PF - How to Defeat the Dominion of the Black? (yeah, all of them)

[unseenmage]

How would the Playground go about defeating these interstellar jerks? All of them. Everywhere.

We finished Iron Gods, claimed the ship, established an interstellar trade empire, became Mythic demigods, and found the Androffan homeworld where we are now rebuilding the original space-ship-yards and planning to build the bigger better more militarized version of the ship we have.

But everywhere we travel the Dominion of the Black are in our way. They irritate me and they have gots to go.

I'm still working on ways to build the perfect infectious Construct vector for infiltrating and infecting them from within but I am curious how the Playground would go about eradicating a highly advanced, both magically and technologically, seemingly innumerable enemy who hides in the darkest reaches of unexplored space wielding seemingly limitless resources.

For our purposes no Terrasque(s), Cthulhu(s), or Wish-solving all our problems away. Cheese is okay, just not insta-kaboom-inate-ing the universe and making a new one or anything. (Hmmm, wonder if that'd work...)

EDIT: Oh and I've been trying to avoid researching the Dominion or its creatures specifically to leave our GM some room to spring stuff on us we aren't prepared for so please spoil as little of their specifics as possible. Thanks.

[Inevitability]

Well, individual combat is pretty much meaningless at this scale, and far too risky to boot. I suggest trying to find some way to mass-destruct them.

I'd recommend a shadowpocalypse, but that only works if there's a fair amount of humanoid creatures out there if you're using Pathfinder's shadows. Not to mention the thousands of thousands of centuries it'd take if the shadows are moving through interstellar space. (also, the fact that the Dominion is quite likely to have the resources to combat such a threat)

Perhaps a specifically engineered plague? If Pathfinder has anything like warp drives, just send dozens of infected probes to planets you want to scour clean.

If your DM allows 3.5 material, there's also the Breath Weapon of Infinite Cheese. Stack Widen Breath a few million times on a single breath weapon, then unleash it to burn the universe. Bonus points if the breath in question is a disintegrating one.

[icefractal]

Well, there's always self-replicating constructs. I can think of three varieties:

1) Von Neumann, the Witch
He's a Samsaran Witch 20 with the Mystic Past Life racial ability (choosing Simulacrum from the Summoner list), and the Ley Line Guardian archetype. What this means is that he has Simulacrum as a 5th level spell, which he can cast at 10th level. Which means that a Simulacrum of him is able to cast Simulacrum. And with the LLG archetype, he has no familiar to need replacing, so that Simulacrum is able to immediately start making more Simulacra right away.

Your only limit is the materials needed (5K worth of rubies per copy). And you have a bunch of 10th level casters available to gather those materials. Or you can use Blood Money and skip the cost, generating an exponentially increasing number of Simulacra ... but you probably don't want to open the door to that level of cheese.

2) Soulbound Shell
The Soulbound Shell can craft more of itself, no special conditions required. And it's a 12th level caster, so not too shabby. The only problem is the price - a heft 115K per construct.

3) The Trompe L'oeil template.
This is a living painting that can step out of the frame. Aside from being a construct (but not mindless), it has all the abilities of the orginal subject, at a very low cost - as little as 2.5K for a 20 HD character. And it appears it can be made of any corporeal creature.

The only issue is that I'm not certain the creator has control of the painting creature. If not, then you'll need to either pick someone/something that will do what you wanted anyway, or else use exotic methods to gain control (a Sorcerer with the Impossible bloodline can take control of constructs, for example).

[Serafina]

Craft lots of loyal constructs, have them produce goods needed to construct more constructs, repeat.
Just be aware that this can take a really long time to get off the ground.

A Terra-Cotta Horseman costs 10,000 gp to craft, and gains 5 feats and 10 skill points. Invest those 10 skill points into a Profession, take Skill Focus to gain +6, Prodigy to gain +4, take Skill Unlock (Profession), and spend the other two feats as you like.
By taking 10, this reliably gets you a result of 33. This earns that many gp per week. Every three weeks, these are then converted into two points of magic capital (which can be used for crafting magic items), which doubles it's value.
It'd take 152 weeks for the construct to earn back it's value - so about three years.

