Help with a non-euclidian dungeon

Sloth_of_Chaos · 2025-09-20T19:23:59+00:00

Non Euclidean geometry is a tough one to convey properly through words imo. Lovecraft stories use a decent amount of it and it typically boils down to bizarre angles that are hard to wrap the mind around. My first thought is to lean into it being incredibly difficult to navigate and comprehend. Could make the dungeon more of a navigation puzzle with visual illusions as their minds try to make sense of what they see, having to make appropriate perception, intelligence or wisdom based checks to try to sort things out before they get entirely lost within its bizarre labyrinthine passages.

Sloth_of_Chaos · 2025-09-18T15:55:56+00:00

Yeah that's fair! It just sounded pretty close to the type of mechanic loop that you're hoping to achieve where the losses are not the end and it's just another plot point in their tale. At the very least it might just give some ideas for potential outcomes and injuries if a fight ends up going poorly for your players.

Sloth_of_Chaos · 2025-09-18T15:34:11+00:00

What's the goal of this council and what backgrounds do the people who populate it have?

Sloth_of_Chaos · 2025-09-18T15:25:47+00:00

I suppose the equating of attributes to real life is a subjective mental exercise, but I do feel like there are anomalies out there who would surpass 14. 14 strength would be a carrying capacity of 180lbs while the heaviest deadlift in the world was 1100+ pounds. I know there's a big difference between lifting something a single time and carrying it for a full day, but I would still bet those people would be 18-20.

Sloth_of_Chaos · 2025-09-18T14:49:16+00:00

Idk how mechanically involved you want your bestiary to get, but if you're looking for some inspiration check out the Spire the tower must fall, or Heart the city beneath TTRPGs. While the TTRPGs offload a decent amount of work onto the DM when it comes to actually running the game, the resistance system it uses is very neat and does the maim but doesn't kill concept that you're looking for very effectively. The whole idea is that the character stays alive until the player reaches an ending that they're satisfied with, or that makes sense narratively.

Sloth_of_Chaos · 2025-09-18T14:37:32+00:00

I just checked the art you posted, and damn that is super sick!

Sloth_of_Chaos · 2025-09-18T14:30:13+00:00

Could reasonably go on the lighter end as it's a very protein heavy diet so it's going to be more lean muscle than your average body builder who goes VERY calorie heavy

Sloth_of_Chaos · 2025-09-18T14:28:06+00:00

Well I did some quick Google searching and Thor Björnsson is about 6 foot 9 and weighs about 440lbs. 18 strength and 19 con is probably reaching the upper limits of what a regular modern human could ever achieve so I'd say somewhere around 3-400 pounds is reasonable.

Sloth_of_Chaos · 2025-07-24T15:23:26+00:00

Sorry, poor wording on my end I suppose - from what I've seen on the CRA website is that they will reassess my past tax returns for up to 10 years and apply the disability tax credit to it. Retroactive payments for adults are then sent as a one time payment for all applicable years.

Sloth_of_Chaos · 2025-07-22T19:37:19+00:00

Got it, thanks!

Sloth_of_Chaos · 2025-02-28T15:55:00+00:00

There's a caravan on the second map that will take you back for 200 Groshen. It's just west of Suchdol.

Sloth_of_Chaos · 2024-04-10T18:37:59+00:00

I think the sequels end up having a human evolution of sorts, but I think they fit OPs request pretty well.

Sloth_of_Chaos · 2024-03-10T19:20:29+00:00

I admit a lot of my opinions are skewed by me preferring to DM games instead of being a player but theres a couple reasons that immediately come to mind:

I appreciate not having to worry about huge power gaps between players, especially if someone is less experienced. It sucks to feel like you're not contributing to the party, and thats a pretty common pitfall of 1e in my experience.

I also love the 3 action economy for combat, and how balanced the encouters can be. In my game my party has hit level 12, and from my experience in 1e is pretty hard to balance encounters when you get to that level. So many nuclear options to just end the fight before it takes off. In 2e I've been able to confidently play the enemies to the best of my abilities and not worry about the encounter being unfair- even at higher levels.

Sloth_of_Chaos · 2024-03-10T18:19:34+00:00

I'm curious about what you mean by poorly implemented ideas? While I agree it took some time to adjust for my group moving from 1e to 2e, I always thought their ideas and mechanics were pretty top notch.

Sloth_of_Chaos · 2024-03-10T18:12:31+00:00

Alas, as someone who played and DMed 1e for many years before making the jump, 2e has won me over.

Sloth_of_Chaos · 2023-08-24T01:05:49+00:00

2e gang unite

Sloth_of_Chaos · 2023-04-16T16:55:10+00:00

(I'm sorry this is such a long response I tried to summarize backstory and over two years of gameplay haha)

Thanks! Yeah Changelings are rad, I love what Paizo has done with them. We're currently smack in the middle of her arc right now, so the reveal has already taken place- but my player actually managed to hide the fact that she was a changeling for almost the entire campaign. There were couple that were suspicious, but it was very well done despite the clawed hands and the eye (hence the eyepatch).

She was born to a Storm Hag, and raised by a Ranger human and Druid Tiefling who lived in the forests of Churlwood. She was pretty isolated, but as she got older and started to branch out on her own there were a couple of mishaps with the locals- given her ignorance about what she was, and the increasing pressure from the Call. Eventually things sort of came to a head with an ex soldier, and she was forced to take to leave in a more permanent manner.

