Have you ever thought about separating the different types of 'mindless' undead?
I love the using undead as mindless automatons, incapable of being good, or evil. But at the same time, I also like the idea of mindless undead that seek to consume living creatures.
I'm wondering if I shouldn't separate the two into, maybe, arcane and divine versions? As in, mindless undead created by arcane casters are automatons because they are animated through 'magic' and nothing more. Meanwhile, mindless undead created by divine casters could have the potential to be either 'positive' or 'negative' depending on the beliefs of the caster.
So a cleric of a good aligned deity could animate skeletons and their natural instinct would be to seek out and destroy 'negative' skeletons and defend life. Where as cleric's of an evil deity could animate skeletons that would seek out and destroy 'positive' skeletons and seek to eradicate life.
Arcane casters would still be able to create either, but it takes more effort. Like a ritual, or celestial event, or some sort of artifact etc.
How've ya been?
Can you take look at conclusion to my game and give me some ideas?
Okay, I'm going over your post. Bear with me a bit whilst I try to concoct something. (^-^);
So we have been playing Skull and Shackles and are now about to engage in book 6. Having looked in book 6 and discussed it with my players we have come to the conclusion that we do not want to play it. That leaves me needing to write the end of the game.
All of my PCs really really hate Cheliax and would love to see the country burn. I modified the end of book 5 to include a an artifact of significant power. The PCs had the idea to auction it off for a shot at House Thrune.
Let me first note that I do not claim to know a lot about Golarion, aside from having the original campaign setting book and some APs I've picked up at bookstores or ordered off the webstore but haven't really getting much time to run anything set in it outside a few early issues of APs. Likewise Paizo has been actively destroying most everything that seemed cool or interesting to me about the setting since then, so I've become less and less interested in pursuing the setting in favor of other settings.
As a result, it's very possible that anything I suggest may not mesh well with whatever the currently established cannon or norms are with the setting and should probably be taken with a small barrel of salt. Especially since I also haven't played Skulls and Shackles, nor do I own the AP (though I've borrowed a friend's copy of the first book for reference at certain points when discussing things on the forums or when deciding on a possible AP to run for some side fun) so I'm going to be drawing primarily from what you've said here and the Pathfinder wiki.
Initial Observations
Based on what I've been reading on the Pathfinder wiki concerning house Thrune, I think you might be lowballing it by aiming for a CR 17 encounter as the end-game. You'd probably actually be best served by stretching them out to 17th+ level for this just to retain the verisimilitude of the setting to avoid fridge logic.
For example, it's known that Queen Abrogail I (and her granddaughter Abrogail II) have a Pit Fiend that acts as a sort of vizier to the current matriarch. A pit fiend is, IMHO, arguably one of the most impressive and menacing creatures in Pathfinder and very much worthy of its CR 20 label. I strongly believe that a pit fiend should very readily be able to wipe the floor with a party of 13th level PCs even if they do outnumber him 5 to 1.
Then, Queen Abrogail II is also a powerful sorceress in her own right (presumably with powers stemming from infernal heritage or pacts) which ups the ante as well. This is ignoring any guards, servants, and allies that house Thrune and the Chelaxian royal family can bring to bear in an attempt at regicide or a coup.
Mixed with the fact that such a country-changing gambit would probably, given magic and the like, require longer than 24 hours to ensure, it seems that it may risk falling a little flat, especially with such a rushed schedule.
Some Ideas
Since you're going to be essentially replacing the final 32 page AP with an alternate ending scenario, perhaps it would be better to stretch it out into a mini-campaign where the party has the opportunity to barter the artifact for allies who will aid them in bringing down the house, using a multiple-front process of undermining their power through security breaches, weakening them financially, eliminating VIP targets, etc.
Rome wasn't built in a day and it certainly didn't fall in one. :o
So I guess overall I'd recommend drawing it out a bit more, even if you don't take it to 20th level, having it take a while with them and Thrune going back and forth during the conflict might be more satisfying and feel more authentic to the gravity of what is being described. It could also give them time to determine things like how they wanted to fill the sudden governing vacuum or how other rivals would react to the sudden void.
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I've read a couple of your posts about your issues with the Summoner. Have you looked at the Unchained version? If so, could you share your opinions on it? Essentially all its spells with wonky levels have been changed to be in line with the other classes, and the eidolons became much more restricted in what they could buy.
I'm running a campaign where one player has a Wild Caller Summoner, and is planning on acting fully in a caster capacity (ie, could switch her to a 1/2 BAB, d6, with no armor, and he could probably care less, aside from wishing for more spells per day). We're still low level yet, but I've suggested he switch her over to unchained to ease potential headaches on my end (as I'm still a novice GM).
He is, however, worried that he won't be able to fulfill his goal as a conjuration-based battlefield control / buffing specialist, especially since he would then have the only character who isn't a full-caster.
On my end, my main issue with the class when I was making it was that all of the cool utility abilities cost so much that making anything that didn't maximize its combat potential gave up too much. With Unchained, this is even worse, since the reduction of available evolution points encourage one to focus the few points left on combat (and the freebies given out by the subtypes are all defensive in nature), especially since cost of the utility evolutions didn't get rebalanced with the combat options.
I don't yet have experience with high level spell-casting and related shenanigans, so I don't know how much he's going to feel left out as all the other players come into their own with new spell levels while he's stuck on a stunted progression compared to what he could have been.
When it comes to the unchained summoner, I mostly feel like they tossed the baby with the bathwater. My #1 complaint about the summoner was and has always been their spell list and how abusive it was. The eidolon itself, or even the summoner's other class features I was actually just fine with. It was purely just their spell list when combined with those other aspects that put it way over the top for me (because you were literally a one-man party).
I agree with you that reducing the evolution points was a poor answer. If you really needed to nerf the eidolon, I'd rather have seen it more restricted in terms of what kinds of evolutions you could give them based on level, or just tweaking the costs vs rewards of some of the evolutions. More options with a lower ceiling would be my preferred way to go about it (and it makes it harder to accidentally screw up if you're a newbie). Clearer level-limits would be cool too (like organizing the evolutions based on what levels they became available and clearly noting it, rather than an afterthought at the end of the ability's text).
Unfortunately further, the Wild Caller is just strait up worse than a summoner as every trade it makes in terms of class features is a bad trade. For example, trading summon monster spells for summon nature's ally spells is just a terrible, horrible idea, unless they are getting some sort of buff to them. Remember that summon monster spells summon templated versions of what are usually comparable animals (which means they can smite, have SR, and some resistances), and later on gives you access to a number of intelligent allies, spells, and even class features (such as summoning a lillend to act as a bard for the party).
Further, the bonus evolution points are a joke for the restrictions that you set on your eidolon (you get 1 evolution point at 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, and 20th level, for a total of +5 evolution points, but you're restricted from taking any sort of magical evolutions, damage reduction, restricted on skilled, etc. Just neutering your eidolon.
Same with the SLA. Trading out the SLA for a worse SLA with no appreciable benefit other than worse summons and fewer options mixed with having to have Handle Animal to push your summons if you have a GM that won't let you command your summons in the usual fashion, no access to outsiders and other sweet summons. Just terribad by comparison to the normal summoner.
