Pathfinder

Hey, as long as they can still get drunk eventually, I approve.

Yeah, faun can get drunk. It's just that they're likely getting sloshed long after everyone else is blackout drunk

In other news: Working on another pantheon for my world. This one being the old Kwarazanite human pantheon. Now "old" in this case means "their original pantheon" as opposed to the more "modern" gods that are commonly worshipped outside of the Kwarazanite's two big countries. The Kwarazanite humans of those countries are based on Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia.

Issue is this: I'm kind of having issues thinking of ideas. I had an idea for a dualistic goddess related to snakes and venom, with one "destroyer" aspect and the other a "rebirth" aspect^note because Snakes are used as symbols for infinity and rebirth, but I'm not sure how to do that well^note Maybe something like how Gozreh and Nethys are dual-natured? . I'm also having issues coming up with other members of said Pantheon (obviously there'll be a River deity and stuff like that). I'm already looking at both 3.5's Deities and Demigods and Pathfinder for their entries on the Egyptian Pantheon, as well as Sandstorm's deity entries for inspiration.

But yeah, anyone got any ideas?

edited 5th Feb '17 5:02:46 PM by BlackSunNocturne

Not off the top of my head but maybe buried in here might be something.

So, religion. What I decided on was that each race, in fact, has a different style of religion.

• Elves

This setting of mine doesn't have any "explicit" gods, outsiders with actually divine rankings. The elves interacted with the next best thing: Non-divine ranking outsiders, specifically angels, fiends and fae, depending on the subrace. In fact, they built their ancient empires off the power of their respective outsiders. The High Elven Empire was angel powered, the Dark Elven Empire was fiend powered and Wood Elven Empire was fae powered.

The Empire of the high and the dark elves abruptly collapsed way back when, in large part because their respective outsiders betrayed them. The angels thought that the eladrin had grown too haughty and proud and withdrew their favor. The drow learned why relying on beings Made of Evil is a bad idea. The Empire of the Wood Elves was always a vestigial attachment to the other two. The fae never really abandoned the sylvan but their empire declined and dwindled to nothing after the other two fell.

The reactions to this varied.

• Drow

Before the fall of their empire, the drow were well aware that the entities they dealt with were not nice and bad news. There wasn't any worship here, no. The drow had an attitude of "We got this under control." The core religion of the drow is now The Watchers Of The Abyss, the "Dark Watchers", dedicated to the eradication of all fiendish element.The fall of their empire has largely, in fact, not changed their attitude. Their "control" just involves a lot more violence and extreme prejudice.

The Heralds Of The Nine, the "Dark Heralds", perhaps represent the minor sect of the drow deeply shaken by the mistakes of their ancestors. They no longer seek to control the denizens of the lower planes but have given themselves wholly to those beings. They represent fanatical diabolists, as opposed to more common opportunistic one.

• Eladrin

Like the drow, the eladrin outlook could not be changed by something so sudden as the collapse of their empire. It couldn't weather it or shatter completely. The weathering option, like most opinions on a grand scale, was the favorable one, and the eladrin continued on thinking "We're the good guys on the good side."

Before the fall of their empire, the eladrin poised themselves as mortal peers to their angelic benefactors. Certainly, they knew the score, but the angels were not worshiped. Nowadays, the majority of eladrin do, taking on a fawning, reverential view of the half-remembered, distant celestial figures paramount to their people's glory days. They formed The Listeners Of The Seven, the "High Listeners".

That minority descendant of those shaken and shattered by the fall see it differently. They saw what being the good guys got them, where siding with the embodiment of benevolence put them. The force and power of "good" is a deceitful subversive thing out to tear the backbone of the world. They are the ones who see the truth and will wipe world clean of angelic taint. This is The Church To A Heaven Raining Blood, the "High Slayers".

• Sylvan

The slow decline of their empire did to the sylvan what the sudden collapse couldn't to their cousins, it changed their outlooks. Their people form the core of the arborealist movement, inclusive worshipers of fae and "native outsiders", especially those of a environmentally natural bent. They welcome individuals of other races into the fold, to dance and sing with them among the trees.

