toxicpie's page

Do angels and other Good outsiders just zip around the Material Plane fighting battles and sorting stuff out? Do they have a "life" as such? Like do they argue or have to work the land? Or toil to build their temples? If not, how is produce harvested, how are buildings built? I suppose as immortals they don't need sustenance, but do they not feast and make merry?

How about the petitioners? Do they just wander round in eternal bliss or do they have something meaningful to do?

Thanks for any answers/conjecture you have! :)

Starting a level 5 module, and I'm playing a black blade magus using a katana, so I won't have to spend the money (10,500gp) on weapons.

So I'd love some ideas on cool magic items to buy!
Thanks! :D

I love that I got into university and I'll be living with two of my best friends!!

Memes

toxicpie wrote:

Hi James,

How do you/does one pronounce Trunau, the town from Giantslayer? My group and I were wondering if the first syllable rhymes with "run" or "boon".

Thanks in advance!

I say "TRUE now." First syllable thus rhymes with "boon."

Thanks a lot!

Hi James,

How do you/does one pronounce Trunau, the town from Giantslayer? My group and I were wondering if the first syllable rhymes with "run" or "boon".

Thanks in advance!

WINNING

My group prefers levelling up at important milestones in a campaign, such as defeating a Big Bad or reaching a new land. I was wondering, is it possible to do this in Reign of Winter?
If so, where would you place all these milestones in the campaign?
Thanks! :3

After a little discussion with my group, the only argument in favour of the alignment system that seemed to come out strongly was that they help a player to easily decide what the character should do in a given situation. A simplistic example would be, upon seeing some beggars: "what do I do? Well, as there is a G written down, I should probably give them money or help them in some way", or "well it says N, so I wouldn't care, so I walk on by".
This is all well and good, I suppose, but I was thinking wouldn't this purpose be much better served by writing down, say, 5 adjectives that describe your character's personality instead?
For example, my tiefling warpriest is not just CG, he's Brave, Just, Open-minded, Reckless and Disdainful of the Privileged. That shows his good qualities, a thing he needs to work on (recklessness) and also a deep character flaw which allows for expansion of backstory. Being genuinely open-minded and accepting towards savage orcs or criminals (as he himself has been a victim of racism and stereotyping, as a tiefling) is all well and good, but he shows himself to be hypocritical if he immediately assumes all the rich are greedy and vain.
So as you can see doing this forces a player to think more deeply about the character's personality and flaws while also still being able to be used as a "quick guide" to "what would my character do here?"

It's an idea I've just come up with, I'm sure other people have thought of other things the same or similar, it's nothing original or innovative. I was going to ask my players to do it upon character creation instead of one of the nine alignments, and then as the GM I would note what I think their alignments would be in secret. So yeah, has anyone else made characters using a similar idea, do you think it has really helped compared to basing your characters' actions just off alignment?

Str 10 Dex 17 Con 14 Int 10 Wis 14 Cha 12 would be easy with human/h-orc/h-elf. With other races you might even get better if you have better stats. (Garuda Blooded Aasimar are dex/wis, and also get See Invis as an SLA so great for this build)

Actually, sorry, am I adding this up wrong?

10 -0
15- 7
14- 5
10- 0
14- 5
12- 2

7 + 5 + 5 + 2 = 19?

Well, if you want slashing grace for dex to damage you'll want it and its prereqs. I.e:

1: weapon finesse, weapon focus (bonus)
3: slashing grace, twf (bonus)
5: dual enhancement

Double slice may be worth it at some point, but not before these.

Oh wow that was stupid, sorry. xD

That's great, thank you very much! Looks like I'll be relying on my buddy for the first couple of levels to do the damage, but that actually works wonderfully with the backstory we have planned.
I suppose for an Adventure Path, I don't have to be completely optimised, right?

Thanks, everyone!
I'll go with TGMax's idea, I don't see any reason why my GM would say no. I think I'll pick an Aasimar for the multiple bonuses which will really come in handy, maybe Musetouched for Dex and Cha?

