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That being said, I just learned a new one: Fireball: must successfully hit the square you are targetting, since you are shooting a bead form your finger. Also, it damages combustibles in the area (I mean really, its a ball of fire).
You only need to roll "to hit" when aiming through a narrow opening. Otherwise, it is just direction and range.
Seems that, knowing he's your character's only chance, the archon can't really refuse to help you; he's the epitome of selflessness and kindness...
Ah, see, I don't know anything in particular about Hama. But if she's less than sparkling spiritually, methinks it'd be a good (heh heh) time to try some soul searching and ernest offers of undertaking righteous questing then. Archons are suckers for redeeming evil characters right? And what GM isn't going to jump at a carte-blanche opportunity to design a PC quest; especially if it'd normally go against the PC's usual modus operandi? GMs are suckers for that kind of stuff. >=)
Time to pull out all the stops if it's all you've got left. ;)
Hama was quite evil. She was also quite intelligent and a great liar.
Do hound archons have detect thoughts, or a really high sense motive?
Hama's bluff and diplomacy modifiers were +21 and +18, respectively, not that the GM ever let me use them.
GM: "Haha! He sees right through you despite your 27 Charisma!"
GM: "Nope, the mooks all pass their saves against your DC 23 deep slumber spell for the 'nth time."
Fellow Players: "Your character is totally useless! Why couldn't you just play a normal sorcerer that lobs fireballs?"
...Any character is useless when the GM forces the useless condition upon them. *grumbles*
But to keep on track, another commonly misused spell is simulacrum.
Can anyone tell me, for sure, what you end up with if an evil character creates a simulacrum of a paladin? Or a goodly cleric? Will the paladin fall by default? Will the cleric be given spells by a deity it does not believe in? Or are they magical creations that have the inherent ability to mimic the powers of the originals?
What is their alignment? Does it match the originals, or your own?
What about their creature type? Does it match the originals, or are they constructs?
Healing a construct can be expensive, but is there anything preventing you from healing it normally (such as by cure spells)?
If you started with a human fighter 4/rogue 3/ranger 3, what levels does the simulacrum have? What if the original was a troll (6 HD) fighter 5?
There are so many questions that come up with this spell, I doubt anyone could ever NOT misuse it.
Hama was quite evil. She was also quite intelligent and a great liar.
Doe hound archons have detect thoughts, or a really high sense motive?
I forget the rest of the details, but I do remember that they have detect evil at will.
I forget the rest of the details, but I do remember that they have detect evil at will.Hama was quite evil. She was also quite intelligent and a great liar.
Doe hound archons have detect thoughts, or a really high sense motive?
Then I would just tailor my lie to that.
"Please have mercy upon my miserable soul and save me from this miserable desert and I shall hence forth turn away from my evil ways! You have a chance to bring some good into the world." --or something along those lines, but far more convincing sounding. :P
Since hound archons love to punish evil, he still might not go for it, but I betcha I could convince Joe "Generic" Hound Archon of my sincerity at least.
Then I would just tailor my lie to that."Please have mercy upon my miserable soul and save me from this miserable desert and I shall hence forth turn away from my evil ways! You have a chance to bring some good into the world."
Since hound archons love to punish evil, he still might not go for it, but I betcha I could convince Joe "Generic" Hound Archon of my sincerity.
I can't see a hound archon buying that in any game I'd run, honestly. It just does not fit what they are. They're Lawful Good, not Stupid Good. At best, Bluff can convince him that you think you mean what you say, but it can't convince him that you're at all likely to live up to it.
I forget the rest of the details, but I do remember that they have detect evil at will.Hama was quite evil. She was also quite intelligent and a great liar.
Doe hound archons have detect thoughts, or a really high sense motive?
Then I would just tailor my lie to that.
"Please have mercy upon my miserable soul and save me from this miserable desert and I shall hence forth turn away from my evil ways! You have a chance to bring some good into the world." --or something along those lines, but far more convincing sounding. :P
Since hound archons love to punish evil, he still might not go for it, but I betcha I could convince Joe "Generic" Hound Archon of my sincerity at least.
What, no Devil/Demon love? The price of souls is so steep these days... >:-)
I can't see a hound archon buying that in any game I'd run, honestly. It just does not fit what they are. They're Lawful Good, not Stupid Good. At best, Bluff can convince him that you think you mean what you say, but it can't convince him that you're at all likely to live up to it.
Then I would just tailor my lie to that."Please have mercy upon my miserable soul and save me from this miserable desert and I shall hence forth turn away from my evil ways! You have a chance to bring some good into the world."
Since hound archons love to punish evil, he still might not go for it, but I betcha I could convince Joe "Generic" Hound Archon of my sincerity.
At the risk of further derailing this thread, that's what the bluff modifiers are for.
I like to think that this would qualify as "they want to believe you" netting me a +5, but it's been my experience that GMs always want to give the -10 or -20 option at the drop of a hat.
If I were GMing in this situation, I would seriously consider giving both the +5 (celestials generally prefer to redeem things rather than destroy them, being good and all) and the -10 (it is far fetched in this instance).
