Talk to Ashiel About Anything Mark II

[Zilrax]

Never was an issue for me on such creatures. I do similar quite often with various species. Like got canine kobolds and reptile kobolds for example. Cus japan and west translated their appearances differently irl. So in mine the dogbolds are much more forthright, suck at engineering but love knowledge and are generally a lot more friendly. Reptile kobolds are still the usual you'd expect most part.

Though in a diffrent setting I made which was more steampunkish of sorts, Kobolds on the ground that everyone encounters are actually rather unusual. See I got thinking. A species with that weak a physique and constitution should not be surviving very well in underground regions on scraps, they wouldn't survive long enough to learn this engineering stuff. But you know if they're naturally from a place with low gravity and was pretty sterile, it'd make much more sense.

So kobolds are from sky cities where they serve cloud giants and such. And the kobolds on the ground are exiled criminals and political prisoners. Because the kobolds believe the surface is literally hell itself, all the kobolds down there have gone into hyper survivalist mode to survive this horrible hellscape they live in now.

[Ashiel]

Never was an issue for me on such creatures. I do similar quite often with various species. Like got canine kobolds and reptile kobolds for example. Cus japan and west translated their appearances differently irl. So in mine the dogbolds are much more forthright, suck at engineering but love knowledge and are generally a lot more friendly. Reptile kobolds are still the usual you'd expect most part.

Though in a diffrent setting I made which was more steampunkish of sorts, Kobolds on the ground that everyone encounters are actually rather unusual. See I got thinking. A species with that weak a physique and constitution should not be surviving very well in underground regions on scraps, they wouldn't survive long enough to learn this engineering stuff. But you know if they're naturally from a place with low gravity and was pretty sterile, it'd make much more sense.

So kobolds are from sky cities where they serve cloud giants and such. And the kobolds on the ground are exiled criminals and political prisoners. Because the kobolds believe the surface is literally hell itself, all the kobolds down there have gone into hyper survivalist mode to survive this horrible hellscape they live in now.

That's pretty cool. Honestly, this sort of thing is something I've found myself appreciating a lot more over the years. This thing being the refluffing or making narrative variants to distinguish certain creatures from one-another (such as the wolf men and hyena men gnolls I mentioned, or the reptilian or doglike kobold variants you mentioned).

[Zilrax]

I just noticed something. Why are plant type monsters immune to Polymorph effects? Somehow that's always slipped my notice. I mean immune to poison I sorta get even if it's silly. Mind affecting, eh, I've never been much a fan of that being a thing for anything capable of intelligence which msot plant critters are. And vermin for that matter. Bleed, sap. Makes sense. Stunning, eh I don't know why they're immune but it's not... Bad I guess? Paralysis, eh, same thing. Sleep? Sorta makes sense? But why POLYMORPPH?!

[Lemmy]

Gods... I hate summer...

Turns out that it's so hot that many works feel less than excited about the prospect of working. They are even less excited at the prospect of working while using "unnecessary" safety equipment... So guess who has to walk around the whole freaking worksite checking if everyone is wearing their IPE correctly...

I bet I'm the most popular guy in this place... -.-'

[Rynjin]

Gods... I hate summer...

Turns out that it's so hot that many works feel less than excited about the prospect of working. They are even less excited at the prospect of working while using "unnecessary" safety equipment... So guess who has to walk around the whole freaking worksite checking if everyone is wearing their IPE correctly...

I bet I'm the most popular guy in this place... -.-'

...Do people really forget THAT QUICKLY? It's been less than a year since you mentioned that accident.

[Zilrax]

Australia I assume?

And yeah can confirm that people forget fast and hate wearing safety equipment. I'm not even blue collar but my town is heavy industrial one so I'm around them constantly and noted rather distinct patterns. The retired ones often snicker about the new guys getting messed up by it.

[Lemmy]

Australia I assume?

Worse. Brazil.

And yeah can confirm that people forget fast and hate wearing safety equipment. I'm not even blue collar but my town is heavy industrial one so I'm around them constantly and noted rather distinct patterns. The retired ones often snicker about the new guys getting messed up by it.

It's unfortunate, really. Like I always say... Even if you only have a 0.001% chance of suffering an accident, it only has to happen once to ruin your career, health and possibly life. e.g.: Falling from a 4-ft ladder doesn't seem like much, but it's enough to literally break your back.

...Do people really forget THAT QUICKLY? It's been less than a year since you mentioned that accident.

When it comes to safety and comfort/practicality... People will almost always choose the latter...

But it isn't that bad... This is a different work site with different workers, and the infractions aren't quite as bad (although, they can still be dangerous, of course). Mostly, it's "only" people removing the more cumbersome/easily-removable IPEs in "safe" areas... But regulations and safety still require them to use their IPE in said areas, because even though the risk is considerably smaller than in the "main" work places, it's never gone. And there are cases of people getting seriously injured in the supposed "safe" areas.

