aetherwisp's page

Hello all!

Pathfinder Unchained includes "replacements for all [rogue talents] in the Core Rulebook, along with selected revised rogue talents from other sources." However, outside of PFS, the status of rogue talents beyond those in the CRB is uncertain; some talents like Charmer or Fast Picks have been obviated by unchained talents, while others deserve revision or clarification to bring them into balance with the new unchained talents.

I've adapted the entire current list of rogue talents for the unchained rogue, which I thought might be handy for other GMs looking to expand the list of potential rogue talents available in their home games. You can find the document here:

Unchained Rogue Talents

Feel free to comment with any feedback / suggestions / things I've missed -- I hope some players/GMs out there find this document useful!

ZZTRaider wrote:

Is Wrath of the Righteous the Mythic AP or something? Because otherwise, I have no idea how you would get the 50 Charisma necessary for a +20 modifier. I'm not even sure if Mythic adds enough extra bonuses for it.

Yes, it is. 18 base Cha, +2 racial, +5 inherent, +5 lvls, +6 enhance for the normal 36 'cap'. Then +10 from mythic tiers for a 46, +2 from devotion pts in book 1, then +2 anarchic boost from Arushelae in book 3, so by lvl 20 which is halfway through book 6, you've got 50 Cha. This isn't counting other sources like becoming a half-celestial or a lich for more.

So, if I understand correctly: once you hit 20th level / 10th mythic tier, if you put every possible bonus into Charisma (including successfully gaining the ability bonuses in both books 1 and 3), you can select a 20 on a die roll as an immediate action without limit?

That makes for a very powerful ability, yes -- but keep in mind that immediate actions eat up a swift action, and mythic characters particularly benefit from their swift actions. And ultimately, this build essentially makes the surge and force of will abilities redundant by replacing them with flash of insight, which is cool but does mean you're overlapping on a lot of power you would already normally be getting as a mythic character.

More to the point, however: once you've reached 20/10, you're practically a demigod already. Were I GMing such a game, if a player actually devoted all of those resources to pulling this off at the very end of the adventure, I think I would just applaud their dedication and foresight, congratulate them on their character breaking probability wide open and becoming a full-blown tychokinetic, and carry right on with all the other wonderfully over-the-top things that happen in the final chapters of that AP.

The axiomite god-mind, unfortunately, lacks any substantial description...along with most of the neutral outsiders (we still need a better word to refer to neutral outsiders collectively). I agree -- it deserves more love!

If you want to let Paizo know that we'd like to see more information about the axiomite god-mind or similar entities, may I humbly suggest voicing your support in this thread?

So. Let's talk demigods.

Lords of Chaos and Chronicle of the Righteous gave us fantastic writeups of demon lords and empyreal lords (I, personally, think Chronicle is one of the best Campaign Setting books Paizo has yet released.) The Bestiary 4 and the Wrath of the Righteous AP gave us even more information (and stat blocks!) for demon lords, empyreal lords, and even Great Old Ones. But the list of demigods extends far beyond the ranks of celestials and fiends.

This is a thread to show support for a book that introduces these divine beings -- some of which other books have alluded to, or even mentioned by name -- in more detail. Every outsider race has its deific paragons, each with their own domains, realms, followers, and agendas. As the most powerful mortal movers and shakers in the multiverse, every one of these entities can be a divine patron, mysterious benefactor, or campaign-ending mythic foe.

Demigods that could be featured in such a book include:

• primal inevitables
  
• protean lords
  
• the axiomite god-mind
  
• psychopomp ushers
  
• infernal dukes (yes, Lorthact, I see you there)
  
• kyton demagogues
  
• rakshasa immortals
  
• elemental lords
  
• the Eldest
  
• AND MUCH, MUCH MORE! (No, seriously, there's much more. It's rumored that the ancient Eoxians might have achieved independent apotheosis; the inscrutable race of aeons may be able to manifest powerful, as-yet-unnamed agents of monad; the veiled masters answer to mysterious entities even greater than themselves that lurk under the waves. The possibilities are endless.)
  

