oh fuck really

No control cap?

That's completely insane

Whelp, later guys

I have to go become the NECROMANTIC OVERLORD OF THE WORLD

Also obviously the spell and template are referring to bony skeletons. I would allow exoskeleton skeletons, but only because in my head they are completely fucking terrifying.

my brain just beat google in finding a word i'd forgotten: catharsis

I'm proud of you, brain!

You might not have a limit in how many undead you can control, but it looks like you have to basically treat them as people, and not ask unintelligent undead for more than one thing.

So you might not be able to be an undead ruler of the world.

Per diplomacy check

And they are still mindless

and there is a /flat DC/

"In most cases, a white necromancer should agree to release the undead once the requested service or task has been completed."

'fight the kingdom of Mhar', 'guard these lands for eternity' etc.

'sow destruction and wreak havoc until the world dies'

That seems like it's subverting the intent of the rule pretty hard.

Yep!

Note how I am NOT ACTUALLY DOING THIS.

;)

I had no way of knowing that. You haven't had a chance to raise any undead yet, and I've known more than a few people who would totally do that kind of thing.

Mainly people who are acquainted with TO stuff, like you are.

IIRC.

I dunno. People who actually are any good at TO stuff tend to not actually do any of that.

It's the people who read about it and try to reproduce it that tend to actually do it.

And that's half of one of my old gaming groups.

The game still worked, mostly, but I was basically useless because the GM had to ratchet the difficulty up so high.

Yeah, I love people like that, because I can effortlessly outoptimize them and it's the one argument they aren't immune to.

Honestly, given the time and inclination and resources I could probably pull out an absolute beast of a build but no, I just want to play a dude who cuts things with holy fire.

I don't know why anyone would not have this attitude.

I just wanted to play a cowardly necromancer!

And I am!

I'm glad that the game is mostly demon focused, and that we have ways to deal with undead without me helping.

My optimization started as I tried to make a Paladin a viable character in Age of Worms.

And by fuck, he was.

I like playing a mind control character, but it sucks when there are large groups of undead to fight.

well,

not to boast

But I think I have the Undead side of things handled

REALLY?

I wouldn't have figured that.

Command Undead is a ridiculously broken spell, and turn undead is still pretty neat.

Level 2? Christ.

DAYS PER LEVEL

no save, buddy

jesus christ

that's stupid

puts on sunglasses

who wrote that

It was the soppy end of bread they gave to wizard-necromancers in 3e, because clerics got so much undead love. They wanted wizards to be able to manipulate and control the dead, and clerics to create them.

I mean, it's not quite as powerful as Dominate Person, but it's similar enough that I wouldn't think it would be 3 levels lower.

Only targets undead, which is a pretty decent limitation in most campaigns.

Undead are just less useful than people in most regards, in any case.

'abyssal stirge', is that what attacked the group?

Yeah, but it's still comparable to a constant suggestion that works for days.

I think so.

CR-10? pffft. That thing didn't really seem cr 10.

What's its will save?

Oh wait, no it's not. This thing has a sleep aura. The thing that attacked the group did not.

The description was "The creature is a loathsome cross between a human, a stirge, and an abyssal fly. It stands on four stirge-like hind legs and grasps with its humanlike forelimbs, which end in chitinous claw-like fingers. It has the wings of a stirge, though wrinkled and seemingly useless.

Its stirge-like head has distinctly human features and is topped with a bristled, backswept mane. Its mouth is tiny and filled with fangs, though its nose is long and sharp and is used to pierce and draw blood."

If that helps.

d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/demon/…

Yeah, but this thing has a sleep aura. I didn't roll a will save, ergo, he wasn't using these stats.

Alternately, he forgot about the sleep aura.

Also, it has int 14 and telekinesis, so it shouldn't have been rushing into melee.

also it's cr 10

probably he made a cr 7 version without the SLAs and Su

He definitely forgot about the SR.

I never had to roll.

I rolled SR

probably he didn't know your spell had SR: Yes

It went down fast...

Hmm, you know what? Always, always always when you don't know what you're fighting roll against SR.

That stirge demon has a 60' sleep aura and SLAs and stuff. It shouldn't have been in melee range.

I'm betting it was a different version he used the same description for

It wasn't possible to move out of melee range, realistically. The tomb was like 50 feet wide.

