Primal Conundrum

Outlaws of Varisia Pathfinder Campaign Interest Check

The 42nd Gecko said
Isn't the BoVD 3rd edition?You might need to do some serious updating to get it all the way up to 3.75.Also, with those alternate curses, a lot of them have the undesired effect of hurting bystanders without giving those bystanders a defense. That means, when you cast bestow curse on level one peasant... suddenly, you've mind controlled the next opponent you face into wasting his first turn on the peasant, regardless of how good that person's will save is.

I'm not sure what version of the curse or what odd twisting of events could lead to that effect. The only curse effect that I think you could be referencing is the one the next person they meet hates them, but that doesn't force them to attack them or anything. Not to mention, you'd have to drag the peasant around so that you could suddenly throw him out to meet your next opponent, while keeping him sealed off from interaction until then.

Also, to balance a lot of those things, all the DM needs to do is allow saves for the secondary targets involved. Pretty dead simple to house rule, actually.

I do see Sujurak using evil spell components when he can, though. He's got claws as a racial weapon, if an enemy humanoid is already dead he could be pretty quick about tearing their heart out (probably a Heal skillcheck, can be done untrained to pull it out without damaging beyond use as a spell component) or carving off a finger to use to try to modify a spell.

Also, the willing deformity feats and vile magic / just dark magic in general are awesome.

Outlaws of Varisia Pathfinder Campaign Interest Check

It's just that it's going to be tempting and so easy for the DM to favour his own character in some way, be it through putting in loot that is perfect for what his character could use, fudging the dice rolls to save his own character, etc. Again, if you can do it then awesome, but for a lot of DMs it's super hard to treat their characters the same way as the player characters.

I love the BoVD :D The alternate curses that they have in there are delicious! Also, one of my spell domains is from there, for some REAL dark juju.

Outlaws of Varisia Pathfinder Campaign Interest Check

I've never trusted myself to run a PC when I DM, and in the groups where the DMs I had needed more people they just got people to play multiple characters.

If you think you can do a DM-run PC and be fair about it, that's fine- it's just normally too much of a conflict of interests for most.

Oh also, is Book of Vile Darkness okay to use?

Outlaws of Varisia Pathfinder Campaign Interest Check

I'm at a computer most of the time, so pretty much as often as we need from me.

Outlaws of Varisia Pathfinder Campaign Interest Check

OOCly, I hope you're aware that Sujurak isn't going to get converted :P He actually interacts with the spirits that help him out, he sees them and hears them chittering around. The way that Sujurak will be interacting with the dead will be basically sending these spirits into corpses to animate them and such.

I have so many ideas for spells and the like involving shrunken heads :D

Outlaws of Varisia Pathfinder Campaign Interest Check

Sorry, I get kinda pissy late at night, I should have been more polite in how I worded my last post. Thank you for letting me use point buy though- I'm happy to let the dice fall where they may during the actual gameplay, but I like having more control during character creation.

Anyway, here's my character, let me know if I should change things:
http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=979606

The way I picture his magic working is through direct aid from the assorted spirits that surround him, and for some reason I picture them as tiny little monstrous looking humanoids (that vary quite a bit in shape from one to another) all wearing some sort of head covering, be it the skull from a small animal or a carved bit of wood or a hollow stone with holes for eyes. They're totally intangible and effectively just a bit of visual fluff, but for example if he casts spark to light something on fire, one of the spirits might jump onto the object and with a tiny roar that only Sujurak / his allies can hear, breath a torrent of sparks on the object. If he casts mage hand (which he got from a trait) then it would just be a group of little spirits flying and holding the object, likely born aloft on tiny little bird wings with feathers carved from wood or other material.

Ooh, also, is it okay if we use stuff from the Book of Vile Darkness? There was some awesome stuff for villains in there.

Outlaws of Varisia Pathfinder Campaign Interest Check

I fucking hate the roll for scores system. Did it, my stats were within the zone where I'm not able to reroll, yet I'm effectively an 8 point character. Fuck that.

I've never had luck with rolling for scores, and I hate how it can kinda torpedo a character idea you had if your stats are too level across the board, or if you just don't have the scores needed to play them the way you wanted. If you want to do roll for stats that's your call, but I think I'm gonna duck out of this one then. Best of luck.

Outlaws of Varisia Pathfinder Campaign Interest Check

The 42nd Gecko said
Ah, I misread your statement. I thought we were talking about overpowering NPCs shutting down mechanics, not new quests.I am not fond of the. "The CR 20 creatures shows up and tells you he'll kill you if you keep casting haste." "Is there anything I can do to convince you otherwise seeing I can't hope to fight you?" "Nope."

Agreed, that's stupid, but that's not how he handled stuff. It would be more like we get attacked by a few weak seekers, then as we are assessed they send out more agents, first to warn us away from disrupting the time flow and later to enforce that if we keep doing stuff- of course, we can try to avoid or outfight them, and it'll usually only be an issue if we're really just completely abusing an ability, but you get the idea.

Again, this guy is writing scripts for TV and movies now, his games were awesome.

Assallya said
Avoiding formulaic adventures is the responsibility of the players in my opinion. For example, when I was GMing, my players instead of going up against the local tribe of Goblins instead hired the goblins to help them against their mutual enemy- the local kobolds. It totally messed up my story arc but it made for some awesome story. Particularly when Maglubiyet, the God of Goblins, caught wind of a bunch of humans and elves civilizing one of his tribes.

It's everyone's responsibility. It's up to the DM to present interesting scenarios, and it's up to the players to come up with interesting ways of handling them rather than just brute force their way through the same way every time.

Outlaws of Varisia Pathfinder Campaign Interest Check

Omega said
I dislike the campaign being formulaic cakewalks. After a few levels you should be doing stuff to gain some notoriety given the following even a CHA 10 fighter gains from leadership so your enemies likely know who you are and how you operate.

Especially with characters that have leadership, pretty quickly their enemies would learn their tactics if they expected to face them and be prepared to deal with their tricks.

But yeah, filler fights suck. The most enjoyable games I've played had pretty much no filler combat- I'd rather just not fight rather than have pointless fights.

Outlaws of Varisia Pathfinder Campaign Interest Check

The 42nd Gecko said
Eh, I was talking more like an event where a crumbling dungeon means the players need to keep moving and can't full attack.Having a bunch of NPCs decide to hose you for using a plain game mechanic seems like the relationship between the players and the GM is adversarial. I'm fine with 90% of the fights being formulaic cakewalks. Means everyone doesn't have to pick the absolute best classes and options in order to be a part of the action.

We were always of the thought that if the fights were boring and formulaic, then there was no point to them. The main DM I had is actually a scriptwriter now, his adventures were great- the stuff he did wasn't adversarial, it was things that would set up chances for a new adventure. A crumbling cavern is a sidenote to something else that's already happening- pissing off an extraplanar faction or contracting a disease gives the players a chance to go do some new quest.