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Fall from Heaven is a fantasy mod for Civilization IV, that was based on the mod creator's D&D campaigns. I always thought it was a nifty campaign setting; I'm working on putting together a Pathfinder adaptation. I'll post what I have so far already, but first I have some questions.

From the Civilopedia:

“Based on a long running Dungeons & Dragons campaign, Fall from Heaven is set in the dark fantasy world of Erebus. This is a world where the themes of corruption and redemption are repeated and all the characters, even the gods themselves, are imperfect.

“Although the mod isn't a direct translation of any of the following, inspiration comes from Celtic and Norse mythology, Judeo-Christian mysticism, and the works of Edgar Allen Poe and H.P. Lovecraft.”

So, if you're familiar with it, I had some questions: Which adventure path would be easiest to translate over? I'm thinking maybe Carrion Crown, or maybe trying to convert the scenarios into something for a small group of PCs (although that might be a project beyond my abilities). They're a great story, but probably tricky to scale down, like you would expect from a game titled “Civilization.”

Any races or classes that are totally inappropriate? Any that need to be created? I'm pillaging from Midgard pretty heavily, because of the mythological themes. I'm also adapting Alex Augunas's Harrowed Character Building system, to encourage options more plausible to the setting, but have quite a ways to go.

I'm adding a “nation” system that would essentially add a second race to each character, upping the power level and making the characters a bit more distinct. Would you include some of the civilizations and races/classes added in the modmods? Some of them were pretty neat, and add some interesting player options (like more advanced guns from the Mechanos, or (Half-)Giants from the Jotnar), but that messes with the numerical symbolism of having 7 Good/Neutral/Evil civilizations, with an Angel and magic Sphere for each one.

And if you're a Civilization player who hasn't tried Fall from Heaven, you should really look into it. It's pretty much a whole new game.

WagnerSika wrote:

Summoned monsters are more efficient and less morally grey way of sweeping for traps.

Still pretty morally grey. Summoned monsters can't permanently die, no, but they're still entirely capable of suffering. Unless you're shelling out a delay pain for that pony, you're getting into some pretty serious moral problems of your own.

If you're choosing a monster to summon, you at least have the option of choosing a similar-alignment monster likely to help you willingly, once it understands your situation. Maybe even some decent scores for perception and/or disable device, although I haven't looked the lists over lately to have anything in mind.

Incorporeal monsters may not be edible; it would probably be quite a chore just to physically interact with their corpse.

I have a hunch that an "avatar" might be the wrong term for what you are looking for, as it often describes a CR 40+ appearance of an even more powerful deity. Unascended mortal, maybe?

They are probably most similar to the barbarian's rage: they gain an increase to Constitution while raging, which temporarily increases their HP. These are not "temporary HP," however.

Similarly, your wizard or whatever gains 3 bonus HP, "permanently," but really only as long as you have the toad. Killing it and repeatedly getting new toads would definitely not stack; you would be regaining the same 3 HP over and over again.

Threads like this make me confident in running my games "Rules as I read them," not "Rules as FAQ'ed." Not that I especially disagree with this one, but there's too many FAQs, and too many that break the "conversational style."

Plenty of monsters need a place to drink, socialize and post classified ads; taverns aren't necessarily just for "PC" races.

I am away from my books at the moment, or I might be more specific/helpful...

When adding templates and other things that make a bunch of changes to a character, I generally do the ability scores first, because they change so much of the character. New skills for increased Int, Cha instead of Con... It's easy to forget that little stuff, because it isn't on the Vampire page in the Bestiary.

You could give benefits for backstory, without it being a whole level or 2: a few hundred XP, some gold, extra HP or a feat could encourage them without destroying the power curve.

I am generally open to converting 3.5 material, if it has not already been rewritten. For something like Harm or Disintegrate, just use the PF version.

I am curious what the cultist was doing prior to getting captured. If they were trying to sacrifice a sapient creature (and a trip back to town is not practical, of course), go ahead and kill them.

But it's somewhat plausible to find a cultist who didn't know their church had crossed a line from creepy into mass murder. You shouldn't kill everyone.

Edit: Just parsed the grammar in "go ahead and kill them," and realized that would be killing the victim with the cultist. I promise, I'm not Belkar.

