Those super tough people would then be no better than dragon, balors, and pit fiends, who are powerful, but not on the level of beings that take on deities or do similar things.
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Ugh I hate this idea that super powerful/epic has to mean cr 21+
Levels 16-20 are plenty epic in their own right. We dont need to raise the cap and break the system further.
We could get the players to 15-16 and still have a cr 20/21 final boss. Is that really not good enough for baba yage/runelord/nex/geb/whispering tyrant? Just gotta say that level 16+ pcs are as rare as they pretty much are!
I agree with you.
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No disrespect intended here, but . . . I hope you get nothing if that's the ultimatum you're standing firm on. Baba Yaga is powerful--is just plain too big for a group of adventurers to take out. If it were at all possible to kill her in this AP, it would be the biggest let down of them all.
Stated simply, that doesn't make your PCs epic; it makes Baba Yaga pathetic, and that's just not cool in my book.
Not an ultimatum, but rather an opinion. APs are sort of an epic (not Epic Level) story and should have some baring on the world when played through to the end. That's one reason I hate FR so much, no matter how powerful, no matter what the party did, the world never changed, and that has a tendency to leave players feeling cheated.
Being able to remove Baba Yaga allows Golarion to expand, as someone(s) will move to fill the gap and that means more stories.
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If we don't write stories where players who run games that only go to 6th level get to take out great wyrms and balors, I don't see why we need to write stories where players who run games that only go to 16-20th level get to take out demigods and Baba Yaga. 20th level PCs can already fight nascent demon lords, Dukes of Hell, and all the other 'super' versions of CR 20 outsiders.
Even Savage Tide and Age of Worms worked in the last bosses (The Prince of Demons and a god) against a backdrop of major artifacts and rituals designed to weaken them down to 'beatable' levels. And both APs found it likely that you would end up in early epic levels.
Even Savage Tide and Age of Worms worked in the last bosses (The Prince of Demons and a god) against a backdrop of major artifacts and rituals designed to weaken them down to 'beatable' levels. And both APs found it likely that you would end up in early epic levels.
This. With the specific intent of if you DIDN'T go through all the extra steps to weaken them and give yourselves every last advantage, Demogorgon/Kyuss was supposed to eat you alive.
I'd be more disappointed by a Baba Yaga that didn't do likewise, personally, and I don't know if the 6-book AP limit will have enough spare space to put in all the necessities to bring her "down to earth" for the PCs to tango with sub-20th level.
Not an ultimatum, but rather an opinion. APs are sort of an epic (not Epic Level) story and should have some baring on the world when played through to the end.
Thus far, PCs have had the option of stopping the return of Karzoug, toppling Queen Ileosa's despotic rule in Korvosa, preventing the drow from causing a second Earthfall, halting a genie incursion that threatened to wake one of the nastiest monsters on the planet, liberating Westcrown from Cheliax while keeping an infernal plot at bay, carving out a new kingdom for themselves in the Stolen Lands, stopping the Whispering Way from returning Tar-Baphon (that guy who killed a demigod) to power, restoring the rightful heir to the throne of Minkai in the face of massive Oni opposition and (possibly) seizing rule of the anarchic Shackles.
I think it's safe to assume this AP will likewise offer something suitably "epic" for the PCs to do.
Being able to remove Baba Yaga allows Golarion to expand, as someone(s) will move to fill the gap and that means more stories.
No offense... but Baba Yaga is legitimately so built-up that she makes (for example) Demogorgon and Kyuss look like pikers. Find someone who doesn't play RPGs who knows who Demogorgon or Kyuss are.
Now.
Go look for people who've heard of Baba Yaga and regard her as insanely powerful. Yes, mostly gamers and comic book fans, but not entirely.
One list is much longer than the other. To simply have the Little Grandmother take a dive for a group of PCs may be interesting to you, but it flies in the face of who she is as a character.
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Baba Yaga is famous from Vampire the Masquerade <in addition to real world mythology>, (and to a much less extent so is Rasputin) especially in the was PF handles her and probably their connection. (Taking into account I doubt that "Rasputin" in PF will have much to do with the historical Rasputin besides being some sort of inspired madman/prophet/cult leasder that can't seem to die.)
