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Mar. 28th, 2021 03:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethThis week I finished reading Hallowed Hunt, which means I've caught up on Bujold's World of the Five Gods.
I love the theology, which has room for chaos and destruction without calling it evil, and I love how kind the world can be. Hallowed Hunt is my least favorite and Paladin of Souls is best, because Ista.
I've not been very interactive or very good about comments. I had a bunch of tiny niggly things happen in a row that used up my interaction, like having to phone to say a delivery wasnt here, or what was delivered was leaking. Or the whole thing with the washer dryer.
Today I picked up the next part of the Pathfinder Adventure Path Second Darkness
and it starts by being like, this is an adventure for 7th level characters, we know the adventure left everyone 6th level at the end of the last part, but this oeaves room for you to make stuff up!
... if we wanted to make stuff up, why did we buy Adventure Paths?
... I increasingly see why this one has a Reputation.
I reckon if I was in a Pathfinder world I wouldnt want to be an adventurer. Set me up in a nice quiet wizard job making magic items. NPC life for me.
... except that's 8 hours a day of spellcraft work, which might also be a bit boring. Like, you decide to be a wizard to u derstand the fundamental forces of the universe, but to make enough money to scribe spells let alone invent them, you need to sell the pricey stuff. And that's just a manufacturing job. Skilled craft. But just, making stuff, all day.
Or you find someone to fund your research, but that ropes you in to the schemes of people far richer than you.
... npc life is not so easy...
And that's ignoring the XP problem. How to level up without risking something eating you. Or is every skilled craftsman in town someone who did in fact risk something eating them?
GURPS has an hours per point system that makes much calmer sense.
I was also thinking, if I set up a magic school with like 60 pupils (because leadership score), they would get like a minute per hour each for a teaching day that would have to fit in around magic item creation. Which is one thing when you are teaching English Lit and can set them a bunch of reading, but seems less good when magic might do literally anything if they try it unsupervised. A class being 15 people and 4 classes a day works better in terms of how many people you need to watch at once but keeping an eye on every pupil still sounds Challenging. Don't know hwo science teachers manage. And science is more predictable than magic.
The Instructor+Apprentice model makes much sense.
And if you need to shift someone's alignment you have even more intense work to do. Like there's rules for it, you can be their sponsor, and if they really want to change there is maths for how many penances they have to do to be Neutral or Good if they start out Evil, varying by hit dice or level. So you dont just have to wing it and roleplay, there's numbers and suggestions and so forth.
Any penitent seeking redemption can get help from a number of sponsors up to their Charisma modifier. Each one gives a bonus on will saves. So that's grand.
But how many currently evil characters could one reasonably sponsor?
If one happens to end up running a home for reformed (ish) villains, how many of them could one dedicate sufficient time to?
That seems like the kind of thing that requires one to one work, but there isn't a rule. There's a rule for converting NPCs to a specific faith, but that's different. It specifically says it does not change their alignment. "so you could manage to convince a chaotic evil harpy to worship her very own very odd form of Shelyn", a neitral good goddess of beauty.
Converting an NPC to your religion gives you a bonus for a number of days equal to the NPCs level. So there's game mechanical incentive to lead every high level encounter with a polite enquiry into their faith...
Bonus only works once per level though.
And if you fail three times with one person you can't have another go for a year.
... someone sat down and wrote religious conversion rules.
I mean I'm sitting here memorising them because useful, but, many games would not have a rule.
So. Anyway. Some idle noodling about Pathfinder rules.
... a temple dedicated to conversion and redemption could have quite the grab bag of people in it.
Maybe if I ever write up these ideas...
I love the theology, which has room for chaos and destruction without calling it evil, and I love how kind the world can be. Hallowed Hunt is my least favorite and Paladin of Souls is best, because Ista.
I've not been very interactive or very good about comments. I had a bunch of tiny niggly things happen in a row that used up my interaction, like having to phone to say a delivery wasnt here, or what was delivered was leaking. Or the whole thing with the washer dryer.
Today I picked up the next part of the Pathfinder Adventure Path Second Darkness
and it starts by being like, this is an adventure for 7th level characters, we know the adventure left everyone 6th level at the end of the last part, but this oeaves room for you to make stuff up!
... if we wanted to make stuff up, why did we buy Adventure Paths?
... I increasingly see why this one has a Reputation.
I reckon if I was in a Pathfinder world I wouldnt want to be an adventurer. Set me up in a nice quiet wizard job making magic items. NPC life for me.
... except that's 8 hours a day of spellcraft work, which might also be a bit boring. Like, you decide to be a wizard to u derstand the fundamental forces of the universe, but to make enough money to scribe spells let alone invent them, you need to sell the pricey stuff. And that's just a manufacturing job. Skilled craft. But just, making stuff, all day.
Or you find someone to fund your research, but that ropes you in to the schemes of people far richer than you.
... npc life is not so easy...
And that's ignoring the XP problem. How to level up without risking something eating you. Or is every skilled craftsman in town someone who did in fact risk something eating them?
GURPS has an hours per point system that makes much calmer sense.
I was also thinking, if I set up a magic school with like 60 pupils (because leadership score), they would get like a minute per hour each for a teaching day that would have to fit in around magic item creation. Which is one thing when you are teaching English Lit and can set them a bunch of reading, but seems less good when magic might do literally anything if they try it unsupervised. A class being 15 people and 4 classes a day works better in terms of how many people you need to watch at once but keeping an eye on every pupil still sounds Challenging. Don't know hwo science teachers manage. And science is more predictable than magic.
The Instructor+Apprentice model makes much sense.
And if you need to shift someone's alignment you have even more intense work to do. Like there's rules for it, you can be their sponsor, and if they really want to change there is maths for how many penances they have to do to be Neutral or Good if they start out Evil, varying by hit dice or level. So you dont just have to wing it and roleplay, there's numbers and suggestions and so forth.
Any penitent seeking redemption can get help from a number of sponsors up to their Charisma modifier. Each one gives a bonus on will saves. So that's grand.
But how many currently evil characters could one reasonably sponsor?
If one happens to end up running a home for reformed (ish) villains, how many of them could one dedicate sufficient time to?
That seems like the kind of thing that requires one to one work, but there isn't a rule. There's a rule for converting NPCs to a specific faith, but that's different. It specifically says it does not change their alignment. "so you could manage to convince a chaotic evil harpy to worship her very own very odd form of Shelyn", a neitral good goddess of beauty.
Converting an NPC to your religion gives you a bonus for a number of days equal to the NPCs level. So there's game mechanical incentive to lead every high level encounter with a polite enquiry into their faith...
Bonus only works once per level though.
And if you fail three times with one person you can't have another go for a year.
... someone sat down and wrote religious conversion rules.
I mean I'm sitting here memorising them because useful, but, many games would not have a rule.
So. Anyway. Some idle noodling about Pathfinder rules.
... a temple dedicated to conversion and redemption could have quite the grab bag of people in it.
Maybe if I ever write up these ideas...