PF1e 20th Level 10th Tier PvP


Recruitment

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Monkeygod wrote:
I know you said no to 3pp material, but I would suggest at least *considering* Legendary Games mythic stuff. It vastly expands mythic, as not only have they created mythic spells and feats for pretty much all the ones missing from Mythic Adventures(and from a wide variety of sources), they also have mythic class features for most classes from Paizo, expanded path abilities, several new paths, and *tons* of mythic monsters.

This is already a game with a lot of moving parts and there's no call to ask people--myself included--to learn more. Further, it's already a game that teeters at the edge of viability and I'm not familiar enough with any 3pp stuff to make granular rulings about it. In response to the final point . . . this, uh, isn't really a game that would benefit from more mythic monsters. There won't be any mythic monsters in this game.

Monkeygod wrote:

Finally, I hate to be the one to do this, but I am worried that you're offering a high level, high powered game, and only have 14 posts here on Paizo. All of which are just in this thread. Many a brand new GM has offered similar games in the past(both here and on other forums) only to eventually ghost on the players. Sometimes even before recruitment ended.

Any assurances you can make or other ways you can alleviate this concern?

Ngl, I feel kind of attacked! It's super frustrating for someone I've never met to come out swinging and demand I prove myself because they've been hurt by other people.

I feel like I've been pretty respectful of people's time so far!

Also--and this is half my fault for being unclear--this isn't the sort of game which will rely very much on having a GM after it's begun! There are no NPCs in the setting, nada, zilch, none. There is no plot beyond the player-initiated. If I vanished--since I plan on taking a super backseat role, I'm toying with ways to remove all need for a GM as a bottleneck (perhaps players could vote on rulings when they disagree, and rather than messaging the GM with secrets they're keeping but need verifiable, they could write them in code and later reveal the key!)--the players could probably keep trucking along without me!


Nikolaus de'Shade wrote:

This sounds very interesting... I certainly love the concept of the whole thing.

The question for me is - crunch vs fluff. If given a scale of 100 how do you see the game going?

Is this the players telling the story of creating a new world and the mechanics are there just so they can fight if they need to. (Crunch 10: Fluff 90).

Is this the players trying to create the world as they see it and almost immediately conflicting with others, leading to lots of opposed dice rolls but the room to solve problems without conflict if it suits the deities in question. (Crunch 50: Fluff 50)

Or is it "there can only be one", six gods duke it out and might makes right for the universe, oh and you'd better have your contingency pre-cast with some very well named Aroden's Spellbane cause otherwise you goin' DOWN!. (Crunch 95: Fluff 5)

I get the feeling from reading your posts so far that you're on the 'crunch is really important cause I want you to FIGHT' end of the spectrum. Could you tell me a bit more about what sort of game you envision? I like playing at this kind of level, but the huge amounts of book-keeping is something of a turn off rather than a turn on for me. :)

Thanks in advance.
Nik.

Right!

This is something I'll make clearer in the OP when I do the second thread:

I want to see what actually happens when Archmages and Heirophants disagree. In regular games of Pathfinder--if they make it that far--the GM and players are both asking themselves what is narratively satisfying. For this game I'm wondering whether if a powerful creature intrinsically wants for people do die of diseases and a different powerful creature intrinsically wants everyone to be happy and healthy and free, what does the equilibrium wind up looking like?

I do anticipate it being pretty crunchy! This is in large part me trying to learn for myself what the nitty gritty of divine non-interference looks like, when everyone wants to intervene but also everyone wants other people intervening to not be worth it.


Noodle Witch wrote:

Ngl, I feel kind of attacked! It's super frustrating for someone I've never met to come out swinging and demand I prove myself because they've been hurt by other people.

I feel like I've been pretty respectful of people's time so far!

Also--and this is half my fault for being unclear--this isn't the sort of game which will rely very much on having a GM after it's begun! There are no NPCs in the setting, nada, zilch, none. There is no plot beyond the player-initiated. If I vanished--since I plan on taking a super backseat role, I'm toying with ways to remove all need for a GM as a bottleneck (perhaps players could vote on rulings when they disagree, and rather than...

Apologies, I've just been burned a lot, and so have *many* people on Paizo.

I'm actually super interested in this game! It reminds me of the Lords of Creation style games.

Do you still want co-GMs? It sorta sounds like you don't, but am unsure.


Ok, here goes an idea.

The Archive wrote:

The Archive was brought into being in a previous reality by the gods of Order. It was sent to the prime material plane to provide guidance, education and support to the newly risen mortal races and bring them to enlightenment and civilisation. For thousands of years it ushered humans, elves, dwarves and others out of darkness, raising empires of light, hope and justice. However, entropy is an insidious thing and each time an empire rose it would, inevitably fall.