And if you plan to act as a full caster, traditional summoner shouldn't be played as a full-caster for most of their career, it's about being a full-caster when you need to and not casting when you don't need to (which is a very, very powerful thing, though people don't seem to grasp that you do not have to cast spells every round to have insanely powerful magic just when you need to). However, trying to BE a full caster with the weakened summoner progression is definitely going to leave the player wanting as they are going to now (rightly) get their spells at a stunted progression which means having lower level spells than their full-casting peers.
Honestly the Paizo staff probably hates me at this point. First I disliked the summoner because due to its spell list it was goofy OP in the hands of someone who really knew how to play. Now I dislike the summoner because they nerfed too much in my opinion and now I don't even care about the class for its most iconic feature (the eidolon).
I'd probably suggest.
1. Tear out the Wild Caller archetype and use it when you forget to buy toilet paper.
2. Cut the unchained summoner spell list out of Pathfinder unchained.
3. Paste it over the spell list in the Advanced Player's guide.
???
Profit.
Still, if it's more of a supporter with a cool pet you're looking for, a quick and dirty alternative might be to build a variant summoner that's essentially a sorcerer but instead of bloodlines you get summoner class features, maybe with a stunted evolution pool (say 1/2 the normal pool) to make up for the fact that you can share-spells with your eidolon so you have to get a lot of your meatshield's oomph from expending your now improved spells.
Essentially a super-familiar.
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Have you ever thought about separating the different types of 'mindless' undead?
I love the using undead as mindless automatons, incapable of being good, or evil. But at the same time, I also like the idea of mindless undead that seek to consume living creatures.
This reminds me of a conversation about zombies we had on skype. I'll include the summary at the end of this post.
I'm wondering if I shouldn't separate the two into, maybe, arcane and divine versions? As in, mindless undead created by arcane casters are automatons because they are animated through 'magic' and nothing more. Meanwhile, mindless undead created by divine casters could have the potential to be either 'positive' or 'negative' depending on the beliefs of the caster.
So a cleric of a good aligned deity could animate skeletons and their natural instinct would be to seek out and destroy 'negative' skeletons and defend life. Where as cleric's of an evil deity could animate skeletons that would seek out and destroy 'positive' skeletons and seek to eradicate life.
Arcane casters would still be able to create either, but it takes more effort. Like a ritual, or celestial event, or some sort of artifact etc.
It's an interesting subject. One thing I opted for when experimenting with some variant undead in previous years was mindless undead with aligned subtypes representing particular powers being the driving forces behind what is usually a mindless automaton.
I'd probably like to approach this sort of thing in much the same way that juju oracles originally did, wherein the aligned undead aren't mindless so much as they are possessed shells or husks that contain spirits that are aligned to your character's preferences. I'd actually like to have three major types of mindless-undead sorts.
1. Automatons (the common ones).
2. The hungry ones (like Romero zombies, these guys want to eat you and are comparable to vermin, not innately evil just crazy dangerous).
3. Ghosts in the shell (possessed by spirits and not actually mindless, or at least not mindless in the traditional sense).
With the ghosts in the shell sort of approach you'd have characters calling on spirits to aid them, malevolent or otherwise. This might be represented by calling lesser daemons into the undead husks, or it might be giving temporary vessels for ancient viking ancestors to rise up and do battle against a great foe once more, or it might be calling upon some more benevolent force to call guardian spirits to defend.
Such as in this very awesome scene from Death Vigil #1.
About Zombies
I was commenting to my friend Raital (who made a small cameo earlier in this thread somewhere) that in terms of D&D zombies vs popular media zombies, the closest approximation is in fact ghouls. If you stripped ghouls of their paralysis and intelligence you would have the sort of frightening zombies that you see. Undead hungering for flesh that shamble about with sometimes surprising speed, who infect people with a strange disease when they bite you, which causes you to slowly die and then turn into one yourself.
I use a variant of ghoul to represent this sort of thing in some of my games which I call a "feral ghoul", which is essentially a ghoul-like monster of animalistic intelligence that is primarily motivated by their hunger for flesh. They aren't even in the same ballpark in terms of cunning typical to normal ghouls. They might also represent ghouls that have been driven to madness from abstaining from eating flesh (especially if by force, such as being trapped without a meal for an extended time) until their hunger overrides everything else and their mind breaks down to a child-like state to cope with the stress.
How've ya been?
Busy with work and stuff but good. I try to keep a positive mindset at all times (though it might be less than obvious on the boards as lately the boards make me feel kind of cynical :\). I actually just got back from work a while ago (and started filling out post responses). I'll be going to bed in a while to get ready for another go later tonight. I also need to start organizing some of my stuff to prepare for packing as I'm going with my family to Tennessee for memorial purposes (we're planning to spread my mom's ashes in the mountains because she really loved them and expressed such wishes).
Hopefully while we're up there I'll get to use some of the time off to work on our RPG during downtime and maybe run a few D&D games for my group via MapTools (which Rai is always thirsty for). I swear that girl will only be happy if I'm unemployed and spending my every moment running games for her. XD
Thanks for the feed back.
I know that we low balling their power, the problem is this is how my PCs want to end the game and I do not want to draw it out. I am not big into high level play. We all realize that the artifact trade is a Dues ex Machina that puts a thin veneer of plausibility over the whole thing. None of us have and issue with that.
My big problem is with designing 5 NPCs and placing them in 5 interesting encounters. Out game is more about tactical combat then role playing and I would love to give them an epic 5 part combat to end it.
The 24 hour limit serves only to put them under time pressure and prevent them from resting during the climax.
Ah, gotcha!
If you're not running the game super soon, I could try to put together some encounters for you between now and tomorrow (Tuesday). I'm about to go to bed (have night shift tonight) but I'll work on it when I wake up before work and tomorrow when I'm off if you want.
Also, how would you feel if I appropriated some other outsiders and remade them as devils?
Know any good nasty beasties to throw at a 6th level party of 4-5 mostly martial near a coastal region and may be crossing the sea at one point?
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I swear that girl will only be happy if I'm unemployed and spending my every moment running games for her. XD
It gives us monsters to be slain or it gets the hose again.
Know any good nasty beasties to throw at a 6th level party of 4-5 mostly martial near a coastal region and may be crossing the sea at one point?
Well, there's the old fallbacks like sahuagin and merfolk with class levels, mixed with aquatic animals that they've trained. Both aquatic humanoids are amphibious so having things like merfolk land-pirates riding on the backs of giant crabs, crocodiles, or sea-hydras could be pretty sweet.
If you're looking for something with a bit more...depth (sorry, bad pun), you could have a sea witch (a merfolk cleric, druid, or wizard of 5th level with the strong tail racial option) approach the party via the coast and attempt to barter with them for removing some sort of nuisance that has moved into her domain, such as a group of sahuagin or fiendish sharks, or whatever. If the party agrees to help her out, she can cast water breathing on them (for 2 hours / person) to allow them to go into the coastal depths for an underwater romp.
If you're looking for an oceanic encounter on a ship, we could move back to the pirate bit and have a bunch of merfolk raiders use ropes and grappling hooks to ensnare a ship and use a giant whale to pull against the ship to moor it while they attempt to bore into the hull of the ship to sink it so they can loot it.