I'm surprised that this thread has reached its third page with scarcely a mention of the most important answer to this question. We have a canon example of exactly this kind of society: the Shory Empire and their flying cities! If you want a glimpse of what a world with ubiquitous arcane magic looks like, check out the article "Rise and Fall of the Shory Empire," in AP #83: "The Slave Trenches of Hakotep" -- it's no surprise that the height of Shory society was basically a golden age of invention and prosperity. Grand towers of glass and skymetal with invisible skybridges, electro-thaumatic heating, marid-fueled cisterns of endless elemental water, fey-infused hanging gardens...just the sort of things you might imagine from a magical society that makes the modern world "look like a bunch of ants scratching in the dirt."

You're certainly right to bracket the question of divine magic: the gods are inscrutable, and we don't know what sorts of limitations they might impose upon the use and abuse of their blessings, nor will we ever know. Importantly, the Shory did the same thing themselves, abandoning shamanism and divine magic for the practice of wizardry -- which makes them a perfect case study in exactly the question you have asked. Is there a good in-game reason why arcane magic isn't everywhere?

Outlining a few points in an attempt to answer that question:

• First, the game rules are a necessarily incomplete depiction of what magic can do. How did the Shory accomplish all of their amazing feats, anyway? According to "Rise and Fall of the Shory Empire," the centerpiece of their sky-cities is an invention called the well of abundance -- which, notably, does NOT get stats in the book. We know it's an arcane power source that can, at the very least, do the following: recharge magic items, awaken and power constructs (hailstone golems, to be exact), and imbue every citizen with at-will spell-like abilities of at least 1st level. The well of abundance is almost definitely a major artifact, which should give you an idea of what it might take to attain arcane ubiquity.
  
• Not to mention the Shory's greatest achievement of all: the power of Aeromantic Infandibulum itself, the great rituals that marked out areas of the earth and lifted them wholesale into the air. Basically, rites and rituals -- like artifacts -- can accomplish things far outside of the game rules, pretty much limited only by an author's worldbuilding imagination, and scarcely an Adventure Path goes by without at least one such ritual taking place. (Wrath of the Righteous had at least three.) Most of the major magical developments in the world appear to occur not as a result of "ordinary" 1st- through 9th-level spells, but from such "outside-the-rules" uses of magic (see Nex and Geb).
  
• But the inverse of the first point is also true: there are probably good reasons why an at-will fabricate engine doesn't seem to exist, even though the item crafting rules suggest it should only be 90,000 gp. These rules are guidelines that (like the adventuring economy itself) simply tend to break down mechanically, especially at high levels. But perhaps there are also good in-game reasons why they don't exist. One thing that comes to mind is that such an item in the hands of humans (rather than a demigod in its realm) destabilizes the balance of order and chaos, creation and destruction. Which brings me to my next point...
  
• There are, as previous posters have rightly pointed out, any number of ways for even a technologically advanced society to fail on Golarion. First and foremost, the multiverse is full of powerful outsiders far beyond humanoid imagining; insatiable demons, implacable inevitables, ravenous qlippoths, inscrutable aeons, any of which in sufficient numbers could eradicate a mortal city. (See the fall of Kho, and the Tarrasque. Or, if you prefer, the Worldwound completely wiping Sarkoris off the map.) Generally, it's only the delicate balance of power between worlds and planes, between the armies of good and evil, that allows mortal life to thrive at all.
  
• The possibility for self-destruction is everpresent. See Ulduvai, one of the very sky-cities that actually accomplished arcane ubiquity -- which fell when its masters summoned a g**d*mn shoggoth into the middle of the city. And this is far from abnormal; the individual wizard who wants to entice a djinn or demon to do his bidding has a nontrivial risk of that entity breaking free and wreaking havoc. While such pitfalls are often overlooked in typical gameplay, arcane magic in the world of Pathfinder is actually fraught with risk. There are numerous examples of enchantments unraveling or becoming unstable over time, catastrophic mishaps that result in everything from cursed items to DEMON RIFTS OPENING ON THE MOON (seriously, go look that one up if you don't know about it yet).
  
• And, as Diego Rossi points out above, we don't really know the limitations of arcane magic itself. Is it possible for a magical society to deplete its local "source" of magic? How do magic-dead or unreliable sites like the Mana Wastes come to be? Arcane magic may not be dependent on the caprice of the gods, but it has its own laws and underlying forces that are far from fully understood.
  
