So, if he's a veiled master, and he can regenerate himself with Lich's Touch, which I can use on him while magic- jaring him, does that mean I can do the thing where I make him eat himself and take all his memories?
Anaxian doesn't do simple/easy.
He's an artist, thus he must create and be creative.
And really, this seems more fun.
Technically, eating all his memories raw sounds kosher. Double pun intended.
Did we ever decide on exactly how many levels we gained? Figure if Dapper's posting is gonna be slowed, might be a good time to get leveling out of the way.
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Update: Just got my computer back!
But let's say two levels (so: to level 12); then the next quest you guys finish, I can throw in another two, which should put us around 20 by campaign end.
I was considering asking for a Dimensional Agility/Assault line of feats for my Greater Teleport, till I realized it doesn't actually increase my charge distance. Alas.
But! Dimensional Dervish gives you pseudo-pounce.
Technically, eating all his memories raw sounds kosher. Double pun intended.
Changed your mind?
I guess in order for this trick to work I'd need a veiled master that was alive.
Something for later then.
I think we'll kill the mayor, I'll keep his corpse, and use Clone or Simulacrum to make copies of him. Then I'll magic jar one of them and eat the others.
TheMoreYouKnow.jpg
Yeah, whoops, I... got confused.
Also, Anaxian, because you have like 30 Int: your favorite spell used to be Treasure Map.
haven't gotten to that yet. I think it can only be used on a corpse, which a lich doesn't qualify as so long as it has a phylactory. Catch 22 there.
I have lots of plans for this guy. :)
Hmm. Not positive that a lich doesn't qualify as leaving behind a body, but I figure either that or Carrion Compass would probably work.
Alright! Unless anyone has something they'd still like to do, it's time to leave this cluster-bomb of a city.
Are people still interested in city-building roleplaying/storylines? If so, I'll run that story in the discussion section while your main characters jump forward in gameplay (or while level-ups etc. are decided). (With the maximum number of shenanigans I can think of, it should still take about 3 months of crafting to get your WBL to where it needs to get, and I don't think there are many vendors who sell the type of equipment this party is interested in)
I enjoy base building. Little asnaxian is going to be busy pretty much every minute of our 3 months of down time though. Big Anaxian makes a really useful building tool.
When downtime is over Anaxian will have completed the personality copies for his own Phylactory and Big Anaxian's armor. He's up to a 5-entity Russian doll stack now, and is going to start looking for additional dragon corpses. I have two more bodies planned, and now that I have access to Create Undead and Planar Bunding I can make them happen.
I'll be taking the Kraken skeleton and the Mayor's corpse with me as well.
Can you re-animate a dead lich? I'm honestly curious.
The aboleths might give you some corpses, though probably not let you take all of them.
For the kraken and the mayor, I'm not asking. If they want to get uppity, they'll get added to my pile. The rest, I don't care about.
As for the question of lich corpses, it's weird. If there are remains of any kind that are not currently undead, that's a corpse. It behaves as all corpses do.
Where it gets strange is that the rules for becoming undead in Golarion state that (with a few notable and explicit exceptions, like ghosts), undead creatures don't actually have souls anymore. If a paladin dies and is raised as a skeletal champion, it acts like the paladin (though now evil), but doesn't actually effect or do damage to the paladin's soul. The original soul gets to remain in its afterlife and enjoy the rewards it has earned. The animation process creates a soul-echo, which is essentially a personality duplicate formed from spiritual remnants left behind with the body.
This is true of nearly all undead, including ones like ghouls and attic whisperers. Dying sends the soul to Pharasma in almost every case. Animation creates a new version of that soul's personality. That means tortured children neglected to death still go where innocents go when they die. All their hate and pain gets left behind to form a new entity that, apparently, really like attics.
It gets more complicated when you add in the fact that True Res doesn't require a corpse at all.
It is entirely possible to resurrect that paladin who's body is currently a skeletal champion.
This form of undead duplication is the foundation of how Anaxian does his making more of himself trick.
The Mayor's remains make it a little cheaper to bring him back to life, but it isn't actually necessary. I could make due without a corpse if I needed to.
with a cursory glance at some spells, I'd say it is possible.
Animate Dead specifies that you cannot reanimate a destroyed skeleton or zombie.
Create Undead and Create Greater Undead contain no such clause.
Is there a reason you want the Mayor, and not one of the other Veiled Master corpses? If you bring any of them back as *intelligent* undead, their personalities might make them rather unfriendly.
