Pit Fiends don't normally handle such menial task as assassination. To compare it to a modern company a Pit Fiend is like the CEO. They may have to fire someone now and then, but normally such tasks are left to lower level management. CEO's oversee things such as acquiring other companies, and making sure theirs at worst, keeps its current condition.CEOs don't get to be CEOs by letting problems they can solve with 30 seconds of effort go unsolved.
But Paizo doesn't intend for Cheliax to be seriously challenged. Why? Because the leadership is too high level. Well, why is the leadership so high level? Because Paizo doesn't intend for Cheliax to be seriously challenged.
ARGH.
They could handle it, but that is what those other guys or for. Send a horned devil or some other lower level guy to handle it.
As for Cheliax I am sure there is a plot reason* as to why you can't simply kill whoever is in charge and take care of it.
*The plot reason may not have been fully fleshed out, but I would not think devils would just throw numbers(high CR) at the issue. There is more likely some form of manipulation going on that will continue even with the top person dead. That is why I don't think the CR matters too much. It's no more than an obstacle to solve a bigger problem.
I changed the above example more inline of what I think you meant. Sorry for the confusion but it still stands. Your saying theres a demand for modules like this, maybe so. A few of us might disagree.
A slight derailment of the thread, for a moment:
For Sunderstone:
No, that's not anything like I was suggesting. If you care, I'd be happy to elaborate or clarify in some other venue, but I'm not really interested in belaboring it here.FR Grey Box comes out. People love it. My home campaign begins. We kill Elminster and take over the Dalelands (maybe even write a trilogy of books about it).
Should we force this change of setting onto everyone? Does everyone have to like our new Dalelands and adopt it into their campaign setting books?
So are you campaigning for lower level NPC's so you "you" can change the setting in your home games, or are you asking for an AP that modifies the current standing of things in Golarion? I am starting to think your point is misunderstood.
So are you campaigning for lower level NPC's so you "you" can change the setting in your home games, or are you asking for an AP that modifies the current standing of things in Golarion? I am starting to think your point is misunderstood.Basically that. And asking why the setting has been written to make such adventures infeasible.
Which one?
My guess at the answer--->So you want the setting to be made so you can use the pre-made NPC's to change the setting for your home group if you choose to do so? As of now the high level CR's of those in charge make it hard to justify it to your players if you use a much lower CR in the final battle.
A slight derailment of the thread, for a moment:
For Sunderstone:
** spoiler omitted **
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Actually i think MiB is saying is this.
He wants AP's that make drastic changes on the setting. But not ones where you prevent a bad evil from happening like the previous ones. But one where you defeat a current establish evil and make it good. Cheliax is merely a example since it is in a current AP.
Actually i think MiB is saying is this.
He wants AP's that make drastic changes on the setting. But not ones where you prevent a bad evil from happening like the previous ones. But one where you defeat a current establish evil and make it good. Cheliax is merely a example since it is in a current AP.
This is where im leaning to as well. The world is too new for this imho. A Diabolist ruled nation is a great concept to keep around long term especially as its just been made that way.
I dont think I would want to run a campaign (speaking as a gamer) that finished House Thrune this early in the setting. I think CoT was the better way to go by thwarting their plans and demonstrating how interesting this place is.
The same would go for locales like the Worldwound, I dont think Id want my group closing it up just yet. The place is too new and too ripe for adventures.
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Sheesh. This topic was interesting for about 15 minutes of reading, then it got positively petulant.
Thay. Iuz. The Great Kingdom. Zhentil Keep. All powerful evil faction in their own rights. I spent 4 REAL years (almost 30 in-game years) in an FR campaign fighting the Zhents.
And not a single one of them destroyed by their respective publishers. The Zhents had a few shakeups through the years, but they were never completely wiped out. Thay is still there. Not so sure on the Greyhawk stuff, but...
