leo1925's page

Desna's plane is on the material plane?

Question, what/who is the mythic idiot that Aelryinth mentioned?

I agree with you Aelryinth that names and appearances should matter, and yeah I don't really like the whole dressing up as evil to fight evil (Hellknights, daredevil etc. but I can understand why they exist in literature) but it's a fact that at least in some parts of Golarion names and appearances don't really matter in some cases.

I (personally) take the whole paladins in Hellknight orders as an opportunity for corruption stories, redemption stories or hubris stories.

I have GMed the RotRL (first half original edition converted to PF and second half anniversary edition) and the players got just fine with no cleric, OK they had a healing patron witch and a bard but still...

If you are playing the anniversary edition I think that it is doable with the bard as the only spellcaster if the DM is a bit lenient but it would much better if there was also a Paladin (who is careful in his mercy selection) or an inquisitor (who is careful in his spell selection).

In my group we had one PC death so far (tomorrow beginning book 5) and that was in book 2, orc barbarian plus chainsaw is a frightening opponent, we also had a couple of close calls with the big four armed skeleton in book 1.

I put money in the card, unsuspend the order.

I like the general idea of mythic but i also believe that (at least for the PCs part of the mythic) it really needs to be revised, i haven't read the "house rule suggestions" for mythic that Legendary Games (along with others) has put out in their mythic mania so i don't know if most of the job is already done.

I think a crux of getting to high levels in a 6-part AP is partially due to the exponential increase in XPs to get to those high levels. I never understood why PF chose to do this. It seems like it should take less XPs to get from say 15-20 level then it does to get from 1-10 level.

Once a party is say 15th level they should essentially have one epic "event" that moves them to 16th and so on. High level PCs should abandon adding up XPs and just focus on successfully completing "events" to gain a levels. So the last book of an AP can be a series of 5 "events" that move the party to 16,17,18,19,20 levels.

These events can be things like:

- Defeating a Mythic Monster (Mythic abilities should never apply to PCs, just abandon that concept completely. Encounter a Mythic Monster, defeat it, level up. Im sure this type of battle can last for "real time" hours and "in game" days in the hands of a prepared GM as the monster retreats, recovers, hunts down the group again and so on. In fact, Mythic monsters shouldn't even have XP values they should just give a level and be very very rare and almost unstoppable.)
- Travel out of the solar system to a distant location (once at this location the PCs can have some encounters but the act of getting there means a level. The PCs could have to navigate a series of tasks and/or encounters to do this but the XPs really don't matter for these things. All that matters is setting foot on Planet X.)
- Destroy an entire evil (or good) location (this can be a city, stronghold, island, planet,demi-plane, whatever. The PCs must use their abilities to utterly remove it from existence. Once this is done: gain a level. The defenders of this location may put up a fight of course but those XPs don't matter and you probably wouldn't even do normal combat for them.)

Granted this is all a bit of a departure from the existing model but my larger point is XP calculation at high levels should be removed or drastically shortened. I don't understand why the XP gaps between higher levels...

That's part of what i like to call the "XP problem", i think that the APs would be a lot better if XP isn't used at all. That way APs could have more freedom with the encounter design which means a lot of things like not putting padding "filler" encounters in order to have PCs reach the level they need in order to face the real encounters that make sense and add to the adventure or make the encounters how they need to be in order to make a better game and adventure without worrying about the PCs getting too much XP, and of course a lot of other good things.

First of all don't mess with the player's wish, unless the wish comes from a Glabrezu (or similar source).

Secondly the no cost isn't needed because SLAs don't have material components.

Thirdly i suggest telling the player that you aren't comfortable with an at will permanency but you are prepared to give him permananency SLA once per day.

HeHateMe wrote:

Shroud wrote:

You can never go wrong with Curse of the Crimson Throne. Well written and a LOT of fun to play.

In other news......Aasimars? Really? They are unbalanced and cheesy as hell. Usually played by people interested in bonuses without penalties instead of roleplaying opportunities. I usually place them in a category of "Ultra-Rare Choices" for my players, along with Tieflings and any other non-core race. I allow a single choice from that pool per campaign....and they can decide among themselves who gets to select it for that campaign. Then again, I am always concerned with preserving the atmosphere of the world region the game is set in. Which means you're not going to find Irrisen witches in Katapesh or Mwangi Shamans in Tien except in the rarest and strangest of circumstances.