[Bartmanhomer]

Hey Ashiel. I got a few questions to ask you:

1. What do you think about tiers?

2. What do you think about alignment?

3. What do you think about the D&D 3.5 game balance?

[Ashiel]

I just noticed something. Why are plant type monsters immune to Polymorph effects? Somehow that's always slipped my notice. I mean immune to poison I sorta get even if it's silly. Mind affecting, eh, I've never been much a fan of that being a thing for anything capable of intelligence which msot plant critters are. And vermin for that matter. Bleed, sap. Makes sense. Stunning, eh I don't know why they're immune but it's not... Bad I guess? Paralysis, eh, same thing. Sleep? Sorta makes sense? But why POLYMORPPH?!

Honestly, no clue on the polymorph bit. Totally agree on the mind-affecting thing though. Because of that, I re-wrote a couple of the types in the game (and probably should fiddle with the plant and ooze types) for my campaigns, broke off mind-affecting immunity into the mindless subtype (which I'll post below as well), and gave Constitution scores to Constructs and Undead (they still have non-biological anatomy and their immunities reflect such, but the score represents their general sturdiness).

Spoiler: Ashiel's Revised Types

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Hey Ashiel. I got a few questions to ask you:

1. What do you think about tiers?

2. What do you think about alignment?

3. What do you think about the D&D 3.5 game balance?

Oh boy, time to jump down the rabbit hole.

1. I think tiers are a decent enough concept and loosely agree with them. I often have wildly different opinions on where some of the classes lie in terms of their general rankings (most of the folks in this thread know that I consider Pathfinder Paladins and Rangers to be Tier 3 instead of the usual 4 or 5 they get pegged at), and generally think that the game plays find with tier 3+ and is in a pretty good place balance wise on that regard.

2. I like alignment when it's used as it's described. The core alignment rules make it clear that alignment is determined by actions, does not determine actions, is not something that makes a character act any sort of way, and is very basic as to what does and does not constitute as being aligned (for example, rather than trying to get into the idiocy of trying to define what actions are explicitly evil or assigning "sins", it simply notes that "evil" involves hurting, oppressing, and killing stuff. If you're not doing those things, you might be doing something gross or socially acceptable, but you're not doing evil. Good and the other alignments are much the same, and it seems that Neutral is a good benchmark for actions that have their feet in two pools at once, such as when a Paladin slays an orc in self defense or in defense of another).

However, the problem I usually see with the alignment system is that people are involved and people seem to have an absolutely terrible time separating their personal ethics from the alignment system, and that's where problems occur. Case in point, in a game some months back there erupted an incredibly pointless argument over whether or not it was evil for one of the party members to eat a troglodyte (according to the core rulebook, no, it isn't). The argument pretty much hit all the problems that people dump onto the alignment system and then bitch about the alignment system for (they made it more complicated than it was, added their own ethics and beliefs to it, and would often act like your alignment should determine your actions, even though alignment is explicitly determined by your actions).

I genuinely like the idea that there are literal forces of good and evil, the notion of blessed swords, and that cleric having an aura of great evil about them, or demons that can't be truly defeated without smashing them with some sacred seals. That's neat. I think it totally has a place in the game, but quite frankly most people I come across (and it seems to be even more-so these days in the era of the perpetually emotional) seem incapable of working with this abstract concepts in a way that's very conductive, and lots try to use alignment as a way of meta-gaming without really knowing anything about the character in question (and while this is only mildly annoying when it's my NPCs, it really grinds my gears when players seem unable to treat another player-character like a real person, rather than treating them like whatever their particular vision of the alignment they saw on their character sheet was, and it boils my brain when someone tells someone else they are playing their character wrong).

Because of this, when I started regularly GMing online and having to deal with these problems with some frequency, I took a rather radical approach and gutted all but the mechanical aspects of alignment. Everyone that isn't explicitly a class that is keyed to alignment in some way (such as having the Aura class feature, such as aligned clerics and/or paladin types) is simply Neutral. Doesn't matter if you've dedicated your life to making the world a better place or you're Jack the Ripper, for all mechanical purposes you are Neutral. Then, all the core alignment effects were altered with general rules to account for this new paradigm. Anti-alignment spells are now 1/2 has effective against Neutral creatures (a Paladin's smite evil deals 1/2 paladin level vs most creatures, a holy sword deals +1d6 vs most creatures, etc). A few spells received a needed buff as a result (the protection from spells now grant their usual bonuses vs Neutral and double bonuses vs their opposed alignment, which also makes all the protection from spells that aren't protection from evil much more useful, and makes Neutral not mechanically superior to having an alignment). Finally, classes with Aura (clerics, paladins, etc) gain the alignment subtype of the associated aura which in turn grants them that alignment for mechanical effects but also comes with a few perks (the alignment subtype means your attacks and such are always aligned which means a Paladin can kick a DR x/good creature in the jimmies and make 'em tear up).

The end result is that players are then incentivized to treat players and NPCs more like people rather than trying to treat them as an alignment, and it makes the game meta better (you're less likely to have massive fluctuations in your effectiveness because your GM is using more or less monsters of specific alignments) and it has largely made creatures that are those subtypes a bit more special in a sense, because when detect evil or a similar spell pings, it's going to be an aligned spell or an outsider most of the time, not just some 5th level goblin warrior who fell asleep in the closet).