The point though, is that Baba Yaga is a great example of a setting element that either needs to change with the times or get stale. Golarion does advance with out real life calander. In the setting there are events specifically written to be "comming up" in the next few years, like the return of Bab Yaga and the instituting of the new Queen for a decade.
Baba Yaga is famous from Vampire the Masquerade <in addition to real world mythology>, (and to a much less extent so is Rasputin) especially in the was PF handles her and probably their connection.
Hardly. The Shadow Curtain was something White Wolf's Baba Yaga maintained form within in part because it trapped her as well as it trapped anything. Irrisen, on the other hand, appears to be some sort of side project she pops in on during a megaversal series of jaunts.
PF's Baba Yaga seems to be a mix of early RPG Baba Yaga (multiversal hut, plane-hopping godlike being), White Wolf's (keeping one country isolated and messed up for some reason), Mike Mignola's (Hellboy must DIE!), and elements of the actual folklore.
Let's not oversimplify in our demand to chop her head off, hm?
As for your desire for change within the setting, every single AP to date has the potential for vast changes- some of them even the benign ones the PCs are working toward. A free Westcrown, a PC-ruled Korvosa? These things are possible within canon.
But since you seem familiar with White Wolf's old World of Darkness, allow me to ask- did you really enjoy keeping up with the arbitrarily advancing metaplot?
"Hey, can I solve-"
"Nope, done, I wanna use to new shiny thing in my story."
You can argue that an individual GM is free to ignore a given part of the metaplot and let the PCs handle it- but by the same token, a GM is free to take "their" Golarion in any direction they like. Mine features a cleric of Pharasma ruling Korvosa in the wake of Ileosa's defeat, a powerful Ranger leading the cleansing of Xin-Shalast (while his Wizard girlfriend maintains that sweet, sweet library on the Storval Plateau), and a burgeoning superpower in the former Stolen Lands which is picking off River Kingdoms one by one as it expands.
I imagine many others would find such developments tiresome in their own campaigns, but fortunately, they don't need to include it, or anything so arbitrary.
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Baba Yaga is famous from Vampire the Masquerade <in addition to real world mythology>, (and to a much less extent so is Rasputin) especially in the was PF handles her and probably their connection.
Hardly. The Shadow Curtain was something White Wolf's Baba Yaga maintained form within in part because it trapped her as well as it trapped anything. Irrisen, on the other hand, appears to be some sort of side project she pops in on during a megaversal series of jaunts etc. . .
I was responding to a prior post about Baba Yaga being more famous becaus of Pathfinder that say Kyuss or Demogorgon.
"No offense... but Baba Yaga is legitimately so built-up that she makes (for example) Demogorgon and Kyuss look like pikers. Find someone who doesn't play RPGs who knows who Demogorgon or Kyuss are.
Now.
Go look for people who've heard of Baba Yaga and regard her as insanely powerful. Yes, mostly gamers and comic book fans, but not entirely."
I was responding to a prior post about Baba Yaga being more famous becaus of Pathfinder that say Kyuss or Demogorgon.
"No offense... but Baba Yaga is legitimately so built-up that she makes (for example) Demogorgon and Kyuss look like pikers. Find someone who doesn't play RPGs who knows who Demogorgon or Kyuss are.
Now.
Go look for people who've heard of Baba Yaga and regard her as insanely powerful. Yes, mostly gamers and comic book fans, but not entirely."
As the author of that post, it seems I must have either been unclear, or perhaps you misread. I am not saying Baba Yaga is famous because she's in Pathfinder.
I am saying that she is so famous above and beyond her appearance in this RPG that cheapening her by making her anything less that earth-shatteringly powerful is likely to go over like a lead balloon.
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What if it's supposed to be this Rasputin?
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Baba Yaga? Winter witches? Frigid demise? Another reason to use Frostburn again? Sign me up.
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Pet theory on the Rasputin angle.
Rasputin is simply the real Earth pseudonym for Baba Yaga's servant Koschei the Deathless!
Koschei has his soul hidden inside a needle, within an egg, within a duck, within a hare, within an iron chest, buried under a green oak tree on an island, in the middle of the ocean.
