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that's what the army is there for as well. They can be all murder hobo they want, murdering kobolds and goblins, try taking on a platoon of well-armed soldiers with magical army backup, champions, long-established pacts with outsiders, etc...If their alignment won't hold them in check, overwhelming power will.
make them untouchable; a lawful evil duke/duchess/queen who rides that fine line of villainy, whispering in the good but old king's ear, bending the kingdom to their will while hiding behind the rule of law and an army, have them claim rewards from the group as taxes, right of land and lordship, have them execute a beloved NPC for poaching, tax evasion, or some other charge they are guilty of, but a kinder ruler would choose mercy, etc... Make them insulting and snoobish who treats all of their lessers like pawns (and everyone is their lesser). Give them innocent, lovely children, those who would weep and be devastated at the loss of their parent and are their only weakness, but dare they use a child to strike at the villain? PC get too upset with a villain and they'll just gank them and having a teleport scroll up their keister gets boring after the first couple of times, someone they cannot just straight out murder while maintaining some semblance of heroism really twists that knife.
the animate dead (mythic to boot!) was during the climatic battle at the end of the campaign, so it wasn't all that bad. The GM even let them play the mythic skeleton champion version of their characters against the rest of us, so they didn't even have to sit on their thumbs! @VM, Mother Night was a gestalted 16th level Witch (Gravewalker)/Dirge Bard, mythic tier 9 (in the world, there were no 10's for in-game reasons) and used Trailblazer rules, giving her 2228 hps (which only lasted her about 3 rounds after the beat-sticks got on her). She came with 4 mythic skeleton champion Grey Renders (which I said were previous bodies of Grendels summoned, since they kind of look the same) that gave her a bit of a meat wall to hide and cast behind. Her big thing in the scenario was using mythic Modify Memory to erase all history of the Cult's presence from nearly every plane of existence, leading us on a pretty epic multi-dimensional quest to find out what exactly she was planing and how to stop it.
for the last Pathfinder game we played, I made most of the NPCs for the GM, who is a big ole softy and we'd steamroll almost every encounter, just so I'd have some fun in the combats. I would make whole groups around a theme and just hand them over and let the GM figure out how to use them. For the last, we were pushing 17th and mythic so I came up with the Cult of Grendel, who I remade and was led by a mythic Night Hag named Mother Night, who would use the Nether Cauldron to sacrifice whole towns to summon Grendel for a giant orgy of killing and destruction. She rolled with an army of mounted Goblins, Orc beserkers and Ogre rangers and sorcerers and a few lesser hags and four or so named lieutenants and made for a rather epic number of encounters. All the "minions" were built around Innocent Blood and instilling fear on the soon-to-be-slaughtered and to eek out every last drop of effectiveness to allow the spells to land from the casters. Looking at that file, I made 14 pretty ridiculously overpowered custom NPCs or types for that group. Fortunately? Mother Night never got to summon Grendel as we stopped her before she could complete the ritual, but she killed all but two of the party in doing so, raising most of them as undead during the fight to prevent resurrections and other shenanigans.
as for flexible counterspell, as you said your group doesn't run into a lot of spellcasters, you could probably leave it out.
the increase in AC only matters if it was within a range to possibly stop you from being hit. Mythic creatures are stronger than their normal counterparts and their normal counterparts don't have any problem whatsoever hitting a spellslinger. So it's more like with Mythic Mage Armor the creature has a 150% chance of hitting you, and with Enduring Armor it's only 115% chance. You're still getting hit. The fortification of Mythic Mage Armor is better in my opinion to keep from getting one-shot by an unfortunate nat20. Best defensive mythic abilities imo are Mythic Fly and Elemental Body IV (air elemental), because while giving you a pretty decent boost to AC, they also give you the mobility to escape from potential threats and/or make you outright immune to crits and sneak attacks and in the case of Elemental Body, can supercharge some spells; a Channel Power Elemental Body empowered Stormbolts is no laughing matter.
