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Orion
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Post by Orion » Mon Aug 03, 2015 6:41 am

> OgreBattle wrote:What level do your games usually start at, and how many levels do they tend to move up before it ends? Do you tend to stay in one 'tier' or do you go from stabbing orcs to stabbing orc gods.

I basically don't play above level 10. Campaigns have gone 4/6/8, 3/5/7, 3/6/8, 2/4/6, 2/5/8 and so on. All of them would have continued to 9 or 10 had real life allowed. I probably would have shut them down at the end of that arc.
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Koumei
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Post by Koumei » Mon Aug 03, 2015 7:23 am

Is there some list of named spell inventors? Or failing that, can we put a list together? I can think of:
Aganazar (scorcher)
Al-Dhalzim or whatever (Horrid Wilting)
Bigby (hand)
Deltane? Daltane? (fiery tentacles, see: some specific FR book)
Evard (tentacles)
Larloch (drain)
Leomund (hut)
Melf (arrows)
Mordenkainen (hound, sword, mansion, bee etc)
Snilloc (snowball swarm)
Tenser (transformation and disc)

> Count Arioch the 28th wrote:There is NOTHING better than lesbians. Lesbians make everything better.

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OgreBattle
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Post by OgreBattle » Mon Aug 03, 2015 7:41 am

Tasha's hideous laughter. I remember first coming across it as a wee tot and thinking "that's a really goofy flavor text for a pretty powerful debuff..."
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Prak
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Post by Prak » Mon Aug 03, 2015 7:56 am

Cross referencing Wiki's Fictional Spellcasters (D&D) category with D&D Tools gives-
Khelben (Dweomerdoom, Suspended Silence)
Elminster (Evasion, Efulgent Epuration)
Mystra (Miasma)
Alustriel (Banner)
Simbul (Skeletal Deliquescence, Spell Matrix, Spell Trigger, Synostodweomer)
Vecna (Malevolent Whisper)
Given that the category did not have Agnazar nor Deltane, I'm sure others were left out, and some (Vecna, Mystra) it's not clear whether they invented the spell, or it was named for them.
From core, you also forgot
Drawmij (Instant Summons)
Nystul (Magical Aura)
Otiluke (Dispelling Screen, Freezing Sphere, others)
Otto (Irresistable Dance)
Rary (Mnemonic Enhancer, Telepathic Bond)
Tasha (Hideous Laughter) (Ninja'd)
Edit: So, it just occurred to me how to pull up all the attributed spells on DNDTools. Filtering spells by " 's." It's not perfect, since it includes things like Legion's Banner and Bulls's Strength, but it helps. Turns up
Alamanther (Return)
Ayailla (Radiant Burst)
Azuth (Exalted Triad)
Balagarn (Iron Horn)
Beltyn (Burning Blood)
Billim (Bifrost Bridge)
Caligarde (Claw)
Chaav (Laugh)
Dalamar (Lightning Lance etc)
Daltim (not Deltane)
Darsson (Chilling Chamber etc)
Dhulark (Glasstrike)
Eilistraee (Moonfire, see above re: Venca, Mystra)
Ensul (Soultheft)
Estanna (Stew)
Faerinaal (Hymn)
Fistandantilus (Portal)
Gedlee (Electric Loop etc)
Ghorus Toth (Magnetism)
Graz'zt (see abover re: Vecna, Mystra)
Halaster (Blacksphere etc)
Horizikaul (Boom etc)
Igedrazaar (Miasma)
Irian (Light)
Jhanifer (Deliquescence)
Kaupaer (Skittish Nerves, ie Nerve Skitter)
Kelgore (Fire Bolt, Grave Mist)
Kyristan (Malevolent Tentacles- a popular motif, but this is the first that sounds like it's inventor was a woman)
Laeral (Crowning Touch etc)
Lahm (Finger Darts)
Laogzed (Breath)
Lastai (Caress)
Lutzaen (Frequent Jaunt)
Magius (Lament)
Mestil (Acid Touch)
Mycontil (Last Resort)
Nchaser (Glowing Orb)
Nezram (Amethyst Aura etc)
Nybor (Gentle Reminder etc)
Palarandusk (Fire Breath)
Palin (Pyre)
Phieran (Resolve)
Presper (Moonbow)
Sakkratar (Triple Strike)
Shalantha (Delicate Disk)
Shelgarn (Persistent Blade)
Sinsabur (Baleful Bolt)
Srinshee (Spell Shift)
Theskyn (Hearty Heave)
Tirumael (Energy Spheres)
Trobriand (Baleful Teleport)
Tvash-prull (Bonefiddle)
Tyche (Touch, again, unclear if invented by or named for)
Verraketh (Shadow Crown)
Yakamo (Anger)
Zajimarn (Avalanche etc)
Last edited by Prak on Mon Aug 03, 2015 8:34 am, edited 2 times in total.
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.

> Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.

> FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.
> You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.

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Koumei
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Post by Koumei » Mon Aug 03, 2015 8:09 pm

Thanks. That's quite the list.

> Count Arioch the 28th wrote:There is NOTHING better than lesbians. Lesbians make everything better.

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Prak
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Post by Prak » Mon Aug 03, 2015 8:35 pm

You're welcome. It's of course over several campaign settings, and I would bet that it's still missing something (in fact, I know Dragon had at least a few spells named for their inventors and Dragon stuff isn't in DnDTools), but there you go. And alphabetizing all the lists together isn't even a chore with excel.
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.

> Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.

> FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.
> You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.

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Longes
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Post by Longes » Thu Aug 06, 2015 8:08 pm

Was Star Wars WEG any good?
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Prak
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Post by Prak » Sat Aug 08, 2015 2:42 am

What is the general opinion on the mechanic Pathfinder uses for favored classes (the "+1 use of class ability per X levels" stuff, not the +1 skill point or hit point thing)?
I'm working on astrology stuff for D&D, and I'm thinking about using something like that for optimal careers--something like "people born under the sign of the Chimera excel in careers that involve stealth. When they use sneak attack or similar abilities, they deal +1d6 damage per three class levels" as opposed to Dragon magazine's "+2 to a skill" in their article on astrology for characters, which I'd balance with a -2 so people can just have it rather than having to buy it.
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.

> Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.

> FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.
> You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.

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Morat
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Post by Morat » Sat Aug 08, 2015 7:10 am

> Longes wrote:Was Star Wars WEG any good?

The skill list got bloated as fuck as it went along (there are about three different cooking skills!) and the difficulty examples are in general set absurdly high compared to the actual number of points you're given. If you try to make a basic smuggler who can adequately fly a transport, make deals with the friendliest bits of the black market, lie to unusually stupid customs agents, bargain with the gullible, and remember to put a spacesuit on if his ship depressurizes, you will fail. Just the essentials to be a minimally competent member of your profession is out of reach.
Adding on useful adventuring skills like sneaking, shooting, investigating, wilderness survival, etc. is just impossible. You can't make even Han Solo's lame kid brother. As the character sheets for movie characters demonstrate. IIRC, even Luke in the first movie has nearly 60 dice in skills. You start with seven. Even at the maximum XP/session, you're looking at about 150 sessions to go from "starting character" to "Luke at the end of the first movie". It's less bad in 1e because there are so many fewer skills, but you still can't make the broadly competent Star Wars protagonists.
It also does the thing where XP can be spent either to slowly increase your skills or to give you one-shot bonuses on a roll. Because that's always a good idea. Also, if you try to raise your attributes, you have to roll your new rating against the old one, and if you roll higher, your stat doesn't go up and you lose half the XP you spent.
Last edited by Morat on Sat Aug 08, 2015 7:10 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Count Arioch the 28th
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Post by Count Arioch the 28th » Sat Aug 08, 2015 8:41 am