I would also consider the "up to +10" option if Hama opted to present the (genuine) proof of her good deeds up to that point as a sign that she is willing to change and, in fact, already is changing (she is personally responsible for ending wars, stopping monster rampages peacefully, and bringing peace to many lands*).
* Little does everyone know that bringing peace to the region is part of her plan for world dominance and that most of the monsters she quelled peacefully now either serve or are allied with her.
I can't see a hound archon buying that in any game I'd run, honestly. It just does not fit what they are. They're Lawful Good, not Stupid Good. At best, Bluff can convince him that you think you mean what you say, but it can't convince him that you're at all likely to live up to it.
A hound archon has an intelligence of 10, a sense motive of +10 and the benefit of a constant detect evil effect; all limitations that an exceedingly clever and charismatic spell-caster could potentially circumvent.
But let's say that the hound archon isn't convinced, he can confer with his trumpet archon buddy back in heaven and bring him along for a second opinion when they travel back to the mortal plane together. The trumpet archon has a slew of clerical magic he can use to discern Hama's alignment as well as a sense motive score of +24. At that point the archons might refuse, or the trumpet archon might require both the charitable donation while tasking Hama with a particularly arduous and righteous task and back it up with the casting of a geas-quest spell. Ignoring an opportunity to redeem an evil character, no matter how slight, is just plain apathetic/lazy/evil on the archons' part.
But, as Ravingdork pointed out, there's little that a player can do if a GM is intent on simply metagaming a PC's considerable abilities and efforts into ineffectiveness.
To get back to the thread's topic, I simply wanted to point out that summoning spells can have effects beyond their strict parameters if a character is willing to bargain for a powerful sentient creature's aid following the end of the spell.
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Archons are like very Good policemen. Even if they think you're sincere, they've heard all the best lines before. He's under no obligation to help you out, especially since you're an evil character.
Heck, as a Lawful Good outsider, he's probably not be ALLOWED to help out an evil character. There are rules regarding who gets blessings and who gets smitings, after all, and anything Evil has usually earned a place in the latter category. Granting undeserved aid to a faithless, morally bankrupt wretch is probably against some law or another up there. Oh sure, they want you to turn good. They want you to repent and mend your wicked ways and become a productive, law-abiding member of the planes. But until you actually do it, no blessings.
Now that I think about it, this is probably a very good way for a DM to run Lawful Good:
"Look, I can't help you willingly. None of us can. We've heard about you and we're prohibited from helping you at all, lest our efforts be turned to evil. But I'll tell you what - there's a loophole. If you do something good, I mean really good, then I can compensate you for that. Until then, though, my hands are tied."
An evil character would be much better off pleading with an azada than with an archon, honestly. I mean, if there's a rule about azadas not helping evil people, they'll just break that rule whenever they feel like it. You just have to make them feel like helping you.
Magic Jar and Reincarnate.
Nobody seems to know whether ongoing spell effects follow you into your new body, or if they remain with your old body (in the case of magic jar); or how, exactly, you are supposed to rebuild your character when you get reincarnated as a different race (in the case of reincarnate). Do you suddenly gain racial hit dice for becoming a gnoll? Or lose your human bonus feat and skill for no longer being human?
Well to me it seems that if they chose a mental stat for their bonus stat, they actually lose nothing. This is the one little thing humans get over the other races. Gaining skills, the bonus feat, they seem clearly mental, the only thing that changes is the physical. That is just my take. Yeah it might be a tad powerful, but consider this, why would a human go through such a process if they had a choice. Wouldn't they want to get their old body back again? I have a cleric character that has the religous belief that if he dies his body must stay dead, so he must instead get a new body. Every time he dies, excluding breath of life, he has to use re-incarnate. This is his 4th body Human->Half Orc->Dwarf->Human again. I can't just stop at the race I like because it is the most powerful. If I had done that I would have stayed with Half Orc or at least Dwarf.
Same thing about Web, you need at least to opposites walls to support the web. This is often overlooked by some GMs or players. :)
It doesn't have to be walls -- floor and ceiling count as "opposed points" too, in my opinion.
Ignoring an opportunity to redeem an evil character, no matter how slight, is just plain apathetic/lazy/evil on the archons' part.
Uh no.
By that (bad) logic you're evil for not spending all of your money on lottery tickets right now. You might win and be able to donate all the money to an orphanage!
Again: good != stupid. There's precious few drawbacks/consequences in the game for being evil. That creatures of purest virtue that can discern that you are, in fact, evil are very disinclined to do something other than kill you should be one of them.
Same thing about Web, you need at least to opposites walls to support the web. This is often overlooked by some GMs or players. :)It doesn't have to be walls -- floor and ceiling count as "opposed points" too, in my opinion.
I've seen some people use such loose interpretations as counting a flying dragon and the ground beneath it as "opposing surfaces" or even the two giants standing next to each other.
"I am not a SURFACE! I am a FREE MAN!"
The Most misused spell.
GREASE
Yes it's that bad and worse.