Without being human my feats would look something like:
1: Two Weapon Fighting, [bonus] Weapon Focus (kukri)
2:
3: Improved Initiative, [bonus] Double Slice
4;
5: Dual Enhancement

Any thought on those? :)

I'm worried the character has to be very MAD, and I only have 15 points to use, as it's for an AP.
He will dual wield kukri, and I was really wanting to get Double Slice, so DEX would need to be 15, on top of the usual decent CON and STR front liners need. WIS is obviously important for Fervour and spells. As a warpriest of Cayden Cailean I also wanted him to be quite charismatic, a guy who's popular at taverns and knows how to have a good time. My GM is a strong believer in roleplaying your actual ability score, so that will cause problems with how I want to play if CHA is too low.
So yeah, a bit stuck, not sure how to make the points spread to fit everything I seem to need. Any help really appreciated!!

Hi James!

My next character will be a warpriest of Cayden Cailean, whose quest is to travel all the lands of Golarion to find what he deems to be the best alcoholic beverage, and offer it to the god on a special shrine.
Can you think of anywhere in Golarion especially sacred to Cayden that this important shrine might be?

Many thanks in advance! :)

Bump

Okay, I see! Thank you both very much for you help, Spheres is now going to be my number one purchase!

Okay thank you. :)
So if there was a witch enemy, and I converted it to the spherecaster archetype, is there a general rule for by how much the CR decreases, if they are by nature weaker?

I'm really interested in Spheres of Power and it looks like a fantastic alternative to Vancian casting. I will also soon be GMing Reign of Winter, and I thought it would be cool to use Spheres in the AP. Having never used Spheres I was wondering whether you can simply convert the magic-users of the AP to the system and be done with it, or if you have to do a lot of work with CRs and balancing encounters. In other words, is Spheres of Power best used when you can design original encounters, or does it work smoothly with pre-written adventures, too?
Many thanks! :D

Thank you very much for all your responses, I'm rather overwhelmed! (In a good way :D) Generated a lot of ideas now.

Just a couple of things:
No, Hades is not evil, nor is he in this campaign. I don't think I explained it well enough, sorry, but Thanatos is framing Hades for Chaos. Because the rest of the gods don't particularly like Hades, he seems the obvious culprit for the undead rising, and so is a good cover while Thanatos and Chaos do their stuff. Plus, Hera wants her daughter Angelos to be the new ruler of the Underworld, so she's looking for any excuse to get rid of Hades anyway.

Oil Ironbar, interesting idea! But surely that doesn't apply in the Olympian generation, because Hera and Zeus have had children together. Ares, for one. Very interesting, though, I'm an aspiring classicist (so have indeed read Hesiod ;D) and will look into that further. :)

Nice ideas for the Fleece, I was especially inspired by the redemption idea. I think that will be the main drive. :D
I think it would be cool if the PCs have to go the the Underworld but before that they need to be absolved of their sins (though the un-Hellenic "sinfulness" idea does grate on me) so they can pass without detection of the Erinyes.

Hey that's good news! Cheers! :D

Looks absolutely incredible. Any word on a release date for the hardcover? :)

The main story arc of this Ancient Greece-inspired campaign will be:
-Players discover the undead are rising
-Hera, queen of the gods, suspects Hades, god of the Underworld, is behind this and sends the PCs to the Great Oracle where they will learn of an ancient prophecy and be granted their first mythic ranks. They travel the land to the Oracle's city encountering fresh undead horrors and destruction to villages and cities on the way.
-The PCs travel to the underworld to confront Hades, but upon breaking into his stronghold find him chained up (the same figure as a chained statue the PCs keep seeing in dreams) by Thanatos, spirit of death, who is in league with the primordial embodiment of Chaos to bring about an end to all things. A recurring villain redeems herself by attacking Thanatos for lying to her about their mission (she thought it would be to create a new order free from the tyranny of the Olympian gods) while the PCs deal with the avatar of Chaos.

