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What are your thoughts on this creature?

As for Log Horizon, it's definitely a much more mature show and will focus a lot more on socioeconomic problems. It also features a much more diverse cast and d9esnt focus, almost solely, on the story of a s8ngle character.

On SAO, I enjoy the show for what it is, a power fantasy written for young adults. I will say I admire Kirito because he is utterly faithful to Asuna. He doesn't even blink at other girls, because his devotion to Asuna is absolute.


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For even more context, that guy there doesn't even move. He's literally a tied up bundle. He has to fly everywhere. While he does punch people, I like to pretend he instead has his arms locked up too and he just body checks into people as a full body telekinetic beatdown.

The stats were a bit different from that in the anniversary edition though.

Also, something weird occurred to me while I was mucking about with magic jar and possession. Vampire's blood drain is SU. This means someone possessing a vampire can't drink blood, and the vampire cannot drink in an anti-magic zone. But can walk on the ceiling as spider climb is EX.


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Actually, I was curious for opinions of the creature as is, not in context of the AP. I've heard this guy can be murder in the AP to any party without ranged. But I'm more curious as to opinions without specific scenarios or terrain.


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Tels wrote:
Actually, I was curious for opinions of the creature as is, not in context of the AP. I've heard this guy can be murder in the AP to any party without ranged. But I'm more curious as to opinions without specific scenarios or terrain.

Well if you have any business fighting something CR 11+, and "without ranged" can be used to describe any member of your party, you deserve to be murdered. :P

I really like mummies though, especially those with class levels (see end of the post for some home commentary).

That aside, the dread mummy template is from Green Ronin Publishing, which is the first red flag. Flip through their templates and such sometime. I can't even think about Green Ronin without remembering their assassin's handbook for 3.5 which features a level 20 assassin base class that can use the coup de grace action on non-helpless foes (even going so far as being able to perform it as a standard action during a surprise round, which means an invisible assassin has your number).

As written, the mummy is in a kind of strange place. On one hand, it has a lot of incentives to try to kite enemies using its spells and breath weapon, but those things are fairly standard for parties around this level to deal with (death ward makes the breath weapon a non-issue, for example). Yet on the other hand, the mummy really doesn't shine very much unless it gets into melee and starts trying to hammer people with its physical attacks. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing (monsters with more than one fighting style option are a good thing IMHO), but at that point it's mostly just a mummy with class levels who has a really irritating ability (the resistant to blows thing).

Speaking of which, resistant to blows is just a terrible ability. Not that it's not strong. It's hella strong. But I think it's a terrible ability gameplay-wise. It neuters martial characters horribly since there's no way to overcome it and it essentially translates to "This monster has DR = to 1/2 the damage you deal +5". Basically equates to stand back and let the mages play with it, or just drown it in alchemist fire (I'm surprised the mummy sprang for magic items making it better at what it's already good at instead of a basic fire resistance ring or something).

Perhaps humorously, a really amusing way I see this going would be to use Stealth to sneak up on everyone, bomb them with 1d4 negative levels during the surprise round, then have them save vs the gaze at -1-4 (depending on negative levels) and coup de grace one or two characters, suckerpunch a few more, and run away and wait for them to turn to sand.

It's a pretty nasty monster all around. Easiest ways I can see of taking it out would probably be...

1. Alchemical item / holy water spam (just requires items and gives no f***s about its DR or pesky blow-resistance). It'll take a lot though since it's touch AC is pretty solid and he's got a decent chunk of HP.

2. Use anti-undead spells (command undead doesn't care about his enchantment resistance, disrupting weapon forces a save vs being destroyed each hit and his low HD relative to CR means it's likely very vulnerable to it, halt undead wins the fight instantly and he's got a very good chance of biffing the save vs a 9th level caster's DC).

Honestly, spamming halt undead would be the best way. Halt it, then walk up and keep coup de gracing it with high crit multiplier weapons. If your party's barbarian is dealing quadrupal power attack damage every round, even it's BS defensive ability isn't going to protect it for long.

I personally prefer normal mummies with class levels though. The last time I used mummies as enemies, I dropped a few levels of psychic warrior on them and had their heads turn into egyptian gods via bite of the wolf and their hands turn into claws via claws of the beast. It had a similar effect to flurry of blows (bite/claw/claw/slam, all primary, all carrying mummy rot) but feels cooler to me. :P


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If you could have any race as a playable character race currently not available what'd it be and why?


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Ashiel wrote:
Tels wrote:
Actually, I was curious for opinions of the creature as is, not in context of the AP. I've heard this guy can be murder in the AP to any party without ranged. But I'm more curious as to opinions without specific scenarios or terrain.

Well if you have any business fighting something CR 11+, and "without ranged" can be used to describe any member of your party, you deserve to be murdered. :P

I really like mummies though, especially those with class levels (see end of the post for some home commentary).

That aside, the dread mummy template is from Green Ronin Publishing, which is the first red flag. Flip through their templates and such sometime. I can't even think about Green Ronin without remembering their assassin's handbook for 3.5 which features a level 20 assassin base class that can use the coup de grace action on non-helpless foes (even going so far as being able to perform it as a standard action during a surprise round, which means an invisible assassin has your number).

As written, the mummy is in a kind of strange place. On one hand, it has a lot of incentives to try to kite enemies using its spells and breath weapon, but those things are fairly standard for parties around this level to deal with (death ward makes the breath weapon a non-issue, for example). Yet on the other hand, the mummy really doesn't shine very much unless it gets into melee and starts trying to hammer people with its physical attacks. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing (monsters with more than one fighting style option are a good thing IMHO), but at that point it's mostly just a mummy with class levels who has a really irritating ability (the resistant to blows thing).

Speaking of which, resistant to blows is just a terrible ability. Not that it's not strong. It's hella strong. But I think it's a terrible ability gameplay-wise. It neuters martial characters horribly since there's no way to overcome it and it essentially translates to "This monster has DR = to 1/2 the damage you deal +5"....

