The Dragoning

I finally got around to putting together the stats for dragons on Hekinoe. I'm pretty pleased with the result. Check it out:

Wyrmling Dragon

CR 1

XP 400

Tiny Dragon

Init: +6; Senses: darkvision 120 ft; low-light vision, scent; Perception +6

Defense

AC: 24, touch 18, flat-footed 15 (+1 dodge, +6 Dex, +5 natural, +2 size)

HP: 3 (1d12-3)

Fort: +1; Ref: +7; Will: +3

DR: 1/-; Immune: acid, paralysis, poison, sleep.

Offense

Speed: 30 ft.

Melee: bite +4 (1d3+1/20 plus grab); claw -1 (1d2+1/20) x2

Space: 2 ½ ft.

Reach: 0

Special Attacks: acidy spit (20 ft. burst, 10 ft. range, DC 10, 1d6 acid); poison

Statistics

Str: 12+1; Dex: 22+6; Con: 7+-2; Int: 2-4; Wis: 12+1; Cha: 8-1

Base Atk: +1; CMB: +0; CMD: 18 (+4 vs. trip)

Feats: Dodge

Skills: Perception+6, Stealth +18 (+8 size modifier, additional +8 in undergrowth)

Ecology

Environment: everywhere!!1!

Organization: solitary, pair, or pack (3-12)

Treasure: none

Special Abilities

Acidy Spit (Ex): Dragons possess an extremely caustic acid in their stomachs that helps them digest food. They can spit this acid out to a range of 10 feet per age category to all creatures within a 20 ft. radius spread. Once a dragon has spit its acid, it may not do so again for 1d6 rounds. The Reflex save DC 10 + ½ the dragons racial hit dice + its Constitution modifier.

Camouflage (Ex): The brownish-green coloring of dragons makes them adept at remaining hidden in undergrowth, they gain a +8 bonus to Stealth checks in such conditions.

Crush (Ex): A jumping huge or larger dragon can land on its foes as a standard action, using its whole body to crush them. Crush attacks are effective only against opponents three or more size categories smaller than the dragon. A crush attack affects as many creatures as fits in the dragon’s space. Creatures in the affected area must succeed on a Reflex save (DC equal to that of the dragon’s acidy spit) or be pinned, automatically taking bludgeoning damage during the next round unless the dragon moves off of them. If the dragon chooses to maintain the pin, it must succeed at a combat maneuver check as normal. Pinned foes take damage from the crush each round if they don’t escape. A crush attack deals appropriate damage (2d8 for huge, 4d6 for gargantuan) plus 1½ times the dragon’s Strength modifier

Grab: Dragons have the grab ability when they latch onto a foe with their bite. This allows them to initiate a grapple combat maneuver as a free action against creatures equal to their size or smaller with a successful bite attack without provoking an attack of opportunity. The dragon may continue the grapple as normal, or may choose to merely maintain its hold on the creature with its bite. If it chooses to do the latter, it takes a -20 penalty on checks to maintain the grapple, but does not gain the grappled condition. The grab ability confers a +4 bonus on checks made to initiate and maintain the grapple.

Poison (Ex): Dragons secrete a venom from glands in their mouth that serves to weaken and slow prey. A favored hunting technique of mother dragons is to bite prey and allow their young to hunt the weakened creature. The save DC is 10 + ½ the dragon’s racial hit dice + its Constitution modifier.

Dragon Venom

Type: poison, injury; Save: Fortitude DC 10

Onset: 1 minute; Frequency: 1/hour for 6 hours

Effect: 1d2 Dexterity damage

Cure: 1 save

Scent (Ex): Dragons have the scent ability.

Tail Slap (Ex): Medium size or larger dragons have long, powerful tails that they can sweep into foes, knocking them prone. When a dragon strikes an enemy with his tail slap, it immediately initiates a trip combat maneuver. The dragon gains a +2 bonus on trip attempts. The dragon's tail slap is a secondary attack.

Tail Sweep (Ex): Gargantuan or larger dragons are able to sweep with their tails as a standard action. The sweep affects a half-circle with a radius of 30 ft. (or 40 for a colossal dragon), extending from an intersection on the edge of the dragon’s space in any direction.  Creature’s within the swept area are affected if they are four or more size categories smaller than the dragon. A tail sweep automatically deals the appropriate damage (2d6 for gargantuan, 2d8 for colossal) plus 1½ times the dragon’s Strength bonus.

I also made age categories and stuff. Hehe.

