Dreambinding And Creatures

And here we have a question that’s too complicated for a comment…

It occurs to me that, presuming the GM allows it, there’s little reason why dream-binding can’t bring forth creatures as well as items. Costs for mounts such as horses and riding dogs are in the Core Rules, other sourcebooks have prices for slaves (even if d20pfsrd.com removed them; they’re still on Archives of Nethys, though), and Pathfinder’s Ultimate Campaign has prices for “teams” of low-level characters. And of course, various sourcebooks have prices for certain monsters, such as the burrowing creatures in the equipment section of Races of Stone.

For that matter, you can use the “spellcasting services” price in the Core Rules to price out a single casting of animate dead/create undead/create greater undead and bring forth such creatures that way. The same goes for outsiders brought forth via the “cost” of a casting of one of the planar binding spells (and appropriate cost of cutting a deal with that outsider), though I suspect most GMs would disallow the much cheaper planar ally spells. And constructs have their prices listed in their monster entries.

All of which is to say that, if the GM signs off on the above, there’s a bit of a gap when it comes to creatures for which no easy pricing can be determined, such as dragons, magical beasts, fey, etc. Not withstanding making an item that uses a summoning spell (since summoning spells last only for a few rounds), what metric(s) would you suggest for determining the “price” of bringing forth some other creature type via dream-binding?

-Alzrius

For reference…

Dream-Binding (Occult Skill, Charisma) allows the user to draw objects from dreams into reality. To do so, the user must get a full nights rest and forfeit the natural healing and attribute recovery that would normally result, whereupon he or she will awaken with his or her allotment of items. The total value of such items may not exceed (Bonus x Bonus x 100 GP) and no more than one third of that total may be allotted to any single item. Dream-binding cannot create items with charges (although uses-per-day limitations are fine), or skill-boosting items. Consumable goods will vanish once the skill points are re-allotted, so the creation of food and water is ill-advised. Finally, of course, the game master must approve of the list of items to be created.

The original version got you a lot less gear because you had to divide up the skill points rather than portion out the total value – so at Skill 9 you could have three items worth (3 x 3 x 100 = 900 GP) each. This could be useful – but it was very limited and turned out to be far too much trouble to work with, particularly when reaching – say – +30 got you a maximum of 30,000 GP worth of gear, and likely less. Fortunately, Occult Skill allows for multiple versions of a skill if the GM finds it acceptable, so this version would wind up at 8100 GP at skill 9 and 90,000 GP at Skill 30. That makes Dream-Binding a powerful and very useful skill at lower levels, but of less and less use at higher ones where wealth by level starts greatly exceeding what it gets you and the primary utility moves towards equipping yourself with special-purpose gear suited for particular missions. That still handy of course, but it relies heavily on foresight, scouting, and planning to be really useful.

As far as the actual question goes… personally I’d be pretty reluctant to make anything made of dreams sapient; I’d expect rather erratic behavior at the least. Even disregarding the eccentricities of dreams, temporary, thrown-together, minds are not likely to be stable.

On the other hand, of course, most of what you’d want an unintelligent creature – like a horse, dog, a construct, or most dinosaurs – to do is pretty straightforward. even in terms of dreams – and you could reasonably argue that such creatures aren’t too likely to spend a lot of time on introspection and start cracking up.So Constructs and things with animal intelligence could be a “go” even with the basic version of the skill.

Still, if you or the GM is worried about the instability of minds woven from dreams, all you need to do is to take a variant (“Spirit Minions” or “Dimensional Wraiths” or something) and say that it summons aspects of existing creatures from elsewhere in the multiverse to your aid.

Which gives us some justification, but still no good way of pricing things – and there really isn’t one since all we’ve really got to go on with monsters is their challenge rating, which is a really poor measure of how helpful something will be to an adventurer. That’s why Pathfinder took Unicorns off the Summon Nature’s Ally IV list; they easily beat out Cure Critical Wounds (heal 4d8+Caster Level, Max 20) – being able to heal 5d8+20 damage and offering access to Neutralize Poison and a Circle Of Protection From Evil (as well as direct combat utility) on top. If you used the level five version of Summon Nature’s Ally – where Cure Critical Wounds resided for Druids – you got 1d3 Unicorns. That single summons could make a druid into a fairly powerful healer.

