amethal's page

I always start at level 1. I enjoy trying to keep a character alive at low levels, and it is much easier to do in Pathfinder than it was when I started with BECMI many, many years ago.

If it was practicable, if my character died I'd replace him with a level 1 character. Unfortunately the nature of Pathfinder means you can't really do that after the party gets to about level 3 or 4.

I might allow a Cleric who had channeled on the previous turn, and then was paralyzed after the fact, to continue channeling while paralyzed; in that instance, the Cleric may be paralyzed in a position where he was 'presenting' his symbol.

Thread necromancy on a 9 year old thread, but that exact situation came up in our last session.

My character boldly presented his holy symbol and channelled energy against a room full of zombies. The zombies' mohrg master was next in the initiative order and promptly paralysed me. The GM accepted that the symbol was still being presented (for what it's worth I had fully intended to channel again the next round) and allowed me to carry on channelling energy as a purely mental action for the rest of the fight.

I'm still not sure what the "correct" answer is.

As to your other questions/complaints:

You are absolutely right. The kineticist makes most people's brains bleed when they are reading for the first (or second, or third) time. The designer was exceedingly clever in the way he set things up. Perhaps too clever for easy comprehension. Everything is written with the minimum amount of words required to make the abilities unambiguous. Writing twice as much could have made it much easier to understand.

That's a good point.

When I played a kineticist I ended up having to write out all my abilities, what the burn cost was, what I could do to reduce the burn cost for each type of ability etc. - basically an idiot's guide. I've been playing 3.x pretty much since it came out, and I've never had to do that before.

However, the character (a criminally-inclined but kind-hearted aether kineticist) was great fun to play. Even with a bomb-throwing alchemist in the party who generally out-damaged him and had spells on top.

I'd also find an encounter toolkit more useful than an encounter codex.

If there was to be an encounter codex, I'd like it to be as scaleable as possible e.g. "to increase to a CR 6 encounter replace the Goblin Dog mounts with Worgs, or add a Goblin sergeant (Warrior 3, see page x) on a Goblin Dog".

I'm not too interested in "encounters by terrain" unless the terrain itself is going to play a part e.g. a chase through a forest, with obstacles to jump etc.

Instead, I'd prefer encounters by "nature" e.g. an encounter with mounted archers, and encounter with creatures using pack tactics, an encounter with flying creatures etc.

Poorly. It would be a bad choice to brew such Sacramental Cognatogen if it doesn't really grant you anything. It takes a long ritual to replace/summon a replacement companion, far longer than the duration of your Sacramental Cognatogen.

Now, how would I handle such a thing at my table? Well, I'd let you have an animal companion (effective Druid level 1, with no special abilities) follow you around and when you imbibe your Sacramental Cognatogen, the domain powers activate and empower your 'companion' creature to full strength for the duration of the effect.

No muss, no fuss.

I believe your animal companion only empowers if you hold your sword aloft and shout out "By the Power of Grayskull".

The last adventure path for 1st edition was Tyrant's Grasp.

The product line pages on this site have a "sort by newest first" option. Assuming that is accurate, the newest/last products were:

Module - Cradle of Night
Campaign Setting - Druma, Profit and Prophecy
Player Companion - Chronicle of Legends

Okay, seriously, I am planning to use the Princes of the Apocalypse sourcebook, which is set in the Realms.

I don't know if you are familiar with the DMs Guild (on Drivethru), but most (all?) or the hard back adventures have fan-made "DMs Guides" available for sale there as PDFs.

They are especially useful for those adventures which are the worst organised, such as Princes of the Apocalypse. I have Sean McGovern's A Guide to the Princes of the Apocalypse, which is a couple of dollars and is well worth having. Other people have probably done similar ones as well.

There is also a bewildering collection of tie-in adventures and the like, of varying quality and usefulness, in addition to the official Adventurers League adventures for the Elemental Evil storyline.