Dragon Age Categories

Age Category	Size	CR	Hit Dice	Acidy Spit	Damage Reduction	Natural Armor
Wyrmling	Tiny	1	1d12	1d6	1/-	+5
Very Young	Small	2	1d12	1d6	2/-	+7
Young	Medium	4	2d12	2d6	3/-	+9
Juvenile	Medium	6	4d12	4d6	4/-	+9
Young Adult	Large	8	5d12	5d6	5/-	+12
Adult	Large	10	7d12	7d6	6/-	+12
Mature	Large	12	8d12	8d6	7/-	+12
Old	Huge	14	9d12	9d6	8/-	+16
Very Old	Huge	16	11d12	11d6	9/-	+16
Ancient	Huge	18	12d12	12d6	10/-	+16
Wyrm	Huge	20	14d12	14d6	11/-	+16
Great Wyrm	Gargantuan	22	15d12	15d6	12/-	+19

Age Category	Strength	Dexterity	Constitution	Intelligence	Wisdom	Charisma
Wyrmling	12	22	7	2	12	8
Very Young	16	18	11	3	12	8
Young	20	16	13	4	12	8
Juvenile	21	16	13	5	12	8
Young Adult	29	14	17	6	12	8
Adult	29	14	17	7	12	8
Mature	33	18	22	8	16	12
Old	41	18	26	9	16	12
Very Old	41	18	26	10	16	12
Ancient	42	18	26	11	16	12
Wyrm	42	18	26	12	16	12
Great Wyrm	54	20	34	13	20	16

I also, hehehe, made different types of dragons. 

Dragon Variants
Ambush Dragon: These dragons are found primarily in the northmost and eastmost portions of The Wilds Lands, and are always one size category smaller than normal and increase their Dexterity by +2 (for a total of +4 due to the size change). These dragons are stealthy hunters, and typically lie in wait for their foes, despite their size and ferocity. Instead of increasing hit dice as they age, these dragons gain levels of Rogue (Scout). Obviously, their capabilities are limited by their lack of speech and body shape.
Bestial Dragon: These dragons are found only in The Beast Lands and exhibit the same massive size and savage temperament of all carnivorous creatures found in those forests. These dragons are always one size category larger than normal for their age, their Intelligence cannot be more than 2, and when damaged they gain a +2 to Strength and Constitution until they or their foes are dead.
Brood Dragon: These dragons are warped by sorcerous experimentation and instead of laying eggs and nesting as normal for dragons, they house their living young inside of them, allowing them to feed at their leisure. Females of young adult age have a 25% chance of being mothers and spitting 1d4 wyrmlings out with each use of their acidy spit. Additionally, due to the sorcerous energies used to alter these creatures, and their years spent in their mother’s belly, these dragons are dazzled in conditions of bright light and they have a 25% to convert precision damage and critical hits into normal attacks due to the rearrangement of their internal organs.
Cave Dragon: These dragons are found in the depths of Whurent and The Fell Peaks. They are always one size category smaller than normal for their age. Their scales typically match the color of stone in their environment and grant them a +8 circumstance to Stealth checks in that environment instead of in undergrowth. They also have a 30 ft. burrow speed through rock and dirt (leaving a tunnel through the rock) and their claw damage is increased by one die step.
Clacker Dragon: These dragons were found primarily in Whurent, and were a foe of the mute giants of those mountains before their exodus. With the absence of a ready food supply, these dragons are believed to be nearly extinct. It is believed that these dragons developed their particularly tough teeth to aid in hunting the tough skinned giants. These dense teeth can be “clacked” together, thus the name of the dragon, igniting the dragon’s strangely flammable stomach bile and causing it to deal ½ fire and ½ acid damage. The critical threat range for their bite is increased to 19-20 and their bite attack is also treated as wolf-iron (adamantine) for the purposes of overcoming damage reduction.
Crystal Dragon: These extraordinarily rare dragons have not been seen in over a thousand years, but were once found in the desert of The Old Empire. Supposedly, they were highly intelligent and were resistant to the psychic arts of the Elduman race. Over long years of exposure to the sun and harsh winds of The Old Empire, their scales took on a pale sandy color with hints of crystal within it. These dragons increase their Intelligence and Wisdom by 2 per age category, have power resistance equal to 11 + their hit dice, and have a +8 bonus to Stealth checks in the desert of The Old Empire instead of when among undergrowth.
Fell Dragon: This type of dragon was specially bred by the sorcerers of The Fell Peaks for use as cavalry. Breeding males can grow as large as normal dragons, but those used as mounts typically only appear as large creatures. These dragons absorbed the ambient sorcerous energy found within Meroteth obsidian and their scales have a similar appearance to that stone. They also developed spell resistance due to this exposure, gaining spell resistance 11 + their hit dice. Instead of a trip attack, these dragon’s have a barbed spike on the end of their tails that secretes the same venom as their bite.
Nel Dragon: These dragons are only found in the homeland of the Nel and have developed a resistance to the Gifts of the Nel. They gain Gift resistance equal to 11 + their hit dice. Much like the Sarownel forest-kin, the venom of these dragons can affect the Nel.

