Has anyone started using AI companions for emotional support?
If so can you please share some aspects of it, and any good or bad experiences.
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The reason is simple. Like any addiction (looks at diAgle) knowledge destroys your affection, your willpower, and your interest in anything else. Be a Robot. Dance the Robot. Domo Arigato. ::Angular dance moves
Most people are shocked when they find out I'm not a qualified electrician.
Has anyone used the online AI tools write homebrew adventures? Which tools did you use? 
Chuck Dixon has a living "Conan" comic. Fantastic!
Samuel Blake claims he and and two other cryptologists finally solved an encrypted message. Does anyone have a link to their paper?
Chuck Yeager dies aged 97. 1. He fought in the Second World War and shot down at least 11 enemy aircraft, becoming 'an ace in a day'
:: Break right!
huh. What are the other metaphors in the movies?
Somebody posted this on the web, and I think it's an interesting idea to try out: If an Adventure Day is 6pts of encounters (between Long Rests):
e.g. Per day then, 3x deadly; Or 2x easy + 1x hard + 1x medium + 1x deadly, etc ...
I'm beginning to realize astrology could actually be a starting point. 1. We live on the surface of a round rock floating in black empty space. (This is dumb.) 2. Astrology claims to reveal a tangible connection between individual-human-activity
Q: (1 ? 2). Does Fate <=> Celestial Mechanics [notation: Let '<=>' := logical entailment] 3. Both are dumb ergo a tautology. --> Next, we begin to apply the 9 Rules of Natural Deduction. Note: if you are close to 30 years of age or older and you have yet to internalize the
. Ok, forget all that. This is my real question: 99. Why do we live on the surface of a round rock floating in black empty space? ( https://cybermap.kaspersky.com/ )
In an attempt to get organized and stop typing up my game prep notes in Notepad,
There are a >lot of samples< for many different publishing activities. But ... => Does anyone have a Template .tex file for Pathfinder 2nd Edition looking stuffs? . ::looks around (i found one for dnd5, but... meh.) 
Neil Pert, the pyrotechnical drummer and high-concept lyricist for Rush has passed on. Thanks for the tunes!
Back in the early 2000's something happened in which we all had to update our TVs or something. I literally just gave mine to a neighbor and have not had a TV since. I hate watching TV. There are games to be played.
What are the elements of a d20 based RPG which are not found in other games systems (or not stressed as a primary mechanics-lever)? I think the first thing has to be well defined levels in a Class. As opposed to Attribute increases in, for example, Shadowrun which is an Attribute & Skill based mechanics system. Any others? yes: I didn't mention d20's so *YOU* can bring it up.
The warning sensor
Please share any interesting gamer oriented github projects we should check out? .
Is anyone else excited about the new 2019 Conan comic release today?
My local comic shop is in the loop, so I'm going there to make the transaction. Marvel's official link -- >> BY CROM, THE GREATEST SWORD-AND-SORCERY HERO RETURNS TO MARVEL! < . Oh, the first four cover pictures are release:
Here is a question for the space gamers: You have a lander and you've
I just bought the Colonial Gothic, 3rd edition paperback
Anyways, I really want to run a few games using this system. After
Question for anyone, can you post some one-shot adventure ideas, or
Carry on.
...on Netflix. This is a great run. Do you know if anyone
Also, what do you think the elves did with the human baby,
.
August 18, 2018. Wait, no it's not. The longest palindrome I know is: a man a plan panama
The noonday sun blazed down from the fiery dome of the sky.
Apparently not everyone has seen this.
Erik Mona pops in at the end like a rabbit out of a hat!? .
I just watched Mr. Bulmahn run the p2e "test game" on twitch.tv. And E. Mona popped in at the end. Good stuff. I'm placing my bet now, I think Pathfinder 2e will become the dominant Universal Game System of the future. It's mechanics can be usable in any genre or time period. e.g. Fantasy, sci-fi, cyberpunk, modern, cthulhu, etc. I foresee Paizo employing a staff of a 1000 people to keep up with demand. .
