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Well, I do have 15 HD and class levels. So there's that.
I haven't been able to like you ever since you became an imp. Golems are better.
Adepts don't get unlimited 0-level spells, though, which is what the create water criticism usually centers on. They can only cast it a certain number of times per day.
Ah, ok. Right.
But you know the point is we can all agree there is a lot of divine magic that mitigates a lot of the RW hardship a Byzantine or medieval or whatever society would have faced.
Bad harvests, plagues, inhospitable climates etc. so it's tricky when designing a home-brew fantasy world, to make it feel "real". It's something we all just have to deal with, so it seems kind of silly to get upset about a magic fountain in a review.
I don't think Paizo needs another consultant whose main contributions to this board are on how to break a game we already know has a built-in inescapable fragility due to it's d20 roots.I don't think fragility is at all inescapable. Everything is a learning process. I'm a bit saddened to hear that my "main contribution" is instruction for how to break the game though. I surely didn't think that the case.
I think he is referring to the fact that you are more loose with the rules than some other posters. It reminds me of the conversation we had with Ciretose a while concerning what the rules allow vs what the rules intend, and at what point it becomes a grey area. I think the actual subject was boosting caster levels.
I do disagree with Lazar. You do have good strategies, and build advice, and logic is sound even when I don't agree, even though I don't disagree with you all that much. :)
Ashiel, I was thinking of having the Lilly's apply a meta magic effect.
Feel free. I'd recommend nothing more than a +1 level effect though. They're pretty cheap (but that's because they influence a tiny subset of spells which aren't greatly affected by a small bump to caster level or save DCs), so keep that in mind and you should be fine.
The church is probably going to have belonged to Aiwa and the Triune Guardians of the Asha'arta ( Mitra, Aiwa and Astrior). Aiwa is the "Water of Life"' so it fits with the water stone very well. I don't like adventures to have details I can't fit intomy setting.
That was pretty much my concern too. A really great adventure if you can find it is The Red Hand of Doom by James Jacobs and another fellow whose name escapes me at the moment. It was published by Wizards of the Coast. Great adventure, but one of my biggest issues with premade adventures is they are often difficult to fit into existing campaigns. The Red Hand of Doom has been hailed as both a great adventure but a bit difficult to apply to campaigns.
The Pathfinder adventure paths are a similar subject. They're wonderful. I have several of them. I like them a lot. However, it takes quite a bit of work to port them to your own campaign, which means that if you're not running Golarion, then odds are you aren't running APs either (negating one of the main uses of a premade adventure IMHO, which is saving on prep work and such).
So I was trying to be generic specifically. Providing the crunchy bits like treasure, NPCs, encounters, all that stuff you normally need to spend lots of time in preparation for, and give the GM enough details to comfortably run the adventure while not feeling constrained by the adventure. I'm not entirely sure I succeeded, but if you want you can see how it goes and then toss your own review for good or ill.
I'm glad there's no map because I have some Warhammer terrain I bought my little brother that he never used.
I'm going to spread out these pieces on a chessex mat.
Wow, those are awesome. This is an example of why I actually didn't want to include maps. I was thinking of an adventure in terms of what I'd like to have. Lots of gamers either love creating their own maps, or map packs like these, or the free D&D minis tiles, or Wizards of the Coast tiles. It wasn't well received though, so if I go with another adventure in the future then I'll include maps.
The problems with Create Water are inherent in the spell, and magic in general. I don't see how the stone makes it worse. Someone tell those nomads in the desert about low level Clerics and Druids.
Agreed. That's why I didn't find a problem with that. In your standard D&D setting (and by standard D&D, I mean anything that assumes the core rules are in effect) infinite cantrips, resetting magical devices (such as create water traps), or cheap wondrous items like decanters of endless water already destroy any water issues. The cantrip rock was simply a tool that the people at the church used to run their water/fountain; but the drain got clogged and it ended up spilling on the floor, which runs off slowly and it hits a point where it cannot produce more water (because it's vanishing as fast as it can be produced).
I've always wanted to run red hand of doom, but haven't had a chance because of that. I think someone even pathfinderized that but iirc the conversion was too golarion specific for me and left me with the same problem.
I think I'll do a red hand tribute kind of thing, which is inspired by it, but fits my home brew. I'm doing similar with keep on the borderlands, my own caves of chaos and keep with my own NPC's. More inspired-by then conversion.
I won't review churchyard until I've run it, if then. I kind of despise rpg reviewers, not sure why.
Looks like I may run tonight so I will throw some hooks out for churchyard as a side quest.
Adepts don't get unlimited 0-level spells, though, which is what the create water criticism usually centers on. They can only cast it a certain number of times per day.
While it doesn't specifically spell it out that it was orisons/cantrips like other arcane/divine classes, Jason Bulmahn said:
Folks, James is right on here.
If you use a higher level slot, for any reason, be it because it is modified with metamagic, or you just prepared it in a higher slot, it is consumed when cast, just like any other spell. Only when it uses a 0-level slot, it is not consumed.
There is some poor wording there that I am going to correct the next time I am able.
And please folks.. play nice.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing
Adepts have 0-level slots, therefore, their 0-level slots aren't consumed. I mean, one could certainly rule that because the Adept doesn't have that specific class entry, it doesn't get re-usable 0-level spells, but it's not like having re-usable 0-level spells is going to make them 'more better' or anything, but it would fit the rules of every other class that has 0-level spells.
Works for me. 0-level slot = not consumed.