3. As far as 3.5 balance was concerned, I'd dare say the whole of it was a complete mess, but I'd also say the whole of Pathfinder content is also a complete mess, even though I think the Pathfinder core stuff is a marked improvement over 3.5. That said, if you were conservative with your sources in 3.x games, you can have a very good time. I know some years ago, a popular thought was that you could run an entire campaign with the Tome of Battle + Tome of Magic + Expanded Psionics Handbook and have a legitimately good and well balanced game that covered just about everything you could ask for.

But it's important to note that my idea of balance seems to be well off the rails for most folks on the interwebs. For example, I have literally no qualms about players doing things like calling efreeti and milking wishes out of them (at least in Pathfinder because in PF you can't wish for an infinitely high caster level staff of anything you want), I play with 15 PB, veto a lot of material that I don't want in my campaigns, and I'm very open to homebrew as well. For the most part, the core systems are pretty much by the books though (that means I use magic item GP limits, and encourage players to use consumables and regularly help them designing custom magic items as cheaply as possible while remaining consistent with the system).

[Tels]

...I play with 15 PB, veto a lot of material that I don't want in my campaigns, and I'm very open to homebrew as well. For the most part, the core systems are pretty much by the books though (that means I use magic item GP limits, and encourage players to use consumables and regularly help them designing custom magic items as cheaply as possible while remaining consistent with the system).

I hope this means you straight up ignore the downtime crafting system. It's quite possibly the most broken system Paizo ever released, because it lets you craft items at half the normal cost. This is because it lets you use Capital to craft items and Capital is valued at the purchase cost, but can be earned for half that. For example, each unit of Magic Capital can be bought for 100 gold, and can be used as 100 gold worth of resources for crafting magic items (also researching spells/adding spells to your book, if I recall correctly). If you opt to use your skills to earn the capital instead, then it costs 50 gold per unit, but can still be redeemed at a value of 100 gold. You can also take a single feat and reduce the amount it costs to earn capital by half, which means you are effectively crafting magic items at 12.5% of the market value of the item; you can also take two feats to buy capital at half the normal price, which means there is no wait time and you can begin crafting an item for 25% of the normal price immediately.

Imagine Sorcerers running around with a dozen pages of spell knowledge of each spell level, along with a handful of runestones of power for each level to boot. Why even Wizard?

Though, interestingly enough, the above would make sense if it's approached from the idea that crafters in Pathfinder have to do everything themselves, whereas downtime would represent a more assembly line, or guild focused method of crafting. This would allow for something like a Super Magic campaign setting, as opposed to a High Magic campaign setting, where things like pearls of power are seen as baubles and toys for apprentice casters, when they used to be extremely useful tools of survival in "ye olden dayes."

Wal-mart brand magic items vs hand crafted magic items.

I do admit, as a GM, I ruthlessly abuse downtime crafting to justify why X NPC has Y item. For example, I have two Shop NPCs my current party frequents, one is a full on Wizard, the other is an Adept who occasionally assists the Wizard because she is far more creative. The Adept has a prosthetic arm combined with a traveler's any-tool, so it basically looks like Long John Silver from Treasure Planet; normally outside of her NPC wealth price range, but via downtime, I can justify it. I know that as the GM I can do whatever I want, but I always try and justify things existing using as much built in rules and support as possible, so that it makes sense to me.

[Rynjin]

Imagine Sorcerers running around with a dozen pages of spell knowledge of each spell level, along with a handful of runestones of power for each level to boot. Why even Wizard?

Because the Wizard can do it faster and cheaper!

Ashiel has a post on Paizo I still occasionally reference back to (though it's out of date with current splat) on how Wizards can afford to buy every spell in the book(s) at any given spell level while staying within WBL.

Probably not possible any more, but you can still certainly buy every GOOD spell (and some niche/otherwise bad ones) while doing so.

[Ashiel]

I hope this means you straight up ignore the downtime crafting system. It's quite possibly the most broken system Paizo ever released, because it lets you craft items at half the normal cost. This is because it lets you use Capital to craft items and Capital is valued at the purchase cost, but can be earned for half that. For example, each unit of Magic Capital can be bought for 100 gold, and can be used as 100 gold worth of resources for crafting magic items (also researching spells/adding spells to your book, if I recall correctly). If you opt to use your skills to earn the capital instead, then it costs 50 gold per unit, but can still be redeemed at a value of 100 gold. You can also take a single feat and reduce the amount it costs to earn capital by half, which means you are effectively crafting magic items at 12.5% of the market value of the item; you can also take two feats to buy capital at half the normal price, which means there is no wait time and you can begin crafting an item for 25% of the normal price immediately.

I actually don't really use the downtime crafting system at all, because the whole thing seems overly long winded and complicated with little benefit. Despite this, I've been putting together a townsim model for a player that uses the buildings and resources mentioned in the downtime rules, but with notably fewer subsystems.

Imagine Sorcerers running around with a dozen pages of spell knowledge of each spell level, along with a handful of runestones of power for each level to boot. Why even Wizard?

