TheWarriorPoet519's page

Not to mention having deities unleash their full power in the vicinity of Rovagug's less than perfect cage might not be the best idea.

This is my new default justification for why any deity doesn't intercede directly in a big fist-smashing way on the material plane.

You do NOT want Rovagug's crystal prison cracked.

...

Yeah my default stance has been "history is an unreliable narrator and so all the stories differ."

There's some mishmashes about Tar-Baphon's original imprisonment. Early in 1st edition it was indicated that his body was destroyed by the Shield of Aroden embedding itself in his hand, that it was still there when he reformed, and that the crusaders sealed him away because they knew he'd reform inside of Gallowspire's dungeon, which implies his Soul-Cage was known to be down there.

Later supplements have indicated that his Soul-Cage was hidden away by Urgathoa and could be anywhere in the cosmos, which--if that were the case--would kinda throw a wrench in the idea that he reformed in the dungeon.

I don't expect an answer as to what his soul-cage is, of course. Or where it is. I've chalked most of these differentials up to the kinda unreliable-narrator nature of mythic history, but the inconsistencies make my brain itch a lil bit.

Y'know it would be interesting to have a campaign in Cheliax proper explore (at least as a side-plot) the tension in the arts between the different factions who are using the arts to push the Thrune doctrine and those who are attempting to use those same arts to be subtly subversive.

Great fuel for any bardic character.

Also from this description of Vellumis (I'm drawing on the wiki admittedly but I don't think there's been more written on the city in 2e so far):

"Vellumis is a scenic port, with many buildings marble-clad, domed, and colonnaded in the once-popular Chelish Old White style (characterized by whitewashed walls, ornately decorated eaves, and massive arched windows)."

So this implies pretty strongly that there have been multiple different Chelish architectural styles through the ages, and that the way the city was built is presumably no longer in-vogue in Cheliax. Maybe this is because of the Thrune influence or maybe something else, but either way, I imagine there have been periods over the country's history where Azlanti style stuff was more or less common.

I think whether or not that "Azlantism" is objectively good or evil is less salient to the discussion than whether or not the various offshoots of Cheliax, or Cheliax itself, care about emulating it.

Given what's been established in canon (which for 2e looks ambiguous at best), it seems like your best bet is probably to just decide what works best for your game, I think.

The following is all personal headcanon stuff:

Cheliax in 2e has just weathered two revolutionary movements. One (the Glorious Reclamation) failed, the other (Ravounel) succeeded. I'd say this represents a pretty solid blow to the Chelish sense of superiority, and when arrogant, fascist nations have that sort of thing happen to them they tend to wrap themselves even tighter in their sense of national identity.

So if you DO have their sense of legitimacy tied to their perception as being the heirs to Azlanti culture and power, it's not beyond possibility that they're pushing that hard-line even harder.

But again, this is just one view. It's also possible that the Thrune Stance has moved the country away from it. I don't tend to lean into this much because ethnonationalism is such an integral part of fascist ideology, so I keep the idea that Cheliax not only sees themselves as the heirs to Azlant, but as the ONLY legitimate heirs to Azlant.

Back in 1e Chelaxians were their own ethnicity descended from Azlanti ancestors mixed with Ulfen ancestors and they had a whole thing about believing themselves to be the true heirs of Azlant. Now that Cheliax's dominant group are technically ethnic Taldans in 2e I'm not sure if there's been anything confirming that they feel the same, but I also haven't seen anything implying that they DON'T still feel this way either.

I'd say go with what works for your game.

I'd love an EoD book, but part of me is pretty sure we wont get one until near the end of the edition, simply due to how much attention it got so recently.

I'd love to be wrong though.

Not mine, but one of my players is running a 51 year old silver fox orc wizard who has 12 adult children that he's very proud of and keeps trying to fix up other party members and NPC's with.

He's the best.

Yeah, I think it's a symptom of Golarion (and D&D/PF in general) lowkey turning demons into kind of just the "kill kill kill" monsters. Demons are much more frightening and interesting if they're subtle and corruptive, with only some of them being interested in killing you.

Yeah I'd much prefer to see some demons engaging in subtle manipulations of people/groups/cities/nations with their core goal being corruption and destabilization.

It's even more terrifying if when found out and confronted demanding to know why they did it, the cold and frightening answer is "... do I need a reason?"