Challenge Rating 3 didn’t really cover it properly.

For Undead, I’d be reluctant to use the Creation price, since that doesn’t include the expense of controlling the thing, which is the hard part given that they sometimes spontaneously pop up on their own.

Teams would be kind of cheap, if of relatively little use at higher levels – but the team prices are predicated on being settled, sleeping at home, and having time off rather than going on adventures. And while there are rules for Hirelings, there really aren’t rules for purchasing them – just for paying them on a day-to-day basis. I know that I used team prices for Innate Enchantment (Portable Settlement) – but that’s more or less a persistent thing, not something that can be traded out daily. Its also something that appears and disappears as needed – while having forty or fifty people trailing along on your adventures will probably be more trouble than it’s worth.

There are, as you note, fairly extensive price lists for animals in Pathfinder – https://www.d20pfsrd.com/equipment/goods-and-services/animals-animal-gear/ – but that has it’s problems too; rats are a mere 1 CP – if you invest, say, 20,000 GP of your “virtual gold” in rats, you get two million of them. Enough for something like 5000 Rat Swarms. Certainly enough to devastate a sizeable settlement. Walled town besieged by Orcs? for a mere 7200 GP you could send out a dozen Deinonychus each day. Or perhaps 10550 GP for ten Dire Tigers? Or the same for 105 Leopards? Having them disappear in the morning while you get new ones is an even bigger benefit. At (Bonus x Bonus x 100 GP, no more than one-third on any single creature) you could achieve most of those totals fairly readily. The problem is that not having to transport, care for, and control such beasts is an enormous advantage. No low-level party is likely to be able to afford and manage a trio of combat-trained woolly mammoths (13,500 GP in total) – but that amount is readily achievable with a +12 skill total. Take +4 at L1, +4 Attribute, +2 Skill Emphasis, and +3 Skill Focus for a +13. This makes it easily possible to simply “rent some for the day”. A trio of CR 10 Battle-Trained Woolly Mammoth mounts can be a pretty big help when you’re attacking a goblin camp or something.

That certainly doesn’t work very well.

Using the costs of hiring a spellcaster to cast “planar binding” is inappropriate too. Those are the prices for a spell cast in town at the spellcasters leisure after you journey to a large city and find someone to do it. For adventurous casting… you’d need to pay to bring them along. And your “payment” would mean nothing either since it would shortly vanish – not a good thing if you are accessing creatures that actually exist rather than just making dreams solid.

That still doesn’t get us very far in search of a general rule. The vast majority of the ways for “pricing” monsters include a variety of assumptions that don’t fit in with the “daily summoning” model.

So “Daily Summoning” it is. At least that takes care of being able to command them and food and care and such.

That’s (Generalized Summoning +5 Levels of Persistent (Lasts all day)) -2 Levels (Price break for built-in Metamagic) -1 Level (specific creature type) -2 Levels (lengthy casting procedure – a full night sleeping, giving up nightly healing, using ambient magic). So the spell level used is equivalent to the base Summoning effect for the creature of the CR you want. That gives us a set of spells for undead, psychic constructs, or whatever. It also puts unicorns back on the table, because why not? There are lots of other options for healing people.