So that's that, but I'd like another couple of linked story arcs to keep things interesting. One idea I really want to implement is a large sea voyage, à la the Argonauts, to find the Golden Fleece to really get the Greek mythology theme going. Plus I have some good ideas for what will happen at sea.
BUT, one thing I really can't get round is an idea for why they need the Fleece. Judging from their main task, to stop the undead from destroying the world, this will need to be very important, not like Jason's where it was to prove his kingship. I was thinking it could maybe heal a great swathe of land the undead army had defiled.
Any opinions are very much appreciated, I'm having a bit of writer's block with this one. :)

P.S. No points to whoever spots the Percy Jackson inspiration ;D

Thanks for all the advice, everyone, I really appreciate it :) I think I will go with Extra Lay On Hands, because the healing has saved me more times than I care to remember, and hopefully we'll be facing a lot of Evil enemies in the finale so I can get good use out of turning them into Smite Evil.

Human Oath of Vengeance paladin who is an offensive greatsword user, and I already have Arisen, Power Attack, Furious Focus and Improved Sunder.
This will be the last few sessions so we won't level up again, so no need for feats just to gain entry into other feats.

Thanks for any suggestions! :)

*mouthily soaps the froth*

*soapily froths at the mouth*

Hey, I'm winning!

My scores, rolled in order, are 8, 9, 9, 13, 15, 15, and I've decided to take advantage of this by taking aasimar as a race, so Wisdom and Charisma become 17.
I'm unsure on class, as obviously I'm being the face and spellcaster, I'm just not sure the best and most fun class for that. This is an evil campaign, and will involve a lot of subterfuge and political trickery, so a non-blasty spellcaster will be appropriate.

My thoughts were:
Abyssal sorcerer
Dark Tapestry oracle (which could be so cool)
Lore shaman

Not a cleric, because I want to do stuff other than spells, but my character idea was to be a member of an apocalyptic cult, who wishes to destroy as much of the world as possible before the coming of his dark god.
Background I was thinking that he was always rejected because of his weak body and the unfair expectations aasimars have put upon them. So he turned bitter and hateful blablabla evil. If I was an oracle I'd take the lame curse, to augment the crippled nature of his body.

So yeah, any class ideas and build ideas are very much welcome! Cheers!

Oh sorry, I didn't mean drop as in leave the group, I meant it as in the character got knocked out or died in battle, it becomes twice as dangerous for the only surviving player left. :) I was wondering how that's dealt with, should the GM aim to spread the damage out amongst the two rather than concentrating on one character?

But thank you very much! Great advice on looking more closely at the players' various skillsets and what they can achieve. Thank you. :)

Bouncing around ideas for a two-man paladin gestalt game, like a buddy cop thing against all the armies of hell, for if, when my friends and I go to university, we can't find more players.

The smallest group in which I've ever played is 4 (plus GM) so I wouldn't know how to adapt things for a much smaller group. Aside from changing the CR, obviously. Though maybe this would be offset slightly by the gestalt. Then again maybe not, due to action economy.

So I was wondering if you had any general advice for running a two-player game? My main worry is how to resolve the issue of if one player drops, half the party and half the skills are gone.
How have you got around this, if at all, in your games?
Have you encountered any other problems a small party brings?

Thanks for any advice and stories! :)

Okay, thanks a lot, guys! Next session tomorrow, I'll see if the question comes up again. :)

A white dragon appeared from out of the snow, and in the surprise round used its breath weapon. I survived but it blew my swashbuckler's hat, the object of his Attached drawback, off. I couldn't see it, it was buried under snow.
The way the GM and other players ruled it was that I had to find my hat before attacking the dragon, reasoning I'd be too concerned about the hat to be unable to anything but single-mindedly make sure it was safe and back in my possession. That's how we played it and it worked out fine, but I did have my doubts.

Would having this very strong, irrational attachment to your item really make you disregard completely your own life, and that of your comrades? Written down it actually makes more sense that it seemed at the time, but how do you guys play it?

Never played Fate before so I want to make sure my first character is a good 'un.
I have his three aspects and trouble, but I just don't know how to word the high concept to make it useful in-game.

His basic backstory is that he was an angel who got tired of servitude and fell to whatever world we're playing in. He became some sort of gladiator until he got bored of that too, and escaped. So he feels as though he's hunted by both human and celestial forces.
As an angel, he can fly (but he has acrophobia), can shoot beams of light from his hands (but this is unreliable) and can create little balls of floating light.