In time, the Archive came to believe that mortal races were inherently corrupt, incapable of achieving enlightenment on their own. It rebelled against its own makers and formed a plan. It would end this reality and forge the next reality in its own image. Mortals don't need guidance, they need an iron fist directing their development to ensure that growth continues and that entropy is banished forever.

And so it did just what it set out to do. It sought out the darkest and most forbidden magics. It engineered the end of an entire reality, casting itself into the maelstrom to be reborn into a fresh, new world, one it can shape in its own image, free of the constraints of interfering Gods.

The Archive is an Enlightened Philosopher Oracle of Lore Heirophant|Archmage. It has a stat block which I will share with our GM if he is interested in the character.

Alignment: Lawful Evil
Portfolio: Rulership, Cities, Disaster, Punishment

Domains: Destruction, Evil, Knowledge, Law
Subdomains: Catastrophe, Corruption, Education. Judgment

Symbol: A mailed fist
Weapon: Gauntlet


This is really interesting, but I don't play a lot of full casters. Hmm. Interesting. My normal choice for something like that would be to lean into Draconic Sorcerer/Dragon Disciple. Possible. But what Dragon am I a disciple of, if we are the first? hmm.


The other dragons will learn to be a disciple of you


Noodle Witch wrote:
I do anticipate it being pretty crunchy! This is in large part me trying to learn for myself what the nitty gritty of divine non-interference looks like, when everyone wants to...

So the attraction (for you at least) is watching the gods duke it out whenever they feel its needed. And you'd like to see all the dice rolling to go along with it?

Do conflicts have to be resolved with dice rolling? The various ideas I have rolling around are mostly of the peacemaker/arbiter type - i.e. the ones who wouldn't fight unless things were dire/the entire pantheon was facing an existential threat type situation. So while I might be involved I probably wouldn't want to end up rolling dice most of the time. I find the story is more satisfying that way than the game being decided by who spent the most time looking for feats/OP combos etc...

Fundamentally I play for the stories, rather than the dice rolling. This sounds like a setting where there could be some amazing story-telling so I'm interested, but it sounds like what I like isn't really what you're after. So I'd like to know, do you think I should submit or not?

Thanks.


Most of us are going to have miracle/wish on the regular backed up by a TON of magical power. So we can pretty much create our own demiplanes/etc. The core 8 may be the only ones we need to start (material, shadow, astral, ethereal, and elemental)

3 things-
1. We need some "not destroying stuff" gods getting into the field. Though I do like the Archive, that is a nice approach. I'm going to start puttering around with something goodly and I have an idea for an Sun god I'll put pen to paper on. Though a collection of evil deities trying to get something done does seem amusing.

2. The gods pretty much sat around before creation of mortals and bickered unless there was something to do (i.e. Rovagug, Zon Kuthon leaving, etc.)

3. The game is going to breakdown into 4 stages I think; the aforementioned sitting a bickering (alliances and enemies informally decided), creation, the Great Game, and eventually us saying it's time for open war when we start directly screwing with each other and decide to come to blows. If anyone read the old Animorphs prequel books back in the day, the game played by the original Andalite (sp?) and the other entity is what comes to mind; the greatest effects spawned by the smallest of moves (i.e. I want to sabotage a neighbor kingdom, I could drop a big scary monster in it's main river; the smaller move might be to move a dangerous monsters feeding grounds to that river; a smaller yet move would be to move the prey of a desired predator to the area, etc.)


Noodle Witch wrote:
Also--and this is half my fault for being unclear--this isn't the sort of game which will rely very much on having a GM after it's begun! There are no NPCs in the setting, nada, zilch, none. There is no plot beyond the player-initiated. If I vanished--since I plan on taking a super backseat role, I'm toying with ways to remove all need for a GM as a bottleneck (perhaps players could vote on rulings when they disagree, and rather than...

Thank you for being explicit about this. It's definitely a different type of game and it requires players that are into that type of game. When this isn't perfectly clear, there can be a lot of players waiting on the GM, who is waiting on the players. It does concern me, as when my life gets busy I'm less able to respond to games where I need to be an active force. I've learned this about myself the hard way.

Noodle Witch wrote:
I want to see what actually happens when Archmages and Heirophants disagree. In regular games of Pathfinder--if they make it that far--the GM and players are both asking themselves what is narratively satisfying. For this game I'm wondering whether if a powerful creature intrinsically wants for people do die of diseases and a different powerful creature intrinsically wants everyone to be happy and healthy and free, what does the equilibrium wind up looking like?

One thing that I do see as being very important is in time and setup. A lot of this game is not going to take place in combat rounds and not going to deal with direct interaction. I think that we'll need a GM to set the time periods of the early game and judge what we do.

For example, one person could assume that his people start off as hunter-gatherers and that we are doing a season per post. Another person could assume that they are starting at medieval and that they are doing a millennium per post. Then the next posting day, space marines drop from orbit on cavemen. A GM standardizing the amount of time in the long-term parts and judging what sort of development is reasonable makes sense.