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I think he is referring to the fact that you are more loose with the rules than some other posters. It reminds me of the conversation we had with Ciretose a while concerning what the rules allow vs what the rules intend, and at what point it becomes a grey area. I think the actual subject was boosting caster levels.
That was a good thread, did we ever get a ruling on that?
And for the record, Wraithstrike you are one of my favorite posters I consistently disagree with. Always a straight shooter even when I think you point your gun in the wrong direction :)
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Adepts don't get unlimited 0-level spells, though, which is what the create water criticism usually centers on. They can only cast it a certain number of times per day.I've always simply just ruled that create water doesn't work if there isn't water in the area to conjure forth. This generally isn't a problem save in areas of arid levels of humidity. Savvy adventurers know enough to ask beforehand.
Wizard: "I cast summon monster IX to summon a Ghaele Azata!"
GM: "There are no Ghaele Azata nearby for you to conjure magically into existence."Wizard: ಠ_ಠ
Behold the difference between a cantrip summoning spell and a higher level summoning spell - retrieval range.
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Behold the difference between a cantrip summoning spell and a higher level summoning spell - retrieval range.
Actually, upon further examination, it's a conjuration (creation), not a summoning thing. Thus the cleric creates the water on the spot from nothing but magic. I guess in a dead magic zone you could go thirsty. Perhaps purify food & drink only works if there's a refrigerator within 10 miles? :P
Well, my players took the bait and headed for the church.
They haven't stopped the mugging in the ally yet or met the captain of the town guard, but they subdued Simon without killing him.
The alchemist is one of those NpC's they will never forget. I read his box text to myself and he came alive in my mind. I don't usually do a lot of voices but for this guy it came so naturally. I was repeating myself in almost every sentence. It went on forever, they kept asking him stuff just to hear him talk.
They were busy harvesting fog lillies when the cavalier rode his horse right up the path and triggered the bells. The Orc zombies dropped the paladin and everyone freaked out trying to keep them occupied before they could eat him while he was down.
They won the fight and healed him and headed back to buy potions from the alchemist after harvesting more Lillys. The spider swarm was not too hard since they had all those acid flask, which was lucky because only one player remembered to loot the zombies. He said he wouldn't have thought of it if it weren't for the fact that the adventure mentioned the armor wasn't rusty so they had obviously been buried recently, with their gear.
Great fun.
They werent ready to head down those stairs yet so they went back to town.
They are staying at the Lance but really want to splurge on Nymphs Haven once they get some more coin.
Playing again thurs night.
Well, my players took the bait and headed for the church.
They haven't stopped the mugging in the ally yet or met the captain of the town guard, but they subdued Simon without killing him.
The alchemist is one of those NpC's they will never forget. I read his box text to myself and he came alive in my mind. I don't usually do a lot of voices but for this guy it came so naturally. I was repeating myself in almost every sentence. It went on forever, they kept asking him stuff just to hear him talk.
Heh, I'm so glad to hear that. He was intended to be humorous, and his speaking mannerisms are a less than obvious homage to a half-elven fighter named Khalid from Baldur's Gate I (he tended to stutter a lot and was kind of cowardly as well). Van'len's skittishness and redundancy was supposed to create a few smiles at the table, and I'm glad it did for you and your group. ^-^
They were busy harvesting fog lillies when the cavalier rode his horse right up the path and triggered the bells. The Orc zombies dropped the paladin and everyone freaked out trying to keep them occupied before they could eat him while he was down.
Yeah, those orc zombies are really bad! Sounds like your party did a good job though! Zombies are an interesting type of enemy, because as brutes that be very very powerful, but it's usually pretty easy to run circles around them. On a note unrelated to the adventure, I've discovered that Fast Zombies are just terrifying and are much more difficult in almost all cases compared to normal zombies. In a recent campaign of mine (the Red Hand Remix I've mentioned a few times on the board as of late) the party has encountered some fast zombie grizzly bears and megaraptors. If it wasn't for the fact one of the PCs in the game is an overpowered tank, they likely would have steamrolled him (the 2 slam attacks + other natural attacks are worth far more than the DR 5/slashing in most cases).
They won the fight and healed him and headed back to buy potions from the alchemist after harvesting more Lillys. The spider swarm was not too hard since they had all those acid flask, which was lucky because only one player remembered to loot the zombies. He said he wouldn't have thought of it if it weren't for the fact that the adventure mentioned the armor wasn't rusty so they had obviously been buried recently, with their gear.
Great fun.
Most excellent! The first time one of my online groups played in the game, they were somewhat befuddled with the soggy bottom swarm. It ended up with several of them hopping from pew to pew inside the church, until fleeing out of the church a bit and fighting swarms "the old fashioned way". :P
They werent ready to head down those stairs yet so they went back to town.
They are staying at the Lance but really want to splurge on Nymphs Haven once they get some more coin.
Playing again thurs night.
I look forward to hearing more! ^-^
All that said, I really need to revise the pdf. The grammatical errors alone are pretty terrible. I think my writing is much cleaner these days (and I have some proof readers now to help me spot oversights). I'll see about cleaning up some of the grammatical errors and get the new version uploaded as soon as it's finished (it should alert you that you'll be able to download the latest version at no charge, as it did the last time I updated it).
I think he is referring to the fact that you are more loose with the rules than some other posters. It reminds me of the conversation we had with Ciretose a while concerning what the rules allow vs what the rules intend, and at what point it becomes a grey area. I think the actual subject was boosting caster levels.
That was a good thread, did we ever get a ruling on that?