I'm not sure I'd count out wizards entirely, but those items are arguably the best things sorcerers can have, hands down, because as written sorcerers get too few spells known to really be great, but spontaneous casting is such that the more spells you know the more powerful it becomes, because you start to actually get to use the flexibility of spontaneous casting, and if you can know an extra +3 spells of each spell level, you very likely have enough to pick up the best spells of each level (or at least a spell that covers almost everything that will regularly come up).

Though realistically speaking, the reason I'd say not to count out wizards just yet is that if the sorcerer has tons of access to those, a wizard likely has tons of access to items as well (perhaps more likely since they have bonus feats to burn on them as well). Since pearls of power are the same cost as pages of spell knowledge, it means they in many ways have a head start on sorcerers as they can just buy more spells per day at the same price and also can swap out their spells. If magic items are super cheap for some reason, this also encourages said mages to really milk their ability to learn almost every spell by creating a wide variety of consumable items and the like as well (particularly for spells that do not require save DCs).

Definitely strong on both counts though. I'd dare say item creation is a near must have for a serious sorcerer or wizard, because you're definitely going to want lots of spell pages without a doubt, and wizards are going to want tons of pearls.

Though, interestingly enough, the above would make sense if it's approached from the idea that crafters in Pathfinder have to do everything themselves, whereas downtime would represent a more assembly line, or guild focused method of crafting. This would allow for something like a Super Magic campaign setting, as opposed to a High Magic campaign setting, where things like pearls of power are seen as baubles and toys for apprentice casters, when they used to be extremely useful tools of survival in "ye olden dayes."

Wal-mart brand magic items vs hand crafted magic items.

I do admit, as a GM, I ruthlessly abuse downtime crafting to justify why X NPC has Y item. For example, I have two Shop NPCs my current party frequents, one is a full on Wizard, the other is an Adept who occasionally assists the Wizard because she is far more creative. The Adept has a prosthetic arm combined with a traveler's any-tool, so it basically looks like Long John Silver from Treasure Planet; normally outside of her NPC wealth price range, but via downtime, I can justify it. I know that as the GM I can do whatever I want, but I always try and justify things existing using as much built in rules and support as possible, so that it makes sense to me.

Well, for me personally if I'm going to build a scenario (such as a magic item shop), I will usually do the following rather than dealing with splat-subsystems. What I instead do is build it as a mini-dungeon, and add traps and wards to their shop to protect the extra items. For example, if you've got 30,000 gold worth of magic junk lying around inside the artisan's lair, then there should be an equivalent amount of obstacles protecting it. The justification for this is simple - the bigger the hoard the more the NPC will try to protect it from would be kleptos.

I do much the same with dragon hoards, since the treasure that a dragon has in its lair should be far more than the amount the dragon has on their person (in their statblock treasure value), but a dragon's lair is going to be filled with quite a few encounters and traps beyond the dragon itself, and I just dump all the treasure from those encounters into the hoard itself.

Naturally I purchase items at half-cost for NPCs when they have the item creation feat for them, otherwise the feat is worthless to them.

[Ashiel]

Because the Wizard can do it faster and cheaper!

Ashiel has a post on Paizo I still occasionally reference back to (though it's out of date with current splat) on how Wizards can afford to buy every spell in the book(s) at any given spell level while staying within WBL.

Probably not possible any more, but you can still certainly buy every GOOD spell (and some niche/otherwise bad ones) while doing so.

Yeah, they're pretty cheap. Also, if we get into splat materials, wizards are primed to take things like Valet Familiars to allow them to craft more efficiently than normal, and their ability to swap out any spell with relative ease makes them the kings of consumables (there's a reason they get Scribe Scroll), which allows you to bottle spells that don't care about save DCs for a rainy day, which is by all accounts as good as just having the thing prepared most of the time (having a magic circle against evil scroll on hand, or a knock spell with a good caster level is nice). Pearls of power are only 500 gp x spell level squared when crafted, and every pearl of power picked up not only gives them more casts per day but allows them to fake being spontaneous (for example, you can feel comfortable preparing individual spells in all your slots and use the pearls as floating slots).

[Tels]

Saw a thread on Reddit sharing this gif, and came across a post sharing this album, and it made me realize Tucker's Kobolds were basically the Vietcong.

[Ashiel]

Saw a thread on Reddit sharing this gif, and came across a post sharing this album, and it made me realize Tucker's Kobolds were basically the Vietcong.

Yeah, pretty much. There's a reason it's horrifying...because it was.

EDIT: Incidentally, also why cloudkill sinking is a thing.

[Tels]

Okay, I don't know about you, but this practically demands to be made into an adventure.

State of emergency is declared after more than 50 polar bears invade Russian town

Spoiler: Article so you can avoid the site.

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The bears have entered homes and public buildings in Novaya Zemlya, RussiaOfficials on Arctic archipelago have warned of a 'mass invasion' of polar bearsPeople 'afraid to go outside' and parents worried about their children at school

An Arctic region of*Russia*has declared a state of emergency over a polar bear 'invasion' which has left people 'afraid to go outside'.*

The aggressive bears have entered homes and public buildings in the remote Novaya Zemlya archipelago - home to around 3,000 people - where officials have warned of a 'mass invasion'.***

Since December 52 polar bears have regularly visited the archipelago's main settlement, Belushya Guba, with some displaying 'aggressive behaviour'.*

People are 'afraid to go outside' and 'daily life is in turmoil', said the deputy head of the local administration, Aleksandr Minayev.