My Knights of Lastwall are more similar to the old Knights of Ozem than the new book portrays. I don't have them split into two factions, They're still largely an Iomedean organization. I didn't straight up cut out the new material so much as reorganized it. Part of the reason for this is I prefer the actual knightly order to be narrower in scope, largely martial, largely LG. I keep a lot of the KOL book material as being representative of the general tide of support that's flooded to Lastwall's cause in the wake of the country's destruction rather than being entirely under the umbrella of the knighthood.

This is entirely a preference thing, not a judgement of the book at all, which is great. I just like the old Knights of Ozem and didn't want to see their structure so thoroughly discarded for my own Golarion.

From my big Eye of Dread campaign, this is a bit of fluff from my own writeup of Vellumis. Again, not so much a break with canon as just me coloring in between the lines:

Kobold Catgirl wrote:

Oh, one thing I just remembered! I tend to run a Golarion in which homophobia and transphobia exist. I like to do this in part because my games tend to focus a lot on the social role of adventuring in society. Adventuring is an overwhelmingly queer and disability-inclusive profession in my worldbuilding, because, well, I figure you don't generally become an adventurer if everything in your home life is going swimmingly. There's gotta be a reason you've been pushed to the fringes.

Bigotry isn't universal, though. No, Old Deadeye doesn't go around kicking gay penguin couples off of icebergs. In Varisia, where I usually focus my games, it really varies from town to town. Communities with large Varisian or Shoanti populations tend to be a lot more chill. The Chelaxian- and Taldan-dominated cities are rougher. Sandpoint is, of course, an extremely nice place to move to if you're gay or trans, to the extent that it's sort of a regional joke on par with moving to San Francisco.

I don't necessarily harass PCs with it (and I always check in with them at the start of play), but it is a backdrop. Meanwhile, "adventurer bars" are basically gay bars, and you have to be careful when accepting an invitation to join an adventuring party to clarify whether this is an actual adventuring party, an invitation to someone's four-way, or both.

To be fully honest, I'm genuinely torn between the sheer hilarity of the nuances of this and the sheer wrongness I would feel if I were to actually try to portray racism, sexism, homophobia, or transphobia in any of my games as the actual GM.

Oh it would definitely be something that you could only pursue with total buy-in from your table, but I like it as a way to examine those issues in a fantastical context.

TheWarriorPoet519 wrote:

Oh another Orc change: Ardax White Hair is Neutral, not Neutral Evil. This lets me treat him as a ruler who will go to almost any lengths to protect his people, and who is a cunning, unpredictable leader without him having to be actively cruel and evil.

He's balancing a lot of plates between a lot of different factions in my games, and I feel like a N alignment better reflects his ability to maneuver them successfully than a NE one.

Interestingly, I changed an undead in the Dragon's demand from LN to LE because I felt being Evil was in no way incompatible with their actions.

IMO you do not have to be actively cruel and evil to be Evil. You just do not care one bit about what happens to innocents.

I like sympathetic NPCs, such as Ardax, still being Evil :-)

Yeah I have no beef with this interpretation. It's not necessarily mine, and I think him being the way he is in canon is pretty internally consistent.

This just worked better for the stories I want to tell.

Oh another Orc change: Ardax White Hair is Neutral, not Neutral Evil. This lets me treat him as a ruler who will go to almost any lengths to protect his people, and who is a cunning, unpredictable leader without him having to be actively cruel and evil.

He's balancing a lot of plates between a lot of different factions in my games, and I feel like a N alignment better reflects his ability to maneuver them successfully than a NE one.

iirc the OGL says something to the extent of "even if we change this in the future, you can keep using the original version." I believe that has held up in court at least once.

Not sure what Hasbro believes has changed.

TheWarriorPoet519 wrote:

I dunno if I'd call it a change, since we haven't gotten a ton on this part of the setting and it's internal dynamics yet so I think of it more as me coloring in the lines and empty spaces, but:

I've had the efforts of the Orcs to build sustainable and thriving community attract Erastil's attention. He has a number of clerics in Urgir that are starting to shift the culture away from its historical roots in violence and vendetta, reorienting Orcish honor-culture into things like the hunt and the concept of providing for family and less fortunate. These orcs are redefining what honor means for their people.

These clerics, and their flock, are coming into conflict with more hardline orcs who remember the old ways and don't want to forsake them. This cultural conflict is forming the primary boundaries of the hurdles orcs are going to have to overcome as they try to build a nation.

Bottom line, he's seen what they're trying to do, and is trying to help them.