I could have sworn that the one of the main reasons(if not the MAIN one) that undead are all evil is because the dead soul is trapped within the corpse/body?
As for leveling, I will be re-training Skill Focus(Stealth) for Extra Stalker Art(Critical Edge). I will then take my 5th level of Stalker and then 1 level of Umbral Blade.
As it's been awhile, what did we decide our initiator level was? I recall it being something a bit different due to HD, Levels and templates being factored in.
do you all think a Cryptic or Marksman would be better for my new character? I like both, and haven't played either in awhile. Cryptic is good against locks, traps, has a ton of knowledges. Marksman is better at hitting things.
Android works a little better for Cryptic since the ability scores align, but the DEX is good for Marksman as well and it doesn't penalize WIS so it isn't bad either.
Also, I am not sure on what template I might want to go with. People seemed to poop on the Augmented Creature, and it wasn't very powerful anyway. I definitely don't want to go Lich, we have a ton of those.
I could have sworn that the one of the main reasons(if not the MAIN one) that undead are all evil is because the dead soul is trapped within the corpse/body?
I thought that for a while too. In previous editions that's the way it was. For Golarion it isn't.
It creates some weird cosmological issues, but I actually like Golarion's way. It isn't as exploitable.
Lets take that paladin I mentioned earlier. Lets say he died fighting someone like Tar-Baphon, or some other badass necromancer.
If undead were trapped souls, all that necromancer would have to do to get the ultimate revenge would be to raise the paladin as an ordinary zombie. Suddenly. the paladin's soul is yanked out of the afterlife, crammed into a rotten body with no mind, and turned evil by the process. Then the necromancer orders the zombie to do one evil thing to cement the soul's transformation, and kills it.
Now the paladin's soul goes where evil souls go. The paladin had no say in this, and didn't actially do anything wrong, but the cosmological forces layed out by the game rules are very clear what would happen to that paladin.
Given that souls are both the power source and the currency of the cosmic conflict, necromancy would essentially be the ability to rob the bank. All the biggest, most powerful souls could be easily stolen from the good guys and used to create really powerful demons.
The "undead don't actually have souls" clause is pretty much the only thing that stops this. It's a great solution to the "bank robbery" issue, but it means there are some other weird issues to be considered.
Here's my favorite one (and the one that got me on the track to creating Anaxian in the first place). Imagine that paladin is ressurected after his origianl body was turned into a skeletal champion. He manages to kill his evil skeletal doppleganger. The skeleton leaves behind a corpse. The necromancer uses Resurrection on that corpse. Now there's another, living copy of the paladin. Does it have a soul?
(For the record, I love these cosmological cracks the system creates. They're a lot of fun to explore no matter what the answers are)
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Is there a reason you want the Mayor, and not one of the other Veiled Master corpses? If you bring any of them back as *intelligent* undead, their personalities might make them rather unfriendly.
I'm not bringing it back as intelligent undead. We already established that doesn't work the way I want it to.
I'm bringing it back to life and promptly crippling it. Then I'm going to make a simulacrum of it, magic jar the simulacrum, and then eat the mayor.
I'm going to steal the aboleth's ancestral memories by possessing a veiled master and eating another veiled master.
I could eat any aboleth, but I'm doing it to the mayor because he pissed me off.
Its posts like the above that make me seriously enjoy gaming with Doomed Hero.
'You pissed me off? Welcome to a whole brand new level of incredible suffering the likes of which as never before been experienced. How do I know that for sure? I just made it up on the spot, right this moment. Sucks to you be you'
It's been experienced lots of times. Just never by an Aboleth.
I think there's some poetic irony in it. I'm just doing to them what they've been doing to everything else since the dawn of time. They've been eating people and collecting the memories of everthing that can think for eons. I figure it's their turn now.
Good art is just a reflection of the world, you know.
Creating undead in Golarion is inherently evil because undead themselves are inherently evil—without a controller, mindless undead commit constant and random acts of murder, while liches and mummies lose their natural/biological aversion to murder along with most other emotions.
There are precisely two non-evil ways to create undead in the Golarion setting: Skeleton Crew, which creates undead incapable of actually fighting (and thus not prone to run around the countryside murdering if their necromancer loses his edge), and Iroran Mummies (which are disciplined enough to devote themselves to a morality-driven purpose). That said, a LE lich isn't necessarily villainous-evil any more than a LE rogue who's just generally an ass to the other party members.