In 1st edition, there wasn't a "search" skill. If you wanted to search the bed you'd say "I search the bed". Depending on the DM, that may or may not have been assumed to include looking under the bed. However, if you said "I look under the bed" then if there was anything under there to find then you'd find it.

In 3rd edition, you'd say "I search the room" and the DM would ask for a search check and let you know if you found anything. Depending on the DM, if you said "I search under the bed" then you might find what was there without rolling - or you might still have to roll anyway.

I'm happy to play it either way (although the former method does put a lot of onus on the DM to describe the room properly - you can't search the fireplace for loose bricks if you don't know there is brickwork or, even worse, that there is a fireplace at all).

However, what I hate is being forced to describe in exact detail what I am doing, and then having to make the skill roll afterwards. Pick one method or the other - don't make me suffer the worst of both worlds!

What followed was nearly 20 minutes of teeth pulling on my part to try and ask the local townsfolk what the "Shamsaran Empire" is.

I find that DMing style to be very strange.

If I'd created the Shamsaran Empire I'd be delighted that you'd given me a opportunity to get information about the Empire into the minds of the players. There must be somebody in town who knows about the Empire's background, and why wouldn't that person be happy to show off their knowledge?

It's the start of the campaign, so the Empire might not be fully formed in the DM's mind yet, but if he can't come up with some cool information (or even misinformation) about it then what is it doing on the map in the first place?

And if he had planned that you would later find yourselves in a Shamsaran town without realising at first, then this is a great chance to foreshadow it.

"The Empire?" The innkeeper looks around nervously, then turns back to you with a troubled expression on his face. "Nobody talks much about them; it is said they have eyes and ears everywhere.

"The Empire is always expanding, but they don't send out armies - or at least, not at first. They are … what's the word I'm looking for? … insidious. They get themselves so tangled up in local politics, trade, religion, the economy, that you wake up one morning and find they've taken you over. The only thing that seems to have changed is the flag flying over the town hall, and yet nothing will ever be the same again …"

Also, whether or not following socothbenoth makes you evil, it is not the place of any government or other force to make you do otherwise.

Real world medieval governments in western Europe used to fine people for not going to church every Sunday. They used the law to enforce what they considered to be moral behaviour. They would be incredulous if you argued that it wasn't their place to do so.

Similarly, Rahadoum is the land without gods. If you don't like it, move somewhere else. If you move to Rahadoum with the intent of breaking the law and also intend to persuade other people to break it as well, expect drastic action from the state. Rahadoum doesn't care what you think of the law, it expects the law to be obeyed. It's not intended to be oppressive - it is for your own good and the good of your neighbours.

Years ago I wrote up a post for how I'd run Second Darkness as a Star Wars adventure, which I'll reproduce below. It contains lots of spoilers for Second Darkness, obviously.

Introduction
The Sith are gone, but not entirely forgotten.

A group of Jedi masters who call themselves the Winter Council dedicate themselves to seeking out users of the dark side of the force and remain vigilant for signs that the Sith may be returning. They seek out Sith lore and Sith technology, to better understand their enemy.

The Winter Council are not popular with the actual Jedi Council, who feel their obsession with the past hinders them in dealing with the present, and that their exploration of Sith lore is dangerous. In fact, one of the Council, researching a legendary Sith doomsday weapon known as the Graviton Device, fell to the Dark Side some decades before, and has not been heard from since. The Winter Council have done their best to keep this quiet, but have vowed to deal with the renegade themselves; their network of agents are on the alert for any signs of the renegade or (even worse) the construction of a Graviton Device.

Shadow in the Sky
The Heroes are hired by an agent of the Winter Council, who suspects retired crimelord Saul Vancaskerkin may have ties to the Dark Side. They are asked to sign on as employees at Saul’s new casino, and keep alert for unspecified “suspicious activities”.

Saul’s home town, a hive of scum and villainy known as Riddleport, is also experiencing strange gravitic anomalies. As a result a strange distortion has appeared in the sky. A group of Republic scientists are looking into it, but so far have not been able to explain the phenomenon.