It seems relevant, that there are no rules for making non-celestial armor out of gold or silver (that I know of). It seems like if it was made of gold, that would have an affect on the weight. I wouldn't hang too much on such an ambiguous phrase, that was cut when the item was reprinted. I'm a bit rusty on equipment rules; can unique items like this typically be modified? Could I make a cold iron Holy Avenger, for example?

On the other hand, I could see the material being "Celestial," which wouldn't necessarily mean it's made out of Celestials.

Looks good so far, although I thought it was slightly odd that you have a Druidarchy but no (playable) druids. Might be an interesting story there; maybe the so-called druids are some sort of rogue/sorcerer cabal pulling a con (to do... something). Actually, will you have any Divine casters at all?

I have a bit of a soft spot for the planar races you've picked, so I might lean towards a sylph alchemist, or a fetchling... something.

Some of these are not in Pathfinder, but might be in other games. For instance, necrotic and radiant are not Pathfinder damage types, probably closest to negative and positive energy, respectively. Air, Earth, Metal, Void, Shadow, Water and Wood are keywords for spells, but not damage types, as far as I know.

1) RAW, they should probably stack, if they are untyped penalties. If that seemed too harsh, I might go with just the larger one. I'm not too familiar with the madness rules, though.

2) If not constrained by a madness, changing their alignment back should be pretty easy, probably just an atonement spell for the class features. Not even that if they weren't a LG-only class.

Four madnesses, in general, looks a little excessive; did you randomly determine the number?

Assuming such a potion existed, maybe you could throw it at them like a flask?

I *think* that you'd be looking for psychic spells; even though most members of your class cast arcane spells, *you* cast psychic spells.

Since Eberron was brought up, it reminded me of Kaius/Karrnath. Despite being an evil vampire dictator, I always got the impression that he had some regrets about about becoming Undead and animating zombies all over the place, and that he was trying to make up for it all by keeping his kingdom safe. Of course, not enough regret to budge his alignment, and a LE vampire overlord probably has a bit of an... unusual perspective on the good of his kingdom.

Interesting question. After sleeping on it, I'd probably say that DD only advances your draconic bloodline. Orc and abyssal definitely won't work together.

Given that Unchained was published after CotC, I would expect the NPCs to be Chained, although I am not familiar with this path. Your PC shouldn't stand out too much for that though.

Regarding Dex to damage, you would need an ability that specifically says you can replace Str with Dex. I am not aware of one for monks/unarmed strikes, but if it was my game, I would think about making a feat for you.

It's not Golarion, but the Player's Guide to the World of Xoth is a good source of ideas. It's free on xoth.net. I'm on my phone, otherwise I'd give you the link.

A male bulette should be bulet, and pronounced boo-lay (or boo-let). Just like Daniel/Danielle.

I have not heard this phrase before; is it from (American) English?

Colloquialisms can make ancient languages unintelligible more often than not, so it would be "realistic" for Comprehend Languages to have limited usefulness. But like Firelock said, if your players are opting to use a spell, they are probably in too much of a hurry to decipher Ancient Egyptian slang.

You may be thinking of Schir Demons from Bestiary 3. Although it would not surprise me if there were similar goatish looking fiends in devils, or something. Rakshasas, in particular, are known for having animal heads.

One (fairly minor, but so far unmentioned) example of double weapons, is only needing to have one weapon in your WBL budget. Magic weapons can get expensive. On the other hand, you are one weapon closer to being weaponless.

These could be interesting classes, but frankly I wonder where is the connection to blue dragons. I would expect these classes to be getting illusion spells/SLAs, electricity damage and resistance, and general dragon-stuff like breath weapons, natural attacks, flight, size increases...

Is there a reference that I am missing?

Wow, I got that just in time! You guys made my week, in a very difficult time.

I suppose you could have one on a dog collar, and another riding in a mini saddle. Other than that?

That's awesome! I just didn't want to wait until Christmas or something.

Do you have an approximate date for the bundle? If it'll be just a few days, I'll hold out, but if it'll be some months, I'll take just the hardcopy now and maybe pick up the PDF sometime down the line.

In other news, you mentioned behavior analysis in a comment somewhere or other. Do you have any advice for someone looking to begin a career in ABA? So far my job search is... frustrating.