I think that we need to agree on some ideas about what we're doing. The above post is based on the "God Game/Civilization" mode of play. If some people are playing this and others are thinking more about a mortal-combat arena of the gods, it could lead to dissatisfaction.

Likewise if we are using our followers as proxies, then there will be things like one civilization going to war with another. That will require some sort of neutral adjudication. I could see a GM ruling, using some sort of mass-combat ruleset, or everybody not involved voting on an outcome. But we're going to need some sort of organization and control. And some ideas are even more subtle. What happens when one god starts a whispering campaign to try and spread dissatisfaction with one patron?

Are we going to have some sort of ranking where we are judged by the number of followers? What if somebody has a small group of people but they are fanatically loyal? Or a god that starts a movement without revealing themselves?

I don't think all of this has to come from above. The players can set a consensus on this but without a consensus it doesn't work.

And as I've been writing this, I see some different ideas on how my character might respond, but that they depend on how the world works.


Okay, after much work, I have come out reborn. My revised concept is NE. I and my followers are the mote in the corner of your eye. The person so familiar you never note their presence. Should things fall my way, nobody will suspect I exist. Should I need to, I will correct the paths of mortal empires. where possible with small, subtle nudges. But at times there will need to be a cleansing. Obviously Liliyashanina's doing. She has such a short temper. >;)


Sorry for the delay in posting this, my laptop's charging cable realized after six years of dutiful service that it wanted to spend more time with the family (of useless cables I keep in a drawer because the stickers say not to trash them.

Quote:

Apologies, I've just been burned a lot, and so have *many* people on Paizo.

I'm actually super interested in this game! It reminds me of the Lords of Creation style games.

Do you still want co-GMs? It sorta sounds like you don't, but am unsure.

Apology accepted! I'm glad you're interested. I think I'm committed now to eliminating the need for a GM as a bottleneck completely, especially since sometimes cables stop working!

andreww wrote:
The Archive is an Enlightened Philosopher Oracle of Lore Heirophant|Archmage. It has a stat block which I will share with our GM if he is interested in the character.

I find the idea of a deity who's from an older universe compelling!

de'Shade wrote:

Do conflicts have to be resolved with dice rolling? The various ideas I have rolling around are mostly of the peacemaker/arbiter type - i.e. the ones who wouldn't fight unless things were dire/the entire pantheon was facing an existential threat type situation. So while I might be involved I probably wouldn't want to end up rolling dice most of the time. I find the story is more satisfying that way than the game being decided by who spent the most time looking for feats/OP combos etc...

Fundamentally I play for the stories, rather than the dice rolling. This sounds like a setting where there could be some amazing story-telling so I'm interested, but it sounds like what I like isn't really what you're after. So I'd like to know, do you think I should submit or not?

Conflicts very much don't have to be resolved with dice rolling. But dice rolling is an omnipresent threat and possibility. Diplomacy wouldn't be the same game if you didn't command armies. And just like you might play Diplomacy to learn about how war works, I'm setting this up to learn what a divine stalemate would actually look like. In future games that I GM, I'll probably use what you teach me to have a better idea of what the gods are or aren't allowed to do, and what would realistically happen if they broke the rules.

And I want to know how gods can arrange to survive and even have nice things (their own cultists trying to destroy the world, their own afterlives where souls are eaten) even when everyone hates them. What ultimatums can they threaten? What can they promise to unlikely allies, and how can they trust each other?

I really want some peacemakers/arbiters in the pantheon, and will mention that you might be able to arrange mutual defense pacts or promise conditional neutrality to keep your own hands clean and dice dusty. As a full caster your tricks would mostly be from spells, not from feat combos--you could adopt those you see used, and if you didn't feel up to the char-op game I'd be willing to advise you. But if crunch isn't your cup of tea, you're the one who'd know.

Philo wrote:
Thank you for being explicit about this. It's definitely a different type of game and it requires players that are into that type of game. When this isn't perfectly clear, there can be a lot of players waiting on the GM, who is waiting on the players. It does concern me, as when my life gets busy I'm less able to respond to games where I need to be an active force. I've learned this about myself the hard way.

Super valid. I'd be interested to see what can be done to make things easier, though obviously we can't streamline all the way to a game that doesn't require anyone at all to play it!

Philo wrote:

One thing that I do see as being very important is in time and setup. A lot of this game is not going to take place in combat rounds and not going to deal with direct interaction. I think that we'll need a GM to set the time periods of the early game and judge what we do.

For example, one person could assume that his people start off as hunter-gatherers and that we are doing a season per post. Another person could assume that they are starting at medieval and that they are doing a millennium per post. Then the next posting day, space marines drop from orbit on cavemen. A GM standardizing the amount of time in the long-term parts and judging what sort of development is reasonable makes sense.