Sure, one reason is because the publisher didn't want them to. Definitely the case here. Cheliax is a cool and sexy bad guy. It NEEDS to stick around in order to let a brand-new (well, relatively) campaign world establish itself.
But, let's also examine to actual logistics of overthrowing an evil empire.
1) You need an army. In the case of Cheliax, you need an army that can defeat a corresponding mixed force of devils and mortals, with said force numbering in the tens of thousands of both parts.
2) You need a developed infrastructure prepared, stable, and STRONG enough to keep the country once defeated militarily.
3) You need an ongoing ability to defend yourself from all the pissed-off bad guys that are going to be gunning for the new regime almost immediately.
4) You need to convince a populace that's finally coming to terms (after two generations) of diabolical rule that you're better for running the country than the last guys.
Is a low or mid level party realistically capable of doing any of these things? Not in any campaign I've run or played in.
If it does, is said party going to retire after defeating the Chelish empire and try to run the country?
Sure, you could probably kill the Empress. That'd create the biggest power vacuum on Golarion since Aroden died. He was a god. Look what happened. Can a group of PCs prevent the sort of world-wide repercussions overthrowing a government, one of the biggest governments to boot?
That's the game side of things.
From the publisher's standpoint, it is WAY, way, way, way, way, way, way too soon in the life-cycle of this campaign world to destroy what has obviously been established as a major ongoing adversary.
The campaign is two and a half friggin years old. You're expecting Paizo, for the gratification of a pretty small group of folks as I'm seeing it, to completely rewrite a campaign world they just finished paying some folks to write -- less than five years ago. That's crazy.
Personally, I like Cheliax just where it is, right next to Thay in my book.
But, hey... Seriously, you wanna overthrow Cheliax? Do it, it's your campaign. But, I'm guessing you're going to have to write the source book for it yourself.
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I've spent enough of my holiday trying to reason with you.
You've already said you've been "voting with your dollars." It's clear nothing I'm going to say or do is going to change your mind, so I wish you the best of luck with your money.
It's impossible to satisfy everyone. Please enjoy the rest of your holiday knowing that there is a large majority who are really enjoying the APs. I just wrapped up Sixfold Trials with my group before the holidays and they all had a blast. In their words: "I don't think I've seen anything like this in 30 years of gaming. This was an absolute blast!"
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What's really blowing my mind is that people think that because Paizo wrote it this way, they have to do it that way in their home campaigns.
Wanna know something funny? In my FR campaign, the one I mentioned in my last post, Elminster was dead and it wasn't 4e that killed him.
Halaster had his sanity restored.
Drizzt never existed.
Half of Waterdeep, not Tantras, got obliterated during the Time of Troubles.
Are these things canon? Hell no. And we didn't care. It was our campaign and we did whatever the hell we wanted to, because it was fun, not because TSR (and later Wizards) told us "the world is this way."
We bought new stuff, read it, and used or discarded the contents as we pleased.
And, a year after that campaign ended, we started a brand new one, all over again, and it worked out entirely differently the second time.
We made our campaign, with the campaign materials as guides, not restrictions.
Play what you want, how you want. But don't expect everyone else to want to play their campaign the same way, or for the publisher to want to invalidate still-got-the-new-car-smell campaign world stuff because you asked em to.
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Why? What should low-level characters do? What should mid-level characters do?
I'm interested in the idea that changing the world is the exclusive remit of level 15-20 characters, because I've never understood it.
I never said they couldn't save the world. I'm saying a character in the sub-20 range simply does not have the resources to muster, train, maintain, and lead an army of sufficient size to overthrow one of the largest military powers on the planet.
Or, establish and maintain an infrastructure to support that rebellion if successful.
Most adventurers, by their very nature do not have the connections, money, or political acumen necessary to do those things.
Unless of course you're playing an adventurer who spent most of his or her life as a raving political beast, the son of a king, who has contacts in every level of society.
Question is then, however, why would he have become an adventurer?
A fourth word for you: Suck
That's rather uncalled for. I think there has already been enough childish and uncalled for behavior earlier in this thread.