I envision him as really good at fighting due to his time as a gladiator, and now he's a sort of good-hearted wanderer, relishing freedom and doing whatever takes his fancy, which tends to involve helping others and getting into sticky situations.

I have the trouble Hunted, and my three aspects are Trained In The Coliseum, Rogue's Luck and Divine Blooded.

Ah, Varisia! I really haven't looked into the region much, for some reason, so that's soon to be rectified! Thanks so much for the responses.

I was wondering if the Mwangi Expanse would be cool, thoughts on that? Though it's really good to know that Varisia's had so much written about it, I think more than the Expanse.

I'm running a game of Fate soon, but I love the Pathfinder setting and know I can trust Paizo with good quality. So what I've decided to do is buy a Campaign Setting book of a cool region and have my adventure take place there.

I want it to have lots and lots of room for wilderness exploration, hidden artefacts, secret dungeons and ancient mysteries to solve but with places for interesting NPCs with whom the players can interact. Not really glorious crusades and paladins, more a place for good-hearted scoundrels or wary rangers. Hope that makes sense.

I was thinking the River Kingdoms, but I'm not sure if there are many hidden secret locales. Any thoughts much appreciated! :D

Considering you can disguise it by just wearing a hat or growing your hair long, I think it's just a flavour thing, and you can change flavour however you please. :)

My group likes the one where we remove the +3 bonus for class skills and rolls twice instead, taking the highest score. All other bonuses are added normally.

Yeah I suppose you're right! Cheers. :)

So this is a very high-power campaign and the PCs get a lot of high-power goodies to reflect this. My only niggle is working out how much to add on to the APL with this extra stuff, made a bit more confusing by my taking away some stuff.

All players are aasimars (any heritage) with the half-celestial template (minus additional smite evil, the skills per level, and darkvision), human bonus feat racial trait, and halo instead of darkvision (but it only manifests when wings activate). Plus a free random trait from the variant ability table.
Aasimar 15RP
+Flexible bonus feat 4RP
+Variant ability 3RP
22RP

All players are gestalt X/Paladin (any archetype) sans alignment restriction, though BAB, hit dice, saves and weapon and armour proficiencies are decided by X class. Paladin abilities which use CHA, such as smite evil or lay on hands, can use either WIS or CHA, decided at character creation.

They have the ability to grow at-will wings with good (+4) manoeuvrability and a halo (the alternate racial trait), granting a +4 sacred bonus to STR, DEX, CON and CHA or WIS, depending on which was chosen for the paladin abilities. This will, however, have to be used sparingly, as the explosive burst of Good-aligned energy will be like a homing beacon to all evil creatures in the area like "here I am, eat me!"

They also gain the granted powers, but not the spells, of *one* cleric domain granted by their Order, treating their paladin level as their effective cleric level. Clerics thus gain three domains' powers in total. I am in two minds whether to change the uses per day to run off CHA, if that's what the PC chose for their paladin abilities above.

I hope I've explained things clearly enough!
I've heard CR and APL is as much art as science, so I don't know if I just say "err, let's go with +3" and adjust as I see fit throughout the campaign. Hmm.
Any help working this out is really appreciated, thank you!! :3

Dot.

My only worry would be that players who like dealing a lot of damage, because it makes them feel awesome and that's their reason for playing the game, become sort of moot. Like, there's no point building that super good 500 dmg barbarian, because he can do nothing that a character with much lower damage output can't do.

I'm kinda worried about getting my players to high levels because of the rocket tag, so it's great someone's thinking of stuff like this. :D

Hi Wes, hope you're well!

I asked this question to James in his thread, and he directed me to you in case you has any information on the subject. :)

So:
Are you and the good folks at Paizo planning to release any more information/details about the Seventh Accord?
If not, do you have any personal ideas about what the Accord may have been? :)

Whoops, wrong topic, sorry guys. xD

Hi Wes, hope you're well!

