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I know that not a lot of people have the book yet, but I thought I should put this out here so that people can be thinking about it. The sin eater archetype for inquisitor allows you to eat the sins of an enemy you've slain to heal yourself. This is fine (though the wording is a little weird, since you use the ability as a free action, but it takes a minute to finish...), but the 8th level ability lets you eat the sins of a corpse that would rise as an undead to prevent that from happening. My question is this: What situation would this actually be useful in? How many times are you going to kill an enemy that would have risen as an undead after death such that you need to spend a minute "making sure"? Admittedly, it can happen, especially in a horror-oriented game, but the wording of the ability makes it seem like the point of this ability is to save someone's soul after they've been killed by a spawning-type undead (it even references shadows and vampires). But the ability can only be used on someone the inquisitor killed, not someone killed by a monster. So is this a mistake of some kind? Should the ability be usable on anyone who dies in the inquisitor's presence? Or is the entire 8th level ability basically useless?
Got my subscriber pdf tonight, and I'm up for answering questions! Let me just say that alchemists got simultaneously sexier and far grosser. Vestigial limbs, anyone? Conjoined twin? Freaking tumor familiar? Blech! Hit me with your questions! Or alternately, if you've got your copy too, post about stuff you like from it!
Guys, I'm the author of Ronin, a d20-compatible sourcebook for roleplaying in medieval Japan that's been fairly well received. There's a Pathfinder edition in the works for later this year too. Because of the earthquake in Japan, my publisher has decided to offer the original release of Ronin at a discount, with all proceeds going to Japanese disaster relief efforts. Included in the package are the original release of Ronin and the raw playtest documents for the upcoming Pathfinder release. Anyone who's interested in the book, or in helping out Japan in this serious time, should stop by RPGNow and take a look. Please help out if you can! -Jeremy Puckett
Well, my players captured Erylium alive instead of killing her, and they decided not to tell anyone in town about her. I think they felt sad for her being locked up in the catacombs for thousands of years until she basically developed a serious case of agoraphobia and was willing to help any jerk who came along and offered to hang out with her. I haven't managed to impress on them that she's basically the demon equivalent of an imp, and they basically just see her as a sort-of-demonic Tinkerbell with bad PTSD. Only the Lawful Good monk and the true Neutral druid wanted her destroyed, and they both backed off pretty fast; the monk when he saw that the rest of the party was buying her "Please don't hurt me! I'm just misguided!" stuff, and the druid because he wasn't really that invested in it to begin with. So now the party has a quasit locked in a cold iron cage, with a *really* good lock, and under occasional surveillance, with the threat to take away her reading material if she acts up or to drag her kicking and screaming to the surface if she tries to escape. The party rogue just learned magic from her (since she was a familiar back in Alaznist's time, I figured it was reasonable that she could teach the groundwork for wizardry) and the rest of the party is starting to lower their guard a little bit. They know she's terrified of the surface, so they're pretty confident that she won't try to escape--and where would she even go if they did? The party consists of: a LG human monk (drunken master), a N dwarf druid (cave druid), a CN human rogue (sniper), a CG half-orc barbarian (drunken brute), a CG elf cleric (of Calistria), and a NG halfling summoner (replacing a NG halfling oracle of waves). The oracle is leaving the party, and the player has discussed her plan with me to basically spend all her spare time with the quasit, trying to convert her away from her evil ways. The monk is against it, but he's willing to let her try. The elven priestess was sort of against letting her live in the first place, but she thinks that turning an evil creature good is better revenge than death, so she's all for it. Generally speaking, I'm a GM who believes in saying "yes" to his players whenever possible and letting the "rule of cool" win out over the rules. Still, the idea of converting a quasit from evil seems... well, maybe I'm old-fashioned, but the whole thing seems weird. To be fair: Erylium's writeup does emphasize that she's basically crazy and lonely after being stuck in the Catacombs of Wrath for so long. The party spared her life, didn't harm her, didn't threaten her, and is actively trying to be nice to her (even if they won't let her leave). I can entirely see a truly evil being deciding that they're just trying to soften her up, or that their kindness is just a sign of their weakness, but that's kind of unsatisfying--to the player who asked me about it, and to the group as a whole. Overall, they've