The pathfinder updated version of the Advanced Bestiary lacks the Resistant to Blows ability, as does the Anniversary Edition stats, where he instead has 2 more monk levels, his ring of protection traded for a Ring of the Ram, reducing his ac to 29, -1 worse accuracy but two more attacks, and 10 less movement speed and more and different feats. He seems easier to deal with by a large margin, but that was a running theme of the Anniversary edition.

Also, I know it specifies attacks, but you'd think attempting to coup the undead would end Halt Undead. I mean it's still an attack in the same sense invisibility would consider it for ending itself. I guess the question would be would it end when you attempt to do so, thus preventing it or would it end after the attack.

berserker444 wrote:
If you could have any race as a playable character race currently not available what'd it be and why?

An actual decently made Gnoll race would be nice. And Lizardfolk. I don't count the ones in the ARG. Succubus would be interesting, always wanted to make a succubus berserker. Dragon is fun, though I do like In the Company of Dragon's Taninim for that so in a sense I already have it. Drider could be an interesting one too.

Oh, but most of all, the various Lamia-kin. Except the Hungerer. I'm okay leaving that as being a nightmare.


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berserker444 wrote:
If you could have any race as a playable character race currently not available what'd it be and why?

Something weird and unusual. Dragons, sentient swarms, giant spiders, ghosts, skeletons, et cetera. Honestly, it gets really boring when every race is just yet another humanoid meatbag, whose only real difference from humans is a couple extra(or a couple less) centimeters of height.


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berserker444 wrote:
If you could have any race as a playable character race currently not available what'd it be and why?

Hard to say. I have a tendency to think of anything sentient as being potentially a player race with adequate homebrewing.

In my own campaign, the following are considered to be available as PC races without the need to think-tank with me on how it would be integrated into the campaign. Unfortunately I have to re-write some of them because the original files were on a now defunct computer.

Legend: * = modified from core rules, usually with a progression or in some cases revised racials (for example, gnolls were converted to a 1 HD humanoid race, their stats adjusted slightly, and given the scent special quality); ** = homebrew race.

1. All core races (humans, elves, etc), and the psionic races (half-giants, maenads, etc).
2. Hobgoblins and Goblins
3. Orcs
4. Several subraces (drow, nomadic elves**, wood elves**, etc)
5. Gnolls*
6. Lizardfolk*
7. Planetouched (aasimar, tieflings, etc)
8. Undead (ghouls*, lichlings**)
9. Constructs** (the mechanics)
10. Drider*
11. Changelings** (these are like lesser doppelgangers)
12. Doppelgangers* (note: nobody begins as a doppelganger but some changelings evolve into doppelgangers)
13. Merfolk
14. Starkin** (a race waging an eternal struggle against the neothelid menace).
14. Psychothelids** (a race of tentacle-faced amphibious humanoids created by aboleths and neothelids, who broke free from their masters)

Certain races require PCs to conceal their identities and/or deal with prejudice (ranging from poor attitudes to outright violence), though that's half the fun of playing those races. If you're going to play a tentacle-faced eldritch abomination, you probably expect to illicit some strange reactions when you walk into a stop & shop. In a similar fashion, being undead tends to at the very least make normal people afraid of you if they find out, and in a major area of the campaign setting it can get you toasted by the inquisition. :P


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>Lizardfolk* ... Undead (ghouls*, lichlings**) ... Drider* ...

You do realise that a lot of people would now try to find you and tickle you until you post a long post with the stats and mechanics of these homebrew races?


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Something's missing...


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Huh... with your construct race, one could make a reasonable facsimile of Genji, a cyborg ninja, from the video game Overwatch. Notably, because he stores his shuriken within his cyborg body and reloads by drawing them out of his arm. So, integrated weapon (shuriken), and probably faster movement. Build him as a "ninja" (however you choose to go about doing that) and you've got a reasonable Genji.


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Klara Meison wrote:

>Lizardfolk* ... Undead (ghouls*, lichlings**) ... Drider* ...

You do realise that a lot of people would now try to find you and tickle you until you post a long post with the stats and mechanics of these homebrew races?

I'll need to quickly re-write a lot of them. As I noted, many of their writeups are on a defunct PC sitting in my room and I've not the will to dismantle the thing and try to recover the files from the harddrive, especially since it'd probably just be easier to rewrite a lot of it.

In Alvena, drider are a playable race and are actually one of the more tolerated of the monstrous races though they tend to make most people nervous and may frighten people who've never seen one before, which is true in a lot of the more rural or secluded areas.

This is because unlike in campaigns like the Forgotten Realms, drider in Alvena are members of drow society. The first drider were a cruel joke played to cause grief to some captured rebels, but it turns out that the transformation resulted in a growth of both their bodies and their innate magical abilities, which eventually led to their escape. The exile prince welcomed them back into their folds and heralded them as heroes, for their very humanity was martyred fighting tyranny. As it turns out, drider are capable of breeding with each other and other humanoids (the specifics of which are probably best left to nightmares and imaginative minds on the internet) so in time they began to multiply.

Seeing that this joke had kind of backfired, but recognizing that the transformation came with unexpected benefits, the possessed drow queen had some of her own drow "blessed" with this transformation, and now their are drider on both sides of the politcal fence.

They're not wholly unmonstrous though. The magic that transformed them into tauric spider-things also made them less apprehensive about things like eating sentient creatures, which makes people exceedingly uncomfortable because they are indeed on a lower rung of the food chain.


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Jeo wrote:
Something's missing...

Y'know, I thought about listing the Kumiho, but given their unique restrictions I probably wouldn't consider them a standard race of Alvena, since they're pretty fringe. That's also the reason I didn't list oni.

Though I would really like to explore some of those things in Alvena more. The oni shogun hunting Jeo and her mothers was something I wanted to explore more of but didn't get around to.