Now, these guys aren't nearly as tough as Pathfinder and DnD dragons are, but I like them. On paper, and despite their size, I feel like they have some good potential as ambushers. They're dragon type creatures, so they have decent hit points and attack and such, but they don't have nearly the natural armor or damage reduction of regular dragons. I compensate for this, slightly, by making it impenetrable damage reduction instead of DR/magic. I dunno, I'll have to try them out at some point (and not get them one shotted) to see if I got the CRs right.

The math behind what I did, because I don't know how to monster, is that I took the monitor lizard entry from the Pathfinder Bestiary and applied the half-dragon template to it and then I added two hit dice and said that was a juvenile dragon with a CR of 6. I chose the base as monitor lizard because that's the entry for Komodo dragons as far as I can tell, and I keep saying my dragons are really fucking big and smart Komodo dragons. So it made sense to me. I modeled the size increases at various age categories off of black dragons, because acid. With all that in mind, I just applied the giant creature and advanced creature templates as needed to get the CRs I wanted. These guys end up with CRs comparable to red dragons, but only like 2/3 the hit points (partly because they have 1/2 the hit dice, at least the great wrym versions of both do), none of the special abilities related to being magical, but a significantly higher Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution, and nowhere near the damage output (at least compared with great wyrm red dragons). Not sure if it works. Pretty sure it doesn't.

In short, I think they still need tweaking. But right now, I'm pleased with what I have and where it is going. I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts, if anyone has any.

30.4

Alternate titles might be "Fucking Nel" or "Fucking Players" or "Fucking Level Based Systems"

One of the things I did this weekend was sit down with the Nel and cram them into Pathfinder's rules. It still doesn't work perfectly, and it never will. Pathfinder is too rigid of a system to fit things like the Nel into. They would work super well in GURPS by representing the active uses of their Gifts as wildcard skills. Man, that would be, I don't even know, so fucking easy it would hurt. Anyway. 

So this morning (Tuesday) I sat down with my Google Drive document and an empty pdf character sheet. I made a Sarownel Lastborn named Bob. Bob is a level 10 Ranger (Skirmisher) with the natural weapons combat style. Bob is 304 years old (that matters, it'll make sense later). Then I ran some numbers. 

The players fucked Bob so hard that Herowen felt it in The Nightmare Lands. 

Good for them. I hate the Sarownel and I hope they all die. So then I made Andorian, which is a fucking joke. Andorian is a 7000 year old Utenel Lastborn that avoided the Breaking. Andorian is a Fighter (Free Hand Fighter) 10/Duelist 10/Aristocrat 5/Ranger (Trapper) 5. Which is fucking laughable. I'll explain why.

One of the things that has recently been gnawing at me about the class and level based system is that it implies you can stop getting better. Which, yeah, you can plateau. Eventually you cannot get faster or stronger. In the real fucking world. We have to ignore this, because this is a game that believes as one of its underpinnings that the physical damage dealt to human bodies by electricity is not fire damage, but is instead something else. This is a system that believes that how suave you are should be tied to the same ability score that measure dragon ancestor strength and undead lifeforce. This is the system that believes as one of its core concepts that hit points, which are affected by Constitution, also represent your ability to dodge blows. 

Side note, I might buy that if you lost hit points every time an attack missed you. But you don't, so it's bullshit abstract nonsense they like to pretend they thought really hard about before instituting. 

Anyway. You can't plateau in Pathfinder. You get better forever. A human can somehow support a 20 in Strength, even though burly blacksmith Strength occurs around 12-14. There is no limit on how powerful you can become. Except level 20. Once you hit 20, you should probably take levels in other classes. So when you get that 21st level after being a Fighter for 20 of them and want to maintain that +1 per level base attack bonus your options are Ranger or Barbarian or Paladin. So you either suddenly develop illiteracy (not really) and violent rages, a knack for hunting that you've never had, or you suddenly become a holy warrior (whether you've RPed and sort of religious affinity or not). 

That's really fucking dumb. Luckily, I'm not. Pathfinder classes are designed to follow progressions. Everything improves at a set rate, so you just extrapolate on into 21st level and beyond. There's no reason to take levels in something you don't want to, or in something that makes no sense for your character. Ok, to be fair, Pathfinder suggests this in the core book, so I guess they're not completely dumb. 

Another aspect of this system is the generally low level long lived folks you find hanging around campaign worlds. I did some research on this recently. 