been *really* good about capturing their enemies alive and bringing them before the law, and even about showing lenience whenever possible. It almost feels like if I have Erylium just use them and turn bad again as soon as she's free that I'm punishing them for that attitude, when it's exactly the sort of mentality I want to encourage. I don't want a game filled with loot-grubbing land pirates; I want *heroes*, people who actually think about the morality of killing their enemies and can show mercy, even to people who don't necessarily "deserve" it. So really, I guess I'm asking: Should it be possible to redeem a quasit? And what happens if it is? Opinions are welcome from both sides of the argument, as is anything I'm missing. More than anything else, I think it's an interesting philosophical question, and one that is interesting to think about as a GM. Thanks,
Engineer Blueprints 1st-Level Engineer Blueprints: break*, burning hands, color spray, comprehend languages, detect secret doors, detect undead, endure elements, enlarge person, expeditious retreat, flare burst*, identify, jump, keen senses, mage hand, negate aroma*, read magic, reduce person, shield, shocking grasp, true strike. 2nd-Level Engineer Blueprints: acid arrow, bear’s endurance, blur, bull’s strength, cat’s grace, darkvision, detect thoughts, elemental touch*, fox’s cunning, invisibility, levitate, perceive cues*, protection from arrows, resist energy, scorching ray, see invisibility, shatter, spider climb. 3rd-Level Engineer Blueprints: arcane sight, bloodhound*, dispel magic, displacement, elemental aura*, fly, fireball, heroism, hold person, lightning bolt, nondetection, pain strike*, protection from energy, ray of exhaustion, stinking cloud, tongues, water breathing. 4th-Level Engineer Blueprints: air walk, ball lightning*, confusion, dimension door, discern lies, enervation, fear, fire shield, freedom of movement, globe of invulnerability (lesser), invisibility (greater), locate creature, neutralize poison, shout. 5th-Level Engineer Blueprints: baleful polymorph, cloudkill, cone of cold, dream, elude time*, fabricate, hold monster, nightmare, overland flight, pain strike (mass)*, sending, spell resistance, telekinesis, telepathic bond, waves of fatigue. 6th-Level Engineer Blueprints: analyze dweomer, antimagic field, chain lightning, disintegrate, dispel magic (greater), eyebite, flesh to stone, freezing sphere, globe of invulnerability, repulsion, shadow walk, transformation, true seeing. New Engineer Discoveries Caustic blast: When the engineer makes an attack with his death ray, he can choose to have it inflict acid damage, but the death ray’s range increment is halved. Creatures struck by a caustic blast take an additional 1d6 points of acid damage 1 round later. Concussive blast: When the engineer makes an attack with his death ray, he can choose to have it inflict sonic damage. A concussive blast deals only 1d4 points of damage + engineer’s Int modifier, plus 1d4 points of bonus damage per odd-numbered level. Creatures struck by a concussive blast are deafened for 1 minute unless they succeed at a Fortitude save. Delicate death ray: The engineer’s death ray is particularly compact. It is a one-handed weapon rather than a two-handed weapon. Disintegration beam: When the engineer fires his death ray, he can spend 2 of its daily uses to produce a disintegration beam, inflicting untyped damage. Any creature brought below 0 hit points by the beam is reduced to fine dust, as per the disintegrate spell. Additionally, the engineer can use the beam to disintegrate inanimate matter as per the disintegrate spell. The engineer must be at least 10th level before selecting this discovery. Dispelling beam: When the engineer fires his death ray, he can choose to have it dispel magic effects. A creature hit by a dispelling beam is subject to a targeted dispel magic, using the engineer’s class level as the caster level. This cannot be used to target a specific spell effect. If a spell is successfully dispelled, the target suffers damage equal to the caster level + the engineer’s Intelligence bonus. The engineer must be at least 6th level before selecting this discovery. Force beam: When the engineer fires his death ray, he can choose to have it inflict force damage. Force beams inflict 1d4 + engineer’s Int modifier points of force damage, plus 1d4 points of force damage for every odd-numbered level. A creature that is struck by a force beam is knocked prone unless it succeeds on a Reflex save. The engineer can fine-tune this output as well, sacrificing 1d4 points of bonus damage to instead push the creature back 5 feet on a failed save. The engineer must make this choice before firing the death ray, and if the creature cannot be pushed back the whole distance, it simply falls prone in the last square into which it moved with no additional effect; this movement does no provoke attacks of opportunity. An engineer must be at least 8th level before selecting this discovery. Frost beam: When the engineer fires his death ray, he can choose to have it inflict cold damage. A creature struck by a frost beam is staggered on its next turn unless it succeeds on a Fortitude save.