And for the record, Wraithstrike you are one of my favorite posters I consistently disagree with. Always a straight shooter even when I think you point your gun in the wrong direction :)
booooo.....just joking.
Serious answer-->No ruling. In order for there to be a ruling the devs would have to set a cap on caster levels or at least set on in certain situations. It is still legal.
Adepts don't get unlimited 0-level spells, though, which is what the create water criticism usually centers on. They can only cast it a certain number of times per day.I've always simply just ruled that create water doesn't work if there isn't water in the area to conjure forth. This generally isn't a problem save in areas of arid levels of humidity. Savvy adventurers know enough to ask beforehand.Wizard: "I cast summon monster IX to summon a Ghaele Azata!"
GM: "There are no Ghaele Azata nearby for you to conjure magically into existence."
Wizard: ಠ_ಠ
These are the comments, that I like. A little tongue in cheek, but right on point. :)
Ashiel are you using adobe acrobat or another program for your pdfs? I really don't want to pay for acrobat since anything I may put out will be more of a side project than a main source of income.
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Whether or not a spell like Create Water breaks environmental stress depends entirely on how many clerics you have.
It is pointed out fairly regularly on these boards that Create Water does not produce the kind of supply needed to irrigate stretches of desert, even if you have a level 3 caster praying for it 10 hours a day.
How many casters does a typical community have? How many of them can cast spells like remove disease? A lot of this came up when Curse of the Crimson Throne and Legacy of Fire came out.
Ashiel are you using adobe acrobat or another program for your pdfs? I really don't want to pay for acrobat since anything I may put out will be more of a side project than a main source of income.
I use Open Office which is a great open source substitute for MS Office (I'm poor, man, I am so poor), and it has the ability to export your documents directly to pdf format. Very handy.
Edit:
These are the comments, that I like. A little tongue in cheek, but right on point. :)
Thanks. They're meant to be humorous and invoke smiles. ^.^
I have open office also, and use it for pdf conversion. :) If I find a way to insert the bookmarks with it I will let you know. If you already know how then I would like to know. :)
Whether or not a spell like Create Water breaks environmental stress depends entirely on how many clerics you have.
It is pointed out fairly regularly on these boards that Create Water does not produce the kind of supply needed to irrigate stretches of desert, even if you have a level 3 caster praying for it 10 hours a day.
How many casters does a typical community have? How many of them can cast spells like remove disease? A lot of this came up when Curse of the Crimson Throne and Legacy of Fire came out.
Agreed. I've said much the same when someone asked why disease is an issue in a D&D world. The biggest problem is people contract diseases faster than you can cure them, and then people who have been cured can catch the disease again (there's no immunization in D&D, so if you catch a disease spread through contact, get healed, then someone bumps into you and contaminates you again, you're SOL).
As for desert communities, generally I expect small communities. Like thorpes and small villages, which would dot the otherwise arid landscape. Such places would be environments that would naturally attract those more suited for living in such conditions (one of places in my campaign setting more or less requires adept schooling, and so instead of commoners they have adepts running around everywhere). It would require magical engineering to survive, but it could be done. Making a large scale agricultural impact would need decanters though.
For example, if you ran a small community, you could have a resetting create water trap that produced 2 gallons of water everytime someone pulled a level, flipped a switch, or whatever. These 2 gallons would last 24 hours and be nourishing to anyone or anything that drinks it (plants, people, or animals). Such a device would cost 250 gp and could be created easily by any 3rd level adept. Now such devices would allow you to grow a garden, support a family, bath, and support some livestock (such as goats, bees, donkeys, or camels).
Now one of the beautiful things about this setup is it creates the means to have small communities that dot otherwise arid landscapes, which make desert based adventures more possible. In general, unless there is something forcing the characters to go to a desert environment, then they simply will not go if the conditions make the prospect lackluster in effort versus reward. However, this can give you trade paths, and places for weary travelers to seek haven, trade supplies, and catch up on current events.
The beauty of it is that it doesn't ruin the challenges of dealing with desert survival on an adventure. See, since the water only lasts 24 hours when produced from the water-making devices, you can't go into a town and simply stock up on water before you leave (unless towns were built one day away from each other). So heading out and away from civilization means finding natural water sources (and it's possible that these communities might have some wells and sell the natural water since it won't vanish after a time). Beware tricksters who peddle the conjured water mixed in with natural water though, as it might not be immediately obvious until your 50 miles from the nearest town and find half your water supply missing. :P
In my campaign setting that I've been working on for some time, there is actually a very large city that uses magic to exist in the middle of a terrible harsh desert. The city was founded by an undead ruler and has a mixture of living and unliving people, who are in some ways similar to egyptians (but not blatantly so). Their common folks are adepts (who are statistically similar to commoners besides being more educated). Much of their heavy labor is done through mindless undead (who also function as a standing army for defense). They have very different religious views than most of the world and have many enemies beyond their domain. However, the harshness of the desert combined with their remote location keeps them safe against would be zealots (those interested in starting a war out of belief principles would have to deal with marching an army through many days of excessive heat and sand, while dealing with issues of water, cold nights, and a potential enemy that is not hampered by any of these issues).
Said populace has also created a colony elsewhere in the world, in the "core continent" due to some clever diplomacy (or perhaps blatant bribery), but their reception hasn't been taken super well by certain regions (one of the neighboring countries just beyond their borders have religious beliefs that clash with them pretty hard, which creates conflict).