The real trick is getting constructs to craft more constructs.
Well, the Terra-Cotta Horseman can also fulfill that job. We need a trait that gives us a caster level (such as Green-Blooded, though there are many), which can be gained via the Extra Traits feat. We also take the Balanced Education trait so that once per day, the construct can use Strength in place of Intelligence on a Craft-check.
Craft Magic Weapons and Armor, Craft Wondrous Item, Craft Construct, and Skill Focus. That's our five feats spent.
With 10 ranks in Craft (Sculpture), +3 from it being a class skill, +6 from Skill Focus and +7 from Strength, we get +26 to the check. Crafting a Terra-Cotta Horseman without requisite spells is a DC 34 endeavor - of course, we can add in masterwork tools (+2) and Cooperative Crafting (+2) from another construct, which then gives us a pretty good chance of success.

Two Terra-Cotta Horsemen working together (one with cooperative crafting in place of skill focus) produce another one every 10 days.
106 Terra-Cotta Horsemen farming materials can provide enough materials for the construction cost of that at the same rate as new ones are produced.
Every three years, you have doubled the number of constructs here. Given a demi-plane with regenerating materials, this can go on almost ad infinitum.


But let's suppose you start with just 100,000 gp in starting materials.
That's enough to give you 10 Terra-Cotta Horsemen, which take about a year to craft. They'll get enough material for another one in about four months. Getting up to the requisite 108 would hence take about twenty years. 21 years later, you'd be up to 13,824 of them, which produce 13 new ones per year. 21 years after that, you'd be up to 1,7 milllion. 21 years after that, you'd be up to 226 million. 18 years after that, you'd be up to 14 billion, which produce about 13 million new ones per day.
So in just 102 days, provided a source of materials, you can produce a self-replicating swarm of constructs that can take on just about everything through sheer numbers.
Said swarm of constructs can also shell out a ton of magic items, and even different types of constructs. Provided a skilled sapient crafter, there's basically no limit to this and you might as well produce mythic constructs such as Colossi.



Is this silly?
Well, it depends. If the GM handles this properly and throws a wrench into it every now and then, and eventually plays out of the horror of such a swarm of constructs stripping planets and planes bare - then there's little silly about it. For that type of campaign, it's good. For most others, it's something to be avoided.

[Florian]

The Dominion is Mythos-based and tied to the naure of the Dark Tapestry.
So why goof around, make it your epic goal to actualy conquer and shape that, rework reality itself. Ask Groetus about how that can be done.

[unseenmage]

Woah! Fantastic! Thanks everyone.

Lots of ideas I didn't know about yet. Will digest these through the week.

[the_archduke]

1) Von Neumann, the Witch
He's a Samsaran Witch 20 with the Mystic Past Life racial ability (choosing Simulacrum from the Summoner list), and the Ley Line Guardian archetype. What this means is that he has Simulacrum as a 5th level spell, which he can cast at 10th level. Which means that a Simulacrum of him is able to cast Simulacrum. And with the LLG archetype, he has no familiar to need replacing, so that Simulacrum is able to immediately start making more Simulacra right away.

Your only limit is the materials needed (5K worth of rubies per copy). And you have a bunch of 10th level casters available to gather those materials. Or you can use Blood Money and skip the cost, generating an exponentially increasing number of Simulacra ... but you probably don't want to open the door to that level of cheese.

This is fascinating. Why does it need to be a witch though? Would a wizard or sorceror be able to pull off this trick? Is the build detailed more anywhere else?

[icefractal]

This is fascinating. Why does it need to be a witch though? Would a wizard or sorceror be able to pull off this trick? Is the build detailed more anywhere else?

Wizard and Sorcerer already have Simulacrum on their list ... as a 7th level spell. And Mystic Past Life can only put spells of the same type (arcane, because Summoner is arcane). So it has to be an arcane caster with full-speed progression that doesn't normally have Simulacrum on its list. Which I think is only the Witch, but there may be others.

And I think this is the first place I've posted it. I came up with the idea a bit ago and was thinking about what to use it for.

For "usable in a campaign" level, that's all that's needed - get that one spell and you're set. For the maximum cheese version, you want to also have Blood Money, Magic Jar, and some kind of Summon spell. Now you can cast Simulacrum (or any spell) for free:
1) Summon creature (preferably with hands and a voice, else you'll need Silent/Still Blood Money).
2) Cast Magic Jar.
3) Possess creature. Go stand right next to your unconscious body.
4) Other Von Neumann readies action to slay summoned creature.
5) Cast Blood Money, take giant amount of Strength damage, fall down next to real self.
6) Summoned creature slain. You return to your body.
7) Pick up the Blood Money component from next to you and cast the spell.