I've generally heard poor things about counterspelling and strangely we don't seem to encounter many spellcaster enemies. Resilient arcana and tanigble illusion are nice but I'd be losing either another powerful mechanical ability (mirror dodge for example) or something I really like personally (sleepless or mythic sustenance). Be nice if we had two sets of choices for well lets of things not just mythic abilities because I always feel I have to give up fun stuff in favour of mechanically beneficial stuff. I'd far rather have something like star walker or divine source over channel power but I feel pressured to take channel power simply to stay relevant especially as starwalker is almost never going to be used much less important in a campaign. unless you have numerical advantage in a fight and take steps to improve it, yeah counterspelling isn't great, except with Flexible Counterspell, it just completely shuts down an enemy spellcaster, but if you don't run into many, then probably not a good investment. Same for Resilient Arcana, if you aren't having a problem with peeps dispelling your board control, not that useful. Again though, I'd advise not sleeping on Tangible Illusion, making illusions really real things is broken, you're basically a Green Lantern at that point. After about a half-dozen mythic games, I find Mirror Dodge to be a trap, it spends far too many resources that a spellcaster desperately needs or can use more effectively elsewhere. On that same front, Enduring Armor isn't that great as well as typically even with it cranking at full power, you're not getting out of the way of anything that your meant to fight, I'd just take Mythic Fly and Mage Armor for the fortification. As for the feats, unless you "regular" build centers on a lot of initiative boosters, I'd get rid of Mythic Improved Initiative. I built an Kensai Magus with the sole goal of cranking my Initiative as high as possible, every feat, class feature, trait, racial bonus, etc. Still could barely beat the Agile mythic monsters on some builds. Anything else, and you'll beat them 9 times out of 10 with just Improved Initiative and the your Tier bonus. Mythic Crafter is garbage, the +5 bonus is unnecessary for pretty much all crafting tests.
Channel Power is a 6th tier ability, Component Freedom is 3rd Resilient Arcana will make all that annoying battlefield control stay around much longer, Flexible Counterspell will make you the most valuable player when faced with any spell-chucker, and if you're at all interested in illusions, Tangible Illusion is maybe the brokenest broken broke ability there is, if used creatively.
Had nearly a TPK in a Hell on Earth/Gaslands game I'm currently running. So the group is in this big nasty raider town on the eve of a big death race and they've snuck in to try and steal a McGuffin while the raiders are distracted by the race. This particular town is like their Las Vegas, so even more drunken, drug-filled debauchery than even the normal raider enclave, which allows the PCs to kind of come and go as they please since everyone there is too blitzed out of their mind to care, but random brawls are pretty common. So they have a little beef with a gang called the White Rhinos, a group of swole boys with horned helmets after a few fights that has seen several members on both side knocked around pretty good (there is an uneasy truce in effect due to the race, so things don't become as lethal as would normally be the case). For some reason, a few of the party decides to split up to go drink and carouse in this den of inequity. Two of them (mutants) end up at the towns designated dueling place the Thunder Box, where they are spotted by the White Rhinos, and particularly one who lost an eye to the creepy weasel mutant of one of the PCs, so they decide to get some payback. After a few rounds the PCs get knocked out (because they are really bad a chip management) and instead of killing them, the White Rhinos steal their stuff and take the eye of the weasel as payback. The stuff isn't really all that important, mostly clothes and the group has a sci-fi regen pack that could restore the eye, instead the two upon waking go back to their car, grab a giant hand-held drill and go looking for the Rhinos who are chilling at their bar of choice. The PCs see them before they are noticed and I tell them there are five of them sitting around drinking. Remember that these two just got knocked out by two of them...So they surprise murder one guy with the drill but then get stomped out and shotgun murdered by the rest after a pretty good dust-up. The rest of the group hears about their deaths and decides to go an challenge the gang in the Thunder Box and make it a point to leave all their weapons behind (I don't even at this point...), they find the group at the bar, of which their number has swelled a little to about seven guys, with the previous 4 survivors looking a little beat up (especially the guy missing the eye) and then challenge them to a fight to the death. Well the guy sans-eye isn't going to go hop in the ring as he's barely standing as is (he caught the drill in the head and barely survived) and tells them about it, so the group turns and says that they'll see them around, leaving on the unspoken threat. Now the White Rhinos are not dumb meatheads, it's already been explained to the group that they kind of play that part to lull people into a false sense of security, but it still comes as a surprise to them when seeing that the group of PCs are completely unarmed, and just threatened to enact some street-justice, the