Ack, I'm on a tangent! Anyway, yeah, magic changes the world. It forces us to think in new and creative ways. Not just be lazy and copy our own history and pretend there were giant flying lightning breathing lizards. It could definitely be used to cultivate areas that in reality would have been a nightmare to do so without hugely ambitious engineering projects (look up California water sometime). Let's not fear it. Embrace it. Could make for great plot hooks.
I have open office also, and use it for pdf conversion. :) If I find a way to insert the bookmarks with it I will let you know. If you already know how then I would like to know. :)
Yeah the bookmarking thing is an issue. A pretty major one actually, since there was discussion of turning my campaign into a series of mini-sourcebooks. I'm going to see if I can figure it out, and let you know.
EDIT: Still working on the bookmarks thing from inside OpenOffice. However, I may have found a very simple workaround in the meantime. Foxit Pdf Reader apparently allows you to insert bookmarks and save them into the file, right from the bookmarks sidebar. May be worth looking into.
Awesome stuff about Magic changing the world.
I often think about this stuff all the time, though not as often as I wish. I mean, could you imagine how things would work today if Magic were real? An internal combustion engine that runs off Fireball? Dance floors that produce a Resist Energy (Electricity) on the dancers, while lightning flashes through the dancers? Sky Diving that involves Dimension Dooring straight up into the air, and casting Feather Fall to float down?
Think of all the health benefits. Prestidigitation is bottled as "Mr. Clean" products. Purify Food and Water could solve a lot of those Stagnant Water issues. Create Food and Water can help offset people that are starving. Remove Disease pills could cure HIV, Polio, Ebola, H1N1, the Flu etc. Video communication based off Illusion spells. Teleportals for long distance travel.
Hell, think of the places we could visit? We could be living on the Moon by now. We could have colonized Mars, Jupiter, or any other planet.
Think of all the different kinds of security we could have? Detect Magic and Detect Explosives at plane terminals. More advanced forms of Rings of X-ray Vision. All the murders and crimes that could be solved via Speak With Dead and Zones of Truth. Hell, a Geas to serve in public office in the way the People, not money, demands.
But at the same time, could you imagine the wars? I Wish... Ferdinand hadn't been assassinated. I Wish... the planes had managed to fight off the Twin Tower bombers.
Navy Seals with Invisibility and Silence spells.
Tanks with Major Creation and Fabricate for an infinite supply of weaponry.
Tanks that have modified Resilient Sphere's for mobile use, and they flicker on and off each time the Tank fires.
Soldiers with shots of Cure Potions. Chewable Potions of Ability Boost potions.
Planes that drop bombs that not only blow up, but also bind Fire Elementals to the area.
Also, think of all the invasions. Governments that regularly Detect Thoughts to discover threats. Employ Scrying to monitor suspects. Resurrection to test weapons.
To me, at least, Magic isn't something just for combat. I love trying to ponder how Magic would really shape the world. I mean, you know it's had an effect in nearly every Game Setting. In medieval times, one did not just question the Lord or demand things of him. Not alone anyway. If you bad mouthed the King, you were likely to be arrested. But we don't see that often in RPGs. Often times, the commoners can go largely unpunished for slandering the king, because that's what we do today. Too often I see people saying things like, "You can't arrest him, he's got human rights!" while I'm thinking, "The King owns him, his family, and everything he possess. The only 'rights' peasants have, are the ones the King decides to give him that day."
Granted, a lot of this changed with things like the Magna Carta and when peasants started standing up for themselves. But one did not just openly slander the King, without some sort of power behind him (like a mob).
However, the inclusion of Magic seems to have changed peasants in most RPG settings. The King may have been born a King, but a peasant that is born a Sorcerer, could teleport to his bed chamber, and murder him, given the right provocation. So the King has to be careful what he does, or he may go the way of the Romanov's did. Or the Galtans. Or the English (with the Colonies).
Teddy Roosevelt said, "Speak softly, and carry a big stick!"
I think the Pathfinder term is, "Speak softly, and employ a great Witch!"
Awesome stuff about Magic changing the world.I often think about this stuff all the time, though not as often as I wish. I mean, could you imagine how things would work today if Magic were real? An internal combustion engine that runs off Fireball? Dance floors that produce a Resist Energy (Electricity) on the dancers, while lightning flashes through the dancers? Sky Diving that involves Dimension Dooring straight up into the air, and casting Feather Fall to float down?
My friend and I were just recently discussing the effects of certain types of creatures in D&D. For example, Burning Skeletons could be used to assist in smithing, or even piled into an area to heat water to produce steam. You could just create lots of burning skeletons and use them to power steam-based technology like the locomotive. If you've ever seen Irontown in Princess Mononoke where they keep the bellows pumping so the fires don't go out? Well you could theoretically pack a ton of burning skeletons in there and not worry about the fire going out.
Think of all the health benefits. Prestidigitation is bottled as "Mr. Clean" products. Purify Food and Water could solve a lot of those Stagnant Water issues. Create Food and Water can help offset people that are starving. Remove Disease pills could cure HIV, Polio, Ebola, H1N1, the Flu etc. Video communication based off Illusion spells. Teleportals for long distance travel.
It's true. I think that's one of the reasons you don't have those sorts of real world problems in D&D. Unlike easily contracted diseases, things like HIV/AIDS, or even cancer could be stopped with some effort on the part of a local ruler. As to the purify food & drink, I noted much the same during a conversation on the boards concerning using decanters of endless water to sustain agricultural growth in arid locations, and discussed its use for it and prestidigitation to be used to recycle water and remove sewage and the like.