• Finally, social forces have incalculably complex effects on technological development of any kind. (More than one Shory city fell as a result of civil war or conflict with other nations, despite their arcane supremacy.) Instigating a magical industrial revolution requires social stability and infrastructure of a kind hardly seen on Golarion. It would take widespread education initiatives, advances in medicine both mundane and magical, a shift away from subsistence farming to economies of scale...the list goes on. "Rise and Fall of the Shory Empire" emphasizes not only the Shory's mastery of air, which kept them out of danger from many of their Rovagug-worshiping enemies, but their social mores: a sustained focus on arcane research, diplomacy, and trade. The success of their society depended on this confluence of customs and social structures -- and when those values frayed and faltered, so did the empire.
  

I converted the enderman into a 0HD player race a while back (I'm currently playing an ender ninja in my group's Wrath of the Righteous campaign!). Hope you find these stats useful!

Enderman (15RP)

New Spell: Dimension Door, Lesser

Description

There may indeed have been conflict among aboleth factions, if not among the veiled masters. Whatever the plans of the shadowy "masters' masters" -- including Earthfall -- it's reasonable to assume that not all aboleths may have known of, or agreed with, those plans. So the existence of "rogue aboleths" that opposed Earthfall isn't surprising, even if there are no "rogue veiled masters"; I think we can safely assume that the veiled masters know more about the "master plan" than their subordinates. We have little information about the "aboleths of godlike power," or the relation between the alghollthu and Great Old Ones; one might suspect that the aboleth lords are Great Old Ones or even Outer Gods themselves, but the fact that Great Old Ones were bound in pre-Azlanti cities complicates matters. This thread hasn't even touched on the idea that there are conflicts and wars among the Outer Gods just as there are among the contemporary gods -- which might explain the bound Great Old Ones and suggest that neothelids, alghollthu, Vault Builders, and even the Dominion of the Black newcomers all worship Outer Gods (perhaps the war between them is religious in nature?) -- but attempting to explore those implications opens up a whole new tentacular can of worms.

...the aboleths really seriously underestimated the payload they called down during Earthfall. Still, even if that's the case, it seems pretty weird that they miscalculated as much as they did. Like you said, if it wasn't for the sacrifice of Acavna (the Azlanti moon goddess), Earthfall would have been even worse. It could well have wiped out the aboleths entirely. For a race of immortal geniuses, you'd think they wouldn't have screwed up quite so massively.

That does seem pretty weird, doesn't it? Consider, though, the possibility that Eox (already known to manipulate celestial objects...see Agmazar the Star Titan) may have had a hand in altering the asteroid's trajectory. It's far from impossible that the plans for Earthfall were known to them. After all, we already know that malebranche dwell on every planet in the solar system. Farafello is the most likely candidate to inhabit Eox; was he in contact with Alichino, Jester Prince of the Cage, whispering in the bone sages' ears in a bid to weaken Golarion? Supporting this theory is the fact that Draghignazzo and Scarmiglione -- presumably the malebranche of the now-destroyed Damiar and Iovo -- are said to sleep among a "completed conquest," insinuating that massive destruction on such a scale as Earthfall might well be part of an infernal plot. And the Eoxians -- possibly the ones responsible for the cataclysm that destroyed the Twins in the first place -- seem like just the sociopathic technomages to call when you want an astral weapon to go horribly awry. (And this doesn't even take into account the possibility that the Eoxians may, as Distant Worlds suggests, have developed godlike beings of their own that exerted influence on events.)

As for the Vault Builders, well, this thread is already riddled with spoilers. But the true nature of the Vault Builders raises further questions. Are xiomorns completely unrelated to elohim, or might they have been ancient enemies -- or allies? The interests of xiomorns and elohim seem to align astonishingly well. What's more, the xiomorns can create Vaults in which to perform all manner of geological experiments, but they can't create life...which the elohim can. In other words, the Vault Builders may not be elohim, but that doesn't rule out the possibility that (as Generic Villain proposes) the elohim, whether or not they ever worked with the xiomorns, created most humanoid life on Golarion.

Elder things and elohim also have a more-than-passing resemblance, even if it turns out to be superficial. We simply don't know much yet about the role of elder things on Golarion, other than their connection to shoggoths. But one does wonder if the elder things were the very first creations of the elohim, crafted in their creators' own image, who went on to build the Nameless Spire independently of the Vault Builders -- and inherited their progenitors' taste for creating new forms of life.

I stand behind my theory regarding the mi-go. Come Valley of the Brain Collectors, we'll see if I am proven right.

P.S.: The reasoning behind the use of diamond dust as expensive spell components deserves its own thread.