Urgir is such a fascinating spot on the map, as the place where Avistan's orcs go when Belkzen doesn't work for them. I'd love to see a fresher look at it in 2e - and what you propose here is really, really compelling.

Thank you! I just love the idea of a deity like Erastil looking at what they're trying to do as a people, and especially their defiance of Tar-Baphon and saying "You're ready. I'm here, and as long as you stand thus, I stand behind you."

I dunno if I'd call it a change, since we haven't gotten a ton on this part of the setting and it's internal dynamics yet so I think of it more as me coloring in the lines and empty spaces, but:

I've had the efforts of the Orcs to build sustainable and thriving community attract Erastil's attention. He has a number of clerics in Urgir that are starting to shift the culture away from its historical roots in violence and vendetta, reorienting Orcish honor-culture into things like the hunt and the concept of providing for family and less fortunate. These orcs are redefining what honor means for their people.

These clerics, and their flock, are coming into conflict with more hardline orcs who remember the old ways and don't want to forsake them. This cultural conflict is forming the primary boundaries of the hurdles orcs are going to have to overcome as they try to build a nation.

Bottom line, he's seen what they're trying to do, and is trying to help them.

The Eye of Dread region--though I suspect Knights of Lastwall is gonna give us some of that. I'm especially curious about the relationship between the Knights and the Magaambayan Philanthropists who've showed up in Vellumis.

Hell, give me a writeup of Vellumis and that'll be more than enough to fuel my current campaign for a hot minute.

Iomedae had been among the Knights for only 2 years when Arazni was summoned and bound. No way she was one of the Knights' leaders at the time.

Gotcha. I have a hard time keeping track of the timelines.

So something occurred to me that doesn't seem to be covered in extant Lore. It's mentioned in Arazni's writeups that she simultaneously resents Iomedae for having achieved divinity so easily, but also is proud of her for succeeding as much as she has, and recognizes that nobody should be subjected to her ordeals.

But.

If that were true, I would imagine Arazni would view her with seething hatred. Given that she doesn't appear to, I'm not sure how to reconcile these two things. Anyone have any ideas on how to do so? Or do the devs have any way to untie this particular knot?

Oh man talk about thread... necromancy.

Zing.

MaxAstro wrote:

can we please not pretend like deliberate deception isn't a decent part of what a GM does normally?

I'm drawing a line between "I, the GM, am lying to you, the player." and other things which you may be conflating as being that same thing, such as an NPC lying to a character, or the GM simply not telling the players something.

Because yes, the players have agreed to a game in which the fictional characters can and probably will deceive each other at least some of the time, and the GM has details that they aren't going to share.

But players haven't, at least not unless specifically asked, agreed to never knowing what is a random thing and what's the GM's choice because the GM is going to tell them it's a random roll even when that's a lie.

MaxAstro wrote:

I also don't like the suggestion that making an ad-hoc adjustment to a monster's stats is somehow different or more noble than fudging dice. Dice rolls are not some sacred thing, and mechanically speaking there's no difference between giving a monster an ad-hoc penalty to its attack roll, and just declaring that the monster missed.

If you're talking about my example of my GM deciding to apply the weak template to a creature mid-combat, you've confused the difference I was saying made that a better option. It's not that it is the monster's stats, rather than the roll, were changed - it's that the change was made with the players knowing it was being made rather than the GM trying to pretend he wasn't making any adjustments.

And if you were speaking generally, I agree - it doesn't matter if you say the die was a 10 when it was actually a 15, or you decide the creature only has a +20 to the roll instead of a +25, that's the same thing if you're doing it mid-encounter and trying to hide that fact from the players. And as it's the same thing, I don't support the GM doing either.

MaxAstro wrote:

can we please stop implying that GMs who do so are bad GMs or are in some way abusing their players'

...

As a player, I don't want to know if the GM fudged the dice. I did not sign on to know everything they do or why. I do not need to know that. Doing so is not a violation of my trust.

Arachnofiend wrote:

It sounds like most of your enjoyment of 3.5 was taking options that were never meant to be for players and giving them to your players anyways... in which case, yeah, PF2 probably isn't for you. Don't think that's a bad thing personally.

I'm pretty sure that Savage Species, the book that let players play as monsters, was specifically for player characters. The same thing goes for any template that had a Level Adjustment which specifically told you how many character levels they were - very roughly - supposed to be worth.

Almost everything else they used came from the various books that came out for 3.x and were designed to be fair game for players. The most corner case would be the Book of Vile Darkness but even then it wasn't that it couldn't be used by PCs, it was just that a typical good adventuring party would never want to use anything from it.

