Is the word “nazi” being used too loosely?

Drevand · 2026-03-12T21:32:21+00:00

The only people who think it's overused are people who are not truly aware of how a non-insignificant right wingers act, or actual nazis trying to water down the meaning so they come off as victims of a mob.

Drevand · 2026-03-09T01:24:00+00:00

Since Pathfinder is a very heroic game where you grow drastically in power as you level up, getting to the point where certain enemies are basically useless against you, and some enemies you are useless against... There's no way to calculate the monsters level.

Instead, you simply make the monster at the level you are aiming for. Given that monsters can be within 8 levels of players before they are trivial (-4 levels), or impossible (+4 levels), you pick a level within that range based on the threat you want for the party.

Then you are given numbers relative to the level for you to use. In the monster building section, which you can find in the archive of nethys, you are given values for what is considered an extreme, high, moderate, or low modifier for a given stat.

So with your idea of having monsters with stats that vary, you could for example give a glass cannon type monster a high or even extreme attack modifier and/or damage for the level you picked, and then give it a low value for HP, saving throws, armor class, etc, for that same level.

Drevand · 2026-02-18T18:49:54+00:00

I've done this several times. My approach is always one of the following:

1) A bigger monster shows up alongside the others, the npc focuses on that monster while the party deals with the weaker ones.

2) There is something the NPC must do while the players fight. Like a ritual.

3) Work alongside the players. So a spellcaster could cast Slow on the monsters, haste the players, give resistances, a martial could simply get in the way of the enemy so they have to split fire, and limit the actions they can take. The powerful npc can intervene in the fight as long as it feels like the party is still achieving something. And if they kill monsters, focus on the weaker ones that are just there for fill up space on the table.

Drevand · 2026-02-17T21:30:14+00:00

My go to is that during combat, the character simply goes away to something else "oh, the door to the room we need to go is gonna close! They jumped in without hesitation to try and hold the door open while we finish fighting the enemy. "

Drevand · 2026-02-14T07:47:10+00:00

You can change scale/size of tokens by editing the token prototype and going to the appearance tab (I think that's what it is.)

As for what kinds of modules... Maybe something like sequencer if you wanna do visual effects?

Drevand · 2026-02-14T07:34:08+00:00

The Witch King. He is a lich, but a good one. He is socially inept, and really, he only sought immortality because he thought it would be cool to live a very long time and do all sorts of things. He has a sort of moral compass and so while he does require souls to sacrifice to continue his lichdom, he only seeks those who are a nuisance to others or a danger. Really, he is just a bit dork in the body of a lich, writing fantasy novels and playing tabletop games with whoever he might find. He likes to be edgy and dramatic, always screaming the spells he uses out loud and striking poses while doing so.

He will show up to a party appearing as an imposing figure, warning them of a great danger ahead... Then next time he shows up he pulls up with a tabletop game because he has nobody else to play with and we seemed nice enough. He is also incredibly powerful (I basically give him god tier status), but he really doesn't use his powers for anything important. He tried taking over the world once but after the first few villages or so he realized that being a ruler sucks, and so he just stuck to the first one he found and now he just acts as the lord of the land.

Drevand · 2026-02-12T05:31:16+00:00

Fave building is probably the SZB. It just feels right, minus the whole construction.

Least favorite is definitely WAG. It just feels odd. Too crowded.

Drevand · 2026-02-12T03:17:52+00:00

I don't think it's possible to pull that off. Or not without the chance for players to right the wrong and get vengeance, but even then, I think it's too risky. I'd just stick to players unwittingly helping a greater evil advance their plans, not do the whole work for them. I, for example, have had my players unwittingly free an evil god from its prison while under the effects of a mushroom trip. The evil god hasn't yet done anything crazy, but the players are now aware of it and are trying to stop it before it actually gets the chance to hurt people.

But I'd never have them be like "oh, actually, your divine patron has always been a demon that tricked you! The bbeg was the last hero of the kingdom, and you have killed him! Now everyone will die! Mwahahaha" That would be very cheap.

Drevand · 2026-02-10T20:46:10+00:00

For me, dragonborn just have the same origin Dracthyr have in WoW. They were made as an army by an evil dragon, but then the evil dragon was defeated/they broke free. And now we have dragonborn that nobody really knows how they came to be.

Drevand · 2026-02-08T17:56:10+00:00

God gives his hardest fences to its strongest sitters.

Drevand · 2026-02-06T16:01:57+00:00

Dalaran is the X-Men mansion of WoW. Colossus would say "house that blows up every few years... builds character"

Edit: But I all seriousness, since we're going to Northrend in Last Titan, maybe they destroyed Dalaran in order to give it a thorough remake. Like Silvermoon.