Ssalarn, I commend your ingenuity, and a lot of these ideas are both well-designed and flavorful! But unfortunately, it seems to me that this project's goals are at least partly self-defeating, and I wonder if you could offer your thoughts on this.

The primary goal of this supplement appears to be expanding the fighter's narrative power and options out of combat, and simultaneously addressing the weakness of the bravery class feature, by giving the class a range of feat options that extend bravery to other applications, functionally making the fighter more adroit both in and out of combat. The other major goal of the supplement is to do this without invalidating existing core materials -- i.e. without making abilities that are "strictly better" than existing abilities.

The core of your solution is frankly brilliant: in order to buff the fighter without also boosting other classes, create a bunch of feats that amplify an underwhelming, fighter-exclusive ability by tying it to other abilities. This mostly keeps the new feats from creeping into other classes while solving the first goal of shoring up bravery's deficiencies.

My concern, though, is that one of two things will result from this proposed supplement. (Note: I'm here assuming that one of the major premises of your project -- the claim that fighters lack narrative power relative to other classes -- is true. I agree with the claim, but I think it's important to make that underlying assumption explicit.)

1) In order to access these new abilities, the fighter must spend their primary class resource -- combat feats -- on bravery feats, making feat choice a tradeoff between additional combat effectiveness (or more traditional skill feats) and making bravery useful. This, in itself, isn't a bad thing! BUT if this tradeoff doesn't seem to be worthwhile, or if it's on an even footing with the fighter's existing options, the fighter isn't any less "behind the curve" overall in comparison with other classes.

2) The other possible outcome is that if Bravery feats do sufficiently expand the fighter's narrative power to bring them closer to par with other classes, they functionally become "must-pick" feats for any player who wants their fighter to be useful out of combat. Implicitly, this invalidates existing material -- because even without making a "strictly better" version of other feats, if bravery feats are significantly more attractive/viable than the others available to fighters, existing feats become relatively poor options. Moreover, this devalues fighter archetypes that replace bravery, because they get locked out of access to these options without a comparable replacement.

Ultimately, it seems like the only way to make the fighter better in comparison to other classes involves changing the fighter class in some way -- which means (yes, even in this case) either buffing the old class features/options, or introducing new ones which render the old obsolete. I don't think it's possible, by definition, to have it both ways.

Elvrynn the Scintillatrix
Empress Zyphriana, the Prismatic
Kathystine, the Lustre-Winged
Queen Chalcedonna
Azalith of the Thousand Facets
Vexillania, the Shardmistress

Any or all of these could be prefaced with "Her Exquisite Majesty" or "Her Brilliance".

Just throwing this out there: I think it's undesirable for Pathfinder players and GMs to try to match the fictional countries of Golarion to Earth cultures and locations. While many of Golarion's aesthetic or mythological features draw inspiration from real-world cultures, "shortcutting" the process of description by saying "X place on Golarion is Y time/place on Earth" not only does disservice to the nuanced history of the fictional places, it often robs the fantasy setting of its sense of fantastical wonder, and -- perhaps most importantly -- it invites reliance on harmful cultural and ethnic stereotypes by forcibly collapsing cultural complexity into a caricature.

If you're looking for a nation whose naming conventions have a vaguely Gaelic-sounding phonology, the River Kingdoms, Nirmathas, or even Brevoy might accommodate your character. If you want a home for a blarney-talking luck-o'-the-Irish leprechaun-hunter, you won't find that pot o' gold anywhere on Golarion.

According to Pathfinder lore, Golarion and Earth inhabit the same multiverse: the coexistence of gods on Earth and Golarion is just a consequence of deities existing across that multiverse.

As far as the question of creatures that show up in both places, travel between the two planets is possible -- it just requires very powerful magic (or at least the ability to travel for unthinkable distances across the void of space), which is why connections between the two are so rare. (One such connection occurs in Pathfinder #71: Rasputin Must Die! -- information about Baba Yaga comes from this AP.)

It's possible that Earth and Golarion both exist on the Material Plane, albeit in different solar systems, in which case travel between them might be possible with interplanetary teleport -- assuming you knew where you wanted to go, at least. Which is a 9th-level spell in itself, so it's not easy under the best of circumstances. But I don't think it's been conclusively confirmed that this is the case; it's possible that they're not only in different solar systems, but different planes as well...in which case you'd need magic even beyond the spells currently available, magic that's so far only present in artifacts like Baba Yaga's Dancing Hut, or known by Baba Yaga herself.