It came from a hole in the roof

it flies

combat occurs on 3 planes, not 2

actually

I don't think it ever actually had a chance to make an action, now that I think about it.

when I run games in real life, I use random objects to put people's miniatures or pictures on top of to show height, it's really visually effective

is it still in condition for us to check its wings?

It ambushed the party, ergo, it's action was to jump into sword range.

thus my guess that it's a lower-CR melee stirge

> It has the wings of a stirge, though wrinkled and seemingly useless.

Speed 20 ft., fly 60 ft. (good)

I assume it magically flies.

regardless, it's actually a really brutal cr 10 encounter.

Assumptions, pah.

It has greater teleport, telekinesis, and stealth, perception and a sleep aura.

It can sneak around putting the party to sleep, then use telekinesis to hurl party member's away from sleeping friends, disable them with thrown rocks etc.

It can also summon some foot soldiers to tie up the party and keep people away from sleeping friends.

Based on the damage that we did to it when it died, I'm betting on the 'gm forgot some of it's abilities'.

headcanon

Metool, was your sword holy?

yes it was

Yeah, it had the right amount of HP.

I've ripped special abilities out of things when I wanted to create a thematic closet troll at a lower CR than the existing creature

there's like some fey bullshit flying illusion thing, I kept the defenses but removed all it's SLAs and Su stuff and it made a really interesting 'flying harrier' to fight the party with

I think it's kind of funny that my default assumption when something seems sort of weird is that someone screwed up, and that the default assumption of everone else here is that it was intentional. :)

I'm an optimist.

Just a very angry, cranky optimist.

you'll find a lot of optimists are

Metool hasn't made any judgements one way or the other

Like, whenever there's been a rule that seems ambiguous or weirdly written, I've said that it was probably a writer getting something wrong, but everyone else has said that it was probably intentional.

When you're dealing with Paizo, remember that the only mistakes they make are typos. Everything's intentional, and they don't give a damn about the consequences.

shrug

Speaking as a game designer, all game designers are idiots.

:)

Except for Lord_Gareth.

Speak of the devil. Literally 2 seconds after I type that line, I switch to Main Chat and he logs on.

I have no allusions about game designers. I've worked with a bunch.

I regularly excoriate people taking their word as the word of God. I hate all sycophantic behaviour, especially from geeks and nerds, about content creators.

The whole thing with 'author signings' and 'convention appearances' and shit fills me with inestimable amounts of rage.

and yes I did mean allusions, not illusions, poetic license, fuck you.

I can understand the hate for considering the word of an author as the Word of God, but what's so wrong about people being excited to meet the people who make their fun?

Can we use stars that are actually useful or interesting for the transcript now?

What do you mean?

Wait, I suppose we have been, if it counts as summaries of the chat goings-on...

wait, it's not just for witty or interesting things people say?

It's supposed to summarize the results of the discussion?

I don't think it's 'supposed to' be for anything specific. It's just a way to have the message show up on the sidebar.

Because the people are not the fun, and 'being excited to meet them' is not the same as 'paying huge amounts of money to see them in person'. It's anthropomorphizing their ideas as the person themselves, and putting them on a pedestal.

also it's weird

not weirder than hiring a prostitute, but that's still pretty weird.

Do you find it weird when people want to pay lots of money to see their favorite musicians?

at least there's a physical reason to hire someone to get you off, the other is purely a mental construct.

Yes, if the musicians aren't playing music, it is exactly the same.

Questions about how or why they created the good thing, sure. 'How do you draw such good arts' 'how do you make those football plays' etc.

But the vast majority of these 'appearances' and 'signings' and crap aren't that.

So, if someone wants to approach a person that creates things that make them happy and say "Thank you for doing that cool thing, I appreciate it." They're weird?

If they pay money to do it, and take that person away from creating more of that thing, yes.

*pay money to do it in person

Personal physical contact is not required to say well done. There's email, and purchasing their mass-produced goods, and all kinds of other methods.

I mean, people are gonna do it, sure.

It's still weird.

Ah, I get what you're saying.

I've done the non-paying version of that a few times, or the "buy something from my merch table and I'll sign it" thing, but yeah, paying for nothing but a signature is a bit weird.

Half the enjoyment of having a signed thing is that it's a physical reminder of that time you got to shake hands with someone you admire, basically.

yeah see if I admire someone I don't want to shake their hand

that is the disconnect for me

I want them to keep doing the thing I admire them for, or perhaps return the favour and do something nice for them.

shaking their hand or drinking a beer with them doesn't really enter into it.