At what level do you go from "adventurer" to "leader of men", and why?
If you want to go back to the old days of the rules, AD&D 1st Edition fighters could build freeholds and attract men-at-arms starting at level 9 when they attained the title of "Lord", and each of the other classes had variations on this at level 9. So through level 8 adventurers were just adventurers, but at level 9 and up they could start to establish themselves as leaders and rulers.
On a different note for this question, another determining factor to me would be the magic level of the world where these characters live. The lower the amount of available magic and the lower the level of other planar interference or influence, the lower the level of the character needed to effect world-changing events. Golarion seems to be a world with a high level of magic and perhaps a high level of other planar meddling, so at least some changes to the world would require very high level characters, even to epic levels. Most things in the world can be done by characters level 15 or less, but there are a few things, like conquering Cheliax, that are out of their range.
That's rather uncalled for. I think there has already been enough childish and uncalled for behavior earlier in this thread.A fourth word for you: Suck
Eh, he was not being insulting. He was adding it to the three words I gave him to make it say "epic level rules suck."
On a different note for this question, another determining factor to me would be the magic level of the world where these characters live. The lower the amount of available magic and the lower the level of other planar interference or influence, the lower the level of the character needed to effect world-changing events. Golarion seems to be a world with a high level of magic and perhaps a high level of other planar meddling, so at least some changes to the world would require very high level characters, even to epic levels. Most things in the world can be done by characters level 15 or less, but there are a few things, like conquering Cheliax, that are out of their range.What is it about magic or planar meddling that necessitates challenges of level 15+? I can understand how tossing pit fiends around can require that, but fiendish overlords (or fiendish corruptors of overlords) come in a wide level range, from imps on up.
Oops, I left part of a sentence out and too much time has passed for me to edit my post. This is what it should have said:
The lower the amount of available magic and the lower the level of other planar interference or influence by gods or demon/devil lords, the lower the level of the character needed to effect world-changing events.
After all, somehow there manage to be level 5-12 evil plots to overthrow the good nations, for the PCs to foil. Those don't ever get hammered down by good-aligned level 20 outsiders.
That is because good aligned outsiders are lazy bastards, and reactive at best. Evil Outsiders are proactive and would win(take over), if it wasn't for those meddling mortals.
:)
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The lower the amount of available magic and the lower the level of other planar interference or influence by gods or demon/devil lords, the lower the level of the character needed to effect world-changing events.Why does Hell need pit fiends running around to have a lot of influence in Evilonia? (I'll just use that as an example since I'm not really talking about Cheliax any more.) If the ruling house is all half-fiends, the elite knights all go through a swearing-in process that gives them the fiendish template, the royal guard are bearded devils, and the devil who is the power behind the throne is an imp rogue 4, then you've got an evil empire that the players can overthrow in an E6 game.
Every setting has a barrier, tacit or explicit, where fiends below level X are the ones who are running around helping the demon cults or supporting Evilonia's government or whatever, and the fiends above level X are summoned into the prime material as part of a Grand Plot To Destroy/Enslave Life As We Know it. Nobody questions imps running around ever, and few settings have Asmodeus/Demogorgon/Lucifer/Evil Bob just chilling out on the prime. It's just a matter of whether you want pit fiends or horned devils or bone devils or succubi to be the nastiest devils that can be behind the plan to summon up the next tier and bring on Hell on Earth. Setting the bar higher or lower is just a matter of adjusting the game's power level, not a matter of adjusting how much influence or temporal power that fiendish forces can acquire.
You can have a whole empire devoted to evil as long as you can have at least one sort of smart fiend and one sort of tough fiend (and "hulking, deformed fiendish cultist" is close enough to cover for the latter). The whole idea of reshuffling the outsiders in 3.5 was so that they could play Team Evil for your game from 1 to 20. After that effort, why must fighting Team HFIL on its...