Saul has his problems with the local criminal element, so working for him is not without risk. At some point, Saul becomes suspicious of the Heroes, and arranges for them to be “neutralised”. The Heroes (hopefully) survive the attempted murder, and confront Saul. After the dust settles, they learn details of the location Saul’s mysterious “backer”. They confront the backer, who pulls out a lightsaber and starts throwing around force powers – the backer is a Dark Jedi – and there are signs that there may be more of them on a nearby asteroid known as Devil’s Elbow.

Then a meteor strikes Devil’s elbow. It appears to have changed course in complete defiance of the laws of physics. The shadow in the sky above Riddleport disappears – but the town suffers as debris rains down upon it.

Children of the Void
Scientific analysis of the fragments of the meteor which struck Riddleport reveal it contains certain rare and valuable mineral deposits. A number of mining expeditions set off for the asteroid – and the Heroes are asked by their mysterious patron to follow suit; acting under the guise of prospectors they are to see if there are any signed of Dark Jedi activity on Devil’s Elbow.

They have to deal with rival prospectors, but most deadly of all a strange race of aliens came down with the meteor and has promptly started killing everybody. There is also a hidden group of Dark Jedi observing the results of their experiment, and the ruins of some sort of technological device.

The Armageddon Echo
The Winter Council ties in the activity in Riddleport with the activity of a group of space pirates known as the Azrinaes. These have gathered around the forest world of Mierani – a world that was once devastated by the original Graviton Device.

The Council mobilises the various armed forces at its disposal – whilst still keeping its own involvement secret – and launches an attack on Mierani. The attacking force includes the Heroes, who have proved to be extremely competent agents.

The Heroes find a massive virtual reality simulation of the last days of Mierani – created by the Sith using technology no longer available – and enter it in search for clues. They learn that the Azrinaes hail from a secret planetary base called Zirnakaynin, where they are just one of a number of rival pirate clans.

Endless Night
The Heroes are asked to disguise themselves as Azrinae pirates, and infiltrate Zirnakaynin. They find out that the clan is now led by a powerful Dark Side user called Allevrah – but that she and her key lieutenants have recently left for Coruscant. The Heroes escape from Zirnakaynin, and are asked to present themselves in person to the Winter Council on Coruscant.

A Memory of Darkness
The Heroes are intercepted in Coruscant by agents of the Jedi Council, and thrown in prison together with the Winter Council agent they were supposed to meet. The Jedi Council is seeking to move against the Winter Council, but doesn’t know who they are or where they are based. As a result, they have decide to use the Heroes in an attempt to flush out the Winter Council, and arrange for them to “escape” with their contact.
The Winter Council meet in secret at a hideout in the dark and dangerous lower levels of Coruscant. Their base is constantly besieged by the monstrous creatures of the lower levels, but the Council are confident their defences will hold and the besiegers ensure they never have any unwanted visitors.

The Heroes manage to enter the Winter Council compound, and confront the members. A violent argument ensures, one of the members turns to the Dark Side, and a fight breaks out.

Descent into Midnight
The Heroes chase around looking for the various components of the Graviton Device. It is powered by five linked Sith artefacts – none of which are on Coruscant! Allevrah is able to use the power of the Dark Side to draw energy from these 5 artefacts from their locations on other worlds. When she has enough energy, she will use the Device to destroy Coruscant.

amethal wrote:

Gorbacz wrote:

Too many things in one stat while Charisma sits there uselessly.

Well, I did once play a Paladin 2 / Oracle (Lore) 1 / Ninja 2 that got quite a lot of mileage out of his Charisma score.

Of course you did, because you made a specific build that ran off Charisma.

Back in the good old days, none of the stats did anything much, and you had to play with the stats you rolled. The game has changed a lot since then, but the ability scores haven't.

Nobody seems to be suggesting bringing back henchman limits tied to charisma, or having a minimum charisma requirement before you can play a paladin or (I seem to remember) a druid.

Let's just get rid of Charisma altogether.