I'd at the very least like to do a little lore writing to give a bit more depth to the relationships of the oni and their associated fox-demons.


Tels wrote:
Huh... with your construct race, one could make a reasonable facsimile of Genji, a cyborg ninja, from the video game Overwatch. Notably, because he stores his shuriken within his cyborg body and reloads by drawing them out of his arm. So, integrated weapon (shuriken), and probably faster movement. Build him as a "ninja" (however you choose to go about doing that) and you've got a reasonable Genji.

Yeah it's intended to be very flexible in terms of building a construct race. You can also use it to create those tentacle armed robots from Ninja Turtles (these guys), as well as all manner of cyborgs, androids (in all sorts of flavors).


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Speaking of drider, here's some segments from a thing about Alvena I started writing years ago (ignore the grammatical errors ^//^).

Drider Intro:
The orc brigand let out a curdled scream, but it was quickly silenced by the sudden rush of poison into the wound and a quick snap of the the warrior's neck. Its dark-crimson blood ran hot with the fading beats of his quickly slowing heart.

Jackson winced and turned his head, unable to watch the sight directly. Gloing looked on with jaws agape, and felt like he needed a good mug of grog to keep his lunch from rebelling against his innards at the sight.

Silia's fangs dug deep into the flesh of the orc, and a sickening sucking sound could be heard coming from her mouth and the wound. Her lizardman companion Ssallix watched in awe at the almost intoxicated look in her dark eyes as she gulped and chewed againsthe orc's body.

Poor Lilly the Halfling shook in her tiny boots, watching their drider friend laying into the orc's body like it was some sort of delicious piece of food and not a formerly living thinking creature. She wondered if she was really sure that she wanted to keep riding on her back, for fear that she might get hungry and long for a light snack.

Silia released the orc's body, now having chewed through most of the torso and gulped it down with an end to the almost gluttonous greed for bloody meat that it was. If not for the blood covering her face, shoulders, and hands, she would have looked much like a beautiful dark-skinned elven woman riding atop a giant spider from a distance. She slurped and licked up the remains of blood on her hands, and was busily cleaning off her face when her eyes darted down to the little halfling beneath her. “I'm sorry...that was very rude of me.” she said in a thick but politely toned dark-elven accent. “Did you want some?” she asked, gripping the orc and eyeing the halfling. “I...think I'm going to be sick...” little Lilly said as her stomach churned inside her tiny frame.

“Err...are you sure that she's okay to have along, human boy?” Korlax quizzed quietly, whispering to Jackson and Gloing.
“Well, to be fair the orcish guy and his friends were trying to kill us, and she's a good friend of mine. I wouldn't mind it if not for the crunching sound. It makes my skin crawl...” Jackson said sheepishly as he began checking the bodies of their enemies for supplies.

Wood Elf Intro:
Jackson, Gloing, Korlax, and Silia hung upside down in the forest. “Well this is a fine mess we've gotten ourselves into, eh Jackson?” Gloing the dwarf said with a bit of a chuckle. Korlax the hobgoblin wiggled about and barked at the dwarf. “Bah, you short fool, it's those elves! They're going to roast us and eat us!” he said in a bit of a panic. “Bah...elves do not eat people.” Silia the drider said as she tried to figure out how she managed to step in eight snares at the same time. “Don't give me that! You ate like three people just last week!” Korlax said trying to wriggle his way free. “I'm not an elf. Well, not exactly.” she said trying to pull her torso up to cut the snares, but to no avail.

Jackson the human glanced around while the others tried to figure out how to get loose. “I think we're not alone.” he said, pondering for a moment as he stroked his chin. “And you would be right.” said a voice from the flora nearby. “Ah. You must be on of the rangers of the green seas then.” Jackson said, extending a hand in greeting while hanging upside down. The wood elf just looked at him an rose an eyebrow. “You're awfully friendly for someone stuck in a snare trap.” the elf responded. “I know, right!?” Korlax interjected. “It's like he expects tea and cakes!” he continued. The elf looked to the hobgoblin and mused “And you are awfully loud for someone stuck in a snare. Perhaps you should be louder. There are beasts that roam these forests that would love to meet you for dinner, I am sure.” Korlax quickly stifled his complaints at the thought of attracting some troll or chimera whilst they were dangling like hanging meats.

“Well, is there any chance you might let us down friend?” Jackson asked with a hopeful look on his face. “My name is Shale, and I'm not sure if we're friends yet, human. What are you doing here?” the elf asked. “Well we were investigating as to the presence of the Necromancer Falina in the area, because we have reason to believe that she might be about to bring on some vengeance upon the villages in the area.” Jackson responded as if he had experience negotiating upside down.

“And why should I believe y--” Shale began before an arrow struck the tree the party was hanging from. Turning back to see the archer, Shale saw a group of undead elven warriors marching through the shadows of the forest.

“Perhaps now would be a good time to cut us down!?” Silia the drider urged frantically. Shale sliced the bonds, dropping them all to the ground below. “Thank the ancestors, I'm land bound again!” Gloing shouted as he stood up, drawing his waraxe. “Do you mind, master Shale?” the dwarf asked motioning to the zombies. “Um...?” the wood elf responded. “I'll take that as a no! Raaaagh!” Gloing shouted charging into the ranks of the dead. “Come on hobby, get yer rear in gear!” the dwarf called to Korlax as he was busily hewing zombies in twain. “I believe further introductions will have to wait.” Jackson responded as he picked up his staff.


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Ashiel wrote:
berserker444 wrote:
If you could have any race as a playable character race currently not available what'd it be and why?

Hard to say. I have a tendency to think of anything sentient as being potentially a player race with adequate homebrewing.

In my own campaign, the following are considered to be available as PC races without the need to think-tank with me on how it would be integrated into the campaign. Unfortunately I have to re-write some of them because the original files were on a now defunct computer.