Because the entire idea is escalation. The imp starts it, by placing the idea in the guys mind. When the imps power can no longer help the guy, he gives his poor victim a conspiratory wink and tells him who to go to next. And the next devil comes in. Eventually you're contacting a Pit Fiend and selling your soul for the pants the Erinyes just bought off you last month.
The idea is each is limited in scope to the power he can give or perform. Imps don't really get many bargains beyond entry level souls, because they don't have the ability to do much beyond that. You have to go higher up to get your dirty goods dirt cheap.
Why does the imp send you up the chain?
Because it helps him advance beyond being a lowly imp. He might get thrown in the river styx for a few thousand years and become an ice devil if he found some chick named Abigail Thrune, and managed to get a pit fiend to her, which in turn generated so many souls for Hell that Asmodeus got his jacuzzi warmed by trying to shove them into a tight space.
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Because the entire idea is escalation. The imp starts it, by placing the idea in the guys mind. When the imps power can no longer help the guy, he gives his poor victim a conspiratory wink and tells him who to go to next. And the next devil comes in. Eventually you're contacting a Pit Fiend and selling your soul for the pants the Erinyes just bought off you last month.It's still a sliding scale. The leaders of Evilonia are working with the highest level smart devil available, and working on a Super Evil Wicked Plan to summon the next tier and use their obvious overwhelming power to bring Hell on Earth. This evil plan works just as well for an adventure plot if the next tier is bone devils as if the next tier is advanced pit fiends or Asmodeus himself; the only difference is how high you've set the power dial on the setting. Arguably, it works even better if it's lower level than the level cap, so that the heroes have some levels left in them to follow the portal back and go and get their Paladin In Hell on.
Except in this case, lets assume she's jumped past bone devils.
Actually, lets not.
Lets look at what the Pathfinder Bestiary has to say about bone devils, and work from there.
Keep in mind, Tyrants of the Nine Hells and Lords of the Abyss do not apply, as Princes of darkness has turned the entire hellish and abyssal infrastructure on its head.
Which is part of your disconnect if I'm correct.
Okay, back to Bestiary;
The interrogators and inquisitors of devilkind, bone devils delight in the torturing of those weaker than them
Whoa whoa whoa! Hold it, these guys aren't much for leading. They seem more like minions. I mean, who ever heard of a torturer BBEG? (Maybe you have, the point is getting there...)
Lets keep going, I'm sure they've got something. Lets jump forward a little bit to the part I'm privy to reading and illustrates the point quite well...
Powerful fiends favor these terrifying sadists for their unwavering devotion to hell's laws and the commands of their masters, as osyluths (bone devils) eagerly report the disobedience of other devils - regardless of standing - and take to the craft of torture like morbid artists.
Sorry dude, they're followers not leaders.
Oh and the part about erinyes being seducers?
Erinyes appear as darkly beautiful angels, augmenting their sensuality with deliberate bruises and scars. Yet despite their beauty, Erinyes are not seducers -- they lack the subtlety and patience required for such fine emotional manipulations, and instead prefer to solve their problems with swift and excruciating violence.
Perhaps you should read up on the creatures your assuming would lead. Hell is very methodical in how it operates. It crafts creatures specifically to serve a specific role in its army, and never doubles up meaninglessly. The first round of devils is every iconic, and they fit roles. Bone devils are information gatherers and scouts. Erinyes are the soldiers.
Pit Fiends, are the generals. These are devils who have proven they have what it takes to command.
And, really. Does Ultimate Evil Summoned To Enslave All Sentient Life come much cooler-looking than this?
No, but then again, that one wouldn't enslave all sentient life. It'd kill it in the most torturous way possible.
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Lets look at what the Pathfinder Bestiary has to say about bone devils, and work from there.Let's not, because the Pathfinder Bestiary posits that unique devil leadership starts at level 26. The same people who wrote the description of the devils for the Bestiary are the same ones who wrote the evil empire with pit fiends running around on the prime and wrote that balors and pit fiends aren't cool enough on their own to be the aristocracy of their respective home planes.