Rhinos attack. The Rhinos have the numbers and guns, and it goes about the way one would think a gang fight, where one side decided to just bring their bad attitude would go. All but two of the PCs end up straight up dying, the others are taken as slaves. Afterwards, I just kind of shook my head and asked the table what the hell was the actual plan? Why did they leave their weapons and then go pick a fight against superior numbers that they know are murdering, lying bastards? My players don't make good decisions... Still playing the game though, as the next session, instead of playing the game normally, I told them we were going to do a big narrative story-telling session with the end goal of introducing the new characters, saving the two remaining ones and finishing up the McGuffin heist. Used a simple little system I made up on the fly of playing Black Jack to settle any conflicts that arose in the story that forced them to come up with a narrative for their involvement to gain an edge in the hand. Everyone enjoyed it, got a bunch of cool stories out of it and plenty of hooks for future games, so I guess it worked out in the end, but the whole thing is still a head scratcher of idiotacy
not mine but one from several members of our group; They were playing The Morrow Project, a game based around a group of cryogenically frozen scientists and soldiers who are thawed out after the apocalypse and try to restore humanity. So you start off really well equipped in the game, they had a couple of humvee like vehicles with mounted HMGs, battle rifles, explosives, the whole shebangabang. During one night they are assaulted by a horde of savage cannibals who come running out of the tree line with spears and clubs. The player playing the leader tells the rest to mount up on the 50s and lay down dispersing fire on the horde. This cripples/kills/runs off the vast majority of them, easily ending the fight. Another player decides that he can't settle for anything less than total annihilation of the enemy and decides to chuck a white phosphorous grenade at the remaining, fleeing savages. Crit fails the throw, random scatter puts it directly on the hood of their vehicle. The Willy P goes off, disintegrates the Col, melts the arms and legs off of the character in the driver's seat, cooks the gunner to the body of the vehicle, eats a hole through the jackhole who threw it and melts through the engine block of the car, thus snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
vital strike (mythic if you can), martial artist 5th, barbarian Xth, furious finish spam. If mythic; Titan's Strike, Power Attack and Improved Unarmed Strike wand of Strong Jaw and Monk's Robes and you'll get real bored real fast when you One Punch everything and can then better RP the character!
in our last game, I played a prodigiously strong character and this came up quite a lot, so I figured out a fairly simple formula for tossing heavy weights, which can be adjusted easily depending on the "tone" of the game (we were playing mythic, so distances were mythically ridiculous) throwing a weight under a character's light load Str check x 5 feet
The rogue absolutely hated this after he found a ring of feather falling and we had a new scouting method...
Hedge Witch? Their flavor text seems strongly in favor of what you're looking for and their patron can easily be some higher power in the traditional sense.
I'd allow flaming to stack with brilliant energy. I mean it does damage even if the rest of the weapon does not (for DR as an example); the blade passes clean through the object, the fire however, does not. I'd probably allow Disruptive too because it's such a trash special ability, the DC is so low that by the time you can add this to a brilliant energy weapon, what are you actually ever going to disrupt?
game world logistics. :P As an example, look up any story about Andre the Giant and then double that.
I think this is a really good point. I think the best way to think of how such an attack would effect an object. Like do you think a person with normal person fingernails could ever cut thru a rope with them?
commercial travel would probably be via teleportation circles, not some TSA Teleport Mage casting for small groups of people. Then you'd have instantaneous, foolproof travels from one set local to another. The initial cost would be more, but it's probably far less than the cost of a jet liner + fuel + maintenance + crew.
remembering back, it was the massive damage save that kept killing him. Towards the end of the campaign he was pushing high 30's in his Fortitude save but kept dying to natural 1's on the save, cause at that level, nearly every attack caused at least 50 damage. In game, we determined he had a heart condition that every time he raised his arms too quickly (like in a defensive manner when surprised by say a lightning bolt trap) his heart would stop and keel-over he would and then somebody would have to raise dead the cleric...again. There are some checks, that while sometimes necessary, probably shouldn't ever be failed by specialized characters. Like I don't mind a high level Fighter or even Bard or Monk chucking that 1 on a stealth roll and being spotted by the city guard, but your Batman rogue? Nah, that ain't cool that they are seen 5% of the time
I think it was a 3rd edition Dungeon scenario that took place in a sanitarium that had a crazy lady with long nails that they used as improvised natural attacks essentially. She did slashing and her penalty to hit was pretty high. But this was 15+ years ago, so I might be remembering wrong.
