had been set up by Hira Doss and some "seperatists" (as they'll be called in the next chapter).

That said, nobody liked the Big Stone Turnstile.

I like traps from the olden days, where they could be found and avoided with Player Ingenuity. I try re-jiggering traps so that you don't need Perception nor Disable Device checks if you examine the right places and come up with a way to deal with the trap that should work.

I couldn't figure out a way to make the Big Stone Turnstile work other than the quick "Perception/Disable/Damage" paradigm, and my PCs got hit by every single trap. One felt having to climb down the hole as personally insulting, or at least his character did.

Something I was really hoping to see in a Xanderghul-focused adventure was a sort of thing one will see occasionally in movies and video games: an illusion you don't know you're inside at first. Something like a PF1e Microcosm, wherein Xanderghul tries to gaslight the PCs into siding with him.

I always knew this would be hard to pull off, especially as doing that in a TTRPG would most likely break trust between players and GM.

vyshan wrote:

James Jacobs wrote:

vyshan wrote:

Curious why was there no mention of Lissala, the runelord goddess. She got an entry in divine mysteries and war of immortals suggests IIRC she is getting supporters, including non-evil ones.

Because...

** spoiler omitted **

** spoiler omitted **

There's a LOT of Thassilon-related stuff that doesn't play a role in Revenge of the Runelords, because the story I wanted to tell and directed the authors to write is about a pretty specific plot, and while...

** spoiler omitted **

I'm happy to hear this! Partially because I hope for Lissala to recover, or return her faith to how it was originally worshipped. Partially because I'm setting up a scene in Return of the Runelords where my PCs help introduce Xin to Krune in the afterlife, and they go together to Lissala's Realm in the hopes that she'd turn her gaze back to Golarion one day.

The VA for this sounds exactly like how I'd expected Xanderghul to sound!
I'm excited to bring my player group into this one after we finish all the 1st Ed adventures we want to do. They've reminded me, "There's more to Golarion than Varisia," but I still want to watch them hit him in his smug face again.

Gotcha. It shouldn't be a problem to any players.
I'm glad to have gotten this now; when my players get to the appropriate part in Return, I'll just have Dead Xanderghul get escorted away by the psychopomps from Tyrant's Grasp, demanding the Special Dispensation he'd set up previously.

Name: Thalassa Pasha
Race: Human/Undine
Class/Level: Aquatic Druid 9
Adventure: Runeplague
Location: Korvosa, during the Crimson Festival
Catalyst: Return of Hira Doss
Details: I decided that, after her first failure, Hira would lead some Heretic Peacock Spiriters to do a blatant attack against Sorshen in a public place during a holiday. I gave her some levels to be on par with Leptonia (who was beaten handily earlier), but also included Blackjack from CotCT (made up some quick stats for an 11th-level Vigilante with a pair of +2 Merciful Saps).
Thalassa didn't expect a single fight, and was blindsided by the Peacock Phoenix. She got grappled by a Peacock Spiriter, took a zap from the monster's Random Storm Aura Lightning, and two AoE spells from Hira. Her attempted spell failed, she failed every saving throw, and died right after the Peacock Phoenix popped Sorshen's Simulacrum like a balloon animal filled with blood.
It was only then when Blackjack threw a net over her and the rest of the party rushed her. The group's Paladin finished off the Peacock Phoenix, then mourned his fallen ally.
After their reassurance that Sorshen did not plan to reconquer her old city, the Korvosan monarchy paid for the Raise Dead by the Calistrians. It was the way Thalassa would've wanted it.

I'm using this one!
Specifically, the adjusted version.

For Standard Hero Points, I also use the house rule of, "If the expenditure didn't improve your Outcome Category, you get your Hero Point back."
With these house rules in place, I don't have to reach for reasons to award Hero Points as often & the players don't have to worry about it either.