I am questioning their implicit assumption that devils need to be CR 20 to manipulate leaders. Except for bearded and maybe barbed devils (who are dumb muscle), every devil has the smarts, charisma, and raw power to be the BBEG behind any plot you want to write. And nearly every devil but the imp and arguably erinyes would make either a fine soldier or general in the Army Of Hell Coming To Wreck The Setting. Evilonia can be led by a queen subverted by an imp and can be planning to summon an army of bearded devils to come and wreck Goodtopia, just as it can be led by a pit fiend and working on summoning Bob the Infernal Duke to wreck Goodtopia.
Except, they're only expanding upon what is said in the 3.5 monsters manual.
Don't believe me?
Bone devils, also called osyluths, often serve as the police and informers of the nine hells.
Sounds a lot like an interrogator and inquisitor to me...
And erinyes?
While I see it does talk of them serving as the concubines of Devils, I happen to see that as WotC basically turning them into "Devil equivalent of Succubi". Why would I want an erinyes when a succubus is far more flavorful for that choice? I mean, were they so strapped for ideas that they merely redid the same ones, just called it a different creature? Erinyes are also supposedly far more warrior like than the Succubi, so why relegate them to being lowly concubines?
I don't see them as doing anything remotely like that for humans. I do see them abusing their features that make them seem like Celestials however.
When looking for ideas or alternate interpretations, the Fiendish Codex books apply, the old 1e Monster Manuals and Monstrous Compendiums apply, the Tome of Horrors applies, Princes of Darkness applies, Planescape stuff applies, FR stuff applies, the Divine Comedy applies. They're all ideas that go into the hopper of how to deal with devils in a game.
Sure, but we're talking in the Golarion setting, as that's your arguement there. You're basically arguing that you want no Unbeatable Evil (tm), and when you're told it'll be for epic you immediatly go off on Epic.
You don't even give them a chance by showing you the epic rules, instead you assume its going to suck, just because everything else done for epic sucks.
And as for this:
I mean, who ever heard of a torturer BBEG?Darth Vader.
Actually, I would argue that vehemently. He never did a thing, there was an imperial with him, and a droid did the actual torture. He was far too beat stick about it to be a true torturer. He merely watched it happen to his daughter.
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The CRs of the devils are set in the MM and carried forward into the Bestiary. The CR of a pit fiend is known, and it is also known that he is not the toughest guy in the neighbourhood. That's D&D canon and unless you want to change that, you have problems. The thing is that devils are hierarchical - if there is an osyluth BBEG, it is a dead cert he is reporting to a even bigger BBEG with a higher CR. So I would suggest that while an osyluth makes a fine BBEG for a particular adventure, or for a relatively low-key campaign where (for example) you are chipping at the edge of the evil empire rather than trying to overthrow it wholesale, if you want to do something massive like overthrowing Cheliax you are dealing with some serious devil action. That, at least, is in line with they way that 3e has worked for pretty much its whole existence. That, as such, pretty much demands epic-level adventurers. However, Pathfinder doesn't support epic-level play in either rules of adventure terms, laregly for commercial reasons.
Of course, 4e doesn't have this problem.....
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The CRs of the devils are set in the MM and carried forward into the Bestiary. The CR of a pit fiend is known, and it is also known that he is not the toughest guy in the neighbourhood. That's D&D canon and unless you want to change that, you have problems.Bob the Archdevil can be CR 21, or can be CR Unattainable (anything 26 or above). PF errs on the side of the latter. An example of that thinking:
A balor lord is typically a CR 21 to CR 25 monster (a range shared with the various unique nascent demon lords, with the range of CR 26 and above being the domain of the demon lords themselves)The Bestiary pretty much comes out and says, "Without epic levels or plot devices you can't kill archdevils." Why is that a good thing?
