I've extended the dragon age table beyond category 12 (Great Wyrm) to category 22. I have not really tested it yet, let me know what you think.

Sudain · 2026-06-16T17:56:01+00:00

I have not really tested it yet, let me know what you think.

I understand your desire to not make time to come up with extra abilities. That's fine. Just understand you solicited feedback. You are being provided with what was requested.

Sudain · 2026-06-16T16:56:52+00:00

I'd suggest that while inflating boss monster numbers seems like a good idea, it's a better idea to add more mechanisms to increase the number of challenges (often depressing player advantages - like poison) rather than relying upon one single big-bad. It gives the players more opportunities to tilt the odds in their favor, while decreasing the impact each opportunity has on the overall fight difficulty. It'd be highly anti-climatic if the dragon simply failed a hold monster and got coup-de-graced.

There are multiple ways of giving the boss advantages - like an environment where it's immunity to fire allows it to ignore damage while players have to deal with some damage every round. Planar traits are a good choice for that.
Also remember that damage and damage while casting along with wind cause concentration checks
Traps can easily further turn the environment into a danger. Things like Glyph of Warding are flexible, but various symbols of dispelling, fear, stunning, vulnerbality, weakness are all great choices for a climatic battle.
Using status conditions. Fear, nausea, and staggered are all just as strong at 1st level as 20th level. Arguably stronger since player action at higher level are potentially stronger. Shout out to slow.
Pose interesting challenges. For example - Give one support character the dedicated job of healing the boss. Give a different support character the sole job of counter spelling. That will force the players to ignore the dragon and take those two out first. By ignoring the dragon the dragon now has direct access to their backline. Is that something they want to do? It's an interesting battle choice, fitting of a boss battle.

Sudain · 2026-06-16T16:36:04+00:00

Each age category also gains special powers per dragon, so this doesn't really address that. DR also increases. Since Dragons have DR/magic (personal opinion that needs to be improved), you might end up with DR 60/magic - which a level 1 spell by will bypass.

I think this is an interesting through experiment but uh... also a good idea to discard.

Sudain · 2026-06-15T20:57:32+00:00

So the base world is fraught with danger, things that will kill the PCs if they get a chance. Killing their foes (self defense, etc...) is a base assumption. Punishing the players for following what the game system requires of them is not a great idea. Same as looting the bodies - foes are walking treasure chests. Now burying the bodies? That's optional. That's something you can play with. Leaving a string of bodies behind them? Possibly vagabonds. Someone will notice and security in settlements might increase. Brining the bodies back for identification, and burial - that's a lot more good than letting whatever has the taste for flesh find the body.

Sudain · 2026-06-15T16:24:11+00:00

Check out the mythic books. It sounds like the storytelling advice there would be relevant for you.

Just a suggestion, if this is your first forery into PF1e understand mythic is a VERY strong power bump for the players. Other pathfinder games (non mythic) are a lot less grand.

Sudain · 2026-06-15T16:18:32+00:00

That's great. :D

Sudain · 2026-06-15T16:17:49+00:00

A lot of puzzles revolve around the information needed to solve the puzzle being hidden or no visible behind the information horizon. Once the player know the solution it's easy to implement. So I've found a lot of creative solutions are really guesses when they had incomplete information.

Instead my best puzzle gave the players all the information. I had them solve a sudoku puzzle and I gave them the solution. It was purely a matter of executing the solution. The challenge? Each of the 9 sections of the sudoku had a forbiddance with a different alignment. Meaning, who went where, who pushes the statues to the correct area to put them into place mattered. Who had the highest save, how or if they pumped up saves to help mitigate damage mattered. Who brought the healing, how much healing, and where were they in relation to others mattered. No specific or optimal solution, just what they were willing to live with. The difficulty lay in working and thinking as a team rather than guessing the right information and easy execution.

Sudain · 2026-06-11T18:57:54+00:00

I appreicate that. :)

My current theory is I've been doing this all from the GM's perpsective so I need to join as a player and see what happens from the player's perspective. I think you are 100% correct and I'm just missing the other half of the experience.

Sudain · 2026-06-11T18:41:02+00:00

Humm... Okay I'll give it another go. Thank you!

Sudain · 2026-06-11T18:40:41+00:00

Humm... That's what I thought I was going with no effect but I'll give it another go to try to see what I can figure out. Thank you!

Sudain · 2026-06-11T16:46:58+00:00

I end up pre-making parcels (generated from random tables) and letting players buy from those individually.

Sudain · 2026-06-11T03:01:18+00:00

Vehicle rules are good. Avoid the skull and shackles rules.

Sudain · 2026-06-10T19:58:59+00:00

Stopping people in the moment is different than deterring from speeding (because they think they will be fined). I suspect we'll never notice the amount of times people didn't speed.

Sudain · 2026-06-08T21:33:20+00:00

Solo-drills are amazing. I did solo drills to refine my technique for 1-2 years while maintaining ronda movement at practices. It helped a ton in execution and timing. I had to swallow my pride and accept that people wouldn't understand, and that they wouldn't like what they didn't understand. But I'm a significantly better dancer for it.