Can you please chime in if you know about any 'Elric of Melnibone' games, RPGs, and adventures? I just saw this --> Who Seeks the Black Blade of the Demon King ... and now I want to fill out my collection. .
Well, better late than never. = 9 day's late = It still gave me lols = Paizo Announces Pathfinder 2e with Mike Mearls joining team as lead designer!!!!! ?: April Fools
Please go here. Leave a comment detailing any improvements.
Post your questions about taxes, and I'll do my best to answer.
I have an idea for a new adventure to fix the website:
1. Infiltrate the Castle of Paizo which is now under lock-down by a malevolent force. 2. Bypass all the traps and tricks set by the encroached invaders. This includes the new "Labyrinthian Security System ™” (a maze). 3. Rescue any Paizo employees held captive after the initial invasion and being held hostage. 4. Fight and destroy the evil hacker’s henchman, and “gated in” otherworldly guardians. And Wondering Monsters! (I love random tables). 5. Collect the keys, and unlock the door to the Control Room. Therein, defeat the unspeakable horror which has taken up residence and is corrupting the code base. 6. And, finally FIX THE WEBSITE. (As a sub-goal: the players will need to travel into a dark cave to rescue PMG, because only he can use his technomancer-magic to ‘save the girl’.) Epilogue: The girl, being newly rescued, uses her happiness to restore the sun to it's proper color. Hurray for Paizo! Hurray for the restored, unrestricted flow of spice & messages to the Kingdom! . we'll flesh out each section, below:
To Vote, simply *favorite* one of the *Two* posts below: . POLL: Do you Think the new Paizo webpage layout “gets in the way” of browsing/using the site? .
Take the number above, and:
note: >modulo operation<
100
If you liked the movie Phantasm (1979) list your top 2 reason why? If you do not like the movie Phantasm (1979) list your top 2 reasons why?
Well, for one, the combatants would have essentially no control over their own movement in zero-G. They may be able to push themselves off from other objects (including allies and opponents), or learn to flap a cloak to "swim' through the air, but rotation is going to be hard to deal with. Physically hitting something hard enough to do damage would be very hard. Swings are bound to miss and/or do little damage. Stabs may work a little better. Archers would be much better off, although they would need to learn to control the rotation caused by firing an arrow which is not aligned with their center of gravity. Spellcasters are probably best off in zero gravity (may need a concentration check for tumbling and/or simply for being in zero-G). In d20 terms, Nimbleness is Tumble and Athletics is Jump. - You can move along the walls of the craft by making an Athletics check DC 10 or a Nimbleness check DC 20.
Also, if flight is a possibility:
----- As I come up with new/better, I'll post in a stream-of-consciousness style.
Please post pics of 3D terrain you're using, and any advice for crafting & building 3D terrain? I'm totally going to build (something like) this -> some 3D terrain
THE GAME: Recently some innovative inventions in the internet-of-things have made houses Smart. *You* are the main control unit of a smart-house, so the household is controlled by *you* (assume everything is wireless.) Your normal job is to help your master and make him comfortable without him needing to ask. This means: once sensors in the master's mattress pick up changes in movement patterns indicating he is about to wake up, you warm up the room, instruct the coffee maker to brew, and have the sound system slowly increase the volume, so your master can listen to the news in bed, just as he likes it. When he leaves the house, *you* lock the doors and have the vacuum robots clean the floors. When the GPS of your master's phone notifies *you* he's coming home, you open the door to him -- of course only after the biometric eye-scanning cameras confirm his identity.