I'm going to run this by you guys as typically this board is quick to point out bullshit.
You are playing a Pathfinder game with a modified cosmology. Assume the following house rules are in play:
1- No Outer Planes, the more interesting ones have been converted into planets.
2- Any planet with life above a certain threshold projects partially into the Astral plane. This is how Plane Shift/ Astral Projection/ FTL starship travel works. Which means if a planet does not have enough life on it, you literally can't see or detect it from any way in the Astral plane.
3- Even in uninhabited planets, in general spells in the Teleportation subschool work fine (it is theorized by wizards that spells in that subschool "skim" the surface of the astral for relatively short distances; teleporting a few hundred miles away is a lot different than trying to do the same to a planet three million light years away)
Basically, I'm pushing a "Astral is the plane of the Mind" thing pretty hard, but I don't want to bar uninhabited planets completely and I don't want to prevent a player on said planet from teleporting. I'm thinking of two alternating types of FTL travel; one pushing through the Astral plane and one that pushes through the Shadow Plane. Basically, if you're flying to Finality you travel Star Trek/Star Wars style in a relatively safe and reliable way, if you're going to Charon or Triton you're using the Warp from 40k (riskier and less reliable, but once you get a stable colony on a planet and install some teleportation circles you can eventually build your colony until it projects astrally and connects you to the rest of the civilized universe).
If that sounds like bullshit, let me know, and if anything is salvageable. Writing a bit of a home campaign setting and loathe as I am to consult other people I probably should ask someone else if I sound batshit insane. Also, would "Astral Drive" and "Shadow Drive" be too unimaginative names for the two types of FTL drive, or is simple better here?
Last edited by Count Arioch the 28th on Sat Aug 08, 2015 8:45 am, edited 3 times in total.
In this moment, I am Ur-phoric. Not because of any phony god’s blessing. But because, I am enlightened by my int score.
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Grek
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Post by Grek » Sat Aug 08, 2015 10:04 am

The main "problem" I see is that many powerful people are going to want bases on uninhabited planets. But if that's fine, then I see no issue.

> FrankTrollman wrote:I think Grek already won the thread and we should pack it in.

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Orca
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Post by Orca » Sat Aug 08, 2015 10:23 am

The question is what the shadow drive being more dangerous/less reliable means from the PCs perspective. If it means they may simply die or be lost forever you have a potential campaign-ending event there. If it means a possible encounter which they are almost certain to win, it isn't any sort of limitation. If it's an encounter which they might lose you need to think about a debugging section; now you have been taken captive by unseelie slavers, plot your escape sort of thing.
As far as names go those work. You might alternately steal Star Trek terminology (warp/impulse drive) or name them light and dark drives, hyperspace vs. subspace, or whatever takes your fancy.
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OgreBattle
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Post by OgreBattle » Sat Aug 08, 2015 2:43 pm

Sailing in a wooden sailboat is also fraught with uncertainty and danger, and often leads to "a kraken/storm strikes and you are shipwrecked on the shores of new adventure"
The Shadow Drive could do something similar except it's shadow krakens and shadow islands the shadowtides wash you up on.
If that's too DM fiat feeling you can just make a random encounter chart that has a chance of draining party resources en route to whatever destination they're shadow driving through
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Longes
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Post by Longes » Sat Aug 08, 2015 3:27 pm

> Morat wrote:Adding on useful adventuring skills like sneaking, shooting, investigating, wilderness survival, etc. is just impossible. You can't make even Han Solo's lame kid brother. As the character sheets for movie characters demonstrate. IIRC, even Luke in the first movie has nearly 60 dice in skills. You start with seven. Even at the maximum XP/session, you're looking at about 150 sessions to go from "starting character" to "Luke at the end of the first movie". It's less bad in 1e because there are so many fewer skills, but you still can't make the broadly competent Star Wars protagonists.

I looked up the stats and holy shit you are right. C3P-0 can reliably sneak up on a starting PC. R2-D2 can murder the entire starting party by himself.
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Blicero
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Post by Blicero » Sat Aug 08, 2015 4:23 pm

> Prak wrote:What is the general opinion on the mechanic Pathfinder uses for favored classes (the "+1 use of class ability per X levels" stuff, not the +1 skill point or hit point thing)?
> I'm working on astrology stuff for D&D, and I'm thinking about using something like that for optimal careers--something like "people born under the sign of the Chimera excel in careers that involve stealth. When they use sneak attack or similar abilities, they deal +1d6 damage per three class levels" as opposed to Dragon magazine's "+2 to a skill" in their article on astrology for characters, which I'd balance with a -2 so people can just have it rather than having to buy it.