Sounds pretty hard to kill to me!
I really hope the art direction for the Reign of Winter series takes some notes from Ivan Bilibin. That'd be wonderful!
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Pet theory on the Rasputin angle.
Rasputin is simply the real Earth pseudonym for Baba Yaga's servant Koschei the Deathless!
Yes! I love Koschei the Deathless. Even if he's not Rasputin, he needs to be in this AP :p
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Pet theory on the Rasputin angle.
Rasputin is simply the real Earth pseudonym for Baba Yaga's servant Koschei the Deathless!
Koschei has his soul hidden inside a needle, within an egg, within a duck, within a hare, within an iron chest, buried under a green oak tree on an island, in the middle of the ocean.
Sounds pretty hard to kill to me!
I really hope the art direction for the Reign of Winter series takes some notes from Ivan Bilibin. That'd be wonderful!
That's... actually pretty awesome!
Also, why is everyone assuming that Baba Yaga is cast as a villain?
This. I think it would be pretty kick a#$ if the PCs were actually pawns for her, on a mission set by the old hag, taking out her enemies and those who are interfering with her plans (whatevery strange and uncomprehensible plans they may be).
Plus, I'm in the camp that she's too powerful to be the end villain.
Even her daughter is too powerful to be the villain, since Inner Sea Magic states that she's a Witch of 20+ level.
Creative Director
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Even her daughter is too powerful to be the villain, since Inner Sea Magic states that she's a Witch of 20+ level.
I wouldn't say that she's too powerful to be a villain for an AP. We've had "20+" level characters before. That just means that the character's more powerful than a typical 20th level character. Heck, Karzoug would technically fit in that category since he has much higher stats than a normal NPC would have, and more gear/magic than a normal NPC would have.
I always assumed that 20+ is just a term for an epic level character, without using any of the non-existant-at-the-moment epic rules.
advanced template, monster HD etc.
Not the same. Having a CR more than 20 is one thing, and creatures like that exist, but having actual class levels over 20 is an entirely different thing, since we don't even know how that works for now and, presumably, it's a whole new different level of power.
Even something like say a 10 level Rouge
That must be an awesome looking lipstick then.
Jokes aside, I wasn't talking about epic multiclass characters, but characters who, straight up, have more than 20 levels of a single class. I'm not sure that those with mixed classes adding up to more than 20 even exist, judging by that list in Inner Sea Magic.
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Creative Director
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advanced template, monster HD etc.Not the same. Having a CR more than 20 is one thing, and creatures like that exist, but having actual class levels over 20 is an entirely different thing, since we don't even know how that works for now and, presumably, it's a whole new different level of power.
Even something like say a 10 level RougeThat must be an awesome looking lipstick then.
Jokes aside, I wasn't talking about epic multiclass characters, but characters who, straight up, have more than 20 levels of a single class. I'm not sure that those with mixed classes adding up to more than 20 even exist, judging by that list in Inner Sea Magic.
The notations of being level 20+ in Inner Sea Magic is my way of saying:
"This character is either slightly or way more powerful than a 20th level character. I'm not sure HOW powerful yet, since rules for that level don't exist in Pathfinder yet, but they're more powerful... be it from additional levels, templates, race abilities, or something else entirely."
So 20+ actually means that creature has CR 20 or higher, as level 20th regular PC race character is CR 19. Technically drow noble with 20 class levels would be 20+ with this notation.
So 20+ actually means that creature has CR 20 or higher, as level 20th regular PC race character is CR 19.
I always thought that that rule only applies to NPCs. PCs have (usually) 15 point buy and better gear, whereas NPCs have way less of both. Even some NPCs have their CR increased by 1 because they're built like PCs (with 15 PB and appropriate level gear).
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Creative Director
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So 20+ actually means that creature has CR 20 or higher, as level 20th regular PC race character is CR 19. Technically drow noble with 20 class levels would be 20+ with this notation.
Sort of.
Again... all it really means is that since we don't have solid rules for characters who might or might not be above 20th level... I kludged things and added a "+" so that folks won't be surprised if we some day stat them up as a 30th level wizard. Or whatever.
