#the moon has really cured those dice huh

[feelingtheaster99]

Goddamn, an incredibly story-important Nat 20 from Murph instead of Beardsley? Love that for him

[monstersdownthepath]

Spiritual Spotlight: Groetus, God of the End Times

Chaotic Neutral God of Oblivion, Empty Places, and Ruins

Domains: Chaos, Darkness, Destruction, Madness, Void Subdomains: Catastrophe, Entropy, Insanity, Loss, Night, Stars, Truth

Inner Sea Faiths, pg. 46~51

Obedience: Preach of the coming end times to a listener who has not yet accepted this truth. If the person leaves or otherwise refuses to listen to you for the full hour, you must find another person to preach to so that you are proselytizing the entire time. Alternatively, if no one at all is available to listen, spend an hour contemplating ways and times the world might end—do so in an empty place where nothing lives and no person except Groetan worshipers have been for at least a month. While you contemplate, deface any surface available to you with unholy images and symbols, such as a skull-like moon. Benefit: You gain a +1 sacred or profane bonus on Will saving throws.

the sad part is that pretty much every god in inner sea faiths is like this. First Ghlaunder and now THIS! Paizo was scared of Deific Obedience when it was first written, and it shows!

God you really are just tasked with being an annoying doomsayer for an hour, huh? Standing around with a sandwich board that reads THE END IS NIGH every single day you want your god’s blessing. You can easily get away with just preaching to your party every day, provided they don’t mind listening to this crazy babble... and, of course, provided that the end of the world isn’t actually coming, or else your evangelism will come off as tasteless. But, what do you care? You’ve been saying it all this time! It’s likely going to get you punched in the face or even mauled by a crowd if you try it in the middle of a city currently undergoing a crisis (as cities in Pathfinder are wont to do), though. So, uh, be careful.

This is one of the rare Obediences where the primary method is actually easier to do than the secondary, because it specifically demands that you find somewhere “nothing lives.” While a merciful DM may allow you to share a space with vermin, this does mean you can’t simply find a quiet area in a woodlands, because trees, brush, and grass all count. Stick to the cities or in ruined civilizations! Ironically, this means that being captured and thrown in a dungeon is actually beneficial for you, provided no one else has been locked in that specific cell for more than a month.

All this hard work for a measly +1 though. I’m insulted, honestly; it’s a universal bonus to the most important saving throw you have and it stacks with everything, but it’s only a +1! It would have been fine at +2! Come on, Groetus, shell a bit more out to your flock!

Boons are acquired slowly: the first once you reach 12 hit dice, the second at 16, and the third at 20. However, the Evangelist, Exalted, and Sentinel Prestige Classes can be entered as early as level 5; doing so grants you the Boons at levels 8, 11, and 14 instead. As Groetus is a true deity and does not require Fiendish Obedience, you earn the right to enter the classes earlier than those who serve fiends!

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EVANGELIST

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Boon 1: Doomsayer. Gain Doom 3/day, Augury 2/day, or Bestow Curse 1/day.

Oooh, Bestow Curse! That’s always fun to see! It’s a Save-Or-Suck that keeps on s--being terrible long after the battle has ended, if the enemy you slap with it gets away! It’s ALSO a touch spell entirely negated by a save, and we all know how I feel about those. Better make sure it sticks and sticks hard, or drawing into an enemy’s melee range can earn you a pretty severe slapping.

Augury is decent to have as a spell-like (I’d never prepare it as an actual spell), though its limited gaze of only 30 minutes into the future is an equal blessing and bane and it relies entirely on DM fiat... AND there’s a non-negligible chance it simply won’t work! Which means that if you don’t want to rely on the Save or Suck of Bestow Curse, your best bet (eugh) is the tragically weak and ironically ominous Doom--WAIT THAT’S RIGHT I ALMOST FORGOT! The Shaken condition also imposes a -2 to saving throws! Ok yeah, if you don’t want to rely on BC, Doom is a pretty good way to go if you have some way to bolster its pathetic saving throw of 11+Cha mod.