Have you heard of Elminster? Elminster is an iconic NPC of the Forgotten Realms campaign setting created by Ed Greenwood and murdered by 4th Edition. What they did to it to cram it into the 4th Edition rules makes me want to vomit. Elminster is a big deal. He is a big name in a sort of secret society dedicated to good called the Harpers and is associated with the group of good guys known as the Knights of Myth Drannor. Or it's the other way around, can't remember. Elminster was also the boyfriend of the goddess of magic. When she died he took on a sort of grandfatherly role to the new goddess of magic, a young human. Elminster is also one of the Chosen of Mystra (the goddess of magic in Forgotten Realms). This means he has a lot of neat powers involving magic because he's got a chunk of Mystra's divine might within him. He also has something called spellfire, which does a lot of crazy shit but mostly centers on absorbing magic and using it to do crazy shit like hurl fire, heal, fly, etc. 

Elminster started life as a young human adventurer. He went out and adventured and did stuff and fought bad dudes and so on. He was pretty good at it because he's still alive and kicking. He's been to the Nine Hells, fucked dragons, fought and killed avatars of gods, stood up to the god of the gods, saved the world, and so on. Elminster has been around for 1267 years fighting and plotting and such in the name of good. 

Elminster is a Wizard 24/Archmage 5/Cleric 9/Rogue 2/Fighter 1. Those are his 3.5 stats, the same system of rules that Pathfinder uses. If we do the math, and assume that Elminster was almost 21 before gaining his first level of Fighter, Elminster has gained levels at a rate of 1 level every 30.4 years. Even accounting for Pathfinder/3.5's ridiculously retarded concept of only monster killing and trap avoidance granting xp, that's insane. This dude is an adventurer. He fought and killed an avatar of Bane. He fought his way up out of Hell with his brain (literally, he had no magic at the time). Fine, yeah, we're talking gazillions of experience points to level after a certain point, but still. Point: he averaged gaining a level every 30.4 years. 

Ok, so now we have some hard math for important and iconic NPCs and calculating their levels and such. Good. Thanks Wizards. You guys are swell. 

So I set about creating Andorian after making Bob the Sarownel Lastborn. Andorian has been around for 7000 years. Andorian's first level was Aristocrat, and he got it when he was less than a second old. Andorian also spent 4000 or so years in a box. So I guess only 3000 years count for him. He probably wasn't doing too much monster killing and trap removing in there. Probably too busy wishing for death and being wracked by pain and whatnot. 

Using our previously established math for important long lived NPCs, and accounting for Andorian's long stay in his box, he should be a 98th level character. Andorian has fought in wars, has hunted magical beasts and dragons for sport, and has founded nations. Andorian is a big deal. He was active for three thousand years. He didn't just sit around doing nothing. This is a dude that was out and about doing things. So he should be 98th level. 

Even if we upgrade him to Fighter 20/Ranger 20/Aristocrat 20/Duelist 10, where do we put the other 48 levels? Split them between Fighter and Ranger? In Dog's name, how many fucking favored terrains and enemies can one Nel have? You would run out of fucking feats if you did that. Where the fuck do you put skill points? At a certain point, you stop needing to put ranks in Swim and Climb and Acrobatics. I'd probably give him 98 ranks in Intimidate and just scare the PCs into doing every little thing he wants.

I fucking hate this level based bullshit. Side note, as a Fighter 10/Duelist 10/Ranger 5/Aristocrat 5, Andorian has regeneration 15, or fast healing 15. I can never decide which it should be for Nel. They regenerate limbs and stuff, but their regeneration can't be impeded and doesn't keep restoring them to life like regeneration does. Once they hit negative hit points equal to their Constitution plus their Gift level, they're dead. It's closer to fast healing than regeneration, but fast healing doesn't restore limbs. At least I don't think it does. Whatever. Andorian regains 15 hit points every round, and he has 276 hit points. 

Part of me is starting to regret the presence of the Nel in the campaign. Not because I haven't enjoyed the excuse the guys have given me to bring out my favorite race, but because of their complicated nature. Cary told me that the Nel are basically the gods of my campaign, which is interesting to me. They're not. 

What is a god in DnD? It's a hugely powerful creature. So powerful that it can carve out a domain in the planes and fill it with devils or angels and petitioners and so on. A place where it can hear everything its followers say and see everything they do or that occurs in its temples from planes away. 

Interesting note, Elminster is higher level than Thor in 3.5. Thor, as a god, can also see, hear, smell, touch, and taste things from up to 14 miles away. Gods are weird. 

Anyway, the Nel aren't gods. They're just really fucking powerful. They're not omniscient or omnipotent, they don't have followers they draw strength from. They don't have planar realms they dwell in. They lack all kinds of godly characteristics. There are so many things that gods in Pathfinder/DnD can do that Nel can't. They're not gods. Nor are they demons or devils or angels or yugoloths or whatever. 