A minority sect, the fairy faith, still exists which call for racial superiority and exclusive reverence of the fae above other, lesser, spirits.

• Halflings "Brownies"

No explicit divinities have ever made themselves known, but that doesn't stop the brownies from making gods up. Both types of brownies, "domesticated" and "wild", share this. They rather the thing they worship is not someone they can actually meet. Their gods can be safely tucked away with them or packed up and carried. For those groups that settle down, there's a tendency for their pantheon to "wander out" and start getting worshiped by other races, especially humans, which is something that brownies regard with some bemusement.

There are theoligans that spend their lives tracking the evolution and origin of the deities worshipped by the brownies. As villages and caravans merge and split, historically settle down or pack up, gods have been similarly merges and split, picked up and abandoned. The Four-Fold Majesty is a quartet of goddesses dedicated to health, safety, community and death; Hemorrha, Segula, Merina and Nul, respectively. The non-brownie cult dedicated to them is widespread throughout the world and highly popular.

• Goblins

Goblins are philosophers more than any kind of worshippers. The unified name for their relgions is The Perfact Path, and they the "Path Walkers", a philosophy that will lead adherents to spiritual enlightenment. The different goblin subraces disagree on how to go about this though. The imps, the red goblins, believe that wordly experience and wild living will unshackle their souls from its fleshy confines. The gnomes, the blue goblins, believe that rigorous experimentation and intense self-discipline will lead them to mastery of the spirit. The hobs, the green goblins, believe in trying both those things and everything else too, just to see what works.

Goblins, especially hobs, are pretty inclusive in their belief. They invite members of other races to come, sit and ponder the Perfect Path with them. If nothing else, another perspective might generate a new means of walking the Path, something the hobs are usually to eager to try.

• Beast-Folk

Historically, the origins of beast-folk are known. They are the descendants of animals imbued with humanoid essence, made to walk on two feet, to talk and thing as humanoids do, at the whim of some long ago mage. It turn, they have become animists, their belief imbuing every part of the world with humanoid traits, small gods that can be dealt with, respected or revered. Obviously, the greater the object, the greater the spirit and the better their treatment.

Arborealism often overlaps with this, and beast-folk and sylvan have found common ground here. However, where the sylvan will only revere the nature spirit that reveals itself, the beast-folk commonly assume everything has one, even if they don't see it.

• Orcs

Orcs are, very simply, ancestor worshippers. They carry bits of the dead with them wherever they go, carefully bury the rest and leave offerings constantly. They don't exactly have "converts", as their ancestors are their ancestors, but they never exactly stopped someone from adopting their ways and worshipping their own ancestors.

Orcs, second to humans, tend to adopt religions of other races. Most don't drop their ancestor worship but mingle the two into a single spiritual practice. The philosophy of the Perfect Path is popular. Some have imitated the High Listeners, believing their ancestors must walk with angels now and worshipping both. One orc community that suffered at the hands of fiends were accepted as Dark Watcher. Animism and arborealism are the most common.

• Dwarves

Dwarves combine the beliefs of orcs and elves, worshipping their ancestors and a group of outsiders, particularly elementals, depending on the clan. These two things are seamlessly one, as an elemental sprouts from the body of a dwarf who has died of old age. They believe the souls of their dead carry on to the appropriate elemental plane as their afterlife and revere all elementals as such.

• Dragons

Quite a few dragons prefer to be worshipped. All of them bow their heads in respect towards figures in their historical lore that, well, stood out enough to forever be imprinted in their lore and history. Bahamut and Tiamat, supposedly the Adam and Eve of their race, are the biggest ones. In anything, dragons revere legends.

Philosophically, those two represent the twin aspects of dragon-kind. Platinum Bahamut is the creator, patiently shaping the societies of lesser beings over his long life, adding to his ever growing horde, creating objects of wonder to add to his collection or send out into the world to increase his notoriety. Five-Headed Bahamut is the destroyer, bearing the destructive breath weapon of all five dragon races, devouring great warriors, laying waste to kingdoms and armies at a whim.

