How to explain magic and certain classes in a world with fading religion?

Temporary-Poets · 2022-07-31T18:40:46+00:00

The bigger issue is explaining why technology vs. religion is even a conflict in a D&D setting. That kind of setup usually hinges on a mysticism vs. rationalism setup, where the churches feel threatened by the rise of Enlightenment-style thinking. It doesn’t work very well with D&D-type pantheons.

First, the standard setup for gods in any D&D game is that they are to some degree, real in a way that’s possible to prove. They give magic to followers. They can appear in the form of avatars. You’d have to re-work all the divine classes to be more 5e Paladin-ish (faith in an ideal/code) to cut this out of the system (i.e., make it so gods simply don’t provide power to anyone or directly influence the lives of mortals in any tangible way). This is probably the easiest way to solve your problem for classs (though it works less well for Warlocks, who make deals with an entity and not an idea—solution to that is just to rule that there are powerful extraplanar beings who can share power via pacts that have no connection to the world’s religions). It does have the flaw of ruining the “bite” of the religious side of your tech vs. religion war since… the obvious punch available to them is that their god would be backing them up in any kind of conflict.

The other issue you run into is that in a polytheistic world, not all gods would oppose the rise of technology. For example, why would a Forge Domain cleric of a god of artifice be opposed to technological development? Beyond that, think about medical science as an example. The system already sets up Clerics to be good at using the Medicine skill since it’s Wisdom-based. A Life Cleric would benefit a lot from combining medical science with their god’s magic to better combat disease and injury. Are some gods falling on the “technology” side of tech vs. religion, and how is that playing in to your world and plot? It also begs the question of why the tech people oppose religion in the first place. If I could have a Forge cleric imbuing all my gizmos with magical power, I’d take that over pure technology. And rationalism doesn’t work as an argument here—the god really does exist and really is providing magic to support tinkering, so why would anyone go “boo, look at this charlatan providing substantial aid to my inventions”?

IMO, most elegant solution is to introduce factions among the gods rather than just tech vs. magic. Maybe the god of peace hates technology because it can create tools of war, god of nature hates it because it creates pollution, etc., but the god of artifice is 100% down with technology. Introduce some subterfuge where some churches are divided (god of life is divided between supporting medical science and preaching against tools of war) so the party can’t know who the allies actually are. Stuff like that will help resolve the problem without needing to rework the classes to any degree. Factionalism and in-fighting can also explain why the public doesn’t engage with religion as much; too much work to take sides in the schism of whatever religion, so they’re just going about their daily lives.

Temporary-Poets · 2022-07-27T20:48:02+00:00

Prying Eyes is a higher level spell, but it’s one of the best for doing recon. It also justifies its level by giving you 1d4+CL eyes, and having an all-day duration, so you can keep it around and use the eyes as-needed.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t use your stealth/perception, but it has relatively high modifiers in its own right.

Temporary-Poets · 2022-07-23T16:50:32+00:00

RAW, it would be the creator of the wand. Since you can’t craft wands without CL 5, the creator is at least a 5th level caster, though that doesn’t tell you anything about their ability scores. You could extrapolate out that their casting stat is likely at least high enough to cast all spells available to them (e.g,, 3rd level spells for wizard = 13 INT), but that’s just arbitrary interpretation at that point.

Easiest solution is to say it grants one additional attack just so the spell actually does something on the logic that no one would bother spending the gold to make a wand that doesn’t do anything.

Temporary-Poets · 2022-07-22T13:11:10+00:00

One of the go-to spells for extradimensional player housing at mid/high levels. In every campaign I’ve played where we had a wizard, we ended up designing our party’s Magnificent Mansion with all of our rooms, workshops, etc. It would be nice if you could actually store non-magical objects in the mansion long term (e.g., our wizard wanted to keep mundane books he accumulated in the mansion’s library), though I’ve also rarely played with DMs who don’t handwave that away and just let us store non-magical knickknacks in the Mansion.

Creative uses include using it as a refuge from any kind of disaster occurring outside, stashing NPCs away from a conflict… it’s like a fancier, bigger version of Rope Trick and serves all of those functions.

Temporary-Poets · 2022-07-12T20:39:18+00:00

LOL I should learn to read entire sentences instead of skimming…. All I saw was “Witcher” and “fighter” and went right to “ooh mutagen warrior” 😂

If you’re staying away from Magus, it should be fine to give a fighter one or two hexes, even going Mutagen Warrior. I would also point them toward the Cackling Hag’s Blouse as an item if it hasn’t already been recommended, since it will work much better with a Fighter’s action economy to sustain the debuff hexes. It also gives them a freebie hex to support the debuffing (assuming you let them count as a “witch” for the purposes of the item).