If it's Simulacrum that's twelve more hours so you're done for the day anyway. But if it's anything shorter, Magic Jar lasts hours, so you can rinse and repeat until you run out of spells. Depending on whether summoned creatures are "willing", you can use Marionette Possession instead (3rd level spell), although that one isn't reusable.

For that matter, the amount of Strength damage you take for replicating is not all that much (11 points) and so you don't need the whole trick, you can just tank it and make one healer Simulacra per X Von Neumann's to go around using Lesser Restoration.

They're not limited to replicating each-other either. Once you have a sufficient force built up, you can mass produce Simulacra of anything you want. Note that the Pathfinder version doesn't require any hair/blood from the creature, merely an ice sculpture of it. It's pretty crazy, really - maybe the right kind of crazy for this situation though.

[Florian]

Ok, got what you were thinking with it.

No, too complicated, too little gain (when talking about breaking the game) as a decent shadow caster that can push spell level to an absurd amount can shadow-replicate that w/o having to jump all those hoops.

[icefractal]

Ok, got what you were thinking with it.

No, too complicated, too little gain (when talking about breaking the game) as a decent shadow caster that can push spell level to an absurd amount can shadow-replicate that w/o having to jump all those hoops.

This is for Pathfinder though. No Shadowcraft Mage, no Zodar, and Wish can't create items.

[Scowling Dragon]

Well aren't the Dominion of Black a Interstellar old god worshipping empire?

This is pretty much gonna require all out warfare. I doubt something as simple as just a shador apocalypse can stop them.

[Inevitability]

Well aren't the Dominion of Black a Interstellar old god worshipping empire?

This is pretty much gonna require all out warfare. I doubt something as simple as just a shador apocalypse can stop them.

Problem is: all-out warfare is going to have trouble stopping them too. Even if you mobilized the entire planet, you'd still lack the troops to take them on. At least the shadowpocalypse can just replenish its troops by killing humanoids.

[Slithery D]

Nuke them from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.

[Florian]

This is for Pathfinder though. No Shadowcraft Mage, no Zodar, and Wish can't create items.

Sorry, not feeling up to having a longer conversation in english right now.

It can be done, as PF has a number of ways to push CL and DC of shadow-type spells right now. What you want is to be able to create the simulacrum of a being that is able to 'break the rules' for you, like a demon lord or great old one, and go from there. We can discuss his fuher, if you can life with me answering very slowly to it.

[Inevitability]

Nuke them from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.

You mean 'somehow nuke them from thousands if not tens of thousands orbits at once, almost certainly failing to take out every ship even if all nukings proceed well'?

[icefractal]

It can be done, as PF has a number of ways to push CL and DC of shadow-type spells right now. What you want is to be able to create the simulacrum of a being that is able to 'break the rules' for you, like a demon lord or great old one, and go from there.

Not really sure what you mean here. You can indeed make a Cthulu or Pazuzu Simulacrum (only requires CL 18, even), but a half-strength version isn't obviating all limits unless you assume a very generous interpretation of what "and the appropriate special abilities for a creature of that level" means. I guess this is getting a bit off-topic for the thread though.

But if you do write up the method, I'd love to see it. Sounds great.

[Serafina]

Don't rely on any one method! Be diverse, combine several methods, and remember to play the long game.
Do build your self-replicating army of constructs. Use it to strip-mine worlds to fund your other projects.
Do start a cult based around defeating the Dominion of the Black. Get worshippers, and in time mighty heroes that follow your faith. Spread this tenet across the stars.
Do cooperate with other gods. Get resources and abilities you don't have from their mightiest servants.
Do have incredibly powerful arcana for massive strikes.
Do undermine them via infiltration, espionage and magic.
Do all that at once, and winning will not only be more likely, but also more fun as a game than a single trick.

[Florian]

Not really sure what you mean here. You can indeed make a Cthulu or Pazuzu Simulacrum (only requires CL 18, even), but a half-strength version isn't obviating all limits unless you assume a very generous interpretation of what "and the appropriate special abilities for a creature of that level" means. I guess this is getting a bit off-topic for the thread though.

But if you do write up the method, I'd love to see it. Sounds great.

Let's PM this weekend, ok, not fit to engage in this discussion right now.