(Cross-posted to the SubReddit)
The Rule:
If you come up with something fun or in-depth, beyond just "I attack the monster" or "I Grab an Edge", the GM can (not must) give the player a Hero Point useable only on the particular d20 roll involved.

The Rationale:
I have players whose dice run cold. Long swaths of time where they can't roll above a 5 on the d20, three 1s in a row, maximum damage on attacks they miss if they roll their attack & damage at the same time, 20s on Perception checks to Seek or Search when there's nothing there.
So this should encourage creativity and lessen any humiliation. I got the idea from Exalted, wherein describing what you're doing beyond the basics is a Stunt, which adds another die or two to your Dice Pool.
This way, a player says something like, "I want to jump onto the dragon's back and plunge my sword into where wing meets spine," and get rewarded instead of penalized. You could still just walk up and stab the dragon's foreleg if you're out of ideas.

I'm hesitant to endorse anything that implies knowing someone's Leve, being potentially immersion-breaking. Still, these all seem helpful and I can't think of anything balance-breaking with them. It's also easy to not get confused about who-got-hit-with-one-Law-effect if you just use a single one per fight.

I'm torn:
I want to run Myth-Speakers, then Revenge for my group of players that played Rise, S'd S, and is now in Return; I also want to bring them through Doom for Sandpoint first.
...I also want to be a player in those.

I did love giving a Recall Knowledge tidbit about a hydra as, "It's an invasive species from Iblydos."

Or having certain monsters introduce themselves as "Sufestra Medusa" or "Xanesha Lamia", who can all trace their lineage back to the original.
I do like how it's ultimately its own place, and that no player will have to worry about a hero-god getting uncomfortably flirtatious with their PC.

Not an iconic, but I think Benedict Cumberbatch would make a good Xanderghul. He's got the high cheekbones and would have fun doing all the self-aggrandizing arrogance.

I'd support this, but here's my fancast (picking actors from Whenever):

Xanderghul: Jude Law

Sorshen: Lucy Liu? Catherine Zeta-Jones, perhaps?

Alaznist: Melissa McCarthy

Karzoug: Alastair Duncan, as it turned out his role in Shadow of Mordor was how I always did Karzoug.

Zutha: Tony Jay meets Tim Curry

Krune: Bruce Willis (I imagine him over-enunciating, even savouring, every word)

Belimarius: Ellen McLain (TF2, not Portal)

26: "It was the will of Ihys." In reference to an unlikely success, or the failure of a sure thing. (Probably not often used)

Having read the Player's Guide for the Myth-Speaker AP, I expect the reaction in Iblydos is along the lines of "Nobody Cares".
I know there are people who like to Fight the Prejudice in their RPGs, and that there are also people who Don't Want the Prejudice in their RPGs. As long as everyone can figure something out, then that's good.

I also recall a gossipy Varisian town's reaction to an Empyrian human: everyone lusted after her, or wanted to make lucky charms out of her hair, and she felt nobody respected her as a person. (At least that's how it might be written for 2e)
The only one who listened to her honestly set her down an evil path...

I imagine services to Torag would involve the whole family, both Torag's and one's own. People come to learn and listen, not just about how Torag's family dug their way through Heaven, but also practical things. Not just metalwork, but cooking or weaving; anyone who knows how to build something could offer to teach the rest of the congregation.
Services to Asmodeus? A reading from the Asmodean Monograph, possibly with references to supplementary texts, all coming back to how these lessons can be applied in the real world, possibly to one's lessers.
I imagine a service to Winlas would involve invitations to step forward and perform a service for another faith, one that hasn't been done recently.

I knew Hei Feng had the title of Duke of Thunder, but when I read about Ranginori in Rage of the Elements, he was also given that title. I thought, at first, it was a reasonable typo, considering Hshurha was the Duchess of All Winds, but if they both lay claim to the same duchy, I wonder how they get along together.
I expect they can co-exist peacefully and share their title, but they're probably ambivalent about each other.

