Tzi's page

So, for this I am putting in a request for a somewhat complex monster.

An incorporeal undead, its physical appearance is that of a large size grotesque humanoid with arms that have severed hands. The hands float independently from the body and give this undead 20 foot reach in all directions as its hands can move that far from the actual body. Each hand wields a scimitar, and each hand can move independently.

Importantly, without True Seeing one cannot actually see the body, and attacking the hands does no damage to it. Because its incorporeal tremor sense will not detect its location and its hidden from detect undead.

Ideally this is in the CR 6-8 range. For now will just call it the "Unseen Spirit."

In that case I'd say its no harm no foul. The undead are evil, the deity sees no salvation for them, and it was for a greater good.

It's only a foul if the undead is ostensibly good or outright a good being who just happens to be undead IMHO

90. An ancient tyrant is plotting from beyond the grave, setting in motion plans to secure his reign once more, his foul spirit seducing and fooling many in the land.

Well in the main region, technically there is an entire globe, but so far I've only done one region really thoroughly. I've used a few extinct earth life just for flavor and invented a few exotic species.

There are Thylacines, Giant tree sized mushrooms.

If anything my homebrew world is more earthlike then most D20 fantasy settings. In that the intelligent races consist of mainly humans, variant humans. Most of the standard races like elves, dwarves, orcs, gnomes are non-existent.

Remember, he's got rolled stats, so he can't adjust them via point buy. With that in mind, if he wants Combat Expertise, and Improved Trip, he'd need to switch Wisdom and Int, to do so, or wait till 4th level to pick up Expertise. So drop Cleave, pick up Power Attack at 3rd, get Expertise at 4th (and increase your intelligence to 13), get Improved Trip at 5th.

Thank you ^.^

Actually the character sheet isn't written out yet and we haven't started play, I can re-assign stats as needed.

Jon Otaguro 428 wrote:

Max dex bonus for breastplate is 3. You don't get the AC for a buckler if you attack. So generally your AC would be 22 and you would take a -1 to hit for wearing the buckler.

Armor Training gives him the extra point of dex. You are right about the buckler though.

Okay so nix the buckler. Can do.

However I do ask, would you feel I'd still have decent enough AC? Granted I'm not going for armored tank status but still looking to be decently protected.

So, for the first time I'm stepping out of the role of playing a spellcaster and playing its polar opposite.

Basically I'm going for a reach/Glaive focused fighting build. Its a high powered campaign (Roll 5d6 and drop the lowest two) and I'm coming in at 6th level.

I'm playing a Human and here are my stats after factoring in the human bonus and the 4th level +1 to a stat.

STR 18
DEX 18
CON 16
INT 12
WIS 14
CHA 12

The Feats I've chosen:
1st Iron Will, Improved Initiative, Weapon Focus (Glaive)
2nd Combat Reflexes
3rd Cleave
4th Power Attack
5th Step Up
6th Stand Still

The following is the armor/weps I've purchased,
+1 MWK Glaive
+1 Light, Fortification Medium Breastplate (+7 to AC altogether)
MWK Armored Kilt (+1 to AC)
MWK Helmet (DM's Homebrew armor, +1 to AC)
MWK Buckler (+1 to AC)

Giving me 24 AC.

Mostly the goal is a build that allows mobility while keeping enemies at a safe but reachable distance and of course being able to give them a thrashing :]

<voice-of-evil-Sicilian> You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - The most famous of which is "never get involved in a land war in Asia" - but only slightly less well-known is this: Never reveal too much of the storyline too early in a campaign </voice-of-evil-Sicilian>

The above advice of tying "extending" quests to the main storyline is your best avenue at this point. From there, the advice above about a progression timeline for your next campaign is essential. You may want to start the characters knowing about an ancient evil ... but perhaps it takes them a while to find the books ... or they find a book and don't know what it's about until they find an old sage (and getting to the old sage has some sidetracks) ... etc.

Pacing the "full reveal" of a campaign arc is difficult ... and I've been in your shoes before (and probably will be again). Good luck!

Well, in my defense they don't know much beyond the fact that they may have stumbled upon an artifact of some kind, it speaks of strange evil, and they have conflicting stories as to what that evil is or was. They also suspect a long dead tyrant had interest in this evil being.