And when he discovered that the big monster at the bottom of the temple was, in fact, not evil but good--a divine guardian that had been tortured to madness by Dagon's followers, in fact--even though it was trying to kill him and had just done him some pretty serious damage, all he wanted to do was pray to his deity to try to heal it. And even though I know there are specific methods/procedures outlined in the Cleric books for this type of thing and he technically did not have them, he does not know that. So I made a GM call that I probably would not have made with a party of all grown-ups. I will steadfastly maintain that, for a six-year-old, it was the right thing to do. But the occasionally-lawful part of my mostly NG nature still whispers in my brain that it's Wrong to deviate from the Handbook.

For what it's worth, I think that was a great way to resolve the situation and if the book stops you from doing something awesome then the book is wrong!

My gaming group are a bunch of cynical adults who would never approach the situation like that - but if they did, I'd allow it. (Albeit probably with some sort of spurious dice roll to make them think they'd "earned" it.)

Razimir is a bog standard 19th level Wizard. Everything else is just a tissue of lies. He has never granted divine powers of any sort.

If he lived in the Forgotten Realms he'd be running a tavern.

He has the time and money to go online and back 511 projects, but not to back his own creation. Unreal.

511 projects!

I've backed 103, which is a crazy amount, but nothing compared to Gary.

I should have bought that when it was new. Now it's far out of my price range on eBay.

The two Gazetteers are available in PDF on Drivethru.

They aren't available as print on demand, but additional products do get added to POD from time to time.

I'm forced to go to the d20pfsrd website to search for things ...

The various websites that compile the rules are a fantastic resource, provided to the community for free.

It's a shame you feel "forced" to rely on so much hard work that has been done by other people.

I'm happy to pick up this product regardless of what edition it is for. I hope it does well so we can see more like it in the future.

Personally I'd advice against Reign of Winter. The story often doesn't make sense or doesn't get properly communicated. This leads to trouble keeping the players motivated and the the AP decided to solve this with the most blatant form of railroading: during the first book the entire party receives a geas that lasts for the entire AP.

That was easy enough to solve when I ran it.

Instead of the geas, each character was given a +2 inherent bonus to the ability score of their choice for as long as they kept (more or less) focused on their quest. The carrot worked much better than the stick would have, at least with my group.

That's what I like about the older APs. There is lots of warning available about potential pitfalls so I can give it some thought before running them.

I've just started running Legacy of Fire and there doesn't seem to be much I will need to change. However, getting trapped two adventures running might be a bit much for my group, and for me personally not being able to explore the City of Brass seems like a massive wasted opportunity, but hopefully I'll think of something.

The main change I'd like to see is the Core rulebook completely re-written and re-designed to improve clarity and ease of use.

That would probably increase the page count, especially if they bring in traits, archetypes and favoured-class-bonus-by-race, so they might have to split into a player's book and a GMs book (hardly a novel idea ...)

It's never going to happen, and if it did there's a good chance it would bankrupt the company. There is nothing stopping anyone else doing it - presumably it is all open game content apart from the names of the deities - but it would be a massive undertaking.

You can actually multiclass into spellcasting classes without being absolute s#~% and unviable.

And yet I have somehow managed to do that in the current version of Pathfinder without having an "unviable" character. Someone else in our group has also managed that amazing feat.

We have nearly finished Rise of the Runelords and both characters are currently 18th level (having started at first). We could certainly have made more effective characters, if that was what we wanted to do, but they are perfectly viable.

That's an interesting list. I already had a couple of those, and I've just picked up a couple more based on your description.

I note there were no adventures in your top ten. Were any considered for selection?

Do any of you bring the D&D "Blood War" between the Demons of the Abyss and the Devils of Hell into your Pathfinder campaigns as a way to explain why the fiends of the lower planes haven't overrun the upper planes yet? If so, did you expand this war to include the other races of fiends in any way?

No. As far as I am concerned, the Blood War is a solution to a non-existent problem.

I also don't worry about why the world is not overrun with the exponential growth of spawn-creating undead, how the myriad of large carnivores find enough to eat, and why resurrection magic seems to have zero impact on world history and culture.

