Y'know, this thread is really making me regret that I own both the Pathfinder Beta book and the Campaign setting book.


Not because they are bad, but because, like an idiot, I keep clicking the stupid link going 'oh... pathfinder discussion' before I remember that its about eight fucking pages of e-peen waving over a stupid ass poll on another website that wasn't even about fucking Pathfinder to begin with.



I now return you to your regularly scheduled time wasters...

Quote from: Spike;281050I now return you to your regularly scheduled time wasters...

Thank you! Geeze! The audacity of some folks!

But, you know, if you want to create a thread free from this kind of discussion, just say that in the OP and I'll do so...

Seanchai

The setting itself is pretty cool.

It's ecletic but well constructed with a strong halloween fantasy feel that puts Ravenloft in the dustbin. There's crazy goblins, haunted places, ancient civilizations, and sleeping horrors all over the place. Abasolom is like Greyhawk City with a better setup (basically you have numerous megadungeons on the island and if you want to adventure in a particular place/environment, it's a boat ride away). You have Andoran which is like early America and Galt which is like revolutionary France. Osirion having ties with Acuturn is like Egypt having ties with the Old Ones. There's science fiction elements in Numeria and elsewhere. There's also possibility for extraplanetary adventure ala Lin Carter's Green Planet/Howard's Almuric and Burrough's Red Planet in the planets of Castrovel the Green and Akiton the Red. There's about a dozen more things I could list but you get the picture. I LIKE THE SETTING A LOT.

If there's one thing I do not like, it's the stance of unchallengeable deities. It especially makes no sense since you have a CR 32 demon throwing one into a hissy fit all of the time.

Given the fact that there is a hard coded way to acheive apotheosis that is given FREQUENT mention throughout the book I feel it would have been somewhat proper to at least discuss the 'common knowledge' of how this god-test thing actually was supposed to work.  I mean: are people supposed to ninja their way into the temple?  Touch a rock?  

Nada. Just that there is a rock, in a temple, in a city... that makes people gods. Sometimes.  And people TRY alla time to get godhood and fail. Or they tried and died. I'm not certain there either.

I'm not asking for step by step instructions, but jeebus fuck, man! A fucking CLUE might be in order.  Just ONE.

I don't find that too troublesome - published campaign settings have a tendency to skip over low-level but important details like this all the time.

Nevertheless, if I were to GM a Starstone-related ascension attempt, I would make the Test of the Sunstone into a series of eleven trials with ELs appropriate to the party attempting the trial (minimum EL 8 so a lone 12th level character could attempt the test if they so chose).

The first trial would be always involve getting across the gorge, the intermediate nine trials would test the character's mettle in combat, ability use, and problem solving skills, and the final trial would involve something relevant to the portfolio the character is attempting to obtain. After every four trials, the ascendant would get an opportunity to rest and depending on his performance in each trial, the ascendant would ultimately either die or ascend.

Of course, participants could at any point leave the cathedral (a trial within itself) with the treasures they discover within.

Yeah... see that might have been my own instinct until the damned logistician in me realized: There are priests occupying the cathedral. Every day. Doing preisty stuff. And they are old.

How the fuck is getting in supposed to be a challenge then?   UGH! The illogic makes the head assplode.

Other than that, the setting is a fairly cool pastiche of a sort of mytholigized 'real world'.