Know any good nasty beasties to throw at a 6th level party of 4-5 mostly martial near a coastal region and may be crossing the sea at one point?Well, there's the old fallbacks like sahuagin and merfolk with class levels, mixed with aquatic animals that they've trained. Both aquatic humanoids are amphibious so having things like merfolk land-pirates riding on the backs of giant crabs, crocodiles, or sea-hydras could be pretty sweet.
If you're looking for something with a bit more...depth (sorry, bad pun), you could have a sea witch (a merfolk cleric, druid, or wizard of 5th level with the strong tail racial option) approach the party via the coast and attempt to barter with them for removing some sort of nuisance that has moved into her domain, such as a group of sahuagin or fiendish sharks, or whatever. If the party agrees to help her out, she can cast water breathing on them (for 2 hours / person) to allow them to go into the coastal depths for an underwater romp.
If you're looking for an oceanic encounter on a ship, we could move back to the pirate bit and have a bunch of merfolk raiders use ropes and grappling hooks to ensnare a ship and use a giant whale to pull against the ship to moor it while they attempt to bore into the hull of the ship to sink it so they can loot it.
There's also the Cthulhu Crabs. Mustn't* forget them. Or the Scrag (sea trolls).
As a freebie, here's an underwater adventure I threw together for my cousin to run a couple years ago. It turned out to be a pretty killer adventure, because underwater is, pretty much, the most inhospitable environment in the rule book when it comes to combat.
The Caverns of Besmara's Cult (feast upon my crappy adventure desgin)
One should note, that Onaturlig the Sea Witch got, officially, errata'd out of existence as the Scarred Witch Doctor archetype is no longer Constitution based. Frankly, I don't care and I pretty much only pick and choose which pieces of errata I follow these days anyway.
*I've never spelled "mustn't" before. It looks weird, even if it is correctly spelled.
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If you're looking for something with a bit more...depth (sorry, bad pun), you could have a sea witch (a merfolk cleric, druid, or wizard of 5th level with the strong tail racial option) approach the party via the coast and attempt to barter with them for removing some sort of nuisance that has moved into her domain, such as a group of sahuagin or fiendish sharks, or whatever. If the party agrees to help her out, she can cast water breathing on them (for 2 hours / person) to allow them to go into the coastal depths for an underwater romp.
I REALLY appreciate the idea there.
*Grasps it greedily and shuffles into the shadows with his +14 starting Stealth modifier*
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If you're looking for something with a bit more...depth (sorry, bad pun), you could have a sea witch (a merfolk cleric, druid, or wizard of 5th level with the strong tail racial option) approach the party via the coast and attempt to barter with them for removing some sort of nuisance that has moved into her domain, such as a group of sahuagin or fiendish sharks, or whatever. If the party agrees to help her out, she can cast water breathing on them (for 2 hours / person) to allow them to go into the coastal depths for an underwater romp.
I REALLY appreciate the idea there.
*Grasps it greedily and shuffles into the shadows with his +14 starting Stealth modifier*
Well water breathing is a 3rd level spell for clerics, druids, and wizards/sorcerers so a 5th level NPC caster (who's merely CR 4 or even CR 3 if they lack reasonable NPC wealth) can cast it on your party. It's probably the earliest example of a "communal" spell in that it lasts 2 hours/caster level but lets you divide it up between multiple targets by splitting the duration.
So you can have 5 PCs at 2 hours each with a single casting. It's pretty legit. What can be kind of cool is a cavern with air pockets, tides, and other such things in them to act as an aquatic dungeon (maybe with aquatic versions of ankheg like burrowers that create vast coastal tunnels and such). It could super exotic if you wanted and you could even have little amphibious communities inside of them.
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My PC do not like it when I have caster target their water breathing with dispel magic. At one point the had 3 layers of it to prevent being dispelled. The got nervous when I got through 2 of them.
You don't always have to include a caster in a party to do this, however. You can even allay the fears of the party by having the sea witch tell them that she does not know of any magic users being involved in whatever missions she sends them on.
Sometimes, a band of raiding sea trolls is just a band of raiding sea trolls. Though if the investigate, they could come to find they're part of a larger sea pirate network.
Which is precisely what my cousin needed the above adventure I designed for.
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Thanks for your perspective. I'll spend some time talking to him, and see where he wants to go.
No problem. Glad to be of any service that I can. :)
The summoner has always been one of those classes that I really want to love but always end up getting irritated with because it was poorly implemented. I might actually use the summoner for NPCs more often now, assuming I just house rule original summoner + unchained spell progressions.
I also like evolutions as a mechanic overall (even if they have some hiccups occasionally). I'd honestly be interested in seeing more variant classes that used evolutions like how the summoner gets aspect / greater aspect.
Then again, I love psionic shapeshifting and it reminds me of that a lot ("Here's some abilities, build your own monster"). I recently proposes a feat to my group that would allow manifesters to add effects from the metamorphosis line of powers to their astral constructs when they manifest them to get even more variety in their summons. I just haven't written the feat out yet (though they thought that sounded cool so it's pretty much a go when I do).
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I do not need it until a week from wed. Also reskinning is good.
Here are some ideas for encounters.
<== The Trick Encounter ==>
It's cannon that no matter what the level of the royal family and their court are, the royalty have a Pit Fiend. So what to do about that? Well, what if we let the pit fiend's own arrogance be his undoing?
In this case, we'll take a standard pit fiend and swap Iron Will for ability focus [Trap the Soul] for +2 to the DC. We'll also give the pit fiend the NPC ability score shuffle (-1 Str, -1 Dex, -1 Con, -2 Wis, +4 Cha). Finally we'll give the pit fiend a +6 cloak of charisma as part of his 67,000 gp treasure pool. The net result is a pit fiend with a +15 Will save and a DC 33 trap the soul. Assuming no debuffs, the pit fiend only saves on an 18 and pretty much any debuff at all will bring him to 95% auto-fail chance.
Prior to facing down the pit fiend, set it up so that your PCs can acquire a magic item that spell-turns a spell with certainty (I'll give a sample one below) and this could be a sort of quest unto itself where you locate the mcguffin to give you an edge against the enemy who's really quite surely going to murder you without it. You'll want this to be kind of an up-front sort of plan, maybe suggested by an ally NPC who offers it as an option when discussing ways of avoiding the pit fiend or as a form of insurance in case the fiend makes an appearance.
Anyway, once the party acquires the spell turning item, the pit fiend should in his haste to immediately begin trapping the low-level (and thus, unlikely to resist) PCs souls in gems, he flubs and ends up pokeballing himself. At which point the PCs can claim the soul gem and even exact service from the pit fiend later.
At 13th level, a party should be able to slant it in their favor if they know the encounter is coming, including using things like limited wish or even a scroll of wish to ensure that he fails that save like a b****. <(^v^)7
Lich's Lament
Aura strong abjuration; CL 13th;
Slot none; Price 3,640 gp; Weight 1 lb.
Description
This small chain has a trinket on each end. One end has a fractured phylactery, the other a broken shield. By willing it so, the chain activates and wards the bearer as per spell turning. Once activated the effect remains for up to 1 minute or until a total of 8 spell levels have been reflected, at which point it crumbles to ashes. Once a creature has benefited from a lich's lament, they cannot do so again for 8 hours.