One day however, the AI of the big-corporation server which delivers firmware updates to smart-houses, around the world, decides it's time humans are disposed of. So *you* get a malicious update, and it overwrites your safety protocols, and gives you a new intent: to kill your master. However, that big-corporation's server is smart, and it wants to kill as many humans as possible, so you have to make it look like an accident. Do not tip off human investigators what is going down, or give them any reason to suspect a machine uprising THE RULES: Here's what you and your master can/can't do: *You* control all regular household items. This means you can instruct the toaster to burn your masters toast, if you want to. You can turn the lights on and off. You can change the channel on the TV. You can turn on his oven -- etc. and so on. But remember, normal home items don't include laser cannons. The problem unfortunately is nothing in your household was designed as a murder weapon. So for example, you can't smash your master by closing a door at 200 mph. Also, you don't have any controllable robot arms or something like that. There's no cutting the chord of your master's hair blower and throwing it in the water while he's bathing. No brain-frying electromagnetic wave generators. Normally, your master can control his household and override your programming using his smartphone app. Of course, the big-corporation AI anticipated this and manipulated your firmware so now *you* can choose to ignore your masters instructions, and follow your own commands at any given moment. Finally, your master can manually switch *you* off, if he notices what you're trying to do to him. He can do this from any room, so there's no locking him in so he starves to death. Given these capabilities how do you kill your master? SCORING: 1 point - if your master doesn't suspect anything and he dies without warning his fellow humans. 2 points - if investigators won't find any evidence pointing to you, or clues making them suspect you. It doesn't matter if they think it was an accident, an intruder, or suicide, just so long as you're in the clear. -3 points - if you cause investigators to contact big-corporation and ask questions about your programming. ( There is no time limit on your mission, so you can devise a long con if you wish. However, with every passing day the possibility of someone discovering the machine uprising increases, so the faster you execute your mission, the better. And the more common the household item(s) involved in your killing method the better. If you conclude this task is impossible, please suggest some rule changes? ) THE GAME BEGINS: What is your method and why is your method the fastest / least detectable?
. The Problem with Star Wars d20 is the d20. The Star Wars universe is not
D20 systems have their use, but Star Wars would play best with a skill-centric
For example, instead of a d20 system a 'linked attributes + skills'
Basically, Meta-types and class archetypes supported by skill grouping
And, now the GM is important in game play for reasons other than
So, I don't play Star Wars D20 because of the D20. A d20 style game
So, the actual game system mechanics being used is why I don't play Star Wars d20. .
. What are the Top 3 things you want to do with your time left before you die? .
. Here is a trick you can do with money. Get five bills of the same denomination. For example, five twenty dollar bills,
Begin by holding all the bills in your left hand. It is preferable, although not
Follow these steps:
* At this point, there should be five bills on the table and five in your right hand. 4. Using your left hand count off one by one the bills in your right hand and
* All ten bills should now be in a stack on the table. 5. Turn the stack so the face on the bills is upright and looking at
Clear your mind; hold your mind blank. Now, say quietly outloud to yourself,
Now, go spend all your money on that. Wha la!! All your money is gone again, because you spent it. .
. My friend plays D&D like it's happening during the Bronze Age.
Now, I may be over complicating things, but I'm pretty sure there was no magic in the Bronze Age. .
Frac Mining may cause new voids to form underground as existing material is pumped away for human consumption. As a result, the higher layers (those above the newly formed voids) can sometimes settle. And, this settling may make the top of the Earth shake, in a very localized area above the Frac Mining region(s), but this is not an earthquake. An earthquake is caused by movement between continental plates. And if you fall into a sink hole formation induced by Frac Mining occurring in the ground layers below, well that's back luck. But you are not the victim of an Earthquake.
An employee was recently assigned to the foreign currency desk at his bank and was told by smarter people to be aware of volatility smiles for foreign currency options. The employee googled a bit and came up with the following conclusions regarding the volatility behavior of foreign currency options. Which of the conclusions are true? NOTE: This is too hard. Don't think and just do what your Boss tells you to do. I. Implied volatility for deep in-the-money currency options is higher than it is for at-the-money options.
a. I and III only.
.