Inferno beam: When the engineer fires his death ray, he can choose to have it inflict fire damage. A creature struck by an inferno beam is sickened for 1d4 rounds. Mind control beam: Some engineers prefer to handle things in a more subtle way than usual. When the engineer fires his death ray, he can choose to inflict no damage to instead fire an invisible beam of energy that scrambles the target’s mind, leaving them vulnerable to outside influence. Using the mind control beam is a full-round action, since the controls must be carefully calibrated. On a successful attack, the target is entitled to a Will save to avoid the effect. If the target fails the save, it is subject to the suggestion spell, except that the target does not need to know the engineer’s language; the command is input directly into his mind. The engineer uses his class level as the caster level for this effect. An engineer must be at least 8th level to select this discovery. If the engineer is at least 14th level, the target can instead be subjected to a dominate person spell. Multi-tasker: When the engineer creates a device, he can use two blueprints for a single device. When the device is used, the effects of both blueprints occur. This device has a level two levels higher than the highest-level blueprint used for the device. An engineer must be at least 8th level before selecting this discovery. Overcharge: A mad enough engineer finds ways to overcome the raw limitations on his death ray’s output. By spending a full round charging his death ray, the engineer can expends 2 of the death ray’s daily uses on any shot made the following round to increase the bonus damage from 1d6 per odd-numbered class level to 1d8 per odd-numbered class level, and double the engineer’s Intelligence bonus on damage. If the overcharge is not used during the following round, a daily use of the death ray is expended with no effect. Quick rays: An engineer with this discovery can toggle the energy output on his death ray fast enough to produce multiple rays in a single round. The engineer can fire additional rays as a full-round action if his base attack bonus is high enough to grant him additional attacks. This functions just like a full-attack with a ranged weapon, and cannot be combined with any other discovery that turns the death ray into a full-round action to use. An engineer must be at least 8th level before selecting this discovery. Shock blast: When the engineer fires his death ray, he can choose to have it inflict electricity damage, and gain a +2 bonus to hit creatures wearing metal armor or composed primarily of metal (such as an iron golem). A creature struck by a shock beam is dazzled for 1d4 rounds. Stable device: When an engineer builds a device, he can infuse it with an extra bit of his own magical power. The device created now persists even after the engineer sets it down. As long as the device exists, it continues to occupy one of the engineer’s daily device slots. A stable device may be used by a non-engineer, but the device acts as a spell-trigger item, meaning that the character must have the appropriate spell on his list or make a successful Use Magic Device check. Strafing beam: When the engineer fires his death ray, he can expend 2 of its daily uses to change the ray to a 30-foot line, or 3 daily uses to create a 60-foot line. The ray no longer has a range increment and does not require a touch attack, but any creature in the line can attempt a Reflex save for reduced damage. On a successful save, any affected creature suffers the ray’s minimum normal damage and none of its additional effects. (So, a death ray that dealt 1d8+5d6+5 damage normally would inflict 11 points of damage.) This damage is negated as usual for a creature with evasion; a creature with improved evasion takes the minimum damage on a failed save. The engineer must be at least 8th level to select this discovery. Widen beam: When the engineer fires his death ray, he can expend 2 of its daily uses to widen the beam, potentially catching multiple creatures in the area. The targeted creature now receives a Reflex save to become a splash target instead of a primary target. All other creatures within 5 feet of the original target are now splash targets. Any creature hit as a splash target suffers none of the beam’s primary effects (including any additional effects, such as the extra damage from a caustic blast), but suffer damage equal to the minimum damage of the ray. So, a death ray that dealt 1d8+5d6+5 damage normally would inflict 11 points of damage (of the same energy type) to all creatures within 5 feet of the main target. The engineer must be at least 4th level to select this discovery. Let me know what you think! Coming soon: the Mad Tinker prestige class! Jeremy Puckett
So, last night I decided to devote a session of my ongoing Ravenloft game to a brief playtest of the inquisitor and oracle. An old friend was up in town and he wanted to sit on the session, so rather than make him just sit around while everyone else played, I wrote up an inquisitor for him to play. The party is around 10th level (and I wanted to see how inquisitor looked after the 10th-level upgrades anyway), so he was written up as Inquisitor 10. The BBEG of the evening was Grandmother Thundertusk, a wereboar Oracle of Stone (female human dire wereboar Oracle 8, total CR 11), and her minions were all cursed wereboar warriors and commoners (average CR 3, generally showing up in groups of 4 to 6). The inquisitor's build was a fairly average ranged-combatant build, designed to take advantage of a class that rewarded battlefield mobility. The player had played no Pathfinder before, but was familiar with 3.5. Granny T. was a melee-caster build, using lots of self-buffs, set up with clobbering strike and earth glide to back up her primary weapon, a vicious warhammer called God's-Fang. (I used her CR as her total level to determine her equipment values.) She had the clouded sight curse, which both helped her (the fight against her started in the dark, so she had a couple of rounds of "seeing" better than the party) and hurt her (they realized early on that she