I seem to have lost my copy, but if I remember correctly the high level campaigns book published near the end of 2nd Edition had rules for going beyond 20th level. True Dweomers were the first attempt at epic level spellcasting rules.
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Just to be clear since I'm sure this was an unintended side effect of trying to be clear about objects, Magic Missile can be targeted at any creature, it does not have to be a living creature i.e. it works just fine on a zombie or a construct, etc. barring further protections or immunities. Whoops, you're right that was an unintentional word insertion there. I'm used to the words living and creature going together most of the time, non-living creatures are a bit rare in normal usage.
In regards to PF the system of measurements really doesnt matter. All most players use is 5 ft squares hieght and weight of their character and weight of equiptment. If people have to do something more than that they are doing something wrong. Something wrong? You mean your group doesn't design and build engineering projects in game? That's just weird.
Personally I would suggest the Gazetteer as being a nice easy to read book that covers a lot of broad information about the entire setting.
You can safely disregard everything being said about optimization. It's no different from anything that's been said for the last few decades about any edition of D&D. Pathfinder is really no more nor less vulnerable to powergaming or shenanigans than any other system we've had. Q: Has Pathfinder been written so that only the most optimal character builds will work in the long run? Not really. Q: Does pathfinder run on the assumption that the average adult non-classes NPC would have between a 9 and 13 for most stats? Obviously there would be exceptions but does your average farmer NPC still have stats built like a 1st level character? The NPC chapter basically suggests using a non-elite array for these characters which would give them those sort of stats. However this is far from essential and most average farmer NPCs don't really need stats at all since they're unlikely to be getting into many dice-rolling situations.
At the start of the GURPS book, it has a lovely table with conversions to metric. I love that it has two columns, the first one is a 'close enough for gaming' conversion value like a yard=metre and the second column is the actual conversion value.
Estimating volume to weight is much easier for me in metric since a litre of water weighs 1 Kg at 1g gravity. It's not too hard to estimate that substance X is twice as heavy as water, therefore a litre of it would be 2 Kg. (Or for a more useful volume measurement just multiply by 1000, since a 1000 litres is a cubic meter).
I've had decades to get used to it, although Fahrenheit to Celsius still gives me trouble. I don't really mind for fantasy games, because it feels appropriate to a medieval setting to use an archaic system of measurement. If I were running a science fiction game though it would feel strange not to use SI units. @ Jarl, even with a defined specific density you would also need to specify the local gravity to determine weight.
Surviving is generally an assumed value everyone/thing shares. But, how integral that is to different people varies. Someone who was suicidal, or borderline, might just say 'go ahead' despite the fact that all you asked him to do was get off the couch. Commanding a person suffering from that degree of depression to get off a couch probably would be 'against their nature'. How committed someone is to living is a variable, Really not much of one. In all of human nature it's probably the most stable parameter you can possibly use. and because it can change from person to person, it can't really be used as an absolute standard to measure all of the other characteristics of their nature or values. I disagree. Although there are things that rise above a person's instinct for self-preservation, those are commonly the things we would define as a person's nature. If person A would die rather than breaking their ideals, then "idealistic" would be a good definition of their nature. If person B would rather die than get off the couch, then "depressed" would be a good definition of their nature. If person C would sell out their friends to save their own life, then "selfish" would be a good definition of their nature. In which case selling out their friends probably doesn't go against their nature for purposes of the spell. Am I getting too philosophical about this? Lol… Is there such a thing as 'too philosophical'?
A good example of this in fiction is the novel Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold. The main character in her youth was chosen by the Goddess of Summer to break a curse that was destroying her family and her kingdom becoming a 'saint'. (Saints in that setting are very similar to spell-casting clerics in D&D). She made a huge mistake so failed to break the curse, lost her powers and has spent decades alternately hating the gods or doubting herself. Over the course of the book she is approached by the trickster god who matches her quite well because he values being cursed and hated just as much as being worshiped. Working through her hostility he helps her find redemption and closure for her earlier failures and empowers her as a saint of his faith.