Ergo, it’s (Spell Level x Caster Level x 1800 GP (Command Word) x.2 (Once Per Day). So that comes out to…

• CR 1/3: 180 GP (Skill 3, CL 1). Well, if your bard wants an entourage of songbirds, or you want some squirrels to fuss over the baby or a small dog or something, here you go. To be somewhat more practical, your aspiring necromancer can have a few human skeletons, your starting-out warlord could command a few basic goblins, and anyone could have a small monkey that can bring them the key to their cell or ferrets to gnaw on the ropes they are tied with.
• CR 1/2: 360 GP (Skill 4, CL 1). Here we get basic servants, pageboys, baboons, eagles, common ponies, and untrained orcs. For the most part, basic utility creatures.
• CR 1: 2160 GP (Skill 8, CL 3). Ghouls, heavy horses, lemures, riding dogs, pseudodragons, small elementals or animated objects, wolves… There is significant utility at this point, as well as enough combat power to terrorize normal people.
• CR 2: 5400 GP (Skill 13, CL 5). At this point Tarzan can have his apes, bears, boars, and cheetahs are available, you can ride a dire bat, or be accompanied by a lantern archon, quasit, or imp, or snuggle with your pet wolverine.
• CR 3: 10,800 GP (Skill 18, CL 7). Infant dragons, small dinosaurs, dire wolves, mephits, hell hounds, giant eagles, pegasi, unicorns, medium elementals… Sure, unless you’ve made skills your characters focus you are probably not particularly impressed by such creatures, but the spread of options available is probably more important than your creatures relatively minor combat utility.
• CR 4-5: 16,200 GP (Skill 22, CL 9). A barghest to make sure your enemies stay dead, a gargoyle to guard your camp, a hound archon to provide advice, a tiger to look impressive, a basilisk to threaten your captives with, a djinni or bearded devil to show your power, trolls, winter wolves, wraiths… Certainly Skill 22 is getting up there – but an impressive supernatural entourage is still useful and definitely makes an impression.
• CR 6: 23,760 GP (Skill 27, CL 11). At this point it’s generally not combat power. It’s intelligent minions who can do things while you’re busy or elsewhere, impressive flying mounts, advanced megaraptor skeletons for intimidation, and so on. If you just want a wall of meat, go with giant vermin
• CR 7-8: 32,760 GP (Skill 32, CL 13). Huge elementals, giant construction crews, the ever-popular succubus “aide”, ogre magi, dire tigers, shield guardians, and tyrannosaurs all come into play here – but by the time most characters have +32 in a skill these sorts of creatures will be handy to have around, but fairly unimportant except for where they let you break the action economy.
• CR 9: 43,200 GP (Skill 36, CL 15). The Androsphinx, bone devil, greater elemental, triceratops, and vrock all come into play here – but while that’s cool, a +36 skill bonus is getting well up there. If your interest is in combat, any decent summoner has had creatures of this level on tap for some time. Your advantage lies in having the creatures around all day, and being able to send them off on long-term independent errands, rather than using them up for the day getting in an extra round or two worth of semi-effectual attacks.
• CR 10-11: 55,080 GP (Skill 41, CL 17). Barbed devils, elder elementals, some kinds of young adult dragons, stone golems, and twelve-headed hydras can all be at your command – but against most opponents suitable for characters with skill bonuses of 41+ they probably aren’t going to be all that effective. At this point you’re probably much better off bringing in supporting staff rather than monsters to go adventuring with.

—Epic (Level 10+) Spell Threshold—

At this point we’re looking for exotic special abilities that would be useful to have access to, some major support powers, or sheer coolness (riding a dragon makes ANYONE look good!). By the time a character can summon creatures like this, they just won’t mean much in direct combat – and that isn’t going to change much, so there’s no need for further descriptions.

• CR 12-13: 68,400 GP (Skill 46, CL 19)
• CR 14-15: 83,160 GP (Skill 50, CL 21)
• CR 16: 99,360 GP (Skill 55, CL 23)
• CR 17-18: 117,000 GP (Skill 60, CL 25)
• CR 19: 136,000 GP (Skill 64, CL 27)
• CR 20-21: 156,000 GP (Skill 65, CL 29)
• CR 22: 178,000 GP (Skill 73, CL 31)

CR 23+ is – under the standard rules – not possible; the base cost of the “item” required exceeds the 200,000 GP limit. Even going by the standard Epic Magic Item Rules that puts the cost at a little over two million GP – and the skill requirement at +247. Even as it is… the table above likely far exceeds the limits of most games.

