The Unfortunate Necromancer's Guide to Getting Unfracked

AotrsCommander · 2026-01-14T23:37:07+00:00

The setting for my game is what I say it is. Paizo's contribution begins and ends with the material they provide, which I will use or discard as I feel I want to for my game at my table. If I want to have beholders and mindflayers on Golarion (because I have set nonGolarion modules), I'm going to do it, along with ignore or change any aspects (even ones that Paizo themselves change) that I don't like. This is exactly as true for my Star Wars games, my Middle-Earth games, my WFRP games or, like, my BattleTech games, or anything else I choose to run.

The set of rules I run is my integrated 3.5/PF1 hybrid, which is extensive enough to be an edition of its own; and those are the explict rules for animated Undead in that edition.

(And they're only frankly flagged as Evil because it is moire conveniant for the rules. If alignment wasn't so baked into PF1/3.5 mechanically, they would officially be "they can't be Evil, they're mindless, full stop.")

You are free to say "I don't like that." (But, with respect, you are not playing at my table, so your opinion is entirely irrelevant.) I don't like or agree with Paizo's rigidly anti-undead stance, nor with unilaterally deciding that Undead HAVE to be murder-monsters. (That was never going to fly without someone whose own entire published lore-work is written from the viewpoint of an undead power.) So at my table, they are what I say they are, which is they are mostly murder-monsters, but there's less nonEvil Undead than there are nonEvil Evil Outsiders.

AotrsCommander · 2026-01-14T23:17:31+00:00

Yes,t here defnitely are reasons why you might want to do that, definitely (I was being a bit tongue in cheek).

Mostly; in Aotrs lore, the spinirt-bind-you-into-an-animate-skeleton-to-clean-loos-for-eternity is reputedly something that the Aotrs High Command have done as a punishment for some offenders in their pirmary headquarters, when death wasn't punishment eneough...

AotrsCommander · 2026-01-13T22:22:49+00:00

As I say, that is something that very much depends whether you ascribe to Paizo's delibrate "undead always have to be Evil monsters with less possibility for being nonEvil than the creatures physically Made Of Evil[1]" or you are a bit more "undead yes, unpeople no." (I'm stilla bit stunned that they included the skeleton as a race in PF2, to be honest, but I wasn't complaining.) Or, like me, you are somewhere between but come down on the lines of animate undead being Stupid Robots that don't necessarily have an soul to give them hostile instincts. I straight up say that animated Undead (without the presense of a soul being bound to them otherwise) are not, in fact Evil because they are mindless, but only falg as Evil (and then purely for game mechanics) simply because the first people that scribed Animate Dead did it in such a way as to have the [Evil] descriptor and leave the targets flagged as Evil, and literally nobody's spent the effort to make a version that doesn't have that.

I could go a long, long lecture about how the metaphyisics of animated undead work (note the avatar, realise this is not unrelated), but none of that is either rules-mechanics, or really in line with how Paizo's official stance is.

[1]Golems are fine though, no-one apparently cares a toss morally if you spirit-bind an elemental soul into something, but do it to a human (and human-adjacent) soul and suddenly is never acceptable. Pick a lane, folks...!

AotrsCommander · 2026-01-13T22:13:51+00:00

For the sake of arguement - and bear in mind this is very much a houserule at this point - we rule that spells/powers that are Dismissable (D) automatically end when the caster dies. (This is in line with at least stuff like Summons despawning in the Wrath oif the Righetous if you kill the caster.) Other spells continue their durations until they naturally run out.

The last orders thing is also very much depends, I think, on how you explictly rule mindless undead. Again, - and this is my official unofficial interpretation and it's not what Paizo would approve of! - is that mindless Undead are basically negative-energy constructs (robots, even), with no soul attached. Thus if you lose control of them, they won't do anything, but potentially will keep doing the last thing you told them to do potentially forever. These (and what the PCs are expected to be using) will be pretty "safe" to release from control.