• Humans

Humans, a mishmash hodge podge of the blood of every race, tend to be the same with religion. Hobs and sylvans readily accept them into their fold, and outside their progenitors the brownie gods find the most exposure here. From the drow and eladrin, a hodge podge of their respective splinter sects have formed among humans with varying justifications, worshipping/exterminating angels/fiends. Normally, it's angels good, fiends bad, but a few cults in the vein of "Outsiders Out!" and "I for one welcome our extraplanar overlords" have formed.

Mostly, it depends geography. Humans settled near duegar holds may revere the element of earth, those with territories crossing with orcs will likely adopt ancestor worship and intermingling with the beast-folk will have a lot of animists. Live near a dragon, probably worship that dragon and/or the characters in the dragon's stories. Many of these dragon cults mistakenly equat Behamut with good and Tiamat with evil.

Well, to be fair, halflings really got shafted as of the conversion to Third Edition, let alone its iterations (which, of course, includes Pathfinder). Other races got tweaks to fit various roles very well, but halflings? Oof. One thing in particular that killed them was the speed reduction for small races to 20 feet. This doesn't hurt gnomes as bad because they work well as wizards, so you can just stand still and toss fireballs. But when you're specialized to be a rogue (which is already infamously a very hampered class in Third Edition and especially Pathfinder), but several factors (including reduced weapon damage and reduced speed) are working against you, few people are going to play them. Also, if you're going to make a halfling into a caster, they work better as sorcerers, to everyone's chagrin. Even the one niche where the race still works well (divine casting) is better filled by other races (dwarves can armor up and not dip below 20 ft/round movement, elves can do the nimble divine build easier).

In some ways, fixing the halfling means fixing the rogue and also synergizing abilities more. I don't know if they're willing to do that.

For the faun race... well, various myths do have them getting rip-roaring drunk. I'd basically say that they get the same bonus to fort saves that dwarves do, for much the same reason.

Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.

To everyone's chagrin? Do I detect distaste for sorcerer the best duck-pun-in-finnish related spontatenous core book caster class?

It's not that sorcerer is a bad class - it's just that it's hobbled outside of one specific build compared to wizards. This has always been true since sorcerers were added to the game system. I'm not saying that it can't be fun to play a sorcerer, or even that sorcerers are a weak class (both of those are in fact emphatically false). But the way the game is built encourages you to build the casting classes that halflings aren't suited for. Note that this applies to both arcane and divine casters - just as the best arcane class for halflings is the sorcerer, the best divine class for halflings is oracle. And in both cases, the class halflings fit into is nice, but the system encourages building away from it.

Of course, there is one build where the halfling does have decent synergy - the ranged bard build. After all, there's a reason that the halflings among the iconics are mostly the bard and the class that's all but officially the reskinned version of the bard. (Yes, there is also the iconic arcanist, which is really an avenue Paizo should develop further - I like the idea of lore-focused secret-finders for halflings.) And honestly, even then, halflings are only about as good at said build as elves (frankly, speaking as someone running an elven bard, the whole "free proficiency in longbow" is almost cheating). And, for that matter, only marginally better at it than gnomes. And speaking of, even if you did want to make the mini-bard, you're more likely going to go gnome because of the various perks gnomes get (ooh, that bonus to illusions...).

In some respects, I think they're trying to do a similar Jack of All Trades theme with them similar to humans, but they're hit too hard by Master of None, and it doesn't help that few people develop them in the fluff.

Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.

Eh, if you ask me pathfinder is best played with unoptimal characters, at least the official campaigns if gm isn't able to optimize them further to challenge the specific party brought to the table Though it does require few homerules to make it more fun.