Hell, think of the places we could visit? We could be living on the Moon by now. We could have colonized Mars, Jupiter, or any other planet.
Liches make the best space pioneers in my opinion. Most liches will be capable of casting greater teleport which can take them anywhere on the same plane of existence. Literally from one side of the universe to the other, if desired. Since liches aren't exactly the most vulnerable sorts (easily not needing a space suit for survival), they can prepare a few spells, set a contingency to destroy themselves or warp back home if in a tight spot and so forth. A few divination spells can easily prevent most accidental mishaps ("Oh darn, I thought this star was a planet. Oh well, see you guys again next week"). In other words, you're entirely correct that a map of the cosmos could be created. Getting to the moon is literally as easy as having a cheap magic item (there's one that makes you environmentally friendly and gives you a bubble of breathable air, and it's not expensive as far as magic items go) and a good teleport spell. This is one of the reasons liches are effectively unkillable. A lich could literally hide his/her phylactery on some strange and hostile uncharted world, where the intelligent magically reinforced adamantine phylactery can remain safely away from meddlesome enemies. Assuming of course the lich doesn't just create his own plane of existence and dump it there.
Speaking of space travel. In my campaign setting, there is a race of people that most folks call "Starkin", because they migrated to the main world via a huge flying starship metropolis. Their bitter enemies are the mighty Neothelids who overran their world with their powerful progeny of aberrations. Realizing that the nearest inhabited planet in their universe would likely be their next target, these space faring people fled their world to colonize Alvena and prepare to face off against the threat of these terrible Aberrations who will assuredly come to claim this world next. It is only a matter of time. Some of their number have already made it to the world, and are preparing the way...
Think of all the different kinds of security we could have? Detect Magic and Detect Explosives at plane terminals. More advanced forms of Rings of X-ray Vision. All the murders and crimes that could be solved via Speak With Dead and Zones of Truth. Hell, a Geas to serve in public office in the way the People, not money, demands.
I believe I mentioned something about this earlier in one thread I was posting in recently. I had a D&D campaign for a while that was our modern world that suddenly got merged with a fantasy universe. Our political systems kind of got put into a blender because of these sorts of magics. Any way you argue it, zone of truth is more effective than swearing on a symbol.
But at the same time, could you imagine the wars? I Wish... Ferdinand hadn't been assassinated. I Wish... the planes had managed to fight off the Twin Tower bombers.
Well, wish spells don't really work like that unless the GM allows it. AFAIK, you can undo some misfortune up to 1 round ago, which means that you'd need a powerful arcanist to have been aware of an event within 6 seconds of its occurance to reshape time; and even then you're only buying a window of opportunity before it occurs again.
Navy Seals with Invisibility and Silence spells.
Sounds like adventurers. I know back in 3.x, it was common practice to cast silence on your party's fighter or a piece of his gear (silence a small wooden stick and let him hold it in his mouth for example). Kept his armor from clanking around, and would annoy casters he got near.
Tanks with Major Creation and Fabricate for an infinite supply of weaponry.
Assuming we're not simply shooting lightning bolts out of our tanks like the Tesla Tanks from Command & Conquer. If you want to see something really messed up, minor creation can create gallons of plant-based material from nothing. Anyone familiar with "Black Lotus"?
Tanks that have modified Resilient Sphere's for mobile use, and they flicker on and off each time the Tank fires.
I like this idea. :P
Soldiers with shots of Cure Potions. Chewable Potions of Ability Boost potions.
"Yeah, that's the stuff." - Starcraft Marine
Planes that drop bombs that not only blow up, but also bind Fire Elementals to the area.
This reminds me of a siege that my players were involved in. They were in a city that was under attack by an outside force. The enemy was catapulting iron balls with earth elementals inside of them, so the balls would crush stuff that they impacted with and then pop out angry large or larger elementals. :P
Also, think of all the invasions. Governments that regularly Detect Thoughts to discover threats. Employ Scrying to monitor suspects. Resurrection to test weapons.
A 13th level wizard would surely rule our entire world in a week's time. He would simply charm world powers, replace certain people with simulacrums under his control, create specialized teams consisting of 6th level versions of himself, and literally end up as the head of everything. :P
To me, at least, Magic isn't something just for combat. I love trying to ponder how Magic would really shape the world. I mean, you know it's had an effect in nearly every Game Setting. In medieval times, one did not just question the Lord or demand things of him. Not alone anyway. If you bad mouthed the King, you were likely to be arrested. But we don't see that often in RPGs. Often times, the commoners can go largely unpunished for slandering the king, because that's what we do today. Too often I see people saying things like, "You can't arrest him, he's got human rights!" while I'm thinking, "The King owns him, his family, and everything he possess. The only 'rights' peasants have, are the ones the King decides to give him that day."
Heh, yeah it's true. Things aren't necessarily like our own world ever was. Heck, commoners aren't the destitute peons that peasants were in medieval settings in our reality. I mean, the core rules say that anyone can make 5 gp per week with an untrained craft / profession check (even people who really suck at these things can pull 4 gp). The average cost of living in Pathfinder is 10 gp per month (including taxes and housing specifically). That means that even the untrained laborers in Pathfinder usually make twice what they need to survive comfortably every month. We could probably even figure out logical reasons for this apparent lack of hopelessly impoverished, or moreso the reasons why some people would be improvised given these conditions (perhaps they have to pay inordinately large taxes, or are being shaken down by villainous thugs, or some other terrible drain on their coffers).