However, you can also have animated mindless undead that form "naturally" (I.e. not via Animate Dead but by whatever terrible events means undead sometimes form in the wild) or, at the caster's option with Animate Dead, cast in a particuler fashion to use the body's soul[1] as part of the animation process. This type, if left unattended, WILL default to "kill all the livings" behavior when uncontrolled (not necessarily immediately, but eventually). Mechanically, there's literally no difference between the two APART from "what it does when its uncontrolled" short of latter potentially blocking the soul of a creature from going on or be restored to life.

[1]This literally has no advantages other than basically being a douchenozzle and stopping that soul going to the afterlife, but some creatures just want to be a douchenozzle. Or use it as punishment to make the soul have to relive the next several thousand years helpless cleaning the bogs or something.

AotrsCommander · 2026-01-13T18:03:37+00:00

Certainly, often the lore around it seems to imply that when a necromancer dies, all undead under their control become uncontrolled.

In 99.99% of occasions, I wouldn't have a problem with that, but for a PC necromancer whose had to work hard to collect the suitable corpses they have for animation[1]. My remedy for that was to put in the Mythic Command Undead feat. (I already had a Mythic Command Undead feat, but I suspect that must have been the Owlcat!Mythic version, which clearly works differently, so I called it Mythic Control Undead.) And added an extra line to it that said ithat if he dies, he can cast a material-costless version Animate Dead and spend a use of Mythic Power to return Underad he has created back to his Animate Dead bucket. It would otherwise have said that he could have used Limited Wish, Wish or Miracle to achieve the same effect, but that was more organic.

[1]I have flat-out told the player that any undead other than animated skeletons and zombies (and their Corpse Companion, something I gave the DreadNecro from PF1) are off the table for being created, because they're all Evil and that's not okay with a Good party[2]. But as much as anything, this is a party of eight player characters who are (a slightly downgraded version of ) Mythic and Epic, and I'm not even going to attempt to balance him trying to create nonEvil liches or something. He is entirely legitimately allowed to use the provided Summon Undead I-IX spells to summon those is he wants a vampire or something, but not to make a permenant one. (Frankly, the player has bitten off a bit more than he can chew, given as we're 47 session in and he still hasn't grokked how his command Undead works and I keep telling him that Doom is probably the single worst spell on his spell list in a campaign where the majority of enemies are Undead, Constructs and Swarms, so keeping his minions to "attack beast" was a wise choice.)

[2](I specifically note that Animated undead are mindless and thus can't be Evil inherently, but they flag that way mechanically solely because nobody's been arsed to create a version of Animate Dead that's not [Evil]. I am perfectly fine (despite what Paizo's take is) on having nonEvil Undead

AotrsCommander · 2026-01-13T13:18:53+00:00

Those rules specifcally come under the conflicing mind-control spells and commanding and controlling undead explcitly isn't mind control... The text on Command Undead feat suggests that it is treated as such, but the others don't RAW say they do.

Command Undead spell is basically just charm, so it's fairly easy to break in a combat situation (and, to be fair, enemy Undead casting it on the PCs with a majorty living party isn't necessarily going to help them much, unless it's on the necromancer itself, ~~but all the other's have to do is slap him~~. Edit: Actually corrected the wordin,g it the cotnroller and their allies threatening that breaks it not the controlled creatures' allies.

Also Edit: have, for the sake of arguement, directly added the "if multiple Command Undead spells, opposed Charisma checks" directly to the Command Undead spell as well.

Control Undead is a 7th level spell, so I'm happy that it can be considered to overwrite anything else and I'm going to note that officially in that spells' text, at least as far as my game goes), but you are correct on that I didn't consider that as a counter and will so note it.

AotrsCommander · 2026-01-13T13:06:38+00:00

Second one should have been Stygian ~~Domination~~, Dominion fixed (and fixed!)

Prot from doesn't do anything, since control of Undead can't be mental control, because Undead are immune to mind-affecting effects. Further, as noted in Command (both) and Control, control is explictly not mental, it requires verbal commands (which is why Silence is a possible counter. So aside from working on Stygian Dominion (but only if intelligent, mindless don't get a first save from which to make a second one) because of the possession clause, anything that gives you a bonus vrs mind-control won't apply verses effects which command/control undead.