I wouldn't say it was a good thing necessarily. Don't get me wrong, I fully understand your preference for sub-epic badguys as anything a DM can't use is a bit useless. If (big if) you want to overthrow the system where the bad guys are epic level. But as Paizo don't intend to do that, for them, it is no big deal and makes no odds. Arguably, it doesn't matter what the CR is because they won't be doing anything with it anyway.
The thing is that devils are hierarchical - if there is an osyluth BBEG, it is a dead cert he is reporting to a even bigger BBEG with a higher CR. So I would suggest that while an osyluth makes a fine BBEG for a particular adventure, or for a relatively low-key campaign where (for example) you are chipping at the edge of the evil empire rather than trying to overthrow it wholesale, if you want to do something massive like overthrowing Cheliax you are dealing with some serious devil action.Well, of course there's a bigger devil out there... in Hell. The difference is how hard core you allow Team HFIL to be on the prime. If Evilonia is run by an osyluth BBEG, then Evilonia's Grand Evil Plot involves opening up the Gates of Hell to release the Devil Horde led by a devil of Tier [Osyluth+1] in an unending tide onto the prime, etc. His superiors are still in Hell, and are not on the prime for the same reason that Asmodeus himself isn't chilling out in Cheliax, whatever reasons those might be.
The reason, whatever the in-universe explanation, is because you as the author or GM don't want devils more hard core than level X running around. Now, I can think of reasons for an author/GM to limit the devils-on-prime-without-the-apocalypse cap to levels lower than 15. I can't think of any reasons to dial it up to level 17-20, and some good reasons not to do that.
Well, my immediate reaction is that having devils in Cheliax suggests travel between there and and Hell. It is unlikely that a bunch of evil control freaks would necessarily give free reign to their agents in the mortal world, so if you off the head devil in Cheliax (say, your CR 15 villain) expecting there to be nothing the higer-up devils in Hell can do, and are willing to do, would strike me as being unlikely. If you disrupt their key operation in Golarion (which Cheliax clearly is, at least according to what we know so far) expecting the devils to shrug, write it off without any attempt to fight back and go back to their diabolical crochet does not seem especially credible (especially as such failures could lead to demotion or destruction in the Hellish political environment - people should really work for large corporations if they want to know how Hell would work). (That said, preventing subsequent diabolical interference might actually be the cornerstone of a Kill Cheliax campaign, with killing the Empress and her cronies at the end the easy bit. And that could plausibly be a sub-epic campaign.)
More broadly, though, I find the comparisons with Star Wars interesting. I think George Lucas probably has a lot to answer for in that it makes it seem like the only interesting thing to do to an evil empire is overthrow it, and anything less than that is just displaying a lack of aspiration. Personally, I find the whole Cold War / balance of power / Iraq and Afghanistan aspect of it more interesting and real to me than simply beheading a regime and expecting everything to be fine afterwards, as the grateful citizens come out and embrace their liberators. Lucas stopped at the point where the Emperor had just been killed. If we had stopped looking at the Iraq War at the point where they pulled down Saddam's statue, we might have the same view.
None of this, of course, impacts on what you want to do in your own game. But there are plenty of plausible reasons why Cheliax should be an epic understaking. There are also plenty that says it doesn't have to be. But the published one is, and many people (including me) are perfectly happy with that. An empire you have to tiptoe around, instead of one you can kick in the nuts, is more interesting to me as a DM. Otherwise every time you see and evil country, you have to go and overthrow it - honour demands. That doesn't personally interest me.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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I'm curious about the whole deposing-evil shtick.
Has any game company ever put out that kind of a product? Even "Greyhawk Wars", which radically upset the political geography of the Flaeness, didn't try to deal on-camera with anybody trying to re-establish human (that is, "good guy") control of Iuz.
It would be tragi-comic to design a Cheliax Restoration AP, starting at 1st Level, and starting the day after some wandering "good guy" heroes arrive in Cheliax, summon some celestial firepower, destroy House Thrune, and then leave. The PCs get to experience life as a Chelian, suddenly without a lawful government, and build themselves and their philosophies up towards a role in the statecraft of nation-building, all the while preventing incursions from Andoran, Galt, and other surrounding territories.
