Yakman's page

Ok, so I've built a fun character which is a whip wielding summoner with a 'gimp' Eidolon who worships Zon-Kuthon.

It's a character I built ages ago but I have been waiting for a chance to use her. I'm not sure if it's right for this campaign but I have thought of a backstory that I think will suit it despite being lawful evil. I just want to check how viable is it.

The backstory I've thought of is that she was a member of a secret zon-kuthon cult. The leader of the cult (who was also her lover) was murdered (love lost trait). Without strong leadership the cult fell into disarray and was quickly discovered by the authorities (and slaughtered)

In my mind this gives the character a hook into the story and a reason to stick around & fight the authorities. The character will also choose revenge over her religion if they ever conflict.

Could this work or should I just play something else?

you should probably play something else. this sort of character would probably support the BBEG of the campaign. and as was mentioned is really close to a particular NPC.

ultimately, this campaign probably plays best with PCs who are motivated by compassion. I can't really see a Kuthite in that vein.

It's an interesting concept, but this probably isn't the AP for it. play a good character. it'll be easier for everyone.

Phntm888 wrote:

So, no cross-space voyage on a Shantak or outsiders/divine beings saying that you are needed to save the fate of another planet?

That last one would actually work pretty well for an Oracle in Wrath of the Righteous. Even provides an explanation for how they get their powers, and is in keeping with the them of the AP.

Are you looking more for a way to work in a character who arrives from Earth right at the start of the AP? If that's the case, then Strange Aeons and Wrath of the Righteous are the only ones that could really work for. Iron Gods, maybe, if you want to make a scientist or soldier from Area 51 who was experimenting on alien tech when it transported them.

If you're willing to have the character have lived on Golarion for a couple years, then the event that transports the character to Golarion, giving them the chance to end up as a character in the AP, is limited only by your imagination.

Right at the start. I know Strange Aeons, but I don't seem to recall Wrath of the Righteous well enough to do this, explain?

Yakman wrote:

Strange Aeons

Reign of Winter
Iron Gods
Tyrant's Grasp
Mummy's Mask

Strange Aeons and Reign of Winter I can easily think of ways this would work. I've read Iron Gods and can't seem to recall anything that would facilitate this. Haven't read the other two. Explain?

Iron Gods takes place in a country full of the broken pieces of a space ship which collected species from across the universe. You could easily put a human in a preservation capsule. Aliens.

Mummy's Mask is set in fantasy Egypt, where in fanon, the Egyptian Gods of our world have some relationship. No reason why a tomb can't be opened, and POP! there's someone from our Egypt there.

Tyrant's Grasp is a bit of a stretch, but the beginning of the AP is set in the Boneyard, where all souls are sent after death. The other PCs happen to run into a soul from Earth. It's way lamer than the other two, but it could work, I suppose.

Strange Aeons
Reign of Winter
Iron Gods
Tyrant's Grasp
Mummy's Mask

our group is wrapping up Against the Aeon Throne... i had been pushing for Attack of the Swarm but this... this seems really cool...

It is always possible for the Silver Ravens to still be known and yet be erased from history.

Thrune can only eliminate their mention from written records and tell people "you aren't allowed to talk about them." Though to be honest, the Silver Ravens ended up discrediting themselves thanks to Brakisi or whatever his name was who ended up kidnapping the son of the Thrune-assigned Lord-Mayor of Kintargo, which resulted in the Hellknights of the Torrent ending up coming into existence.

Events happened long enough ago that the only "witnesses" would be non-human races and half-elves among the part-human. You have the older people who would tell tales of the "Silver Ravens" but seeing that people get arrested for talking about them (until probably the previous Lord-Mayor before Barzillai) it was only something a grandfather or grandmother would tell their immediate family, or maybe someone in the Devil's Nursery (which tends to be ignored by the authorities).