The solution isn't to "make it as hard as possible" for the sake of artificially inflating the value of the Rumormonger talent. I'm saying that the act of spreading rumors is inherently complex, and should be treated as such.

You're right, there aren't built-in rules for spreading rumors, which is why I described the way I would interpret and handle the situation (as an in-depth series of encounters with lots of roleplaying opportunity, because I think doing this should be interesting and exciting). But I'm not arguing that players should feel like they have to take Rumormonger -- exactly the opposite! They should feel like their skills and preparations make them fully capable of carrying out this complex mission, and in my opinion, the GM should let them do it. You shouldn't have to have Rumormonger at all, but the talent is powerful because it makes the process a breeze.*

Practically speaking, if you're a player in such a campaign, I suggest talking to the GM about it between sessions. Explain why you believe you should be able to do it -- I hope my points above help make a compelling argument in favor of that -- and propose that the GM either modify the check that the Rumormonger talent allows (if they want a simple solution) or play out the attempt in another way (such as the "social encounters" method I describe). If the GM's not amenable to these solutions, talk to them about the alternative approach of spreading the rumor "the hard way" -- making requests of individual NPCs with Diplomacy to spread the word and convince others to do so. (If your rumor is false, the rogue talent Convincing Lie might help with this approach.) If the GM outright refuses to consider any of these options, consider finding a GM with a more nuanced and understanding approach to playing this game of cooperative storytelling.

*Addendum: I think there's a lot of room for overlap and complexity in here too, depending on what you're trying to do. For instance, if you want to get people talking about how the local barkeep has an unsightly mole in an embarrassing location, well, that should be easy for anyone -- might only require a single check to get that ball rolling. If you're trying to start a violent citywide revolution, on the other hand, that should be difficult and involved even if you do have Rumormonger; a canny rogue might be able to convince people that the duke secretly murdered his brother to usurp the throne, but that doesn't mean they're able to mind-control people into putting themselves in danger.

Basically, the rules can't cover everything, and the GM should interpret or innovate when these gaps occur.

"The rules in this book are here to help you breathe life into your characters and the world they explore...Although the Game Master is the final arbiter of the rules, the Pathfinder RPG is a shared experience, and all of the players should contribute their thoughts when the rules are in doubt."
- The Most Important Rule

Signal boosting the people who have interpreted Rumormonger the same way I do -- as a much, much more powerful effect than it first appears.

Your party's all tricked out with social magic and items, and you want to spread rumors in a city? Great! You should absolutely, 100% be able to do so. Personally, I would run that as a complex series of social encounters -- finding local centers of gossip, gaining the trust of key individuals, knowing the right things to say (or the right spells to use), following up on your efforts over time, and covering your tracks with disguises, threats, and lies so that those rumors can't be traced back to you. All of which involve quite a few rolls of the dice. Think of the expression "lighting a fire under someone." Even with dry tinder, it doesn't just need a spark; it requires carefully placed kindling and fanning of the flames.

What exactly does it take for a rumor to spread? (Disclaimer: as a grad student in communication, this is a topic of particular interest to me.) The dissemination of information within and across social groups is an immensely complex process, not easily reducible to either a matter of well-reasoned argument or charismatic mass appeal. Think about the reasons why politicians launch massive advertising campaigns, or nations dump tons of resources into propaganda: changing people's opinions, or getting them to accept things as fact, is difficult. Even with magic hats and charm spells, it should be involved, time-consuming, and risky.

So why should a rogue spend an advanced talent on Rumormonger, then? Because they can make all this happen with a single check. With a discreet word in the right ear, they can effortlessly influence the hearts and minds of an entire, vast city -- now THAT'S a rogue talent!

That said, if your GM doesn't allow your socially savvy party to try to spread rumors, simply because Rumormonger exists? That's a real shame, and in my view, missing the point of the rules.

After reading through The Dragon's Demand, and the monsters contained therein, I have a new hypothesis about the enigmatic entities that comprise the Dominion of the Black...

Your thoughts? Plausible theory, or farfetched conspiracy?

While the description of the elohim states that they create "permanent demiplanes," and their behavior suggests that they seed a new world and abandon it for eons, they don't have permanency in their SLA list. Create demiplane usually only lasts for days. Is it just assumed that elohim-created demiplanes are permanent until dispelled?