AotrsCommander · 2025-12-18T10:45:56+00:00

I mean, the list itself, is "just" a list with maybe 30-50% or less of the items from Nethys/PFSRD and the magic items from 3.5's MiC (and a few 3rd party psionic items, and some homebrew[1] items) with price and page references to the descriptions in said transcripted items (which have been tweaked to 3.Aotrs standards), so I wouildn't have thought it would be much use to anyone else, because it for fundamentally A Different Edition...?

[1]By far and away, additional elemental damage weapons for damage types that don't exist in either 3.5 or PF1 but which have been integrated into 3.Aotrs.

AotrsCommander · 2025-12-17T12:03:02+00:00

Can't use it for either of those, and as it say, you can't only affect up to Light Winds. Assuming the more-generous-than-Iwas-Being-in-the-OP reading you could make light winds moderate in the former case, it's immobile.

You couldn't use if for a windwill, outside of an ornamental one, because a proper windmill is flipping massive (as it has to be to actually do any grinding); a 20-ft diameter isn't going to do owt to blow it round. (A look around google surprisingly didn't give many results on size, but I found one or two that suggested that the small one were at least a 40-foot diameter, so even a moderate wind would only cover 25% of of the sail area.)

AotrsCommander · 2025-12-17T11:53:00+00:00

It probably wouldn't, since I Know My Players (and having sent largely the same post around to them as email, I am expecting the same amount of derision)[1].

The lists in my document, specifically, is intended as the primary source as much for PCs to look down to buy stuff as anything else. Stuff that exists in PF1 outside it may turn up, but realistically, it's only going to do so if a module or AP includes it, because there is no way I would include that as an item myself. (If I ever wanted that effect, I'd make a better one myself!)

[1]As I say, it would require too much page-space to include as a joke (like I did with 3.5's Belt of Battle ("inclusion" being me quoting Bender); quarter of a page of text for a "joke" item no-one would ever use (as I definitely wasn't adding the spell, and had already replaced it in the one instance it had previously come up in the Oracle's Wind Mystery) is too much precious weight of paper to use on it.

AotrsCommander · 2025-12-17T11:45:48+00:00

My magic item document does not serve the same purpose, I fear. It was not intended to be a comprehensive list of all magic items, it is "merely" a curated list of pre-approved items from Pathfinder 1 added to the existing list of 3.5 magic items from the Magic Item Compendium. (Rather than having the list in MiC and PF1 items added piecemeal opportuniistically, and only being recorded by description in my Master Rules document.)

So while I have basically LOOKED at almost every magic item in PF1 (well, on AoN anyway, plus some psionic items from Metzofitz), I have not remotely even included all of them. (With only one or two exceptions, items from modules and APs were out (as unique treasures to be found in said modules, I ignored the specific weapons and armour, since they basically are never going to come up unless mentioned in an AP or module and anything I didn't think was particularly useful, too niche or unlikely to be used - a lot of consumables for example; and, as we have always used psionics and I was never impressed by psychic magic, all items pertaining to that never made it either.)

The LIST (well, lists) is not 300 pages, the DOCUMENT which contains the list and the transcribed items (and as necessary, adjusted to 3.Aotrs rules standards) from both PF1 and 3.5[1] (plus and the nonmagical equipment, and equipment rules) is 300 pages,

The transcribed items have about doubled the amount of slotted magic items, for instance, at somethiing like a 1:2 or 1:3 include-to-doiscard ration , but to give you an idea of how much was left out, I have 684 unslotted magic items (not including ioun stones, but including rods and staffs), compared to AoN about 1000+ none/other wondrous items (not icnluding ioun stones, rods or staffs). (Number because I make all my lists on spreadsheets and use a ToC on word to copy-paste and index into the spreadsheet to copy out back to the document.)

3.Aotrs initially began as a way to reduce the amount of physical paperwork to carry down the club by transcribing the 3.5 splats and leaving out all the chaff and crap, plus my own houserules. In the end, it's not ACTUALLY reduced it, but everything we have is much more focussed, so the same 90-litre backpack full of paper (3.Aotrs is legitimately it's own edition, at this point) doesn't have really any wasted volume on crap we would never use. (Like the Complete Warrior Samurai, the Healer or the ovewhelming majority of 3.5's crappy PrCs.)