I like his portrayal in Chapter 4 of Return, because it did a good job of making him look superhumanly smug.
Now he looks furious, and I'm even more excited to see what happens.

Ooh, I was waiting for this ever since I first heard about Iblydos!
I want to run this about as much as I want to play in it!
(not to mention the next one!)

...Has anyone else wondered aloud if Cobyslarni was ever in a relationship with the Oliphaunt of Jandelay?
It probably couldn't last, if it happened.

The Shifty Mongoose wrote:

My first reaction to this: Wow, after all that research, I'm impressed!

Second Thoughts: I'd still like to see a statblock for Ghenschau. Ah well, omitting ol' Breezes-Still-and-Ripples-Cease does help simplify things a bit, which is a part of his faith.

Third Thoughts: I would like to see Edicts/Anathema for the Peacock Spirit, even though printing it would count as blasphemy.
Since it's most likely a dead faith at this point, I'm guessing it'd be ** spoiler omitted **

To be fair, Edicts and Anethema can exist outside of the world so I don't think it's nessercarily blasphmeny.

I meant that, in-setting, Spiriters wouldn't have wanted information about their mystery cult to be publicly available; and that, out-of-setting, a fully-accurate explanation would be an AP Spoiler for PF1e.

My first reaction to this: Wow, after all that research, I'm impressed!

Second Thoughts: I'd still like to see a statblock for Ghenschau. Ah well, omitting ol' Breezes-Still-and-Ripples-Cease does help simplify things a bit, which is a part of his faith.

Third Thoughts: I would like to see Edicts/Anathema for the Peacock Spirit, even though printing it would count as blasphemy.
Since it's most likely a dead faith at this point, I'm guessing it'd be

I should've made the title for this, "Do Readied Actions Disrupt Spells?"
but I wanted to phrase it the way a GM would hear it.
Anyway, I'm glad to know I had it right the first time.

A popular tactic is to ready an action to fire a ranged weapon at a spellcaster, if they start casting a spell.
Or at least, it was back in The Old Days of Concentration Checks.
Currently, Reactive Strikes specifically Disrupt Spells, but the Ready action doesn't mention this.
Does this mean that a Readied action to shoot, say, an arrow at whomever's Casting a Spell cannot Disrupt the Spell? That the arrow most likely connects after the Spell is done?
If so, then I'm perfectly fine with this. Enemy spellcasters aren't so easily shut down without relying on spells like Wall of Wind.
Furthermore, I might tell spellcasting PCs that an NPC is aiming a crossbow at them, then let them know that their spell still goes off after the initial fear if the bolt connects.

I like that picture. Does this mean that Swashbucklers get fun things to do with bucklers?

We can take these mechs through the Drift, right? They've gotta be Drift-Compatible.
(Also: Reactor Online. Sensors Online. Weapons Online. All Systems Nominal.)

Aw, and here I was hoping that the death of the God of War would usher in a new age of peace.

But seriously, folks, all of this stuff looks great, and I now want to make up an Abomination Vaults character for the purpose of self-aggrandizing in Curtain Call.

I like what you've done with her. I gave her a Water-Elemental bloodline, partially so that she could "overwater" them with Hydraulic Push or a water-related Fireball (sucks water out of the ground, and detonates a high-pressure blast!), and partially because being able to boss the water around would give her a lot of power in a flower-reliant place.
I also gave her the Elaborate Flourish feat instead of Alchemy Crafting.

Something I forgot to add:
This is also a good look at what it means to be a civilian who never needs to level up in a setting with high-level people running around.

Ooh, this'll be handy for updating the Dragon's Demand to the most current stuff!

That poison breath attack got me looking for something that reduces poison damage. Other than two things that show up in an AP, all you get are things that give you a bonus on saves vs. poison.

Jokes aside... I actually think Second Darkness would benefit from a revision more than most of the APs, insofar as it shows its age on the conceptual and setting detail front far more than most APs.

But we like our Directorsaur and want him to get enough sleep, so...

