Finally got some time to answer a bunch of questions from Soro here. If anyone has any OOC questions I missed let me know.
I think I'm suffering from creation withdraws.
So on the Succibus I dropped Lucid Dreaming since it's banned for Iaijutsu Focus if that works.
Iajutsu Focus ok.
Thinking of doing a Nymph too, then both of them will have the day job of assisting the other followers allowing them to delegate out tasks that they can perform. And speaking of, you know the campaign is a pretty technologically advanced game world. Are there skill checks with computers? Like does Modern's "Computer Use" exist? Should Kenny have a Craft[electronics], how much do cellphones cost, does the candy crush "malware" exist in the game world and what is the Will DC to avoid playing if it you ever download it?
Most electronic systems have simplified interfaces, Profession and Knowledge checks can be used to interact with it as appropriate depending on the kind of technology. Cellphones have a wide range of costs from basic 50 meseta models that just send and receive to 50 000 meseta deluxe models with integrated super AIs and photon fields.
Candy Crush has been purged and the simple fact it ever existed is a well-kept secret. A single copy of it being discovered is enough ground to start planning blowing up the
building city planet system just to be sure. Even Dark Force and its minions consider it anathema.
I also realized "Baldy" should be 5th level too but Ghost/Shadow are limits already so I was thinking of Warlock but Beguiling Influence is Bluff/Dipo/Intim, how about a homebrew "Captivating Delight" Invocation, as Beguiling but Gather Information instead of Intimidate? Yeah, pretty much after increasing his Gather Info check
That sounds acceptable.
Still not sure what to do with the rest but I'm currently more distracted on the concepts of the Helsiana family. Is your God class banned?
Minor-middle gods can exist, reigning over a city/planet equivalent, maybe a system now and then, but the bigger ones never last long for mysterious reasons. All the concentrated faith seems to be a delicious delicacy for Dark Force and its minions.
Thinking of a whole primordial energy harnessing divine energy stealing family trying to replace the none-existent deities. Most of the levels are arbitrary here but...
Main Branch
Shinryu (25): Force Dragon 20 / God 5
Leviathan (22): Styx Dragon 8 / Pseudonatural Creature 1 / Elder Eidolon 10 / God 3
Tiamat (20): Hellfire Dragon 12 / Fiendish Creature 2 / Multiheaded 4 / God 2
Shinryu was a brute force to live as long as he did and discovered the whole immortality deal late in his life. Leviathan mastered it to the point where he is his own Lovecraftian horror. And Tiamat is the lovable five-headed dragon god we all know and love. All of them have already progressed enough to hold considerable power in their own right, enough to convince the entire Federation to be lax in some of their law keeping when it comes to them. Like no Helsiana has ever applied for an Esper license. Shinryu was feeling creative one day and sent the Federation's envoy, ship, crew, and all, back to the perfectly inside out (and somehow still alive). Since then the Federation simply had a secretary fill out their 'lost in transit' licensees for them a so the Federation can keep their paperwork nice and tidy.
Yiazmat (17): Obsidian Dragon 12 / Boss 4 / God 1
Dheed (14): Battle Dragon 10 / Barbarian 2 / Rage Mage 2
Aeronites (11): Song Dragon 11
Aeros (10): Song Dragon 10
1st branch is held together by Yiazmat's leadership and is the only psionic dragon in the family. Dheed is the big scary bouncer smart enough to combine his draconic strength with with esperic casting, which btw doesn't sound as cool as "mystic casting". And the Twins are both Song Dragons through their PrCing will probably take different bardic-themed paths later on.
Kusariqqu (13): Red Dragon 8 / Ur Priest 5
Lamashtu (12): Blue Dragon 8 / Divine Champion 4
Mushussu (12): Green Dragon 3 / Druid 5 / Blighter 4
Nidhogg (10): Black Dragon 5 / Dracolich 3 / Pale Master 2
Vouivre (9): Sand Dragon 5 / Dustform Creature 2 / Awakened Zombie 1 / Unkillable Zombie 1
All the competing heads use accelerated casting classes on purpose, Kusariqqu is of course technically the most powerful and he also happens to "steal" his spells from the main branch. Behind the scenes, Tiamat grants them. The other two follow suit and are divine corrupted. As previously mentioned Nidhogg is the oddball choosing not to follow suit and be the "same" like them making it a four way deal and he aimed for pure arcane might as a more traditional necromancer. He raised Vouivre, a terraian dragon for symbology, who was killed off by one of his older brothers.
Nepto (8): Tome Dragon 8
The last but not least Nepto is who far from the throne and considered the weakest. The lack of attention has allowed him to focus on learning how to be better than all the rest and specially loves new books from Bahamut.
Hmm, those sound quite interesting, but I would cap NPCs at level 15 tops. Remember, you started around level 12 and you were already considered best among best of the galaxy's mercenaries.
I'm actually working on expanding the background fluff of this campaign a fair bit, starting by detailing the Devastation War, and was planning of integrating bits from the PCs backgrounds. From your side, the Hellsiana family would've played a role in the form of some of its minor family members participating in the conflicts, taking over one of the warring factions to try to start a new royal dragon dynasty on parum. Maybe with the indirect backing of the main family (spoilers: They lost. Or did they?)
Now to clarify what appears to be some misunderstandings.
But you really should remember I really haven't watched the super bot series and "Phantasy Star" to me is a video game full of half naked lolis.
Although I have to admit that the latest PS titles fall in the "half-naked lolis" everywhere, the first PS was actually the first RPG where you had a female lead character. A strong female lead with full clothing, armor, sword and shield who could also sling some spells. The other party members were a male warrior who couldn't use spells, a male bishonen esper who could cast spells but was made of wet tissue paper, and a cat. Not catgirl, a four-legged cat. Who could also cast spells when not scratching stuff to death.