'Parents are wary of letting children to go to schools and kindergartens,' he said.*

'There are cases of aggressive behaviour of wild animals - attacks on people, penetration into residential and office buildings.

'There are constantly 6 to 10 bears inside the settlement.' *

Bears are constantly inside a military garrison and 'literally chase people' as well as going into the entrances of blocks of flats, another official said.**

Despite the siege, residents have been warned they face prosecution if they*shoot the endangered species.

A*request to Moscow to allow the shooting of some bears has met with a flat refusal from nature preservation bosses.*

Instead a team of specialists has been dispatched to the outpost to advice residents on other measures to discourage the bears.

Local officials have complained that vehicle and dog patrols have not been effective as polar bears feel secure and no longer react.*

Polar bears are affected by global warming with melting Arctic ice forcing them to spend more time on land where they compete for food.*

Russia has air force and air defence troops based on Novaya Zemlya.*The archipelago in the Arctic was used by the USSR for nuclear tests.

This is probably the best part.

...The aggressive bears have entered homes and public buildings in the remote Novaya Zemlya archipelago... The archipelago in the Arctic was used by the USSR for nuclear tests.

Not just polar bears, but radioactive, mutated polar bears. It's like a trashy 80s horror movie. Now I just need some sort if like nuclear powered druid....

Perhaps combine it with that time a Russian town ways besieged by a super pack of 400 wolves?

[Ashiel]

Yeah my players hate love when I use druids too.

[Zilrax]

Druids are pretty insane yeah. I've had to deal with them a lot and they kill me a lot. Them and Tendrilocus'.

Makes me imagine just how much damage a Weather Sphere mage can do if they try. Especially with the Tempestarian Handbook that will be up on sight in a couple weeks. Makes it pretty crazy.

[Ashiel]

Druids are pretty insane yeah. I've had to deal with them a lot and they kill me a lot. Them and Tendrilocus'.

Makes me imagine just how much damage a Weather Sphere mage can do if they try. Especially with the Tempestarian Handbook that will be up on sight in a couple weeks. Makes it pretty crazy.

Tempestari seems a bit OP honestly, if I understood it correctly. I seem to remember them being able to set forth enormous amounts of hardness ignoring storm damage, to the point that it's not possible to take shelter from the storm. Maybe I misunderstood something, but best as I could tell they would likely destroy pretty much everything for miles and miles. Rocks, trees, mountains, homes, castles, the works. All of it just gone, destroyed, by 84 damage per round for 1 hour per level in a two-mile area is pretty much the locate city bomb except totally legit. Pretty much everything dies. No ifs or buts about it. Anything you would take shelter in will be destroyed (even an adamantine wall would be eating 640 damage per minute, or 38,400 damage per hour.

[Zilrax]

Yeah they addressed that a bit in the book.

They shifted a lot of the damage multipliers into advanced talents, but gave a bunch of new base stuff to make it more accessible in day to day. Also included aridness. It also includes stats for lightning rods and storm shelters. It's also worth noting structures have a lot of hp, take half from energy to begin with before hardness, so they can weather a very big beating in the long run.

Weather mages are very dangerous, though their damage is lower than destruction classes but as you say, it covers massive areas when they have the time to set up all the conditions needed. It IS kind of indiscriminate though so you need to make sure you have the right sort of friends with you too.

But yeah, needless to say it was noted by the devs and they're trying to take steps.

Not sure how you're getting 84 average and hardness ignoring though? Not from straight Weather at least.

[Ashiel]

Yeah they addressed that a bit in the book.

They shifted a lot of the damage multipliers into advanced talents, but gave a bunch of new base stuff to make it more accessible in day to day. Also included aridness. It also includes stats for lightning rods and storm shelters. It's also worth noting structures have a lot of hp, take half from energy to begin with before hardness, so they can weather a very big beating in the long run.

Weather mages are very dangerous, though their damage is lower than destruction classes but as you say, it covers massive areas when they have the time to set up all the conditions needed. It IS kind of indiscriminate though so you need to make sure you have the right sort of friends with you too.

But yeah, needless to say it was noted by the devs and they're trying to take steps.

Not sure how you're getting 84 average and hardness ignoring though? Not from straight Weather at least.

The Tempestarii prestige class. Deals full damage vs objects, and gets double damage vs objects, advances through weather severity faster, and inflicts maximum damage with their weather effects. So 7d6 boiling rain becomes 42, doubled to 84 vs objects.

EDIT: By my best estimate, it means it destroys pretty much everything. Nothing in the game that I know of can handle that sort of onslaught. It would wash away mountains, forests, even the very ground would be destroyed. You'd end up with these horrible wounds in the planet as it burned its way into the earth's crust. About the only thing that could actually save you from such a storm that'd be reliable as best as I can tell would be the Warp sphere + extradimensional space talent (just take cover inside your space until the storm finally stops).