Now, since the effective value of Dream-Binding is (Bonus x Bonus x 100 GP), but no more than one third of the total may be spent on any given item, those skill totals suffice for three monsters of that level – or, as usual, you can go down a level to get 2 monsters, or down two levels to get four. So at Skill 27 you could have a daily entourage of four CR 3 Unicorns, four CR 3 Deinonychus, and ride a CR 6 Ankylosaurus. Or you could specialize in something – perhaps Demonology – and have some imps and things even at fairly low levels.

You’d probably get more powerful creatures, and more raw power, with Leadership – especially after the investment needed to boost a skill to 27 at relatively low levels – but this method has the advantage that your creatures simply appear on the days you need them, don’t require transport or attention, always obey orders, and are completely disposable, since – if “killed” – they are just dispelled and can be summoned back in the morning. That can be pretty useful.

Now the really powerful creatures – with challenge ratings of 12+ – are summoned with spells of level 10+, and their availability will depend on how your game master feels about such spells. On the other hand… by the time you can reasonably have a skill of 60+, having a few high-level creatures about won’t make a lot of difference.

As usual in Eclipse, there’s a tradeoff here; lower level characters will find this a substantial boost, a mid-level one will find it useful, but just another tool in their toolbox, and high-level characters will find it mildly useful. Of course, that is more or less the expected pattern for skills; they never really lose all utility, but they are certainly far more useful at relatively low levels.

And I hope that helps!

Skills Of The Eclipse – Namegiving, Sealing, and Superlatives (Variants: Backstory and Flashbacks).

And for today it’s a few more Occult Skills – skills from odd corners of the multiverse that are not normally available in most settings, but which can be accessed (presuming the game master is agreeable) by taking the Occult Skill ability and paying a few extra skill points.

In most cases, of course, Occult Skills could be built in other ways – but doing that can get quite complicated, and is often far more trouble than it’s worth. Secondarily, a number of recent Party Templates have included granting access to an Occult Skill – so here are a few more to play with.

Occult Skill (Namegiving, Cha)

To give a True Name is to set something apart, to give it an identity and a destiny all it’s own. No longer is that mountain the “Tall one over there”, it is Mount Myrlun, Gateway between the Worlds, perhaps home of a secretive order of mystics, and one of the places that will withstand the armies of the abyss at the passing of the age.

Or maybe not. That’s a big name, and it will take a very powerful namegiver indeed to bestow it. On the other hand, naming a sword “Bloodthirst” is considerably simpler, and will probably result in a moderate enhancement of some sort. Naming a newly forged sword Caliburn, the Sword of Rulership is harder, but still within the capacity of mortals.

• Naming an infant (a small ceremony, skill fatigue 1) allows it to reroll it’s lowest attribute (this cannot result in lowering it further) and grants it an appropriate bonus feat. Most parents would LOVE to have a Namegiver naming their children.
• Naming an item (a dramatic moment, skill fatigue 2) effectively transforms it into a type of Relic. Sadly, these variants are powered by their users charisma modifier plus any disadvantages they carry; if your (Cha Mod) is +3 and the item in question carries one disadvantage worth (3 CP), it will grant a total of (6 CP) worth of powers. Worse, that’s an upper limit on the use of such items; those points from your Charisma may only empower one such relic at a time (although if you happen to have a fabulously high Charisma modifier you may split the points up between multiple relics of this type).
• Naming a Tale (by naming and reciting it, skill fatigue 1) will preserve it – often as an epic poem – across the centuries. This has a minimum level of four to pull off AND the GM must feel that the tale is of interest. Even with a Name, the tale of “how little Timmy pulled his sisters hair” is unlikely to be recalled outside of family reunions or Dr Seuss style books for children.
• Granting a creature a Title – basically an extra name – grants it the equivalent of an Office (See: Dominion, Skill Fatigue 2). This has a minimum level of eight to pull off – but at level fourteen it becomes possible to add a Title to a Relic, as above (skill fatigue 3) – which is where things like “Caliburn” (the basic name) “The Sword Of Rulership” (it’s title) come from. At epic levels it becomes possible to give titles to places (skill fatigue 4), although – if it currently has one – that title must be destroyed first.
• Naming a place (skill fatigue 1-4 depending on the scale of the place plus 1-4 depending on it’s level of significance) will cause it to function as a generic Sanctum, granting 6, 12, 18, or even 24 CP – but the GM tends to set up the details and determine the total. Sadly, this has a minimum level equal to the number of CP that the sanctum grants to pull off. It becomes even more difficult if the place already has a popular name (Constantinople did not become Istanbul easily) and is impossible – short of destroying the place entirely and remaking it into something different – if a Namegiver has already named it.