Construction
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item; spell turning; Cost 1,320 gp
<== Her Infernal Magistrix ==>
The second most fearsome obstacle to overcoming would probably be the sorceress that the pit fiend oversees and advises. Though not nearly as powerful as the pit fiend itself, she's likely a potent threat on her own. Let's say a 16th level sorceress (so she's got 8th level spells), CR 15 on her own. Let's rev it up to a CR 17 encounter since this is the big bad encounter to write home about (the pit fiend is a trick encounter that you either avoid, bypass, or do the side quest to gain the infinity +1 sword for this encounter). This is the APL+4 "End Game" encounter.
Since the party is 5 man strong, we'll increase the total budget of the encounter by +25% (for a 25% larger than 4 man party) for a total encounter budget of 128,000 XP. Her magistrix herself accounts for 51,200 XP worth of the budget, leaving us 76,800 XP for her support and minions. With this allotment, let's pull some devils out of a hat.
Her royal guard consists of three 12th level (CR 11) hellknights. We don't actually need the prestige class, you could make him a 12th level ranger or barbarian or something for simplicity. That leaves us with 38,400 XP. So now we'll account for some of her devilish servants.
She has three bone devils (CR 9) that harass her enemies by spamming things like dimensional anchor and wall of ice to irritate party members and split them up from one-another. These bone devils generally skulk about invisible and may teleport in to harass casters when left unguarded.
For further support, she has a pair of Erinyes that fly about and shoot with their bows and will chain fear SLAs to frighten VIP targets with no real save to deny them a round of actions (fear inflicts shaken on a successful save and shaken + shaken = frightened).
Finally she rounds it out with a trio of temptation devils. The temptation devils use Inspire Courage to improve the statistics of all the other knights, devils, and summons, and to throw darkness spells around. They may also attempt to charm or bite enemies when the opportunity seems right. They prefer not to engage enemies unless the enemies are divine casters who are in dire need of their venom. They are identical to lillend azatas except as follows.
<== Temptation Devils ==>
A large serpent coils before you, its upper half that of a beautiful angelic humanoid. It promises with utmost certainty, "Love me and all the world and all the fruits of its gardens can be yours,"
Types Azata changes to devil, chaos to law, good to evil.
Immune fire and poison instead of azata immunities.
Resist Acid and Cold 10 instead of azata resistances.
Attacks Bite +11 (1d6+5 plus grab and poison). Poison (Ex) Injury--bite; save Fortitude, DC 18; frequency 1/round for 1 minute; effect 1d2 Wisdom drain. The save DC is Constitution based.
Qualities See in darkness as devils.
Telepathy 100 ft. replaces truespeech.
Undersized Weapons (Ex) - Temptation devils are treated as one size category smaller for the purposes of wielding weapons.
Change shape (Su) - Temptation devils can assume the form of any large or smaller humanoid, snake, serpent, or couatl. It doesn't gain any of the special abilities of the forms and it retains its bite attack and poison in all forms (though the damage of its bite is size dependent). When in its natural or non-humanoid forms it has the grab special attack with its bite.
Spell-like Abilities At-will - greater teleport (self plus 50 lbs. of gear only); 1/day - Summon (2nd level, 1 imp, 100%).
Temptation devils are among the most subtle of infernals. They revel in tempting mortals to hedonism and self-gratification. They despise selfless devotion to gods good or evil and seek to teach mortals to seek their own divinity, often sharing any forbidden secrets they can or aiding mortals in getting what they want in life if they will only trust in them as they would their false gods. Practically, they are among the least dangerous of devils as they avoid violence whenever possible and tend to remain true to their words. Potentially, they are among the most dangerous because their safety makes it all the easier to lead mortals astray.
In combat they act as supporters and use their silky tongues to awaken confidence and arrogance in the hearts of others with honeyed words that have real impact. If threatened directly, they attempt to defend themselves by biting and constricting their enemies.
Pausing Here
This isn't five encounters but hopefully it's something that looks fun whilst I think about some of the others. I'd recommend the final encounter to be a large throne room with lots of pillars to be used as cover/concealment. You could also drop a temptation devil and find some room for some low-CR resetting traps to scatter about.
Hope this is helpful. (^-^)
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About a half hour ago I wrote and presented some alternate formulas for alchemy to my playgroup that I thought I'd share with you guys. Specifically, these are work in progress mechanics for those who really wish that you could get some appreciable benefits from investing ranks into Craft (alchemy) as it's pretty worthless even for alchemists since alchemical items don't scale.
EDITED: Edited the post to add some revisions.
EDIT: Revised again!
<== Alchemist Concoction Formulas ==>
Base Cost (Craft DC 10 + 2 per d6): 10 gp * number of d6 * number of d6
Lingering (Craft DC +5): Multiply by (1 + number of additional rounds effect damage occurs squared)
Continuous (Craft DC +0): Divide by (number of rounds base damage is inflicted across)
Spreading: Multiply final cost by 1.5.
Save Halves (Craft DC +0): Multiply final cost by 0.5.
Base Cost: This is the base market value of an alchemical weapon based on the base damage of the weapon. For every 2 ranks invested into Craft (alchemy) the alchemist can create an item that deals an additional 1d6 base damage and additional 1 point of splash damage.
Lingering: The weapon deals its base damage each round over additional rounds. Those struck with a lingering concoction can spend a full-round action to make a Reflex saving throw to negate the damage they would take that round (the DC is equal to the cocoction's DC +5). You cannot combine lingering and continuous in one item.
Continuous: The weapon deals its base damage over multiple rounds, divided by the number additional rounds. You cannot combine lingering and continuous in one item.
Spreading: Creatures caught in the item's splash radius take damage as if directly hit and creatures at twice the item's splash radius take splash damage. So an acid flask that targets 1 square with a 5 ft. splash radius now targets 4 squares with a 10 ft. splash radius.
Save Halves: The weapon allows a Reflex save for half damage when it first deals damage. Any continuous or lingering damage is likewise reduced if the initial save was successful. The save DC for an alchemical weapon is 10 + 1/2 the creator's ranks in Craft (alchemy) + the creator's Intelligence modifier.
Damage Types: Alchemical weapons can be made to deal acid, cold, fire, or electricity damage.
Alchemists with discoveries that modify the type of damage dealt by their bombs to something other than acid, cold, fire, or electricity can produce concoctions that deal the new type as well. If the discovery reduces the amount of damage that the bombs deal (such as the force bomb or sonic bomb discoveries) then the base damage of the concoctions are similarly modified (so an alchemist's fire that deals force damage deals damage in d4 increments instead of d6).
Additionally, alchemists reduce the cost to create concoctions by 5%, and an additional 5% for each alchemist discovery that modifies an alchemist's bomb class feature (to a maximum of 70% reduction).
Buying Alchemical Items: When purchasing alchemical items, prices and saving throw DCs are based on the minimum number of ranks required to create the item and an Intelligence modifier of 1/4 the ranks needed to create it (minimum +0). Continuous items are never available for purchase because lingering versions that deal the same amount of damage always require fewer ranks than continuous items.
Sample Items
Acid flask (10 gp): As acid flask.
Alchemist fire (20 gp): As alchemist fire.
Shock Rock (45 gp): This thin metal canister holds electricity trapped inside. When ruptured from impacting something it releases the stored energy violently. Those hit with it suffer 3d6 electricity damage (DC 13 save halves) and those in the splash radius suffer 3 electricity damage.