I mean if I were an arcane caster, and we had an encounter we couldn't win overwhelmingly, the first thing I would do is put my hand on a metamagic rod of quicken, and port out. End result, all your capable opponents are alive, have seen what one of your more powerful magical items looks like, know where you keep it and know that you follow the same strategy every time. When I GM, I don't design encounters built around the party's weaknesses unless the NPCs have a way of knowing about them. This strategy would result in a lot of encounters where your enemy are prepared for you. 1) Some kind of dimensional anchor or similar effect, in other words disallowing that option. And there are some counters to this available as well. Again, I find it cheap for a GM to try to just always negate the PCs abilities... unless said PC has a reputation across the planet as "Greg the Teleporter" in which case you'd better believe every single enemy of his would find a way to get dimensional anchors. 2) Some kind of time limit thing, like a race to the McGuffin. I find almost everything has a time limit if your PCs are involved in the campaign world. To reiterate, if I were a wizard I might very well have a rule: No combats ever, if I were not the initiator and planner of that combat. I fight when and where I decide, and on no other terms. Played to it's full extent I don't think it would make a very good PC concept. It'd be brilliant for an NPC, but I think a PC would find it too boring.
Technically not so. He was born of a human male and female elf yes. But he was granted the choice of living the life of man or elf, as was his brother, and he chose eleven life. So there is no distinction between him and all the other Noldor elves except for experience.You know Elrond was a Half-Elf, right? I'm not so sure that's entirely true. Was his brother Elros a perfectly ordinary human after choosing humanity? Look at his descendents the Numenorian kings (and Aragorn) and it's pretty clear there was some Elvish influence on that bloodline.
What counts as "against it's nature" anyway? My standard rule for this is could someone make you do it by holding a gun to your head.
Actually builder chris, I don't think the price of any commercially marketed object in the real world is based on how much it costs to make it. Instead they figure out the sweet spot of what people will pay for it and if that is less than the total cost of production, distribution, retail and marketing then the object is never produced and put on the market.
It seems subjectively like Abjuration uses a lot of crystals, though I've never crunched the numbers. I jokingly dubbed the specialist casters Abjewelers after seeing how many things required powdered diamond.
Most players don't consider abject impotence and humiliating pseudo-death to be fun Except for the ones who play Call of Cthulhu. ;)
The decanter produces 5 gallons per second, or 22 litres. . .Certainly not world ending but an interesting thought came to mind, waterwheel automobiles, how fast could one reasonably travel? (the roads would all have to run off into irrigation channels) That doesn't sound right. You'd increase the pressure with which the water emerges by focusing more of it into a tight beam, however the actual kinetic energy would remain the same. Also if my knowledge of fluid dynamics is correct, the system proposed would lose energy to vibration and thermal energy within the tubes actually resulting in decreased efficiency.
What if you then use your move action to trigger an attack of opportunity and the opponent uses the attack of opportunity to use a combat maneuver that provokes an attack of opportunity and also happens to lack the feat that prevents the maneuver from provoking. This of course would mean that you're attacking a monster with Reach because otherwise you still wouldn't get any benefit because you'd be in range without Monkey Lunge. So it's not... entirely... useless. As long as you're provoking attacks of opportunity which a specific kind of monster chooses to use in a sub-optimal way. Wow, that's a bad feat.
Nerds. Damn right. Proud of it. (As further proof, it pains me to write those sentences knowing that they're grammatically incomplete and don't make a full clause.)
Don't post often here at all, but I do lurk here regularly. In any case, I just GMed the first session of a game last Friday and it worked out great. Congratulations, that's awesome. I find GMing to be one of the most challenging and rewarding things you can do with roleplaying. I hope you continue to have a lot of fun with it. 1: As people have already mentioned, yes Magic Missile always hits. It's one of the only spells in the system which does that. Since people have already mentioned the basics, I'll fill you in on the other things to know about Magic Missile. You can't target objects, only living creatures. You can't do called shots with it and hit a specific part of a creature. Because it's a force effect it hits incorporeal things perfectly. 3: You can mix and match as people have already mentioned. One thing to remember is that using a mix of opponents rather than focusing on a single boss monster can make for better combats. One single boss only gets one action per turn and is quickly swamped by the four PCs all taking actions. Also don't forget that some encounters should be higher or lower CRs to vary the amount of challenge for the PCs. Have a read through the encounter building rules in the core rulebook under Gamemastering and there's some good guidelines in there.