[Zilrax]

That explains the confusion! The handbook is just a book for general weather stuff and never touches on that prestige class.

Yeah that seems a bit derp. Fortunatly one doesn't need to worry about it getting THAT bad with the basic weather stuff most part. And the storm secured structures would help. Below ground ones are immune to weather damage. The above ground ones would half the damage still even with that prestige so it'd help but thats still pretty bad.

But yeah, dumb prestige. Kept in check by all the other ones not letting them do it probably haha. Weather mage fights must be boring to watch for the deadly forces they are harnessing as it's basically them magically wrestling for weather dominance.

[Tels]

I dunno about you all, but I always enjoy coming across references to Ashiel's work in the wild.

[Bartmanhomer]

Hey Ashiel what's your favourite RPG of all time?

[TheGrimPeddler]

Hey Ash, what are your favorite memes/videos to cheer yourself up? I'm having a bit of a tough time lately on top of all the other crap and can use something to distract myself. Won't bore you with the details, just know it's related to selling the house & all the places we can afford to move to are getting snatched up because it's "money now, not later" even if we finish closing in 2 weeks.

Also, gestalt campaign. Atomic Adept//Druid. There's your nuclear powered druid.

What do you think of a ttrpg built from the ground up using systems that are "alternatives" in PF/D&D? Like hex grid, combat facing, armor as dr/damage absorption, spell points, etc. Cuz I'm almost done building it... And by "almost done", I really mean "finished with figuring out how I want the system to run and play together, now I just gotta actually make the classes, spells, etc".

EDIT: I's also like to know more about your custom setting. I love world building, so much that I love to get into the nitty gritty of other people's worlds as well. I've got one setting that I've been building for around 16 years now. I consider it something of a "magnum opus" if I ever manage to do all I want to within it, which includes a feature film (plot-lined out); 2 animated series (also plotted out); maybe a video game (half-planned) or two; three separate novel trilogies; and a tabletop game. All spanning from the literal birth of the universe & the setting-central planet, past several apocalypses and "rebirths" of sorts, and culminating in the dawn of a "new age of exploration" which forms the basis of the TTRPG (that I'm still debating whether or not to fit my homebrew system to) to fulfill the promise that an old Pathfinder poster made to me that first intrigued me about the game that was sorely lacking. I wind up finding many of the fantasy stories and shorts I write wind up inadvertently creating bits and pieces of this universe, even if I initially plan them to be separate.

[Zilrax]

The Spheres wiki is having an event where everyone can make items using the spheres rules to apply to the wiki in case anyone wants to throw their hat in the ring. It's more for actually having them than making anything overly strange, but if anyones interested the rules are on the front page of the wiki.

Also I tested the tank thing vs my pcs in hobgoblin boss battle. So with how I set it, tanks are pretty durable under fire. Though hitting anything with the cannon was not too easy overall, the pcs were reasonably cautious. Having the tank contain archers to snipe at things worked well.

One corner case is can a vehicle contain a small vehicle? I ruled yes cus I can't see why not, so the tank also held an armored motorbike the lieutenant used to do hit and run attacks vs the pcs. They used it to barely escape with the Technician later. If the wizard had prepped web they might have caught them.

[Ashiel]

I dunno about you all, but I always enjoy coming across references to Ashiel's work in the wild.

Wow. I gotta admit, that does feel pretty cool. ^.^

Hey Ashiel what's your favourite RPG of all time?

That's a pretty hard question. For western RPGs, I'd probably say Baldur's Gate has had the largest amount of influence on me. In many ways it's still the metric by which I find myself judging most modern RPGs, and it's a game I recommend to people all the time. It has, probably more than any other outside influence shaped my perceptions regarding tabletop RPGs as well. There's even still a lot today that players and GMs can learn from Baldur's Gate (such as how important consumables are, or how GMs can prepare a party and present stories through environments).

For Japanese RPGs, Final Fantasy VII was and still is my favorite JRPG to date, with the appreciation of it only expanding with each passing year. They really just don't make them like they used to. In fact, I still return to play it from time to time. It's been a few years since I've played it (so I'm probably about due again).

It's been a hot minute but back in 2012 I dropped a few posts on thelifestream.net to try and be helpful now and then. Probably the most fun to write were these posts: Limit Break Leveling I and II.

I also, sadly, demonstrated an uncanny foresight when it involved this game. From a rather long-winded rant on whether or not Square Enix could remake FFVII and be great, well...

Again though, I just have little faith that Squeenix could or would pull it off. Instead, I'm pretty sure they'd try to turn the whole thing into a CGI movie with a few button presses and a long hallway that extends from the Slums to the Northern Crater, while you engage in lots of pretty hybrid-ATB/slasher battles, while feeding you bad voice acting and lackluster characters. Low blow? Maybe, but you reap what you sow!

Fast forward three years when the trailer for an actual FF7 remake trailer was released.

It's like the read my post.

More responses coming...