Dude, Aasimars are the best. Playing a guy who's part Celestial is full of flavor. To me at least, they're much more interesting than tired old Elves, Dwarves and Halflings.

Sure... And they also happen to be OP compared to other races. How fortunate!

P.S.

If "keeping players happy" translates to "giving them whatever they want, ballance, flavour and roleplay be damned" then I don't want my players to be "happy". And in my experience this is not that big of a problem, if you know how to be firm.

In the beggining (RotRL 1) there were the 7 virtues of rule that got twisted, corrupted, misinterpreted, focused on the negative side etc. by the runelords and then ended up being known nowadays as the 7 sins, those virtues and the sins they became are:

wealth--> greed
fertility--> lust
honest pride--> pride
abundance--> gluttony
eager striving--> envy
righteous anger--> wrath
rest--> sloth

Now on the RotRL AE without changing the lore of Thassilon (as far as i can see) the seven virtues and sins became:

generosity--> greed
love--> lust
humility--> pride
temperance--> gluttony
charity--> envy
kindness--> wrath
zeal--> sloth

With those virtues-sins it doesn't make sense, they are polar opposites instead of twisted, corrupted etc.

Why do you think this change made?

redpandamage wrote:

The OP doesn't say if he did it all with one attack, maybe he was TWF?

Edit: He does have TWF, if he doubles the crit that would be 75 with a couple bonuses he could get 80.

best I see with a dagger and Dex to damage and power attack he could get 11 damage at level 5. if he crit with both attacks and rolled max damage, that's 44 damage. sneak attack on both could get him an extra 36, if he rolls max on his 2 sets of 3d6. so he could just hit 80 damage. I call shenanigans for him to roll all that to the max after simultaneous crits.

Same here.

The old Dungeon adventures ARE AP's. That's where the term came from. Of the current crop, RoW and S&S are probably the nastiest.

I insist on Carrion Crown, for added masochism maybe run it without a full divine class.

And let's not even consider the critical fumbles on attack rolls, that leads to the hilarious case where the full bab characters become more prone to accident the higher their level.

leo1925 wrote:

More likely the wizard will take the 23000 of his share, craft gear worth 46000 and spend the other 2000gp on things he can't craft but

YES!!!! THANK YOU for understanding.

Ah. I understand. At which point I say...

... and this doesn't happen now why?

Yes, the Magic Mart lets them conveniently get what they want by paying double, but nothing is stopping the Wizard from doing that currently.

Because now the caster may won't do that (for various reasons) but you will force him to do that.

The point i was trying to make is that unless you make sure that the martial will never need to buy or ask for crafting anything then you didn't help the martials, at best you have made them into "beggars" and at worst you have made them weaker.

leo1925 wrote:

Yes, that's what i said, that's what is going to punish the martials.

What, i think, you don't get is that the loot that is either found as treasure or taken from the enemies belongs to everyone and not just the martials, to use your example that belt of STR+2 belongs to the whole party, which means that the fighter has 1/4 and the wizard has another 1/4.

Ummm... I'd say the Wizard that wants to quibble about their 1/4 of the cost is being a jerk. The martial eventually gives it to them as their share of the loot, and takes the next item that they are likely to be able to use.

Seriously... the spellcaster that does that better have a bunch of "Summon Monster"s,because their martial friends are going to abandon them pretty quick.

What kind of stupid bully martials do you have?

Are all of your martial PCs like that?

*which means that now the martial has to go and pay double in order to get the item

Slumbering Tsar as an obituary table included, if that tells you anything.

So does Rappan Athuk but aren't both of them megadungeon APs?

I think that the most difficult PF AP is the Carrion Crown and that's because it gives the players loot that is below WBL (while hitting with status effects all the time), keep in mind that the usual loot (for APs) is usually 1.5-2.0 x WBL.
I think that you can make a lot of the APs difficult by cutting the loot given to players to half (or more) and maybe either ban the crafting feats* or put them in the clock.

*actually just banning the craft wondrous items and craft magic arms and armor would be enough

The fact that many people believe (I don't know why) that a nat 1 on a skill check is auto fail (or worse) and that a nat 20 on a skill check is auto success.

leo1925 wrote:

Where does it say no violence in the text of charm person? All it says is
"An affected creature never obeys suicidal or obviously harmful orders"
and the rules on charmed say
"A charmed character never obeys a command that is obviously suicidal or grievously harmful to him."