Granted, a lot of this changed with things like the Magna Carta and when peasants started standing up for themselves. But one did not just openly slander the King, without some sort of power behind him (like a mob).
Gotta love those mobs. Humorously, even a mob of peasants might not be as scary as it would for a king. In reality, a king is just another guy with a pretty hat. In D&D, the King has a 5th level Lawful Evil vizier who would be all to happy to fly over a mob of peasants and remind them who is in charge.
However, the inclusion of Magic seems to have changed peasants in most RPG settings. The King may have been born a King, but a peasant that is born a Sorcerer, could teleport to his bed chamber, and murder him, given the right provocation. So the King has to be careful what he does, or he may go the way of the Romanov's did. Or the Galtans. Or the English (with the Colonies).
This reminds me of a mini-adventure I ran once. The party ended up in the middle of a tense situation where a "terrorist sorcerer" was tearing the local guard station apart. As it turned out, most of the guards in the city were corrupt and protected their own. When one guard took advantage of his authority to force himself on this homeless girl. He didn't expect that she would later manifest sorcerous power and come seeking revenge. The party ended up taking her into their ranks and getting her settled elsewhere, figuring that justice had been done in their eyes, and she became an ally that showed up occasionally in later adventures.
Teddy Roosevelt said, "Speak softly, and carry a big stick!"
I think the Pathfinder term is, "Speak softly, and employ a great Witch!"
One of the things I love about D&D/Pathfinder is how easy it is for GMs to throw all kinds of surprises into the mix. Nothing is ever exactly what it seems. ;)
I have open office also, and use it for pdf conversion. :) If I find a way to insert the bookmarks with it I will let you know. If you already know how then I would like to know. :)Yeah the bookmarking thing is an issue. A pretty major one actually, since there was discussion of turning my campaign into a series of mini-sourcebooks. I'm going to see if I can figure it out, and let you know.
EDIT: Still working on the bookmarks thing from inside OpenOffice. However, I may have found a very simple workaround in the meantime. Foxit Pdf Reader apparently allows you to insert bookmarks and save them into the file, right from the bookmarks sidebar. May be worth looking into.
Oh yes, this Foxit reader is great for adding bookmarks. I think I may use it pretty much for this purpose from now on. I checked and bookmarks are saved, and you can easily drag & drop to create sub-bookmarks (so if I wanted to create a feats bookmark, and then a sub-bookmark for each individual feat, I can totally do that). Foxit Reader. Now officially better than Adobe Reader in every way I'll ever need it to be. XD
I always loved Khalid, though Montaron and Xzar had the most fun voice files, especially when the other died. "Montaron... I..." "I NEVER LOVED YOU!"
I'm not a huge Create Water fan, but if you're going to consider it's effects on the game world, consider what would happen if that magic is taken away. I like the spell for the off chance, by some trick of the gods, it DOESN'T work. If you treat magic as an altogether unreliable thing, I find it becomes a lot more interesting.
Entire towns could become ghost towns over a week as their magic begins to fail them. It'd make for a great encounter for PCs. A ghost town of vengeful undead, with one survivor, mad and dying of thirst. "We prayed to the goods for water every day... until they stopped answering. We strung up the wise-men first. Then... then there was nothing to do but wait for death."
I think he is referring to the fact that you are more loose with the rules than some other posters. It reminds me of the conversation we had with Ciretose a while concerning what the rules allow vs what the rules intend, and at what point it becomes a grey area. I think the actual subject was boosting caster levels.
That was a good thread, did we ever get a ruling on that?
And for the record, Wraithstrike you are one of my favorite posters I consistently disagree with. Always a straight shooter even when I think you point your gun in the wrong direction :)
booooo.....just joking.
Serious answer-->No ruling. In order for there to be a ruling the devs would have to set a cap on caster levels or at least set on in certain situations. It is still legal.
Correct me if I am wrong, but is this about certain traits adding to your CL? If so, I think RD asked James Jacobs about it and he said that you can never have a caster level boosted past your own character level. So if you have the trait that ups your caster level and the ioun stone that does, in the end it's better for multiclassers to do that.
If that is indeed what you are talking about... :)
He said the trait can't boost you past your char level, but the item (Ioun stone I think?) can. So you'd add all your boosting items, feats (Practiced Spellcaster and such), etc. first, then if you have any levels left you'd add the trait, and stop if you reach your total char level.
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It's refreshing to hear someone point that out. The posthumous manipulation of Marx's critical and philosophical work into the bogeymen of 20th-century Western society is about on par with the posthumous antisemitic re-rendering done to Nietzsche.
A thousand times this.
His sister, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, is the reason to blame for the redaction to give it an antisemitic slant and pander it to the National-Socialists as she assumed herself to be the creator of her brother's archives. If one had honestly read Nietzsche, he would have found antisemitism to be completely absurd.
What Stalin and Mao got out of Marx's works is in no way equated to what Marx preached. As my professor in my Cultural Diversity class this quarter would call it, "Socialism in Drag."
That said, Marx's conclusion of Communism is but a pipe dream that could never work outside of theory because it will take but one person with the desire of self-interest to invalidate the proposition. The same goes for those who wish for true Libertarianism. Capitalism is their enemy.
EDIT: It just dawned on me that I was reading a "praise Ashiel" thread, so I apologize for the threadjack. :) Resume your adulation.
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Hence why moderation in all things is generally accepted as the best answer in any situation. Moderation in what things (capitalism vs. communism, in this case, but of course only one among many) often is the determining factor.