Why would you want to add yet more bullshit fake choices to the game?
Out beyond the hull, mucoid strings of non-baryonic matter streamed past like Christ's blood in the firmament.
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Count Arioch the 28th
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Post by Count Arioch the 28th » Sat Aug 08, 2015 4:56 pm

> Grek wrote:The main "problem" I see is that many powerful people are going to want bases on uninhabited planets. But if that's fine, then I see no issue.

Thematically, that sounds good to me.

> OgreBattle wrote:Sailing in a wooden sailboat is also fraught with uncertainty and danger, and often leads to "a kraken/storm strikes and you are shipwrecked on the shores of new adventure"
> The Shadow Drive could do something similar except it's shadow krakens and shadow islands the shadowtides wash you up on.

Yeah, similar to that. You still get there, but you arrive three weeks after/before you intended to arrive and a band of Kyton Evangelists saw you and have taken an interest in what you are doing. It could also set up an adventure in the theme of the movie Event Horizon where a starship shows up devoid of crew with something evil that starts adventures for anyone trying to salvage it.
Last edited by Count Arioch the 28th on Sat Aug 08, 2015 6:11 pm, edited 2 times in total.
In this moment, I am Ur-phoric. Not because of any phony god’s blessing. But because, I am enlightened by my int score.
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Prak
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Post by Prak » Sat Aug 08, 2015 6:57 pm

> Blicero wrote:

> > Prak wrote:What is the general opinion on the mechanic Pathfinder uses for favored classes (the "+1 use of class ability per X levels" stuff, not the +1 skill point or hit point thing)?
> > I'm working on astrology stuff for D&D, and I'm thinking about using something like that for optimal careers--something like "people born under the sign of the Chimera excel in careers that involve stealth. When they use sneak attack or similar abilities, they deal +1d6 damage per three class levels" as opposed to Dragon magazine's "+2 to a skill" in their article on astrology for characters, which I'd balance with a -2 so people can just have it rather than having to buy it.

> Why would you want to add yet more bullshit fake choices to the game?

Well, first, I play 3.5, not Pathfinder, so there are a lot fewer fake choices in the game I run than I think you're assuming (I'm not saying none, because fighter is still available).
But also, I find astrology conceptually interesting. It's kind of like Chi or chakras, bullshit in real life but plausible in "Fire breathing giant lizards land." I also primarily play with a person who is a veteran but has trouble making character backstories and personalities, and newbies who have gamed for less than a year who commonly have the same problem.
What I'm doing with astrology is just 12 options. As it stands, they look like this:

> Beholder (Readying/Ches/Therendor/Pahrast)
> People born under the sign of the Beholder are known for their curiosity. They crave novelty and new things, and live life with their eyes wide open, taking in everything around them, They are fascinated with puzzles and secrets and apt to solve and find them out.
> However, they can appear withdrawn or detached from, even ignorant of, others' feelings. They make wonderful dinner companions with their many stories and anecdotes, but difficult friends, as they do not trust others easily.
> Optimal Career: People born under the sign of the Beholder are natural scribes and skilled at recognizing patterns in script and diagrams, but understand books and words far better than people. They have a +2 bonus to Decipher Script checks and a -2 penalty to Sense Motive checks.
> Lucky Action: Beholders are curious and ever watchful, but their need to take in everything around them makes them easily distracted. They have a +2 bonus to Spot checks and a -2 penalty to Concentration checks.
> Birthstone: Agate- agate is the stone of alertness and perception. If a person born under the sign of the Beholder carries an Agate worth at least 200 gp, they gain a Luck bonus of +2/3 character level.

Basically taking a Dragon magazine article and making things balance out, because the article expected you to take a feat chain to get those piddling bonuses and that's bullshit. But I was thinking that Optimal Careers would be better represented by bonuses to your actual class rather than just another skill bonus.
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.

> Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.

> FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.
> You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.