I imagine it would appeal to a small sliver of role-players, but I'd love it.
What if the CR was around 16, but they(Paizo) came out and said they would never have it overthrown? Would it matter? Whether someone is hard to get to by plot device or big numbers, the issue is still the same.
I'm curious about the whole deposing-evil shtick.
Has any game company ever put out that kind of a product?
Does the advenure path from Dungeon where the party has the chance to kill Demogorgon count?
Seems to me overthrowing Cheliax is very, very complex for an AP. Your talking about first off, rasieing an army, going head to head with the legions of hell. Taking on not only them but lawful citizens who are following the laws of the nation. After all hell is doing Cheliax's biding after all.
The before you even get into genocide , which is what your civil war is building up to. You need to look how other nations will take the events. Most likely you'll get some invasions, some "resistance cells" supplied by other nations. Church getting involved, war in every street. The last civil war lasted what 50 or 60 years?
It's not something you just "fix" over night. Your have good upstanding folks on both sides. Remember not everyone in the nation is evil.And your kidding yourself if you think hell will let go of it's nation just because you killed 1 person. You'll have to take out most of the nobles, a good chunk of laymen and maybe raze a few towns and cites
I really think a full blown civil war is outside of the scope of an AP.
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Lets look at what the Pathfinder Bestiary has to say about bone devils, and work from there.Let's not, because the Pathfinder Bestiary posits that unique devil leadership starts at level 26. The same people who wrote the description of the devils for the Bestiary are the same ones who wrote the evil empire with pit fiends running around on the prime and wrote that balors and pit fiends aren't cool enough on their own to be the aristocracy of their respective home planes.
This is Pathfinder RPG, not D&D. Sorry to be blunt, but the WotC boards would be better suited to get the answers you seek.
It feels like people want Paizo to do what TSR did with Dark Sun. Create a campaign setting, kill everything bad off in year 1, and then have to relaunch the setting a few years later because the core products are unusable.
Ugh yeah, lets not go there
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I feel like I'm repeating myself, but if you lower the level at which you can overthrow the Throne Of Pure Evil, the more room you have to deal with aftermath. A game of politics and rebuilding in post-war Evilonia would not only be interesting as all get out, but it'd be awfully timely, wouldn't it? Of course, if overthrowing Evilonia requires that you're level 15+ (or worse, level 20+) then there's no room to publish that follow-up. That is a damn shame.
You assume that overthrowing Evilonia requires FOUR adventurers at level 15+ (or worse, FOUR adventurers of level 20+)
What about a hundred level 10+?
500 level 5+?
1,000 1st level archer will, once a round, have approximately 50 of them roll a 20, and even at STR 10, using regular crap longbows, each inflict 3d8dmg. Assuming there's a few 3rd level clerics around to cast align weapon on big arrow bundles transported by each group of 10 men, and that they have access to silver arrows since they know they're going Pit Fiend hunting, that's an average of 675dmg per round. If you assume that only one man in 5 has a silver and good arrow, that's still 135dmg per round.
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It feels like people want Paizo to do what TSR did with Dark Sun. Create a campaign setting, kill everything bad off in year 1, and then have to relaunch the setting a few years later because the core products are unusable.
...and I think Paizo is smart enough not to do that, and that most people who would like such a campaign are imaginative enough to figure out how to destroy a setting by themselves.
He is also assuming killing the empress will kill the government. That is a faulty assumption. You will be wanted for murder however.
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He is also assuming killing the empress will kill the government. That is a faulty assumption. You will be wanted for murder however.
Yeah... Lawful Evil societies don't stop to mourn for 10 years once their "beloved" leader dies... (in fact, this is perhaps the happiest day of their lives, as the ambition and thirst for promotion/power awakens them from their long servitude/routine-induced sleep...)