=)
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Ashiel types way too many words. I'm a big fan of TOZ myself. Says what he needs to say in so few words. Not to say that Ashiel isn't cool and all, I just don't like to read novels every time I read someone's posts.
Oh yes, this Foxit reader is great for adding bookmarks. I think I may use it pretty much for this purpose from now on. I checked and bookmarks are saved, and you can easily drag & drop to create sub-bookmarks (so if I wanted to create a feats bookmark, and then a sub-bookmark for each individual feat, I can totally do that). Foxit Reader. Now officially better than Adobe Reader in every way I'll ever need it to be. XDI have open office also, and use it for pdf conversion. :) If I find a way to insert the bookmarks with it I will let you know. If you already know how then I would like to know. :)Yeah the bookmarking thing is an issue. A pretty major one actually, since there was discussion of turning my campaign into a series of mini-sourcebooks. I'm going to see if I can figure it out, and let you know.
EDIT: Still working on the bookmarks thing from inside OpenOffice. However, I may have found a very simple workaround in the meantime. Foxit Pdf Reader apparently allows you to insert bookmarks and save them into the file, right from the bookmarks sidebar. May be worth looking into.
I had foxit reader before, but it did not do that. I might have to get it again. Is that the free or paid version that does it. Even the paid version is a lot cheaper than adobe acrobat so I think that is something I can do.
I think he is referring to the fact that you are more loose with the rules than some other posters. It reminds me of the conversation we had with Ciretose a while concerning what the rules allow vs what the rules intend, and at what point it becomes a grey area. I think the actual subject was boosting caster levels.
That was a good thread, did we ever get a ruling on that?
And for the record, Wraithstrike you are one of my favorite posters I consistently disagree with. Always a straight shooter even when I think you point your gun in the wrong direction :)
booooo.....just joking.
Serious answer-->No ruling. In order for there to be a ruling the devs would have to set a cap on caster levels or at least set on in certain situations. It is still legal.
Correct me if I am wrong, but is this about certain traits adding to your CL? If so, I think RD asked James Jacobs about it and he said that you can never have a caster level boosted past your own character level. So if you have the trait that ups your caster level and the ioun stone that does, in the end it's better for multiclassers to do that.
If that is indeed what you are talking about... :)
No, that is not it. There are items, feats, and class abilities that can be combined to do this. I think the orange(cracked) ioun stone gives +1 CL.
There is also the Bead of karma(+4 CL)The candle of invocation allows you to cast gate:
Now go read the gate spell. :)
PS:The candle of invocation is pretty nice for other things also.
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I had foxit reader before, but it did not do that. I might have to get it again. Is that the free or paid version that does it. Even the paid version is a lot cheaper than adobe acrobat so I think that is something I can do.Oh yes, this Foxit reader is great for adding bookmarks. I think I may use it pretty much for this purpose from now on. I checked and bookmarks are saved, and you can easily drag & drop to create sub-bookmarks (so if I wanted to create a feats bookmark, and then a sub-bookmark for each individual feat, I can totally do that). Foxit Reader. Now officially better than Adobe Reader in every way I'll ever need it to be. XDI have open office also, and use it for pdf conversion. :) If I find a way to insert the bookmarks with it I will let you know. If you already know how then I would like to know. :)Yeah the bookmarking thing is an issue. A pretty major one actually, since there was discussion of turning my campaign into a series of mini-sourcebooks. I'm going to see if I can figure it out, and let you know.
EDIT: Still working on the bookmarks thing from inside OpenOffice. However, I may have found a very simple workaround in the meantime. Foxit Pdf Reader apparently allows you to insert bookmarks and save them into the file, right from the bookmarks sidebar. May be worth looking into.
I'm pretty sure that it's the free version, since I believe the paid version is foxitpdf creator, and I didn't pay for anything.
No, that is not it. There are items, feats, and class abilities that can be combined to do this. I think the orange(cracked) ioun stone gives +1 CL.
There is also the Bead of karma(+4 CL)
The candle of invocation allows you to cast gate:Now go read the gate spell. :)
PS:The candle of invocation is pretty nice for other things also.
Haha, let's not start that horrible thread again! Of course, if you really want to, we can bring up that candle that auto-maximizes all your divine spells.
Haha, let's not start that horrible thread again! Of course, if you really want to, we can bring up that candle that auto-maximizes all your divine spells.No, that is not it. There are items, feats, and class abilities that can be combined to do this. I think the orange(cracked) ioun stone gives +1 CL.
There is also the Bead of karma(+4 CL)
The candle of invocation allows you to cast gate:Now go read the gate spell. :)
PS:The candle of invocation is pretty nice for other things also.
Mystic Theurge preparess Arcane spell in Divine slot. Is it maximized?
WAit you mean all economists are not taken out of context after they die.
Mystic Theurge preparess Arcane spell in Divine slot. Is it maximized?
Oh... oh god.
Heeeeerrrrreeee we go!
Mayhaps I should have posted in a more obvious tongue-in-cheek tone?
We get it.
Heeeeerrrrreeee we go!
Is it wrong that when I read this, I picture this?
I meant this but whatever's clever.
Finished the adventure and reviewed.
Finished the adventure and reviewed.
Wow, thank's for the review Grimmy! I'm so very glad you enjoyed it! I also want to say that it seems that you got everything out of it that I wanted to give with it. The adventure was written specifically so it could be easily chained together, and is intended to run similar to the style I mentioned in my post about GMing. Specifically, I believe that event-based GMing is the easiest method to handle, and fit into any sort of environment; and I tried to make the adventure as easy as possible to drop into play and hit the ground running.