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Blicero
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Post by Blicero » Sat Aug 08, 2015 7:57 pm

@Prak
If you have the choice between adding fake choices to your game and not adding fake choices to your game, why would you ever choose the former? No matter if there are 2 or 20 or 200 fake choices in the game already. Is there a reason you can't just make astrology signs fluff and associate them with organizations in the game world or something else that doesn't constrict potential character options?
Out beyond the hull, mucoid strings of non-baryonic matter streamed past like Christ's blood in the firmament.
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Morat
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Post by Morat » Sat Aug 08, 2015 8:37 pm

> Longes wrote:I looked up the stats and holy shit you are right. C3P-0 can reliably sneak up on a starting PC. R2-D2 can murder the entire starting party by himself.

That's bad, but it's not the worst part. If you hyperspecialize into one very narrow field, you can sort of hang with the named characters in that one thing as long as they're not very good at it. In exchange, you'll be utterly hopeless at everything else. And I didn't even throw in all of the knowledge skills (alien species, planetary systems, law enforcement, business, bureaucracy, value...) that a smuggler would have to have.
But the skills in the actual Star Wars universe are clearly very general. When confronted by a problem that is vaguely within their field, the characters aren't stopped by not having that specific skill. At Yavin, Luke does not go "I'm a farmboy, I have no idea how to fly a space fighter." Because Luke is a skilled pilot. Period. He just gets in his X-Wing and flies off. Where would a farmboy have learned how to operate the turrets on the Millennium Falcon? Doesn't matter, because it's not a problem. The character sheets for the heroes get around this by just giving them a fuckload of skills, but obviously what's going on is that characters are good pilots or good shots or good at fixing things. Maybe they have a bonus at some narrower area, but nobody is only good at using one particular kind of weapon.
If you want a laugh, just look at the skill list. Careful observation will show that there are three or four different skills to operate a jetpack depending on how it actually functions. The grenade skill covers throwing other things like rocks, but thrown weapons are something else. There are four different skills for operating a heavy gun, based on whether the mount can't move, can move but not fly in space, is on a small ship, or is on a big ship. Even if it's all the same gun.
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hyzmarca
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Post by hyzmarca » Sat Aug 08, 2015 10:03 pm

If a oWOD Nosferatu fronted for a world famous Death Metal band on the pretense that he just had a really good makeup artist, would that be a Masquerade violation?
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Post by Emerald » Sun Aug 09, 2015 4:27 am

> Count Arioch the 28th wrote:2- Any planet with life above a certain threshold projects partially into the Astral plane. This is how Plane Shift/ Astral Projection/ FTL starship travel works. Which means if a planet does not have enough life on it, you literally can't see or detect it from any way in the Astral plane.
> 3- Even in uninhabited planets, in general spells in the Teleportation subschool work fine (it is theorized by wizards that spells in that subschool "skim" the surface of the astral for relatively short distances; teleporting a few hundred miles away is a lot different than trying to do the same to a planet three million light years away)

It seems to me that if you allow teleportation on uninhabited planets by "skimming" an Astral Plane (that according to the new Astral flavor shouldn't be there in the first place) to enable point 3, then either your justification for point 2 stops making sense or you invite players to try to get this "skimming" to work on a larger scale, at which point you either need to declare that it can't work "because just go with it, okay?" or they potentially succeed and it breaks the entire setting like Scotty's "trans-warp beaming" in the new Star Trek movies.
Spoilering my suggestions, 'cause they're long and might be completely off-base for what you're going for:
I suggest you take a twofold approach to addressing this. First off, make it so that all planer travel methods and countermeasures can be used with all three transitive planes: you have separate astral teleport, ethereal teleport, and shadow teleport spells for traveling through the Astral, Ethereal, or Shadow Planes; there are astral jaunt, shadow jaunt, astral walk, and ether walk spells to go along with ethereal jaunt and shadow walk; make manifest can pull someone in from the Astral Plane and a solid forcecage blocks Astral and Shadow travel in addition to Ethereal travel; and so forth. That opens up both instantaneous (teleport, blink, shadowfade) and non-instantaneous (astral projection, etherealness, shadow walk) planar travel for both short and long distances without breaking the Astral fluff explanation.
Second, expand on the flavor and use of the other transitive planes, something like this:

