So your spell list is 10 thousand years old, you haven't been running around the outside world and your origins are tied to the one of the greatest magical empires in history...and it is the same as any run of the mill spell list.
Now Stephen S. Greer showed in the back he can create some very unique spells full of flavor so why stop there..For one issue you could have passed on new monsters (we already have 24 from previous Pathfinder issues) and put some enchantment into an AP that's seeping with magic from a 10,000 year old empire.
I think this is the other side of the coin, WotC faces the challenge of living up to the high standards you achieved for Dungeon and Dragon Magazines. You also have to learn how to bring a world to life and not just release material with the fire and forget mentality.
Creative Director
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So your spell list is 10 thousand years old, you haven't been running around the outside world and your origins are tied to the one of the greatest magical empires in history...and it is the same as any run of the mill spell list.
Now Stephen S. Greer showed in the back he can create some very unique spells full of flavor so why stop there..For one issue you could have passed on new monsters (we already have 24 from previous Pathfinder issues) and put some enchantment into an AP that's seeping with magic from a 10,000 year old empire.
I think this is the other side of the coin, WotC faces the challenge of living up to the high standards you achieved for Dungeon and Dragon Magazines. You also have to learn how to bring a world to life and not just release material with the fire and forget mentality.
One thing to keep in mind, and I certainly didn't make this clear enough in the adventure, but most of the time in Runeforge over the last 10,000 years, the NPCs therein were NOT active. They were active for a century or so after the fall of Thassilon, but after that, the loss of contact with the outside world pretty much worked on their sanity and caused the majority of them to lose interest in keeping up the magic "arms race" over the years. I'd say that for a bit over 9,000 years, there really WASN'T much innovation or research at all going on in Runeforge.
Now, to a certain extent, yeah, that's a cop-out. We certainly COULD Have done a big book of spells and magic items for these guys rather than new monsters, but the thing is that new magic items and ESPECIALLY new spells are a LOT harder to design and balance. We didn't want to abandon the new monster section, and adding in lots of new spells would have required time we simply didn't have to develop and work out tactics and everything else.
Honestly, I think that Runeforge is a GREAT place for each individual GM to customize wizard spell lists with spells of his own design, spells from other books, or wherever. I probably should have put a Designer's Note in there to that effect, to be honest.
We DO have another 14 magic items coming in the web enhancement, which I suspect will be available by the end of the week.
Looking forward to the web enhancement. Heres hoping that its the first of many.
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Creative Director
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Looking forward to the web enhancement. Heres hoping that its the first of many.
It probably won't be. Web enhancements take a good amount of time to produce, yet that time has to be carved out of our already overly busy schedules. In a perfect world, we would have had the enhancement up and running when Pathfinder 5 released, but as it is, we'll be lucky to have it going by Friday.
As a result, yeah, we'll be doing Web Enhancements now and then, but most of the time I'll be trying to get EVERYthing into print (and as a corollary to that, making sure that my authors have more accurate word counts).
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Looking forward to the web enhancement. Heres hoping that its the first of many.It probably won't be. Web enhancements take a good amount of time to produce, yet that time has to be carved out of our already overly busy schedules. In a perfect world, we would have had the enhancement up and running when Pathfinder 5 released, but as it is, we'll be lucky to have it going by Friday.
As a result, yeah, we'll be doing Web Enhancements now and then, but most of the time I'll be trying to get EVERYthing into print (and as a corollary to that, making sure that my authors have more accurate word counts).
And we all appreciate the hard work and extra effort being done by you and the rest of the Paizo crew, James.
This thing is going to be the very devil to run (I'm about 10% through now). The ease-of-running contrast with 1-4 is painful. On the other hand, it's so high level, and has such an intrinsically high-level premise, that this was the expected result. High level D&D is like that. The pagecount to stat up a high-level NPC is so high, page-crunch is unavoidable. The number of possible interactions is so high, bugs are inevitable. If the NPCs are allowed to react realistically, controlling difficulty becomes extremely tough: so it's tempting to turn them into automata.
It's the same problem I see in games I write myself: the preparation gets more and more difficult with level, leaving less and less room for anything else--in this case, cool spell designs and so forth. And logic-checking just gets harder and harder.
I don't think Paizo has done badly with this situation. It's just tough. Myself, I would kill for a 1-9 AP rather than 1-17, but apparently that's too much a minority view (given that the rapid advancement is built into the core rules) to be salable.