Alignment, Material components, all things that are easier to simply houserule away than to houserule into existence.

Alignment is not very easy to houserule away in 3.x.

(It is easier to remove than it would be to design from scratch, but that is true of pretty much every rule in the game.)

If I had one wish for Pathfinder 2, it would be to make alignment less important as a game mechanic. I expect to be disappointed!

The biggest problem that I see resulting from alignment is that it's taken as a shorthand excuse for lazy thinking and horrible behaviour. "Orcs are evil, so I'm going to go kill them all." Alignment makes players think that the world is black and white. Experienced players like us all know that's not how alignment is supposed to work, but the simplicity of it means it's often abused like that.

That's exactly how alignment is supposed to work.

Traditional published D&D / Pathfinder adventures involve horrible people doing horrible things - invading homes, slaughtering everybody they meet and stealing everything that isn't nailed down.

But it is okay because the victims were (probably) evil.

Also, if you don't kill them and take their stuff you won't find the convenient piece of paper that leads you to the next bunch of people you need to kill.

One thing I think replacing alignment would do is making GMing Adventure Paths harder. Having that quick alignment reference beside the NPC's stats make role-playing them so much easier. The easiest example was one adventure I played where most of the town was part of an evil cult, and were LE- and then there were a few who weren't, who were LN. Having that distinction allowed me to play up who was outwardly hostile to the strangers in town and those who weren't.

I'm not sure there is anything in the alignment rules that states LE people are any more (or less) outwardly hostile to strangers than LN people are.

In your example, the same result could be obtained by marking NPCs as "cultist" or "non-cultist", which seems to me to be pretty important information in any case.

I'd like to see Alignment stay, if only as a guide for GMs playing NPCs in order to get a fast idea of their morals on the fly.

This I do agree with. I hate alignment with a passion, but quite often "NE" in the stat block tells me a lot more about an NPC than a list of vague (and possibly contradictory) character traits would.

This is something of a setting-specific question.

In most settings, the gods either can't or won't get involved in dealing with "minor" blasphemers. Some gods might not even view it as blasphemy e.g. pretending to be a cleric of the god of deception is arguably a form of worship.

It seems to me that railroads and sandboxes are terms that mean different things to different people.

To me, a railroad is a situation where ultimately my character’s choices don’t matter. Some NPCs can’t be killed, the adventure will proceed as scripted out in advance by the GM, the PCs successes and failures in individual encounters has been predetermined, and point A will lead to point B to point C with no detours or shortcuts. I can’t imagine anyone enjoying that kind of adventure.

Just because an adventure is linear doesn’t make it a railroad. If the party choose to travel through a mountain pass, then they can expect to face encounters in a set order – but they can still opt to turn back, or climb the mountains instead. Just because the adventure assumes they will fight the orcs of the bloody moon, and then fight the nightstalker ogres, it doesn’t mean that the party can’t sneak past the orcs, or even convince the orcs to fight the ogres.

And however linear the adventure, at least things are happening. In a bad sandbox campaign, and perhaps even in a decent sandbox campaign with an unsuitable group of players, hours of game time can be wasted trying to find the adventure in the first place.

My players complain if they don’t know what they are “supposed” to be doing. Given a choice of 3 adventures hooks, they will ask me to decide for them which one to follow up. They honestly have no opinion as to whether they’d prefer to fight the harpies of the sundered crag, search for the tomb of the forest king, or investigate why the caravan from Deepwater is two weeks overdue. And from their point of view, since the GM knows much more about the three adventures than they do, the GM should pick the best one and run it.

I enjoy first level. I'd feel like I was missing out if I had to start at a higher level.

All the levels have their own challenges. I find the challenge of keeping a first level character alive much more fun than the challenge of calculating the attack bonus of the 15th level character I'm currently playing.