I've used -10/+10 for nat 1s and nat 20s since 3rd edition came out. It was in response to a player with a ridiculous fortitude save failing something like 7 fort saves that they could only miss on a nat 1 in a couple of game sessions, 5 of which resulted in them insta-dying (or wishing it was something as "simple" as death). That seemed to have been an easy fix for such situations as it really only matters in those niche cases where some extraordinarily powerful being would otherwise have a 5% chance of looking stupid or being hit by people who have no business doing so.
L2 - Stone Call fits your theme, adds some control and a little bit of damage, or Frigid Touch. Do not overlook anything that lowers the number of actions an opponent can take. Frigid Touch's auto stagger is great on its own, but if you have anyone that can trip, grapple or otherwise make an opponent have to use their only action to get back to you, it's a great combo spell.
ask them how their pants stay up since there isn't RAW about how belts work. Something are just a given, if an item is connected to you by a strap or cord and you release that item, it is still connected by the strap and hangs there until you retrieve it again.
I don't think any of the iconics become moderately encumbered after eating a big meal...this you might take note, is also hyperbole, as was dropping something on you or overloading you with tanglefoot bags, it's a ridiculous example of what your ridiculously low strength would hamper you if it occurred. a 5 in a stat is pretty ridiculous and brings to mind all sorts of shenanigans in min/maxing. You basic load out is more than half your light load. Swinging a sword is tiring, really really quick, now imagine that sword weight effectively five times as much for a normal person. You'd look like Starvin' Marvin or a fox that has just come out of hibernation, which is weird since they don't hibernate and oh god, is that thing rabid?!? At that strength you should struggle to open every door, push every chair, you can't even lift your body weight, etc. At 9th level which you want to compare stuff at, you're now in Crippling Strike territory, meaning 1 hit and you become heavy encumbered, two and it's pretty much game over. As a tank you should be able to shrug off attacks AND effects, as it is now, a pretty common type of ability damage and you're toast. Golarion gods help you should you run into a Shadow...
Acute Senses (this one I highly recommend, it's about the only thing that will let you see the sneakiest of rogues)
if you go MCU version
See, here's the thing ... in a grapple you are allowed to use one handed/light weapons -- like natural attacks. If I get grappled, that is one dead giant. As far as CMD questions ... remember, since I am not wearing armor, my AC is basically my CMD which will be higher than a full-plate wearing tank. And since I am finessing things, I use my Dex instead of my STR for CMB (as explained in earlier posts) so this reduction has no impact on my CMB. except when grappled you'll take a double hit, the -4 to Dex and then the -2 to attack
you should still be taking the -3 penalty from your 5 strength, bringing it to 27. Earliest giant one runs into, save troll, is probably the Hill, giant (CR 7) and they still nab you on a 12, Frost Giants are well within your CR (@11) and they are +20. You present as a nice target being rail thin and shuddering under the mountainous weight of *checks notes* your clothes, making you a tempting target. Should you prove burdensome to hold, well, you're much lighter than a rock which they can throw a 1/4 mile... really your CMD isn't bad, it's about average, meaning anything meant to perform a combat maneuver is going to succeed, but you present too nice a target (you're small and weak, you're a force multiplier with your group with heals and debuffs and are a moderate threat in melee). I mean something could simply trip you and then free action drop a shield or great axe on you and you'd be effectively pinned ;P (as I GM, I'd hit you with tanglefoot bags until the weight of goo was more than you could bear) at the end of the day, it's not the mechanics you can squeeze out though, compensating however you want, it's that you are barely stronger than an ordinary house cat. Min/maxing aside, that's ridiculous and should be a glaring hole to be exploited at all encounters much to the detriment of yourself and your group.
