Cheap constructs still cost a good deal more than animated corpses do.
You also get XP for making the corpses in the first place...
;)
As an aside, the other way to deal with the problem player is say outright "you know, if you don't like my game, you don't need to play it." I mean, it's not like you have the problem I do of too small a group (though fortunately I've been able to use Skype to recruit new players, to the point I now have a Skype-only campaign and a Tabletop/Skype game).
BTW, skeletal bison wouldn't be able to pull wagons; without the meat on their bones, they don't have sufficient mass.
BTW, yes they could
oracles can create undeadso can witches
My PC in the mod was a N oracle of nature. On balance she thought it better that if the beasts of burden where to suffer and fall so someone could reclaim past heritage, its best that it happened in the controlled way I outline above
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Nothing in the rules prevents a non-evil caster from casting the spell, with the single exception of a Good-aligned Cleric, who is prohibited from memorizing spells with the [Evil] descriptor. Nowhere is it stated that this "evil spirit" won't come at the calling of a non-evil caster - in fact, there's no mention of any "evil spirit" at all in the entire text of animate dead! (Linkified for your convenience! Have a look-see - the only presence of the word "evil" in the text at all is in the descriptor, and ZERO of "spirit".) Where are you pulling that bit from, Jeven?
Doing so is an Evil act, but most GMs wouldn't immediately switch a PC's alignment based on a single act (whether or not each individual animation is considered an individual act or not is another point of personal interpretation) and unless you're a Paladin it won't cost you your class abilities until you actually do switch alignment.
An Oracle, Witch, Wizard, Sorcerer, Reanimator Alchemist, or Blight Druid could do so without any class-based repercussions regardless of alignment.
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You still need to be evil to create undead as the spell calls upon an evil spirit to animate the skeleton or corpse. So that would limit its use and is probably not the sort of spell a neutral nature devotee would cast.
nope. You don't have to be evil to cast an evil spell....just as you dont have to be good to cast a good spell
Anyway going off thread
Indeed. To put it back on topic, and stop making the necromancers angry, how about this to the original poster's request for aide:
If you have access to the Skull & Shackles books, it's simply a matter of embroiling the PCs in pirate politics by dispatching a commandeered pirate lord over the course of an adventure. Heck, Isabella "Inkskin" Locke from book 2 sounds about like the perfect level to harass the PCs with her sahuagin.
However, several others Have made the point that the Player knew they where signing up for an over-the-world campaign that is, much like the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit, a story about a long walk.
As a player in a (not his) Jade Regent game, even I had a little trouble buying in that an Arctic journey was the only way possible to get to Minkai. I still did went with it and don't regret it, but admittedly it seemed very metagamey for us to simply accept that frozen wasteland is the preferable method to a sea voyage because we don't want to skip out on Book 3. Granted, if I were GM, I'd make it an island hopping voyage akin to the Odyssey, or even have a moment where the PCs are shipwrecked in the middle of their journey. But, I accept it and am having hella fun fighting ice dragons and saving Golarion's eskimos!
Well, if you are not informed about how impossible the sea passage is over the regular trade path, then I understand your position.
That's not the same as being animated by an evil spirit. It just says that the force that makes them - the magic of the animate dead spell - imparts them with a semblance of intelligence with an evil bent.
And it still doesn't in any way imply that you have to be evil to make them.
Here's an interesting idea... mix adventure paths. Let the PCs take the ship, and then wreck that sucker in Katapesh. Play a couple of modified parts of Legacy of Fire. Then let the PCs decide which AP they want to finish.
Same if you want to have the ship go the long way around. A ship wreck just happens to be the start of the Serpent's Skull AP.
Since the PCs are unlikely to be able to afford their own ship, they'd have to book passage on whatever ship was eventually going to end up in Minkai. No telling what route that ship might want to take. If they don't like that option, there's always the Crown of the World.
I've always found that giving the players their head in situations like the one you're in makes for the most memorable campaigns.
That's not the same as being animated by an evil spirit. It just says that the force that makes them - the magic of the animate dead spell - imparts them with a semblance of intelligence with an evil bent.
And it still doesn't in any way imply that you have to be evil to make them.I think we need a thread for this "is animating undead evil?". As someone said its a bit off topic. ;)
I did conflate the skeleton with a few other things in the Bestiary. Golems also have an "animating force" which it then goes on to describe as an "elemental spirit", and the wight entry mentions something called an "evil undead spirit" animating the corpse. The skeleton description seems to imply something similar. It is an [evil] spell as well, so something is going on here that is not quite kosher.
Heh.
No argument in that it's not kosher. Just confused by your choices of terminology and assertion of someone's ability or lack thereof to use the spell when the rules list no prohibition on it.