Mary
Well, I did try to address the spell issue brought up here in Sins of the Saviors with the Looting Spellbooks sidebar. In fact, while saving word count was part of the reason for not detailing them, the other part was to prompt GMs to customize them for their players. Sadly, there weren't as many spells in the Magic of Thassilon section as some readers would have liked. However, that's no reason you can't cannibalize other sources of spells and dress them up with Thassilon flavor. A lot of GMs like myself have a very limited source of books they allow their players to use in their games--and draw spells from. Why? Because a lot of stuff is simply broken. My intent with that sidebar was to prompt other GMs to grab a few spells from those "banned" sources that might be a little broke or too exotic for regular use and reward your players with them at the tail end of this campaign. Yeah, it'd be great if you had whole slew of new ones right there in Pathfinder #5, but placing the decision of the spells you want in your game (in the looted spellbooks) firmly in your lap is probably the best way to go.
By the way, Sins of the Saviors has the best Bestiary so far and I really liked the adventure. So here's another thumbs up vote.
How do you access the web enhancements?
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Great, I look foreward to it.
I like Sins of the Saviors. Yes, to some people, huge dungeons with complex ecologies and factions may seem stupid, but they're a part of the game. and this is a good one.
Inspired by this adventure, I think I'm going to, from here on in, disallow most non-core spells, save for the really simple, cool ones that my players already use (like Spell Compendium's Orb spells). that way, this adventure will have more interesting and rare spells to doll out as treasure.
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One recommendarion for those looking for new OGL spells: Malhavoc published two books called renegade spell collection (an arcane and a divine one).
It is basically a collection of most OGL spells published so far in various d20 books. Quality varies according to its sources, but you cannot do much wrong considering each hardcover's price: 19.99 USD.
Maybe future adventures could benefit from these and similar sources? After all you guys at Paizo make great use of various OGL monsters, too.
Iwouldn't like to see each magic wielding npc to have her/ his own unique spell collection, but I agree with readers above that wizards of this life span and power level might have an extra surprise or two up their sleeves.
I guess that the web enhancement (btw a great idea I really appreciate!) Is already pretty finalised. But maybe you would like to recommend a few spells from different sources which you feel are especially well in line with your image of a thassilionian nemesis.
Thanks & cheers,
Guenther
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So your spell list is 10 thousand years old, you haven't been running around the outside world and your origins are tied to the one of the greatest magical empires in history...and it is the same as any run of the mill spell list...
Rather than increasing the spell list, I'm planning on swapping out some of the craft feats for a few feats that would make the player's life miserable. Two feats that I'm thinking of are the Bounce Spell and Braid Spell from AEG's book FEATS. I think these feats are a bit unbalanced, but its something that I can give a 10,000 year old spellcaster that won't fall into my player's hands.
Rather than increasing the spell list, I'm planning on swapping out some of the craft feats for a few feats that would make the player's life miserable. Two feats that I'm thinking of are the Bounce Spell and Braid Spell from AEG's book FEATS. I think these feats are a bit unbalanced, but its something that I can give a 10,000 year old spellcaster that won't fall into my player's hands.
That's an excellent idea, Trent. Maybe if you have the time, you could post up how those feats work; what exactly they do?
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One recommendarion for those looking for new OGL spells: Malhavoc published two books called renegade spell collection (an arcane and a divine one)...
EDIT: Both books are by Mongoose Publishing. The titles are:
Renegade Wizard's Spellbook and Renegade Cleric's Tome.More information can be found e.g. here.
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That's an excellent idea, Trent. Maybe if you have the time, you could post up how those feats work; what exactly they do?
I am not Trent, but I can provide you with a short summary on these feats, too:
BOUNCE SPELL
You aim a spell normally at a primary target. From that target the spell bounces on to a secondary target of your choosing. Of course the spell level increases, and foes receive saving throws.
So this feat is rather useful for caster's allies.
BRAID SPELL
You can braid two spells together to form a single effect. Both spells have to be of the same school of magic, both have to be cast in one action. Spell level increases, too.
As mentioned by Trent, both feats can be found in AEG's book "Feats". Unfortunately the book was never updated to 3.5e, but most feats should still work pretty well under 3.5e.
I agree with Trent, that access to some new feats helps to give foes another surprising side. I'll certainly have another look into it when next stating up major NPCs. :-)
Cheers,
Günther