as someone mentioned earlier, there may be quite a few giants in the AP, perhaps the more pertinent question about dumping strength to very small child levels, is what do you do about grapples or really anything vs your CMD? Personally, I'd kick you around the battlefield like a soccer ball for s$@~zngiggles
Sacred Fist holds up pretty well. Self-buffing as a swift action is rather nice; divine favor, divine power, prot vs. whatever, shield of faith, cure spells and other condition removal, invisibility purge, etc... Need just as good stats as the Monk, but they play double duty (at least Wisdom, granting AC bonuses and all that), and you have some bonus feats so you can get Guided Hand if you want to cut Strength out of the mix. Might be able to convince your GM to let you mix some of the Unchained Monk stuff in and that will really up your effectiveness, but the standard bag of ki tricks are pretty nice.
how strong is it? If very, maybe it wants to push to wall over on the puny people on the other side, otherwise, yeah it's probably not sticking around to be trapped.
not DnD/Pathfinder, but Earthdawn, a character rolled an 87 on a perception check using a d8, I made him go catatonic for awhile as he perceived things mortals were not meant to, but afterwards I essentially just gave them the answers to most of the mysteries as concerned the current scenario; who the Horror was masquerading as, who was Horror-touched, who stole the True Elements, etc, etc... A fetchling in a Myhtic game I was running, rolled a nat20 on stealth with all their abilities and doo-dads running and the result was in the 60s, so I had him accidentally step into the Plane of Shadow and then opened up the optional racial trait for him early because of it.
Does destroying a lich's phylactery automatically kill it? Or do you still have to kill it seperately? If it's the first, I would find the phylactery and shatter it before the lich can get to me. since it's been brought up previously as justification for a ruling; in Pathfinder Kingmaker, one of the tooltips notes that a lich can only be permanently destroyed once its phylactery is as well, but destroying the phylactery does not destroy the lich, it is only an necessary step to doing so
lol, I guess not! Sorry I read your initial post completely wrong.
I got started in roleplaying in a lot of more cinematic or supers oriented games, so colorful descriptions of actions is kind of standard. That said, I don't penalize players for not doing it, but I will take the lead then and add all the dramatic flair I deem necessary if they just want to roll the dice and call out a number. Of course everything has limits though and I draw the line at tying multiple actions into one, like a backflip off a minotaurs chest to land 10 ft in the nearby tree after planting a foot in his chin. Some systems can handle that, Pathfinder really ain't it without appropriate feats. the only time I penalize players is for unnecessary pvp, I will murder the entire group and start again after a lengthy discussion of why this is bad, especially since at the start of every game, this exact thing is brought up and agreed by the group that is something that should be avoided.
honestly, there would need to be a legit table discussion about this. I'd have my Paladin walk away if the group decided to keep it and make a character more comfortable with someone wearing the skin of murder victims as a mask. If my group as actual people saw no problem with someone wearing such a mask, I'd note that as a red flag for the eventual tell-all book I'm sure to write about one of them.
I'd also allow any of the distracting actions to count as making a diversion to hide, possibly allowing stealthy character to enter the room under stealth, again helping prevent AoO and readied attacks, though of course unless they find cover inside the room it would end then.
obscuring mist or smokestick at door, open door, let mist move into room or toss more smokesticks (maybe a thunderstone as well if you're really feeling SWAT-y) to allow entry into room without suffering AoO and helping with any readies attacks. Move out of concealment and jump opponents as usual.
while I admit the lines blur with sentient monsters, there is something offputting about wearing the skin of something that looks, walks and talks like you do.
could just take the Guide Ranger archetype, then you get favored enemy bonus as a swift action 1/day against a specific target
I can't imagine any Paladin worth the name, or many non-serial killers, who would be okay with somebody wearing a mask made of sentient persons skin, bonuses or no. As for legal authorities, they'd (assuming a non-evil society) probably arrest on sight anyone wearing a people skin mask. I mean, just imagine Leatherface showing up at the tavern or the Duke's Ball or strolling down the street, even without chainsaw running, he's attracting attention and screams of panic. Things don't have to be intrinsically evil for them to be wrong.
cool, how about any other type of grappler? Illusionists are already ineffective vs mindless opponents. only phantasms and patterns, if they have physical senses, it can still effect them with figments, glamors and shadows.