[Ashiel]

Hey Ash, what are your favorite memes/videos to cheer yourself up? I'm having a bit of a tough time lately on top of all the other crap and can use something to distract myself. Won't bore you with the details, just know it's related to selling the house & all the places we can afford to move to are getting snatched up because it's "money now, not later" even if we finish closing in 2 weeks.

Jordan Peterson videos can be pretty great, as can stuff by Alan Watts, if you're looking to add some clear perspectives. Despite the name, a lot of music on MrSuicideSheep's youtube channel can be really soothing, relaxing, and have nice visuals that can be quite inspiring. Sometimes they mix together quite well, such as this fine chillstep w/ Alan Watts commentary.

EDIT: Also, this song in particular has gotten me through some tough times.

What do you think of a ttrpg built from the ground up using systems that are "alternatives" in PF/D&D? Like hex grid, combat facing, armor as dr/damage absorption, spell points, etc. Cuz I'm almost done building it... And by "almost done", I really mean "finished with figuring out how I want the system to run and play together, now I just gotta actually make the classes, spells, etc".

It could definitely be fun. The big thing is having a clear picture of the ripple effects. For example, the armor as DR system as presented in Unearthed Arcana is actually very bad for non-E6 games because it actually equates to PCs - most notably martials - taking obscene amounts of damage (the provided DR does not come close to making up for the lost AC) while making them near invulnerable to low level foes (which I don't actually mind because being effectively immune to goblins is pretty fair and makes armor proficiency a really nice thing and I'm not of the opinion that players have to be taking damage).

One idea I had and to this day still enjoy the thought of, is armor as fatigue. That is, in addition to the bonuses to avoid taking damage in armor, it also converts an amount of incoming damage to nonlethal (thus it'd be more likely to knock out or fatigue a guy in full plate than it would be to kill him), which has an amusing side effect of making martials tankier with magical healing support (healing recovers lethal and nonlethal, so if your martial has 8 lethal and 8 nonlethal damage and is then healed for 6 Hp they've effectively recovered 12 Hp), and allows well armored characters to recover quickly with a short rest (nonlethal damage heals hourly) which could be nice. One reason I've never seriously implemented this though is it adds layers of complexity and I'm not sure that it would add enough to the game to justify the effort.

From my own experiences, hex grids can be really fun and it's really not at all hard to convert from 5ft. squares to hex grids. In fact, in a lot of ways the game is actually easier to learn that way because 1 space is 1 space, and even spell templates are easier to adjudicate in most cases. I've run quite a few campaigns using hex grids on Maptool before.

Keep in mind with the Spell Points system, assuming Unearthed Arcana or similar again, that it tends to make powerful spells more powerful at the detriment of damage dealing spells (which are already rather poor for PCs, though quite awesome for NPCs), because of the nature of free scaling vs cost scaling (generally speaking you don't have to pay more for something like black tentacles while you do have to pay more for your fireball to scale) which is mostly an influence of the devs over-estimation of the value of damage.

But honestly, yeah you could most certainly make a great RPG out of these things, and honestly it's 100% okay if it changes the balance of the game if it's changing it to something that you enjoy playing. You can always tweak and revise stuff later on. I've actually ended up scrapping a lot of what I wrote for d20 legends, because I realized there's a more efficient and clearer way of doing what I was already trying to do. I'll try to post some stuff for it in the near future.

EDIT: I's also like to know more about your custom setting. I love world building, so much that I love to get into the nitty gritty of other people's worlds as well. I've got one setting that I've been building for around 16 years now. I consider it something of a "magnum opus" if I ever manage to do all I want to within it, which includes a feature film (plot-lined out); 2 animated series (also plotted out); maybe a video game (half-planned) or two; three separate novel trilogies; and a tabletop game. All spanning from the literal birth of the universe & the setting-central planet, past several apocalypses and "rebirths" of sorts, and culminating in the dawn of a "new age of exploration" which forms the basis of the TTRPG (that I'm still debating whether or not to fit my homebrew system to) to fulfill the promise that an old Pathfinder poster made to me that first intrigued me about the game that was sorely lacking. I wind up finding many of the fantasy stories and shorts I write wind up inadvertently creating bits and pieces of this universe, even if I initially plan them to be separate.

Your setting sounds a lot more interesting than mine, honestly.

I can definitely relate to the last sentence a lot. Lots of things I get an idea for and write as a one-off thing tend to coalesce into my primary campaign. For example, I wrote up a fictional island called Okurimono for an idea I had for a samurai game, complete with a basic mythology and micro-cosmology. Now that mini-campaign is part of my larger campaign as a location in the same world. In much the same way, my micro-campaign of Wyrmspire is also a location in my campaign, so you could go from one micro-campaign setting to the next.

As to my setting...
It's a very simple setting but it suits my purposes quite efficiently. It's a setting born for adventure and heroism.

World Creation, Some Cosmology Bits Too
The setting is at its core a story about a handful of gods who were displaced from their homeland (essentially, powerful adventuring sorts whose original world in the cosmology suffered a critical existence failure). After wandering the cosmos for some time and looking for a new home, they eventually decided to build their own. They were quite lonely however in this new world, but they can't create more gods like themselves, so they seeded life into it, recognizing that said life could eventually ascend to godhood as they once had themselves.