I asked this question to James in his thread, and he directed me to you in case you has any information on the subject. :)

So:
Are you and the good folks at Paizo planning to release any more information/details about the Seventh Accord?
If not, do you have any personal ideas about what the Accord may have been? :)

toxicpie wrote:

Hi James,

Are you and the good folks at Paizo planning to release any more information/details about the Seventh Accord?
If not, do you have any personal ideas about what the Accord may have been? :)

I had to google "Seventh Accord Pathfinder" to figure out what you were talking about, so that should explain why I don't have any personal ideas about what they may have been. I wasn't directly involved in Chronicle of the Righteous—this is a better question for Wes (along with anything Tabris related). I have plans to do much more with it at this point, in any event, but that doesn't mean no one else here at Paizo does.

Cool, thanks for the response!

Hi James,

Are you and the good folks at Paizo planning to release any more information/details about the Seventh Accord?
If not, do you have any personal ideas about what the Accord may have been? :)

Bruno, Cuup, thank you so much. I have the Lex and Jesus' birth nailed perfectly now, I can't thank you enough!

All I have left (somehow forgot about this) is the Seventh Accord thing/ "Worldwound". Any ideas on those would be very much appreciated, though Lord knows I've been given enough help already. ;D

Not to derail, but just fyi, this isn't based on judeo-christian "mythology", just christian "mythology." There's nothing wrong with that, but between your description of Satan as a source of evil (And any significance of Jesus) I'm not seeing anything Jewish here, just Christian. Nothing wrong with that, but it's a personal peeve when Christian beliefs are portrayed as "judeo-christian."

Ah, no, thanks a lot for telling me that. I admit I'm terribly ignorant about the Jewish faith, and I just sort of assumed that "Not Jesus" = Judaism, which I know is incredibly stupid of me. Cheers!

Ok, derail over, now to try and help:

Maybe jesus's birth was the angel's/good side's attempt at cheating/playing with the fine print. The rules of the contract limit what angels/god can do in the mortal world, but jesus was a mortal avatar of god, so wasn't limited, but still was untemptable and divinely powerful. Realizing the threat this posed, the demons agree to changes in the contract in the good side's favor in order to ban any future avatar's from direct intereference.

The order primeval represents the building blocks of reality. Without it, nothing new can be created. Other forces can modify existing things, but primeval is the only essence out of which truely new things can be created.

Just a few suggestions.

Aha! I really like that idea, the birth of Jesus is directly connected to the fight, but has to remain as a teacher rather than a warrior figure.

So I think I just need a reason why the angels didn't just demand that Satan and his demons stop wreaking havoc on the world full stop. Any thoughts, good people? :)

And thank you for the Order of the Primeval idea! Perfect.

Did the hellmouth open on Earth or is the other realm sort of a demiplane? Its not particulary clear to me.

Sorry, should have been clearer. :)

The Empyrean is a catch-all term for all the celestial lands, which include the mountain of Heaven, Fields of Elysium, a volcano region etc. This is where different races of angels and the spirits of good mortals live.

God created, far away from Heaven, out of sight, but on the same plane of reality, the lands for the neutral souls. So it's not considered part of the Empyrean at all. This is where the Hellmouth opened. So the angels can travel there without going to Earth at all, it's just a bit (a lot) of a trek. :)

Hellmouths do open on Earth and /can/ open in the Empyrean, it's just extremely difficult because of all the Good energy.

Is that any clearer?

I'll start by saying this campaign is heavily, heavily based off Judeo-Christian "mythology", but is in no way intended to offend or mock anyone's beliefs. I'm a rather devout Christian myself, but tend to take things regarding my religion with a pinch of salt and so I'm generally unsure what may offend other believers. If I cause any offence with a topic so close to home, you have my absolute sincerest apologies. :)

The basic set-up is angels living and training in Heaven, working on Earth to guide mortals to a greater destiny and protecting them against demons.