Boon 2: Consume Essence. 1/day, you may touch a corpse. That corpse must make a Fortitude save (DC 10 + 1/2 your HD + your Cha mod) or be reduced to dust as per Disintegrate. You gain 1d8 temporary HP, which last for a number of hours equal to your Hit Dice.

Before we get into the rest of this mess, I just really need to point out that an unattended, nonmagical object is not able to make saving throws, and a corpse is an object. ThereFOR, it should not even get to make a save against this ability!

What stats do you even use for it? The former creature? Because that’s just unnecessarily confusing, especially if you use it on the corpse of a long-dead creature. I really, really don’t see why this ability should allow a save, especially since A) it’s only usable once a day and B) it’s incredibly weak. Under what circumstances would you use this? Because I’ll tell you right now, using this against a baddie that’s supposed to be recurring will simply make the DM contrive a reason for them to come back anyway. Turning them to ash will just make it harder. I suppose there is a niche use in bringing it against creatures who can reanimate themselves, or against casters who may have Contingencies in place, but

but still, like. It’s a bad Boon. If you want a body destroyed, hacking it to pieces or burning it is just as easy, all this ability does is save you time. And maybe not even then! Because it gives the body a saving throw! For WHATEVER reason! And you only get to do it ONCE a day! Honestly, everything about this ability is just a progressively more insulting middle finger, all leading up to the pitiful 1d8 HP you get. There’s a lot of Boons that are straight up bad or useless, but I think this is the first one I’ve actually hated. Lets move on...

Boon 3: Whispers of Insanity. 1/day as a standard action, you may whisper Groetus’ Truth into the mind of a creature within 30ft. This acts as the Insanity spell, but the save DC is 10+1/2 your HD+your Cha mod. In addition to the normal methods of curing Insanity, a Modify Memory spell or similar can end the effect. A Knowledge (Religion) check (DC same as the saving throw) reveals this information.

Insanity is a decent spell, essentially being a permanent Confusion... but it only affects a single target, and whoever you’d want to use it against is typically not going to last long enough for the permanent duration to matter. I suppose slapping someone you hate but don’t necessarily want to kill is good enough, or blasting some poor random sod who hasn’t accepted the Truth, but as a Boon? Groetus really doesn’t bless his Evangelists with anything good.

Insanity is not only a level 7 spell while most 3rd Boons grant 9th level effects, but in stark contrast to a normal third Boon, the version you get here is actually weaker than just getting the spell normally, because Insanity has a Long range (100ft + 10ft/lvl) and can only be removed with 7th+ level magic (Greater Restoration, Heal, etc). Having a much easier method of dispelling the effect is just insulting, even if it is flavorful. This would be considered a second tier Boon by most deities, or even demigods! Come on, Groty, step it up!

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EXALTED

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Boon 1: Maddening Voice. Gain Lesser Confusion 3/day, Mad Hallucination 2/day, or Confusion 1/day.

Off to a bad start. Lesser Confusion may as well not even be a spell, so we’re moving on from there. Mad Hallucination is a fun spell to not need components for, barraging a single target with visions of insanity for upwards to an hour, though mechanically it’s only a -2 to a very small number of relatively unimportant checks (caster level really only applies to players, who must regularly pierce SR). Rather uniquely, it’s not mind-affecting, but is instead a phantasm Illusion, allowing it to affect a wider range of creatures than normal! But it’s still not really super useful, because as it’s negated by a Will save and penalizes Will saves with a successful application, wouldn’t you have preferred a Save or Suck first?

This leaves Confusion which, as area of effect spells go, isn’t the best. There’s a 1/2 chance that they essentially lose their turn, but a 1/4 chance that they’re unaffected by the confusing magic and a 1/4 chance that they attack the nearest creature... Which, more often than not, means your allies anyway. Speaking of, Confusion doesn’t discriminate between ally and enemy, so blasting a crowd that happens to have a friend inside will force them to make a Will save as well.