(BAB plus strength plus one or more of the following - rage, heroism, greater magic weapon spell, power attack, bless, prayer, haste, blessings of fervour and a few others I'm probably forgetting, plus remembering which ones stack, and maybe the bad guys will stick on a few penalties just when I've got the current value straight.)

Everyone holds doors open for everyone in my town. We don't go to enormous trouble over it, but if you're passing through a door, you hold it. I'm glad this is slowly ceasing to be a gender issue and just be a sort of nice courtesy to everyone.

Holding doors open for people is normal behaviour where I live. It has nothing to do with gender, and happily I've never been complimented for being a gentleman / criticised for being a sexist pig over it.

This is a rule couched in GM decision and "typically" and people are taking it as a hard and fast rule that has no ability to adjust and adapt. Almost like people are ignoring all the weasel words designed to do allow it to adjust so they can strawman how bad this ruling is.

The weasel words just make it worse.

"Three castings of Protection from Good turns you evil" is, in my opinion, a terrible rule.

"Three castings of Protection from Good turns you evil, except your GM might decide that it doesn't, or that it only takes two castings, or anything else that takes their fancy" is, in my opinion, an even worse rule.

And I am perfectly aware that as a GM I am at liberty to ignore everything Paizo have ever printed in respect to alignment. In fact, I have been doing so for years.

Some people might not be so willing to do so - maybe they are new to the game, or they have players who insist on playing "by the book", so this might be creating problems for them where none existed before. (EDIT - or they might like the rule just fine; good for them, if that's the case!]

And Pathfinder Society players and GMs are presumably stuck with this unless or until Paizo creates an exception for organised play.

Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:

With Jon Brazer's output,some of it is personal. I'm not really big on having players play half-faerie dragons,for instance.

*chuckles* This really is our defining creation, isn't it?

Half faerie dragons, you say? You've gained one sale from this thread, at least.

Dumping stats just so that a character can put more points into another stat is very strongly discouraged in my games, if not outright banned. It falls within min-maxing which I consider cheating, sort of. So, yes, I will probably go out of my way to have that character's dump stat bite him in the ass more than it should.

Two years later, so this should probably be seen more as a general point than a reply to Hama.

If you want to introduce a rule, then introduce a rule!

I don't really think too much about the social contract in my home games, until somebody interprets it differently to how I do e.g. player turns up to a 20 point buy game with two 7s on his character sheet; nobody had ever dumped two stats before (dumping one is quite common) and I was thinking "hey, we agreed not to do that", and then I remembered that we'd agreed no such thing - it had just been an assumption on my part.

If I'm a player in your game, I'll roll my character, assign points, allocate ability scores etc. in any way you want. (Disclaimer - you might have to explain the benefits to me if your system is especially bizarre.) But you need to tell me in advance. Don't have the universe take revenge on the character later "because the player couldn't take a hint".

I tend to play high charisma characters, so this particular bit doesn't particularly apply to me, but if the townsfolk who are treating me like dirt are also the ones who want me to sort out a particular bandit problem they are having, then they are going to be out of luck.

Also, if the low level commoners in the pub are disrespecting my 10th level adventurer (who, incidentally, is minding his own business - I don't role-play bullies), then either they are being mind controlled or they are bizarrely blasé about getting some bones broken (which as a player would destroy my sense of verisimilitude).

b.) A player who jury-rigged the system to get a +36 to profession sailor by level 8.

That's impressive.

Off the top of my head, Samsaran Alchemist 8; Profession (sailor) +30 normally, +34 when buffed.

(+8 ranks, +3 class skill, +2 racial, +5 feats, +1 trait, +6 wisdom, +5 skill boosting item; would normally get a further +2 cognatagen and potentially +2 owl's wisdom)

Depending on your point of view, a Samsaran is either way too cheesy or a fantastic role-playing opportunity to channel the spirit of a legendary pirate captain from the past.

And some people only allow skill boosting items if they appeared in Lord of the Rings.

Other than that, I wouldn't have thought there was anything too untoward about the character above.

However, it does go to show the importance of ensuring everyone in the group has the same expectations about how to play the game.