- As it is made up from the protomatter from whence stars and planets are formed, the Ethereal Plane is associated with the presence of solid matter. Every planet or moon (inhabited or not) possesses an Ethereal Plane that extends a bit past the limits of its atmosphere, particularly large ships or asteroids or the like might possess a small Ethereal Plane that extends to the boundaries of the hull or rocky surface, and smaller objects like starfighters and creatures don't have any Ethereal Plane worth noting.
  Travel through an Ethereal Plane simply requires some sort of continuous path from one point to another through the same Ethereal Plane, but you cannot travel from one Ethereal Plane to another.
- As the "negative image" of the real world, the Shadow Plane exists only where real things don't, namely the vacuum of space. The larger and more massive something is, and the nearer it is to a lot of mass, the harder it is to send into Shadow; you can easily send a well-crewed frigate through Shadow if you're in the middle of nowhere away from any celestial bodies, but getting within a few light-minutes of a star or planet makes it chancy to punch through (and might drop you out if you're already in Shadow) and getting a small ship into the Shadow Plane within low orbit--or getting a large capital ship into the Shadow Plane anywhere at all--is impossible.
  Travel through the Shadow Plane (and there's only one Shadow Plane, not multiple ones as with the Ethereal Plane) is straight-line only; attempting to travel over a "hole" in the Shadow plane results in the traveler being returned to the real world and being diverted from one's path means being lost in the Shadow for years if not longer.
- As the collective unconscious of sentient beings, the Astral Plane exists where creatures do. A planet full of billions of sapients will have an Astral presence strong enough to encompass the planet's moons and be seen millions of light years away, a colony planet or a planet heavy in animal life will have a smaller and less visible Astral presence (perhaps one that isn't even visible past the planet's moon), and a barren rocky planet won't have an Astral presence at all.
  Travel through the Astral Plane depends on the physical distance between the origin and destination and the traveler's familiarity with the destination, with heavily populated, closer, and/or well-known planets being reachable by interplanetary teleportation and barren, farther, and/or unfamiliar planets requiring real-time traversal.

In this setup, you get different versions of FTL depending on the spell and plane used:

- Ethereal + instantaneous spell = Star Trek beaming (intraship or orbit-to-ground transit only, but it can ignore obstacles in the way)
- Astral + instantaneous spell = Stargate wormholes (no distance limit, but only to certain known destinations)
- Shadow + instantaneous spell = Star Wars hyperdrive (can go anywhere, but trying to go through a star or planet will drop you out into realspace)
- Ethereal + non-instantaneous spell = Star Trek or Stargate phasing (you can pop out of phase and wander around for a bit, but don't move any faster)
- Astral + non-instantaneous spell = Babylon 5 jumpgates (taking known routes is safe, and you can go off the beaten path, but you'll probably get lost)
- Shadow + non-instantaneous spell = 40K Warp (high danger of getting eaten by shadow daemons).

This gets you everything you want (long and dangerous travel to new planets, Astral travel only between populated planets, teleportation on uninhabited planets) while preserving the standard natures of the planes (each world has its own Ethereal, the Shadow Plane reaches between worlds, Astral travel is more fuzzy) and also giving you a few other sci-fi-ish perks (like having several different methods of FTL and making it so that your "transporter" is a different device from your "warp drive").
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> Prak wrote:What is the general opinion on the mechanic Pathfinder uses for favored classes (the "+1 use of class ability per X levels" stuff, not the +1 skill point or hit point thing)?
> I'm working on astrology stuff for D&D, and I'm thinking about using something like that for optimal careers--something like "people born under the sign of the Chimera excel in careers that involve stealth. When they use sneak attack or similar abilities, they deal +1d6 damage per three class levels" as opposed to Dragon magazine's "+2 to a skill" in their article on astrology for characters, which I'd balance with a -2 so people can just have it rather than having to buy it.
> [...]
> What I'm doing with astrology is just 12 options. As it stands, they look like this:
> [snip beholder description]
> Basically taking a Dragon magazine article and making things balance out, because the article expected you to take a feat chain to get those piddling bonuses and that's bullshit. But I was thinking that Optimal Careers would be better represented by bonuses to your actual class rather than just another skill bonus.