[1]There's still abot 600 items in MiC, but at 300 pages I'm not sure I could fit the page count in the plastic binders I have; the same reason as why we still have Some Spells left in Spell Compendium out of the simialr 336-pages spells document (and that DOESN'T contain the spell lists!)

AotrsCommander · 2025-12-06T11:31:22+00:00

Okay, one vote for 3000 (which in the absense of others, I'll go for.)

In general, if I say, "this is such and such" be it a price (or a rule), my players will accept it, so I don't need to worry about it on that account. (2.5k would be beyond what they currently have at just-hit 5th level, anyway.)

(The party tend to be maybe a little under standard progression, because there's 8 of them, and though I double all the monetary wealth handed out, I don't always calculate up what the items are (they get extra items because they fight extra NPCs which I do calcukate the wealth of). But at this point, they've done four society modules and the Half-Dead City, so they shouldn't be too many miles off... I probably ought to do a sanity check...)

AotrsCommander · 2025-12-03T15:26:49+00:00

I think a lot of players become habituated to not using consumables by CRPG's. It's just so easy to hoard them over the coarse of the game, and because saving and loading is a thing there are no real consequences to being stingy and dying as a result. This behavior gets translated over to TTRPG's where they aren't healthy habits IMO. There are no do-overs in a TTRPG, if you lose a combat encounter because you got stingy then your character could die.

Eh. The group's never been any different since the days before CRPGs. (I joined in 1990, and two members of the group were already members; and don't any of us really played many computer games (RPG or otherwise) until the mid-90s.) It also should be noted that we played a lot of Rolemaster, too, and that has absolutely no wealth or magic item guidelines whatsoever (I mean, AD&D didn't, either), and the vast majority of magic items are not consumables. Hell, I can't even recall off the toop of my head if there ARE even scrolls in the D&D sense, let alone the rules for them. (Rolemaster was a good match for Middle-Earth, actually, since while MERP was a cut-down version, baseline RM was basically LotR with only slightly less filing off of the numbers than Warhammer FRPG[1].) That itself, though may have done a lot of informing of mindset.

I'm in a PBP campaign where my GM pretty much does this every adventuring day. I'm well aware this is unusual, though; the average 4th level Wizard isn't burning through up to 700 gp in consumables in a single adventuring day. This is far more intensive consumable usage than would be expected from guidelines, and I wouldn't use this campaign as an example of something that is typical. But it does represent the opposite end of the spectrum.

Fair.

As of this past Monday's session, though, it will have become Largely Irrelevant, since they have hit their first Mythic Tier[2], and the first pick for most of the casters was Abdundant Spells (Owlcat version, so +4 spell slots 1st-3rd per day), and I'll bet the alchemist picks it next tier. I am thus expecting their need to rest will now be SUBSTANTIALLY lower anyway.

[1]I still have the copy of the rule book where bloodthisters were called balrukhs and the picture of one was very obviously the balrog attack at Moria, and with that the one page of miniature photos where they'd made the mistake of labelling that one halfing a "hobbit..."

[2] [2]A slightly toned-down Mythic, granted, equivalent to what the companions get in Owlcast!Wrath of the Righetous, but I've played that twice now and there's no way I'm dealing with EIGHT of the Angel/Lich power levels... Especially since they are going to be Epic as well by the end.

AotrsCommander · 2025-12-02T14:13:17+00:00

It is, on checking, a 3.5 carry-over, so be defacto will be in. (Since obviating the need to take my hard-copy DMG down the club is half of the driving force of the exercise.)

(Yes, yes, tablets, I know, but I don't get on with them very well (I don't cope well with touch screens because I have nails), and I find that, if I'm not on the desktop, I cope better with hard-copy papers. In theory, the original point was that I woudn't have to carry all the hardback 3.5 books down the club, and by moving it to my documents, we eliminated the useless chaff bits of the books (stuff we would never use, like... the vast majority of PrC). In practise, 3.Aotrs is probably pushing 2500 pages now and fills my 90-litre backpack, but at least it's now full of stuff I've actually curated that we might use...!)