[unseenmage]

Don't rely on any one method! Be diverse, combine several methods, and remember to play the long game.
Do build your self-replicating army of constructs. Use it to strip-mine worlds to fund your other projects.
Do start a cult based around defeating the Dominion of the Black. Get worshippers, and in time mighty heroes that follow your faith. Spread this tenet across the stars.
Do cooperate with other gods. Get resources and abilities you don't have from their mightiest servants.
Do have incredibly powerful arcana for massive strikes.
Do undermine them via infiltration, espionage and magic.
Do all that at once, and winning will not only be more likely, but also more fun as a game than a single trick.

I agree with your point wholeheartedly, any chance of more specific ideas?
Other plans are in the works, just stymied by the diversity and seeming infinite resilience of the enemy.

Technically we're already using an exceedingly cheesy process to produce any Construct we want (which includes a Construct of any creature or combination of creatures) very rapidly. (this is kinda why I'm trying to avoid too much more cheese, but with a task so massive more cheese might just be inevitable)
Our characters already are mythic and being worshipped.
We already have at least one god-in-a-can on our team and the favor of at least one other deity.
Powerful tech and magic for strikes we absolutely have covered.
Infiltration has been considered, still working on the details. Finding the perfect creature to Construct-ify for espionage was a bust for now though.

[Coidzor]

If they have mythic high level casters, you're going to have to surgically remove them and dismantle any minion generating schemes they have in place that are faster than typical breeding.

Otherwise, no matter how fast you generate minions, you'll never catch up to someone who started doing it before you.

[unseenmage]

If they have mythic high level casters, you're going to have to surgically remove them and dismantle any minion generating schemes they have in place that are faster than typical breeding.

Otherwise, no matter how fast you generate minions, you'll never catch up to someone who started doing it before you.

Which is why I wanted to infect the process itself somehow. Sicken them from within so they spread my solution for me.

And hey! This is high level magical space opera fun time. It's ridiculous but generating black holes in the right densities/locations might actually enable one to literally slow their process. Not that that's at all within the confines of the game's rules but it is kinda sorta plausible.

[Coidzor]

Finding a way to do that would definitely be interesting, that's for sure.

[unseenmage]

Finding a way to do that would definitely be interesting, that's for sure.

I am heavily utilizing the Amalgam creature template and infiltrating them with vampiric, lycanthropic, wraith, shadow etc plague was one of my first thoughts.
But for this character I swore off undead Amalgams unless it was a fall-from-grace scenario fof the character. Honestly this thread was my attempt to avoid that very scenario.

[Florian]

@unseenmage:

The entire answer hinges on how exactly your gm understands and handles the Dominion and, a bit expanded, the Mythos.
Going with the little data we actually have, the Black Truth rather seems to be an expanding multi-national corporation with a cult at its core, the member races mainly being engineered to fulfill specific functions, the core itself being actually very fractured and holding to some very different goals and meanings, which in turn are amplified by the assets the have available.

Should this be the case in your game, you have three types of target to take out first: The Fleshfarms, their CEO and their capability to create Ship-Minds, which should be the Fleshfarms.

Beyond that, you should go hunting for existing Ship-Minds and try to identify and kill other leaders of the core cult.

[Coidzor]

I am heavily utilizing the Amalgam creature template and infiltrating them with vampiric, lycanthropic, wraith, shadow etc plague was one of my first thoughts.
But for this character I swore off undead Amalgams unless it was a fall-from-grace scenario fof the character. Honestly this thread was my attempt to avoid that very scenario.

The issue with that, to me, seems to be that if they're a Technological and Magical faction, the baseline people(if any) who can be turned into that kind of minion aren't the real strength of the empire, until you get to the point that you're taking away multiple star systems from them.

And even then, their robot and magical construct armies aren't going to be affected by wraiths or shadows, which may, ultimately, be able to hold key facilities even if millions of coolies are converted into marginally more useful combatants for your side.

That's before getting into concerns about eldritch abominations, though IIRC in Pathfinder they're largely Aberrations, which turn into undead chow just fine, some of them even leaving corpses behind that make for great Taxidermic Creatures, like Hastur.

Actually, yeah, you should definitely see if you can acquire multiple Hastur corpses to make into construct-trophies. Or even make them Voltron into a throne.

[unseenmage]

@unseenmage:

The entire answer hinges on how exactly your gm understands and handles the Dominion and, a bit expanded, the Mythos.
Going with the little data we actually have, the Black Truth rather seems to be an expanding multi-national corporation with a cult at its core, the member races mainly being engineered to fulfill specific functions, the core itself being actually very fractured and holding to some very different goals and meanings, which in turn are amplified by the assets the have available.