As a player using such a system, I'd much rather see some sort of favored class-style bonuses than what you have right now. The +2/+2 skill feats give you a bonus to two skills you care about with no penalties, and still practically no one cares about them; your example astrological sign gives +2 to a skill you care about and +2 to one you don't, and then gives -2/-2 to two skills that you probably do care about, making it undesirable even for free.
It might be worth it depending on what that +2/3 level luck bonus applies to (I'm assuming saves against illusions as in the original article), but if all the signs are like that I'd probably rather not pick a sign at all. If you stick with that format, I don't think you need to worry about balancing those "piddling bonuses" if everyone's going to have exactly one sign; just give out +2 [good skill], +2 [niche skill], and [other minor benefit] for each and be done with it.
For the favored class approach, I suggest actually trying to come up with class-agnostic benefits, tricky as that might be, instead of granting bonus sneak attack dice, bonus feats, bonus spell slots, or whatever. Maybe the sign of the Chimera makes for characters that work well with animals and gives +X effective level for companion creatures (good for a ranger's or druid's animal companion, a paladin's mount, or a wizard's or sorcerer's familiar), the sign of the Beholder makes for characters that strive to be better than anyone else and gives a +Y bonus on any opposed checks (good for trip- and bull rush-focused fighters, stealthy or social rogues, and grapple-averse wizards), and so forth.
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Kaelik
  ArchDemon of Rage
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Post by Kaelik » Sun Aug 09, 2015 5:02 am

Spoiler alert. Favored classes are garbage. Either they are good enough to matter, in which case you just reduced the play space, (which is already reduced enough with bullshit races that are clearly the best X ubiquitous) or they are garbage meaningless shit, in which case they are garbage meaningless shit that just make people feel slightly shitter for playing what they want to play and giving people more shit to write on their character sheet and keep track of, but nothing actually added to the game.

> DSMatticus wrote:Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?

The U.S. isn't a democracy and if you think it is, you are a rube.
That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.
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name_here
  Prince
  Posts: 3346
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:55 pm

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Post by name_here » Sun Aug 09, 2015 6:14 am

> hyzmarca wrote:If a oWOD Nosferatu fronted for a world famous Death Metal band on the pretense that he just had a really good makeup artist, would that be a Masquerade violation?

Probably not by itself, but it's pretty much begging for one to happen when someone tries to take off the mask.

> DSMatticus wrote:It's not just that everything you say is stupid, but that they are Gordian knots of stupid that leave me completely bewildered as to where to even begin. After hearing you speak Alexander the Great would stab you and triumphantly declare the puzzle solved.

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AcidBlades
  Journeyman
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Post by AcidBlades » Sun Aug 09, 2015 7:57 am