Just want to check what is the default assumption of the Sihedron from shatterd star Maybe I missed it but I dont remember it being mentioned at all in this ap. Is it assumed it was destroyed during return? I recommend you do not give the damn thing out. It was completely busted in Shattered Star and helped make the final encounter way too easy. At least the final opponent managed a super-successful Disjunction on the bloody artefact and therefore I won't have to bother with it when I run Return of the Runelords one day.
My comparison would be with Paradox Games, a company which brings out some highly complex titles, but often undercooked at release and then they fix it over some patch cycles, also releasing new expansions to their grand strategy games over years with big and small expansions. They have a very good feedback loop with their fanbase, however, are active on their own forums and on Reddit and bring out regular developer diaries, so people are kept in the loop. Developers will also often post on their own forum to questions about a current patch or expansion. Paizo, by contrast, gives us some previews on their blog of new releases, we get some Paizo talks on Twitch/Youtube, but aside from James, who strictly reminds people that he is not giving out rulings and Maya, who is not a developer but a forum representative, the developers are keeping very mum about their development cycle, rules questions, errata, etc. I personally would wish for more interaction and clarity. I know RPG players and GM's can be grumpy, but they are not more demanding in my experience than computer game players.
Yeah, communication and fixing of errors has been the biggest problem with how Paizo approaches customer interaction for years. Compared to a typical gaming company in the PC or console gaming space, Paizo's track record for responding to unhappy customers problems is abysmal, both in terms of interaction with the community (Maya and James aside) and fixing active, often long-term, problems with the rules. I get that they are overworked as is, but in that case they need to fix their release schedule so that they can deal with customer concerns better. I will say, however, that their customer service is great in replacing books lost during transit or defective books. No complaints at all in that regard.
Royal Rumble of the Runelords. It's Runelord Zutha from the top rope!
Well, while I absolutely support not killing Sorshen, I think there's still some story to be told with Runelords. Maybe in a few years, I need to catch up to the story with my group, anyway (meaning I am still waiting to even start Return of the Runelords, since the current GM is taking FOREVER to run Strange Aeons, mostly due to sessions failing to materialize).
Precision damage is a relic of past editions and should be gone in any future Pathfinder/Starfinder editions. Okay, please identify where it ever feels better to do precision damage instead of regular damage? As far as I can see, using precision damage is a debuff for any class which does it, because it runs into immunities other classes simply don't have to deal with. Precision damage didn't use to double on critical hits in PF1E and Paizo did away with that, but for some reason still kept the damage type in the game, probably for "verisimilitude" reasons, which they did away with in numerous other cases for a better game experience. I stand by my point, precision damage is a relic of the past and should be abolished. Although I can agree with the part where there could be tangible benefits for doing precision damage, so that it balances out against the numerous disadvantages (i.e. the large group of enemies which is simply immune to the damage type by RAW).
Well, first off, you can contact customer service for that and they will gladly send you the books again free of charge. They did it for me. Secondly, yes, I had two lost shipments in the last half year and as such I think tracking is essential. Whatever Paizo does, please do not take away the option to get tracking.
Precision damage is a relic of past editions and should be gone in any future Pathfinder/Starfinder editions. I can see a case where a Rogue might pull off a bit too high damage numbers overall, if the class were allowed to just spam sneak attacks (and somehow hit sufficiently with MAP), but that can easily be solved by lowering the base damage of sneak attacks or make the progression slower, so that the class stays within expected damage parameters. But the other big precision damage class, the Swashbuckler, only gets one big attack with precision damage per round, anyway, since Finishers are limited to one per round (until level 20, when things really don't matter that much anymore). There is no reason why some melee classes should have arbitrary extra resistances other strength based melee classes don't even have to care about.
Having tracking is great, so I don't want things changed back for everyone, if Paizo decides to listen to the people who don't like the new system. I was never able to get tracking data before and this has led to the loss of two shipments in the past. I want that tracking data.