How are those things different?

There's a difference between "harmful" and "harmful to you." Ordering me to punch my gerbil is a harmful order. Punching a grizzly bear is an order that would be grievously harmful to me.

Ok now i see it, i didn't think it that way, thank you.

Arcane Addict wrote:

Ooh! I completely forgot about Rasmir there for a second! Is it safe to assume that his followers don't get eaten by Gorum similar to the people of Rahadoum? On the other hand, it feels off to say they get the exct same treatment. They still have a desire for an afterlife, right? What about the man himself? Does he even worship a God?

The Rahadoumi are not eaten by Groetus. In Deaths Heretic, it is fairly laid out that the souls of the "unfaithed" (for lack of a better term) reside in an unending graveyard in the Boneyard (Pharasma's domain).

Razmiri may be eaten by Groetus, become Apostasy Wraiths (see Innser Sea Bestiary), or (and this it probably the VAST majority, like 95%) they are sent to the plane that best fits their alignment (probably LE, since that is Razmir's alignment).

Razmir may also be claimed by Hell, i am sure that the heresy devils can make a very good case about how Razmir's actions have made their jobs so much easier.

Actually dwarves is the reason why the humans of the setting don't speak orc and are orc slaves, when the orcs came to the surface of Golarion they enslaved/pillaged etc. a very big chunk of humanity but then the dwarves came and started fighting them very very viciously... Aroden (as a human) might have been able to form a resistane and free mankind but that would mean less demon fighting for Aroden and as such the history of mankind would have been different.

Is no one else able to see this sentence in the text:

"An affected creature never obeys suicidal or obviously harmful orders, but it might be convinced that something very dangerous is worth doing."

Is it just me that can see that?

Never obeys...harmful orders.

Right there, no violence is permissible by the spell, it says so, right in the spell.

Seriously guys.

It doesn't stipulate harmful to themselves. Just harmful.

This spell is CLEARLY intended to aid in roleplaying, it is not a combat spell.

Please read the rules on charmed here.

I agree that it needs clarification but as others have said don't hold your breath, ultimate magic and ultimate combat have a lot of issues and frankly this is one of the least concerning.

For what it's worth i think that oathbound paladins get a "domain" slot in which they can prepare the oath spells.

Or technically a large number of spellcasting aboleths killed two Azlanti gods with a giant rock I suppose.

Neither the aboleths nor their giant magical* rock killed those two deities, those two deities sacrificed themsevles in order to save most of the life in the surface of the planet, they could very well allow them all to die and (along with other deities) restart life on the surface of the planet but they chose not to.

*remember tha the core of this "giant rock" was the starstone

Also Varian had access to mythic powers for a little while during King of Chaos, that happened when

I am one of those that is tired of always starting at level 1*, sure for some adventures it's required (like RotRL) and i do enjoy the occasional "from zero to hero" but i am tired of always starting as the squire instead of the knight, as the apprentice wizard instead of a full wizard, as the guardsman instead of the man-at-arms, as the temple initiate instead of the temple priest; the PCs at level 1 are practically nobodies, sure the future has great (even legendary) things in store for them but that doesn't change the fact that they start out as nothing.

*or level 2 but the fact that level 1 PCs are made of paper is another issue

In no particular order:
1) RotRL (which you mentioned)
2) Jade Regent
3) Curse of the Crimson Throne
4) Iron Gods

Curse of the Crimson Throne, Jade Regent, and Reign of Winter all have pretty cohesive stories that drive the campaign.

Can someone shed some light on the bolded AP? I have heard very mixed things about the cohesiveness of Reign of Winter; some people say that it has a cohesive story while some others say that it's mostly disjointed adventures.

Sometime between when he defeated Tar-Baphon and the Shining Crusade. I believe that's as specific as the canon has gotten.

Clarification:

*the reasons for this are unkown but there are plentiful theories going around.

The year 1, he raised the Starstone (creating the isle of Kortos with it) and became a living god. Can't say I know for the Starfall Doctrine though.

Wasn't year 0?

I've heard it said that he ascended (to Heaven or wherever) after the creation of Absalom.

Axis, not Heaven. Aroden (at least as a deity) was LN and not LG, in fact after his death his personal domain in Axis belongs to Milani.

As others have mentioned, Nightglass does a fantastic job at this.