Namegiving is limited by a form of Skill Fatigue; the skill total is restored each week (divided up between the days of the week), but is depleted by the stress of granting names. Namegiving (minus any skill fatigue penalties) may be actively rolled to identify the meaning of a name or to determine the name of an inanimate object that happens to have one.

Namegiving tends to add lore to a setting, because if it’s a common skill, or even uncommon but available… anyplace important is likely to grant modifiers to the people there. Powerful items will tend to have unique names and powers. Particular personal names (which usually mean something in their original language) may be associated with one or another kind of bonus feat – and the game master should keep a notepad handy, since, while it is easy to make up such details on the spot, keeping track of them is likely to involve some note-taking.

Occult Skill (Sealing, Dex):

This is the art of entrapping things in dimensional pockets, anchoring said pockets in some focus – which varies from user to user, with known examples including pots, paintings, poke balls, cell phone aps, knots, tattoos, and gems. Unfortunately, keeping something bound requires that the user devote points from the skill to it – and the more powerful or important the thing sealed, the more points (as determined by the game master) it will require. Worse, entrapping something requires an opposed will check. You want to seal up a tub complete with hot water, sponges, soap, and a rubber duck? It’s probably only a few points (although the larger and heavier the item(s), the harder it becomes). Hiding a hold-out weapon in a tattoo? Easy. You want to trap a major demon, a tornado, a pyroclastic flow, or one of Naruto’s Tailed Beasts? That’s going to be EXPENSIVE.

• Sealing away really powerful things tends to “leak”. Seal an archdemon into something? You probably have a powerful cursed item that keeps trying to take over it’s user’s minds.
• An unsuccessful attempt at sealing something depletes the points that would have been invested in that seal for twenty-four hours. Success, of course, depletes those points until the seal is released.
• Anything in a seal experiences only the beneficial aspects of time; it will heal normally, but not get hungry, can sleep and recover from being tired, but will not again become tired while so confined, and so on. Inanimate targets do not experience time at all.
• Users may spend extra points to tweak the nature of the dimensional pocket (see the Spacewarp spell template in The Practical Enchanter for some possible modifications), to set various release conditions, and (for +3 points) to be able to demand a short-term service from a released creature (but not an inanimate object).
• User’s may spend 1/2 extra points to use a slightly/notably different anchor. If you normally use clay pots, but wish to use a rice cooker, canteen, or plastic jug instead, that will cost an extra point. Using a clay statuette or a galvanized garbage can will cost two extra points.
• If the user dies, his or her seals will remain until opened.
• Creatures that have been defeated, are unconscious, are paralyzed, of suffer from similar disadvantages are easier to seal away. Willing creatures rarely cost more than one point to seal.
  Optionally, making sacrifices to create a seal will make it cost fewer points to create and maintain.
• If you seal things in expensive gems which shatter when the seal is broken, your seals will be cheaper. Human sacrifices – whether as the container or as a component – can make things a lot cheaper, but dying to create a seal is rarely worthwhile.
• It is possible to pass seals on to others. They will still count against the user’s total sealing ability unless the recipient has Sealing as well, and takes over maintaining the effect.