Like, my home rules are to give certain "must have" feats for free(assuming character reaches prequisites otherwise) because otherwise they are false choices or traps. Like, pretty much every martial needs power attack since game math will assume that, eventually if character doesn't have it they can't keep up with higher cr enemies, so having it as free feat if you get to prequisites is one of my policies. Another such examples are point blank shot(its not too powerful feat, but its feat tax for most ranged builds so yeah) and better versions of two weapon fighting(so you have to sacrifice two more feats if you want to build dual wielding character. That sucks). I also think having variation of automatic bonus progression where attunement isn't used, but deflection/resistance/natural armor/physical&mental stat increases bonuses are kept helps with that.

So yeah, I prefer to use optional rules that help eliminating false choices(aka the ones that game's math expects from all pcs and if they don't stick to it, they will have really hard time keeping up) that don't make game too unbalanced. Though I think with optimization everything becomes unbalanced anyway unless gm is master at that too and I'm certainly not xP

edited 6th Feb '17 10:35:09 AM by SpookyMask

Mkay then. Well, the issue is that the Dwarf save bonus is only for races with a +2 Con mod

Also regarding halflings and rogues: Uhhh... Unchained Rogue? Like, it's miles better than base rogue, and is probably the best Unchained class they made.

But yeah. It's not the mechanics of halflings I'm having issues with, it's the fluff for them that I can't figure out.

edited 6th Feb '17 12:21:36 PM by BlackSunNocturne

Hmm... what stat adjustments are you giving fauns? Because honestly, if you're going with the standard "+2 to a physical stat and +2 to a mental stat" layout, I'm not sure which physical stat makes more sense than giving them a Constitution buff. Legends have them long-lived, able to drink with very few long-term effects, and they're never said to be extraordinarily strong or quick. I would have suspected that they would have been almost like inverted dwarves (at least, along the mental axis) - +2 constitution, +2 charisma, -2 wisdom (because poor decision-making is also something that goes into traditional stories).

Alternately, of course, you can just invoke GM fiat and say that they have the dwarven fort save bonus regardless - it's not exactly a Game-Breaker or even a Minmaxer's Delight.

For Unchained rogue... I think it's a bit much to say that it's miles better. Don't get me wrong; because rogue is the one class overhauled in Unchained that lost absolutely no class feature while gaining new ones, it's unquestionably better. The problem is that the new stuff that they added to rogue either scales very poorly (adding your dexterity modifier to damage sure helps early on, but if adding a +4 or +5 to your damage was all you needed to keep up, fighters wouldn't have been nailed as low-tier for years) or just didn't have nearly have as much punch as what other classes were getting (particularly what rogues could do with skill ranks). Rogue is more able to compete with other classes for skill monkey supremacy, but it's still a hobbled class - the Unchained version is only marginally better.

As for halfling niche... well, part of it is that the in-game niche does inform the statistical breakdown, but that also works in reverse - you can instead look at the mechanics of the race and figure out what in-game niche fits best for them. In that regard, it's still productive to look at what they can do by the rules.

Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.

I gave fauns this stat layout: +2 Dexterity, +2 Charisma, -2 Wisdom

But yeah, I could give the Faun the dwarf bonuses. However, looking at the rules for drinking, I found that there are NO Fortitude saves involved. Just "1 plus twice Con modifier" is the limit and then immediately sickened, no save. Uhhhh..... What

And that makes sense, yeah

Yeah, the drinking rules are kinda strict; I think it's a vestige of worrying about Moral Guardians (in this case, to not promote underage drinking). I always preferred to have a fort save after a number of drinks equal to your Constitution modifier (so those with a 10 or lower have to make them immediately) for each drink, and a cumulative +1 to the DC of each subsequent check (modified by any bonuses/penalties to resist poison). If someone's a dang fool enough to just down a bunch of drinks in a single go (like take five shots of tequila at once), they'll make the appropriate number of saves, all at the hardest DC (that much alcohol at once hits you fast). I get why they made the rules the way they did... I've just had enough instances of "I wanna do a drinking contest!" happen in-session that I've thrown together the above.

Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.

Yah. Pathfinder does include regional traits, but it also has a host of various human ethnicities that don't have any mechanical differences. Except for Azlanti.

Fanfiction I hate.