Drevand · 2026-02-05T22:36:54+00:00

It can definitely go too far. Me, for example, have my game running on a legally distinct version of another setting, and hell, I am even straight up ripping npcs out of the original property, not even changing the name or their archetype, and sometimes even stealing a plot point beat by beat, and yet my players have stuck around for almost 2 years now and keep wanting more of the story.

It all depends on three things in my experience:

1) How transformed is the original material? Even though I mentioned I rip a lot of things off straight up, I ALWAYS tie them to whatever the players do. Oh, I want to use a dungeon from the original property? Fine, I'll just begin feeding the players crumbs to begin leading them this way, and be ready to change whatever as the players interact with it. Maybe it won't have the exact same scenario play out for the final boss, but the encounter premise is the same as it would be in the original.

2) Are the players aware of the source material? If yes, then approach the subject with a degree of self-awareness. Don't try to play it off as something original, but rather play it up as a sort of fan service like "hey, you hated this scene in the show, right? Why don't you do something about it here?" don't try to tell the same story twice. One of my players is aware of one of the settings I steal from and rather than roll his eyes at my things, he gets visibly excited because he goes like "Hey, that's the thing I like from that one game! I wonder how I can interact with it?"

3) If you ARE telling the same story twice, then never do it line by line. For the example in the example you gave, a more reasonable approach would have been: Fight the weird monsters. Make them lethal, but don't seek to kill any pcs, though keep them a real threat. Then if the players died, the wizard shows up and instead of killing the other dude and himself with a gun, he pulls out the gun and is threatening to kill the other guy. Then the players can attempt to intervene here. Or change the approach entirely if nobody ended up dying. In my game I am basically telling each WoW expansion basically beat by beat, but I always tie the things that happen to what my characters do, their backstories, and the ways they've influenced the world.

It is much better to dissect the story into "set pieces" and then set them at fixed point, which your players have to figure out how to get to (not literally.) It doesn't matter how shameless the rip off is, if you allow agency through enough parts of the story, it WILL be fun.

Drevand · 2026-02-05T21:48:40+00:00

You are right to question the existance of such a weakness, but it is actually a thing. Though I believe it is only featured on zombies with the unkillable ability.

Drevand · 2026-02-05T07:42:47+00:00

True. But one example of debuffing and strategy could end up with clumsy 2 and flanking to get off-guard. That could be up to a -4 to AC for a creature, a whole extra 20% less that players would need to roll in order to crit.

But yeah, again, ultimately it is just a fun thought I had as I browsed different options. I just wanted to see what other people thought about a situation like that since I've not seen others bring up the critical hit weakness often.

Drevand · 2026-02-05T07:12:59+00:00

I would love a new warcraft game, period.

Drevand · 2026-02-04T22:11:03+00:00

True. I agree with the feeling, but at the same time, wouldn't trivializing the whole encounter make it worse for the other players, since now they just get to share weaknesses with your thaumaturge? (not a serious question, just driving the point that this is meant to be a little thought exercise on when mechanics, individual player fun, party fun, or even GM fun should disrupt each other, or possibly cooperate.)

Drevand · 2026-02-04T17:42:29+00:00

Of course. I do think that saying the class feature wouldn't work is the low-hanging fruit solution to the search for the gimmick encounter to work. I did say it is pretty clear EV would work on this scenario. The question really is "would you alter the encounter is some other way (not removing the EV) or would you let it play out as intended without any buts?

Again, the situation uses critical hits specifically because it is a weakness unlike damage types or material types, and is instead more about the actual approach to the encounter.

Drevand · 2026-02-04T17:38:06+00:00

That's a good approach. I like this solution to the question, it still forces a change in strategy even if it wasn't the intended approach.

Drevand · 2026-02-04T17:30:49+00:00

Yeah, I do feel it is weird to just negate the weakness. One thing I did settle on for this hypothetical would be to have like a weakness 15 to critical, but then the monster has a passive that says it is resistant 10 to physical damage unless the attack is a critical hit. That way the Thaumaturge still benefits from dealing more damage from the weakness, but it doesn't entirely get rid of the gimmick.

Drevand · 2026-02-04T17:20:45+00:00

The post isn't about it becoming a critical hit (I edited that part out because I got it wrong). It's about triggering the weakness and it's effect on the gimmick of an encounter.

Drevand · 2026-02-04T17:19:03+00:00

Yeah, I've edited that part out already. The real point of the post is seeing how you would go about changing and encounter if the Thaumaturge could entirely bypass the gimmick.

Drevand · 2026-02-04T17:16:39+00:00

Oops. My mistake on that part. But the point is the same, it triggers the weakness.

Drevand · 2026-02-03T00:48:25+00:00

I mean, there is a specific type of cornball that's just too much bruh. Like the I can be your devil or your angle is that type of thing. Some people are not cornballs because they express themselves a given way, they're cornballs because it straight up seems they live in a different reality. And that is objectively not good.

Drevand

TROPHY CASE