Variations are, of course, possible. After all, the multiverse contains many versions of this, and every other, occult skill. Specializations and Corruptions are also possible: if you really MUST be a pokemon trainer, Specialize it for increased effect (only works on loyal monsters, but monsters are automatically recalled into the seal when a killing blow is struck against them rather than actually taking the lethal damage) and there you are. Presuming you can befriend some pocket monsters, you can carry a batch of them around to help you out on the cheap.

Sealing quietly turns a lot of assumptions upside down if it’s commonly available. After all, even a first level novice could easily seal away – say – their money, their valuable tools, and a quantity of expensive raw materials. Sailors can carry along a private stash of trade goods and supplies, banditry and burglary becomes much less practical, a trusted friend can smuggle someone out of danger with relative ease, perishable foods can be easily stored for later use. Gravely wounded comrades will heal, but never get worse. If Sealing is common in a society, it will be changed in innumerable ways – so unless the GM feels like dealing with that challenge, it’s probably better left as an occult skill.

Occult Skill (Superlatives, Cha) (Variant, Backstory or Flashbacks, Wis):

Each permanent level of this skill allows a character to adopt a descriptive trait – “Fast”, “Clever”, “Noble”, “Sneaky”, “Valiant”, “Determined”, or whatever. Observant NPC’s can easily pick up on those traits, even if they get sarcastic about them because the character is well-known for the opposite trat. Thus “Brave Sir Robin” is still known as “Brave Sir Robin”, even if accuracy would suggest quite another appellation and the sarcasm gets pretty heavy…

Traits can also be tapped once each per day, with characters of levels 1-5/6-12/13+ able to expend 1/2/3 Traits on any given relevant action, gaining…

• 1 Trait) +4 on a roll or an effect equivalent to a first level spell or a minor reality edit.
• 2 Traits) +8 on a roll or an effect equivalent to a second level spell or a notable reality edit
• 3 Traits) +12 on a roll or an effect equivalent to a third level spell or a major reality edit

Traits may also be noted without being tapped. For example, “I am wise enough to know that this is a terrible idea!” The character may be noted for his or her wisdom – but there’s no roll here and nothing is actually being done. Ergo, the Descriptive Trait (“Wise”) is not tapped. Now, if the character is trying to use Diplomacy to persuade an NPC that what they’re doing is terminally stupid, then the Wise trait could be tapped for that extra +4 (or to get what they’re saying across a language barrier, or to invoke the equivalent of some persuasive effect or ventriloquism or some such).

• “I am gentle enough to catch the falling child without harm!” – likely equating to a Feather Fall effect.
• “I am clever and knowledgeable enough to crack this code!”. This could be a simple skill boost, but it could also indicate that the user is getting the effect of some sort of translation effect.
• “I am strong, determined, and mighty enough to break these pillars and pull down the temple!” is not really likely to produce a magical effect unless there’s a demolitions spell in play – but a simple boost to the strength check or some reality editing would likely suffice for this stunt.

Any use of a trait must, of course, be in line with the nature of that trait. You may be able to outargue a lawyer with your cleverness, but you will find it of little use in lifting a huge block of stone.

The most common variant form of this ability is “Backstory” or “Flashbacks” (Wis) – allowing characters to get some benefit out of all those incredible incidents and skills that were mentioned in their backstory, but were never actually implemented in their character. With this variant, each permanent level of the skill allows the user to note one element of their backstory – making it a part of their personal tale, having it mentioned by minstrels and storytellers, and being allowed to tap it for extra power. Have you empowered the backstory elements that you were Apprenticed to a Master Alchemist, are a Demolitions Expert, and are Wanted For Pyromania in Twelve Cities? Then you can – if you are level 13+ – combine those to generate an impressive Fireball, or some similar stunt.

Common availability of this one has surprisingly little effect, simply because most non-adventurers have better uses for their skill points than picking up a particularly high level of Superlatives. They may dabble – it’s worth a skill point or two to get “Master (Profession)” or “Master Craftsman (Craft Skill) since that +4 translates directly into a higher weekly income – but it’s not like most games pay much attention to how prosperous the common NPC’s are and PC’s have many ways to get dice bonuses.