I guess you could just take your campaign due east, avoid all the awaiting Oni and take a ship from Galt... which would be a lot of fun to play through...
I'm always amazed that some people are prepared to throw about three or four books into the trashcan and do all the hassle of completely rewriting the campaign. Why did you buy the books in the first place?
I'm always amazed that some people are prepared to throw about three or four books into the trashcan and do all the hassle of completely rewriting the campaign. Why did you buy the books in the first place?
Well it's always the perogative of GM's to do just that to any and every adventure or AP, heck some people just pull single encounters out of an existing module to run in their home games - is that such a surprise?
As is often the case, an AP will be purchased for it's potential run as-is, or for the possibility of hacking it apart and using those parts that best fit in your gaming group or GM's style of running games. For many the expected direction and resolution for a given AP will not be fully understood, until you're reading it. It just might be something the GM would want to change if running it themselves. How are they going to know that they might chuck out half the books, without buying it and reading it first?
For my own take on this, I am far more interesed in adventuring in Minkai, than the prospect of spending half a dozen levels getting there. I thought Jade Regent was going to be the Tian Xia AP with most of the adventure there, and perhaps only a module or two in getting there. I found out different, only after having read the AP.
For some people rewriting half an AP might not be such as hassle, perhaps even an enjoyable exercise - it was finding the kernels of greatness within an existing AP (the inspiration) to make the AP best for your group. Some of it, as is, should be kept - making the purchase a worthwhile thing, even if you plan to change it.
I get, that as presented, taking the sea route is impractical. That said a GM could change the premise, making the sea route safer or less expensive than as presented in this AP. Any GM could change anything to make it work better for themselves, even dismantling the AP's mentioned opposition to such a direction. Its always possible.
Note: none of my posts will help the OP's situation, since his problem is a problem player (get rid of hm, or change his mind and that problem is revolved), not an issue about changing an AP, which is where my posts are concerned in this discussion.
Something I've been toying with for when I eventually run this AP is this:
Because of my own desire to adventure in the rest of Tian Xia, Simply allowing travel to that side of the world via a portal somewhere after/below Ravenscrag (sp?). However, something goes wrong and they spend the level range of Hungry Storm traveling the other direction across Tian Xia to where book 4 starts. I call this plan "Reverse Path of Agenhai." It is for this contingency - the players discussing travel by Sea - that I've come up with this plan.
I actually have no issue with Book Three so far. We've enjoyed playing it quite a bit. I personally love journey adventures and don't like pulling an Indiana Jones on travelling somewhere. However, my point was that I felt that we were (and I hate this term) kind of railroaded by the Adventure Path to making the Transarctic journey. I couldn't really think of any in-game reason why we couldn't make the trip across the ocean aside from maybe money. I mean, you wouldn't be sailing into the arctic. That'd be silly. I doubt we do that in the real world when travelling to Japan by boat. I just didn't like the "No boating because of Book Three!" reason for it. Which isn't the fault of our GM, moreso with the adventure itself. Which in the end, we all ended up enjoying so no harm done.
You could just say "no one wants to take an ocean voyage for the amount you can afford."
Or you could even say "Ameiko isn't really into ocean voyages - she suffers rather nasty sea sickness, and because the voyage has to go around the tip of a continent (like sailing around South America) it takes several months longer than just taking the land voyage. BTW, do you guys know how you all are with sea sickness?"
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If my players had wanted to go by boat, I would have let them. The voyage would have been completely uneventful.
Then I'd jump straight to book 5 without leveling them up.
Or you could read the posts on the last page which make it clear as day why a sea journey is not only impractical, but actively longer, more dangerous and has the added "benefit" of destroying the idea of the caravan. Not to forget that the party will arrive in Minkai from the wrong side, without any support in the land, which they are supposed to build up in module five.
Sure, if you want to disregard Golarion canon completely, you can make it work. But again we get to the situation where I, as the GM, would ask myself why I just spent about 80 Euros on the four books I can't use anymore now and that I have to rebuild the whole campaign.
AS PRESENTED BY OFFICIAL CANON, sea travel is impractical and counterproductive to the entire feel of the campaign. Homebrewing it, however, is another story.
BTW, you can't take a portal, due to the seal.
AS PRESENTED BY OFFICIAL CANON, sea travel is impractical and counterproductive to the entire feel of the campaign. Homebrewing it, however, is another story.
BTW, you can't take a portal, due to the seal.
If it's for PFS, then definitely stick with canon, but for every post I've made in this thread, the only thing I've been talking about is 'homebrewing' it. Changing the canon to fit the needs of your particular gaming group or GM's style.
Take a black marker and run it through the line that states the Seal cannot be teleported, then teleport the party to the start of adventure 4 or 5. Have an uncle of one of the PCs offer discount travel by sea on his own ship. There is no need for absolute canon for every game - play the game that you want.