It’s a hysterical spell to drop on a crowd of smaller enemies (or a crowd of innocent civilians), but the coin flip nature of its effect makes it terribly unreliable. It’s still the best option among the three, though.

Boon 2: Silent Witness. 1/day as a full-round action, you can protect yourself with the effects of Invisibility, Nondetection, and Sanctuary for 10 minutes per Hit Die you possess. Anyone who succeeds at a Will saving throw (DC = 10 + 1/2 Hit Dice + Wis mod) or a caster level check (DC = 11+your HD) against these effects sees a glimpse of something unfathomable and becomes confused for 1 round unless it succeeds at a second Will save with the same DC.

Have you ever wanted to be this gif?

Then good news! Exalted of Groetus can live out that dream! With little more than a gesture and a bit of concentration, you can just vanish from the world for a little while. It’s not a complete disappearance, mind, because anything with blindsense, blindsight, or scent can still track you, but by god can absolutely no one see you (remember you’re shielded from Detect X spells!). And, thanks to Sanctuary, even if they have a way to keep track of you, there’s a chance that they won’t be able to act on it.

The mindbogglingly massive 10 min/level duration effect on each of the effects screws over Nondetection (with a normal 1 hour/level duration) but is a monstrous buff to Invisibility (1 min/lvl) and especially to Sanctuary (1 round/lvl), because someone failing their save against Sanctuary means they can’t target the warded creature for the duration of the spell! While normally a fighting monster could just pull back and wait for the effect to expire as they focus their efforts on the rest of the party, good luck kiting for 10 minutes. The shielding effect breaks the moment you attack, but you can get around that by never casting damage-dealing spells! Crowd control and SoS spells all day!

Invisibility and Nondetection also make you the undisputed king of sneaking into places, too. Mundane eyesight and magical detection spells will fail to pierce your veil, requiring the 6th level True Seeing to actually see where you’ve gone. I really enjoy the added touch that anyone successfully piercing the spell effects has to make a save or become confused. It’s just some nice frosting atop this cake! Already Groetus is looking better and better!

Boon 3: Infinite Patience. You cannot die of old age, even through magical means. You still physically age, accruing bonuses and penalties as normal. In addition, once per day as a standard action, you can choose any one action you could ready and define a condition under which you will take that action. Within the next 24 hours, whenever you observe that condition, you can take the chosen action as an immediate action.

Age without youth isn’t something you see a lot of nowadays, except in cases of diabolic bargains going haywire. To have a god inflict it upon its followers is something special; I like enjoy the fact that you’ll eventually just need to outright mummify yourself if you want to keep moving (or invest in mechanical/magical parts). It brings to mind the mental image of a cult to Groetus opening an ancient coffin to reveal their absolutely skeletal leader, old enough to have seen Earthfall and coursing with madness and might in equal measure.

But post-campaign shenanigans aside, the primary use of this ability is a pseudo-Contingency that you can use to prepare anything. Any action you could conceivably ready (an attack, a standard-action spell, a sudden move, a sabotaging strike, etc) is usable with this ability! And because you don’t have to name the action or condition right away, with a bit of good guesswork (or divination magic), you can custom tailor your immediate action for maximum benefit; you can go the mundane route and have it be something simple, like “if an enemy strikes me with a melee attack, teleport to safety” or “if I am brought below half health, cast Heal or Mass Heal on myself/my allies,” or the bonkers route like “the instant the enemy opens their mouth to monologue, cast Disintegrate” or “if someone compares me to an animal, use magic to turn into that animal.”

This ability rewards both creativity and thinking ahead, so get good at both! Because used right, this ability is “cast any spell w/ a standard action casting time as an immediate action,” and used wrong it’s “do nothing.”

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SENTINEL

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Boon 1: Endbringer. Gain True Strike 3/day, Death Knell 2/day, or Keen Edge 1/day.