They're Nel.

Which is the main problem here. The guys are players, they have certain expectations when they see something in the game. Because Andorian can teleport and fling lightning bolts, Eric/Karl thinks he knows something about sorcery and Cary thinks he's a Magus. Nevermind that Nel can't even take levels in psionic or arcane classes, nevermind that he doesn't mutter incantations or use components in RPs, nevermind that he creates storms and has them linger around the tower for days. What about Evandor though? The guys haven't seen him do much of anything, but he's the more powerful Nel of the pairing. Evandor's levels are primarily composed of Aristocrat and Expert with a focus on Perform skills. So (some of??) the players have all these preconceived notions based on various monster manuals and such, which they won't let be affected by what they see in RPs or scenarios or background material. I mean, Sereth have pointed ears so they are Hekinoe's elves, right? 

Sorry, Lance. That just never gets old. I'm not mad about anymore, if that helps. It just entertains me to mention it. Hehe.

So we're having an RP and whatnot and the guys are interacting with these five gods. What does Donovan do from safely behind the barrier another god put up to protect them? He mocks the Silver King. The Silver King is a 7000 year old Aubernel Lastborn, he's at least as powerful as Evandor. He's also arrogant, and through one of his Silver Guards, he threatened to kill Karl if he spoke directly to him again. Which is when Donovan decided to mock him. 

What the fuck am I supposed to do with that? Seriously. What kind of fucking death wish do you little shits have? Do you hate your characters this much? Do you hate my campaign this much? Every fucking time I turn around someone is poking the Dog damn "gods" with a pointy stick and daring me to respond. I almost killed Eran already. I straight up rolled a d20 and gave Eran a 50/50 chance of Andorian walking away instead of zapping Eran to death. Luckily, it came down in Eran's favor and I didn't have to kill a player. 

Look, here's my school of thought: PCs can't kill gods. That's stupid. Thor can hear you from 14 miles away. He can throw Mjolnir at least that far. You can't kill gods. A god can kill a god. An artifact can be used to weaken or harm a god enough that you can finish the job. You can kill an avatar of a god. But you cannot punch a god to death. Nor can you kill him on his home plane. He has armies of god crap at his command and he can to the plane into a box and go somewhere else and leave you there. Have you heard of Carceri?

Now even excluding my personal thoughts on gods, killing them seems like a 20th level kind of thing. Not 10th level. So why would you mock one that has displayed pettiness and arrogance and has a crap ton of power? One that only lives 3000 miles away on the same plane as you and has armies at its beck and call?

Like I said, I'm starting to regret the presence of the Nel in this campaign. I don't like this position I'm in. Members of the group have taken a very adversarial stance against the Nel, and there will be blowback for it. Fine, I ran the numbers and a Sarownel is likely an easy conquest for them. But Sarownel calculate Nel crap using different guidelines than the Aubernel, and Utenel, and Feronel. 

I dunno. I'm worried. If it comes down to it, what are they going to do against the Nel? They know nothing about them. There's no handy dandy monster manual entry for them to read to learn all their strengths and weaknesses. They can't make a Knowledge (The Planes), (Dungeoneering), or (Religion) check to learn anything about them either. I'm certainly not going to tell them anything about them. All they knows is what they've learned from the RPs. 

They use something like sorcery, but don't need verbal, somatic, or material components and don't know anything about sorcery. They regenerate, and don't seem to be inconvenienced by having swords cutting through half their chest. This likely indicates resistance or immunity to critical hits and precision damage. Some at least have energy resistances. They've said their Gifts make them resistant to the sorcery of mortals. They don't sleep, eat, or breath. Some are shapeshifters. Some are undead. Some can kill with their voice. Some can teleport. Some commit genocide. I also told Cary that they are not as a race immune to mind-affecting effects. Finally, Andorian has 276 hit points. His class levels would account for 149 of them based on his first level being Aristocrat, but that leave 4.23 hit points per level unaccounted for. None of his classes provide bonus hit points and an 18 in Constitution would account for 4 per level, but where does the .23 come from? So something about their hit points are off as well. 

Plus, they've encountered a single race of the Nel, the lastborn. There are six races in total and they are further differentiated by their various allegiances to six different courts of Nel, only four of which the players have encountered. 

Maybe I'm too aware of things, but I have to believe I'm smarter than that. Some guy throws lightning bolts and teleports like its nothing and uses a 9th level Cleric spell with a maximum duration of a minute, but gives it a duration of over 24 hours, my response to him is going to be "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. May I have another, sir?" and then when he leaves, I'm going to go take up farming and name myself Sven and pretend I never met him and never took that arrow to the knee. Because he is terrifying, and arrows hurt.

That is the appropriate response to the Nel (at least to some of them). Terror. 