This whole thread has been about non-Canon options to run the adventure, why even bring up canon at all?
This whole thread has been about non-Canon options to run the adventure, why even bring up canon at all?
I presume because they want to stick to the lore, canon, and rules of the world of Golarion as established, despite varying from the scripted pattern of this particular adventure as-written.
Then go south across the inner sea from west to east is the only other sea route. Why is the northern route the only one being brought up in this discussion?
This whole thread has been about non-Canon options to run the adventure, why even bring up canon at all?I presume because they want to stick to the lore, canon, and rules of the world of Golarion as established, despite varying from the scripted pattern of this particular adventure as-written.
If that were true, why we discuss going by sea at all - it's not canon. So the fact that it is what this thread is about, the assumption is about not sticking to canon, to somehow cater to those not wanting to go with the scripted pattern (seems pretty obvious to me, that it's not about canon.)
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You're missing the point.
There's canon in the sense of "this is the way the story goes", and then there is canon in the sense of "this is how the world works". Your suggestion in the post I quoted was to strike out the canon in the second sense - changing the restrictions on the seal and glossing over or ignoring the threats that Golarion lore has set in that region of sea. From the responses you've gotten, most people don't want to do that.
People are more amenable to fiddling with the first definition, if they didn't this wouldn't be getting discussed at all. But the first definition is, by its very nature, more fluid - every group will run through the game differently, bypass or ignore some encounters, treat certain NPCs differently, etc. etc. etc. And most people are okay with tweaking or changing things in this bit, and it doesn't require invalidating the second definition to do so. Less so with the second, unless they aren't playing in an established setting at all. And if you're not in Golarion to begin with, it's not an issue. But again, that's not the case here - these people ARE playing in Golarion, and they'd rather not rewrite or ignore that part of world lore for the sake of players who want to bypass a good third of the adventure.
Isn't Skull and Shackles about traveling as pirates on the Inner Sea? Aside from pirates and denizens of the deep, how dangerous can it be? If there's pirates there, there must also be merchant ships traveling there that the pirates can attack, otherwise what's the point of piracy in the Inner Sea? If merchant ships do travel the Inner Sea, then it must be possible to use the same route to get from western Golarian to Tian Xia for this AP - and it appears to be 1/5 the distance vs. traveling over the top of the world by land or sea. (Of course it's dangerous, what would be the fun in trying if it were not.)
Several in this thread are discussing the possibility of using a portal to get from Avistan to Tian Xia. Since that means breaking the restrictions on the Seal, then for some people in this thread, that might be canon worth breaking. So it can't be that "most people don't want to do that". If they didn't why would they bring it up at all?
I am only discussing how this AP applies to Golarian. No where did I suggest to completely break the setting canon - only small parts as presented by the AP (like the Seal restrictions, or attempting to go by sea in some other route then across the iceberg frozen northern sea.)
So you're missing my point.
Try this one: http://cdn.obsidianportal.com/assets/188891/RotA_Map-Part1_Golarion_World.j pg
And the gang starts at Avistan. The distance is actually shorter to go by land than by sea, especially when you consider the distortion of maps for the upper latitudes.
Isn't Skull and Shackles about traveling as pirates on the Inner Sea? Aside from pirates and denizens of the deep, how dangerous can it be? If there's pirates there, there must also be merchant ships traveling there that the pirates can attack, otherwise what's the point of piracy in the Inner Sea? If merchant ships do travel the Inner Sea, then it must be possible to use the same route to get from western Golarian to Tian Xia for this AP - and it appears to be 1/5 the distance vs. traveling over the top of the world by land or sea. (Of course it's dangerous, what would be the fun in trying if it were not.)
Several in this thread are discussing the possibility of using a portal to get from Avistan to Tian Xia. Since that means breaking the restrictions on the Seal, then for some people in this thread, that might be canon worth breaking. So it can't be that "most people don't want to do that". If they didn't why would they bring it up at all?
I am only discussing how this AP applies to Golarian. No where did I suggest to completely break the setting canon - only small parts as presented by the AP (like the Seal restrictions, or attempting to go by sea in some other route then across the iceberg frozen northern sea.)
So you're missing my point.
You have the actual geographical distances completely mixed up, it seems, as can be seen on the map provided in the post above. And the other one from the first page of the thread, where we already explained that. ^^
Well, though I plan to give up on this thread, as neither side is budging on what makes sense or not. But in looking at that map, it seems the distance between Avistan and Tian Xia drawn as a straight line, and not hugging the coasts is far shorter than any trip around the northern route - I'm sure my geographic distances aren't mixed up (I am a cartographer, I know how to read map distances.)
