The Gaming Den

The spheres do have a halfway decent shifter in their line-up, or at least I've been told, I'm not a huge fan of Spheres really.

The discussion on the Shifter is still going on, with the only official stance I can see from paizo is the same customer service manager popping it to try and keep control of the thread. Looks like even Seifer left. Well, now to see if Potions and Poisons continue the latest trend.

Longes wrote:Another build question.

Let's say I'd like to be a shadow (umbral) bloodline fetchling sorcerer focusing on being stealthy and illusion/shadow magic. The image I have in my mind is a rogue-like sneaky git with magic, leveraging the fetchling's 50% dodge in the shadow for combat survivability. Wayang would be sneakier, but fetchlings can get human favored class bonus which is extra spells known. How do I go about this? I'm thinking of Spell Focus Illusion, Tenebrous Spell/Umbral Spell/Grasping Shadows metamagic line. Maybe Shadow Gambit? What else? How do I improve my gishiness and is it even worth doing? What about archetypes? Seeker would add rogue trap handling, but it seems like being a False Priest is better to spontaneously cast from divine scrolls at level 9.

Kotomine Kirei Priest is tied to Razmir or whoever the fuck if you're playing in Golarion, so keep that in mind. Improving gishiness is pointless without Psychic Bloodline, but you could be cheeky and VMC Rogue to one-side qualify for Arcane Trickster at high-mid level. Seeker's a decent archetype on its own, like Tattooed Sorcerer.

Going super deep into the Shadow Shadow Bo Badow metamagic chain seems very costly for very little; remember you don't have a metamagic salve like Arcane Bloodline as Shadow. Mage Tattoo gets you the CL buff faster, and by the time you get the Entangling Darkness part of the metamagic chain up, Shadow Bloodline grants the ability to you as an Arcana.

Mask_De_H wrote:

Longes wrote:Another build question.

Let's say I'd like to be a shadow (umbral) bloodline fetchling sorcerer focusing on being stealthy and illusion/shadow magic. The image I have in my mind is a rogue-like sneaky git with magic, leveraging the fetchling's 50% dodge in the shadow for combat survivability. Wayang would be sneakier, but fetchlings can get human favored class bonus which is extra spells known. How do I go about this? I'm thinking of Spell Focus Illusion, Tenebrous Spell/Umbral Spell/Grasping Shadows metamagic line. Maybe Shadow Gambit? What else? How do I improve my gishiness and is it even worth doing? What about archetypes? Seeker would add rogue trap handling, but it seems like being a False Priest is better to spontaneously cast from divine scrolls at level 9.

Kotomine Kirei Priest is tied to Razmir or whoever the fuck if you're playing in Golarion, so keep that in mind. Improving gishiness is pointless without Psychic Bloodline, but you could be cheeky and VMC Rogue to one-side qualify for Arcane Trickster at high-mid level. Seeker's a decent archetype on its own, like Tattooed Sorcerer.

Going super deep into the Shadow Shadow Bo Badow metamagic chain seems very costly for very little; remember you don't have a metamagic salve like Arcane Bloodline as Shadow. Mage Tattoo gets you the CL buff faster, and by the time you get the Entangling Darkness part of the metamagic chain up, Shadow Bloodline grants the ability to you as an Arcana.

Why specifically Psychic Bloodline? Is it because its arcana makes your magic psychic so no spell failure and somatic components? You can also get that by having an Esoteric Dragon bloodline.

The biggest cheese I found so far is being an exploiter wizard, taking Bloodline Development exploit and dipping one level into the crossblooded sorcerer. You lose one level of wizard spellcasting, but in exchange your wizard levels stack with sorcerer levels for the purposes of bloodline powers. At which point you can take Dragon (Occult Dragon)/Orc crossblooded sorc and have psychic spellcasting, +1 damage per die to every damaging spell, and all the melee goodness of the Orc bloodline powers. I'm not sure if it'd be better to gish with this or go blaster wizard.