Further, there were still some folk who did talk about the Silver Ravens around from what the first book says - again, they were older folk and they were all going to the Silver Badger and they got swept up in the initial raid and murders during the Night of Ashes. This even gives the player a reason to hate Thrune - maybe a beloved grandparent or great grandparent died in that fire and they went from "yeah, Nana, you keep telling us about these 'Ravens' but they don't exist" to "Thrune killed her to keep this quiet. I need to learn more."

tl;dr - the Silver Ravens were erased from the history books, but it was the actions of Brakisi that discredited them and caused most folk to stop talking about them. It was likely a grandparent or older storyteller who vanishes during the Night of Ashes that instigates a player interested in the Silver Ravens to start looking for more information and attending the Aria Park Protest.

i always imagined that after Thrune took over the city and dispatched with most of the Silver Ravens, they flooded Kintargo with high level bards who essentially wiped the minds of most of the citizens about the Silver Ravens. It's not only something that Thrune would do, but it's also distinctly Cheliaxan AND Kintargan, what with having street performances creating alternative memories for the audiences.

That's not going to be 100 % effective, but it would provide enough 'herd immunity' to the alternative fact that there was something known as a Silver Raven or resistance to Thrune.

Yakman wrote:

wow. that prestige class suggestion list... Hellknight? wha?

saying, yeah, go play an evil or lawful evil character! you'll figure it out... geeze...

Hellknights are lawful, not necessarily evil. The implication is you'd join the LG Order of the Torrent.

The fed up citizen trait is specifically for these kinds of characters.

then it should say that.

wow. that prestige class suggestion list... Hellknight? wha?

saying, yeah, go play an evil or lawful evil character! you'll figure it out... geeze...

Starfinder could use a bit more bigotry and xenophobia. Evil just doesn't seem as evil to me when you shy away from the darker issues.

And don't mind the horns. I'm one of the good tieflings. Honest.

i agree.

let bad guys do bad things.

Andre Roy wrote:

Carrion Crown ran from February to July 2011, Strange Aeons August 2016 to February 2017. That a 5.5 years gap that we could transpose in universe and go from there. So what was Count Lowls up to, 5.5 years before Strange Aeons?

Based on the Thrushmoor Terror, that would have been just before he acquired the PCs (which was 5 years before the AP starts). So probably that would have been when Lowls got tired of being ridiculed in Ustalav's academic circles and started becoming obsessed with his occult research and the Star Stelae.

that would be fun. especially if the PCs can be the ones who push him to get more 'help'

Starfinder APs are way faster than Pathfinder ones.

I ran Carrion Crown way before Strange Aeons came out. When my players got to Thrushmoor in book 4, they got obsessed with the Star Stelae. I had to make up an explanation, but without spoilers, it turns out the Thrushmoor Star Stelae play a significant role in book 2 of Strange Aeons. So that could be an item of interest to coordinate on...

or the Witch...

Yakman wrote:

The dude's barmy. He's not only a literary, but a physical caricature of a nutty professor. Thin-skinned when insulted, but freely hurls offensive language around and damn the consequences until they impact him.

"It's no insult to say a dead man is dead." - Odysseus (Troy, 2004)

Or as Ailabiens 21:2 might see it, "It's no insult to say a dumb man is dumb." It's completely tactless sure, but if he declares someone to be his intellectual inferior, he's probably right.

When your whole race has an indisputable, biological intelligence advantage over nearly every other race (as represented by the contemplative's +4 racial bonus to Intelligence), it's totally fair to think of other races as being less intelligent. 99% of the time, you're going to be right.

If the university wasn't so political, and instead actually cared about education and facts, Ailabiens 21:2 would probably be running the place (if he were so inclined).

there are more things in the world than facts.

Metaphysician wrote:

I actually can easily see many of the Pact World states providing little emphasis on "large standing army", due to the nature of the setting. Yes, some problems are best solved by tens of thousands of infantrymen and tank pilots and whatnot, but the number that wouldn't be *better* solved with either commando teams ( read "PC parties" ) or space fleets? Much smaller. After all, why send a thousand grunts at a problem when either a couple capital ships providing orbital firepower, a few teams of elite specialists with advanced gear and magic superpowers, or both, can fix things much more cleanly?