Director of Brand Strategy
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What's the appeal of that? Why clutter otherwise-useful books with villains who are so strong that you can't actually use them in your game?
Even if everything were CR5, I still wouldn't have the chance to use most of it in my games. There's simply too much content to ever use it all. I'd rather they include stuff at all levels, because not everyone plays at the same level. Someone playing a lvl 20 game now have challenging enemies in those creatures with CRs at 23+. And not everyone who buys Paizo's sourcebooks plays the game at all. I know a lot of people who just read them. Their world will soon also need to support novels which will (hopefully) be read by people who have no intention of playing the game. Having world elements that aren't geared 100% to your game is just what happens when you're not writing everything yourself.
This is Pathfinder RPG, not D&D. Sorry to be blunt, but the WotC boards would be better suited to get the answers you seek.Since the underlying assumptions of Pathfinder are what is being questioned, I think this is probably the best place to discuss it. It's a philosophy that pervades Pathfinder and Golarion in general: "The real villains are much higher level than you are, and you will never be able to affect them at all without GM fiat/plot devices." It appears in both Golarion and non-Golarion Pathfinder material, from the invincible-to-everything tarrasque to the CR 26 fiend aristocracy to the inexplicably CR 29 GM mouthpiece NPC at the end of Second Darkness.
What's the appeal of that? Why clutter otherwise-useful books with villains who are so strong that you can't actually use them in your game?
You don't have to defeat someone in combat to get rid of them. Of course every(most)player(s) wants the big fight at the end, but to expose the leader as an illegitimate leader would be the best way to dethrone them. Maybe you have to defeat some really power _____ to get the message out, but it's possible.
Taking out the person in charge of Cheliax does not do any good if Hell is actively backing the person/creature up. Now if it's a rogue devil it would be more feasible, but we already know Asmodeus has his hands in it somewhere.
The opponent is actually hell itself from my PoV, so it hardly matters who they have on the material plane to represent them.
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This is Pathfinder RPG, not D&D. Sorry to be blunt, but the WotC boards would be better suited to get the answers you seek.Since the underlying assumptions of Pathfinder are what is being questioned, I think this is probably the best place to discuss it. It's a philosophy that pervades Pathfinder and Golarion in general: "The real villains are much higher level than you are, and you will never be able to affect them at all without GM fiat/plot devices." It appears in both Golarion and non-Golarion Pathfinder material, from the invincible-to-everything tarrasque to the CR 26 fiend aristocracy to the inexplicably CR 29 GM mouthpiece NPC at the end of Second Darkness.
What's the appeal of that? Why clutter otherwise-useful books with villains who are so strong that you can't actually use them in your game?
To use the words of a great sage: "Mmkay, I'll bite."
1. Show me a setting where there are no epic-level forces present, evil or otherwise?
2. Real villains? please define. There's always a bigger fish. That's the way our current universe works.
3. What's the appeal of what? you seem to want to say that high level NPCs prevent all PC actions and/or decisions and that the DM MUST NOT oh MUST NOT make any decision, at all costs (voting with dollars and real life time constraints arguments and such similar baloney to be inserted HERE, liberally and arbitrarily, etc.)
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Director of Brand Strategy
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Additionally, the right power level for given campaign is obviously a matter of subjectivity. If you can overthrow one of the most powerful nations in the world at level 12 or even 15, what then? I like the idea that PCs need to be among the most powerful people in the world in order to influence global events on that scale. Because there are already a lot of NPCs of 15th level and why aren't they overthrowing Cheliax or taking out the Whispering Tyrant or fixing the Eye of Abendego, or closing the Worldwound, etc. Because they're not high enough level. But eventually a party of PCs will surpass them in level and then these are challenges worth taking on. Until then, there are thousands of plot hooks within the setting for PCs of any level. So why is this one such a deal breaker? As this thread passes the 200 post mark, I'm still struggling to grok the core logic at the center of the present argument.