They have met one powerful wizard who has given them what he knows, but his version is different then what they already knew. Its not too much but I'm thinking of taking the timeline advice. For the most part they don't know anything beyond that, except that another book exists (A sister tome) and they have no idea if its in one piece, or if their own book is in one piece.

I think the timeline advice is what I'm going to roll with.

So, in this settings, I've got a campaign going. Out of the gate at the first level I decided to thrust the party into some strong hints that certain old evils in the area are stirring to life and maybe seeking a comeback.

However, Its a medium paced campaign and I am now a bit worried that the party is too focused on a major story arc and I am now looking for ways to distract them into smaller story arcs. Mainly because they don't have enough experience.

The situation now, the party has discovered some sort of artifact, a book made of bronze and gold (like a binder with metal pages) that contains revelations of some ancient construct that housed the soul of some evil creature from beyond the mortal world, and talk of trying to resurrect it. However they have learned there is a sister book that would be needed to do some dreaded incantations. Currently they are seeking anyone with information about the book, or its sister book.

However currently I am worried that they are now so engrossed into this story arc that it would be hard to hook them into other story arcs at all.

idk, advice? tips? tricks?

Slight changes to the Feyborn (Feyish blood and/or Ancestry):

• Spell-Like Abilities: Faerie Fire 1/day (caster level equals class level)
  
• Weaknesses/Vulnerabilities: Cold Iron weakness, any critical hit received from a cold Iron weapon does an additional 2 points of damage.
  

The Dragonborn

• Dragon Breath Dragonborn have retained the dragon breath of their draconic heritage, manifesting itself in the form of a line with a length of 5 feet per class level (capping out at 20 feet). The dragon breath deals 1d6 points of energy damage for every 5 levels (Reflex save for half damage), to a maximum of 4d6 at 20th level. The type of energy breath weapon is determined by the dragonborn’s specific draconic origins as follows: acid (black or copper or green), cold (silver or white), electricity (blue or bronze), fire (brass, gold or red). The dragon breath ability is renewed after resting for 8 hours, although these hours do not need to be consecutive.
  

What no Waterborn? You're just like Earth, Wind, and Fire.

I think giving them all a spell that scales with hit die is a bad idea, but I see the precedent for it from slyphs, irits, and what not. Right now these are more or less on par with tieflings and aasimar, which are considered a bit better than other base races. It might be easier just to give humans a boost though, as these all seem to be about on par.

If you're keeping the spell-like abilities, then Feyborn should get something better than a cantrip, especially if they have a weakness tacked on as well.

Also, you list poison as a damage type for the Dragonborn, is that a homebrew decision or did you just miss it?

First, thank you for the feedback ^.^

Second, the dragonborn was a homebrew decision but I might take it out... its one of those on the table but barely options.

I can keep or lose the spell like abilities, save for the Divine one simply to keep them similar to say the Tiefling/Assimar inspiration.

As for waterborn, its still in the works.

I've got another,

Anuki which is bird headed Devil (As in Lawful Evil), has a humanoid body (Two arms, two legs) however its hands and feet are talon like claws and it has two wings. I'm thinking something like CR 7 and generally wielding a khopesh in each hand.

Okay, so as I'm designing this homebrew setting, I've been going over and over about races, or lack there of. My ideal number of races is in fact, 1, that's right, 1 single race. That race is Human, Homo sapien, that bipedal tetrapod we all seem to be. However obviously some humans are a bit different then other humans.

Abhuman or Differently Human as some might say possess other "racial," traits but in terms of lore and fluff they are just supposed to be humans with some special blessing at birth or unique ancestry. A lot of it a rewrite of already familiar "Monsters as Player character races," however they have been redone to suite the fluff.

Now lore wise these various "alternative humans," come about in a lot of different ways, but I am mainly wondering if stat wise these rewrites and homebrew "races," are balanced against the baseline human in PF since I want to avoid them being more powerful in every way. I kind of like them in niches, but I'd rather not have them be more stat wise powerful and versatile then standard humans.

In my setting it was mostly by having different kinds of Elf.

Stat wise they were all the same Elves but there was an Elven Table of Nations, describing the different tribes and languages of Elves.