Nothing beats Amber Diceless. In that game every player carried the means to destroy the entire game universe... the blood running through their veins. Well, they could destroy Amber and the infinite worlds of shadow by erasing the Pattern. I think the courts of chaos would still be fine so long as the Logrus was intact. In order to do so, they'd have to know of the existence of the primal pattern and how to reach it. Corwin and Random only found their way there because Oberon was in disguise with them and guiding them through shadow. The same trick won't work in Amber, Rebma or Tirna Nogth since they're only reflections of the real pattern that Dworkin drew in his own blood copying the eye of the chaos serpent. By my count the only people who know the secret are Oberon (dead?), Dworkin (mad?), Brand (dead?), Corwin, Random and possibly the other red headed children who actually listened to Dworkin. Oh and of course Merlin which is to whom the story of the first five books in the Amber series is being told.
I constantly see people feel like high level play is unfair and horribly suited, but doesn't it also seem fun? I consider a campaign incomplete if it doesn't reach 20th level. I love high level play and it really is fun. I really wish we'd see some epic level rules for Pathfinder, but I'll probably have to settle for Mythic Tiers. I especially love the earth-shattering powers because then I can throw a million and one impossible problems that I don't know how to solve at the players and watch as they somehow figure out a way. The problems that I find isn't that the PCs are overpowered or powergaming but that they might be too weak in any field that they haven't focused the last twenty levels on. Saving throws can be especially difficult with a lot of CR appropriate monsters throwing around save or suck spells.
When the GM says "dont drink the milk in my fridge anymore" thats my rebellion point. Seriously, how can you deny a bro a cool glass of milk? It's reached the point where the guy who hosts our game often ends up with 4-6 litres of milk in the fridge after every gaming session because after the few times we ran out everyone buys milk every session to bring along just in case.
But despite all that, I really do think now it played better than anything from 3.x on has. Hmm, thinking back I'm inclined to agree with you. Our encounters (combat or otherwise) certainly seemed to be resolved much faster than they are in our modern game. However I'd be reluctant to give up the increase in options and versatility that the modern games provide. I wonder if there's a way to get the best of both worlds.
Anzyr, I'm having a hard time understanding what you're trying to argue. Your original statement that the spell 'only' permits vengeance from one party isn't true as shown by a literal reading of the text. Your request that the a rule be cited that the GM can determine the reactions of NPCs to occurrences has been met (since you claim to still be waiting, please refer to page 8 CRB). You keep bringing up house rules and examples of house rules when no one has mentioned any. You also mention rule zero which has never been invoked. Despite wracking my brain, I can only come up with two interpretations of your argument. I'll list them below. 1) You're suggesting that NPCs don't react to spells unless it states in the spell "this causes an NPC reaction" and that adding that in would be a house-rule? Thus mention of rule zero and house rules. 2) You're using an unusual definition of the word safe wherein an action is safe if any repercussions are based on GM interpretation which might vary. In which case it would be safe in that there are no guaranteed repercussions whereas everyone else's usage of the word is meaning that there is a possibility of repercussions based on how the GM plays their NPCs. If it's the first then that's an unusual point of view and one which I've never seen represented in the rules. If it's the second, then your assurance that planar binding is safe so long as you murder the summoned creature might confuse people who expect it to apply within a standard Pathfinder game. Or are you arguing something different that I haven't been able to figure out? If so, I'd appreciate you clarifying this for me.