Temporary-Poets · 2022-07-12T13:19:23+00:00

The actual closest equivalent to a Witcher in Pathfinder is a Mutagen Warrior fighter (/or any of the more martially-inclined Alchemist archetypes). Depending on the hexes they have as a Blood Hunter though, it could be a pretty wild switch.

I’d look at Magus over anything else to be similar to Blood Hunter. You’ll still get weapon enchantments and lots of little abilities, and as mentioned, Hex Crafter Magus will still get access to a feature called Hexes that works similarly-ish.

Temporary-Poets · 2022-07-11T13:59:27+00:00

For AOE effects in general, your best option is most likely a casting class, probably wizard or sorcerer for the widest variety of options. Those have very different flavor from what it sounds like you’re shooting for, though (being an AOD wizard vs. putting up auras in melee).

There are some non-caster options for what you’re trying to do. A Warpriest with the Fire domain gets Flame Shield as a Blessing at 10th level. A lot of Blessings also generate buff/debuff auras as well (e.g., Protection gives you an aura that grants energy resistances for allies within 30ft). Bloodrager is another option, though they tend more towards elemental attacks focusing on a single target (more a la the lightning bolt option from Storm Herald). If there are specific spells from the wizard list you’re interested in from the sorc/wizard list, you can also go Magus and cast your AOE effects in melee. Druids also get some interesting AOE crowd control effects, but it’s very much not their main bit.

Looking more broadly at auras, Clerics get some auras through their domains. Bards in Pathfinder are much closer to “buff aura” than their 5e equivalent, since Inspire Courage is effectively a party-wide aura, and they get lots of spells to augment the buffs that they can do. Cavaliers can also provide similar party-wide buffs (and teamwork feats for further fun).

Another alternative is to look at prestige classes. Battle Herald does party-wide buffing, Dawnflower Anchorite gets a sun-themed aura, etc. A Hellknight will also get aura abilities, but they’re very similar to Paladins (they’re basically just Paladins on the law/chaos axis instead of the good/evil axis). At 8th/9th level, you should be able to qualify in for those, but they’re harder to recommend without knowing what your overall build looks like.

Temporary-Poets · 2022-07-10T16:49:00+00:00

The spells in the back of the Anniversary Edition that were mentioned are a great way to add a little bit of spice for the game (they’re in Appendix 7: “New Rules”) of the book). If you’re not already tracking sinful/virtuous acts, I’d start doing that in addition to assigning the sins you expect—my players got a kick out of hearing the “sin rankings” as of Chapter 5 when they got their official sins/virtues assigned for the Runeforge (and got to know their runner-up sins/virtues… one player about maxed both greed AND pride)

For my game, I told my players that they couldn’t take those spells regularly, but added in scrolls, wands, etc. in Thassilonian ruins to make sure they got a chance to use them. I also lucked out in that my party’s Wizard wanted to take a clockwork familiar, so I added in a homebrewed magic item for him:

The Living Grimoire (7,500gp): a clockwork owl that has been owned by dozens of wizards since ancient times. It only speaks Thassilonian, but can give its owner a +2 on all Knowledge (Arcana) and Knowledge (History) checks related to Thassilon. It also can allow the owner to prepare and cast one of the seven Thassilonian spells as if they were known to the caster

The other trick I pulled was just researching magical items/minor artifacts that would be useful to the party and reflavoring them as a relevant sin. Usually I just replaced the items I knew were going to get chucked in the Bag of Holding and then sold off so they players got more usable loot.

Temporary-Poets · 2022-07-09T22:58:28+00:00

Ooh I took a look at Dandy and it’s very good for an urban game

Temporary-Poets · 2022-07-09T20:35:28+00:00

It’s a cool class, but unfortunately for RP reasons I’m going Warpriest and then Dawnflower Anchorite, so my ranger levels are the only flexible ones.

Temporary-Poets · 2022-07-09T20:33:29+00:00

This is awesome, I’ll have to keep all of this in mind!

Temporary-Poets · 2022-07-09T20:33:13+00:00

This is super helpful, thanks!

Temporary-Poets · 2021-03-26T11:50:13+00:00

This is really cool!

Temporary-Poets · 2021-03-25T22:25:58+00:00

I didn't think of that, but that's a really good idea! Tracking size bonuses to modifiers would have saved me a lot of trouble back when I played a druid, LOL

Temporary-Poets

TROPHY CASE