The 1 level sorc can even be tattoed for free Varisian Tattoo and familiar, or False Priest for False Focus and questionable interaction with Bloodline Development. If rule -2 is not in play - you can get spontaneous divine spells on level 9.

Longes wrote:
Why specifically Psychic Bloodline? Is it because its arcana makes your magic psychic so no spell failure and somatic components? You can also get that by having an Esoteric Dragon bloodline.

Psychic Bloodline makes all your spells count as Psychic, not just the cherry-picked ones of Occult Dragon, IIRC.

saithorthepyro wrote:The spheres do have a halfway decent shifter in their line-up, or at least I've been told, I'm not a huge fan of Spheres really.

The discussion on the Shifter is still going on, with the only official stance I can see from paizo is the same customer service manager popping it to try and keep control of the thread. Looks like even Seifer left. Well, now to see if Potions and Poisons continue the latest trend.

Just to be clear, I was meaning Tome Spheres

Prak wrote:

saithorthepyro wrote:The spheres do have a halfway decent shifter in their line-up, or at least I've been told, I'm not a huge fan of Spheres really.

The discussion on the Shifter is still going on, with the only official stance I can see from paizo is the same customer service manager popping it to try and keep control of the thread. Looks like even Seifer left. Well, now to see if Potions and Poisons continue the latest trend.

Just to be clear, I was meaning Tome Spheres

There are others?

What is the deal with the afterlife in Golarion?
As far as I understand it, in Faerun being Evil was a valid life choice that leads to an afterlife of partying in hell and not to eternal damnation. But I can't quite understand if this is the case in Golarion. Diabolist class and Damnation feats talk about you being damned and suffering in hell, Asmodeus explicitly hates humans mortals and women and wants them all to disappear for not being Lawful enough. Other evil gods also rarely describe the afterlife and rewards for their followers.

It just seems like in Golarion you are Evil in life and then you get raped by Fiendish dickwolves for all eternity. Is that really the case?

Yeah, pretty much, though each place is terrible for its own slightly different reasons.

Hell gets you tortured for "an eternity", except that if you're worthy and can bear it you turn into a devil instead, and if you aren't you got turned into a literal hell brick. So not really an eternity at all.

The Abyss turns you into a demon maggot that gets hunted down as a delicacy and/or currency. If you eat enough demon poop before you die again, you get to turn into a demon.

If you're a petitioner in Abaddon you get hunted by daemons, and if you live you turn into a daemon. Because Paizo ran out of ideas so they just copy-pasted the Abyss.

It's also worth mentioning that capital C Chaotic souls get randomly scattered among Chaotic planes for some reason- so if your character is Chaotic Good they might just show up in the afterlife as a demon maggot anyway because your GM didn't like them. Oh, and also you get all of your memories wiped when you die so the whole exercise is sort of pointless anyway, beyond getting to decide which plane gets another servant/to literally devour your "essential energies".

So... why do people worship evil gods then? Like, even if you want to have a lawful and organized society, what's the benefit of choosing Asmodeus over Abadar?

I think it's supposed to be power now for payment later, but I'm not sure that Asmodeus actually does anything for you...

Ideally, that's how it should work. Promising your soul to a fiend gives you awesome powers, and if you're smart and lucky you skip out on payment (like by becoming a lich and never truly dying).

Longes wrote:So... why do people worship evil gods then? Like, even if you want to have a lawful and organized society, what's the benefit of choosing Asmodeus over Abadar?

The Petitioner that gets made out of your soul is not meaningfully "you." It doesn't remember or care about any of the people or things you do. And if you get resurrected, you don't remember any of the good or bad things that happened to it while you were being dead. Basing your decisions on what to do on what will happen to the petitioner that is created when you die makes as much sense as basing your choice of religion on whether you want your body to be eaten by vultures, fish, or worms.

And Paizo being Paizo, worshipping various demon lords and arch devils is a good way to get mad crazy piles of special powers.

-Username17

Korwin wrote:

Prak wrote:

saithorthepyro wrote:The spheres do have a halfway decent shifter in their line-up, or at least I've been told, I'm not a huge fan of Spheres really.