I think the easiest way to do it is to begin play on a timescale of hours--people declare that they're spending that time item crafting or doing other out of combat commuting, or talking with other players, and whenever everyone is busy for a single period of time that time is skipped over. When combat begins anywhere, everyone rolls initiative, enters their actions, and passes the round. After combat ends, play moves back to a timescale of hours.

This works well for the sort of Xanatos Speed Chess I imagine godly beings getting up to in the hectic gold rush of the early universe, but doesn't work as well for the civilization scale. I think the thing to do there is to play on the rounds-and-hours-and-days scale until an equilibrium is reached that no one can see how to break quickly (though some people might be gaining resources faster than others). When everyone agrees that they'll just keep doing what they've been doing for x years unless interrupted, we can skip over the intervening time and the GM (or council of players) can put in a burst of effort to figure out what the world looks like after the time skip and what rules or abstractions would need to be added.

My endgame is the midgame, to be honest--I want to see how gods in a Pathfinder setting might organize themselves with a higher level of granularity than the handwaving most settings use. Your endgame, I imagine, would depend on your character--maybe you won't be happy until every sapient creature has all their material needs accounted for, or maybe you won't be happy until all the creatures in the universe are dead and have had their souls consumed. Or maybe the players can have the midgame as their endgame too--if everyone's happy with the world we've created and the equilibrium seems stable enough, we can shake hands and split ways with new friends and new memories!

- - -

I'm attending a conference on the other side of the continent from the 31st to the 5th, and am slightly behind on things I need to do because my charger unexpectedly broke and I couldn't use my computer. I may or may not prove slow posting leading up the the 31st, and then I won't post at all until after the 5th!


I have a few rules questions:

1. Can we have used wish or miracle to increase stats before the game starts.

2. Are corruptions from Horror Adventures legal?

3. Are racial spells available to non members of that race. Likewise, spells with a Deity requirement?

4. If bluff, diplomacy and intimidate have very little in game use does that not also mean sense motive isnt much use either?


For my next question, how much are we keeping secret from the other players? I mean in terms of build. Will we at least know the classes of everyone else? What about the archetypes? The feats? Knowledge is key here, and I have a few ideas that depend on how much everyone else knows!


Kazmanaught wrote:
For my next question, how much are we keeping secret from the other players? I mean in terms of build. Will we at least know the classes of everyone else? What about the archetypes? The feats? Knowledge is key here, and I have a few ideas that depend on how much everyone else knows!

I threw my early build onto the forum as a "let's make sure this is what the GM wants" and if so maybe work as a template for other players. Myrsky will and is evolving as I tweak things.

Had some catastrophes go down over the last few days that resulted in my internet being nuked and me being rather busy the last few days. Hopefully come Monday I'll have the time and such to handle a better post rate.

I want to get some good deities onto the field for ideas; I just don't like putting it in a simple box of "Sun God" "Paladin God" as almost all settings do pertaining to their good deities. The neutral and evil deities in almost every setting have the better depth.


Kazmanaught wrote:
For my next question, how much are we keeping secret from the other players? I mean in terms of build. Will we at least know the classes of everyone else? What about the archetypes? The feats? Knowledge is key here, and I have a few ideas that depend on how much everyone else knows!

I have a complete build which I will share with the GM. The Archive is an Aasimar Lore Oracle (Enlightened Philosopher) Hierophant|Archmage.

I wouldnt want to share specifics of feats and spells but happy to share the overarching concept. The Archive is the repository of all knowledge. It has max ranks in all knowledge skills, the ability to take 20 on them and can comfortably reach an 80+ on any knowledge check.


By the way, I see us more like 13th age icons than gods. We're powerful but present in a way that gods traditionally aren't.

Here's some concepts for background gods.

Grathan the shepherd, god of dogs and paladins. While a good god, and definitely a god of protection, there is a patronizing side that considers those under his protection to be sheep - weak but useful. While people appreciate their services, privately they think they are kind of dicks. Some of the most revered followers are paladin/hunters or good-aligned werewolves.

Bohlita, goddess of sun and water. She is a goddess of balance - the heat of cosmic fire and the coolness of the ocean. Her monk followers follow her example of balancing on driftwood on the ocean. When something disturbs her enough to throw her out of balance, then the island spew fire and ash into the air. So it is so much better to simply flow with the tides.


Right, so I had the thought to play a vigilante, and form a cult, that way it would be really hard to tell which "NPC" was really the high level character. And that's a fun bit of interaction! But then I had the idea to play that stupid Monk of the healing hand + Kensai build, and use the lack of diplomacy/bluff rules to my advantage and delete someone from existence. One of these things doesn't work if people know what I'm playing, so we should try and come up with some general guidelines. (Note: I know that the idea is high level play, but emphasis on the word play, so I will not be trying for a super-turbo-instakill build. I can't make decisions for everyone else of course!)