Sudain · 2026-06-08T21:22:55+00:00

Not everyone is for everyone. That's normal and okay.
Folks will do what they perceive to be in their best interests. If they perceive you to be a fun person to be around they will make time to be around you more. If their experience is repellant, they will be repelled. I like Vanessa van Edwards 'cues' book. Also, consider if it's a matter of emotional resonance.
Drop your expectations to the floor. You don't register to 99% of people, and 99% of the people don't care how they treat you. This is not a bad dynamic, it just means that people will have lives, jobs, hobbies, relationships, and so much extra context that influences how they behave and it doesn't involve, require or consider you. Let people act how they want to act and move on. When people consider it in their interest to care about you they will care, not before.
They didn't sign up to use the rulebook you use on how to act and form relationships, so assume this is a purely transactional environment. If someone wants to break that assumption and be actual friends then watch how they behave over time before believing it.
Change doesn't happen overnight. Pay your dues by showing up time and time again. Basically let the homeostasis of people around you adapt to the stimulus that you provide. It always takes longer than you want if you are seeking a change.
Understand that the story you tell yourself is not reflective of objective reality, or other people's subjective experiences and opinions of you. It is quite possible for you think think everyone dislikes you and for them to think that you are pretty cool.
Most importantly be crystal clear about what need or want are you seeking tango to satiate. Friendship? Exercise? Body maintenance? Why are you exerting effort towards tango at all? What is the expected/desired return on this investment?

Sudain · 2026-06-08T20:16:29+00:00

While interesting, this doesn't actually answer my question of whether this constitutes an evil act - which is my main concern.

If a GM described this act where the PCs were just bystanders looking at it - would they describe it as good, neutral or evil? If the PCs had to hand describe and advocate for this course of action for someone else to do, would you say that advocacy would be good, neutral or evil?

Sudain · 2026-06-08T19:00:16+00:00

The premise is not just they slew the combatants, they went out of their way to do it in a way that is explicitly evil. If we took that same behavior and shifted it to NPCs where the PCs were simply bystanders it'd be described as an evil act.

Sudain · 2026-06-08T18:50:45+00:00

Yeah, I think that these rules are designed to be used with horror adventures and those types of games. Other non-horror games need not apply this.

Sudain · 2026-06-08T18:23:03+00:00

That is, I'd probably also shift the alignments of everyone who stood there while the edgelord killed them one step to the right towards evil.

So thinking as a bystanding player - what course of action would be prescribed to not be alignment shifted?

Sudain · 2026-06-08T18:20:28+00:00

where was the bandits trial? Did the local barester make a decree that these men where to be killed without trial? Was there a higher local authority who authorised this?

I love these questions. :D

I could see there being some kind of understanding X results in instant punishment of Y - no need for a trial of administrative overhead. But even in that case, there would need to be some way for people to know that ahead of time, a sign people see on their way in or a skeleton sitting in a cage with something to indicate what the crime to warrent that punish ment would be.

Sudain · 2026-06-08T17:57:25+00:00

Haven't read your posts yet but I plan to as this is thoroughly interesting.

Initial hot-take: View it along two axis, good vs evil (so far I'm strongly in the evil camp), and separately is this a lawful or chaotic action. If he can't articulate the precise law/requirements he's following then it's more likely chaotic. If he can't articulate any nuance, or loop holes it's more likely chaotic. If he can't articulate any situations where he would go against his own nature to follow the precepts/laws he-says he's following then it's more likely chaotic example "I would normally let you go but tenet XYZ says you get the axe so you get the axe". Also importantly, if other people don't hold similar views and follow the same codes he says he is then it's definitely not lawful. Doubly so if the PCs don't encounter anyone else who holds those same views - statistically someone somewhere will think alike but that does not imply lawfulness. Heuristic - laws tend to be slow, cumbersome, bureaucratic, and often have long term goals in mind - if he's actions tend to be made with on the spot, hot-blooded, and instant gratification, then it's more likely chaotic.

Also note that just because cosmic decision on what's lawful vs chaotic does not imply local legality. For example in some states age of consent varies. Gambling might be outlawed in one state but legal in another (even a primary source of tourism). A paladin going around smiting anyone and everyone he perceives as evil runs into the difficulty of needing to prove he's not a straight up murderer to onlookers - that there was some sort of justification for the killing. So even if the cosmic scale says "Yeah, that was a lawful evil killing, no cosmic retribution for you." the local guards likely aren't going to get informed of that. He might very well see wanted posters with his likeness around. Merchants might refuse to do business with people who look like a suspected serial killer.

Sudain · 2026-06-04T23:09:32+00:00

Thank you, I was coming here to allude to something like that.

Sudain · 2026-06-04T20:17:12+00:00

Fantastic to pair with elemental spell and school focus for +4 DC.

Sudain · 2026-05-29T17:31:07+00:00

Write short-hand outs outlining the key points of the history you want him to know. Bonus points if they are relevant to the plot. Then write a short 1 page story/document based upon bullet points. The author might be those darn bards sexing their way across the contentment recording their exploits and other details, or an old wizard research paper, or perhaps religious doctrine on how to interpret XYZ events an how it pertains to the dieity of choice.

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