The discussion on the Shifter is still going on, with the only official stance I can see from paizo is the same customer service manager popping it to try and keep control of the thread. Looks like even Seifer left. Well, now to see if Potions and Poisons continue the latest trend.

Just to be clear, I was meaning Tome Spheres

There are others?

There is Spheres of Power the Magic Replacement System through a third party, and it also has a Shifter class that manages to be an actual shifter.

FrankTrollman wrote:

Longes wrote:So... why do people worship evil gods then? Like, even if you want to have a lawful and organized society, what's the benefit of choosing Asmodeus over Abadar?

The Petitioner that gets made out of your soul is not meaningfully "you." It doesn't remember or care about any of the people or things you do. And if you get resurrected, you don't remember any of the good or bad things that happened to it while you were being dead. Basing your decisions on what to do on what will happen to the petitioner that is created when you die makes as much sense as basing your choice of religion on whether you want your body to be eaten by vultures, fish, or worms.

And Paizo being Paizo, worshipping various demon lords and arch devils is a good way to get mad crazy piles of special powers.

-Username17

It's slightly worse than that. Golarion has a special rule that if you actually become a Petitioner (and the amount of time that takes is never actually laid out) you're no longer a valid target for resurrection.

Longes wrote:So... why do people worship evil gods then? Like, even if you want to have a lawful and organized society, what's the benefit of choosing Asmodeus over Abadar?

You seem to be assuming that Asmodeus tells the truth of the afterlife in a crystal clear way to his worshipers.

And even then just like real world people do drug overdoses and gamble and whatnot, fantasy people may simply choose to ruin their future in return for a moment of enjoyment.

maglag wrote:

Longes wrote:So... why do people worship evil gods then? Like, even if you want to have a lawful and organized society, what's the benefit of choosing Asmodeus over Abadar?

You seem to be assuming that Asmodeus tells the truth of the afterlife in a crystal clear way to his worshipers.

And even then just like real world people do drug overdoses and gamble and whatnot, fantasy people may simply choose to ruin their future in return for a moment of enjoyment.

You seem to be assuming that Pelor doesn't tell the truth of the afterlife in a crystal clear way to people he wants to convert from the worship of Asmodeus.

Or, apparently, the worship of Corellon Larethian.

(no I haven't checked that these are the correct Pathfinder knockoffs of "an NG god" and "the CG god of elves who somehow isn't by definition a racist shit")

FrankTrollman wrote:

Longes wrote:So... why do people worship evil gods then? Like, even if you want to have a lawful and organized society, what's the benefit of choosing Asmodeus over Abadar?

The Petitioner that gets made out of your soul is not meaningfully "you." It doesn't remember or care about any of the people or things you do. And if you get resurrected, you don't remember any of the good or bad things that happened to it while you were being dead. Basing your decisions on what to do on what will happen to the petitioner that is created when you die makes as much sense as basing your choice of religion on whether you want your body to be eaten by vultures, fish, or worms.

I dunno, I think basing my choice of religion on wanting my organs to be harvested when I die for the use of those I leave behind without them being encouraged to expedite the process is a valid life choice.

Omegonthesane wrote:You seem to be assuming that Pelor doesn't tell the truth of the afterlife in a crystal clear way to people he wants to convert from the worship of Asmodeus.

Or, apparently, the worship of Corellon Larethian.

(no I haven't checked that these are the correct Pathfinder knockoffs of "an NG god" and "the CG god of elves who somehow isn't by definition a racist shit")

Pelor = Sarenrae, Corellon Larethian = no one I remember in Golarion (there's a CN goddess with a lot of elf worshipers, but she doesn't look like Corellon at all. She's the goddess of sex and vengeance. She's not racist, she doesn't want you to kill orcs, she wants you to have sex with them instead - except if you have some vengeance to accomplish).

Anyway, the Good gods of Golarion are complete assholes. It's cannon since an infamous AP. So no, I don't think they tell the truth: they beat the shit out of you until you worship them (but you should worship the CN goddess of sex or the CE goddess of sex with hentai monsters instead).