I also don't see why limiting your design space for the sake of balance is desirable. The game has a DM, after all, and they can decide which bits to use and which they'd rather not see at their table. Paizo didn't need to decide that for me.

It definitely sounds like this game isn't for you, as it's designed to place balance in a place of primacy. This is a good thing, but it's also clearly not something you want. That's fine. 3.x is still there, afterall.

Even happy,loving good deities can pull morally dubious things. I seem to recall something about Shelyn possibly kidnapping Urgathoa's child out of revenge of Urgathoa trying to influence Nedri.

Old articles also implied about Shelyn and Xon-Kuthon sharing a bed and Calistria's temples letting foundlings die in the wilderness if they couldn't be bothered taking them in.

Can't comment on the former, but as Calistria is CN, something like that isn't utterly beyond her church's bounds, I wouldn't think.

Champion. Definitely. Probably followed by Fighter, though I haven't played one of them yet.

Welp, I just read Tyrant's Grasp from start to finish.

Hah.

I wouldn't mind seeing some more pro-active damage options for the class, but I understand if this isn't really viable for balance reasons.

That said, something like that would be REALLY easy to homebrew.

No.

Dangit, I meant no, I don't miss it.

No.

I just wanna briefly pipe up (almost never post here) and add to the discussion of competition for spotlight and say that in my various groups, I have not had this problem at all. In fact, a primary motive of every player at the table has been to ensure that everyone **else** is getting their moment in the sun. Literally people are yielding up left and right and acting in a way that elevates their teammates. It's really positive.

The idea of everyone jockying for their shot isn't universal by any means.

I would argue that PD2E's design both encourages this and makes it easier to do.

I would agree with that.

From what I know, striking an enemy with your pommel was not uncommon when a knight faced another armored knight. The blade of their sword could not easily pierce the armor, not could it be as easily maneuvered around the joints to pierce them. But you could use it as a improvised mace to knock someone's skull in after you had bashed them enough with the sword to knock them down.

Yup--HEMA teacher here. Pommel strikes are a big part of Harnisfechten (armored fighting). As is grabbing the blade midway up and using it like a short spear to get at the gaps and weak points in the armor.

Also just grabbing the blade and swinging the hilt at them like a poleaxe.

Okay, so, I've been going through my anniversary edition, and I'm a little curious, because it hasn't showed up yet in-text that I can find: is there a default time of year when the events of the first few adventures are assumed to take place? This is mostly just an atmosphere thing for me as I think about how to run it.

One of the things I like about the setting is the fact that they didn't use nonhumans as standins for any fantasy counterparts of real world human cultures. That trope was awful and needed to go away.

Dungeons of Golarion maps it and more or less lays it out, just not encounter by encounter.

Dunno if anyone has mentioned it yet, but Isger seems tailor made for this.

"This Whispering Way Cultist thought he was going to massacre this orphanage, but when one Glabrezu gets involved, you won't BELIEVE what happens next..."

I've always gone with the assumption that even wizards need some sort of "genetic" predisposition for magic to be capable of it.

Or, more generally, it's in the blood. Either you can work magic, or you can't.

Going along with Jeven, most who 'worship' Rovagug do so to get the power they want to accomplish other things. I don't worship the Rough Beast so I can free him and destroy the world, I want to slaughter my enemies because they're dicks and/or I want their stuff. Killing them is a good way to get said stuff. A good way to keep said stuff is to destroy my enemies when they try to steal it. Rovagug is good at destroying stuff.

I've always seen Rovagug not some much as a god you pray to, meditate on it's teachings, and it gifts you power so that you may become more enlightened and spread it's message to the world. No, Rovagug is a giant bundle of destructive energy that you tap and hope it doesn't consume/explode you. Like that abandoned mine that had boxes dynamite when you were kids. Sure it may have started out as a just a bit of harmless fun, who doesn't like explosions. But that Timmy, what a jerk. Always going on about his new tree-house. Let's see what he does when he doesn't have tree anymore! Then pretty soon the dynamite is telling you that you really ought to grab a bit more and stick in under his house. Now he doesn't have a tree, or house, or a tree-house! Next thing you know the paladins of Sarenrae are knocking on your door while you gibber in a corner of the ceiling while the new mouth on the back of your head tries to gnaw through the ceiling. And that boys and girls is why friends don't let friends worship the Rough Beast.