Legend: * = modified from core rules, usually with a progression or in some cases revised racials (for example, gnolls were converted to a 1 HD humanoid race, their stats adjusted slightly, and given the scent special quality); ** = homebrew race.

1. All core races (humans, elves, etc), and the psionic races (half-giants, maenads, etc).
2. Hobgoblins and Goblins
3. Orcs
4. Several subraces (drow, nomadic elves**, wood elves**, etc)
5. Gnolls*
6. Lizardfolk*
7. Planetouched (aasimar, tieflings, etc)
8. Undead (ghouls*, lichlings**)
9. Constructs** (the mechanics)
10. Drider*
11. Changelings** (these are like lesser doppelgangers)
12. Doppelgangers* (note: nobody begins as a doppelganger but some changelings evolve into doppelgangers)
13. Merfolk
14. Starkin** (a race waging an eternal struggle against the neothelid menace).
14. Psychothelids** (a race of tentacle-faced amphibious humanoids created by aboleths and neothelids, who broke free from their masters)

Certain races require PCs to conceal their identities and/or deal with prejudice (ranging from poor attitudes to outright violence), though that's half the fun of playing those races. If you're going to play a tentacle-faced eldritch abomination, you probably expect to illicit some strange reactions when you walk into a stop & shop. In a similar fashion, being undead tends to at the very least make normal people afraid of you if they find...

I'm actually pretty satisfied I got this much out of that question lol. Now I just want to play in one of your campaigns. I've always enjoyed playing the more savage races instead of the typical LotR fleshbags.... I only seem to be able to incorporate the other races if Im the one running the campaign but sometimes I just want to sit back and play instead of DM. I've dabbled with ogre, minotaur, troll, boggard, yuanti, duerger, swivernbel, Griggs and harpy characters just to name a few as well.


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Yuan-ti were a favorite of mine back in 3.x, and I've been playing to make an alternative for my campaign setting for a while (I think I had some rough drafts on my old PC but they need to be re-written anyway).

Speaking of Harpies, I'm reminded of an encounter that Jeo had on an airship involving harpies that was very mean. Basically the ship was attacked by several harpies intending to crash it and see what goodies were onboard, and they were using their harpy songs to lure folks into walking off the deck of the airship. >_>

I had a player in the same campaign, much later, play a medusa very briefly. She was upset to find how gaze attacks worked, and I was surprised that given how long she had been playing AND the fact she was so adamant about playing a medusa, that at no point during creation did she actually read how her abilities worked. :|


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You get a million dollars, but there is a catch: whenever you spend any of it, there is a chance that a random person nearby turns into an evil ninja and tries to kill you.

Would you agree to that?


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Ashiel wrote:

Yuan-ti were a favorite of mine back in 3.x, and I've been playing to make an alternative for my campaign setting for a while (I think I had some rough drafts on my old PC but they need to be re-written anyway).

Speaking of Harpies, I'm reminded of an encounter that Jeo had on an airship involving harpies that was very mean. Basically the ship was attacked by several harpies intending to crash it and see what goodies were onboard, and they were using their harpy songs to lure folks into walking off the deck of the airship. >_>

I had a player in the same campaign, much later, play a medusa very briefly. She was upset to find how gaze attacks worked, and I was surprised that given how long she had been playing AND the fact she was so adamant about playing a medusa, that at no point during creation did she actually read how her abilities worked. :|

Medusa's are perfect for the oldschool yaunti focused campaigns. I remember in 3.5 we had a FR setting going with an entire jungle of lizardmen tricked into worshipping a naga thinking it a relation to dragons or a quezcoatl. A yaunti blooded medusa was behind it all pulling strings for a hydra worshipping yaunti abomination cult, was a really fun campaign. Also I've never understood how they've added so many "untraditional" player races like tengu, kitsune and elementals just to name a few but they've never gone out of the way to make PC savage races in enough abundance for less civilized campaigns. I can totally get behind a ragtag band of goblins, orcs, bugbears, hobgobs and a gnoll/ogre for a pc campaign or a group of kobold, lizardfolk and the like pursing a plot involving their swamplands. Just seems more easy to implement or explain one of those random races in a normal party as opposed to a air elemental flowing through town lol.


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More bad grammar ahead, it's a rocky ride. (^~^)"

Changeling Intro:
“Look guys, I think the duke is up to something. I saw one of his men out on the docks, where the pirated goods were coming in.” Jaleene the Elf noted to her companions. “Any ideas?”

“Hrm, well we could get the city watch to investigate the mansion. What do you think?” Gloing her dwarf friend responded.

“Hmph, Duke Rivarras would just tie up the watch in a load of red tape. He'd be able to get rid of any evidence before they had the papers to legally search his home.” their human ally Jackson added. “We'd need to get inside.”

“Well all you had to do was ask.” Ali the changeling said. His pale skin changing to that of a smooth dark skinned beauty, and his short white hair extending into long black curls. His body transformed from a rugged bodybuilder into that of a curvaceous woman. The rest of his group stared, with Jackson's mouth hanging agape. As the transformation finished, Ali pressed Jackson's lower jaw shut and said in a sexy feminine voice, “You shouldn't drool sweety. It's rude.” the now female Ali mocked as she pushed her long curls out of her face. “Give me a couple hours, and I'll get you a key to the back door.” she mused as she walked off.

Gloing twitched his nose behind his beard. “Hrmph, I'll never get used to watchin' that.” he said. Jaleene laughed at the two of them, and Jackson cleared his throat and tried to regain his composure.

“I think he...or...she...enjoys doing that way too much.” Jackson noted with red cheeks.

While in some settings changelings are descended from doppelgangers, in Alvena it's a bit different. Changelings are a strange race of shapeshifters with a mysterious history - some believing them to be prototype humanoids created by the gods, others the results of mad magical experiments, and some starkin believe them to be an ancient relative of theirs (as the two species look very similar in their natural forms) warped by their ancient enemies (though how they ended up on the core world has them quite stumped). If the changelings know, they aren't telling!

However, they're frequent enough that most people have met a changeling in their lives, even if they don't realize it. Many changelings keep their true natures hidden from others, and their genetics cause all offspring to always result in a changeling child (there have been cases of trysts resulting in surprise changeling babies).

Doppelgangers are a rare phenomena. Some changelings spontaneously "evolve" into doppelgangers, which is an experience that varies by the individual. What triggers this change is likewise mysterious phenomena. Some experience the change in times of great stress, others when they've lost their sense of self, others after their hearts moved by some act of wonder, and some just wake up one day as doppelgangers. There are a few changelings that believe that becoming a doppelganger is the greatest thing that a changeling can do, and have strange pseudo-religious cults centered around reverence to doppelgangers and changeling interests (which translates to their specific interests as to suggest that they truly have the interest of all changelings would be true madness).

Some changelings fear such a transformation however. Many instances of doppelgangers are what they would consider unhinged, or forever warped by the experience. Madness and a loss of identity is commonplace with doppelgangers, and many seem to lose any sense of morality or purpose that they had beforehand. However, some changeling transformations have not resulted in madness, further clouding the topic. Perhaps the often traumatic events that lead to becoming a doppelganger for many, or the overload of constantly maintaining so many identities, is what leads to the madness rather than the state itself.

Those who have kept their sanity usually have close friends that knew they were changelings, yet many of the doppelganger cults discourage their fellow changelings from having relationships with non-changelings that are anything more than acts.

Doppelgangers themselves are an amazing lot however. Their ability to read minds extend beyond the flesh (changelings have to touch you to try to read your mind) and their shapeshifting and adapting abilities take on a supernatural tone as they seem to gain knowledge they shouldn't possess (such as how to fight with weapons or cast spells from scrolls and wands without training), and some of the older doppelgangers can transcend humanoid forms and take on forms of things like animals or even dragons.


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Klara Meison wrote:

You get a million dollars, but there is a catch: whenever you spend any of it, there is a chance that a random person nearby turns into an evil ninja and tries to kill you.

Would you agree to that?

Yeah, I would. I could do a lot of good things with a million dollars. I'd just have to plan to only spend it once and be ready when I do (I even know how I'd spend it to achieve a greater outcome over time).

I won't lie and say there isn't a part of me that wouldn't actually be excited for the moment that I did. I've always enjoyed fighting but I never fight, because while I really like it, I really dislike hurting people, so the few sparring matches I've been in over the years I always used "gentle methods" that don't involve actually hitting (such as grabbing one arm and sweeping a leg while leading them to the ground with my other hand, which ends up with them lying on their backs but unharmed with a look of "wait, how'd I get here?"). But there's a part of me that hungers for a reason to go all out. It's weird.

Of course, if the person turned ninja didn't get to turn back into that person in an unharmed state, probably not. Money is just a means to and end and I don't value it enough to hurt anyone for.


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I miss thri-kreen. Played a thri-kreen ranger in a dark sun game once.
He had a nickname for the elven fighter in the party, that once he learned his language meant "food you save for last" or "Dessert".
He was very protective of his group, often almost dying to make sure they got out of a pickle. Was a lot of fun.


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I had a thought, the Veela from the Harry Potter universe would make a good addition to role playing games. Women of unearthly beauty who can captivate men with their presence, and when enraged, transform into humanoid bird frlorm, growing beaks, wings, claws and the ability to throw blasts of fire.

So some sort of Aura of Captivation that forces men to make a will save or be Fascinated with the Veela. Transforming gives them a flight speed, and two claw attacks and probably an at will Scorching Ray.

Grand Lodge

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I damn near killed a character at GenCon with one.


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What is your opinion on Starfinder?


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Klara Meison wrote:
What is your opinion on Starfinder?

I don't really know enough about it to form an opinion, honestly. :o


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Ashiel wrote:
Klara Meison wrote:
What is your opinion on Starfinder?
I don't really know enough about it to form an opinion, honestly. :o

Nobody does, yet. All Paizo's really shared is "It's Pathfinder... but in SPACE!" and a bizarrely short list of core classes (including "fighter but even more specialized in certain weapons").


I honestly can't remember ever feeling half as apathetic and uninterested towards a Paizo product as I feel about Starfinder.


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I could swear a 4-armed humanoid was included as a "core" race. Maybe they've finally figured out how to handle such creatures. Hopefully, the "unwritten 2 hand rules" don't make an appearance.


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I personally could not be more excited about star finder i suppose some people just don't like sci-fi


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I like sci-fi just fine, I just dont know if Paizo can do it justice. They seem to be in a very 'mediocre' mindset right now, in that everything must be average and nothing can excel, as far as designing goes.

I cant help but wonder if this is Marks influence. Hes a smart guy, so I'm wondering if he has been catching alot of the 'strong' options before they see print and reigning them in. At least, for the hardback books anyway.


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Oh, I'm a big fan of sci-fi. But if Starfinder is a good, functional game and setting, I'll believe it when I see it.

Everything Paizo's put out to date suggests it will be severely mishandled. The setting is "Pathfinder, but instead of a bunch of different countries, different planets" with the exact same sort of "here's a mystery that will never be solved" setting hook that Golarion has- which is f@!$ing boring. The big home base city is replaced with a big home base space station with the exact same name, led by the exact same sort of shadowy figure that may or may not be truly on our side ooga-booga. If there's more to it (and there damn well better be), Paizo's being very tight-lipped about it.

Mechanically, they'd have to completely throw out the atrocious tech rules that have already been published. Their flaws have been expounded upon in great detail- I doubt anyone really wants a primarily sci-fi game where all the actual technology is amazingly overpriced, magic is outright superior in almost all cases, and you need to track individual 10ths of a battery for your future space flashlight that burns out in 80 hours (we make flashlights today that blow that out of the water).

The class list is anemic and doesn't inspire confidence. Paizo's moved towards a design paradigm that eschews open multiclassing for canned character concepts that are supposed to work out of the box with a class and sometimes an archetype, but they're only launching with 7 classes (fighter but more of a specialist, space rogue, space bard, engie, space cleric, space wizard, and energy/entropy guy for some reason) compared to 3e's 11 classes and open multiclassing 16 years ago.

On top of all that, the whole thing's supposed to be backwards compatible with Pathfinder content. Considering the degree to which Pathfinder itself is backwards compatible with 3e that's unlikely, but if true that means the rules themselves can't really change very much, and ancient problems with the system aren't going to get meaningfully addressed.


Have you ever ran a campaign in a sci-fi setting?


Vidmaster7 wrote:
I personally could not be more excited about star finder i suppose some people just don't like sci-fi

I love sci-fi. It's just... What Tels and Aratrok said.


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Klara Meison wrote:
Have you ever ran a campaign in a sci-fi setting?

Sort of? I tend to merge sci-fi and fantasy elements a fair bit, probably from growing up with inspirations like Outlaw Star and Vampire Hunter D (which was probably my favorite movie by as early as maybe 10 years old?). I once ran a "modern" campaign featuring our own world, except a nearby plane collapsed and all of its inhabitants were shunted through the astral plane to our world, and the event strengthened the magic of our plane so that it was as strong as your typical D&D setting. The campaign was about the struggles of life adapting to these changes, and the party belonged to a special force group in NYC that dealt with the investigation and prevention of supernatural crimes (which meant things like hunting down murderous ghosts and undead, solving crimes committed or covered by magic, breaking up an illithid mafia, etc).

In my current campaign, Alvena, there are lots of things that at least have the trappings of sci-fi tech. The high/gray elves had extremely advanced magitechnology. Before scheduling issues with my work made it too hard to continue running a regular campaign, Aratrok and Raital had begun exploring one of the downed sky cities, which were full of robots (constructs, many sentient), demonic mutants (the marilith trapped in the downed city had been cross-breeding with the surviving inhabitants and turning them into fiendish elves; she was also laying a lot of marilith eggs* at the center of the city for an unknown purpose), and resistance fighters wearing things like power suites.

A lot of the ancient magic artifacts that exist in Alvena are in fact just magic junk from before the apocalypse. Even though much of the world was set back from the ordeal, a fairly large region has used magic and steam power to spearhead an industrial revolution, complete with steam wagons and cars, a rail system, and all sorts of stuff. This is also a region where firearms are most commonplace (though you can find things like flintlocks most everywhere else too).

Rural wilderness is dotted with ancient fortresses, fallen sky cities buried in the earth's crust, and new life blooms in blasted lands once scorched by war and hellfire. Some of the jutting rods and spires from the fallen cities still glow luminously in the dark, like a beacon to call would be adventurers and scholars to their destinies (in reality, it's that continual flame is indeed continuous).

Here's a picture I painted just now to give a conceptual idea. :)
"My favorite rest stop between cities. I look at the soft glow of the ancient world and know that we are destined for something more,"


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Forgot to provide info for the "*" note.

The party discovered that the marilith was laying eggs in the core of the fallen sky city "Eternity". A bizarre action since mariliths rarely lay eggs because creating new mariliths means new rivals (so most of the mariliths are too selfish to risk producing something that might one day overthrow them or claim a portion of their rule), yet this one has layed countless eggs in the city. Enough mariliths that the angels of heaven would quiver in fear at such a terrible collection of eldritch powers (the party met a deity that leads the Templar order in the stead of their dead savior, that deity being a planetar, and the planetar made it quite clear that ONE marilith is a terrifing thing that even scared her).

So part of what the party was up to was finding the marilith and stopping her, and finding out why she was acting so strange. Because the marilith was indeed acting very strangely for a variety of reasons.

1. After the sky city fell and she and her demons were trapped within it (the sky city borders block teleportation magics to defend against would-be invaders, requiring you to teleport to a docking port and then enter through a more mundane route, which prevented people from teleporting lots of soldiers or something into your city; but this means it serves as a mighty fine cage for a demon), she had her demons rescue the survivors they were conquering and established order in the city.

2. The marilith has kept the city going for a very long time, and has allowed a resistance faction to emerge (even though some of the succubi the party spoke with suggested she could wipe them out with ease if she decided to get involved, leading to the possibility she was intentionally allowing the resistance to occur to create discord that prevented the trapped city from stagnating, bringing order through chaos).

3. The marilith has been cross-breeding the local inhabitants and demons, including giving birth to a caste of clergy and handmaidens who act as her heralds throughout the city and serve her divine will. She is, essentially, the god-queen of this prison.

4. In addition, she has laid many marilith eggs throughout the city. Depending on her will, she could have laid eggs that would have sprouted other sorts of demons, but these eggs are to all knowledge actual marilith eggs. As mentioned before, mariliths do not like rivals, and choosing to give birth to another marilith is a rarity, let alone many of them. Not even her demonic handmaidens seem to understand her reasoning for it. It's speculated that she may be forming an unstoppable army to present to the demon queen still trapped on the material plane, or she may be seeking revenge against that same queen for leaving her to rot in this prison for eternity (the city's name isn't intended as a pun :P).

5. Raital's character is actually the very same demon who trapped the marilith in the city centuries ago. They were peers, both generals under the banner of the demon lord and his queen, but Ishtok saw a fine opportunity to eliminate one of her rivals and caused the city to lock up tight and fall to the earth with the marilith and her forces still trapped within it. Now, born in a mortal body and having had a clean slate, she is no longer the same demon that took the action centuries ago, but now she must face the Marilith who she imprisoned for centuries.

Aliizsa or "Ishtok" is fearful as to how the marilith is going to react. Rightfully so. Now she's a shadow of her former power, and this marilith has had centuries to nurture a grudge.


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Puh-leeze. The situation is entirely under control. Maraketh fell by my hand once before, she'll do it again--after all, there isn't a being living or un that could resist going down for me~ Ahuehuehue~


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Aliizsa Sylvari wrote:
Puh-leeze. The situation is entirely under control. Maraketh fell by my hand once before, she'll do it again--after all, there isn't a being living or un that could resist going down for me~ Ahuehuehue~

for = on.


Lemmy Z wrote:
I honestly can't remember ever feeling half as apathetic and uninterested towards a Paizo product as I feel about Starfinder.

I can. UIntrigue, Bestiary 5, OA, Monster Codex, ACG, Bestiary 4...I can't really say Bestiary 3 because that was before I had heard of Pathfinder, but if I had just seen Bestiary 2 and was then told that the same people were producing Bestiary 3, I probably would have been just as uninterested in it.

Granted, I'm not particularly interested in Starfinder, but I figure there's at least a chance there will be some mildly decent house rule I could use for 3.5.


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Ashiel wrote:
Aliizsa Sylvari wrote:
Puh-leeze. The situation is entirely under control. Maraketh fell by my hand once before, she'll do it again--after all, there isn't a being living or un that could resist going down for me~ Ahuehuehue~
for = on.

Lood.


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Have you seen Kung Fury?


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Tels wrote:
Have you seen Kung Fury?

I hadn't. I have. I love everything and everyone. I can now die a complete soul. Thank you. (Q_Q)


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Ashiel wrote:
Tels wrote:
Have you seen Kung Fury?
I hadn't. I have. I love everything and everyone. I can now die a complete soul. Thank you. (Q_Q)

What is this I don't even.


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A question for you, Ashiel.

Between the time you wrote this review and the release of the final Gunslinger class along with the firearm rules, were there any meaningful changes that fixed some of their many, many problems? As far as I can tell, there wasn't really anything done beyond a few relatively unimportant tweaks.

The reason I ask is that I have seen quite a few posters criticizing Paizo's open playtest as a marketing ploy rather than an actual playtest*. Before I read that thread, I believed that they were overplaying Paizo's tendency to conform to Sturgeon's law as dishonesty rather than a simple inability to capitalize on feedback effectively. However, after reading that review and all of the community feedback and the forum goer designed content and the developers openly acknowledging the feedback, we have appeared to have approximately jack to show for it. As a result, I am reassessing my beliefs (and here we are).

*it has to be said that the vigilante would have probably been f$&*ing terrible if it weren't for the open playtest and members of the design team taking the feedback semi-seriously, so even if this is true, it isn't universally true


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Snowblind wrote:

A question for you, Ashiel.

Between the time you wrote this review and the release of the final Gunslinger class along with the firearm rules, were there any meaningful changes that fixed some of their many, many problems? As far as I can tell, there wasn't really anything done beyond a few relatively unimportant tweaks.

The reason I ask is that I have seen quite a few posters criticizing Paizo's open playtest as a marketing ploy rather than an actual playtest*. Before I read that thread, I believed that they were overplaying Paizo's tendency to conform to Sturgeon's law as dishonesty rather than a simple inability to capitalize on feedback effectively. However, after reading that review and all of the community feedback and the forum goer designed content and the developers openly acknowledging the feedback, we have appeared to have approximately jack to show for it. As a result, I am reassessing my beliefs (and here we are).

*it has to be said that the vigilante would have probably been f$&*ing terrible if it weren't for the open playtest and members of the design team taking the feedback semi-seriously, so even if this is true, it isn't universally true

Not that I'm aware of. All of the things I felt were horrible flaws about the gunslinger made it to print. They weren't even addressed a little bit. I very much despise Paizo's entire firearms system from a very basic level (they force laws that are antithetical to how guns were used, since you essentially have to be heroic classed to point the damn things in the right direction :P).

But no, I really don't trust the Paizo playtests at all anymore. After the playtests for Ultimate Combat, I stopped participating in their playtests (probably a good thing as I've lost friends and enemies to the banhammer during playtests).

During the UC playtest, I ended up in an argument with SKR on the subject of filling the book with tons of spells despite it being the martial equivalent of UM. I, and quite a few others, were very concerned that they would drop lots of spells into the book that made casters even better at being martials than they already are, and that it isn't fair because martials have no similar recourse.

His response was (paraphrased, memory) "If I want my cleric to be able to cast some spells and have some fun too, I should be able to do that".

To which my response was something like "Can we expect to see feats that allow martials to summon celestial superbeings, throw fireballs, and raise the dead in UC?" which seemed to rub him the wrong way.

Years ago, I was a borderline frothing fanboy for Paizo. They've spent the time since then rectifying that situation just as hard as they could, ranging from their published material to shoddy faqratta to their very selective modding practices, etc.

That said, I will say the real stars of Paizo are still cool and very respected in my eyes (Lisa Stevens, Erik Mona, F. Wesley Schneider, and Jason Buhlman). I can't remember anything I've ever seen them do or say that made me think that the Paizo books on my shelf were a mistaken purchase.

Ugh, I'm a little salty and I haven't had my tea this morning. XD


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And, perhaps humorously, that's what we got. There are a lot of spells that casters can leverage to make them even better martials than they were before, including pirating the Fighter's armor training ability for several minutes (or potentially whenever needed with magic item creation).

We get stuff like deadly juggernaut which can be used to turn yourself into an engine of destruction (protip: it's based on HD, not CR, and the condition of the target is more or less irrelevant, so you can use it as a super combat death knell).

As a great example, it's a 3rd level cleric spell that lasts 50 rounds when you get it (assuming no CL buffs). At the level you get it, anything with 1 HD+ qualifies. You can literally have used animate dead on a bunch of dogs or something and smash them all up before going into a dangerous situation. If you spend the first 5 rounds of the spell smashing some snacrifices, you end up with +5 hit & damage, +5 Strength checks, and DR 10/- for the next 45 rounds (a pretty good buff for someone who hasn't been ambushed and knows danger is coming up).

And of course, since you can quickly turn yourself into a martial demigod, that means when you're fighting you just keep getting stronger with each enemy you're downing. As noted before, lots of low-CR foes have lots of HD (mindless undead, a number of constructs, animals, a number of outsiders, etc). So it becomes a snowball until you cannot be harmed by other martials (because there is very little that will be able to pierce your DR X/- without relying on magic, especially since resist energy is also a 2nd level spell that makes you immune to alchemical spam).


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Oh, and of course, it's still just one spell. You're still a cleric, which means that given a day's notice you can call up a horde of celestial superbeings, cast a variety of anti-bad spells like death ward, freedom of movement, and spell immunity. You can lead an army of not-snacrificial undead, or better yet an army of snacrificial bloody skeletons (when you snacrifice them, they recycle themselves). You can forge your own magic gear. You can provide yourself with powerful energy resistances.

And of course, if tomorrow you decide you don't want to do that anymore, you just do something completely different. Aside from item creation feats, you don't need to spend any permanent resources on anything to make yourself a martial powerhouse. You can even summon your own bard (lillend azatas).

Even without the UC spells clerics are better fighters than Fighters will ever be, and yet the concern that they were getting more toys while martials were going to get hosed on by UC was apparently a ridiculous concern.

It's not like we ended up with tons of feats that were crap or required huge feat chains or...oh wait. Oh well I mean, at least we didn't get a book with lots of martial buffs for casters that stack with their already really amazing martial buffs in core...oh wait.


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You know... I've been GMing for a group of newcomers to Pathfinder for about 6 months, and one of my players decided to play a Gunslinger... Luckily, we started with one-shot adventures and Gunslingers have a decent class progression up to 6th level... However, once he decided to use the character again for a higher level adventure, just reading the Gunslinger's class features was enough to put a look of clear disappointment on the player's face (but at least he likes some of the feats, most of which are homebrew, so that he can actually do something in combat other than say "I full attack" time and time again).

I didn't think it was possible, but Paizo did it! Somehow... The Swashbuckler ended up even more underwhelming and disappointing than the Gunslinger. There basically no reason go beyond 6th level with a Gunslinger, but Swashbucklers manage to be completely underwhelming from level 3 and upwards.

In any case... Because my player was (justifiably) so thoroughly disappointed with the Gunslinger class, and because I enjoy homebrew, I decided to create a Revised Gunslinger... And since I'm already here, make a revised Swashbuckler as well. My initial idea was to make it something similar to Rangers' Combat Style... Where Swashbucklers and Gunslingers are just one class, with a few different abilities based on what style they choose.

So... I guess my question is:

1- What name would you give to a Swashbuckler/Gunslinger hybrid (I'm half-tempted to simply go with "Swashbuckler" because I like the word and it still fits gunslinging heroes). My second choice is "Bravo".

2- What suggestions do you have for such a class?

3- What ideas do you have to give Grit/Panache a semi-reliable recover mechanic? And what would you call the resource? Grit? Panache? Fortune? Flair? Something else?


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I like Swashbuckler. It's fun for an all-rounder daring-do sort.

I'd recommend making base classes to be as open as possible. Prestige classes are fine for hyper specialization but I'd recommend trying to keep at least 3 different "styles" for a class when creating it (with room for expanding to different styles in supplemental stuff).

For example, if your ideal for the class is mixing a sort of duelist, gun user, and fancy trick fighter, you might create a set of abilities that lend themselves to each of those things, and then a handful for mixing them up.

A reliable recovery mechanic I used for my gunslinger was to have certain abilities that award resource when you use them, while other more special abilities expend resource. This gives players more control over how they pace themselves since they can actively use a set of abilities to regen resources.

If your goal is to encourage them to act chaotically in combat you can also combine that with cooldown mechanics (so you can't regen resources from the same ability for X rounds, meaning if they want to regen fast they have to take a different generating action round to round). That might force players to do some weird things sometimes or put them in a bind if there's nothing worthwhile to regen in a specific situation though, so YMMV. :P

For the love of god, don't tie it to something completely random like critical hits. The chances of landing a critical hit rarely rise above 10% at the absolute best, mostly because armor provides invisible crit-resistance, which means that you have a 5-15% to threaten a critical but then the confirmation roll reduces that % by at least 5% (so if you threaten criticals at 15% and hit on a 2+, your chances to land a crit are actually around 14.25%, where if you only confirm on a 11+, your chances are about 7.5%).

:3


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Okay so today I've slowly started building a reference document for D20Legends, and will be periodically updating it as progress is made. We've been tinkering with stuff for the past few days I've had off and have ended up doing some more revisions to some crunch under the hood (level 0 spells are kind of gone now for the time being). >_>

Here's a link to the spell list which is far from complete but you can see some examples of projected spells and hopefully get a grasp on the sorts of shenanigans we're getting up to when designing abilities and such.

We currently plan to provide similar materials for martial characters, just deciding on how to package them. We're looking for things that allow martial characters to perform combos and utility functions when they aren't ripping things apart with direct damage. Some stuff we were discussing involves things like spanking enemies around on the battlefield, AoE knockdowns, and other goodies that haven't been written yet.

The [Cantrip] tag indicates that once you expend your spell slot it becomes an at-will ability until you recover your spell slot. Some classes will be able to turn select spells into cantrips given certain conditions (it's currently projected that abjurers will be able to make low level magic missile spells cantrips, for example).

There's a slightly larger emphasis on elemental magics in the D20L (air/earth magics haven't been added yet but I'll get to it soonish) and many of them have their own special themes and ways of focusing on them. The biggest change in their favor is that elemental magic tends to crap all over spell resistance, which was a big problem that blasting type spells had before (since energy resistances were common and such layered protection made them non-options compared to things like black tentacles).

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