Each Elven people had their own language and writing system and each ended up settling in a different part of the world.

The Kingdoms of Salem, Kaorie, Dilmund, Korija, Vedda and Atzeloutl were the main ones left by the time of the setting. Each had its own language, customs and building style. Though linguistically they all had many similarities and each had accounts of Elven history that detailed where each one settled.

In that setting Elves also formed an alliance of Neutral nations as every other Kingdom was Human and the world was on the verge of a world wide war.

Many Elven countries also had adopted official Eugenics programs as the Elven race was slowly dying out due to declining fertility. Most Elven nations were actually Half-Elven, and humans were picked out based on magical aptitude and psionic ability and basically they were offered generous dowries to contribute their bloodline to the Elven Kingdoms.

@Tzi: Here's a "skittering grey" with some magical, sound-based abilities:

Thank you kindly, ^.^ This is excellent.

1) Alchemist
2) Witch
3) Rogue

...

Now I'm back, and I see I missed one recent suggestion:
-a "skittering grey" aberration with a sonic attack and no mouth

I'll add that to the others on my list of monster ideas I'm kicking around at the moment.
...

http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs44/f/2009/136/0/d/Dover_Demon_by_myfuneraljag. jpg

Here is a image reference for the Skittering Grey if that helps. Its a small sized little freakish thing, just one of many aberrant horrors that lurk in the realm beyond the one the players live in.

Lore and Backstory: A empty hulking city stands in a bay. The city is a terrifying eerie site for other residents who have begun moving into the area. Scattered across the land are the remains of some ancient magi-tech civilization, but this city appears to have been the ancient peoples largest, even the capital or hub. All the roads left over from this great civilization lead into the city.

Characters are tasked by colonists to and curious alchemists, engineers and wizards to plumb the great hulking city for clues as the how much of the technology worked and can be used.

The city itself still glows with lights at night, and every six hours a terrible howling sound seems to rise up from the cities heart and across its endless well laid out streets. From a distance it appears a recent earthquake may have damaged some of the city as a bridge crossing the narrow mouth of the bay has since largely collapsed. Every day steam billows from the point where the city seems to meet the sea and odd lights and smoldering smoke rises from various intersections of the city. Keeping it in a perpetual haze, and enveloping the bay with an odd miasma that can make some people Ill (The source of various Fortitude saves).

The Nitty Gritty: The city is a massive mega-dungeon type area, one where players can explore sections and building complexes finding various aspects of the city from its local emergency power plant, the foundry, living quarters, hospital, temples and administration centers. Beneath the city burns a the stores of alchemical substances used by the ancients that cause the ground the crack in places and burst forth poison gas and smoke. Various parts of the city have ground that causes the players feat to have fire damage and they have to move quickly or their shoes could catch fire or melt.

Crawling in the city are such foes as ghosts of previous residents, undead, Living Spells, and various aberrations and Constructs built by the city builders. Also of interest is that electricity still flows around on an emergency basis causing a an alert siren to sound every six hours which causes some of the mindless undead to emerge and wander the streets before retreating after the siren ends.

GOAL: The goals vary, in that campaign it was simply to find out how the city worked. What caused the fumes and possibly to put out the subterranean fires that made the bay area uninhabitable and the city dangerous. Also to steal ancient texts and alchemical and magical texts to understand how the ancients built the place. Side quests included finding out what got rid of the ancients in the first place.

Perhaps the silent ancient battlefield is still haunted by the spirits of the dead soldiers or crawling with the restless dead from some ancient great war? One idea is that long after the spell weavers fell from the field and the war ended, the restless dead still stalk the front, unable to enjoy the current peace time.

Also, if you can translate it, maybe some spells have become "living Spells" which is a template in one of the 3.5 Monster Manuals.

So you could have a battlefield littered with relics, magic weapons and maybe plenty of undead (Skeletal soldiers, and ghosts) and strange magical anomalies.

Maybe even have an RP encounter where you convince the undead commanders and generals that the war is ended and they can pass on.

I have a request.

Its called a Skittering Grey, a small sized aberration roughly CR 2-5. Two legs, two arms, no mouth, and two bulbous almond shaped eyes.

Kind of interesting if it had a spell like ability that did sonic damage.