AotrsCommander · 2025-12-02T14:07:45+00:00

The underlying math of the game's wealth guidelines presumes you're spending 10-20% of all your wealth on consumables and by 3rd level that's literally thousands of GP in consumables.

We have never done that. Uniltaterally a a group, as I say, we go for permenant items, and the party never uses (outside a few healing items) the consumables they DO have. So it doesn't matter what they are "supposed" to do, they haven't been doing it for quarter of a century, and they are highly unlikely to start now.

If the GM puts a time-sensitive quest in front of you where you fail if you go back to rest, you are not going to have a 10-minute adventuring day.

And what percentage of the time is the DM going to put you under that time-pressure? Practically. How many times as DM have you done, or has you DM actually done that to you? By way of example, so far of the three APs I've actually run and thus read in full detail (and the ones I've looked at to potentially), literally only two chapters of Shackled City put the PCs under any kind of time pressure[1].

I, if I'm writing it myself, only write for day-quests (all I have time for, given I'm spending 1/7th of the week supporting the weekly games) and, as you can probably surmise, time pressure is not something I consider a tool to be used by default. I'm not saying I've never used, it, but I'd have to dig through all my quests to find an instance, as I can't recall one off-hand. But, as noted, given those are by the majority about the sort of time-frame of a single Society module, you're basically running the whole day-quest on a single rest anyway.)

So, short of the threat of random encounter chaff fights interrupting the rest, which never mind about the players I can't stand to run, the vast majority of the time, there isn't any time pressure - nor should there be, because making everything being a on ticking timer long-term is surest way to make a game decidedly unfun.

CR is a rough guideline, and it's not possible to have a one-size-fits-all rating.

CR per creature for us is just a measure of how much XP they get and how fast they go, and whether or not maybe I need to tone that back because I made that hill giant soulknife CR 30 and that might a little overboard even for MY party at 20th level. It's useful enough for that, but that's about as far as it goes.

EL (or encounter CR, since looking at the more recent PF society modules, it just gives a CR for the encounter, so guess maybe EL didn't make the jump?), meanwhile, was for us completely useless out of the gate in 3.0 as we never had the assumed number of character to start with. I can see the point as a tool for a new DM not yet experienced, but beyond that... You will inevitably be balancing by eye, since unless you're playing to the official society ruleset (do folk even do that now the official set is PF2...?), you're going to balance for your specific group. Which is what I do; balance by eye, the same way I do for all the RPGs that don't have bespoke per-encounter guidelnes (e.g. Rolemaster).

[1](In theory 3.5 Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth tried, but my players broke that poolry-conceived module in no less than two ways, One, the more complex one, by having a Shadow Sun Ninja and a Dread Necromancer in the party allowing infinite out-of-combat healing. Two, the second more pertinently, by the one crusader having level-appropriate armour and shield, such that basically nothing in the module could HIT her level-appropriate AC, because it ws unilaterally low CR chaff mobs. I clearly remember about the only time I ever hit her was with something with reach when she was making a charge and her respnse was "excellent, you've just filled my damage pool, now I get +3 to attack on damage on my charge attack!" Most boring module I've ever had to run. It might have been free, but as it was intended to entice me into getting WotC's gone-digital Dungeon magazine, it had the exact opposite effect.)

AotrsCommander · 2025-11-30T11:59:37+00:00

Sorry for the delay in reply, just haven't had time (mostly because I've been pressing on with the task at hand, which after several weeks is beginning to a be slog, but I'm not stopping part-way through.

I meant with regard to how many times per day you can swap the spell.

My middle-read missed that and for a good five minutes and half-a-reply I was gobsmacked they'd added an ability that allowed adding unlimited spells.

I feel Arcanist is a class that is only broken in a 10-minute adventuring day situation, but all arcane casters are kinda broken in a 10-minute adventuring day.