* * *
If you're going to consume the Mayor's memories, I'll allow it. That sounds like the sort of thing that can provide a permanent bonus to knowledge checks involving aboleths.
do you all think a Cryptic or Marksman would be better for my new character? I like both, and haven't played either in awhile. Cryptic is good against locks, traps, has a ton of knowledges. Marksman is better at hitting things.
Android works a little better for Cryptic since the ability scores align, but the DEX is good for Marksman as well and it doesn't penalize WIS so it isn't bad either.
Also, I am not sure on what template I might want to go with. People seemed to poop on the Augmented Creature, and it wasn't very powerful anyway. I definitely don't want to go Lich, we have a ton of those.
Our current rules for initiator levels is that you add half your CR from other sources to your initiator level.
I'm an Erinyes (CR 8) and a PC Wealth Warlord 4 (CR 4), half my CR from non Warlord sources (aka, the 8 from Erinyes) is added to my initiator level. 4 from Erinyes, 4 from Warlord, total initiator level 8.
And cue another two levels, mwhahahahaaaaaaaa.
If I was going to come up with a fun concept that the party doesn't have, I'd probably make a shapeshifter. Now that we don't have the succubus around, that kind of infiltration stuff is something we're lacking a bit.
I'd probably go with an Augmented Creature Doppleganger or something like that (base CR 5, before class levels).
That would give the technological edge you're interested in, and fill a conceptual niche we don't have. It would probably end up feeling something like the Terminatrix in Terminator 3.
@Doomed Hero: That sounds like a lot of fun, actually. One of my favorite classes that i barely ever got to try out is Metamorph
I might not augment that, though, since I am not sure the cyberware would transform.
I could do some implants without the template, though, the template just lets you apply many for a discount.
@Doomed Hero: That sounds like a lot of fun, actually. One of my favorite classes that i barely ever got to try out is Metamorph
I might not augment that, though, since I am not sure the cyberware would transform.
Why wouldn't it?
We have plenty of illusions and disguises, but true shapeshifting, we indeed do lack.
Why wouldn't it?@Doomed Hero: That sounds like a lot of fun, actually. One of my favorite classes that i barely ever got to try out is Metamorph
I might not augment that, though, since I am not sure the cyberware would transform.
ah looks like i was thinking of something else that stated that the form couldnt be changed.
Oh, right. Yeah, I believe that included template CR?
And Tenro: party balance isn't a huge concern. (Meredian handles ranged okay, and locks are never actually an issue for smart players) You originally wanted cryptic for guns, I believe.
If you want to go android for flavor, Haunted Constructs are hilarious (you'd have an android either possessed wholesale or sharing its body with a powerful wizard), and actually pretty powerful. Alchemically Invisible ain't bad. There's a 3pp Transforming Construct template.
BUT WAIT, it gets SO MUCH wackier. As *living* constructs, Androids can technically be Half-Dragons, Fey Creatures, Silverblood Lycanthropes, or Worms that Walk (since psions count as spellcasters for templates IIRC). What would an Android Worm that Walks be? Probably a nanite swarm I guess?
***
EDIT: Missed a bunch of posts above. But dang, one of my new goals in life is to play or see someone play an Android Worm that Walks.
Since I have Dodge, Mobility and Spring Attack as bonus feats from my template, would retraining Dodge cause me to loose access to Mobility and Spring Attack?
I need to take the feat Discipline Focus at 11th(or retrain for it) in order to take Umbral Blade, but I kinda wanna take Leadership and have Shimsil be my cohort. Using either the Intelligent Item Cohorts rules or possibly just the normal rules for cohorts, if that would be allowed.
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That is a pretty funsause idea. And I have been thinking about leadership!
Though, currently I'm thinking another Erinyes. A companion isn't much use if it can't keep up with me. Unless I do a "thinking of you" mile away support build.
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Dris, you aren't allowed to retrain something that you're using as a prerequisite, if I remember correctly.
I've just always liked Cryptic, guns or no, but I have played them a lot, it has just been awhile.
haha! nanite swarm sounds pretty cool. like a warforged druid Decepticon.
Metamorph would give me the transformation abilities needed. So I could look like anyone and have a manufactured weapon, which counts as a natural weapon, come out of my arm. Or a gun out of my chest. haha
So the idea will be Android Psion (Egoist) 5, Metamorph 7, Worm that Walks (CR+2).
What wealth should I create this with? and is pre-introduction crafting allowed? If so is it manual or just +% of WBL?
If you want to go android for flavor, Haunted Constructs are hilarious (you'd have an android either possessed wholesale or sharing its body with a powerful wizard), and actually pretty powerful. Alchemically Invisible ain't bad. There's a 3pp Transforming Construct template.