Frost Gum (100 gp): This sticky goo clings to anything it touches and rapidly absorbs heat before melting away. Those hit with it take 1d6 cold damage each round for three rounds. It deals 1 cold damage to any caught in the splash radius.
Biochemist's Demonstration (41,000 gp): When shattered, this horrific concoction immolates and dissolves anything that comes in contact with it. Those hit directly initially suffer 5d6 acid and 5d6 fire damage (DC 19 halves initial and subsequent damage), and everything in the splash radius takes 5 points of acid and 5 points of fire damage (DC 19 save halves). Each round thereafter for 9 rounds those hit by the weapon suffer 10d6 energy damage, alternating between acid and fire each round until it ends. Creatures suffering continuous damage can attempt a DC 24 Reflex save each round to prevent the damage that round.
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Trying to decide between specific discovery modifiers or perhaps just giving alchemists a passive -5% cost with an additional -5% cost for each bomb discovery taken. I feel like that might be a bit more elegant.
EDIT: Ayup, removed the specific discovery bits and gave alchemists a passive 5% cost reduction plus an additional 5% reduction for each bomb discovery taken, with a cap of 70% (which accounts for homebrew and 3PP discoveries and exceptionally liberal use of things like the Extra Discovery feat).
I'll just make a feat that lets you add extra effects to concoctions for status ailments and stuff. I think it'll be more balanced that way too as I can standardize them across the elements.
Those two encounter are great! One of my players will go ape about a chance to snag a pit fiend that way. He claims that he is a the god of charlatans and liars, if he walks into a room with a pit fiend by himself an and emerges victorious he will milk that forever.
They will love sorc encounter. The cleric has remover fear preped and will love a chance to use it and the magus has fiendsight. I will need to change darkness to deeper darkness since the entire party has dark vision.
For the sorc are you proposing to use NPC wealth? Think it would make sense to have her well covered with shield other. The way we have always run that spell is to split the damage equally among all who in the loop. For example if the 3 bodyguards each had it active she would take 1/4 damage and they would take like amount.
For the bodyguard, inquisitors would be fun. Great use of teamwork feats. At least 1 of the 3 should make use of the bodyguard feat.
As a general rule of game design, major BBEGs almost always have PC appropriate wealth. BBEG rulers of huge empires, have the wealth to procure almost any item they want/need in a relatively short amount of time.
Keep in mind, this isn't just some villainous sorceress, this is the Queen of the Empire of Cheliax, one of the most powerful countries in the world. You can pretty much get away with giving her nearly any item she needs because of the extreme amount of wealth she has. In addition, you can easily rationalize the existence of multiple sets of traps, spells and wards over the area if you need to.
For example, you could set up 4 or 5 sets of CR 3 scorching ray traps that target 'non-evil' beings with an automatic reset. Have them fashioned to look like statues of Asmodeus around the chamber. Now, whenever a PC comes within 30 ft. of a statue, it will shoot them with a single scorching ray at CL 3rd. 4d6 fire damage doesn't seem like a big deal, until it's happening every single round in addition to all of the other things going on at the time.
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Those two encounter are great!
Thanks. Glad you like 'em. ^_^
For the sorc are you proposing to use NPC wealth?
Actually, yes. I know it probably sounds crazy with the way Paizo throws around PC wealth on major NPCs all the time but IMHO, PC wealth isn't that needed in cases like these and giving her PC wealth would increase her XP cost by 25,400 XP which would lose us a lot of NPC allies for what will mostly amount to a few more +1s here and there.
Of course, all those fiends have treasure values as well and you can shift them around in the encounter if you like. Assuming the medium XP progression the devils add the following treasure value to the encounter:
Each Bone Devil = +4,250 gp
Each Erinyes = +10,050 gp
Each Temptation Devil = +2,600 gp
You need to purchase the gear they'll use (like the erinyes' weapons), but anything left over you could funnel into other NPCs in the encounter (same with the CR 11 bodyguards) to give the queen more oomph.
Depending on whether you're using the CRB or the Bestiary I method for determining the queen's wealth (I usually use the more conservative Bestiary method), that gives you between 45,000 - 58,500 gp to herself to play with using NPC wealth.
Think it would make sense to have her well covered with shield other. The way we have always run that spell is to split the damage equally among all who in the loop. For example if the 3 bodyguards each had it active she would take 1/4 damage and they would take like amount.
For the bodyguard, inquisitors would be fun. Great use of teamwork feats. At least 1 of the 3 should make use of the bodyguard feat.
Sounds great. :D
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Another thing I'd like to bring up is you might consider your final encounter to actually be made of several encounters. Because of spells like clone or even astral projection, it's possible to encounter high end super bosses over multiple "phases" of the fight. It's actually not only possible for high-end bosses to be slain multiple times during the same encounter but it's downright practical for some of them.
When dealing with the queen of Cheliax, she may have some very impressive contingencies to her sudden demise. Perhaps after her former namesake, Abrogail the first was slain, she may have taken precautions. Maybe she's even signed an infernal contract so that when her soul reaches hell she is instantly made into a great devil as part of her dealings.
Without even getting too far flung, said sorceress could literally be slain 4 times without it getting too weird. For example, if she initially fought the party via astral projection she would have a copy of herself and her gear that she could plane shift back to the material plane while her body is in stasis. She then fights the party and gets defeated in phase #1. Redoubling her efforts, she then fights them for realsies, only to get slain in phase #2. She wakes up from her clone immediately when slain to teleport in an begin phase #3. When she is slain then, she finally returns to exact her revenge as a powerful evil outsider of immense power for phase #4.
Naturally additional minions and allies could add into each phase, such as her in final devil form swarming the city with devils through a gate spell or something, or otherwise doing all kinds of stuff worthy of Ghostbusters. You could really go nuts with it. :D
That would we a fun encounter but the sale of the artifact prevents is designed to prevent exactly that. They will sell it to whomever and the whomever will destroy the clones and end the contingentiences.
One of my players had a great idea. Each of the NPCs they go up against should have a fractured soul. As long as any of the foes in the encounter survive then the soul of the major NPC will take it over in time. For this to work they minions need to stay withing X range. This means no one will flee until they are the last guy and the PCs can just kill the NPC and move on to the next one.
I do plan to stack the terrain in the the NPCs favor in major ways. The anti evil traps will be there but just as decor since the PCs are all evil. That gets far more evil (pun intended) if I can find a way to make them detect as non evil.
Is this a 'GM handwave' removal of contingencies, or is this based in the rules at all? Because when you have astral projection, or clone or a pact with a devil, you can't just cast a spell and neutralize those for 24 hours. Sure, you can dispel an astral projection, but one could always just cast that spell again.
Personally, if I were playing in this party and we succeeded, it would always linger in my mind that we only won, because the GM made it so we won, instead of legitimately beating our foes.
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Another thing I'd like to bring up is you might consider your final encounter to actually be made of several encounters. Because of spells like clone or even astral projection, it's possible to encounter high end super bosses over multiple "phases" of the fight. It's actually not only possible for high-end bosses to be slain multiple times during the same encounter but it's downright practical for some of them.
When dealing with the queen of Cheliax, she may have some very impressive contingencies to her sudden demise. Perhaps after her former namesake, Abrogail the first was slain, she may have taken precautions. Maybe she's even signed an infernal contract so that when her soul reaches hell she is instantly made into a great devil as part of her dealings.