I'm not trying to scare anyone, and I am slightly exaggerating the behavior of the guys. It's just that I really don't want to hurt the guys with the Nel. The hundreds of them that are on their way to Orcunraytrel aren't going to be a problem. Well, not immediately. But the characters and the Nel don't know that (Nel cannot hear, smell, see, taste, and touch things up to 14 miles away like Thor can). 

I dunno where I'm really going with this post here. Part of it was to mock levels, and another part was an excuse to collect all the information they have about the Nel in one place for their viewing. I guess I'm just concerned that I've backed the guys into a corner they don't realize they're in or don't know how to escape. I like the guys, I like this campaign. I like the fact that they are ready to fight Nel if they have to. I like the idea of watching (some) Nel die at the hands of mortals. I like the idea of them having to plot and plan to take out stronger Nel. I want to see what they come up with, the mistakes they make, the insights they surprise me with. 

I guess this ultimately about me being a sadistic GM fuck. Heh. Oh well. I'm sure they'll all be fine. 

The Day the Campaign (Almost) Died

Not everyone knows this, but my campaign world almost died last week (Wednesday, January 22nd in the year of our Dog 2014). Specifically, Hekinoe, the planet we game on was almost destroyed completely and irrevocably, no take backs and no saving throw. This isn't as big of a deal as you would have thought though. Hekinoe has always been living on borrowed time.

I was venting/slash tweaking his nose, but I told Jason that day that Hekinoe had only had about two hundred years left before it was destroyed and the Orcunraytrel continent only had about fifty, so it's not like anything ultimately changed. The timeline just sped up, because that's what PCs can do. It's what makes them special. They can change things. They're not the only ones with levels or loot, everyone has that shit. What sets them apart is the ability to influence the world around thrm. To take my plots and plans and speed them up or slow them down or send them way off into an unexpected direction. Or kill them dead.

What happened (and this is obviously all player knowledge) is partly my fault. I gave Donovan access to information that would not normally be something a PC could easily learn. I did this because Donovan has made connections with individuals that possess this knowledge. Sort of. Donovan also attracted the attention of Keroen Skathos by playing at information brokering. The information in question pertains to Keroen Skathos. Keroen Skathos is something of an amnesiac. Knowledge was stripped from him for a reason. Donovan's information, if told to him, would shatter the amnesia and restore this knowledge to Keroen Skathos. 

Donovan, without knowing the significance, told Keroen this information. 

For the longest time, my plot/plan/etc involving the return of Keroen's memory has been the nearly instant incineration of Hekinoe, or at least within twenty-four hours of Keroen learning this. This is something I have written down. This is something that I feel strongly about enough that it was written down instead of lurking in my brain hole so I could change it if I needed to with none being the wiser. It would kill me to burn down Hekinoe, but I'd do it to stay true to the material. That's how much I love my campaign world. I'd kill it to remain true to the "story" or whatever you want to call it. 

Apparently Hekinoe and I are in an abusive relationship. Hmm. That's actually a pretty fitting description of what GMing is. 

I was in the process of composing an email about how everyone and everything suddenly dies screaming in fire, but I wasn't working with Fred that night. Because he's a whore. I wanted to talk to him first before I sealed everyone's doom. Fred is who I bounce a lot of my deeply hidden or secret ideas off of, and he does the same with me for his campaign. It has been an extremely positive experience for both of us. Fred has the benefit of having read my Explanation document and of having once been a player in Hekinoe, and having enough distance from the setting now to not ultimately be affected on any level by what happens to it and its denizens. 

So the day passed and I texted Cary a few times about how he just killed my campaign world and the next day Fred and I spent almost the entire twelve hour shift talking about the death of Hekinoe. Fred was generally of the mindset that Hekinoe does not burn, I was opposed to this. If you have at all enjoyed my campaign world, Fred is now your god. Name (or rename) your firstborn child after him. 

What it ultimately came down to was that my plan discounted Keroen's experiences on Hekinoe. The death of Hekinoe would completely negate the changes wrought on him by his amnesia and his experiences as Keroen Skathos, creator of the Nel and lover of Loria and Callifay. Now, granted, a billion zillion gigajillion years of memories just slammed into his brain hole, but he's still Keroen of the Nel. He's still in love with Callifay. He's still bored with ruling lesser beings. More importantly, he's not suicidal or stupid. 

This doesn't really spoil anything, because none of you (except Jeremy and Fred) know the why or how of it, but Keroen Skathos isn't the destroyer of Hekinoe. It is the reaction to what I had thought would be his reaction to his returned memories that would have ended Hekinoe. 