I’m 90% sure there’s been Boons named Endbringer before, and nowhere else is it less appropriate than this menagerie of mediocrity. Oh, sure, Keen Edge is nice and all, but want a fun fact? Groetus’ sacred weapon is the heavy flail, which deals bludgeoning damage, and Keen Edge can ONLY be applied to a piercing or slashing weapon. That means you, the Sentinel, the holy martial warrior, cannot bless your own holy weapon chosen by your god. Sure, you can bless someone else’s stuff, but it still boggles my mind that they’d give you spell that cannot work on your own weapons!

Ironically, despite that, it’s probably your best choice. True Strike is useless unless you can cast a Quickened version, and Death Knell saves you basically no time (if you want a dying enemy to die, walk over and stab them 2~4 times). The only real use for Death Knell for a martial character is to take care of creatures with Ferocity or Diehard, or cheesing a creature with Regeneration.

Boon 2: Visions of the End. 1/day as a full-round action, you can gain the benefits of Augury, Know the Enemy, and Locate Weakness simultaneously, all regarding the same creature or object (even if the spell normally doesn’t function with objects) and its death or undoing. These effects apply only to the target.

Because these are relatively niche spells: Know the Enemy lets you make an immediate Knowledge check versus the target with a +10 insight bonus, and Locate Weakness lasts 1 min/level and allows you to roll twice for critical hit damage and take the better results. While normally KtE only affects creatures, this ability allows you to make it against objects as well.

Evangelists got screwed, huh? Imagine not being able to cast three spells at once (this post made by Exalted And Sentinel Gang). Now, granted, this ability isn’t as useful as Silent Witness above is, but it’s a pretty handy way to deal with a creature you’ve never seen before. With Locate Weakness’s lengthy duration, you can use this ability before combat begins and use the knowledge gained from Augury (perhaps asking if a certain tactic would work?) and Know the Enemy to better prepare yourself and your party.

The added flexibility of being able to focus this power on an object opens up a lot of options as well, such as using it to parse the history of an Artifact, to know where or when an item may have come from, and how best to destroy it if need be. This spell combo isn’t the best, but even at its worst it’s a free +10 to a Knowledge check against any critter or object and an Augury against the same target to let the DM sprinkle some hints for you here and there.

Boon 3: Frightful Presence. You can terrify foes as a free action whenever you take an offensive action, such as attacking. Foes within 30 feet of you and with fewer Hit Dice than you must succeed at a Will saving throw or become shaken for a number of rounds equal to your Hit Dice (DC = 10 + 1/2 your HD + Cha mod). If the victim has 4 or fewer Hit Dice, it becomes panicked instead. Foes with more Hit Dice than you are immune to this ability. 

Frightful Presence is a massively powerful ability when it’s on a dragon or powerful Outsider, terrifying whole armies at once and sending them scattering--perhaps even to the point of attacking one another to get away--but in the hands of a player? It’s not exactly as strong. When you face something with Frightful Presence, there’s a 100% chance that they’ll have more HD than you (and maybe your entire party), assuring that you’ll be shaken up at least once in the fight. If you have FP, however, it’s never going to work on anything you desperately want it to, because anything with your HD or higher is entirely unaffected and unimpressed by your antics, and of course anything worth fighting has more HD than you.

The scaling on this ability means basically no minions will march into battle against you without being shaken, and swarms of minor foes trying to clog you up will be sent running to the hills by your terrifying aura. It’s a satisfying feeling of power to walk into an area filled with low level enemies (or civilians) and force them to run in utter, pants-soiling terror at the mere sight of you. What’s better than a tank that draws aggro? One who ends it.

There’s no per-day use on this ability and no 24-hour immunity clause on it, so even if you fail to scare the crowd once, you can just try, try again every single time you attack. So, it’s safe to say that while Groetus started off pathetically weak with his basic benefit and the travesty of his Evangelists, his Exalted and Sentinels more than make up for it in terms of power and flexibility. Not bad! And soon, we’ll see what sorts of actual sentinels he’s got on his side...

You can read more about him here.