Sounds fun, but I expect a decent number of PCs would not react the way you need them to, in any number of bizarre ways. Maybe the rogue sneaks out back to try to ambush the enemy. Maybe they try to haggle with the peasant before they go outside. Maybe they make a Sense Motive check and realize the witch is setting them up.

GMing really stretches your improv skills!

I think you could lose some height/weight, but not enough to become Small size. Not sure what age that would be... 10 or so?

I imagine that the shadow bloodline might be a decent start.

Regarding demons and electricity immunity, the best thing would probably be to have a backup strategy of some sort: sorcerers generally do better with a diverse range of spells rather than every electricity spell they can get (in spite of the lost arcana bloodline). Illusion spells would be a flavorful secondary focus for a Blue Dragon.

There may be a feat or something that would change his damage to Sonic or Force or something, but I don't know if it would be worth it.

If one were to meet a Nazi in a non-combat situation, (say, a few years before the war began) it becomes harder to say whether or not killing them would be Good.

Yes, I just meant that prepared full spellcasters can have an overwhelming spell list to reselect from each in-game day, so I usually don't recommend them for new players or prefer them myself.

Shamans are a hybrid class, which means they combine elements from two other classes (in this case, Oracle and Witch). They are also prepared casters, which means they need to choose which spells they are going to have access to at the start of each day. That could be a bit complicated for a new player, depending on how it works at your table.

What are the other players playing? Do you know if the campaign is going to be a published adventure/if so, which one?

They probably wanted to cover themselves in case they ever did some sort of dual-school archetype. As it is, the "select" language is potentiallyly misleading, but it seems to me probably not intended to grant access to completely new powers.

It would need to (like Iron Kingdoms did) scale back what magic can do. As it is, "not all day" is the biggest limit on magic.

I seem to recall a discussion a while back, that this is not permitted in PFS. I'm not a Society player, so it didn't affect me enough to bookmark it or anything, but the Society-specific rules were that favored class bonuses are only for the listed races, not other races that count as those races. In a home game though, you should be fine.

I like the idea. Plenty of potential drama in differences (to understate it) between who they want you to kill and who (if anyone) really has it coming.

If you're lucky, you'll be able to rules lawyer your way out of it at the end. Work with your GM to write out the exact wording of the contract. For instance, it sounds like he really lucked out with a "Give me her heart" contract, and the devil didn't just drop her heart on the kitchen counter and then try to collect the agreed payment.

Personal preference, I guess, but I prefer traits to be less situational, and to not be obsoleted by such an essential feat.

On the other hand, I would rarely play an archer anyway, and like religion traits.

You mentioned looking for a god who could grant power regardless of a mortal's affiliation. I think most gods could do this, but it would be an unusual situation where they would want to grant power to someone who might work against them.

I might make a house rule that, certain spells are evil acts, because of whatever reasons. But their Good-keyword counterparts are neutral acts, with self-preservation as the (default) motivation. Morality can be objective without being reciprocal.

Just some other options that I didn't have time to type up last night: Garuda-blooded Aasimar, Kasatha, Svirfneblin, Tengu, Asura-spawn Tiefling, Undine, Vanara, and Wyvaran.

I'm not sure what you mean by "feat tax rules."

If you're looking for a race with Dex and Wis, there are plenty of options.

Archetypes let you customize a character to better fit a concept. So the Purifier gets a replacement list of bonus spells, fewer spells per day (you probably get plenty anyway), and about half your revelations are already chosen for you. The important thing you'd be missing, is that you wouldn't get bonus spells from your mystery, and you get less Heavens revelations. You get Purifier stuff instead, at the levels it says.

Some archetypes are crazy awesome, and some are ugly messes of non-functionality. I'm not familiar with the Purifier, aside from remembering it from the Advanced Race Guide. It looks pretty cool, though.

Reliquarian Occultist is another way to get a domain without divine spells.

As I don't think any such ways existed when Ultimate Magic was written, I tentatively agree with A being intended, but B being what they wrote.

This seems almost certainly intended to me, but rules as written are something else.

I'd like to second, "If they think you're an (over-)optimizer, don't prove them right." Otherwise, next time, you'll be down even more levels.