Yeah, the human alternate racial traits that Pathfinder has is how I build the ones for my human's ethnicities.

In other news. I'll soon be DM'ing two campaigns: One for my normal group (because we rebooted because of the Sheet Happened event^note TL;DR: Myth-Weavers had a massive data loss) which'll be teaching my girlfriend Pathfinder, and the other for my meatspace group... of six people, and all of them but one and me are not new to Pathfinder, this being their second campaign

Also, I realized with a 3rd Party weapon, you can totally play a Predator:

Claw Bracers
The claw bracer is a semi-rigid leather or metal bracer that fits around the wrist, sometimes with an extension that covers that back of the hand as well. Attached to the back of the bracer are two or three narrow steel blades, slightly curved at the tips. The blades are only sharp the first 3 inches of the blade (to lessen the chance of the wielder ending up with a self-inflicted wound). Claw bracers can be used individually or as a pair. If used as a pair, the wielder needs the Two-Weapon Fighting feat in order to do so effectively.

My only qualm is, once again, I get the feeling they left something out, because it doesn't seem like an Exotic Weapon, stats-wise:

Weapon	Cost	Dmg (S)	Dmg (M)	Critical	Range	Weight	Type	Special	Fighter Weapon Group
Claw bracer	20 gp	1d4	1d6	19-20/x2	—	1 lb.	S	—	Unstated, but I'd assume "close"

This is an Light Exotic Weapon? It doesn't even give a bonus to avoid being disarmed, even though logically it can only be disarmed if the wrist that its attached to was removed

edited 9th Feb '17 8:27:04 PM by BlackSunNocturne

I know the discussion moved on from Black Sun's desert religion thing while I was elsewhere, but if you're gonna have an Egyptian/Mesopotamian culture I'd definitely recommend doing some reading on Mesopotamian mythology for inspiration on their pantheon. If nothing else, stealing from a less commonly-used source than Egyptian mythology is basically the same thing as being original and creative, right?

On the dualistic goddess, personally I'd make her function mechanically as two different goddesses, a la Yondalla and Dalla Thaun from Races of the Wild.

@2588 Well, first, third-party, so YMMV right off the bat.

I mean, it's pretty obvious that this weapon exists to play Wolverine. The more things change, they more they stay the same.

I think the appropriate comparisons for this weapon are twofold - the spiked gauntlet (for the record, 5 gp, 1d3/1d4 piercing damage, simple light weapon) and the punching dagger (2 gp, 1d3/1d4 piercing, x3 critical, simple light weapon). After all, what this weapon is trying to do is basically be a more powerful mashup of the two.

It's worth noting, right off the bat, that a spiked gauntlet is explicitly unable to be disarmed, but a punching dagger can be. I think the logic as to why this weapon is able to be disarmed is because the attachment for it is a strap of some variety, as opposed to fully encasing the hand/arm. That part seems poorly written; I imagine that its construction would at least give a +2 to resist disarms. That said, to equalize things, the construction seems to favor thinner blades which tend to be more brittle, so I'd probably also give it a -2 to resist sunders.

Beyond that, the major thing that this weapon has over the previous two weapons is the increased damage - 1d4/1d6 is the step above what other weapons of similar construction and size do. And as I previously mentioned, anything that gets a boost above and beyond the standard for the weapon type generally needs Exotic Weapon Proficiency. The fact that there's dubious benefit in doing so is why EWP is frequently cited as a trap feat. Honestly, this case is a very extreme example - you could buy one of these claw bracers and spend Exotic Weapon Proficiency to use them. Or, for the same price, you could buy two short swords, take the Two-Weapon Fighting feat, and not only do you get a weapon that does the exact same type of damage, but you can draw them easier (or sheathe them if you want to go into town and not look like a deranged lunatic), get more attacks at once, and you'll find it much easier down the road to upgrade (compare the ease of finding shortswords that are made of special materials, are magical, or both with the ease of finding any such exotic weapon, particularly one that isn't a racial weapon like the orcish double axe).