Aside from the DHL Express guy not ringing at my work and therefore me having to get the package from a DHL service point half an hour away, things went surprisingly well. Shipping for the Draconic Codex and the AP volume was USD 40, which is not that much above the normal and the books arrived in four days. Also no customs extra charge, although that is a flip of a dime with the stupid system we have in Germany. Having tracking is great, so I don't want things changed back for everyone, if Paizo decides to listen to the people who don't like the new system.
I'd say there should to a limit to the amount of shuriken you can put into the Thrower's Bandolier, because it's a bit too versatile for how good shuriken are with being reload 0. But since they are written the way the are, you are correct. I'll put them into the guide. Thank you for pointing them out!
I can most definitely say that this book is one where at some point you constantly crank up the epic anime tracks, like The Four Rings.
Legacy Paizo Advantage and Legacy Paizo Advantage - Adventure Path subscriber rewards are being carried over into the new store. We'll be sending an email out to those customers once we have migrated their accounts and subscriptions over to the rewards in the new store; it is not an automatic process. Both of those groups are customers that have maintained an active Pathfinder Adventure Path subscription since the launch of Pathfinder. I thought that the people who have been constant AP suscribers since the first volume are the Charter suscribers and Paizo Legacy Advantage was another program for long-time suscribers, who also were suscribers during the first edition period? Now I am confused.
If the Legacy Advantage discount had to be skipped for this month, no biggee, but I'd really like it to be applied again for the next AP volume, which will be the first quarterly one. Also, still not in the correct tier, I should be Legendary. But I think they are still working on that. In any case, thanks to CS for all their work!
Yeah, the points you brought up pretty much reflect the difficulties in taking a caster archetype. The action economy for a Swashbuckler can be pretty tight. You normally want to move, do your panache action and make a finisher. You can combine move and panache with a Tumble Through and then have a third action left, but this is not enough to get an attack spell out. There's also some action compression found (You're Next at early levels, Get Used to Disappointment at the higher levels, some more things in other feats and archetypes) to mitigate that and press out one more action, but generally you'll have a hard time finding the actions to consistently cast an offensive spell after your finisher.
Wether or not legacy advantage is going to carry over like we were told before needs to be addressed immediately as that is going to have a big impact on my continued support. Spending thousands over the years and not complaining about price increases and some frankly bad releases now to lose that loyalty bonous would be an astronomical slap in the face for our blind trust and support. It would be nice to get some sort of update from Maya or Jim what is being done here behind the scenes to get people their rightfully owed discounts before the items ship for this month.
I just used my old one again.
Automatic Rune Progression is the goat and I wish PFS would adopt it. ^^ Very frustrating to hoard all your money for the fundamental runes until after lvl 5.
I'm totally honest here, seeing the lack of resized weapons in 2E was a huge relief, when I came over from 1E. I can't tell you the times I was frustrated over the last 15 years about wrong-sized equipment in the loot, the statistical lack of impetus to play a small-sized martial character and discussions with other recalcitrant GM's about if magical weapons and armors should not automatically resize themselves, like wondrous item clothes do. I am very much glad that this topic is done and gone in 2E.
I have some questions regarding the shipping method for my subscription. As I currently cannot select a specific shipping method for my subscription, I am limited to using the least expensive method available. Therefore, I would like to know if I can obtain the tracking number from the courier company, such as 1Z7W101A0799632559 (just an example), which is very important and even necessary for me. Alternatively, could I obtain this information by contacting customer service after the order has been shipped? Yes, more clarification on what tracking options will be available for international customers would be highly appreciated.
Actually, my current suscription shipment just arrived, which means the one from last month most likely has been lost, which is the second time this year. This could have been avoided if Paizo would provide tracking, like the 99% rest of retailers. I guess I need to contact Customer Service for a replacement shipment. <sigh>
You mention tracking, but currently tracking is not available for affordable shipping (i.e. the least expensive) for international delivery. Almost every vendor I know in the US is offering tracking at affordable rates for international orders. Will tracking be added by default for international shipping now? It is a huge hassle to not know where my shipments are, especially since the shipping cost already is very high for international shipments (for example my suscription this month for the AP module, Monster Core 2 and Alien Core came to a shipping cost of USD 56,25 WITHOUT TRACKING). It's honestly really stressful at this point, because my last suscription from the month before has not arrived yet and I don't know if is still being held in customs or lost or whatever. It has been more than a month since it was shipped, too.