No the argument is that Rule 0 isn't RAW, because it can't be discussed or interpreted. As soon as someone quotes Rule 0, this will be relevant. Until then, let's discuss RAW. Based on exception based design principles, Planar Binding as a spell is a specific rule and as such overrides general rules. The section I previously quoted on page 8 is a general rule and therefore will be overridden by any specific contradictions that occur within the spell. Therefore if the spell had stated, "Only the creature summoned may seek revenge" then it would contradict the general rule of the GM determining actions of NPCs and Monsters and require that no other creature would potentially avenge their fallen comrade. However if you pay close attention to the wording if the spell it lacks the word "only", therefore making a positive statement about what can happen and not implying any restrictions on potential outcomes. Therefore your statement: When the spells says that only the creature will seek you out for revenge? Has been demonstrated to be an incorrect interpretation of the rules. Your GM might make Natural 1's critical fumbles, that is not RAW though and shouldn't be discussed as a reason why Full BAB classes are bad. Irrelevant as incorrect analogy. No one has suggested house-rules. RAW, clearly the creature can seek revenge, but the spell is quite specific about that being the only drawback. Incorrect as the spell is only specific about it being a drawback and not the only drawback. This is like reading a spell description in isolation without reading the Magic section and therefore making false assumptions about what the spell does or doesn't do. The rule exists in the context of a larger system. You can cite Rule 0 all you want and if in your games you want it turn heaven/hell against the caster fine, but that's not any more RAW then it is that you get free treasure from people who you Klingon Promotioned for casting it. You can cite Rule 0 all you want and state that only the creature can come after the caster, but that's not RAW either as demonstrated above. You've been making a positive statement specifying exactly what will happen when using the spell Planar Binding (that you are safe as long as you murder the creature before duration elapses) which is not supported by RAW. I've never stated that other creatures will seek revenge, as that will vary from campaign to campaign and GM to GM. You however are saying that they will assuredly not, which is incorrect as per the rules of the game and also incorrect in any practical assessment as it will vary from campaign to campaign and GM to GM.
I don't know that this has ever been specifically addressed in Pathfinder, so largely it's up to your GM's interpretation unless someone can find a reference on this. However... 3.5 Rules compendium, Actions in Combat, Page 9: Footnote 29. Does sundering an object provoke an attack of opportunity, "If the object is being held, carried, or worn by a creature, yes, but only from that creature. If not, no." 3.5 Rules compendium, Objects, Page 106: Attacking Objects. AC of an unattended object = 10 - 5 (Effective dex 0) - 2 (circumstance bonus in this situation). Also if you line up a shot as a full-round action you get an automatic hit with a melee weapon or +5 to hit with a ranged weapon. Edit: Don't forget you would also apply the size modifier for the weapon. Hope that helps.
That's a tough one, because either option is entirely legitimate but you can't really do both at once. I personally prefer the first option, but you really could go either way. I believe that Character and Player wants and needs can be different and that it is possible for a Character to advance in a Class against his wishes cursing his fate (EX: Blade bound Magus tied to a Cursed sword), because that is how the player of that character feels he should advance. As do I. In fact it's one of the things I admire a lot about pathfinder. The number of times they've taken things presented as negatives within the campaign world (oracle curses for example) and portrayed them as positive class features. I'm very impressed with how they've done it.
Please show me RAW where other creatures may seek revenge for it. Page 8, Core rulebook. "Helping them tell this story is the Game Master (or GM), who decides what threats the player characters (or PCs) face and what sorts of rewards they earn for succeeding at their quest. Think of it as a cooperative storytelling game, where the players play the protagonists and the Game Master acts as the narrator, controlling the rest of the world." Another creature seeking revenge would be a threat the PCs face. Which as per the quoted paragraph is a decision the GM is able to make. Now, I suppose you could make an interesting RAW vs RAI argument that the Game Master only controls the rest of the 'world' meaning that they have no control over extraplanar creatures. However it seems pretty clearly RAI that it's the entire multiverse of the campaign setting.
2) Having read the rules of Planar Binding I can assure its quite safe assuming you make you sure to off the outsider before the service expires. The spell states: "The creature might later seek revenge." To pretend that suddenly other creatures will come looking for you would actually go outside the rules. So prove to me that summoning then offing the outsider isn't safe RAW. You can't be serious. But assuming you are, okay. Please refer to the bestiary in the monster section relevant to what you're summoning. Refer to the attribute line and notice that for most outsider sections neither Int, Wis nor Cha are non-abilities. Also in most cases they are not of animal level intelligence. Therefore these creatures are capable of self-directed action, anticipating future events and have a concept of self (and thus self-preservation is a possibility). As NPCs these actions are determined by the GM (refer to gamemastering, NPCs or 'how the game is played' in CRB). Thus by RAW, the GM is entitled to determine the actions of the former summoned creatures extraplanar comrades to act in order to protect their own self-interest.