There are numerous plot points in the history of my campaign's world, secrets and links that will need to be discovered by the PCs. I know they can be linked together in a nice tapestry of divine deceit, I'm not just sure how. So:

-The Lex Infernus: A contract that Satan signed with the angels allowing him possession of evil souls, evil being defined by consistently committing the Seven Deadly Sins without any remorse. Turned out to be a trick, and Satan had rebuilt his realm into one of relentless suffering, "Hell", and was corrupting mortals on Earth to bring them to Hell. (Straight-up Pact Primeval steal from Golarion.)
Now, part of this deal, is that after the birth of Jesus (it's a Judeo-Christian setting, He has to be in there somewhere. ;D), the Lex was renegotiated and the battles between demons and angels on Earth would remain unseen by mankind, a sort of perception filter deal. I thought this is a cool way to explain why miracles and epic events "happened" in the past, yet nowadays so few occur.
My questions:
*Why did Satan and the devils accept this change in terms? I mean, it's great for them, more fear and bloody devastation = more happy demons. :3
*How is the birth of Jesus involved with this?

-Heaven's Dark Secret- Inspired by the Seventh Accord in Golarion's setting. A really, really evil thing very high-up angels did. My thought was along the lines of this: After Satan offered to take evil souls away from the angels, God refused to let him possess neutral souls. God then created, far from sight, just beyond the horizon as seen from the peak of the Mountain of Heaven, a new land for reborn mortal souls. Here they would toil, sustain themselves and explore, living in as much peace as they themselves chose. There was one condition, however: they must not interact with Heaven, nor go further than their northern borders. For a while both sides were content, until the largest Hellmouth ever known cracked open, destroyed their civilisations and turned the land into what is essentially the Worldwound. The angels reacted quickly and placed wardstones to prevent the demons and daemons from encroaching further on the rest of the Empyrean. Since then they have been fighting a great war, attempting to reach the Hellmouth and close it. All expeditions have thus far failed. Mendevian Crusades yeah! ;D
The dark secret of the angels, I thought, was that the angels opened that Hellmouth on purpose, signing a pact with the infernal dukes to destroy the civilisation. The devils would gain delicious, delicious souls, and the angels would remove the threat of this civilisation, as a few powerful leaders had been demanding, after 2,000 years, entry into the celestial realms.
My questions:
*Is this believable? I was thinking it could be more of a trick on the devils' part, saying they would destroy the civilisation but neglecting to mention they would stay in the land and turn into a blasted, twisted waste. Then again, is that believable? Are the angels really going to fall for another "should have read the fine print"? Maybe tying this further with the Lex Infernus would be nice, I just have no idea how to. :/
*If the above idea doesn't work at all, which I totally get, any other ideas for terrible deals/things the "righteous" may have done? :) Really looking forward to hearing ideas on that one!

-The Order of the Primeval- In Heaven, there are seven churches, or orders, all basically allied, representing a different aspect of God. So, the Ordo Regis (Order of the King) leads Heaven's battles and helps mortals on Earth who wish to fight for righteous ideals. Or the Ordo Viridis (Order of the Green), helping mortals who protect nature.
These are all written up and defined, except for the Order of the Primeval, for which I like the flavour and the domains membership grants, but don't really see a point in it.
Basically it represents everything base and primal about the universe, how existence was before and just after God created the heavens and the earth. It grants domains of the four elements, the void, scalykind, chaos, darkness, sun and luck.
My question:
*But really, why does this exist? What purpose can this Order possibly serve on Earth, when their time is, almost by definition, passed?

Thank you for reading all that; I know it's a lot. Looking forward to hearing any ideas or pointers to other sources of inspiration. Just say if you need me to provide any more information regarding the setting. :)

Well your campaign should probably be called something like Heaven's Fall.

Basically, I construct my campaigns around the major theme. This is always part of the BBEG's (who is always done before the campaign starts) theme. Determining the campaign's main themes help to keep a campaign from losing focus and help to guide you when you get off track. I also break my campaigns down into generalized "Acts" which each have their own titles. From there the campaign titles just sort of naturally write themselves into existence.

You, sir, are a genius. My ideas were so close to that name, tiptoeing round it but I couldn't find a name that fit properly. I've decided to go with Heavenfall, and name a forbidden locale in Heaven after it. If it's forbidden, you just know it's a major plot point! ;D

And thank you to everyone who responded, great pointers all round; I really wasn't expecting so many replies! Great to hear about everyone's various campaigns, too. :)