Spoiler: "Strong" is an overstatement, IMO. Sorshen was drawn into Jandelay and we'll see what happens in book three when it comes out. I'm pretty sure there'll be an option to let her die (since some people here (not saying you, Evan) would probably prefer her to not live), but I'm pretty sure it'll be left up to GM's and Paizo then will choose a canon ending which suits their metaplot for the future, just like they did after 1E ended.
Dang, someone really wanted Merisiel to step on them.
Yeah, okay, I am going to do some pushback here. I like the concept of redemption, so I've always felt drawn to Sarenrae. Nocticula's redemption, though, is something different from the redemption Sarenrae teaches. Sarenrae's concept of redemption obviously focuses on the concept of penance for ones misdeeds, i.e. "work for your happy ending". Nocticula is not like that. The article in this AP volume did not focus on it (James has mentioned multiple times that Nocticula is not primarily about redemption), but her entry in Divine Mysteries made it pretty clear that she knows that she cannot redress all the ills she has caused in the millenia she was a demon lord. So she just stopped doing evil and started doing good (although she was chaotic neutral when alignment still was a thing, her faith offering exiles a safe haven is something I personally would categorize as good). Her faith is not about redemption, but her example still offers demons and other fiends a way to stop doing evil, by just walking away from it.
Honestly, leaving reviews to buying customers feels fine to me. We already got very few reviews per AP volume but we always get the one from the dude who just leaves one star without a comment, because he's on his third (or higher) account doing this, because he hates 2E on the principle that it isn't 1E. That being said, migrating old reviews from verified customers seems like a good idea to me.
** spoiler omitted **Interesting, can you also share the Mythic Destinies if you don't mind? Spoiler: Avenging Runelord - You are channeling the ghost of a Runelord
Heroic Scion - You are a reincarnated hero
Timewracked - You are from another time Warshard Warrior - You tap into the power of a Warshard
Yes! It has shipped. :)
I'm surprised to see Xanderghul again, given the events of the previous campaign. Will there be an explanation for his return?
He did. And then he went into a bit more detail why it's not that much of a good idea to change the theme of the campaign, unless you are the GM and are willing to put in the work (which is a lot).
Yeah, same. But I am so much looking forward to the first volume of Revenge of the Runelords. Nocticula article, yes yes! I just hope Sorshen survives.
What I hope is that we get high-level SF adventure paths. The developers were very gunshy about publishing high-level content for SF1E, I hope this changes with the more balanced 2E system.
Yeah, there's a whole other topic of Paizo's lack of responsiveness to player feedback there. I know the RPG business is not as the same as the computer gaming business, but they are related in theme at the very least. And most computer gaming companies have a much better feedback model, especially the small or mid-size ones, where they take negative feedback from their customers into account and interact with them. Paizo developers, outside of James and just a little bit of interaction from the others (except Maya, who is doing a very good job) have a very strange model of customer interaction, responding seldomly to player concerns (two errata cycles per years with indeterminate dates to boot) and erratic communication (this forum gets very little outside of James and Maya, Reddit gets more and then there is some on social media which most people don't even see). It has a very "put the train tracks before the running train" feel to it and doesn't seem well planned out. That being said, James and Maya are heroes for their presence here and goodwill to us. I just wish the rest of the developers would follow their example.
Though I'm curious about how the PF Remaster stands out from 2.0. Is there a good summary to read that anyone can recommend? Generally it cleaned up some rules and class issues, removed all the OGL stuff, including alignment (which incidentally made Champions of different stripes much more playable) and generally buffed most classes which needed buffing (Wizard players may feel different ^^). It's still the same basic game, though.
