PF Homebrew World questions

[Silus]

Just a couple questions that popped into my head while I was watching season two of Spice and Wolf (Holo <3).

So here's the world in a nutshell: Semi-real world animals + dinosaurs + Abberations in the deep dark areas + Magitech - Dragons/outsiders/magical creatures. Steampunk + Magic.

Anyway, here's the questions:

1. Dire animals are going to be mostly in the deep wilds where mortals rarely ever travel. Since these things are flippin' HUGE and primal, should I tack on a brief fear effect for seeing them (Will vs shaken/fear)? Like if the only wolves you've seen ever were average size, then you come upon one the size of a school bus, you'd probably piss yourself.

2. The Drow in my world that I'm working on are, to put it simply, skin-grafting bio-mad-scientests. Making Driders the hard way kinda thing. Is there any way I could easily represent their amoral experiments? I'm thinking just refluff and such, but I was wondering if there was another way.

3. Planar magic does not work until 9th caster level (All planar spells become accessible when a caster gets access to 9th level spells) in a sort of way to prevent random incursions by outsiders (Demon invasions and such, and because I don't wanna deal with ANGELIC HORDES COME FORTH). Beyond spells, is there anything I need to worry about with planar shenanigans?

[bloodtide]

1.Yes, fear is good.

2.The graft rules.

3.I don't think so.

[Linkscoolfriend]

1: Hm, the fear save could be 10+creatures CR modified by their.... I want to say Str mod, but I think that might make things too hard. Seems the most logical though, stronger the creature is, scarier it is. Using the dragon's frightful presence could work as well.

2: There are a ton of grafts in the... I want to say Fiend Folio, but I can't remember exactly. Think it's the fiend Folio, tons of good grafts and what they do, what they require, all great stuff.

3: Unless you use magic items allowing planar travel or binding, shouldn't be an issue. Deck of many things has a possibility to make an outsider hate and despise you, seek to kill you, etc. as well as a card that traps your soul somewhere else. Unless you plan on using these things, you should be okay.

[Coidzor]

Elephants don't have a fear effect based upon their size simpy for being large creatures.

Nor do many other rather large, fearsome beasties from what I recall. Like the dire animals which are the prototypes of what you're doing here.

So I would say they should only get fear effects if they're especially scary for some reason other than size and unfamiliarity.

[Silus]

Elephants don't have a fear effect based upon their size simpy for being large creatures.

Nor do many other rather large, fearsome beasties from what I recall. Like the dire animals which are the prototypes of what you're doing here.

So I would say they should only get fear effects if they're especially scary for some reason other than size and unfamiliarity.

The reasoning behind this is that the mortals of the world don't have a base of reference to compare the dire animals to in terms of giant scary monster things. They can't say "Oh, that's big and scary, but a Purple Worm is bigger and scarier" because Purple Worms don't exist.

I mean, dire animals are monstrous and primal and are likely to be the closest things to monsters without going underground and encountering the Things-That-Man-Was-Not-Ment-To-Know.

Like, imagine you've only ever seen normal wolves (and lived in, more or less, the real world in terms of creatures). Then you encounter something like Moro from Princess Mononoke: A scary intelligent wolf the size of a school bus with pups the size of a Ford F150. Unless you have balls of steel, you'd likely crap yourself.

[OracleofSilence]

By the sounds of it, you are going with a fairly low fantasy, and low CR, world. After all, even the most powerful of Dire animals is only CR 10ish, what are you intending to do that would even make these high level spells necessary?

[Coidzor]

Like, imagine you've only ever seen normal wolves (and lived in, more or less, the real world in terms of creatures). