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Yeah the orphanage thing is the big issue here, from the sound of it. I'm trying to understand the rational behind burning it down though. Urgathoa's not a particularly destructive goddess by description, and seems more centered around hedonism, gratification, hunger, and undeath. It seems like you'd have gotten more attention from the goddess feeding the damned orphans than burning their house down.
Urgathoan temples are fest-halls and their celebrations are feasts. Why on earth would anyone assume burning the orphanage down would get her (typically indifferent) attention faster than running a twelve day feast through the orphanage and letting the children unleash their gluttonous urges in bountiful celebration if the joys of excess?
Because, y'know, one of those things is actually Urgathoan, and the other isn't. Hell, at the very least he could have spread chicken pox through the orphanage instead, since that would at least get her attention at a sudden outbreak of disease (whereas burning the building down is going to cleanse any diseases there).
Or, get this, if you REALLY want to get her attention, why not spread feasts around in hospitals full of sick people? Maybe even cast hero's feast for the really sick ones with no appetite, and preach the glory of the pallid princess to those whom have been pardoned through the delicious bounties of the queen of plagues.
But burning down and orphange? That's like trying to get Cayden's attention by offering flowers to a wounded man on the battlefield. It's kind of good-aligned but has nothing to do with Cayden or his interests (throwing a mead party for a bunch of wounded soldiers might though).
All I can come up with for burning down the orphanage is if the Undead Lord Cleric wanted to gather up the corpses as food for a gluttonous feast to Urgathoa or wanted to make young undead servants.
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Perhaps, but it seems really inefficient to do that. An orphanage full of kids seems like ripe pickings for expanding the dominion of Urgathoa when you think about it. They have little, so they're quite vulnerable on a lot of fronts, desiring families, spiritual aids, and likely having spent quite a few days hungry or without.
A cult who celebrates all of their religious events like Thanksgiving and promises a family that will never die off seems like it'd be a pretty easy sell to a bunch of kids like that. Get 'em while they're young, after all. It would be easy to even get them into seeing ghouls and the like as normal if they were young and raised into it.
I don't understand why people seem to frame all the religions of evil deities as dirt stupid. Asmodeus and Urgathoa had a lot of great potential as the proud evils that are very alluring to normal people. Their evils come with positives, and they stand to make people feel good about being non-good. It would be very hard to stand against them if they aren't idiots.
Side Note: Am I the only person who has roleplayed the more mundane sides of characters who worship evil deities? I played a Neutral follower of Asmodeus who was essentially a satanist, and would give pep talks to other characters about having self confidence, not being afraid to take charge, etc, etc.
I played a Neutral aligned vampire worshiper of Urgathoa. One of her favorite passtimes was cooking and she prepared meals for all her living party members for pretty much every occasion. The party met her when they all wandered across a town that had been butchered by badguys. After she helped bury the dead, she gave them some funeral rights, and then prepared a feast in their honor. If someone was getting married? Feast time. If someone's birthday? Feast time. Pretty much any special occasion, she would be like "I will cook dinner!" and laid out a big spread. She didn't even need to eat but did for the fun of it (she was undead, she drinks blood, but chowing down on normal food was icing).
I briefly played an Urgathoan "priestess" who was an arcane caster rather than a divine caster. Her family had concealed their religion but to their chagrin she decided to wear it publicly. She openly wore her holy symbol around her neck, and remained an upstanding member of society. She was placing herself as a walking testament to the religion she was raised with. She was intelligent, hedonistic, very self-empowered, and improved the reputation of her group by lulling others into the fold. It's hard to justify to a bunch of people in the slums that you need to weed out those darn Urgathoans when they're the ones who are passing out spellcasting services to them, operating the local soup kitchen, and acting as doctors (given her extensive knowledge of the Heal skill, she would do things like intentionally give people cow pox and stuff like that so they would be immune to related diseases like small pox).
Why is it so normal for evil religions to be so incompetent?
Yeah... liches are people too...
XD
"Hello I'm Zuzzrit Zu'Zurzen CG lich and freedom fighter extraordinaire.
What do you say? There are no good liches? You, my good friend, are quite wrong. You see, the VAST MAJORITY of us liches (although we prefer the term "people unconcerned with mortality issues") may very well be evil but not all. I stand testament to that notion after all! Yes, I might be a very special snowflake, but I prove beyond any possible doubt that redemption is always possible! How did I become a lich, you say... err... I can't answer you at this moment in time, it's a long and very technical explanation but make sure to pass by in a few days and I'll gladly show you the principle... just bring a set for ritual exsanguination ready for use.
Now excuse me, me and my friend Samuel Haight have been DYING to try out this new brand cigars. It's supposed to make your soul weep... and comes with its own personalized ashtrays too..."
When being better than the norm is the reason for being a special snowflake, you are being a special snowflake right. :)
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hell the special snowflake argument goes out the window when it comes to PC because if they weren't special snowflakes then they would have gotten regular jobs instead of being adventures
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Okay, then instead I'll say that I liked the deities more in the Pathfinder Chronicles campaign setting book, where I felt like they made more sense.
Rather than stuff that has been published recently, including what I feel is a dumbing down of the more interesting evil deities, and things that seem nonsensical.
Such as a supposedly super-awesome peace loving deity who's entire mode of operations revolves around loving forgiveness, yet also providing divine spells to a rogue militant offshoot group that kills people in her name, rather than clearly showing her will that she didn't approve of this militant offshoot by simply staying her hand.
I'm sure any similarities to real life individuals, organizations, regions, cultures, ethnicities, apparels, and so forth are purely coincidental and do not reflect any real life organizations.
I was silly for making that connection. ಠ_ಠ
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you know what If you have a problem with the mods start you own thread about it and stop derailing this one.(sorry this is getting annoying)
Now back on to the topic of liches and the like, instead of just grabbing random evil doers off the street why not use those who are already condemned to die
Make sure you know where his phylactery is.
If you can get to that, there is no fight.
Make sure you know where his phylactery is.
If you can get to that, there is no fight.
A wizard or cleric who can become a lich will ensure their phylactery is essentially unobtainable through any reasonable means.
A wizard or cleric who can become a lich will ensure their phylactery is essentially unobtainable through any reasonable means.Make sure you know where his phylactery is.
If you can get to that, there is no fight.
Not without significant resource expenditure - and most likely not without an alert party member being able to figure out what is going on.
In this case, the person looking is the wizard, one with plenty of foreknowledge. Were I the one in his position, I would arrange for low-key surveillance with a minimum of resource expenditure. In the name of party security. If the lich-to-be starts blocking the low-key monitoring, that tells me he's getting ready to act and I need to be more proactive.
here's a quick questions, does it say anywhere that a lich can only have one phylactery?
here's a quick questions, does it say anywhere that a lich can only have one phylactery?
No. And a lich can have an active clone so that if the phylactery should be destroyed, the lich wakes back up as a mortal somewhere and just has to start over again.
Not without significant resource expenditure - and most likely not without an alert party member being able to figure out what is going on.
In this case, the person looking is the wizard, one with plenty of foreknowledge. Were I the one in his position, I would arrange for low-key surveillance with a minimum of resource expenditure. In the name of party security. If the lich-to-be starts blocking the low-key monitoring, that tells me he's getting ready to act and I need to be more proactive.
Well, a cleric has access to spells like miracle, planar ally, and so forth. Obtaining the means of stowing the phylactery somewhere that it's impractical to reach is fairly trivial. Blocking divinations is as well. Mages do it better but a cleric can do it as well.
I guess you could try to imprison the lich and spend the next few hundred years trying to find the phylactery.
A wizard or cleric who can become a lich will ensure their phylactery is essentially unobtainable through any reasonable means.Make sure you know where his phylactery is.
If you can get to that, there is no fight.
IF the DM considers it reasonable (but hey, said DM already considered reasonable allowing a player to become a lich so who knows).
MOST liches are NOT the Whispering Tyrant.@Blackvial : The special snowflake argument was born (and endorsed by a lot of game designers) because of legions of PCs suddenly becomeing "special snowflakes" (horde of good alligned drow PCs enters).
The Whispering Tyrant was kind of a tool. :P
EDIT: Albeit one of the cooler tools. Breaking somebody's goddess over your knee and throwing her corpse back at her followers is pretty metal.
EDIT 2: In fact, my vampire considered Tar Baphon to be the rightful ruler of their land, but she was staked before his imprisonment and woke up ages later. Imagine her surprise to hear he was in time out, and the leader of the army invading her homeland was a goddess now.
Well, a cleric has access to spells like miracle, planar ally, and so forth. Obtaining the means of stowing the phylactery somewhere that it's impractical to reach is fairly trivial. Blocking divinations is as well. Mages do it better but a cleric can do it as well.
Not at the level range mentioned by the OP.
Even at high level, that Miracle is 25K out of WBL. 25K pays for a heck of a lot of surveillance.
Clerics do not get Mind Blank, and even that is not difficult to bypass if you know about it. Very little stops eyeballs on the target, eyeballs supplied by Planer Binding if we are talking about a wizard with foreknowledge. Nothing stops skill checks, and raising the DC to an unobtainable level can be very costly, given knowledge skills are the wizards forte.
Well, a cleric has access to spells like miracle, planar ally, and so forth. Obtaining the means of stowing the phylactery somewhere that it's impractical to reach is fairly trivial. Blocking divinations is as well. Mages do it better but a cleric can do it as well.Not at the level range mentioned by the OP.
Even at high level, that Miracle is 25K out of WBL. 25K pays for a heck of a lot of surveillance.
Clerics do not get Mind Blank, and even that is not difficult to bypass if you know about it. Very little stops eyeballs on the target, eyeballs supplied by Planer Binding if we are talking about a wizard with foreknowledge. Nothing stops skill checks, and raising the DC to an unobtainable level can be very costly.
Castings of Miracle do not come out of WBL, they come out of consumable resources fund, which is equal to ~1/3 of the WBL. WBL is what you have left after you have used up all the potions, scrolls, and resurrections you have bought/found.
Mind blank wasn't even a consideration. You're not going to do much trying to cast it on your phylactery anyway. :P
Also, unlike wish, miracle doesn't have an automatic 25,000 gp material cost. That's only for particularly special miracles. The usual suspects for casting miracle are free, and a scroll of miracle is 3,825 gp which is an acceptable price for protecting the investment of 120,000 gp and your immortal soul.
Further, since they are a cleric, they could alternatively create a candle of invocation for about 4,000 gp. That's enough to gate in an efreeti who can serve their general purposes of replicating private sanctum, permanency, and so forth. Clerics have plane shift which can be used before their master plan is set into motion, which would place the obstacle of finding the cleric's trail to know where to look before "operation immortality" can be interrupted.
If a high level cleric or wizard cares to protect themselves, making it difficult to find and retrieve their phylactery is trivial. Especially since the planning can all be done by the Cleric and they'll need less than a day to put it all into motion, starting with their sudden disappears to who knows where.
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Anyway, that's neither here nor there.
Thinking about this for a moment, have you talked with the other player at all? My group usually talks about our characters, their concepts, any ideas we have for their personal growth and development, etc. We talk about why they think the way they do, etc. Sometimes we give each other feedback on how the character is coming off or intending to come off in the story, etc.
Like, maybe burning orphanages and such down is him trying to play an evil character correctly but kinda missing the finer points (or maybe he just really wants to play a baby-punting evil doer). Talking about your characters and where you'd like to see them in terms of personal growth in the long run could be helpful in everyone understanding each other.
Castings of Miracle do not come out of WBL, they come out of consumable resources fund, which is equal to ~1/3 of the WBL. WBL is what you have left after you have used up all the potions, scrolls, and resurrections you have bought/found.
Stating the casting Miracle does not count against WBL is the same as saying +5 inherent bonuses to all stats does not count against WBL - obtainable by casting Miracle/Wish repeatedly.
Every single casting of a spell like Miracle, Wish, or Gate requires the character to expend limited funds that could have been spent elsewhere.
here's a quick questions, does it say anywhere that a lich can only have one phylactery?
Where does it say that they can have more than one? Presumably the logical inference is that since the lich only has one soul, he can only have one phylactory.
ah but Voldemort.
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ah but Voldemort.
Who is something completely different and not related to the subject.
i could argue that he is based on the idea of a lich, but won't because it doesn't matter; i was being facetious.
Perhaps, but it seems really inefficient to do that.
Inefficient and even more not so easy because an orphanage would likely be run by another priesthood, perhaps even in their temple complex.
Perhaps, but it seems really inefficient to do that.Inefficient and even more not so easy because an orphanage would likely be run by another priesthood, perhaps even in their temple complex.
Would it? If that were the case then burning it down wouldn't have been particularly easy since there would have just been a ton of create water spells pumping gallons and gallons of water over the fire (since even adepts have create water at will and it can be used to shower gallons of water per caster level at will).
I don't really see why orphanages would be explicitly run by church organizations though. I could see them being run by church organizations, but I don't see why that would be any more common than those run by the state.
Hey OP can we can some additional information such as : The other party members, any NPCs that will help, your spell list?
Paladin Player: "I'm immune to fear, charms, disease, compulsions, have a difficult to penetrate DR, and practically immune to anything that has 'save negates', or 'reflex halves' because I crafted a ring of evasion. I'm essentially immune to every energy type because pearls of power are cheap and easily crafted and I have resist energy 30 on my spell list (which combined with my saves and such means I laugh at ancient wyrm breath). For a mere 20,250 gp I added absolute immunity to poison to my amulet of natural armor so I'm immune to poisons too. Because of my mercies, I'm practically immune to being sickened, staggered, cursed, blinded, deafened, or fatigued."
Yeah. That would kind of make me wary, too. I don't suddenly love it when it's a paladin player bragging about it. It's a PvP-encouraging game. When a player starts bragging out-of-character about what they can do, I go on my guard no matter who they're playing. Bragging is a form of social competition.
You do actually make a lot of good points in that post, though. The would-be lich player reminds me of a lot of players I've dealt with in the past, but with our limited information, it's entirely possible they're blameless here.