Want to be an Anaxian?
Sticking a copy of his soul onto an artifical body is exactly the kind of thing Anaxian would try.
I'm picturing a robo-dragon with guns in the wings for C-130 gunship style strafing runs and a big-ass hidden cannon in the chest. :)
Since I have Dodge, Mobility and Spring Attack as bonus feats from my template, would retraining Dodge cause me to loose access to Mobility and Spring Attack? .
According to the retraining rules, yes.
You might want to just get Flyby Attack instead of Spring Attack. It is much more versatile, allowing any standard action rather than just an attack.
It would free up dodge and mobility for you too.
I was very tempted by this, but it's one CR out of my reach.. http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/devil/nihil
Alacritous actually lets me choose tween Spring or Flyby Attack as a bonus feat
If Dapper doesn't mind, I would like to swap Spring Attack for Flyby, and then retrain both Dodge and Mobility, along with Skill Focus(Stealh).
This way, I can get Discipline Focus, Leadership and Extra Stalker Art(x2) :)
Edit: How much gold do we now have to spend? Probably going to spend the majority of it upgrading Shimsil.
Dris, if you take leadership you could give Shimsil class levels again.
Making the sword a Mesmerist or Witch could be really handy.
Does anyone remember if crafting is allowed during creation (for a discounted cost)?
also, would the Battlefist be an acceptable weapon?
The Battlefist looks like a weapon designed to give a huge cheap power surge to underpowered builds. So, I'd say, if we still cared about balance *coughooohheypathofwarcough*, I'd want to see the build it was on first.
I was rather close to saying *coughohheyrussiannestingdragonscough*.
Hmm, let's answer some questions
1) (Drisquar) Alacritous gives a LOT of bonus feats. I believe my previous ruling was that you can swap these out, but only for speed/movement feats (so Flyby Attack is fine, but dropping Leadership there feels too min-maxy a change to make to the template. TWF might be okay, since it's related to dexterity and reflexes?).
2) (Drisquar/Anaxian) A Witch sword would probably need to make concentration checks to cast, and only be able to cast Still spells. Mesmerist might want Intuitive Spell to avoid the concentration penalties.
3) (Illia/Drisquar) I don't remember if I mentioned this before, but I'm ruling that you can use your Summon abilities to summon any lower-HD fiend you've befriended. Assuming you can get some pull with someone in Hell, you could contract with a Judgment Devil as your personal summon for the time being.
4) (Tenro) Pre-crafted wealth is allowed, but we're going with +% for convenience (so 231k will be your starting wealth). If you're looking for a reason to join the party: we're talking about a band of five creatures so powerful they've single-handedly destroyed and looted two major cities. Somewhere out there, a song is being written about this band of incredibly efficient mercenary-assassins, and rumors of what they plan to conquer and profit from next.
5) (All) Would it make sense to give everyone Leadership as a bonus feat? I've been in campaigns that used that rule, the majority of the party has expressed interest, and it would be a decent way to represent the fact that you're starting to attract fans.
Well, I am by no means building around it. I only asked because it was 3pp, and though the GM is inclusive of a lot of 3pp, I wanted to make sure.
Basically, I will have *A* slam attack at the standard die for size medium. I will have the ability to add more slams, with power point expenditure.
The thought is that, since I will be 5 levels in a 1/2 BAB class and 7 levels in a 3/4 BAB class (total BAB +7), I will have fallen far behind more traditional melee builds. By setting myself up such that I can do 3 slams as an attack routine instead of using iterative attacks granted by BAB, I will have a better chance at connecting to do damage.
Medium slam is 1d4, with the gauntlet I could do 1d8, Improved Natural Attack would give me 2d6, I could increase my size by two with a self-buff, giving me 4d6 per slam. I can't vital strike that further if i want more than one attack, and preliminary analysis tells me i probably wont have feats to spare for the improved vital strike and so forth.
So with the battlefist, I could get one slam at 8d6 or three slams at 4d6 each. My additional modifiers on the slams i havent calculated yet, though STR and DEX aren't priorities, as I plan on using buffs to keep those in passable range.
Considering that a PoW character can at least do 8d6 profane in a 30ft area, I'd say my best attempts at optimization are by no means game-breaking.
Considering that a PoW character can at least do 8d6 profane in a 30ft area, I'd say my best attempts at optimization are by no means game-breaking.
That was exactly my point, Tenro. Note the "cough".