Having characters be hidden does open up a lot of options and it makes the players as wary as the characters would be.

I'm not planning on a super-turbo-instakill build either. Perhaps we players could make a gentlecreatures's agreement not to focus on rocket tag. Obviously some mileage will vary as I could see builds with 150 hp and builds with 500+ hp. Likewise there will be considerable variability on defenses against magic.

There's also the fact that it takes some work to stop us permanently. Coup-de-grace or crit with an artifact, or using a wish, or trapping somebody's soul. Perhaps instead we could agree that the first death is more of a warning. I'm reminded of Steven Brust's Jhereg series. The main character starts as an assassin in a world where resurrection magic is commonly available. Most of his kills are temporary inconveniences, but there are ways to make it permanent.


As I said above, this concept reminds me of a Lords of Creation game, except with actual PF rules.

I've both played in, and 'ran', LoC games. They are *incredibly* sandboxy, more so than your usual sandbox game. Without a true GM providing some sort of direction, they often stall out. Some rather quickly, others over time, but all the ones I've been in eventually died. It's very difficult to rely solely on players to provide constant 'plot' even when there's oppositional characters.

I'm not trying to discourage this game, rather, pointing out a big problem I've encountered in similar games in the past. I don't have a solution, but I believe we need to figure one out if we want this game last a long time.

Because, I *really* want it to be a big success.


I know lots of GM's who thought a sandbox game was less work until they ran them. At least in PBP you can respond in hours and not minutes, but it takes a lot of work.

As it applies to this game, it will not be too exciting if we don't have any challenges until we start gunning for one another. Even when you are mythic, you can't do everything yourself. You might have ultimate power, but when you are using mortals as proxies, you face their limitations.


andreww wrote:

I have a few rules questions:

1. Can we have used wish or miracle to increase stats before the game starts.

2. Are corruptions from Horror Adventures legal?

3. Are racial spells available to non members of that race. Likewise, spells with a Deity requirement?

4. If bluff, diplomacy and intimidate have very little in game use does that not also mean sense motive isnt much use either?

1) Yes (or so soon after beginning as to be equivalent), 2) Mm, I don't think so but am open to arguments that wouldn't add administrative burden or require other players to learn the rules to be on the same level, 3) mm, I don't think so--but I'm open to designing thematic spells for individuals who get in so as to further distinguish them and their followers (and these custom spells might be copied and pasted from racial or deity spells if they're thematic), 4) sense motive wouldn't be much use, I expect.


Philo Pharynx wrote:
By the way, I see us more like 13th age icons than gods. We're powerful but present in a way that gods traditionally aren't.

I'm hoping to learn things which are generalizeable to more powerful gods! Pathfinder gods aren't statted, but they're heavily implied to be near enough to demigods (or mythic heroes) in strength that demigods are players in divine politics.

This particular setting won't have anything stronger than the players in it.


Kazmanaught wrote:
For my next question, how much are we keeping secret from the other players? I mean in terms of build. Will we at least know the classes of everyone else? What about the archetypes? The feats? Knowledge is key here, and I have a few ideas that depend on how much everyone else knows!

I'd assumed that classes and archetypes would be known because those are easy ways to describe a character's theme and it's important for everyone to know everyone else's vibe.

An example character pitch I wrote for the second thread I'm drafting is:

Quote:

Appelations: The Inward Facing Eye, Whose Birthright is Ashes, Dread Solipsist, The Only

Aesthetic: Eerie and withdrawn woman, pale with dark circles under her eyes, looks through people as if not seeing them.
Alignment: LE
Domains: Destruction (Catastrophe, Hate), Evil, Knowledge (Introspection), Law (Slavery),
Theme: Sorcerer with the dreams bloodline. Finds thinking about and being aware of the physical world--especially the other people in it--intrinsically distasteful. She wants to retreat into a self-constructed world where she can experience unmediated bliss with her whole being indefinately. But--paranoid--she can't until the world is predictable enough that she can be sure no one will ever kill her in her sleep. For these reasons wherever possible she seeks to make the world simpler and more predictable, in service of her eventual goal of snuffing out all exogenous life. She's fond of using constructs and domination effects rather than more agentic allies or minions, and where possible she'll take players off the board by killing them or binding them in endless sleep, but she's plenty intelligent and is willing to begrudingly tolerate greater complexity and uncertainty in the short-term if it's in service of her longer-term goals.

But I'm open to doing things differently! Especially as:

Philo wrote:
Having characters be hidden does open up a lot of options and it makes the players as wary as the characters would be.