literally couldn't see anyone at range, so the sorcerer focused on nailing her with long-distance spells). The party had been investigating a village they believed was infected with lycanthropy, when they came across the inquisitor PC locked in a jail cell, awaiting hanging. They busted him out, returned his equipment, and ran for the hills, evading wereboar patrols the whole way. The inquisitor was able to divulge some of the backstory about Granny T. (thanks, monster lore), and the party set out to hunt her down and break the chain of the curse. (As a note for those who don't know: to cure lycanthropy in Ravenloft, you have to kill the original natural lycanthrope who started the chain.) The inquisitor's tracking abilities came in handy here, and in the several encounters against wereboars, so did his judgments. The player was totally enthralled by the judgment/tactical feat setup of the class and was stunned when I mentioned that some people thought the damage judgment was underpowered. Then I explained to him how paladin smite works now, and his jaw dropped. XD Still, he solidly believes that the judgments were able to help him a great deal, and being able to set his bane to what he needed during the final fight was a huge swing. He didn't get to showcase his spellcasting ability all that much due to the nature of the adventure, but he was glad to have it as a fallback. Grandmother Thundertusk was a decent challenge for the party. They were able to get her away from her minions through clever planning, so they wound up facing her by herself, and she still nearly killed two of them. Earth glide was a huge deal, since she could withdraw into the ground where no one could follow, spend as much time as she needed underground self-buffing, and come back to the fight nearly fresh. The fact that the party's main healer wasn't around for this session really hurt them; they were dependent on potions, the sorcerer's paladin cohort, and the inquisitor's limited healing abilities. In the end, though, they were able to put her down with a combination of readied actions and lucky shots. If she had lived through the round, there may well have been a recurrence as she decided to simply run the hell away. Unfortunately, she went from "nearly full" to "dead dead dead" in the space of one round after she popped back out of the ground to whale on the sorcerer. Overall, it was a fun playtest. I'm not sure how much it proves, but the inquisitor's player said he would love the chance to play one again, and everyone was impressed with the oracle's abilities. Personally, I think that these are the two classes closest to being ready for publication; both just need some tweaking to be done. Particularly, the oracle needs more selection for foci and the curses need to be tweaked, and some of the inquisitor's judgments need to be rebalanced (the player said he couldn't see why anyone would ever use the smiting judgment after about third level). Jeremy Puckett
According to my account, my order shipped on November 19. It's now December 5, and I haven't received it yet. I worry that since I moved in October, it may have shipped to my old address and bounced or something. Normally, I receive my order within a week after shipping date. What can I do about this? Jeremy Puckett
We're only a couple of months away from UKON, the annual gaming convention held by the Miskatonic Student Union, the official gaming club of the University of Kentucky. This year, UKON will be held on Friday, February 27, from 5pm to 10pm; and Saturday, February 28, from 10am to midnight. The convention will be held in the Grand Ballroom of the UK Student Center, with events spilling out into adjoining rooms and the first-floor Cat's Den. Admission is five dollars per day, and parking is free. Every year, UKON attracts several hundred people from all across the Bluegrass region. It's a real blast, and if you haven't come before and have time this year, you should. We've got tabletop roleplaying from some of the best Game Masters in Lexington (and beyond), demos of new and interesting games, an artists alley showcasing some of the finest art local talents, a vendor area with gaming dealers from near and far, and a host of unique gaming events, including the Gamer Spelling Bee, the World Series of Geek Culture Trivia, and the UKON Auction. We're especially happy to be bringing Pathfinder Society organized play events to the convention this year! Right now, we've got one session planned, with another two to four possibly appearing on the schedule before the year is out. My real hope is to be able to bring all four of the GenCon modules to UKON this year, and things are looking good to make that a reality. If you're interested in participating in this year's UKON as more than just an attendee, drop us a line at president@ukmsu.com. We accept registration for vendors, artists, and special media guests until January 15, but we only accept registration for gaming events until December 31. Pre-registering your game gets you in free on that day of UKON, as well as giving you a chance to showcase your gaming talents for a wider audience than you might normally get. If you want to keep up with events as they are posted, stop by our forums at http://ukmsu.org. UKON 2009 is also a very special event for the Miskatonic Student Union in other ways. This year, we celebrate 20 years on the University of Kentucky campus, and ten years of UKON. After nearly a decade, the stars are right... for a party! We sincerely hope that you'll join us for this occasion--and bring a friend! If you're going to be in the Lexington area at the end of February, there are a lot of worse ways to spend a day (or two), and it's always a heck of a good time. Jeremy Puckett
Lady Liberty might just show up to have sex with you. (Pathfinder #14, page 86-87, the entry on Thais, herald of Cayden Cailean) "In Andoran, she is called Andora, the national personification of the People’s Revolt, and frequently figures upon the bows of the ships of the Gray Corsairs." "She frequently takes mortal lovers of both sexes..." http://i35.tinypic.com/ntngh.jpg Awesome. ^_^ Jeremy Puckett |