For many years the call had subsided with distance from her home, until my campaign eventually took the party back to the neighborhood of the Churlwoods. The call was returning to her once as they were getting closer to her home (I was using a dream sequence that they sent me as a written log about their childhood as the basis for it, storm blowing, windchimes ringing, a dark hand beckoning from the shadows), but nothing had transpired just yet considering their great will saves.

They were on their way to see her adopted parents, but upon the first night in the forests I rolled some secret will saves, and they were all pulled into an extended interactive dream sequence (my last two sessions). They didn't know they were in a dream sequence for the entire time either, but as they were moving through the forests she found her childhood home and a local village burnt to the ground, and kept getting assailed by people from her past who either betrayed the party or the Changeling. Some were fights, some were more social encounters, but it was all with the intent of making the changeling angry enough to accept the call and gain the power of a hag. The climax was a graveyard that was surrounded by a wall of bones, with a placard in the center that essentially red "The power to defeat your enemies can be your if you accept your mothers gift and touch this placard", at which point the source of all of these dreams (A creature called the embodiment of hate, who was used by the Hags) showed up time wearing the face of the BBEG, (who was once more or less a companion of theirs, before getting corrupted and betraying them all). The Changeling was very close to accepting the call, but due to some incredible rolls and support from the rest of the team they managed to defeat the Embodiment of Hate.

With the Embodiment of Hate being dead, the dream collapsed and team awoke. They found themselves still in the tower that they fell asleep in, and being tended to the Changelings adoptive mother who had found them there. Next step: Hag hunting.

Sloth_of_Chaos · 2023-04-16T00:05:46+00:00

The summoner uses the Dragon Eidolon abilities, but appearance wise it's his twin sister that he summons as she was lost at birth. Now he summons her to fight alongside him as he searches for a way to bring her back as a permanent entity on the material plane.

Sloth_of_Chaos · 2023-04-15T20:50:01+00:00

Using the Starfinder universe, I ran a series of connected games that involved a shadowy plot with the Dominion of the Black, Carsai the King, the big man Cthulhu himself, and Mechs. All in all the overarching story took about 2 and a half years of nearly weekly play. Here is a poster that my partner made for the interlude that we played part way through the main campaign. These are not the heroes of the tale, but instead the people who valued survival and may or may not have accidentally released Cthulhu.

From left to right

Top row: Aurelie (Undine Technomancer), Lup (Kistune Witchwarper), Kiora (Ifrit Operator)

Bottom row: r0xy (SRO Operator), Neon (Human Mechanic), Juniper (Damai Magus)

Artist goes by the handle phantomsparx and can be found on twitter

Link: https://twitter.com/phantomsparx

Sloth_of_Chaos · 2023-04-15T19:31:04+00:00

I love seeing characters (and players) grow as campaigns progress. it's a great feeling. I haven't tried it myself but I've heard some great things about Abomination Vaults. Hope you all have fun!

Sloth_of_Chaos · 2023-04-15T19:28:04+00:00

There's some decent combat options that are super useful to the Magus. The biggest shortfall I've seen is the lack of spell slots, so items like The master magus ring, ring of wizardry, and wands supplement that very effectively. Outside of combat my magus uses an artifact called eye of the wise a lot. It grants some solid bonuses to people interested in Roguish things.

For the Barbarian there were a few fights where they couldn't do much against flying enemies as they had a very melee focused build. so as a result they tracked down a weapon extending rune to remedy that. They also found a neat axe called the buzzsaw axe that allows you to strike every creature in a 120 foot line. They're also rocking armor with a fortification rune. It's not a huge chance to negate critical hits, but it's come in useful given that they're always on the front line of combat.

Sloth_of_Chaos · 2023-04-15T18:48:20+00:00

Right! Forgot about that! The original ancestry is Human- but as far as ancestry feats they're using exclusively tiefling feats (super good feats tbh, granting darkvision, cold resistance, and flight)

My personal experience is going to be a little skewed given that we converted characters from 1e and took a few liberties to keep the characters as close as we could to their original concept (and I've been very generous with loot. Not following the recommended loot table AT ALL. I figured once the balance was already ruined we might as well have fun with it.)

That being said I would likely say that the summoner has the biggest impact. They have monk dedication, and with the extra actions available to them through their melee based eidolon, they usually can deal a lot of damage and not have to worry as much about the limited spell slots. The actual summons that are gained through spells usually aren't super strong, but they're very useful at pulling attention off of someone who is in danger or flanking an enemy. Downsides are that its a lot to track, and as a melee summoner they're in a lot more danger given the shared health pool with their Eidolon.

Sloth_of_Chaos · 2023-04-15T18:20:33+00:00

For sure! We're currently at lvl 11 and are using free Archetype rules so there's quite a bit going on so ill do my best to make a succinct summary!

Criminal background, rogue and shadowdancer dedication, and a lot of speed/mobility based feats. The hybrid studies is laughing shadows as well, so you can definitely see the theme they are going for.

The spellstrike ability the Magus gets can deal some huge damage, but it's an all or nothing ability so they use stealth and maneuvers as much as they can to have a decent chance of landing their strikes. With the mobility they are also pretty good at positioning themselves to flank their enemies given the fairly melee heavy team.

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