The main thing large "ground" forces can do that the others can't is hold and defend territory. If you want to rule a populace, or protect it from enemy attack, you probably need a large garrison spread over the locale. Otherwise, hostile locals or enemy infiltrators have the initiative and can do basically anything they want.

Considering the background story for Acuturn, I kind of don't WANT them to have a standing army.

Aucturn is also implied to be sparsely populated (at least with creatures capable of organization) AND is fighting a constant side war against itself and the Dominion of the Black.

I'd love to run a series of adventures there though...

Yakman wrote:

Master Han Del of the Web wrote:

I’m running the game and 21:2 was essentially admonishing the lashunta for not taking the more ‘logical and effective’ route of wiping the formians off the face of the planet.

He was advocating genocide, historical genocide sure, but still genocide.

But then again, I’m a dirty progressive who thinks killing off an entire people because it is convenient is a bad thing.

this is how i always read it.

sure, he might be 'right'? but he's living in alternative history land.

he's an out of touch cook, ultimately.

Analyzing past battles to evaluate the used strategy has nothing to do with being an "out of touch cook" and people freaking out because of the result shows a great deal of snowflakeyness.

'if only they had just done this' leads us down to Harry Turtledove land.

The dude's barmy. He's not only a literary, but a physical caricature of a nutty professor. Thin-skinned when insulted, but freely hurls offensive language around and damn the consequences until they impact him.

I’m running the game and 21:2 was essentially admonishing the lashunta for not taking the more ‘logical and effective’ route of wiping the formians off the face of the planet.

He was advocating genocide, historical genocide sure, but still genocide.

But then again, I’m a dirty progressive who thinks killing off an entire people because it is convenient is a bad thing.

this is how i always read it.

sure, he might be 'right'? but he's living in alternative history land.

he's an out of touch cook, ultimately.

Are there NPCs that could be tied together?

Carrion Crown has lots of memorable NPCs which could reasonably appear in the first 3 books of Strange Aeons.

Yakman wrote:

thecursor wrote:

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

After learning about this AP, I gotta say I'm concerned, namely about the reptoids in it after learning just what reptoids represent in real-world conspiracy theories, from David Icke all the way back to Helena Blavatsky...let's just say I've stopped finding reptilian alien conspiracy theories funny.

Since all conspiracy theories are fictional, I find them hilarious.

except when they are real...

Not with a ten foot pole am I touching that.

the truth is out there

seriously Paizo?!

I've been working on a homebrew mega-campaign and FIRST they take the Azlanti, and NOW they take the Reptoids. Both of which were supposed to be in MY MEGA-HOMEBREW EPIC CAMPAIGN.

This is super messed up.

Awesome, I'll keep that in mind, They seem to be of the opinion that they did not know they were Aquatic elves, so it seems like they will get a chance to discover their heritage during the AP.

then just make them elves. they joined the colony because of an old family legend that they came from beyond the sea.

the mechanic of water breathing will make some of the early encounters lose a lot of their peril, both perceived and real.

work with the idea though.

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

After learning about this AP, I gotta say I'm concerned, namely about the reptoids in it after learning just what reptoids represent in real-world conspiracy theories, from David Icke all the way back to Helena Blavatsky...let's just say I've stopped finding reptilian alien conspiracy theories funny.

Since all conspiracy theories are fictional, I find them hilarious.

except when they are real...

I'll be running my first running an Adventure Path, and my first time is with Ruins.

I was wondering if you all had any suggestions to help the game go fun and smoothly.

Currently 3 PCs, looks like all of them being Aquatic elves and siblings. Classes haven't been decided yet.