Philo wrote:

I'm not planning on a super-turbo-instakill build either. Perhaps we players could make a gentlecreatures's agreement not to focus on rocket tag. Obviously some mileage will vary as I could see builds with 150 hp and builds with 500+ hp. Likewise there will be considerable variability on defenses against magic.

There's also the fact that it takes some work to stop us permanently. Coup-de-grace or crit with an artifact, or using a wish, or trapping somebody's soul. Perhaps instead we could agree that the first death is more of a warning. I'm reminded of Steven Brust's Jhereg series. The main character starts as an assassin in a world where resurrection magic is commonly available. Most of his kills are temporary inconveniences, but there are ways to make it permanent.

I think the turbo-instakilling is baked in and impossible to remove. There's nothing printed in the Bestiaries which can survive a mythic meteor swarm, and save or dies force saves or death. I think a focus on having unknown defenses and cards kept up the sleeve, combined with heavily fortified bastions (protected by traps and/or guards with actions readied) combined being able to threaten recovery and retaliation even after being killed in one round (as you said, it takes some work to stop you permanently) will form the basis of the stalemate. It's a fragile state of affairs, though, and a careless person might be annihilated--unless they've godlike allies who've sworn to mutual defense, of course, and that cointerdependance is exactly what we want to encourage--the specifics of which I'd be curious to see. I imagine that once a trick becomes known, everyone will scramble to adopt it.


MonkeyGod wrote:

As I said above, this concept reminds me of a Lords of Creation game, except with actual PF rules.

I've both played in, and 'ran', LoC games. They are *incredibly* sandboxy, more so than your usual sandbox game. Without a true GM providing some sort of direction, they often stall out. Some rather quickly, others over time, but all the ones I've been in eventually died. It's very difficult to rely solely on players to provide constant 'plot' even when there's oppositional characters.

I'm not trying to discourage this game, rather, pointing out a big problem I've encountered in similar games in the past. I don't have a solution, but I believe we need to figure one out if we want this game last a long time.

Because, I *really* want it to be a big success.

That's a bit disquieting. I'm not sure why a roleplaying game with oppositional characters would stall out where a game of Risk doesn't, could you describe the phenomena?

Philo wrote:

I know lots of GM's who thought a sandbox game was less work until they ran them. At least in PBP you can respond in hours and not minutes, but it takes a lot of work.

As it applies to this game, it will not be too exciting if we don't have any challenges until we start gunning for one another. Even when you are mythic, you can't do everything yourself. You might have ultimate power, but when you are using mortals as proxies, you face their limitations.

The way I was envisioning this, you start out gunning for each other and only work through mortals if that winds up being in everyone's best interest or being something those whose interest it's in can impose on others. I'm mostly here for the godly equilibrium, which I imagine requires divine conflict (either diplomatic or overt)--otherwise if anyone tried making mortals, their enemies would plane shift over to kill them. (And if in leaving their warded sanctums they exposed themself to a counterattack--well, that's gods excitingly gunning for each other.)


Noodle Witch wrote:
andreww wrote:

I have a few rules questions:

1. Can we have used wish or miracle to increase stats before the game starts.

1) Yes (or so soon after beginning as to be equivalent),

So this is a change from the normal ABP rules? That doesn't allow stat boosts with wishing. "and wish and similar spells never grant

inherent bonuses to ability scores."

But we do have 23 legendary gifts that can be spent on inherent bonuses to stats.


Noodle Witch wrote:
That's a bit disquieting. I'm not sure why a roleplaying game with oppositional characters would stall out where a game of Risk doesn't, could you describe the phenomena?

1) In Risk you don't identify with the little abstract army tokens. You can send them out to be slaughtered by the handful. We do identify with ur characters.

2) In Risk, you are only out of the game when all of your abstract tokens die. We only have one character in this game.

3) In Risk, you have a defined turn. Everybody takes their turn and eventually armies meet because there are only so many spaces on the board. In this game, each person decides what they do with their turn and there are lots of ways to avoid conflict.

4) We still want to be entertained in the parts of the game without player conflict. If I want to build a city in a world where there nothing goes wrong, I have Legos. (even then, the earthquake is always fun!)

5) Does building up resources in the world matter? Or is it just the things that apply to this character? It's not clear because you've alluded to both. If the world matters, we need to know how it matters and we need a judge to prevent one guy from telling them that if they throw a fireball at the glowing rocks we get a big boom.

6) If this is meant as more of an arena game, it should be said outright. If this is more of a building up your empires, it should be said. If you want to do both, then you need to be ready to do both and you need to be able to communicate how you intend to merge the two. If it's not clear, then it's not likely to be successful.


Noodle Witch wrote:

I'd assumed that classes and archetypes would be known because those are easy ways to describe a character's theme and it's important for everyone to know everyone else's vibe.