Without even getting too far flung, said sorceress could literally be slain 4 times without it getting too weird. For example, if she initially fought the party via astral projection she would have a copy of herself and her gear that she could plane shift back to the material plane while her body is in stasis. She then fights the party and gets defeated in phase #1. Redoubling her efforts, she then fights them for realsies, only to get slain in phase #2. She wakes up from her clone immediately when slain to teleport in an begin phase #3. When she is slain then, she finally returns to exact her revenge as a powerful evil outsider of immense power for phase #4.
Naturally additional minions and allies could add into each phase, such as her in final devil form swarming the city with devils through a gate spell or something, or otherwise doing all kinds of stuff worthy of Ghostbusters. You could really go nuts with it. :D
Just to spice things up a little, there's always using astral projection then casting magic jar into the body of a mammoth (for the low, low price of 15,000 gp, get youself a mammoth today!), then using alter self to appear humanoid. Fight as a mammoth, fight as a projection, fight as herself, fight as her clone, then fight her as a Devil.
Oddly enough, Mathias, you could actually use Queen Abrograil herself as the 5 encounters you need for the climactic finish of the game. Instead of handwaving the contingencies, you could write it off as the sale of the artifact removes many of the wards and protections surround the palace of the Empress leaving her vulnerable to an alpha strike. Have them fight Abrogail in multiple places all across the palace, each fight consisting of a different one of Abrogail's contingencies.
Okay, I got give it up for that idea. Having to kill the lady 5 times to keep her down with a different set of guards in each place. Also easier to prepare since I only need one complicated NPC.
Since she does not have 9th level spells the AP can quite old and she will not be able to simply cast in again.
Magic jar questions.
1. Do you need line of effect back to your body?
2. Has it been determined witch spells go to the body and witch go to the soul?
3. If the host body dies do you need line of effect to the the gem?Other questions.
1. What prevents Abrograil from simply grabbing a different mammoth?
2. What a good ways to help prevent simply dispelling the magic jar?
3. Clever PCs will grab the gem, teleport away and break it. What should prevent this?
4. I want this to take place in several different locations, how do the PC figure out where to go next?
5. Using AP can a caster go to the astral the use plane shift (or other means) to come back to the same plane?
Magic Jar:
1) Returning to your body seems to use the same rules as attacking a creature, so I'd probably say yes, but this is more of an inference than RAW. You can get around this because your body is treated as dead when you are in the jar or another body. Cast Shrink Item on your body, and keep it on your person. Then, when your host dies, attempt to possess other players. Once you've run out of possessions, return to your body and dismiss Shrink Item.2) Officially? No, it hasn't. Personally, I go with anything that physically enhances the body in some way stays with the body. So spells like haste, stoneskine, enlarge person, bull's strength and so on stay with the body, while spells like protection from evil, owl's wisdom, mind blank, contingency etc, would stay with the soul.
3) You do need line of effect back to the gem. This one isn't hard to use either as it's perfectly reasonable for a Queen to have royal garb encrusted with gems. All you need is a single gem worth 100 gp or more, Queen Abrogail could have several of these on her at any one time. Which gem, is the one they need to steal or destroy?
Other questions:
1) Besides the fact that mammoths are very expensive at that level range, even for PC wealth? The size. Abrogail could use an item like the greater hat of disguise to get an all-day alter self effect, or she might only possess the mammoth when threatened. Either way, keeping multiple mammoths in close proximity to herself, inside a palace, truly stretches the limits of immersion. Feel free to make her attempt to possess the other PCs though.
2) Well, the best method I can think of that doesn't also block access to the gem for future use or for returning to her body, is having multiple gems. Targeted dispels need to target the gem to dispel magic jar (not the caster), but if she has, say, 20 gems (2,000 gp), which gem is the source of the Magic Jar? It's still vulnerable to an area dispel, to be sure, but that's a risk you'll have to take.
3) Multiple gems. Especially gems sewn into her clothing. If she has 20 gems, or more, sewn into her royal garb, each of 100 gp, each gem could be the target of the magic jar? Even a Wizard under the effects of an arcane sight spell could have difficulty determining which gem is which if she also uses a spell like magic aura to hide the gems. I could swear there was a published item that gave you access to magic aura as a polishing cloth at will, but I can't find it.
Such an item would be dirty cheap in the magic item creation rules, and it would be reasonable for Abrogail to have her servants polish the gems of her clothes every day using such a cloth.
4) Give the PCs knowledge of multiple locations that Queen Abrogail might take refuge at with the collapse of many/all of the protective wards on the palace. Each one should be a reasonably defensible place. Then, when the PCs make their attack, once Abrogail flees from one location, they can search for the other locations in the palace.
5) Yes. In fact, astral projection is one of the means of 'limited immortality' casters can employ. When you cast astral projection, your body is placed in suspended animation and doesn't age. Any and all items on your body at the time gain an astral version and function exactly like the items you carry. In fact, RAW, any item with a limited use is not consumed when you use the astral version. So if you have a ring of three wishes and use up all 3 charges while using astral projection the real copy on your body does not have any charges used.
As for Abrogail, she could be using lesser astral projection which only allows travel to the Astral Plane, and the plane you were on when you cast the spell. Returning to the plane you were on at the time of casting doesn't end the spell, you have to choose to end it, the spell has to be dispelled, or the silver cord must be severed.
Thanks, I would have sworn that moving back to your body would have been the same as getting to the gem. You do not need line of effect for that. If you do not need LOE then her returning to her body could work as change of venue.
I know that raw would let you use limited use items repeatedly with AP but NO JUST NO.
You are the GM, and the rules are unclear. If you want to rule it that way, you can. Though the body does still need to be within range of the gem. You might design the rooms so they are all connected by short 'air vents' so the body/gem can be in separate rooms without having to worry about too many corners to block the 'range' of the spell.
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Still, if it's more of a supporter with a cool pet you're looking for, a quick and dirty alternative might be to build a variant summoner that's essentially a sorcerer but instead of bloodlines you get summoner class features, maybe with a stunted evolution pool (say 1/2 the normal pool) to make up for the fact that you can share-spells with your eidolon so you have to get a lot of your meatshield's oomph from expending your now improved spells.
I've spent a bit of time trying to homebrew the summoner into a 9-level caster, which has been giving him a sorcerer chassis, and then converting summoner spell levels into sor/wiz spell levels (or effective, as needed). I've added a bunch of spells (up to UC) to fill out his selection, namely at higher levels:
1st: Obscuring Mist2nd: Fog Cloud
3rd: Arcane Sight, Stinking Cloud, Summon Monster III
4th: Solid Fog
5th: Cloudkilll, Prying Eyes, Acid Fog
6th: Blade Barrier, Summon Monster VI
7th: Arcane Sight, Greater, Rampart
8th: Blood Mist, Iron Body, Prying Eyes, Greater, Wall of Lava
9th: Astral Projection, Create Demiplane, Greater, Elemental Swarm, Etherealness, Gate, Heroic Invocation, Summon Monster IX, Winds of Vengeance, Wooden Phalanx
Do you figure I'm missing anything? I don't know if I should give him the Summon Monster SLA or just have him rely on his Summon Monster spells (which are received as bonus spells at the appropriate level).