One of the players want involved with all the other homebrew games we do, but I want to minimize crossover with those games, is there a chance of having a good balance if i do that?

any advice would be helpful.

part of the theme of ruins is that this really is the frontier - you are WAY out in the ocean. resupply is not coming. help is not coming.

so i would say that the sense of isolation is important. i assume your other homebrew stuff is somewhere else. Azlant is far from wherever that is. So it probably doesn't make sense to cross over. Tell them that maybe an NPC might show up in Talmandor's Bounty or something, but your PCs going back and forth is probably not for the best.

as far as all the characters being aquatic elves, part of the wonder of azlant is that you discover all these things under the sea. maybe talk to them about being just 'elves' and they then have this wonderful opportunity throughout Ruins to discover the aquatic world for the first time. just a thought.

maybe some ancient lore has some ancestor being an aquatic elf, but they don't know what that means, or a sorcerer has an aquatic bloodline or something, but just giving them the aquatic stuff which they are supposed to earn through the AP seems like a cheap out for the players.

Traits weren't abandoned in Starfinder.

Far from it.

They were turned into themes and codified into the rules.

Adding them just confuses the point and OPs the PCs.

Garretmander wrote:

No, Against the Aeon Throne starts at level 1.

I know.

BUT, what I am asking is that for better encounter balance (i.e., competent enemy reactions), would the AP work better if the characters were more powerful?

I'm a player, and we are 1/3 of the way through book 3.

my answer would be absolutely not. at a higher level we would have steamrolled our opponents without mercy.

I'm thinking of running a campaign and I would like it if people were to throw ideas to me for a world setting. Now you should know that essentially what I'm going for is that my real life players would get transported to the pathfinder world and would take the form, abilities, etc... of their characters. I'm horrible at world building and would like the help of people who are great at it.

I would recommend the above suggestion.

Golarion has lots of places for adventure. Pick a place that has a hook you enjoy "Vikings!" or "Dwarves!" or "Freedom!" or whatever, and just use the material paizo's produced to help you out.

Norgorber. To me he's the least interesting of the three ascended divinities, with a name that I struggle to take seriously and a broad portfolio of 'aspects' that are individually interesting but which draw away from and diminish Norgorber himself. There are interesting cosmological implications to the setting not having a dedicated god of secrets and thievery until Norgorber's apotheosis, and those implications don't seem to be addressed and instead he ends up feeling like a patch slapped hastily over a hole in the pantheon to address the glaring lack of portfolio aspects x, y, and z.

admittedly, my biggest complaint is the 'Forgotten Realms' style pantheons, but whatevs.

In any event, Norgorber might be best seen, and I think it was Mona who posted this years ago, as the god representing the darker impulses of humanity. ruthless greed, willful ignorance, anger, hate, etc.

Which is fun when you have the other living god of humanity being Iomedae, who is the exact opposite.

Fido

Was it fun? How hard is gming it?

we Player here.

We are just starting book 3 - session 2 for Book 3 is on Sunday.

book 1 was a blast. Book 2 has some really fun social interactions and a great dungeon.

It's a good AP. We are really enjoying it.

Yakman wrote:

Paranoid Android wrote:

Hey there, this is Patrick the author here. The planet that "Fate of the Fifth" takes place on is called "Suskillon" and it is a far-off colony that has been under its own governance for over a century. I imagined Australia while I was writing it, as it has these huge cities but also large tracts of unspoiled wilderness between them. The description of 'marauding bikers' is funny because that makes me think of Mad Max.

I purposefully did not rewatch Starship Troopers while writing, but to be honest I have that movie like laser etched into my brain, so I hope some of the action percolated into this AP for you all and your friends to play in August!

Australia IN SPACE MATE!

Got to have the entire party named Bruce :-)

I'M thinking a mechanic named Bruce with a drone named Bruce

combat manuever and a hard climb check.

i was thinking about having a certain character for this AP... now that I know that the characters are supposed to be AUSTRALIAN MATE! i have completely been mind blown. spent a few hours researching Australian military history yesterday.

this is a literal game changer.

i know my table would be excited for something starting at high level.

Hey there, this is Patrick the author here. The planet that "Fate of the Fifth" takes place on is called "Suskillon" and it is a far-off colony that has been under its own governance for over a century. I imagined Australia while I was writing it, as it has these huge cities but also large tracts of unspoiled wilderness between them. The description of 'marauding bikers' is funny because that makes me think of Mad Max.