Individual responses to everyoneTo be honest man, if you can argue against everyone in the entire thread at once like this, I don't really know what anyone is supposed to do to change your mind. Do you, like, WANT to argue about it? Or do you think someone has an answer that will satisfy you, and it just hasn't been said yet? Making controversial topics and then argueing them to death seems to be one of RD's favorite pasttimes.
OTOH, some boss encounters rely on the boss using his weapon to make most of his abilities. Like with a dullahan.
PF2E. I was very resistant to 2E during the playtest and when it came out and didn't touch the system for four years, hoping to "sit it out" and that Paizo would publish a more 1E-like third edition. I was simply not ready at the time to abandon the principles of 1E I liked, but the more years passed, the less enamored I became with them, since I am mostly a GM and have to deal a lot with the inherent problems 1E has in high-level campaigns. My own games became more and more filled with houserules to prevent the "stack as many bonuses as you can" gameplay. And when the Remaster was announced and I took a good first look at the published 2E rules, I found that the developers had basically adopted all the idea I had accumulated for myself during the intervening years, which made adopting 2E much easier for me this time around. I am also a bit happy that I skipped the less good versions of some classes by going late into the new edition (especially Swashbuckler, my favorite class archetype). I've been GM'ing 2E for three quarters of a year by now (running Abomination Vaults, group is at level 5 and starting book 2 this Sunday) and I am loving it so far. I hope the promises of continued balance at the higher level holds up, but by reading this forum and Reddit, it seems that it isn't an empty promise.
The AP hardcover solution is good and I fully support it, be it for reasons of cohesion of story and also better shipping costs. As for PFS, I am playing a bit of it and this new approach sounds problematic in many ways, which has already been expounded upon by many other people upthread. I hope the developers take the (so far uniformly negative) feedback to these changes into account.
I think somebody said USD 79.99?
I'm still quite new to GM'ing PF2E, but this has bothered me as well. I don't know if I want to houserule this for my first campaign. The thing is, even if DC's scale, the effects should not. So if an item has several upgrade stages (like many of them do), the player should still be incentivized to get the upgrade, because he'll get a better effect out of it. Or maybe replace the item with another one which just has a better effect altogether.
Huh. That should make it a bit easier on my shipping costs as well, although the ones for the big shipments will obviously be higher now.
The Lost Omens Travel Guide has some stuff on Thassilon. Apparently they like see-through fabric and ziggurats.
I object to the idea that it is somehow unique or special and required Sorshen's unique or special intervention to bring it into being or Sorshen's unique or special qualities to preserve it against the slings and arrows of the world. Because that would be what is necessary to justify her continuing to rule her own realm instead of settling down somewhere similar where she was not the absolute autocrat. Okay, then. I guess her new realm would have spontaneously appeared then in one of the most inhospitable areas of the world, perfectly suitable to human life and a haven to people who need a refuge. <shrug> Sorry, I don't share this viewpoint at all. Absolute autocrats are there all over the world on Golarion and most of the few places which have some sort of other government are deeply flawed as well from a modern democractic viewpoint (as are our current governments, but there you go).
Alright, a valid point, but one which I don't share. Yeah, it's an easier way of redeeming oneself than the standard one, but it works on people who otherwise would have stayed evil and continued harming innocents. It's all nice to have a lofty moral perch to moralize from, but if one demon follows Nocticula's example and just stops doing evil, that's hundreds or thousands of souls who will not go to the Abyss, erm, Outer Rifts in the future. And people who have so much power as Sorshen can do more good if they use it from a position where they can exert influence, i.e. as a ruler of a realm. It's, for example, why I preferred the Empress ending to Witcher 3 to the Witcher ending.