@Aaron Happy birthday, then.

Ooh.

> Empyreal lords are the greatest members of the agathion, angel, archon, and azata races, and are sometimes worshiped as if they were deities. All empyreal lords are good outsiders that are, at a minimum, CR 21.

> An empyreal lord can grant spells to its worshipers as if it were a deity. An empyreal lord's domains are Chaos (if chaotic), Good, Law (if lawful), and two other domains relevant to its theme and interests (or three if it is neither chaotic nor lawful). Like a deity, an empyreal lord has a favored weapon.

And a whole bunch of miscellaneous goodies.

> Primal Aura (Su): An aura of primeval power surrounds every empyreal lord. The effects of this aura are unique to each empyreal lord.

I hope that's all that ability says.

Like, a completely useless line of text.

It's part of the Universal Monster Rules for Empyreal Lord Traits

so it appears to be, yes

@JackLesnie I find the image of a guy asleep wearing armour made of his own blood hilarious for some reason.

curled up with teddy bear, yes

wearing little blood night cap

Morning, people.

Good morning.

It's morning here too!

12:42am.

OH hey, we have a game today, don't we?

I totally forgot.

I just got in, vampire night last night.

Came this fucking close to just snapping a fucker's neck.

IC or OOC?

Or both?

IC, but I get very involved.

LARP or tabletop?

LARP, aussie ex-cam.

How do you feel about the CCP buyout?

I haven't been playing long, mostly I am just trying to pull it out of it's metagamey, shitty, lack of plotty slump

I have no idea what that is!

And kinda don't want to know.

All cam politics make me barf.

Yeah, but I have a few subordinate players at the moment, and one of them seems determined to get himself killed.

And I am just like 'fuck goddammit if you want to die that badly i'll kill you myself'

i'm basically playing Magneto

Cool.

you know, cares about the mutants a lot but also kind of a dick

replace mutants with 'vampires'

Mornin guys

hello

@JackLesnie Is there any limit on your raising of dead that makes it so you can only raise humanoids?

nah, Animate Dead works on anything with a corporeal body

in fact, giants and outsiders make the best Undeads, usually

@JackLesnie Ok. Don't forget about the DC to get them to help you. It might not be the best idea to try to get the thing you just killed to help you.

Why would the fact that he just killed it matter?

You are reviving the body with the same personality. Meaning it knows you helped killed it. Chances of it being friendly are very low.

Ouch. That's pretty harsh.

There are bodies in some of the sarcophagi in the room you are in.

Well, it's mindless according to the thing. Also with a different alignment (True Neutral).

So it wouldn't remember anything, due to not having a mind.

Animate Dead makes mindless undead, i'd need Create Undead to get the ones with an Int score.

If everything I revive comes with an int score, i'd consider that a pretty cool houserule.

Also, if he can't raise undead versions of things he kills and have them be friendly, that sort of gimps his main class feature.

I prefer grumbling 'buddy cop' undead to mindless undead

@JackLesnie Ahh. In that case That is ok.

I thought you revived it with the int score with animate dead.

nah. I'm not averse to that, it'd be fun for roleplaying purposes

but the spell doesn't do that normally

Ok animate dead wont revive with int. That should make it so you can revive the demon.

So how was your guys week?

Oh Phorbin will not be playing anymore as he was getting burnt out from playing two games on the same day.

Aww.

Should I get on Skype? I can never remember if we still use that.

@DuckTapeal Yea skype is the ooc

@MatthewNajmon @Metool you guys on?

@JackLesnie Are you on?

i'm here

@MatthewNajmon Ok.

If metool gets here soon we can start on time :)

having trouble w roll20 login (different comp than at home). will be on there when i can

@MatthewNajmon ok

@MatthewNajmon Want me to send you the link to the game? That may help.

problem is login. tablet on different roll20 account, need to remember login for right one

why do you have more than one?

cause i created one, didnt use it a long time, forgot it, made another, then rediscovered the first

@Aaron btw, i forgot to account for time zones before. your time, it'll be 1pm that i'll need to Scar out, not 2

@MatthewNajmon k

@Aaron something came up, gonna have to Scar out in a moment. have we determined the RP for the scars yet? don't want to screw up continuity again by saying something as it kicks in that doesn't match up. (for example, did i get it when i was snatched, was it there from my Elan transformation or earlier, etc)

Sorry about that, guys. There was nothing I could do.

@Aaron Sorry...