I purposefully did not rewatch Starship Troopers while writing, but to be honest I have that movie like laser etched into my brain, so I hope some of the action percolated into this AP for you all and your friends to play in August!

Australia IN SPACE MATE!

You're in this system's military.

shucks. oh well.

GeneticDrift wrote:

Going to the SD is an even riskier choice than the empire of bones. They know little about the creatures that built it beyond their name and fate. It’s being attacked by the empire of bones and the corpse fleet. Their approach will be noticed by both sides, and both will destroy their weak little ship.

So I guess pretend their plan makes sense and roll with it. When they get through it and blindly use it...have it be broken (because it’s be ripped apart by the drift and the corpse fleet attacks) and explode.

The PCs should know from an earlier part of the adventure, roughly that:

Adventure Background, Dead Suns 4 of 6 wrote:

The sivvs created their own superweapon frst—the Stellar

Degenerator—but kishalee agents ended the war by capturing
the weapon before it could be fired.

They know an unknown number of Kish stole the degenerator from it's creators before it could be used. It could have been a fleet action, could have been a kish adventuring party that stole it and escaped.

vs.

Boarding a file mile long super capital ship, with a minumum required crew in the hundreds, and most probably containing thousands of crew. Each crew member of which they can assume is loyal to the corpse fleet until their second death. And then... Doing what? Nothing the PCs know suggests they can fly it, the rest of the corpse fleet is right there, their target is a twenty mile long asteroid that they don't even know if the Empire of bones can even hurt.

Don't get me wrong, it's fairly simple to disguise the rails and get the PCs onboard the Empire of bones instead. Either with knowledge checks at this point, or by dropping hints throughout the campaign of the EoB's sister ship lost in the Silent war to a boarding party of elite vesk commandos. They managed to take and hold the bridge, using command overrides on the mindless undead crew to turn it's guns on the rest of the fleet. The AP doesn't tell you that though, it just tells you this is bigger than a capital...

completely agree.

imho, EoB should have instead been set on the crumbling SD, but if it weren't then something should have been directing the PCs towards their assumed decision.

It would have been much more interesting to fight immortal kishalee robot defenders, corpse fleet boarding parties, AND weird planar creatures in the wreck of the SD than what we got (which was good, but just fights against one type of enemy). I really like the chase and survival mechanics in EoB, but both of those could have worked in the SD.

The Stellar Degenerator ending up in players' hands was a risk Paizo did not want to take.

sure, i get that.

but then again, who knows how much work would be required to get it up and running?

the corpse fleet and the cult are kinda running on a hope and a prayer, believing that it will work right out of the box. also, they have a lot more resources than the PCs. might be that it will take a generation of repair and maintenance, as well as acquiring various exotic components, to get the SD up and going.

It might still have its defense guns, but it might not be able to perform its primary function, at least not right away.

again, no reason not to just do Empire of Bones inside the SD if a DM wants. all Empire of Bones requires is a big ship and a tramway system, and a few minutes of homebrew changes.

The world being invaded...

** spoiler omitted **

hmmm...

so are you supposed to be Pact Worlds military or this planet's military?

I have a great character concept, but I dunno how it would translate to being non-Pact World

yeah, I definitely did not like how railroady the plan to go onto the flagship was. This would have worked way better in terms of

1) what the characters would do and

2) what would work. I mean going onto that flagship would be suicide if not for some plot convenience.

plus, the whole ap is built around the Stellar Degenerator - and the players don't end up there.

i think the 6th volume would have been better served if, as the op's players have done, the pcs retreat to the SD and have to try to take control of it to destroy the corpse fleet.

they can then battle both the SD's defenses (weird immortal robots like the defense droid in book 1) and corpse fleet boarding parties. it would then thematically and mechanically tie book 6 into the driftrock exploration in book 1.

why not just do EMPIRE OF BONES, with some minor tweaks, on the Stellar Degenerator?