I agree with you that reducing the evolution points was a poor answer. If you really needed to nerf the eidolon, I'd rather have seen it more restricted in terms of what kinds of evolutions you could give them based on level, or just tweaking the costs vs rewards of some of the evolutions. More options with a lower ceiling would be my preferred way to go about it (and it makes it harder to accidentally screw up if you're a newbie)
Do you have any suggestions about how to easily go about this? (while encouraging preference on combat/general utility over combat evolutions)?
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Still, if it's more of a supporter with a cool pet you're looking for, a quick and dirty alternative might be to build a variant summoner that's essentially a sorcerer but instead of bloodlines you get summoner class features, maybe with a stunted evolution pool (say 1/2 the normal pool) to make up for the fact that you can share-spells with your eidolon so you have to get a lot of your meatshield's oomph from expending your now improved spells.I've spent a bit of time trying to homebrew the summoner into a 9-level caster, which has been giving him a sorcerer chassis, and then converting summoner spell levels into sor/wiz spell levels (or effective, as needed). I've added a bunch of spells (up to UC) to fill out his selection, namely at higher levels:
1st: Obscuring Mist
2nd: Fog Cloud
3rd: Arcane Sight, Stinking Cloud, Summon Monster III
4th: Solid Fog
5th: Cloudkilll, Prying Eyes, Acid Fog
6th: Blade Barrier, Summon Monster VI
7th: Arcane Sight, Greater, Rampart
8th: Blood Mist, Iron Body, Prying Eyes, Greater, Wall of Lava
9th: Astral Projection, Create Demiplane, Greater, Elemental Swarm, Etherealness, Gate, Heroic Invocation, Summon Monster IX, Winds of Vengeance, Wooden Phalanx
Do you figure I'm missing anything? I don't know if I should give him the Summon Monster SLA or just have him rely on his Summon Monster spells (which are received as bonus spells at the appropriate level).I agree with you that reducing the evolution points was a poor answer. If you really needed to nerf the eidolon, I'd rather have seen it more restricted in terms of what kinds of evolutions you could give them based on level, or just tweaking the costs vs rewards of some of the evolutions. More options with a lower ceiling would be my preferred way to go about it (and it makes it harder to accidentally screw up if you're a newbie)Do you have any suggestions about how to easily go about this? (namely giving preference on combat/general utility over combat...
I'd need to pop open the summoner and run through the specifics. Let me look it over (I'm currently preparing to head out of town for a week, but I'm gonna take a laptop and hopefully get to do some work on the RPG while I'm "on vacation" :P).
In the meantime, let me see if I can skim the summoner and toss out some ideas.
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I could generate a lot of aggro for saying this but having been skimming the APG eidolons for a bit, I actually see more I'd buff on them than nerf; mostly in terms of making certain abilities available earlier than the APG does.
If a nerf the eidolon must have, then limiting the total number of attacks that they can make to include manufactured weapons would be a massive nerf to them if you really felt like they needed it. Alternatively, you could change the cost of the Limbs evolution to 1 point plus 1 point for every Limbs evolution they've already got which would force diminishing returns rapidly (it'd cost a biped 4 points to reach 4 arms and 9 points total to reach 6 arms).
I also noticed something odd. The weapon proficiency evolutions are redundant because the Summoner class explicitly calls out the eidolon as an outsider and having outsider HD, unless an effect explicitly says otherwise (and it doesn't, according to a search through both the summoner and eidolon rules) then outsiders have proficiency with simple and martial weapons, making the weapon proficiency evolutions moot (not that I care, since honestly I find the natural-attack eidolons to be kind of boring since that's usually the most evolution point efficient way is to just get a truckload of claw attacks).
I'd make hooves not cost anything to replace claws with and make them primary attacks (there's no reason to ever take hooves, and it punishes you by making you spend points to suck because you want a cool horse-thing).
I think I'd probably toss the 5th level prerequisite for having a flying eidolon. IMHO, flight is overrated, even at low levels since ranged weapons are a thing or you're typically encountering enemies in areas where flying is impractical. More often than not, if flight would assure instant-victory, a horse and a bow would too.
Hmmmm...
I could generate a lot of aggro for saying this but having been skimming the APG eidolons for a bit, I actually see more I'd buff on them than nerf; mostly in terms of making certain abilities available earlier than the APG does.
If a nerf the eidolon must have, then limiting the total number of attacks that they can make to include manufactured weapons would be a massive nerf to them if you really felt like they needed it. Alternatively, you could change the cost of the Limbs evolution to 1 point plus 1 point for every Limbs evolution they've already got which would force diminishing returns rapidly (it'd cost a biped 4 points to reach 4 arms and 9 points total to reach 6 arms).
I also noticed something odd. The weapon proficiency evolutions are redundant because the Summoner class explicitly calls out the eidolon as an outsider and having outsider HD, unless an effect explicitly says otherwise (and it doesn't, according to a search through both the summoner and eidolon rules) then outsiders have proficiency with simple and martial weapons, making the weapon proficiency evolutions moot (not that I care, since honestly I find the natural-attack eidolons to be kind of boring since that's usually the most evolution point efficient way is to just get a truckload of claw attacks).
I'd make hooves not cost anything to replace claws with and make them primary attacks (there's no reason to ever take hooves, and it punishes you by making you spend points to suck because you want a cool horse-thing).
I think I'd probably toss the 5th level prerequisite for having a flying eidolon. IMHO, flight is overrated, even at low levels since ranged weapons are a thing or you're typically encountering enemies in areas where flying is impractical. More often than not, if flight would assure instant-victory, a horse and a bow would too.
Hmmmm...
In my opinion, Flight is very powerful, but only if the party has no ranged weapons, or they have methods of negating ranged attacks. Such as fickle winds, or a wind wall with a ray-based caster. By the time most party members can afford extended use or all-day flight options, most of the creatures you are fighting have got some pretty significant reach on them. There's not much benefit to flight if the cave is 20 ft. high and you're fighting a troll who can touch the ceiling.
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Also, more options for making effective eidolons that didn't just roflstomp enemies through lots of attacks. Alternative options like breath weapons are overpriced and underpowered. Like, top-end an eidolon can get a breath weapon that deals 15d6 with an easy save for half damage 1/day for 4 points, or a maximum of 3/day for 6 points. LAME. D:<
For the same cost in evolution points I could get +6 weapon attacks / round that I can use all freaking day. D:
As it is, eidolons fall into this weird situation where you're rewarded very heavily for specializing in blendering enemies because it's just so darn cost effective. But getting other abilities like DR, resistances, movement options, and things of that nature are very expensive (which is almost hilariously pointless since generic summoners get overland flight for goodness' sake). >_>
I mean Burrow at 1/2 land speed is 3 evolution points. DR 5/alignment costs 3 points and requires 9th level (woop-de-doo). Frightful presence as written sucks, costs 3 points, and requires 11th level. All of the "magic" evolutions (minor, major, ultimate) are all grossly limited in uses / day when limiting the pool of spells. Again, do I want scorching ray 1/day or +4.5 attacks? Dimension door? +4 attacks. Fast healing? You have to be 11th level to get FH 1, and it caps at FH 5 for a whopping 12 total evolution points (or +12 attacks).