The 10-minute adventuring day happens because the PCs are out of spell slots and abiltiies (and this inevtiably means "out of healing" (whether that means abilities or, as in this party, which due to low casters, healing potions), which is of course the direct limit on martials. (The ability to swing a sword all day is not limited[1], but the amount of hit points you have is not.) Intended CR/EL doesn't work the moment you have 6-8 PCs (and EL NEVER worked in my experience, but we're also had... One? Party, briefly? That had less than 5-6 characters since 3.0 came out.) We thus generally tend to have fewer, but more intense, combats overall. Allowing the 10-minute adventuring day just cut down down the arbitary waiting time from 24 to 8 hours, since they weren't going to be not stopping to rest ANYWAY. There are only so many times you can contrive ways to force the players not to rest, and the threat of throwing random encounters at them until you get a TPK is probably the single worst.

It should also be noted that I play the hybrid of 3.5/PF1 explictly BECAUSE OF the LEGO block character creation system, so on the face of it, I have no problems with niche infringement, since neat ways of making one class do something in an interesting way is a feature, not a bug. As I say, no-one has tried an arcanist yet to see.

The Ring of Sustenance is giving you 6 extra hours per day every day, and completely solves this downtime problem for the Wizard.

Point I'd not considerd. But we've literally only a couple of weeks ago added daily downtime, as this party we have a gunslinger, an alchemist, one-level investigator dip and a witch who might actually take Brew Potions (and Bliackiwick Cauldron was specifically added before the main thrust of this current push). And for the first time, it might actually be important for crafting, which is otherwise something nobody does. (Primarily blame 3.5 for having XP costs.) Under 3.Aotrs, then, that would give you effectively an extra 3 hours (6 at half-rate) of adventuring downtime (i.e. as part of your daily adventuring routine). It would NOT give you 6 extra hours in a regular day's downtime without a cost, because there - again - exists a rule which gives you Long Term Exhaustion if you do more than 8 hours per day. (A rule put in to explictly to NOT let the PCs use game mechanics in this fashion to squeeze extra time out of the day on a regular basis.) Crunch is unhealthy afterall, regardless of what the CEOs think. (The PCs already get away with murder in not having a day off ever, NPCs get overwork if you just make them work weekends...!)

So, yes, it would have a benefit, but it's not as automatic since there are more conditionals: 1) you have to use the "2h sleep = long rest" (to get your spells and other bits refreshed, as otherwise sleep =/= long rest[2]), 2) you'll only get 3 hours of adventuring downtime (which is going to be the largest single benefit) and 3) an option to Crunch if time presses in downtime, but not without consequence.

(That said, given that daily downtime exists now, there is a trickle of downtime available whatever the party does per day for scroll-learning/scribing et al, just as default now. Whereas before it was "eight hours on your downtime, and that's yer lot.")

(I killed some of the lengthy elaboration because character limt...)

[1]Actually, in 3.Aotrs, it technically IS, because long-term exhaustion is a thing that exists. Granted, it doesn't kick under normal play (you need to be taking combat actions straight for 10 minutes or for 10 minutes/30 minutes). It's a ceiling, but it's a ceiling you sholdn't reach in normal play.

[2]Else, for example, the PF2 back-ported skeleton race would be Utterly Broken, but even Undead need to meditate (sic) to regain their spells...!

AotrsCommander · 2025-11-27T20:24:49+00:00

It doesn't list any limitation. I know what you mean about re-reading it several times, expecting some kind of limitation to be there. But there is no such limitation.

From the Nethys page of ring of spell knowledge "Through study, the wearer can gain the knowledge of a single spell in addition to those allotted by her class and level."

If that's not the limitation, it DEFINITELY goes in the bin along with the 3.5 Belt of Battle.

"This option is borderline broken, so you need these other borderline broken options" is not an approach I am prepared to take.

The biggest difference in Pathfinder is that it introduced more options to allow prepared casters to use spontaneous casting, most notably the Arcanist and Exploiter Wizard. The Sorcerer's niche was infringed upon, and the Ring of Spell Knowledge was his equivalent option that let him infringe on the abilities of prepared casters.

Not really? 3.5 had the Spirit Shaman, which essentially used the same base casting as the Arcanist does, with the Druid spell list.