On the ground, it doesn't seem really that much different than living in any other dictatorship. The secret police are a little bit creepier, I guess.

But, on Earth, two things that often breaks dictatorships is a changing of the guard or the dictator becoming visibly weaker. Zon-Kuthon hasn't lost interest and, even if he declined in power, that likely wouldn't be visible to the citizens.

Even as outsiders, we can say Zon-Kuthon and the Umbral Court would be far harder to depose than any Earthly dictator. If some heroic adventurers took out the Umbral Court, the shadowcasters, the shadow giants, and a lot of kytons... they might have a chance.

So if you disagree with the guy that's been in power for ten thousand years, what do you do? Keep your head down, dream of leaving, and settle for petty rebellions.

Cheers!
Landon

I agree, nothing sort of a crusade can clean up Nidal, even the aftermath of said crusade would be very difficult to deal with since even the nature of Nidal has been wrapped by Zon Kuthon's power.

I went out of my way* to kill a PC only once and that because i really wanted THAT TRAP in shattered star book 2 to activate, i felt that the players would like that and add to the campaign.

*when i say out of my way i mean that the incubus continued his full attack (made his second attack) against the female barbarian who dropped after a critical on his first attack.

The one time i was b#&+~ing about my character dying was in a 3.5 game, sure resurrection magic was available but it was the 3rd or 4th death of my character and all of them was because of another very stupid PC who put the party in danger and caused PC deaths over and over.

In general i am ok with character death, i am more concerned about the continuation and the damage caused to the narrative of the story when resurrection magic isn't available or when the player wants to change his character because of a character death (usually mid campaign with no warning).

leo1925 wrote:

Karui Kage wrote:

I wouldn't let make whole or greater make whole work on advanced technology. The major cap on abusing the power of tech comes from its limited use, allowing a PC to circumvent that with a relatively low level spell seems wrong.

Ehmmm....

Greater make whole was made for repairing advanced technology (just not timeworn), the fact that it's a great tool for repairing a destroyed magic item.

Ehmmm...

The fact that, as written, the core's make whole won't let you repair a magic item with a caster level of 11 or higher is a flaw in the spell's design, and so I invented greater make whole to fix that flaw and allow for the quick repair of higher level magic items. The fact that it showed up in the Technology Guide was happy circumstance—I'd been looking for a place to get the spell into the system and this book was a PERFECT fit with its focus on items anyway.

But yeah... the spell was intended to repair ALL items, but it's primary reason to exist and the reason I built it in the first place was indeed to be something to fix magic items that other spells could not.

Ok i didn't know that, i was wrong in my previous post (also i forgot to add a "it's just gravvy" in the end of my post).

PS. Since i now the intent behind the make whole and greater make whole then that means that i can stop forcing my players to travel to Numeria in order to get their destroyed magic items restored, i can just allow them to learn greater make whole.

Im happy to announce that my WotR campaing has finally come to an end. My players succesfully closed the worldwound and saved the world. But more importantly, me and my players had some awesome fights and some awesome moments that we wouldnt have them if it wasnt for @Sc8rpi8n_mjd 's statblocks. We all thank you for your amazing work and the time you spend and I salute you as it must have been really difficult for you to make those statblocks.

Im planning to write a journal of the campaing for those who are interested. If you are planning to use those statblocks you can look up to it and see how my average to high optimized players managed to defeat everything that stood in their way.

Once again, thank you @Sc8rpi8n_mjd !!!

There is a very good reason for the technology guide being in the PRD and that reason is for allowing people to play the Iron Gods without being required to also buy the technology guide. I did buy the technology guide but I really appreciate the fact that Paizo did such thing.

@The Numerator

Well i understand how it might work for you but there are some people like me that the new deal is considerable worse than the current one.
I wouldn't benefit at all from the increased market because not a lot of people read book in english and even less of them read fantasy novels and even less read from an electronic format, so i wouldn't get what you are describing about meeting people who knew about the novels and could talk about them with them.
I also contend with the size of the books and the quality of the paper as it is now but i can understand the need for better quality paper (and font size!!!) and i would be happy to pay a little more for the increased quality (and the slightly increased shipping that comes with it).
I can understand why Paizo wants to increase the market of the novels, i also understand how that might increase the market for the game as well, it just doesn't sit very well with me that i (the current customer of both the novels and the game) have to pay for that.
But as it seems now i would be paying more (considerable more if it turns out that the 15% discount from AP subscription won't apply anymore) for something i didn't want/need and getting considerable less (no epub version of the book). As it is now i will seriously consider dropping my subscription and only buying the novels that really want to buy (mostly the Sutter and Dave Gross ones) from wherever it's cheaper to do so in whatever format i can afford at the time.