An example character pitch I wrote for the second thread I'm drafting is:

I suggest this pitch without the classes. Let's take a character that appears as a big monster. This could be a druid, a summoner, a synthesist summoner, an illusionist wizard, a dragon disciple with buff spells, or any class with summoning or shapechange, or a guy in a rubber suit on a soundstage. Knowing which class and archetype will affect how we fight it. For several of these, the monster is a distraction and knowing that we need to find the random citizen in the crowd that is the real threat is a big deal.

If their main class is one of the smaller lists, you could do mythic spell immunity to several spells you are worried about.

Having us post our stats in our character sheet means that it's a race to find the hole in their defenses that they overlooked.

There should also be an offline channel for secret information as well as an obvious channel for obvious information. If I build a temple in a city, I expect spies to figure out most of its secrets pretty quickly. If I make a demiplane, nobody is going to know that it's filled with water pressurized like the deeps of the ocean without going there or using some other source.


Noodle Witch wrote:
The way I was envisioning this, you start out gunning for each other and only work through mortals if that winds up being in everyone's best interest or being something those whose interest it's in can impose on others. I'm mostly here for the godly equilibrium, which I imagine requires divine conflict (either diplomatic or overt)--otherwise if anyone tried making mortals, their enemies would plane shift over to kill them. (And if in leaving their warded sanctums they exposed themself to a counterattack--well, that's gods excitingly gunning for each other.)

This is why we need to have this discussion about what we want. At this point, it looks like what you want to run is an arena game where each of us creates our own arena, and we can choose to attack each other before their area is ended. Being clear about this helps people choose if this is the game that they want to play and build characters designed for this.

With the way you've presented it, it came across as also having elements of a Lords of Creation type of game. This is a very different type of game and will often attract different players and different characters. If you put a character who is designed around one element in another game it's going to go bad. If you have a player that wants one type of game then they aren't going to be satisfied with the other type of game.

My post ...

Philo Pharynx wrote:
I'm not planning on a super-turbo-instakill build either. Perhaps we players could make a gentlecreatures's agreement not to focus on rocket tag. ... Perhaps instead we could agree that the first death is more of a warning. I'm reminded of Steven Brust's Jhereg series. The main character starts as an assassin in a world where resurrection magic is commonly available. Most of his kills are temporary inconveniences, but there are ways to make it permanent.

... is about game type. It makes sense in a Lords-of-creation type game where people want to play a game of proxies and bluffs. It doesn't make sense in the Rockettag Memorial Arena where half of the characters die before they even get to take one action in the game.

This is why we need you to be clear about what game you are offering. You have been honest about not being a good communicator. That's why we're trying to help you. Because this really should be worked out before people work on characters. Personally I don't mind working on a high-level build for a game I don't play, but it's a huge investment for other people.


I'm in the same boat as Philo. I love making a build under theoretical situations/conditions, and making mechanics fit the fluff as my mind crafts it (and vice versa, do the mechanics fit the fluff?). I have hero lab and such with a good base of knowledge of PF1e; I enjoyed the crafting of what I have so far, so even if this game stalls out, it was an enjoyable process building the entity I did. If I could take this build into the WOTR game I'm running I would as a player and have a ball with it.

This is in theory a very different game, and parts of it are going to need some structure from a GM. If I go quiet in the cosmos and start crafting like crazy and in the span of a year have everything I could desire, another player could focus a century on raising a civilization in their image.


Noodle Witch wrote:
That's a bit disquieting. I'm not sure why a roleplaying game with oppositional characters would stall out where a game of Risk doesn't, could you describe the phenomena?

Philo made a few valid points above, but he missed what I believe might be the biggest and possibly most important one:

A game of RISK(or computer game like Command and Conquer or Age of Empires) is played in person, in real time. You're involved and invested in that game, in that moment. Even if the game takes place over a few sessions, you can still be hype as heck to gather your friends, sit around the table with some snacks, and battle it out for the fate of the world.

One of play by post's biggest strengths can also be it's biggest weakness: There's no set time to play, and thus, you might have a lot to catch up on.

If somebody is *slammed* with work, or they get sick, or their kid needs their help most of the night, and they come back to a half dozen or more massively long posts, they might decide to to skip catching up till the next day. Which can be fine, I've done that plenty myself, but sometimes, you just get burned out reading several short stories, that might not have anything to do with you and so you quit the game.(Not me personally, but I've seen it happen before).

There's also the possibility somebody just gets bored, cuz things just aren't interesting enough. In a standard D&D/PF game, there's generally an overarching plot, with at least semi defined goals. The GM tells their story, and helps guide the players towards those goals. The best players also have their own goals, aspirations, and desires. Players tend to usually have an expectation of what the game is gonna be: If a GM is running Rise of the Runelords, you generally know what to expect.

Games like this rely mostly on other players to tell the stories, and to be engaging, interesting, and entertaining enough to keep everybody else playing.