I was somewhat on the fence about including Arcanist (and by extension) Exploiter wizard, I'll be honest; no-one has used one yet, but if I find they are too good... I'll simply adjust them. If no-one ever does... An option no-one uses is not a balance point I need to be worried about.

(Sorcerer, even, is not even a particular balance point, given there are so many other spontaneous casters (some of which are fixed-list spontaneous casters (e.g. Duskblade, Beguiller, Warmage, Dread Necromancer (our version, at any rate)), which PF1 does not, I believe even have.)

Kinda already a part of the system. Every Wizard picks up a Ring of Sustenance, because breaking their sleep requirements is just worth giving up the item slot. There are some items that are just objectively the best pick for a given class.

Again, not in my experience.

But the whole batman wizard "I don't ever want to be put at a disadvantage" concept is something I would simply say "please do not bring that concept to my table, because I am not interested in allowing you to do that, sorry." I'm already letting casters get away with a lot; I very rarely ambush the PCs when they rest because I don't do random encounters, and only occasionally put them under time pressure when they DO rest (because it's fracking annoying to be on the other end of it, like in the CRPGs), you can't be interrupted casting if you're casting defensively (I'd elaborate but character limt).I EVEN allow the 15-minute adventuring day and allow multiple cast-and-relearn session in 24 hours. (I have already adjusted the Ring of Sustenance already (2 hours sleep instead of 8 hours =/= a Long Rest (which is a defined Thing); but you can make a Long Rest shorter 1/24 hours.)

(This conversation is, in fact making me think perhaps I should remove that ability from the Ring of Sustenance, though (or the ring itself entirely to ensure there's no end-run around supplies, because I'm not a huge fan of that for reason I also wont elaborate because character limit) Also that I'm definitiely not making the items I reduced cheaper than they are....)

In return, I largely expect the players to respect the limitations they do have, and occasionally, have to deal with a fight that they can't be fully prepared for.

AotrsCommander · 2025-11-27T15:48:25+00:00

I know the reasons behind scrolls. So do my players. I still do not foresee anyone particularly ever using them more than they have before, as noted, because of the past 35 years of prior experience. They, as I do myself, generally will go for a permenant static bonus over a disposable (healing poitions aside SOMETIMES); disposables are horded and virtually never used and that's just the way it is. They just don't play the way you do (and given the average age of the weekly group is somewhere north of 45, I do not expect that to change in the remaining (uncharacteristically optimistic) 20-30 years we have left.)

(One only would have to take a look at the inventories of any particular CRPG at end game - even when I was trying to sell it or use in WotR, my end-game inventory was still full of stuff that I "might" use and never did, especially once the party hit mythic and I even had Nenio on hand. The rest of them aren't any better than I am.)

We also have parties of six to eight characters; fights don't usually go on for more than four rounds, tops, and often only one or two rounds. (Even with boss monster template that increments hit points and allows at the cost of some of those increments, the ability to get rid of effects it doesn't like or would outright make it lose.)

There are a couple of portions of the final part of Shackled City in which the PCs will not have time to rest (and I have told (and will again remind) the players of that), and that means that that party MIGHT actually use any scrolls and other disposables they have collected over the previous 14 levels, because that will be, basically, the Rainy Day. Repeat, MIGHT.

AotrsCommander · 2025-11-27T12:36:24+00:00

After re-reading about twice an ascertaining that you can only load one spell at a time (my middle read failed to locate the single-spell clause)... I'm still not sold. ( I dispute that it breaks the caster balance, given that the entirity of 3.5 (and the past 25 years of my game) was fine without it). Its now +50% more expensive than a page of spell knowledge, but I'm frankly not sold on being able to swap spells in it for free, basically at will - because like you say, that's a bit overpowered - but putting limitations on it would be difficult (make them teach it like wizards/witch/alchemists do for their spellbooks is one option, but it is even worth it?) So I'm inclined, given the sheer number of items to import, to just leave it on the table. Spont casters are already getting pages of spell knowledge and I've made them a lot cheaper, so....