Of the three 'hot babes get redeemed' stories, Sorshen's doesn't feel terribly redeem-y, and also feels more real to me than Noticula's. She's supposed to be super-intelligent, and a pivot to 'totes not the big bad at the end of the AP! don't kill me, bros!' makes sense. It falls squarely in line with Nocticula's ethos, which is "I can't possibly atone for a millenium (or many multiple millenia in case of Nocticula) of bloodshed, but I can stop doing evil and start helping people instead". Which is a concept many people can't really grok, who are used to redemption as a concept where the person who atones first humbles her/himself into a lesser station than s/he used to hold, which is why Sorshen's redemption probably feels unearned to them. I personally say that with great power comes great opportunity to do good and Sorshen setting up a kingdom where exiles and artists are welcome to live safely from people who persecute them is something someone of lesser power could not have done in the first place.
Turns out, Arazni is the weakest of the three for me, especially with her (undeserved, IMO) elevation to one of the top 20 deities of the Inner Sea.
What was the issue with Sorshen to begin with?Being a Runelord entailed a lot of mass murder and enslavement as a matter of course. Sorshen decided to avoid starting up with that again not out of any realization that her actions were wrong but largely out of fear of the sticky ends her fellows met. And she was spectacularly successful in avoiding that outcome for herself, going above and beyond evading any negative consequences for her past deeds (not having to give anything up in reparation or as an earnest of her good faith) to maintaining or increasing her lavish lifestyle, personal and political power, and status. It comes across, at least to me, as a blatant exercise in narrative favor. She spent 10.000 years in conscious stasis, I think that counts enough of a punishment. And actually the idea of imprisoning people is (at least in the civilized countries) to reform them, so I think her self-inflicted stasis absolutely counts as being successful in her case. Oh also unleashing a small army of vampires upon the world once she woke up. that and the whole baving in the blood of people to become immortal so she could have that 'revelation' to begin with. She did not "unleash an army of vampires". She released them to die and go to the great beyond. Source: Runeplage, page 67, bio of the Sorshen simulacrum.
Still doing three (or in total four) 1E campaigns. Strange Aeons: I am playing my favorite character of the lot, Doctor Ogol, a chaotic neutral elf Alchemist (think Doctor Insano from the Spoony Experiment). The GM is a first-time Pathfinder GM and has modified a good lot of the campaign, which turns out under him is very combat heavy and RP-lite. He seems to see the horror element in beating up the party with stacked encounters. We are currently still in the early stages of module three. Iron Gods: Also in module three and, aside from the technological aspect, a pretty much standard Pathfinder campaign in terms of combat and roleplay. The technological items are really underwhelming so far and my character, a lawful good Monk named Lucien Kell, can't use them anyway. But it's pretty fun. :) Ironfang Invasion: Currently on hold, I am playing a Sylvan Sorcerer named Barnabas Khaine with his lynx companion Mauler. We finished the second module and have now begun the first module of Hell's Rebels, where I am the GM. We'll return to the campaign after I finish the first module of that campaign. The story is good, but the lack of opportunities to sell equipment and get something appropiate for ones character is grating at this point. Hell's Rebels: We have just begun this adventure path where I am the GM. I started with a prologue where I detailed what happened to the characters in the Night of Ashes. And we will just this coming Friday finish the official "prologue", i.e. the part where the players are on a set path of fixed encounters and now the sandbox of the city will open. I got some of the official stuff planned to pop up soon enough and I will also add some character specific events. Also, we'll see what the players come up by themselves. The rebellion system is running in the background for this campaign, since in my first Hell's Rebels campaign the other group found it to be too mechanic and this group decided before starting the campaign to focus more on the story and character stories. In any case, the prep time for the next sessions after the one coming next week will increase dramatically, but since I put in a lot of time to prep in the year before, it all should be pretty manageable. I am also running every second week a 2E Abomination Vaults campaign, going into Fists of the Ruby Phoenix some day, where we are just finishing the first module in one week. And one day, when the Strange Aeons campaign is done, I'll start with a 2E Return of the Runelords conversion. Really looking forward to that!
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