Why would FLESH to Stone affect your gear? Maybe leather items, since they're made of flesh, but why metal or cloth? Well since you can also target elementals and skeletons with the spell, I'm assuming it's name is merely poetic and not necessarily a descriptor of how the spell works. If you're petrified by looking at something, why would that affect your gear? Your gear didn't look at it! Probably for the same reason that attended objects benefit from your will-saves. In the D&D world your possessions seem attuned to you on a magical level.
...You cannot teleport if you don't have astral plane. The vast majority of settings not based on D&D have no astral plane...LOTR with 20th level characters in Pathfinder would just be a simple teleportation spell..."One does not just simply teleport into Mordor..." "One does not simply wind-walk into Mordor..."
Personally I find the allocations to be so arbitrary already that I can't fix it with a house-rule. I could go through the entire core book and reclassify all the spells, but I don't know that I've got the energy to do this with every spell from every book.
I made this mistake when Mystic Theurge first came out and took levels in MT and then another prestige class. After a close examination of the rules (at least for 3.5, I haven't checked as thoroughly for Pathfinder) it doesn't work. You're not trying to duplicate spellcasting levels, you're trying to duplicate a class feature which duplicates spellcasting levels and that's outside the realm of what the PrCs grant. However you're of course free to run the rules differently if that's what you want for your games.
I wonder what the Arcane Spell Failure chances are for a full spacesuit...
The problem with the necklace of adaptation is that although it keeps breathable air for you even in a vacuum, I don't think it offsets the damage due to decompression mentioned in Distant Worlds. Thus you can keep breathing while you explode. From a rules perspective I don't know but from a science perspective I don't see how that's possible. You're surrounded by a 'shell of breathable air' and humans can't breathe air if it's not at roughly atmospheric pressures. Therefore surrounded by breathable air implies that you're not decompressing. This is why I suggest the necklace rather than something like just a bottle of air. The hard science thinking says that the smoke would instantly dissipate to fill the vacuum but I think that is probably good enough considering how many physics liberties are taken anyways in PF. Actually I think you're right given that a strong wind can disperse the smoke in 1 round.
c) bard and lyre- very good but will it work in a hard vacuum? Get the bard wearing a Necklace of Adaptation and then open an eversmoking bottle to allow smoke to fill the entire area you're effecting with the Lyre. While the smoke won't be breathable it will mean that the area isn't in hard vacuum. Also it'll look pretty cool when you allow the smoke to dissipate and just leave the structures behind.
Core only and going for cost-effective. Necklace of Adaptation keeps you surrounded by breathable air, the description even specifies that it will function in a vacuum. There you have a spacesuit. Instead of an airlock just keep an arch open to the vacuum and balance the 'suction' with a permanent Gust of Wind blowing back into the room. If you research it carefully you can probably calculate it to bring the air to perfect equilibrium. Transport breathable air up to the space-station with bags of holding or a portable hole. (Bags of holding theoretically could contain more air having a larger cubic volume, but the item description doesn't support this stating specifically that it only holds 10 minutes. I would personally ignore this because it makes no sense, but ask your GM). Use a Lyre of Building to construct the base, it gives you 300 man-days of building in half an hour once per week. It's also pretty cheap so it really is more economical to build your city on rock and roll. Dust of Dryness would let you easily transport 100 gallons of water very cheaply. You could get a Decanter of Endless Water although it seems like a bit of overkill unless it's a particularly large colony with a lot of people. Ask your GM if alchemists have discovered the Bosch Reaction and can build an alchemical version to scrub the air. Alternatively ask your GM if alchemists have discovered electrolysis to generate oxygen from water and then you can generate all the air you need with a decanter of endless water. (Baring the magical decanter, this is how the International Space Station generates air). Or ask your GM if leaving one 'bottle of air' open in the station per inhabitant would count for life-support. Or transport a whole lot of plants for a more organic life-support system. Edit: Wow, Timebomb beat me to posting a lot of these suggestions.