If the PCs can get to the Degenerator, than the Corpse Fleet can as well. While the PCs are exploring it, the Corpse Fleet gets there, and starts swarming over the station...

You can do the chase stuff, you can do the survival stuff, etc. Everything can pretty much be the same except for the security controls.

Skip the Mi-go. Make it easier on yourself.

"The Godhost Ascends "

Level 12 adventures everyone

Seriously, what the heck would level 20 party do if this ap went that high? :D

Is there a better name for an AP volume?

SO PUMPED!!!

i imagine it is the greatest nightmare of whomever attempts it.

as above, i imagine that Caiden Cailen was made to take a standardized test.

Mosaic wrote:

You've seen this map, right?

zoomable Golarion

Even without the official PF2 map to go by, I did catch a few inaccuracies in that world map, primarily from material published after that map was made.

which, imho, is all for the better.

personally, i like the constrained space of the Inner Sea. I get that Tian Xia was sketched out as well for those looking for the Oriental Adventures adventure.

Beyond that, well... vagaries and the DM's imagination would be my preference.

It's kind of weird there hasn't been any store updates yet. Next Dawn of Flame AP is scheduled for release in early June. I figure they were waiting for Paizocon to come and go before updating with juicy stuff. Speaking of which, we now know the full titles of Attack of the Swarm! adventure path!

** spoiler omitted **

I've got to say, the concept behind this AP feels so epic (and honestly the most Mass Effect of anything released so far). Definitely going to be my favorite.

I am pushing for my group to go to it after we complete AGAINST THE AEON THRONE.

It just sounds so baller.

It could totally work, as Mathmuse has suggested above.

The point of THE HUNGRY STORM is a difficult journey across a frozen land. That's actually pretty easy to model - the PCs have to cross some inhospitable mountain range in Minkai in the middle of winter.

Supplies run out, and there's wicked evil up there. Almost everything can be the same.

I really like Rahadoum as a setting. A couple of years ago, I was sketching out a campaign, and Rahadoum was the focus for the first half of it.

Halfling characters are fine in this AP. You are basically put in the place of becoming an agent of the state and able to wield authority that allows you to rise above your station.

it's even a campaign trait, i think it's called the 'good slip' or something like that.

Paizo never gets the numbers 'right'

but it's not important. so whatever.

also, Talmandor's bounty is in an undisclosed location somewhere in the ruin of the Azlanti continent. it might be treacherous sailing betwtixt the islands which might add time to the journey.

i don't think there's an analogue on earth for the massive island chain in the heart of the ocean, which ruined Azlant represents. might be that it presents navigational challenges which renaissance navigators didn't have to deal with. additionally, there's two enormous threats - the elves of the mordant spire and the pirates of the shackles, which might delay navigation in certain ways.

could be that there's other things out there as well which aren't addressed in the text which might slow a ship's progress. winds, tides, giant marine monsters, etc.

I was trying to make an assassin with a code of honor, which, uh, since Lao Shu Po seems to have replaced Norgorber, that doesn't really work.

Norgorber is ... waiting ...

New question: other than the kasatha and vesk (and I assume borais of those races), what races might be attracted to the path of the solarian?

Human - humans are interested in lots of things (and make for great solarians)

Android - caught in a cycle of birth and rebirth, the apparent linear nation of the cosmos presents an alternative for their self-conception

Ysoki - They like to figure things out mechanically. Solarians also figure things out, but spiritually

Shirren - Those drawn to mysticism probably are skittish about allegiance to 'connections' any of which might open a door for the malign influence of the Swarm; solarians by contrast connect with the cosmos itself

Lashunta - they are students. the solarian model of training academies seems like a natural fit for them.

If you noticed, the title of AP #21 is "AP 21 - The Search for AP 20"

My stock response to these types of criticisms is:

What do you think they were doing in the Temple of Elemental Evil?

I think this just makes the villains more villainous. And you have to go digging around for it - I never noticed this before. It's also on theme with our boy Barzillai.

Good job Paizo.