If you said to me "It's going to be a nautical game about pirates, with lots of sailing around and ship-to-ship combat, please try to have a character who works in that environment" then I'd probably jump at the chance to have a Profession (Sailor) focused character, because how often do you get to play one of those?

But how much is too much?

My favorite example was a post of a barbarian build. The PC was a Shoanti barbarian from the Cinderlands. The player chose the "rich parents" trait, and used that to purchase a masterwork nodachi and breastplate.

I remember that thread. There was a post on it that made me so angry I had to delete my draft reply and walk away from the computer, and I ended up posting nothing.

I'm pretty sure that post was yours. I'm not going back to check (my therapy bills are high enough as it is).

So I'll just say that not everyone agrees with your approach to the game. However I'm sure we all accept that you should play the game whatever way best suits you and your players, but hopefully you can accept that your way is not for everyone.

Personally, I'd take a masterwork nodachi with a cool backstory that everyone remembers for years afterwards, over generic masterwork greatsword #2362, any day of the week.

Also, if I ran an adventure which included an NPC Shoanti barbarian with an unusual weapon I wouldn't be very pleased if one of my players criticised me for it.

If you're playing in a home game and complaining, don't use the update.

Thanks, but that is kind of missing the point of this thread (as set out in the thread title).

It breaks down into a couple of categories as far as I know: Spells that deal directly with alignment. Spells that deal directly with aligned outsiders or draw power from the same. Undead.

It seems to me that there is also a fourth category, spells that provide profane bonuses.

Except the list isn't arbitrary, is it?

What's the difference between Death Knell and Vampiric Touch?

What's the difference between Vampiric Touch and Aura of Cannibalism?

Why isn't the Abyssal vermin spell Evil?

Into which of your categories does Excruciating Deformation fall? What about Fleshworm Infestation?

Would you expect a spell that allows you to "harness the power of unlife to grant yourself a limited ability to avoid death" to fall into your "Undead" category and so be Evil? How about a spell where "Necrotic energy permeates the target, blocking healing abilities"?

Why is enforced (kind-of) cannibalism Evil (Ghoul Hunger) but forcing people to self-harm isn't? (Terrible Remorse)

Do you think the Necromantic Burden spell should have been Evil? I genuinely can't make up my mind on that one.

In my campaigns, infernal healing works by stealing health from otherwise healthy people and transferring it to the recipient. So every time you cast it, a child falls out of a tree and breaks an arm or a kindly grandmother gets cancer or some other misfortune befalls an innocent. Thus every time it's cast the overall misery and pain in the world increases just a little bit.

And yes, that means when someone casts protection from evil that some orphanage somewhere finds a valuable old coin tucked away in the corner of the attic while cleaning or other good fortune. Bringing good energy into the world makes things slightly better for everyone.

This makes me want to come up with something like the following :-

Blessing of the Drunken God
Conjuration (Creation) (Good, Chaotic)
Cleric 1
V,S,M,DF

When you cast this spell, a gold piece bearing the image of Cayden Cailean appears in a random location, just in time for it to be found by a person who is badly in need of some rest and relaxation but lacks the necessary funds.

Material component - a drop of blood freely given by an outsider with the chaotic and good subtypes. (Note that "freely given" in this case is interpreted in terms of the spirit of the transaction, rather than any concern for contract law or the like.)

And to be absolutely clear, I am not advocating relative morality in the game, I am advocating non-arbitrary justification for the objective morality system the game does have.

Seconded.

"What is evil? It is a broad and hard to define topic, with many pitfalls to trap even the wisest. However, as it can be objectively observed through the use of divination magic, sages have been able to determine that it tends to involve creating unnecessary suffering or wanton destruction, or alternatively casting one of an open-ended list of arbitrary and sometimes unrelated spells, for no reason that we can determine."

Except in this case, it's even weaker, because everyone involved understands that the spell [i]is evil, but a few people are arguing that because they don't understand the why of it, the spell should not be evil. Try telling the judge that you understand your act to be a crime, but because you don't understand why it's a crime, it's not really a crime (for you).