But then from PS II onwards they started adding catgirls "armored" with ribbons and you can see how things are nowadays.
"Esper" is next to a meaningless term for me. Like Ol's intro says magic is rare but you guys have created some of the most OP magic spamming homebrew I've ever seen and it's a gestated game that allows you to pick up Arcane Pilot on top of that.
I guess I need to work more on the background. But to try to be simple, while in other fantasy franchises you have technology masquerading as magic, in PS you more usually have magic masquerading as technology. "Forces" are commonplace spellcasters that use "safe", standardized, refined and mass-produced magic that most of the population sees as technology. But then you have Espers that keep records of more ancient, exotic and risky spells, forcing them to operate under the radar, and then corrupted Dark cultists/Chaos Sorcerors that believe that the end always justifies the magic means and most civilized governments order to be shot on sight. Those last still appear in PS games as mid-late enemies. You usuall start fighting "sci-fi" enemies like alien lifeforms, mutants and machines, but when you notice it you're in some kind of ancient stone ruins surrounded by maddening runes and you're facing tainted laser centaurs and golems and dark swordsmen.
Espers that live too long inevitably become Dark cultists/Chaos sorcerors.
Technically they all use the same kind of magic, but Forces limit themselves to safe, true-and-tried spells without nasty secondary effects and thus they're widely trusted by the public, to which the Force's
magic techniques are presented as technology for convenience's sake, since you don't want people to go look for ancient tomes of forbidden lore, but rather to check the open market catalogue.
And apparently Dimensional Lock, an 8th level Spell, is reduced to the rarity of a ship wide button buff according to you.
That however wasn't a 8th level spell, simple
Pure Iron Esper is just forgotten and meaningless background fluff. Coincidentally, I'm banking on everyone else's interest to let me know when Ols is ripping of it's storyline so I know when to complicate matters.
Forgotten yes, meaningless no. PS I, II and IV all had at least one Esper party member that was part of a bigger organization. However progressively in each game they became more and more of a reclusive faction, going from having direct ties with the local government to hiding in some mountains isolated from everything else. In parallel however, while in PS I you had the male human warrior unable to use magic, in PS II, III and IV everybody but a few androids can use
spells techniques of some sort, more expanded with each game, meaning that despite the esper increased isolation, certain types of magic were becoming more widesperead.
Thus the basis of their fluff for this campaign.
Also the Android Administration kinda hates magic and prefers cold metal and circuits, so they're more agressive towards espers and make relatively less use of Forces than other factions.
Something involving some esper who got killed and then... walls of text?
In a tl;dr.
Mission to a planet to steal a rock for plot reasons.
You were just supposed to check it out, Anomander's character was the one who decided to take it to the ship.
Tangent to question a spellcaster about said rock because these people can cast 8th level Spells but not Detect Magic (not even joking here).
She escaped, DM had to step in using bots that single handedly won the entire Encounter off screen because the show must go on.
The Android Administration can't use 8th level spells. They were already pretty sure that the esper could cast magic spells and the plan A was just to send the bots to
violently capture her once they had her identification from another interrogation, but Anomander's character wanted to try to talk to her peacefully.
Really through, I don't feel the FAQ doesn't cover anything about this. It covers expected Slots if you dip into Cleric/Druid/Sorcerer/Wizard which can only be extrapolated by example on how it'd work with Beholder Mage or even simple the Bard. The section before the table might be what you mean
I want to play a spellcaster monster!
Monsters that cast as "class X" like the dragon and Rakshasa will stack their spellcasting with the respective classes.
Other monsters like the mind flayer don't actualy cast as "class X", but if they multiclass to certain caster classes they gain powerful bonus. Notice however this only works towards actual base classes that grant spellcasting, not prestige classes that grant spellcasting out of nowhere like ur-priest and chamaleon.
But Psionics aside, your Mindflayer & Ulitharid are SLA based and neither of them grant any direct benefit for multiclassing, what they get that would be stacking would be the combo of eating a brain and gaining a bonus to their Spell DCs, which your FAQ nerfs to apparently base-class only. So that sentence more or less equals a massive broad spectrum ban of being able to use any of any none-caster monster ability with any PrC. Like a Gloom wanting to enter Assassin is basically fml'ed thanks to the incompatibility the FAQ created.
But the Rakshasa is exempt from this because it does cast as Class X well the Beholder is Su based not pseudo-caster SLAs like the Mindflayer and does explicitly stack with Class X like the Rakshasa. I'm not really trying to be argumentative here, which would be pretty pointless if I were thanks to dual editor/DM power there, but are you picking up what I'm laying down? I went there because the text goes there and the text really doesn't refute it. The easy out is to explain it, not necessarily invoke more that need explanations attached unless you're seeking for some feed back on that. And I'll try when I get around to it but I am slow.
You're complicating by extrapolating way too much. Let's keep it simple:
1-Is beholder an actual caster with spell slots and spells known? No.
2-Does the beholder class offers synergy with certain casting classes? Yes.
3-Does the FAQ clarifies that monsters that aren't actual spell casters but offer synergy with caster gain said synergy only from base caster classes? Yes.
4-Thus if A=B, and B=C, then A=C.
The only way your argument makes sense is that the FAQ actually means the exact opposite of what is written, aka that when I say that you can't qualify for chameleon/ur-mage, that I actually meant that you automatically qualify for chamelon/ur-mage, aka you're saying that 1=-1.
And yes, the intention from the start was that pseudocaster monsters couldn't jump into a casting prc right away, and they would need to dip at least one level of a base class so they don't get to skip progressions.
If that somehow means that the Gloom can't enter the assassin prc, I have honestly zero fucks to give about that, because the Gloom already is an epic monster.