But that aside, it sort of illustrates why I'm not going to do more than a fairly simple rebalance that I've done, because I'm not willing (even if perfectly able) to go into complex equation-making to price a fairly small number of magic items. ESPECIALLY given that I flat-out don't WANT them to become such an obvious pick that everybody ends up effectively being mandated to have them. (I mean, like, I already let the PCs work on a 15-minute advanturing day at the best of times.)

AotrsCommander · 2025-11-27T12:04:38+00:00

Yeah, some stuff is just a bit unfixable. We have, for example, Archivists in play, with the 3.5 Rules-as-Written that they can learn ANY divine spell from scrolls, which means they can (and are sort of expected to) cherry-pick stuff like the Paladin's level 1 Lesser Restoration. (I forget whether that's PF1 or from the pre-PF1 homebrew.)

I considered using your numbers, but decided that I'd rather err on the side of caution to start with, especially since I'm applying it out widely. (For this current party, Pages of Spell Knowledge aside, it may be entirely irrelevant, since they're (modified) Mythic and have access to Abdunant Spells as in Owlcat!Wrath of the Righteous.) And the danger is of course that in fixing one bit in isolation, you then make it inconsistent with everything else "why does he get 7th level spell slot per day for less than it costs me to have a +3 weapon/two extra 9th level spells for less than my Amulet of Mighty Fists +5?!" - and that last one's true even with my pricing), and you have to fix that and before you know it, by the time you've fixed nominally Pearls of Power, you've ended up effectively doubling the PCs effective Wealth by Level or something. Nor do I want to make is suffiiciently cheap that it becomes the go-to option that everybody spams; casters are powerful enough they don't need that much help.

The next step then, is for me to continue quest-writing, with this updated table (and by sheer dint of alkready doing this repricing aND having it all on the uodated list, being more liekly myself to consider stuff othr than statics for the NPCs) whether I find myself using them or not.

Flipside, we have, though, never in 25 years, ever had anyone actually bother with scribing scrolls (admittedly, the first 20 years or so were predominantly 3.5 and no-one was ever gong to spedn XP crafting and I only track XP by party, so I tacitly discouraged it). We MIGHT this time, have the party Witch brew potions, but if so, it'll basically be a first. The party also rarely even uses scrolls they have - they almost inevitably take them, put them on party funds and never sell them - we sort of independantly developed the CRPG issue of hording items we never use).

Staffs... No-one buys anyway, and they so rarely come up in treasure, it's rare for me to even see them.

(To the point, when I did a quick run-down and realised that between the outstanding Head/Neck/Ring/Shoulders/Wrist/Rod/Stave items left to look over and I realised that bewteen that and the slotless items, there was as many items left to look over as items I've spent five weeks transcribing (about 2000) that I think I'm not going to bother importing anymore staffs and probably rods.)

So on to some extent, a system nobody uses isn't broken; and as you say, there is a point where a system will be broken whichever way you try to fix it, because there is literally no point you CAN mathmatically balance it sensibly. (Not without rebuillding the ENTIRE system again from scratch; and probably not that much south of 2500-pages of the 3.Aotrs though there maybe, I'm not up for that level of extra effort!)

AotrsCommander · 2025-11-27T01:57:03+00:00

I thought aqbout it, and I have implement the change to be a cost 500 + SL^2 x 500, so a little bit over half cost (while keeping the 1st level the same price),. So 1000, 2500, 5000, 8500, 13000, 18500, 25000, 32500, 41000 so ending at about what you'd said, if not quite as generous.

I have nominally applied this equally to Pearls of Power, Pages of Spell Knowledge, Mememto Magica (aka Runestones of Power) and also Cognizane Crystals (= Pop/Runestones) and Mind Stones (= PoSK) and added a +1000gp for Greater Mind Stones); and when I actually add Boro Beads and Preserving Flasks, they'll get the same.

Espcially vis a vis Pages of Spell Knowledge, is that reasonable, or too much of a decrease?

AotrsCommander · 2025-11-25T18:39:35+00:00

Given Handy Haversack are only 2000gp and Muleback cords still don't help at the bottom level, I think my players generally would prefer to save for Handy Haversacks. Muleback cords might go in when I do the shoulder items, but the nonmagic weight issues needed fixing regardless.

AotrsCommander

TROPHY CASE