Having read your review, I am positively thrilled that you had such a great time with it for you and your group. I'm especially happy that your players felt both immersed and challenged, and that it was as easy to run as I had hoped. Thinking back to when I began writing the adventure, I was going for something a bit different. I've seen a few adventures here and there that read more like little novels or history books with encounters and maps dotting the pages. I just felt like an adventure should be about the game. Enough to form a good story, and flexible enough for the GM to tear up the rails entirely. After your review, I feel more successful in that idea than I ever thought I would.
Considering you specifically noted that you'd like to see more such adventures for download, I'll see what I can do about that. You've actually given me an idea. In your review you said...
One of the strengths of this adventure was that it offered hooks for a side quest but could have served just as well as a scenic backdrop for the main adventure in progress if my players hadn't taken the bait. The minimal amount of prep needed meant nothing would have been wasted if my players hadn't chosen to save the children. I am always looking for ways to provide meaningful player choice, and "Forsaken Churchyard" delivered in spades.
That makes me wonder if I could write a series of event based locations and adventures that could be comfortably used for a sandbox style game. Due to the nature of event based GMing (that's what I call it anyway, as I've never heard anyone else mention it exactly), it could be possible to take multiple event-based adventures and merge them into a larger adventure; much as you have done here by combining The Forsaken Churchyard with Raging Swan's Shadowed Keep. I'd be interested to hear your take on that concept.
In the meantime, as a special thank you, I could send you some previews of the campaign primer I'm working on if you'd like. ^-^
If you have to coin a phrase, "event -based" is as good a term as any, although I would just call it good design.
It reminds me of Ben Robbins and others in the OSR blogosphere talking about the idea of an "Open Table" and then clarifying that it just means D&D the way we played it before AP's and rigid parties became the norm.
As for more adventures,
If at first you DO succeed, try again anyway in case no one noticed.
Finished the adventure and reviewed.Wow, thank's for the review Grimmy! I'm so very glad you enjoyed it! I also want to say that it seems that you got everything out of it that I wanted to give with it. The adventure was written specifically so it could be easily chained together, and is intended to run similar to the style I mentioned in my post about GMing. Specifically, I believe that event-based GMing is the easiest method to handle, and fit into any sort of environment; and I tried to make the adventure as easy as possible to drop into play and hit the ground running.
Having read your review, I am positively thrilled that you had such a great time with it for you and your group. I'm especially happy that your players felt both immersed and challenged, and that it was as easy to run as I had hoped. Thinking back to when I began writing the adventure, I was going for something a bit different. I've seen a few adventures here and there that read more like little novels or history books with encounters and maps dotting the pages. I just felt like an adventure should be about the game. Enough to form a good story, and flexible enough for the GM to tear up the rails entirely. After your review, I feel more successful in that idea than I ever thought I would.
Considering you specifically noted that you'd like to see more such adventures for download, I'll see what I can do about that. You've actually given me an idea. In your review you said...
One of the strengths of this adventure was that it offered hooks for a side quest but could have served just as well as a scenic backdrop for the main adventure in progress if my players hadn't taken the bait. The minimal amount of prep needed meant nothing would have been wasted if my players hadn't chosen to save the children. I am always looking for ways to provide meaningful player choice, and "Forsaken...
That actually sounds like a really neat idea. One of my group has been playing this game for some 30 years or so, and one thing he misses from older editions, is the free-form ability to just spring an unrelated adventure into a story, and make it mesh with the background.
Adventure Paths are easy to power game as the tone of the story can usually be easy to grasp early own, and build your character appropriately. Like Curse of the Crimson Throne is easy to understand that you'll be fighting a lot of humans in the game. Kingmaker will have lots of Fey (playing in this one). Legacy of Fire, I suspect, will have plenty of Gnolls and I'm certain more than a few encounters with Djinn. Carrion Crown has a heavy undead element.
Once you learn the over-all theme of the Adventure Path, you could easily build a character that will dominate the adventure. Especially for classes like the Ranger that pick certain enemies, or a Cleric to have the right God with the right Domains.
======================
In the event-based GMing you propose, this woudldn't be so easy. My only experience with such style, is the only character I've played from low to high levels. The GM had a different scenario, of different types, almost every time we played. My Ranger wasn't particularly strong in any one area, but she was very adaptable and capable of tackling most enemies.
I know I would love to see more event GMing as it really does build a more organic stories. While I love the Adventure Paths, as a lot of them have very good stories, I feel the story favors the GM more than the players.
When I ran Curse of the Crimson Throne, there was so much information that was just awesome, that the players wouldn't get to see. I told them anyway after the event, and they looked back and wished they could have discovered the information in game some-how. Granted, I could have tried to drop it in, but I'm new to GMing myself and wasn't very comfortable doing . CotCT was my first attempt at GMing and I was teach 3 players how to play, and learn how to GM at the same time. Considering that we had as much fun as we did (until we had in and out of game problems and I ended it), I don't think I did too bad, but I'm not sure how much of that was me, and how much was the AP. I do know, that some of the most memorable experiences (that my players chose) were the ones I improvised as some random side-quest when not all the players were there, or they needed a quick boost of XP or something to that effect.
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Anyway, I know I would look forward to more scenarios you wrote up. One that comes to mind, is fleshing out the Dread Kobold from your Mean GMs thread and turn it into a full encounter. Teach people to fear Kobolds again.
You could even write up a fight against a 'fallen' Ghaele :P