In-between two APs, I decided a drow the PCs rescued got retconned into having been Sekmin. So the players will probably do some double-takes before they realize what happened.

D'aww, a fun exploration of the setting and relationships-
Wait, a lot of people are going to get mad at her for ending their city's biggest tourist attraction...

CreepyShutIn wrote:

"Belief makes a god" is perhaps my least favorite description of divinity. I shall be happy to determine that this was delusion.

This has been a core fundamental of the setting from day one (although it took a bit to scrub all of that influence out—certain other TTRPG campaign settings have a lot of influence!), because the idea of a god who has no worshipers active but can still be a god and potentially come back or have secret cults and all that was there from the very start of the Pathfinder Adventure Path in Lissala's story.

It's fun to explore settings that differentiate themselves from each other. This isn't Discworld, nor is it That Other TTRPG Setting, and I don't mind the reminders of such. Keep 'em coming!

I'm about to run Return of the Runelords as possibly my last PF1 AP, and my players are already wondering what it'll be like in Sandpoint.
Nobody ever cared for/about Mr. Podiker. I never thought of him as villain material, just as a Szcarni-adjacent alchemist with an inflated ego.
...So that might make any incoming twists about him all the more shocking.

I like how the setting's going all-in on the concept of, "Magic's an ambient energy you can manipulate with your bare hands and your mind."
Dragons being so innately magical, they don't need any of the tools mere mortals need to cast spells: they can just intuit everything.

Also, I can imagine half a party being disappointed over finding most of the magic objects in the dragon's hoard drained, with the other half immediately going to skin the dragon and see what they can do with all the gilded scales.

This adds more credence to Razmir having totally passed the Test of the Starstone, they just haven't gotten around to building statues of him yet.

Religion doesn't work on Golarion the way it works on the Discworld: the power of the god does not relate to the size of the god's religion (plus, some religions are active on more than just Golarion). Dead gods and forgotten gods aren't the same thing.

Still, there are people on Golarion who think it does work this way. Or at least, if they can't kill a deity, the least they can do is kill followers of that deity and profane sacred spaces.

I played one antagonist whose motivation was an incorrect assumption that Iomedae murdered Aroden and took his place. So I looked around here for those bad faith, "Iomedae Is Actually Evil" takes and put them in his mouth. The PCs tried to bait him into fighting them on their terms by praising Iomedae while they were walking around (which mainly just alerted his minions to their presence).

I'm going to start this AP sometime in the next few months, and my players want to end the trilogy by fighting Mhar.
They did accidentally end up contributing to the Rise of Mhar in the first AP.
The problem is, I've never done anything Mythical before, and neither have my players. I have an idea of how to set this up, which I'll tinker with as the AP goes on.

This makes sense.
From not being gross at new players to giving more options than one big fight. Players can still instigate a fight, unless they'd rather sneak or negotiate.

It also makes Quests slightly easier to write in a free-form sort of way: here's the setup, here are some of the most likely DCs related to the obstacles, here's a major NPC. What will you do about this?

I know it was last year, but did anyone ever plan out a 5th-level sorcerer to fight the PCs instead? I might want her to do a little pruning, then give up in frustration when the PCs prove to be too uppity for her, or similar.

Metrics, I think it'd be better to recreate Don't Starve in Pathfinder, rather than attempt to emulate it exactly.

Instead of giving weapons and armor HP & Hardnes like shields, maybe have Minor Downtime actions, that you can do two or three of at once, and have Maintain Gear be one of them. Building new weapons, fixing Umbrella Hats, and the like.

Similarly, your first Spider/Beefalo hunt should be a group encounter; later, once you've levelled up enough, it can be a solo encounter; then later, it can be a Minor Downtime Action, getting you Food & Clothes Resources based on your Proficiency.

Sorta like how that first fight with a Tallbird is life-threatening if you just have a spear & grass armor, but once you have weapons & armor made from Nightmare Fuel, you may have more food than you can possibly eat.