We would general describe the sex scene in a few simple details and then leave the rest to the imagination. Usually a lot more emphasis on the emotions that people are feeling rather than the physical actions being performed. For example one scene that I remember from one of our games was "He's a sensitive and gentle lover but has a sad air and you feel that he's been lonely for a very long time". We're all close enough friends to be able to speak candidly about sex without feeling too awkward. At the same time though, going through detailed erotic roleplay would feel inappropriate. Sex and romance have been relevant to our games since we try to make the characters feel like real people with lives. We've had PCs dating or getting married to NPCs in game and the occasional one night stand. I think it adds a lot to the story to have these elements in there, but we don't necessarily need to go into great detail. Most settings we assume that there are readily available contraceptive methods and that pregnancy won't occur unless it's something that the PCs attempt for.
The arcane and divine classes are similar but do have a few mechanical differences. 1) Arcane classes suffer from Arcane Spell Failure chance when wearing armour.
I think we'd be better served by more damage and a multi-round reload time. Then there'd be no bypassing it except by owning a couple dozen pistols, which is going to seriously cut into your enhancement budget.Let's apply the same principle to spells as well. Level 3-5 spells take two rounds to cast, and 6-9 take three. I mean if big effect once every few rounds is acceptable. I know that you're not being serious, but... I actually quite like that idea. Although personally I'd divide it up 1-3 (normal), 4-6 (2 rounds), 7-9 (3 rounds) and make cantrips a swift action to cast. Though for the delay rounds I'd only make it take a move equivalent action and they could still cast lower level spells in the meantime as long as they're only a standard action.
As written the two sentences cannot come into conflict. Between them they create three specific circumstances under which the spell does not work. 1) The attacker can't see the figments.
Only one of these three conditions has to be met in order for the spell to have no effect.
The first sentence says nothing whatsoever about what happens if you can see. Only what happens if you can't. I know the grammar overall sounds like a positive statement, but the word "must" turns it into a restriction. You can't assume that the inverse is necessarily true if the condition is not met. B) The mirror imaged guy is invisible, mirror image doesn't aid him. This is explicitly stated in the spell description. The first sentence doesn't contradict it. Therefore in a completely literal reading of the rules option B is the valid ruling. Note this is purely RAW and I think RAI might well be different.
One of the guys running a game I'm in uses the fumbles, and the fumble and crit decks. My hate for those burns as hot as a thousand blazing suns, so I only play characters who don't make attack rolls, neatly sidestepping the issue. I wouldn't mind so much if you had to roll to 'confirm' a fumble or there was some sort of margin of success mechanic involved. A 1 in 20 chance of badly screwing up regardless of how good your skill is just seems completely unfair and unbelievable.
Well if you were the GM and a Paladin asked his phylactery of faithfulness, "Hey, I'm thinking about using this wand of charm person on that barmaid over there, and commanding her to sleep with me, is that cool?" ... What would the phylactery say? I think the phylactery would say, you'll need a good use magic roll since charm person isn't on your spell list. ;) As for a paladin specifically? Even if it isn't regarded as an evil act (which I think it should be) it's certainly a breach of the paladin's code. This is one of the few cases where I would advocate for instant fall from grace. Using magic like this isn't respecting the barmaid at all as a person or taking her feelings or well-being into consideration. Doing this purely for your own pleasure is a callous act and far from honourable.