GâtFromKI wrote:Anyway, the Good gods of Golarion are complete assholes. It's cannon since an infamous AP.

Do tell.

Wrath of the Righteous - Book 5

Iomedae meets the players in person and acts like a big dick NPC. I believe the characterization is that if the PCs aren't sufficiently ingratiating, she hits them for damage. Also if they can't pass a religion test?

Discussion here

I summed up the problems with the adventure in this shameless plug.

Chamomile wrote:I summed up the problems with the adventure in this shameless plug.

So in that post, you seem to treat "being the goddess of honor" as implying "adhering to the precepts of honor culture". That makes sense to me. But does Paizo indicate that that is what "being the goddess of honor" means to them?

Omegonthesane wrote:

maglag wrote:

Longes wrote:So... why do people worship evil gods then? Like, even if you want to have a lawful and organized society, what's the benefit of choosing Asmodeus over Abadar?

You seem to be assuming that Asmodeus tells the truth of the afterlife in a crystal clear way to his worshipers.

And even then just like real world people do drug overdoses and gamble and whatnot, fantasy people may simply choose to ruin their future in return for a moment of enjoyment.

You seem to be assuming that Pelor doesn't tell the truth of the afterlife in a crystal clear way to people he wants to convert from the worship of Asmodeus.

Or, apparently, the worship of Corellon Larethian.

(no I haven't checked that these are the correct Pathfinder knockoffs of "an NG god" and "the CG god of elves who somehow isn't by definition a racist shit")

Besides the "good gods are also assholes in PF" bit already pointed, what makes you think somebody who already worships Asmodeus is gonna believe the "fake news" from his rival gods?

Remember, right now we are living in a world where somebody like Trump got millions of people to vote for him, and said people had internet and whatnot to check facts.

Blicero wrote:

Chamomile wrote:I summed up the problems with the adventure in this shameless plug.

So in that post, you seem to treat "being the goddess of honor" as implying "adhering to the precepts of honor culture". That makes sense to me. But does Paizo indicate that that is what "being the goddess of honor" means to them?

It doesn't matter. She zaps you with 5d6 sonic damage for getting a trivia question wrong. There's no way that's honorable.

I mean, technically, if she says that's what she's going to do and then she keeps her word, it would be honorable.

But that's not what this is.

maglag wrote:

Omegonthesane wrote:

maglag wrote:
You seem to be assuming that Asmodeus tells the truth of the afterlife in a crystal clear way to his worshipers.

And even then just like real world people do drug overdoses and gamble and whatnot, fantasy people may simply choose to ruin their future in return for a moment of enjoyment.

You seem to be assuming that Pelor doesn't tell the truth of the afterlife in a crystal clear way to people he wants to convert from the worship of Asmodeus.

Or, apparently, the worship of Corellon Larethian.

(no I haven't checked that these are the correct Pathfinder knockoffs of "an NG god" and "the CG god of elves who somehow isn't by definition a racist shit")

Besides the "good gods are also assholes in PF" bit already pointed, what makes you think somebody who already worships Asmodeus is gonna believe the "fake news" from his rival gods?

Remember, right now we are living in a world where somebody like Trump got millions of people to vote for him, and said people had internet and whatnot to check facts.

It's more than believable that Asmodeus actually espouses a doctrine of cruel meritocratic heirarchy, that people who worship him become devils when they die after a spiritual scourging, and that people actually follow him based on that. Both evil fascist fucks, and people who just like that they can look up a handy chart of who is above them, and what they will do to them if they don't show up with thirty pounds of turnips at harvest time.

Honor is cultural. Unless it's spelled out somewhere what honor is in Golarion, then it could be almost anything. It's not a stretch to think that honor includes humans offering fawning submission to divine authority, I see that attitude in a lot of D&D material.

This is not to say that the encounter isn't a pile of leper diapers just for shitting on the PCs. Indeed the goddess herself was setting autofail as soon as the authors forgot to write an honor code for her to represent. Without that, she's just the goddess of random Klingon rage.



The justice criticism is a much stronger case.