Low magic is actually what I am grappling with right now. I am in the fun of world building, but to suite the setting assumptions I need to get rid of the "magic mart," in a sense. My world just doesn't fit the idea that you can go to your corner magic mart and get a +1 flaming sword from your local wizard.

In a sense low magic item setting could involve completely refluffing how one gets these bonuses, or would involve substantially changing the game to some degree because it is assumed magic items are abundant via the core rules.

Me I am trying to refluff the way certain bonuses are gotten. Things like +1, 2, 3... ect bonuses to armor and weapons for example are the main focus of my attention since I'd like to keep the stat's but change how they are gotten. My idea is simply to recast the +1, 2, 3... bonuses as martial and defensive training bonuses. In a sense the player simply pays a master trainer to teach them combat skills that make them better with their specific weapon or armor. Statistically the player still has a +1 Bronze Breast plate, or a +1 Khopesh, but they don't just have some magical item, they have an item they are skilled with that then can receive what my setting would deem "True Magic," stuff like Holy, Flaming, Shocking, Frost, Unholy, Ghost touch, which would be attained more like via quests. For example, only the Priests of a Fire Goddess know how to bless weapons with the Goddesses flames, but you must bring them materials. Natural armor bonuses (I.E. Amulets of natural armor) could be perhaps tattoos the player earns via gathering special inks, or some blessing from a God after giving a specific sacrifice. So on and so forth.

Statistically things remain the same, but the flavor and fluff are very different. This is about the only calibration someone can do for Low Magic IMHO since a genuine low magic setting would be a ton of leg work in Pathfinder.

Traits don't make much of a difference. As for the bloodlines, yeah, try explaining the supernatural parts with "a human did it" somehow.

On a less helpful note, I'd never play this kind of setting myself.

Well in the case of bloodlines it is intended for a character who is essentially someone with a bloodline intermingled with something like a dragon, demon, Fey spirit, or simply a bloodline blessed by a God, or even one with whom a God is a direct parent or ancestor. Or maybe your parent is a vampire or was bitten by one.

Yeah, human only gets a mixed reaction. In my area I've got a couple players excited to try it, but we also have other DM's who provide the more High Fantasy worlds. I've always been a Conan the Barbarian fan. :]

A large desert, with only a handful of paths to various oasis and places not overwhelmed with sand dunes that lead threw rocky desert canyons, caves, dried rivers and eventually to some oasis with the final goal in it. Think the Crystal Desert from Guild Wars.

Another is a small town, perhaps with a large canyon separating it from the outside world? Maybe its haunted and the ghosts keep people from leaving until they set the ghosts free? (Alla Silent Hill style? I've actually done this sort of dungeon)

A large mansion or small town filled with alchemists engaged in strange science and research and for whom their creations have begun running loose?

So I am eagerly working to construct a campaign setting that is solely humans as the playable race. The inspiration for this setting is the early Iron Age, late Bronze age and I am going for that ancient world feel, so things like a halfling, dwarf or an elf would be a extremely rare mythic being one might encounter but not actually a playable race.

Basically all the players, NPC's ect will be human of various sorts.

So far I want to use the baseline human racial traits already in the pathfinder rules, but instead of two traits you get three, the third having to be specific to your characters country of origin or place one was raised and plausible a few alternative traits such as being born with dwarfism (Like real world dwarves) and being small sized by sacrificing say ones bonus feat at first level. Also one can gain bloodlines similar to the ones in unearthed arcana or a sorcerers bloodlines, granting one special abilities, but these come at the cost of ones second starting feat. (Unless one is a sorcerer, then one gets the bloodline that comes with the class, and their second starting feat).

I am just wondering if this sounds balanced or if I am going about this all wrong and making the players too powerful right out of the gate.

Factions sometimes exist long after their purpose has been served, you could have factions that exist solely for political power, or relevance.

Economic cartels are another big one. Maybe a specific faction has control over specific shipping lanes and wants to keep it that way, maybe another controls various factions, maybe another is an elite spy network.

Still others might be trade unions (Guilds basically) that control various industries.

Even bigger you could have whole political parties. For example a radical group seeking to overthrow the monarch and install democracy, or groups dedicated to changing the economic system or ending or creating a class system or even religious cults seeking converts and holy relics.