If I ever find myself before an Indonesian court charged with atheism, I will most certainly tell them that I don't consider atheism to be a crime. Even though it won't avail me in the slightest.

However, we are discussing the rules of a game, not real life crime and punishment. Not liking the rule in a game is a perfectly valid reason for changing it. (You should probably be cautious about changing rules if you don't understand why they are what they are, but I don't fall into that category in this case and I'm not sure anyone else here does either.)

amethal wrote:

thejeff wrote:

[ A good roleplayer could have a ball with this, either with playing the struggle and descent into evil or with repentance, atonement and redemption - cleansing the corruption from their soul.

Alternatively, a good role-player could play his character how the heck he wanted to, and not even notice when the GM amended the contents of the alignment box on his character sheet.

GM: The devil casts unholy blight on the party.
Player: Remind me again what alignment you decided I am?

Would that "good roleplayer" also ignore direct magical changes to his alignment, like a cursed Helm of Opposite Alignment? Just go on playing his character how the heck he wanted to?

I've never seen a Helm of Opposite Alignment inflicted on a player character. Not this this century, anyway.

I guess it depends on the person. I'd find it fun in the short term. Forcing someone to play a chaotic evil character (say) on a regular basis? Not cool.

[ A good roleplayer could have a ball with this, either with playing the struggle and descent into evil or with repentance, atonement and redemption - cleansing the corruption from their soul.

Alternatively, a good role-player could play his character how the heck he wanted to, and not even notice when the GM amended the contents of the alignment box on his character sheet.

GM: The devil casts unholy blight on the party.
Player: Remind me again what alignment you decided I am?

I'd bet you could find players on these boards who'd find it fun... I'd bet you could (find) some who'd rather start over at level 1 and try to survive.

I'm one of those who would rather start over at level 1. For me, D&D / Pathfinder is about the journey from level 1, not the destination.

However, depending on the level of the other characters, chances are I wouldn't survive (and it gets harder and harder with each failure), and it wouldn't be fair on the other players to have to "carry" my character. So it is not a practical solution.

However, I don't understand the "we need to make death meaningful" problem. I am generally invested in my character's story, his relationship with the other characters and the NPCs he has met over his career. Death is always meaningful.

If you offered me the chance to have my character commit suicide, and come back as a higher level character, I wouldn't take it.

wait it isnt free? like the new ones are?

That's an odd way of spelling "Thank you for the link, Kalindlara."

Seriously if all were going to get is 80-90% rehash with new art and organization and 10-20% if that of new material. I simply can't see the reason for purchasing it again.

My first printing CRB is starting to fall apart. I am going to buy a new book before too long whatever happens. It would be nice to be able to buy a more streamlined and easier to use version.

And sometimes they do. When was the last time you asked for a facial tissue, instead of asking for a Kleenex? Or a cotton swab instead of a Q-tip?

I've never asked for a Kleenex, and I've never even seen a Q-tip.

Paizo's "no errata 'til the reprint" reprint rule is still one their few policies that I despise... I might be misinformed but it sounds like "We don't care if my customers got a faulty product, if it doesn't sell enough, we are not fixing it.".

You do appreciate that you are not entitled to any errata at all, don't you?

Paizo's errata policy is perfectly clear and hasn't changed from when you bought the book (if you bought it).

At the end of the day, Paizo are running a business, and have to do whatever they think will work best for them. Presumably that are not able at this point to basically throw away the remaining stocks of the first printing of the ACG.

Also, given how many RPG products I own that have never been errata'd, and never will be, it seems unfair to complain that Paizo's errata is too slow.

However, the ACG is not currently in a form which I am willing to pay money for. I am also not going to buy the Occult book (which I am quite interested in and would otherwise have bought "sight unseen") until I can be happy it meets Paizo's pre-ACG standards.

I am most likely in the minority (I usually am!) but if not then Paizo potentially have a bigger issue here than just making sure they don't lose sales of the ACG.