Here is a rough recall of my First DMing session about 4 months ago. I want to see where I fucked up somewhere.
I decided to try my hand at the gestalting system, considering that we had a DM who was fairly worn out of DMing, and as such I took that as my call to be a DM. I said that it was a gestalt game, and that people could join. My first admitted mistake was in bringing in that game whenever I was only supposed to host that game for a single person. He expressed no sort of antagonism over that fact, BUT he did later tell me that it was a dickish thing to do. So I guess strike .5 for me.
The actual game starts, getting things set off at level 2. What I meant to do was say that we were all meant to play in a wild, wild west sort of campaign using pathfinder. I however just said "the west" and that confused the two British players (though one of them was a Gunslinger/Alchemist so it didn't matter too much anyways). The bartender character (Rogue/Wizard) was serving at the bar that they owned. Another character, a psionic lizardfolk (the gun/alch) was also being served food. I made it so that the three frogmen (Grippli) characters that the bartender was serving was harassing her and generally being a bit rawdy and lewd in a rude, rapey way. Yes I get that it is creepy, but I made it very clear that this world was a fairly grim, and dark world for them to adventure to. That and they were all dudes playing women, so I doubt they were miffed much anyways. They got sick of their shit and a fight breaks out. The Bartender killed one Grippli while the Lizard critted and blew the other one away. The last remaining grippli was cornered and then the Lizard force fed it one of her magic waterballons.
So far so good right? Well I set up a situation where gypsy elves were conning patrons from outside of the Bartender's Saloon and I wanted to see how that would go down. There were Half-Giant costumers who were getting swindled by the elves and such. Well I made it fairly clear that those two were customers, but the bartender decided to fire off a "Drizzle" spell on them or whatever spell that would make the two of them wet. Well I initiated combat, because this is clearly a sign of aggression. The Bartender character forgot about their Shocking Grasp, and instead decided to go after the elf. The elf casted sleep after the Bartender missed her attack. Will save failure, and then the Bartender is asleep for 3 or so rounds. At about this point, an Native-Americanish (Barbarian-Bard) comes strolling around, and wants to help the fair ladies. So he goes after a half-giant. One of them misses an attack, another one succeeds an overrun attempt. Then the next turn comes around, where the guy wants to get back up, attack of oppurtinity failed and he nicked the guy good. Then he ate an unlucky critical and he got himself killed. Then the gunslinger failed her attack, went back in to get another Grippli's gun and then sprawled back out to fire her attacks. However she also got a critical hit fired at her, and she got herself killed too. Assuming that the Bartender was going to get killed, I said it was a total wipe.
Now I have a reputation for being a killer DM, and that they told me that they shouldn't have gotten into that fight in the first place. Telling me that those half-giants should've just been cool with them being drenched with water.
Hilariously enough, I also thought of pulling in about 4-6 elven rangers that were being led by the elf-gypsy witch. But that's just not how the fight went down. What could I have done to not fuck up. Outside of just not using pathfinder in the first place.
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Prak
  Serious Badass
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Post by Prak » Sun Aug 09, 2015 8:21 am

@Emerald: the original article had:

- Beholder- +2 Decipher Script, +2 Spot, +2 vs Illusion
- Harpy- +2 Perform (sing, oratory), +2 Bluff, +1 AC vs ranged
- Ettin- +2 Sleight of Hand, +2 Disable Device, +1 AC vs AoO
- Dryad- +2 Handle Animal, +2 Heal, +1 AC while adjacent to an Ally
- Stirge- +2 Craft (Alchemy), +2 Concentration, +2 vs Enchantment
- Wyvern- +2 Survival, +2 Ride, +1 AC when you've moved 5 ft or more in that round
- Dragon- +2 Appraise, +2 Listen, +1 AC after using Aid Another that round
- Unicorn- +2 Climb, +2 Jump, +2 vs Poison/Disease
- Hydra- +2 Gather Info,+2 Tumble, +2 AC vs Crit confirmations
- Chimera- +2 Diplomacy, +2 Move Silently, +2 vs Evocation
- Kraken- +2 Swim, +2 Hide, +1 AC vs touch attacks
- Basilisk- +2 Intimidate, +2 Sense Motive, +2 vs Transmutation

And you had to take three feats to get the bonuses- one for the first +2 and the ability to add a sign requirement to magic items you make, another for the second +2 and the ability to reroll that skill once a day, and a third for the defensive bonus if you carry 100 gp worth of the appropriate stone and use the reroll from the previous feat an additional time per day.
The first change that needs to be made is that people shouldn't have to take three feats to get this stuff. But you make a good point that if everyone's getting these then balancing them with penalties. There are still a couple of issues, like the fact that there's no discernible difference between an Optimal Career (the first bonus) and a Lucky Action (the second bonus), and the fact that Optimal Careers don't necessarily describe an optimal career, so much as just another skill you're good with. Some of them are skills you might base a career around, like Decipher Script or Craft (Alchemy).
Because of the latter part I was considering something like "People born under the sign of the Dryad are very close to and skilled with animals. If they have levels in a class which gives an animal companion, special mount or familiar, their class level is considered to be 1/3 higher for the purposes of determining the benefits that the animal receives." or something.
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.

> Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.

> FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.
> You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.

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