And to be blunt, some people suck at that aspect. They're great players, and are awesome to have at your 'table', but they're terrible storytellers. Which is fine. After all, you need players to play your game.

Again, I'm not saying this to trash on your idea, or this type of game. I actually *love* big world building games, but a GM-less one does present a lot of problems that need solutions *before* the game starts.


Philo Pharynx wrote:
Noodle Witch wrote:
andreww wrote:

I have a few rules questions:

1. Can we have used wish or miracle to increase stats before the game starts.

1) Yes (or so soon after beginning as to be equivalent),

So this is a change from the normal ABP rules? That doesn't allow stat boosts with wishing. "and wish and similar spells never grant

inherent bonuses to ability scores."

But we do have 23 legendary gifts that can be spent on inherent bonuses to stats.

Oh, I hadn't realised that. I shall amend.


When I said instakill, I didn't mean through damage, or save or die type effects. I'm talking about "if this person considers me an ally, they get deleted, not even divine interference can bring them back," type instakill. I don't mind if the evoker brings down the wrath of god against me, or the necromancer enervates me to death, that's par for the course. What I meant was totally cheesing the other player to the point where they don't even get to play the game. And that's anti-fun, for me at least.

All of that being said, that was assuming it was sandboxy at all. If it's just a giant free for all, than the ignore what I just said. Cheese is kind of expected in those kind of games. But for politics/RP, I think that the suggestion of a gentlecreatures agreement sounds good.


I'm super curious, how does that work? I looked up MotHH, and saw True Sacrifice, but that affects the Monk only. How are you turning that into an attack vs another player? Kensai(assuming you mean the Magus archetype) is all about being a badass with one specific weapon, so I don't see how that plays into it either.


Sensei, sorry! It's a stackable monk architype. But you're completely right, there is no synergy with Kensai!


Any updates?


Kazmanaught wrote:
Any updates?

Our GM is prepping for a conference so likely wont be posting for a week or so.

I do have a quick rules question, can the +5 enhancement bonus from armour attunement be applied to the Enduring Armour archmage path ability?

I may have become slightly over involved with this and be in the process of creating an entire pantheon!


Kazmanaught wrote:
Any updates?

I'm currently in an airport waiting for a connecting flight! I'll be busy until the 5th around.

andreww wrote:
I do have a quick rules question, can the +5 enhancement bonus from armour attunement be applied to the Enduring Armour archmage path ability?

My impulse is to say yes, since it's not like Enduring Armor is very strong for a Path Ability, but I've a bit of a headache and don't want to look up the RAW.

andreww wrote:
I may have become slightly over involved with this and be in the process of creating an entire pantheon!

Neat! Be sure to show me when they're done.


Noodle Witch wrote:
My impulse is to say yes, since it's not like Enduring Armor is very strong for a Path Ability, but I've a bit of a headache and don't want to look up the RAW.

Personally I would say no as enduring armour at this level is already equivalent to +4 full plate. However, if you are prepared to allow it I wont complain. It does make unarmoured combatants exceptionally tanky.


andreww wrote:
Noodle Witch wrote:
My impulse is to say yes, since it's not like Enduring Armor is very strong for a Path Ability, but I've a bit of a headache and don't want to look up the RAW.
Personally I would say no as enduring armour at this level is already equivalent to +4 full plate. However, if you are prepared to allow it I wont complain. It does make unarmoured combatants exceptionally tanky.

Isn't Enduring Armor an Archmage ability? If you really wanna play a tanky mage, I feel allowing it to stack isn't that game breaking. It's an AC bonus, like Mage Armor, so you couldn't wear normal armor, and then also have Enduring Armor.


Monkeygod wrote:
andreww wrote:
Noodle Witch wrote:
My impulse is to say yes, since it's not like Enduring Armor is very strong for a Path Ability, but I've a bit of a headache and don't want to look up the RAW.
Personally I would say no as enduring armour at this level is already equivalent to +4 full plate. However, if you are prepared to allow it I wont complain. It does make unarmoured combatants exceptionally tanky.
Isn't Enduring Armor an Archmage ability? If you really wanna play a tanky mage, I feel allowing it to stack isn't that game breaking. It's an AC bonus, like Mage Armor, so you couldn't wear normal armor, and then also have Enduring Armor.

I agree. There are so many ways to get AC bonuses. This is part of the baseline of the game. They spent one of their mythic path abilities on it. There's lots of other cool mythic paths they could have taken.

Scarab Sages

Pathfinder Rulebook, Starfinder Society Subscriber

I'm interested in presenting a mystic theurge as a neutral God of magic.


Well, do send me a PM if this thread starts back up again, I would be interested in something of the like :)


Ya'll should come check out the thread I created, that was partially inspired by this. There's a 'Lords of Creation' option:

Crazy game ideas

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