Some laws enforce community work on a person to pay for his crimes, like theft, even if its against his will to do so. Its not so different when you're forcing him to do charity, he's paying the community for something that he did, it just so happens that instead of being locked up on a jail for refusing to do so, the magic just doesnt let him to refuse it in the first place. Using magic to provide justice in such a way is definitely lawful, but not necessarily good. I would personally peg such an act as being typical of the lawful neutral alignment and wouldn't consider it evil. Another example: the BBEG is going to kill a innocent person, but also knows that if he doesnt do this, his boss will kill him. He have nothing against that guy, but he has to do it to survive. Would it be evil to use magic to prevent him from killing that person, even if that means that you will strip him of his free will of chosing his life instead of that of someone else? I would say that desperate situations can justify certain actions. Stripping someone of their free will might be acceptable in self defense or the defense of others. This doesn't necessarily make it good, but it's something that I think many good people could accept as being necessary.
I don't think it's all that unreasonable for a fighter to see a confusing blur of motion where the wizard is and decide that it's better to close their eyes and avoid distraction. Even if the person had never encountered magic before and has zero ranks in knowledge arcana. It's just common sense, particularly with someone who has the blind-fighting feat and so is obviously confident in their ability to fight with their eyes closed.
What an awesome idea. I'll have to keep an eye on this thread.
All of my characters have fairly elaborate backstories, so I don't think any one of them is more "fluffy" than another. Still, some of them turned out to be more interesting to roleplay. Probably my favourite one was a character named Nolan. He was one of the few times I've played an evil character in a mixed alignment game. I designed him so that his alignment wouldn't put him at odds with the party. I researched Narcissistic Personality Disorder, a real world mental health condition and based his psychology on it. He was completely lacking in any empathy or consideration for other people, however he very much wanted to be perceived as a hero because it was important to him that everyone admire him. Thus he would often do very 'good' things, especially when other people were watching. He tried to base himself off the other heroic characters in the group, using them for inspiration since he didn't really understand 'being good' naturally. He also had the power to steal other people's magical abilities by killing them (Basically a sorcerer but the GM allowed me to leave my spell's known blank until I killed another person or creature with magical powers and then I could select appropriate spells to fill the slots in). He worked for the mage's guild as their enforcer, hunting down rogue wizards. One personality quirk was that he refused to ever use any of his stolen powers for 'evil purposes' (at least as far as he was capable of interpreting that). It allowed him to justify to himself that he deserves those powers more than the people he killed. Very fun character to play, and he slowly learned more and more what it takes to be a real hero even though it didn't come very naturally to him. His alignment had finally shifted from evil to something approaching good when the character died. (Don't critically fumble twice in a row when you're trying to defuse a bomb).
Now, how far can this go? To my reading, you can go about as far as a person can in the real world if they choose to abuse and exploit a long-term friendship. So pretty far, but there are limits. Can you order someone to kill a person he loves Very unlikely. The spell magically puts you on a similar footing to their lover, but even if you're very charming it's unlikely you can talk one friend into killing their lover. However, it might be possible to persuade them if it was something they were inclined to do anyway. For example, if you know that they're a jealous person likely to respond to jealousy with violence, you could probably persuade them that their lover was unfaithful. They'd be likely to believe the caster of the charm. or to sleep with you? Greatly increases your chances. I'd roleplay it as per someone they really like but had never viewed romantically before, suddenly starts hitting on them. They feel pretty positive about the caster, so it's likely to be interpreted favorably but would still depend on the situation. If so, would it be an evil act to force them into something they dont want to do? It's morally equivalent to achieving the same thing through drugging the person. Under most circumstances it would be pretty evil, but I can think of a few situations where it might be morally acceptable. For example what if you see someone on the edge of a cliff about to jump to their death out of extreme depression. Casting charm person might give you an opening to talk to them and maybe talk them back off the ledge. There are also times where although it's a little evil, it's better than the alternatives. During a hostage negotiation for example. Yes, you're manipulating a person's emotions to get them to do what you want, but you're doing it to save lives.
If guns were changed to target normal AC instead of touch AC, making them effectively like every other weapon in the game, would their power level become balanced enough to use? Good question. I wouldn't call guns targeting touch AC 'overpowered' necessarily, I think that its power level is wacky, sometimes it's too good, sometimes it's not good enough. Removing the touch AC rule would even out the variations somewhat, but I worry that it would then leave guns too weak. I would want to replace it with some other sort of bonus that is less likely to disrupt the game math or make guns cheaper and easier to use. |