Anyway, the long and short of it is that Fred convinced me that the actions that would lead to the destruction of Hekinoe were no longer in keeping with Keroen's nature. He made a strong case, strong enough that in the end I came down on his side of the discussion/debate/whatever. I still cannot believe I never conceived of this being a possible outcome of the events I was setting in motion. Not once did I connect Donovan's knowledge to him having an opportunity to tell it to Keroen. It wasn't that I figured Donovan was a secret keeper and wouldn't share. It just never occurred to me. I never connected the fact that Donovan had this information to him having the opportunity to tell Keroen the information. I normally keep a good handle on the information in play at any given moment, and I find it very interesting that I lost track of the important connections among what I had going on. I swear to Dog, this is the best damn book I've ever read. I'm writing it (with some help) and it can still fucking come out of left field at me and hit me a surprisehammer. 

It doesn't mean sunshine and happiness forevermore now though. The planet's survival isn't without consequences. I've had three major plots coming up on the horizon, two coming in about three months of in game time and another coming in about six months of in game time. Because of Keroen's return to himself, one is completely and utterly dead, except for one small side effect of it. Another is either accelerated or delayed, I haven't decided quite yet. I lean towards delayed though. The third is accelerated way the fuck up. It isn't coming tomorrow in game, but it is super close. 

But that is all chump change compared to the wide ranging shit. Hekinoe's two hundred year death sentence is now gone, as is Orcunraytrel's fifty year death sentence. The Black Mountain is fucking gone. Sorcery now misfires in Orcunraytrel. The PCs have drawn the direct attention of the only four beings on Hekinoe with power approaching Keroen Skathos'. Vacusu are back in play. So many fucking things are up in the air now because of Donovan's words!!1! The biggest of which is that Keroen is now himself again. What he does next is something I had never planned for in this campaign. Everything about this campaign and Orcunraytrel and a lot of the upcoming events in Hekinoe's future are getting shifted around, flat out remade with different outcomes, or at the very least analyzed to see how they will be impacted. Fucking a, this shit is so wide ranging that Myrecenar will be impacted, and that continent has only been around for a year and a month of real world time. 

Lance, you thought we were off the rails before? Brother, we're so far from the rails that we're actually moving back in time. Or forward. It's hard to tell from this perspective sometimes. 

"Electricity" Damage

So my secret project is taking way longer than I had intended. Mostly because I am lazy, hate that I need to do it in the first place, and because dicking around with other stuff is more entertaining. So I might end up posting more than never. 

Alright. So there are a few types of energy damage we are accustomed to in Pathfinder. Acid, cold, electricity, fire, and sonic. We could also lump in positive and negative energy forms of damage. I like the concept of referring to them by their 4th Edition names, radiant and necrotic. Those just roll off the tongue a lot easier than negative energy damage or undead lifeforce or whatever. Hmm. Charisma is pretty easy to roll off the tongue. But calling it Charisma damage might be confusing in situations where something actually deals damage to your Charisma. I just had another thought. So if Charisma is a measure of your undead lifeforce and attractive personality traits, does that mean positive energy is raw, undiluted, curmudgeonosity? Are bitter old men screaming for kids to get off their lawn while brandishing hoses just so overly full of the energy that fills the cosmos with life and vitality that it is forced to escape their bodies through anti-social and demented behavior? 

Alright, so radiant and necrotic damage are clearly fantasy nonsense. Let's look at the others. Acid is pretty normal, acids and bases exists and are corrosive substances that eat matter. Easy enough. Cold is pretty sensible too, frostbite and hypothermia are damaging, and your cells are mostly water so freezing them is a bad thing. Electricity, yeah, that makes sense, electricity hurts and stuff and it's a real thing. Fire, well yeah, fire burns flesh and stuff. Sonic is a little iffy, but loud noises can cause pain and there is the elusive brown note and whatnot. I'm comfortable handwaving it. There's force damage too, which is kind of odd to me. You'd think whatever is made out of the force would determine the damage type. Like a dagger made of force would deal piercing damage. If magic missiles are actually shaped like darts, they should do piercing damage. Force is force, it's a solid piece of magic, it's not energy. Well, it is, but it's solid and often used to create physical things out of magic. So yeah, force damage is retarded, but whatever. Why doesn't the (Bigby's) clenched fist spell deal force damage? It's a giant flying fucking fist of force magic? All it says is that it deals 1d8+11 points of damage. Considering it is a giant clenched fist, I would think bludgeoning damage would be appropriate. But magic missile deals force damage. Dial it back Steve, you'll need your positive energy for the rest of the post. 

Let's go back to electricity damage though. It seems sensible on the surface. Lightning strikes can kill you, and lightning is a thing that exists in the real world. It seems sensible.

Pro-tip: it's as Dogdamn fucking bat-shit crazy insane as hit points and Charisma being a measure of your leadership qualities and your undead lifeforce. 