Honestly, giving it the ability to resist disarms or making it a simple weapon doesn't really mitigate the central issue - it's just a substandard weapon choice overall.

Side note, after a deep dive into Ultimate Equipment, I found a more appropriate comparison - the pata. It's only 14 gp, does piercing instead of slashing, and has a x3 multiplier to criticals instead of a 19-20 range (fairly standard for the difference between slashing and piercing weapons, of course), but it's pretty much the same idea - a short sword blade mounded on the wrist and tied down. It also requires Exotic Weapon Proficiency (see above why I'd rather just have two shortswords), though it does have the added bonus of a +10 to resist disarms for being tied to the wrist (way better than what I suggested). If you really want to play Wolverine/a Predator, just use that and swap piercing/x3 with slashing/19-20. Just don't complain to me when some guy with two short swords messes you up.

Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.

Yeah, you've got a point. I mean, reading them makes me think they're supposed to be constructed similar to a Predator's wristblades, but... yeah.

Like, if I were to use these, I'd give them a feature of "cannot be disarmed"^note Simply because they would be mounted onto a special bracer mount, and give them a feature of spending a swift/move action to retract/extend the blades.

Also, regarding the EWP: That's what being a human with Military Tradition is for.

I did do some researching into it. Though here's some irony: Due to making some composites^note IE: Tiamat/Neith, some of them ended up mirroring Egyptian deities anyway. Go figure

So like... make two separate blocks for her or? 'cause this is what her set-up looks like right now:

Sharashsunu
(the Destroyer, Goddess of Destruction and Rebirth, Lady of the Golden Scales, Queen of Rebirth) Symbol: a black and gold winged snake circling a stylized eye Home Plane: (idk what the Kwarazanite Pantheon's home plane will be)
Alignment: True Neutral
Portfolio: Destruction, protection, rebirth
Worshipers: Kwarazanite humans
Cleric Alignments: NG, LN, N, CN, NE
Domains: Destruction, Healing, Protection, Scalykind, Strength
Subdomains: Defense, Ferocity, Rage, Restoration, Resurrection
Favored Weapon: Natural Weapon (Claw), Claw Bracer, Claw Razors
Sacred Animal: Snake

edited 10th Feb '17 10:04:12 AM by BlackSunNocturne

Should probably have another subdomain, as the general rule for deities is "four domains, four subdomains" for demigods and "five domains, six subdomains" for full deities.

Fanfiction I hate.

That's a rule? Well then, I've not been following that at all with many of my deities.

That and.... I've got no idea for another Subdomain for her. I was thinking Venom, but...

It's not a solid rule, more like a guideline. Veering from it for variant deity forms like having two fairly different aspects is hardly unreasonable.

It really depends on how separate you want to make the aspects. If you want it so people can be clerics of her in both aspects then one statblock works fine, but if you'd prefe that clerics have to devote themselves to either creation or destruction then having two would probably work better.

Blergh, is there anyone here who understands how monster statblocks work so I could get advice on how to turn quasit & 0hd race into vrocks stats wise and how to calculate cr for prestige classes?

Also on aspect thing, I'd guess Nyarlahotep is good guideline to check since all of his different masks have different deity info blocks

edited 1st May '17 10:53:52 PM by SpookyMask

So this confuses me Like I was under understanding because of that Survey on Obsidian's forum that they were developing something, but apparently not?

Weird.

I also finished up that deity I was confused on, as well as several of the other deities in the Kwarazanite pantheon. So, yay me?

Now I'm probably going to work on some of the other races. Not sure which I'm going to work on first though. Currently thinking on wood elves, etherkin or wolfkin.

edited 20th May '17 8:46:38 PM by BlackSunNocturne

My first level adventurers have to approach and scale an underground tower carved out of a stalagmite.

The current master of this tower is mad dwarf alchemist. He is not the first master of this tower and is not necessarily the designer of any or all of its dangers. There will definitely be goblins but he may have other minions.

I am considering surrounding the base with a minefield.

Any suggestions?

Don't actually do a minefield unless you want to kill them or make them go "...Nope, fuck this shit"