Now that the heavy lifting has been done ...

... Is it time for Paizo to create a Science Fiction (or Space Opera) variant of Pathfinder?

I would be ok with a space opera AP.

Ok I TOTALLY missed that. Thanks for pointing that out both of you. Problem solved!

@Kalindlara, yes Im the GM :P

My party is semi to high optimized. They are pretty strong and well-built but they just arent using everything they have in their arsenal because they manage... somehow...

They are:
Human Paladin of Iomedae Guardian
Human Cleric of Iomedae Hierophant
Tiefling Rogue/Ranger Trickster(dual path Champion)
Aasimar Bard Marshall(dual path Champion)
Aasimar Arcanist Archmage

Tell me your ideas(so i can counter them if my players come up with them! muahahahaha)

Have just reread both Pirate's Honor and Pirate's Promise as though just occurred to me....

** spoiler omitted **

Errant Mercenary wrote:

The printed APs as is are not very difficult for 4 optimised characters. However with 3 and not very experienced, some parts will be mince grinders.

They're not even hard for 4 decent characters. But 3 borderline decent characters will definitely have issues at certain points.

And when two of them are a level behind it quickly leads to TPK.

Since the Mythic Advantures book hasn't gone for a 2nd printing, we don't have an errata for it.

My opinion is that the mythic heroism spell is too powerful in it's current form and should be banned.

Apart from the fact that they can get rage cycling at level 1 at the cost of a feat, they aren't overpowered at all.

I am glad for the reversal, in my opinion the original FAQ was nonsense.

Finally that FAQ was taken back, it was about time.

Q: Can UMD be used to bypass the personalizations?

I think that the answer is yes.

I have no problem with new rulebooks and new options. I do have a problem with poorly thought out rules and badly edited books, and even when those books get an errata not nearly (not even close to) everything gets corrected (including the editing errors). Those things hurt my games.

I also ban the summoner.

Make yourself a threat, that usually means dealing enough damage so that the enemies can't ignore you.

What level is the party?

Banishment can't be made into a wand, maybe it was a wand of dismissal?

What is a critfail?

The (un)holy half of flamestrike's damage has nothing to do with positive
and negative energy.

When you use wands you don't provoke AoO so you don't have to cast defensively.

Did the GM tell you what class the "assasin" was?

UnArcaneElection wrote:

Fixed your link above.

Thank you, I appreciate your help.

I'm really interested in a 'rewrite' of Skull & Shackles, as that one seems to be widely LOATHED by several of the players, everything they hate about PF in one place. Enemies that always fight to the death, not one single player choice, a ship race that the player's literally cannot lose... Not sure if any of that is true, I didn't enquire further, as the mere mention of it seemed to open some old wounds.

What?

I can't be sure about the exact number (24 vs 25 vs 26) because i don't know if your upcoming pathfinder tale will take place at 4714 AR or 4715 AR, also since i don't know the exact months (of birth and the start of the next tale etc.) but i don't think that this specific numbers are needed, i just wanted to know his age because i thought that he was alive when Age of Lost Omens started.

I would love to read about Varian's involvement in the chelaxian civil war (and the chelaxian civil war in general).

Something doesn't add up, it's been 75* years since house Thrune took the throne, since Varian is 99 years old that means that when the Thrunes took the throne he was 24**. Although it isn't very young by human standards and could be given a command*** at that age he isn't a human, he is a half elf, wasn't this taken into account by whoever granted him a command OR did i something wrong with the dates and/or my math?

I am rereading the books (currently finishing Prince of Wolves) but i don't remember any clues about fighting in the civil war, i remember bits here and there about him serving in the chelaxian army but i had thought that this was after the house of Thrune had risen to power, did i misread the clues or did he served in the army before and after the regime change?

*house Thrune took the throne at 4640 AR and now it's 4715 AR, so 75 years ago

**older than i thought before (i hadn't done the math and i was eyeballing the years from memory)

***i assume that due to his noble birth he didn't serve as a simple soldier but as a minor officer (if not a major officer)