*coughcoughindestructableEirines?* :)
On a slightly more serious note I think Dris is actually the most powerful member of the party. I felt practically impotent for big swaths of that last fight.
@GM:
RE: Leadership, I might end up trying to make an intelligent weapon. Or maybe... a fantastical mount?!
RE: Origin: I was thinking my character hailed from a different type of place that was obviously more technologically and psionically advanced, but things went south when an plague-level disease swept over all attempts to stem its spread. The last few folks fled through the portal to Sigil (or some similar type of place) before what had transpired was discovered and it was closed for fear of the disease plane-hopping. No known incidences have occurred since, and no contact with home has been made, as it is assumed destroyed. My character had made a deal with one of the Baba Yaga's daughters, being swept along for the ride and acting as a henchman of sorts, and picking up some knowledge of infusing magic and stolen technology together to craft his body into a weapon. That particular daughter dropped him off in Golarion with the intent of "returning another time" to pick him back up, but knowing the capriciousness of such creatures, it was hard to guess when or what that might mean.
Enter the mysterious red lady, who seemed awfully reminiscent of another strange woman in his life.
Dapper, does that limitation include actual retraining(Downtime, money spent, etc), vs swapping?
If so, can I just swap Dodge for TWF, Mobility for ITWF and Spring Attack for Flyby, thus still getting two extra feats? and then I'll retrain Skill Focus(Stealth).
Re: Leadership, I was actually going to suggest us getting it as a bonus feat so, yea, I am totally OK with that.
Also, just to make sure I have my Initiator level correct, it should be 11?(5 Stalker, 4 HD, 2 from template?)
Finally, for summons, what's the HD cap of what we can conjure? We haven't met many Daemons, but if during downtime I can research some, that would be awesome.
If we choose a personal summons, can it be the same specific being each time, so it can potentially grow in power with us? Or will it be a new creature of the same type each time?
Whee, more answers, including to things I missed before. But yay for game activity!
1) (Battlefist): There's a reason I love Warforged Monks. But the equivalent item you're looking at in PF is either a Stonefist Gloves (10k for 1 size increase + ignore hardness<8) or an item of Strong Jaw (28k, increase damage by two sizes, would occupy the same slot as an Amulet of Mighty Fists unless you pay 1.5x to one of the effects to get them to stack). Which is affordable at this level, but not quite as cheap as in Eberron. If you're going with psychic, you get a ton of utility powers, so I wouldn't worry too much about where you stand in melee. (Especially the ability to take people's shapes AND read their minds, a la doppelganger, could be fun: "Oh no! The king was really just twelve tiny robots standing on top of each other and wearing a trenchcoat!")
2) (Anaxian): You're the arcane caster, and you finished off the two most powerful enemies by forcing them to kill themselves. I'm okay with you feeling impotent in HTH (and actually, big Anaxian hits reasonably hard, he just lacks Dris's accuracy)
3) (Personal Summons): It would be the same creature. (Any Barbazu might heed the call of an Erinyes serving the direct interests of Hell, but if an independent contractor like Illia- calls, the only ones who will show up are the ones who know her personally and thing she's fun to work for). But it wouldn't necessarily level up unless you roleplay it regularly outside of combat or treat it as a cohort.
4) (Intelligent Item Cohort): This is an interesting idea: an intelligent item cohort has free value equal to 25% of your WBL, plus some special and unique abilities. That could be a nice option for people who prefer an item to a physical cohort.
5) (Initiator level): I think it's 10; 1 from template (since template is CR 2). If you want to cheese out and boost the heck out of that thing, you could take the Practiced Initiator trait, since I don't think you ever took traits.
6) (Tenro origin) The Baba Yaga stuff was my suggestion as to where you could get guns (since they're in trade with Russia) but it's as fine a reason as any.
That said, Androffa is, in the Golarion canon, a world full of advanced technology that was destroyed by plagues and natural disasters right after their starships crashed into Numeria. There's certainly a cruel irony to an Androffan escaping the destruction of his homeworld to end up on Golarion, aided by somebody with portal magic (either the Baba Yaga-daughters of Irrisen, the Arctic Elves, or the Riftwardens of Mendev would all have this magic, and be located close to each other), then making his way to the nearby region of Numeria only to discover the corruption and madness of his people's androids and, with nowhere else to go, turn to the first truly intelligent voice he comes upon.
(7) (Feat swapping) If you retrain a feat that's a bonus from a class or other effect (using downtime retraining rules), you have to RAW swap it for a different feat on the same list.