That said, I don't want to convince anyone from breaking canon beyond what they are willing to do themselves. Breaking it is fine with me, and perhaps no one else - that's fine with me.
If my players had wanted to go by boat, I would have let them. The voyage would have been completely uneventful.
Then I'd jump straight to book 5 without leveling them up.
This.
This is Winning; you must be an Evil GM. Respect.
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Well, though I plan to give up on this thread, as neither side is budging on what makes sense or not. But in looking at that map, it seems the distance between Avistan and Tian Xia drawn as a straight line, and not hugging the coasts is far shorter than any trip around the northern route - I'm sure my geographic distances aren't mixed up (I am a cartographer, I know how to read map distances.)
<sigh> Your whole approach to how to travel to the actual destination ( which is Minkai, not just Tian Xia ) is wrong. You don't seem to know the actual starting point ( Brinewall in Varisia ), nor the actual destination ( Kasai in Minkai ). Your approach would deposit the group on the far side of Minkai, where they would have to cross at least three nations full of potentially hostile people to get to Minkai. Sailing around the southern edge of Tian Xia also is highly dangerous, as the southernmost part of the continent is pretty much inhabited by giant monsters ( incorrectly colored as being part of Sarusan on that map, by the way ).
I have no idea how you get to the idea of drawing a straight line towards Tian Xia ( I thought the point here was for a ship journey, and that one is at least 1 1/2 times longer than the land route over the pass of Aganhei ), but that also would be a completely different journey, involving traveling through such cozy countries like the Hold of Belkzen ( orcs aplenty ), Ustalav ( undead and other Hammer Film monsters ), Numeria ( actual space robots and a drugged out Mage/Barbarian dictatorship ) and Brevoy ( Game of Thrones in Poland ). And THEN you get to Casmaron, a continent we know basically nothing about yet. And when you arrive in Tian Xia with your straight line, you need to cross the Wall of Heaven ( basically the Himalaya mountain range ) and will enter directly into a giant desert.
So, yeah, maybe taking the trade path which has worked for hundreds of years is not that bad an idea, even if it is not geographically closer than drawing a straight line between two locations, without taking into account what actually is happening on that line.
I never said that the trade path over the Crown of the World was unreasonable or impractical, just longer than needed for some particular adventuring party wanting to adventure in Minkai, and not wanting to spend 6 levels in getting there. (Really, I'm not interested in adventuring in Tian Xia either, rather Minkai specifically only.)
It's certainly a viable method of travel (over the crown) and certainly can be a fun travelogue adventure to follow as the AP intended, if that's what you want to run. I'm only considering possible alternatives for those more interested in adventuring in Minkai, than just traveling to Minkai.
Really if I intended to run the latter half of the AP, I'd just say start in the Forest of Spirits as 6th level PCs (with the backstory, that you've traveled by land or sea and now have arrived in the Forest of Spirits) and move forward from there (and not ever worry about how we got there). Besides, my players hate starting at 1st level and prefer to begin as 5th or 6th anyway - so it fits best how my group prefers to play. Or have the PCs who are Minkai locals (allowing for PC samurai, ninja, and other oriental classes to be played and still fit in the AP) who support Ameiko's returned dynasty have been waiting for her return so they can attempt to get her back on the throne - then there's no need to rewrite anything.
Sounds perfectly reasonable, the travelogue is not for everyone. I myself was very annoyed at the seemingly endless third module.
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Although you can't (canonically) teleport the Amatatsu seal, there's no rule against moving it with a scroll of Wind Walk, which allows you to travel 660 miles in a day.
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Perhaps this has been brought up before up thread.
Here is an answer James Jacobs gives to explain why most trade routs go over land to Tian Xia.
I seem to remember another post where he mentions Krackens but i cant find it. link
Here is a link to an unofficial fan made map of Gollarion. Perhaps that will also help show how long of a voyage it would be map
I hope this helps
I actually only have the last 3 parts of the AP, anyway. Paizo sent me part 6, The Empty Throne, at no cost, because I did some of the writing in the Kasai gazetteer, and the preliminary hand-drawn map of Kasai. I'm the last listed contributing author in the Empty Throne (Michael Tumey).
So I picked up the previous 2 modules - since I'd like to at least run venturing to and adventuring in the city of Kasai (since I designed it).
In the end, I will probably prefer using my own Kaidan setting of Japanese horror for most of my oriental adventuring, since it's been designed to be much more authentic to a feudal Japan analog and to better fit a horror concept (my preferred genre of play).
I've also recently released Rite Publishing, Haiku of Horror: Autumn Moon Bath House as a single mapped location with a built-in multi-CR encounter with haunts and a custom Japanese ghost. Since I'm creating more releases of varying Japanese locations (a kabuki theater is next), I want to see (in playtest) where these locations might best fit in JR.