This is an awesome metaphor for why someone might worship Rovagug and why Rovagug might accept worshippers who aren't initially motivated to bring on the apocalypse.

The Ihys/Asmodeus conflict in a nutshell ;)

Now my personal headcannon for what Asmodeus sounds like when he's angry enough to lose his cool.

Nearyn wrote:

I find these differing opinons interesting.

I must admit that I am a bit shocked to see basic story-telling waved off as GM fiat, but I guess we have different opinions on what exactly GM fiat means.

You're running into a narrativist/simulationist disconnect, I think.

From a simulationist perspective, a character as presented must be able to, through the abilities they are presented as having (level, stats, feats, spells, etc.), effect the game world in the manner they are said to have done, or there is a huge problem with verisimilitude. See, from the simulationist perspective of "The rules of the game are the laws of physics for this world." you are actively breaking the laws of physics, and thus game immersion, every time you fudge around them.

This perspective can easily be mixed with a more 'story-telling' kind of game, but it necessitates the world being plausible in its' own right without the intervention of 'Plot says so.', which is in many ways needed to make someone low level the head of the Red Mantis.

Nearyn wrote:

I would like to know, why exactly some people maintain that, as a GM, it is not possible to have certain characters, let us take Blood Mistress Jakalyn, since we're already talking about her, hold their office without being high-level?

Because, for reasons noted above, it breaks verisimilitude. It's implausible on a level that breaks suspension of disbelief and kicks people out of being able to imagine Golarion as a living, breathing, world where stuff goes on outside sight of the PCs in a logical fashion. It screams "This only happened because the plot said so."

Have you ever read a book or seen a movie or TV show where something clearly only happened because it was necessary to the plot, with no real logical explanation? A character making a decision deeply against their previous behavior for instance?

That really throws a lot of people out of being able to think of the fiction as 'real'. It breaks the illusion of...

This is actually the heart of the disagreement, I think. Naeryn is approaching the subject from a Narrativist viewpoint, and most of of those of us who disagree are coming at it from a Simulationist angle.

Note here, that there's nothing actually WRONG with this, but it both viewpoints have different emphases on what's important and it explains why there's a degree of "talking-past-each-other" going on here.

I'm getting the sense that this to a very real degree comes down to that old "Only if you run it that way" argument.

Which isn't a problem, it's just that it also falls into "I just disagree" territory.

I think it's not unwise - from a design perspective - to design a setting the way they did, accounting for a certain type of jerkish behavior some players are known for rather than making one particularly vulnerable to it.

It is, afterall, a lot easier to redesign lower level versions of NPC's than it is to tack on a whole bunch of levels.

Speaking of parallels with Christianity, it looks like this thread rose again from the dead...

I approve of this, because this thread is made of winsauce.

Now I wanna make Alain's Hipster brother.

"You've probably never heard of me."

Flip it on its head: The fact that Ulthun II being a lower-level leader is the exception rather than the norm is a big part of what makes him interesting. If it were the rule, rather than the exception, he wouldn't be as intriguing a figure as he is.

Gorbacz wrote:

Good Stuff

Power is not measured in levels. Power is measured in results. ;)

Results are a lot easier to get when you have levels. It's a lot easier for Ulthun II to hold power at level 6 (which isn't exactly chump-levels) when he's not dealing with a deadly, decadent court in Castle Overwatch. Lastwall is fairly united in that way.

Cheliax on the other hand is a hotbed of intrigue and assassination. Look at the list of Monarchs that have preceded Abrogail II. Many of them have met bloody ends, and while the House of Thrune holds power in Cheliax, we know they've got plenty of rivals. Hell, she probably has rivals within her own family.

Giving her a nice cluster of levels makes her not being a puppet or about-to-be-toppled-by-an-opportunistic-cousin a lot easier to sell to the players.

tl;dr - this isn't a novel or a story. This is a game. It needs to take into the account game mechanics into world building and story telling. A murder mystery set in the medieval times where the victim is stabbed in his/her chest and dies looking into the eyes of the murderer is a fascinating story, but in the D&D environment it falls flat because a simple spell allows you to ask the dead body the question 'who killed you?' and render the whole mystery moot.

This, pretty much. The assumptions listed above about literary figures assume that the game is intended to emulate those sorts of stories and those sorts of story outcomes.

I really dig Lastwall, largely because while they're presented as a regional power, that power is very tenuous, and waning as fewer and fewer heroes come to join them.