The gods pull strings behind the scenes to challenge their children. Their morality is hard to understand for most mortals who even know they exist because things that are devastating to mortals are momentary inconveniences to the immortal gods. Even the "evil" gods are actively trying to better the life they created in the world, through a tempering process that involves hardship and pain, as the gods know that until godhood has been achieved all the woes in the world are but temporary flashes in an endless stream of time, no matter how awful or vile.

As a result, the gods work in tandem with one-another to this ends. The "evil" gods overseeing the hardships of their world and the "good" gods helping the mortals overcome these hardships. This is all part of a cycle of heating and cooling to forge the mortals into the next line of gods, and the cataclysms and rise and fall of nations slowly matures the collective souls of the seedlings towards that ends.

When people die they return to the plane of dreams where they engage in a sort of afterlife molded by their consciousness and lesser gods (outsiders born of mortal beliefs) before they are reborn to continue the cycle again. This death and rebirth process is one of the reasons why the tragedies of life are of little consequence to the gods, as all things before immortality are but a drop in the ocean, and it doesn't really matter how long it will take or how many tries. Many great heroes who ascend to godhood were people who failed to ascend in their past lives.

In this setting it's actually impossible to destroy a soul (or if a way exists, it would be the utmost and unforgivable sin). Even spells like trap the soul or using souls as material components are but temporary things. When a soul is "consumed" for the use of magic, it would be akin to evaporating water. You don't destroy it, it simply returns to the cosmic stream and coalesces once more sometime later.

Lesser Gods
Most of the gods that people actually know of (the creator deities are actually forgotten by most mortals not well trained in Religion or History) are actually outsiders from different planes (such as the heavens or hells, elemental planes, etc). The ones that reside on the plane of dreams are actually outsiders born of mortals, seeded in that plane by their own consciousness. Every human (and by extension dwarves, elves, or other sapient beings like dragons and the like) has the spark of the divine, and the plane of dreams is very fertile soil for their ideas. Little do most mortals of Alvena realize that most of the gods they worship and believe to grant them power are in fact created and granted power by them.

I'll try to post some more soonish. If there's anything in particular you're curious about, let me know. I gotta get ready to take my family to see Alita: Battle Angel.

[Bartmanhomer]

Hey Ashiel, what's your favourite D&D alignment?

[Ashiel]

Hey Ashiel, what's your favourite D&D alignment?

It's kind of a three way split between Lawful Good, Neutral Good, and Lawful Evil, I think. However, honestly it's more about the character. A well played character is one you'll remember and love even if they're chaotic neutral or evil. The reason the three listed alignments stand out to me is because I tend to find admiration for those who are forthright and righteous, those who care for others, and those who respect the "rules of the game" even when they don't have your best interest at heart. However, there is virtue and vice in all the alignments and a well developed character will never fully adhere to one of the alignments 100% of the time because they are souls over machines. Sometimes it is this deviation that tests their ideals and breaks them down or builds them up, and sometimes it does one to do the other.

It is largely for this reason that I don't really care what alignment the characters in a party are. All I ask is that they can play with others (I don't care for sociopaths anymore than I care for any other form of mental deficiency that is commonly and unfairly pawned off on the alignment system like so crude a scapegoat), and that they are people foremost.

A chaotic evil person is still a person. They have hopes, dreams, desires. They may have goals, or people they love, or are searching for their truth that they haven't found yet. A bloodthirsty savage mindlessly murdering is not a person but a sad manifestation of dark nature, but a ruthless human being can love, and may even stick their necks out for someone if they don't like what they see, or if something speaks to them.

Spoiler: CotCT Story Time

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One example of such a character was a chaotic evil ranger in a Curse of the Crimson Throne game I once ran. They fought their way through Gaedren Lamm's hideout in the first adventure. He even threatened the kids with the mops and was like "Raise a weapon against me as man and you'll die by my sword as a man. It's your choice, child."

When the party defeated Lamm, Lamm surrendered and they tied him up. The chaotic evil ranger looked around at the chains the bastard would hang children from to feed his gator. "Going to jail huh?" he asked Lamm, patting him on the shoulder, rubbing in the fact they had beaten him. Gaedren nodded. "Aw c'mon now," the ranger said. "I bet it ain't your first time in jail, right?" the ranger asked. Gaedren laughed, "I guess not," he responded, realizing that it could have been worse. "That's what I thought." the ranger responded.

He then promptly threw the bound Gaedren into the water below them with the sawtooth sharks and the angry (and recently wounded) gator. "Fool me once, shame on me," the Ranger said looking at the rest of the party. "Why'd you do that?" the party asked, surprised he just murdered the man who was their captive. The ranger pointed at the chains, "Y'eard him. He's been there done that. If I was one of these kids, I wouldn't want some bastard like this lordin' over my life. Just did what I'd hope any kind soul would've done for me, if'n I was one of his kids."

The party incidentally had a lawful good cleric. However, in that moment, he had to respect the ranger even if he didn't agree with him on principle. He had just murdered Gaedren for sheer vengeance, but damnit if the entire party didn't on some level feel a little bit like justice just got served.