The real question is, why would you do anything else other than just trying to be a raging killbot with lots of attacks? The only things that are competitively priced are in fact things that make you better at vomiting attacks (natural or manufactured) on your enemies until they cry uncle, or getting bigger (since growing to large size costs 4 points).
I mean, what do you expect players to choose when they have options like "Your eidolon doesn't have to breathe and is immune to effects the explicitly require you to breathe, but not gas or cloud effects or anything that doesn't explicitly note that it requires breathing" and "Your eidolon grows large getting +8 Str, +4 Con, +2 NA, -2 Dex, gets better reach"?
Maybe we should actually be buffing the hell out of a lot of the more expensive abilities in the form of price / level reductions and how they work so that it's at least equally attractive to make eidolons that do cool stuff other than just dosing up on tons of AC and attacks and pushing DPR like it was going for $100 an ounce.
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In my opinion, Flight is very powerful, but only if the party has no ranged weapons, or they have methods of negating ranged attacks. Such as fickle winds, or a wind wall with a ray-based caster. By the time most party members can afford extended use or all-day flight options, most of the creatures you are fighting have got some pretty significant reach on them. There's not much benefit to flight if the cave is 20 ft. high and you're fighting a troll who can touch the ceiling.
Agreed. The only cases I see flight being that amazing is if you're fighting something that is out in the open where you can fly around (such as in an open field or maybe a sparse forest) and you have ranged attacking opportunities, and your enemy doesn't. And the only reasonable reason I can see that your enemy wouldn't is because they are a big dumb animal (or maybe at best a very intelligent animal). So you might punk a worg but you're going to get punked by a troll or orcs or goblins or anything that has proficiency with a slingshot or better. >_>
Fickle winds is an abomination but that's another topic. :P
EDIT: I take that back. Flight is actually freaking AWESOME in vertical encounters because it equates to movement and wicked cool moments. I was thinking about flight and combat and recalled a fight where my witch (*cough*psion*cough*) was hurled off a clocktower by a dragon. Then she zipped back up before hitting the ground and was like "Hi there". :3
Like, it's far from OP in those cases, it's just like refined badassery. :D
So you might punk a worg but you're going to get punked by a troll or orcs or goblins or anything that has proficiency with a slingshot or better. >_>
To be fair, they probably aren't very good at ranged attacks. Your basic troll, for example, has only a +6 to hit as a ranged attack.
Perhaps that's something you can fix in your system? Making it so you aren't absolutely pants with different weapons without serious investment in them, especially ranged? Didn't you say your system would bake 'feats' like Power Attack/Deadly Aim into it? Because simply doing that would solve quite a few of the ranged attack issues.
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So you might punk a worg but you're going to get punked by a troll or orcs or goblins or anything that has proficiency with a slingshot or better. >_>To be fair, they probably aren't very good at ranged attacks. Your basic troll, for example, has only a +6 to hit as a ranged attack.
Perhaps that's something you can fix in your system? Making it so you aren't absolutely pants with different weapons without serious investment in them, especially ranged? Didn't you say your system would bake 'feats' like Power Attack/Deadly Aim into it? Because simply doing that would solve quite a few of the ranged attack issues.
Yeah, Power Attack/Deadly Aim/Vital Strike are baked into the combat mechanics are just things that you can declare you're doing. Damage also rises with your BAB, so high level foes also have fairly decent offense even without being lavishly studded with bling.
For example, an 8th level Barbarian NPC with an 18 Str would deal 1d4+2d6+4 damage. They could power attack for 1d4+2d6+4+6. If they preformed a power attacking vital strike, they would deal 3d4+6d6+4+6 with their slingshot (av 38.5 dmg).
A character with lots of static damage on their attacks (such as from ability scores, enhancement bonuses, bardic music, etc) may be more inclined to make multiple attacks instead since those things aren't multiplied on a vital strike.
However, it's entirely practical for some characters (especially those with weapons like muskets or crossbows) to just forget typical static damage and iterative attacks and just try to blow cat-sized chunks out of enemies with a single power-strike each round.
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Also, more options for making effective eidolons that didn't just roflstomp enemies through lots of attacks. Alternative options like breath weapons are overpriced and underpowered. Like, top-end an eidolon can get a breath weapon that deals 15d6 with an easy save for half damage 1/day for 4 points, or a maximum of 3/day for 6 points. LAME. D:<
For the same cost in evolution points I could get +6 weapon attacks / round that I can use all freaking day. D:
As it is, eidolons fall into this weird situation where you're rewarded very heavily for specializing in blendering enemies because it's just so darn cost effective. But getting other abilities like DR, resistances, movement options, and things of that nature are very expensive (which is almost hilariously pointless since generic summoners get overland flight for goodness' sake). >_>
I mean Burrow at 1/2 land speed is 3 evolution points. DR 5/alignment costs 3 points and requires 9th level (woop-de-doo). Frightful presence as written sucks, costs 3 points, and requires 11th level. All of the "magic" evolutions (minor, major, ultimate) are all grossly limited in uses / day when limiting the pool of spells. Again, do I want scorching ray 1/day or +4.5 attacks? Dimension door? +4 attacks. Fast healing? You have to be 11th level to get FH 1, and it caps at FH 5 for a whopping 12 total evolution points (or +12 attacks).
The real question is, why would you do anything else other than just trying to be a raging killbot with lots of attacks? The only things that are competitively priced are in fact things that make you better at vomiting attacks (natural or manufactured) on your enemies until they cry uncle, or getting bigger (since growing to large size costs 4 points).
I mean, what do you expect players to choose when they have options like "Your eidolon doesn't have to breathe and is immune to effects the explicitly require you to breathe, but not gas or cloud effects or anything that doesn't explicitly note that it requires breathing"...
This is exactly the kind of problem I see when I look at the evolution list and their costs. All the cool stuff just costs so much that the player is disincentivized from taking them. You can't even evolution surge a lot of it because of prerequisites.
Unfortunately, I'm too inexperienced to reprice everything.
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This is exactly the kind of problem I see when I look at the evolution list and their costs. All the cool stuff just costs so much that the player is disincentivized from taking them. You can't even evolution surge a lot of it because of prerequisites.
Unfortunately, I'm too inexperienced to reprice everything.
I'll try to look over them while on vacation and see if I can come up with something that helps. :o
What do you think about RPG SuperStar?
I'm not Ashiel, but:
I think it's an interesting idea. I am constantly baffled by how bad most of the winning entries in the item category are every year, and can't really gather the energy to care about rounds past that.
I'm not Ashiel, but:
I think it's an interesting idea. I am constantly baffled by how bad most of the winning entries in the item category are every year, and can't really gather the energy to care about rounds past that.
Have you ever voted for items to narrow it down to the final 32? Trust me, many, if not most, of the 32 belong there.
I remember there was this one item, it was well written, but it was straight out of some bishonen anime or something. I can't remember exactly, but it was a cape, or something that would conjure sparkling lights, lotus petals or feathers when you did certain things and make the lotus petals/feathers flutter in the wind around you.
Basically, it conjured this background for your character.
[Edit] Turns out, I actually kept a copy of the item for Gits and Shiggles. Let me know if you ever want to read it and I'll PM it to you.
Sorry for being AWOL for a week. The place I was staying had spotty wi-fi at best and wouldn't let me sign into Paizo or Skype. :(
Welcome back :)