Should this be the case in your game, you have three types of target to take out first: The Fleshfarms, their CEO and their capability to create Ship-Minds, which should be the Fleshfarms.

Beyond that, you should go hunting for existing Ship-Minds and try to identify and kill other leaders of the core cult.

Y'know we did get our hands on an abandoned Shipmind. We negotiated, rescued it, put it's consciousness into an Android body, and now it is our navigator in return for us helping it to spread the truth of how all Shipminds are considered replacable.

Also, my GM has this to say,

I expanded it with specialist branches using more then standard bio monsters a bit but that guy isn't wrong.

The leaders are from all branches of bad guy handbook but still use the same model

[Scowling Dragon]

Like my question with self-replicating constructs is very simple:

Why wouldn't THEY have self-replicating constructs as well? Like abusing rules systems seems very much against the spirit of adventure.

Its like hiring a mage to cast wish and kill them all because the handbook technically doesn't say you can't.

[unseenmage]

Like my question with self-replicating constructs is very simple:

Why wouldn't THEY have self-replicating constructs as well? Like abusing rules systems seems very much against the spirit of adventure.

Its like hiring a mage to cast wish and kill them all because the handbook technically doesn't say you can't.

You have fun your way, our table will have fun our way. Self-replicating Constructs is a trope we enjoy, not an abuse of the rules.

And yes, the DotB do have their own self-replicating monstrosities.
The goal with that is to intervene in their process and hijack it somehow.

And do please take note that I expressly said no Wish shenanigans in the OP. Meaning for us, taking the time, gp, and effort to build Constructs does not equate to Wish.

[Coidzor]

I don't suppose there's a way to tweak things to make an adventurer factory, either out of the surface of Golarion or another planet, or possibly making your own out where there used to be two before they collided, and then recruit promising candidates to broaden yourselves organizationally.

Maybe look into those vaults hidden in that lowest layer of the Darklands, if they're able to be made scrying resistant or the like, that can be useful for producing creatures and objects that can't be disrupted in retaliation for your saboteurs, if they can trace it make to you.

Trompe L'Oeil constructs may be of interest for scouting, as many things won't work on them and if they're destroyed they'll come back. Might be some form of suicide missions they could do which wouldn't really be suicide like it would for others.

Another thought is if those lich-like former humans that nuked themselves and became undead to preserve something of their culture regenerate like liches do, then recruiting them would be good on a similar front, though potentially getting access to their planet-killing doomsday weapon would be another reason to look into them. They're Eoxians or something, hailing from a dead world out further from Golarion in that system.

[unseenmage]

Trompe L'oeil are lich-like enough that they can go on suicide recon and reform back at home base. That said I've been mulling over what sort of creatures to Trompe L'oeil.

Alter Ego of Trompe L'oeil are neat because they get magic items only they can use.

Trompe L'oeil of Ghost, Lich, and Migrus are neat because they all have their own Rejuvenation ability. Trompe L'oeil of another Trompe L'oeil are weird; do they have to be killed twice before Rejuvenation or is one Rejuvenation just wasted but they have two painting?

Trompe L'oeil of Gunppowder Ooze are kind of amazing as suicide bombers. Get enough of them to go off at once and they'll set each other off.

Awaken Construct on the Tattoo Guardian Amalgam Gunpowder Ooze lets us make an Alter Ego or Trompe L'oeil of it.

Young and/or Degenerate Gunpowder Ooze will be cheaper to build too.

Amalgam with Tattoo Guardian and suddenly our Trompe L'oeil can carry each other around as tattoos. No extradimensional storage items needed.

Trompe L'oeil of Doppelganger and Mimic are kind of amazing. Best spies ever.

Miniature Trompe L'oeil spies would be amazing as well.

Simple Wizard versions would have spellcasting too.

Equip or 'Combining Magic Items' them with Marvelous Pigments and they'll potentially be able to paint hiding spots for themselves.

Shrink Item on some boulders or wall panels that have paintings on them makes for interesting hiding/ambush options for Trompe L'oeil as well.

As a last resort here's a template stacking theorycraft:

Miniature of an
Alter Ego of a
Trompe L'oeil of a
Simple Wizard of a
Lich or Ghost of a
Doppelganger or Mimic
equipped with Marvelous Pigments and a
pair of
Alter Ego of a
Trompe L'oeil of a
Awaken Construct-ed
Tattoo Guardian Amalgam with a
Young and Degenerate
Gunpowder Ooze.

Probably one of the best spies money can build right there.