well in pretty much all cases, player or npc, they're going to interact with it, otherwise why is it even there? If you're just making random illusions of cows in the far distance...more commonly though, it'll be an illusionary wall, a person or creature or something else that is going to get interacted with and it's not about focusing on one thing and paying the price for ultra-specializing, it's about negating an entire swath of encounters and builds with one spell, again, which is just one of many that the spellcaster will get. Look at any other protective spell, they have thresholds, provide bonuses or mitigate a certain amount of things before becoming overwhelmed. Protection from Arrows, Stoneskin, Resist Energy, Protection from Energy. There isn't a fourth level spell that just makes you immune to physical damage and you have to be pretty high level to be able to cast any spell that will outright negate an attack type, but at that point the class you're immune to has it's own counters to your counter (thinking Elemental Body IV, Iron Body, etc. vs Sneak Attack)
I don't have a problem with a high chance of success (or even a really high chance), but it's the automatic nature I don't really like. The spells or abilities that do this aren't unique or a capstone ability, whereas the abilities they counter are often feat intensive, and/or sub-par to begin with. I mean who's winning battles with Entangle? A dedicated Grappler is built around one thing, and then a caster's 1 spell out of the dozens they may have, completely negates their entire build, same goes for an illusionist, they are already pretty hard to use, as most players are a cowardly and suspicious lot and then no matter how good of one you might throw at them or how subtle you play it, one True Seeing makes the whole thing fall apart.
I'd bet more for expediency of programming than rules lawyering. It probably has the same programming as Hold Person, allowing FoM to ignore it, instead of its own unique ruleset. As for the OP question, I'd rule that it doesn't negate the imprisonment, but does the entangling effect like many others here, and two, this is why I hate many spells that have automatic functions like this. I generally detest a singular ability that negates an entire subset of hazards or even entire schools of magic (I'm looking at you True Sight!)
whatever spell you like to use the most. For some that might be a fireball, others a dominate person, darkness, disintegrate, etc...Spell Perfection will just make your favorite spell better (though it's probably best to not be a buff, since a major feature of Spell Perfection is to double any bonuses to the spell you might get)
get you a war trained dog and a chariot, make use of the driving rules, spirited charge with good boi I'd go a simple Ranger with Mounted Combat style, since you're playing in a game with new people.
agree with Toast, Spell Perfection is crazy good and should be on every 15th casters list. Otherwise Quickened Ill Omen or Barrow Haze is great for a witch Ill Omen as a Spell Hex is great with Split Hex or then take Quicken Spell Like Ability to have 3/day swift action Ill Omens, which can then be followed up with your best save or suck spell
I always imagined counterspelling to be two spell colliding midair and canceling each other out. So the fireball is intercepted by another fireball and there is a dramatic flash of fire and light, but no actual damage.
I think I'm pretty fortunate, my group is fairly responsible all things considered, so when I have gave access to Wish or similar abilities, they keep it narratively reasonable, which is all I really want, something I can work with in, that continues the story...or ends it dramatically
Oh cool, I'll just ban wish from my games then. if you aren't okay with seeing where it takes you, that's probably a good idea. Just seems kind of wrong to dangle something like a wish spell out there for use and then lose your cool when they use it. Its the same as the old grogards who would complain about their campaign being wrecked after the players got a Deck of Many Things, like you gave it to them, you can't cry about it now.
part of me feels like if you're giving out wishes, because let's remember, the players aren't getting something you aren't explicitly giving them, you are asking for whatever comes and you might as well roll with it at that point.
I'd also take into account the game you're playing in. If you are running into lots of monstrous humanoids or a variety of terrains with corresponding difficulties in navigating them, Monstrous Physique can be very useful for stealth/infiltration actions and overcoming lots of different terrain hurdles and environmental effects. Of course, fly can overcome a lot of difficult terrain as well, but loses out on the ability to masquerade as one of the foes you might face. In general, if I had to pick only 1, I like the versatility of Monstrous Physique more, and that makes it more interesting to me.
going by the lore you mentioned and already RAW elements/materials I'd go with +2 hardness, +25% hp of a normal metal(steel) item +5gp for light, +10 for one-handed, +30 for two-handed the advantage of harder substances is that they break less often, a iron dagger and a steel dagger cut the same, but the steel dagger will maintain its edge longer and is harder to break or damage, thus an increase in hardness.
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