Now, I'm not going to get into silly things like grounding or anything. I'm not going to talk about how many amps a lightning bolt generates in the sky and then loses over the miles and miles between its point of origin and some dumb fuck with a golf club and compare that to the lightning bolt or call lightning spell. That's not where this is going. 

Electrical damage does not exist in any way shape or form in the real world. You can say  something like "But Steve, lightning kills people. There are documented cases of it." and you could follow it with "But Steve, this is a fantasy game where necrotic damage is a thing." These would be rational responses. Unfortunately, I am brimming with positive energy today and have my hose coiled beside me on the floor. It's making my cats nervous. 

Electricity damage, like fire and cold and acid and sonic, is a damage type used to represent a real world thing in the game. We know lightning is electricity, so it has been helpfully color coded as electrical damage to indicate what it is. This is dumb and inaccurate. 

See, like I said, there's no such thing as electricity damage in the real world. This is a made up damage type that doesn't exist and isn't being used to represent some fantastical form of energy like Charisma or Curmudgeonosity. It's meant to represent a real world thing. It doesn't. Because that real world thing does not exist.

When flesh is destroyed by lightning/electricity in the real world, it is burned. Usually at the entry and exit points. You can tell it's a burn because of all the charring and the smell of roasting long pork. So that's the type of damage electrical spells and effects should do. Fire damage. But then you run into issues like not being able to lightning bolt a fire elemental or red dragon. Nobody wants that. As far as I know, the only thing lightning does to fire is start it. But what do I know? I'm just a dumb fuckhead playing a game I apparently hate. 

So alright, we have fire damage in the game world, and electricity does fire damage in the real world. It would seem sensible to lump the two together. Can't do that though. Electricity is way more deadly than fire, because we're bio-electric creatures. We have this little guy in our chest, our heart, and he sends out little electrical signals to himself to keep pumping blood. We have these other little guys called nerves and muscles, and they respond to electrical signals as well. 

So like I said, I'm not going to get into measuring how much juice a real world lightning bolt has and compare it to spells. I'm just going to say that we can assume spells like call lightning and lightning bolt generate lethal amounts of electricity. Eric's Wizard (Spellslinger) Karl can cast a 10d6 lightning bolt, which can do 10 to 60 points of nimbleness damage. That's more than enough to kill any 1st level NPC class member you can put in front of it. Even shocking grasp, which caps at 5d6 electrical damage, should do 17 damage most of the time (assuming a caster of at least 5th level), which is still lethal to normal mundane humanoids. So it's safe to say that these spells are lethal amounts of amperage/wattage/ohmage, whatever. I'm not an electrician. I'm the kid who sat in the corner alternating between paste consumption and licking nine volt batteries (they do not produce lethal amounts of electricity). 

So let's look at the real world, specifically tasers. Tasers are a weapon that delivers a non-lethal dose of electricity to subdue a foe. So, normally you make saving throws against a lightning bolt with your Reflex save. With the taser being a projectile weapon, it would resolve a lot like shocking grasp. The shooter would make an attack roll and you would hope your AC was high enough for it to miss/not penetrate your armor/be shaken off/abstract itself away.

So, in my opinion, a taser would use Fortitude as its save. Mainly because there are big dude tough guys that can take multiple taser hits before going down. Now, I'm going to base the following on my personal experiences with tasered assholes that piss off cops. Do you know what happens when you fail a Fortitude save against the non-lethal electrical damage of a taser? Firstly, your muscles spasm like crazy and snap a few of your long bones. Secondly, you sit on the floor for ten or twenty minutes twitching and drooling. Thirdly, you might bite off your tongue because of all the twitching and jerking and spasming. Fourthly, and this only applies if you had a big lunch yesterday, your sphincter spasms and drops a load in your pants. You might piss your pants too. I dunno. I don't spend a lot of time sniffing/looking at people's junk on scene. That's what reddit is for. I don't have to have pants on while I'm on reddit.

So that's non-lethal electricity damage. Based on the evidence of my personal experiences, lethal electricity like lightning bolts and shocking grasps and such should be a Reflex save to avoid, then a Fortitude save or die. Mainly because the whole concept of defibrillation works because the heart is an electrical organ and if we zap it with enough electricity it'll stop and hopefully restart with an appropriate rhythm. Defibrillation is a non-lethal amount of electricity too. People also tend to scream a lot of you do it to them while they are conscious. People also scream when you rip out taser barbs. There's no trick to it, you just yank those suckers out. The more you know. 

Fucking DnD. 

Oh. One last thing. Teehee. Would you like to know what kind of damage electricity based spells and effects do in GURPS? Hehe. Burning damage. Isn't that neat?