It really only just means "This character is probably too bad-ass for a typical group of heroes to have a chance at defeating without having some extraordinary circumstances in their favor."
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The penultimate adventure's title is: "Rasputin Must Die!"IF it is the real Rasputin in the path, it strains credulity.
IF it is not the real Rasputin, why use the name?May I beg you to reconsider?
ABSOLUTELY please do NO such thing!
The pedigree, tradition and seniority of Rasputin in roleplaying games surpasses that of newbies like the Tarasque, Pazzu, and Death Knights.
Rasputin was after all named by Gary Gygax as the very example of having the gift of an 18 Constitution in the 1st Edition DMG.
Now everyone play nice or Old Uncle Grognard will tell you who has an 18 Charisma.
Now everyone play nice or Old Uncle Grognard will tell you who has an 18 Charisma.
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Google "Godwin's Law"
(Was that really 22 years ago? How time flies!)
I'm familiar with Godwin's Law. Indeed, my statement isn't technically a demonstration of it, as Godwin's Law has to do with comparisons to Hitler or Nazis, not merely their mention, while I compared nothing, merely stating a fact.
Specifically, in early editions of D&D Hitler was a listed in-text example of 18 Charisma, as I, GROGNARD alluded to...and I simply actually stated, since it seemed amusing.
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It's so sad I had to explain this. Does nobody know the classics of gaming any more?
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Google "Godwin's Law"
(Was that really 22 years ago? How time flies!)
I'm familiar with Godwin's Law. Indeed, my statement isn't technically a demonstration of it, as Godwin's Law has to do with comparisons to Hitler or Nazis, not merely their mention, while I compared nothing, merely stating a fact.
Specifically, in early editions of D&D Hitler was a listed in-text example of 18 Charisma, as I, GROGNARD alluded to...and I simply actually stated, since it seemed amusing.
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It's so sad I had to explain this. Does nobody know the classics of gaming any more?
Funny - your last sentence is pretty much what I was thinking when I posted. I well remember the controversy fanned by the appearance of Hitler's name (in the original Dungeon Master's Guide, which I still have on my bookshelf). I wonder if we'll see a further outbreak of objection now the commemorative re-release has turned up in stores? (I presume the offending text is still present; I haven't actually checked, but I don't believe the text was reset for the new books).
It is by no means apparent that your interjection of "What?", even when followed by an emoticon, was meant to indicate you had any idea what Godwins's law was about (let alone being in the vanishingly small minority who actually had the correct definition of it).
Personally I always rather liked the corollary (whose name escapes me at the moment) that by the time any such comparison was made the signal-to-noise ratio of the thread in question had deteriorated to zero.
Only problem...
After watching Jack Frost one too many times I'm worried that if we meet Baba Yaga I'll keep thinking of the Old Hunchback Fairy in her chicken-legged hut. Having to send a cat to go trick Nastinka into touching the magic scepter of Grandfather Frost...
I wonder, kill the daughter.. old baba shows up to..?
-adopt (I never liked weaklings anyway!)
-kill (that was my babygirl, you monsters!).. followed by a quick escape..
Esp neat if theres a template, daughter of baba yaga (greater? lesser being something for the greater ones minions. with everything from nice ability bonuses, cold resist/immunity, iron claws and iron teeth, and a few spelllinke abilities.)
Its not like those would screw the balance, as the campaign is technically speaking over at that point. meanwhile giving the bbeg (girl in this case!) a nice lil boost vs nasty players ganging up on a single opponent with their multiple actions.
A bit of trivia - Baba means grandmother in most Slavic languages.
I'd be okay if it was this Rasputin.
Baba Yaga is famous from Vampire the Masquerade <in addition to real world mythology>, (and to a much less extent so is Rasputin) especially in the was PF handles her and probably their connection.Hardly. The Shadow Curtain was something White Wolf's Baba Yaga maintained form within in part because it trapped her as well as it trapped anything. Irrisen, on the other hand, appears to be some sort of side project she pops in on during a megaversal series of jaunts.
Problem with the WoD version is that she got punked by a out of nowhere ancient vampire who only appeared for that one adventure. The PCs were just there to go "Ooooooo!" when it happened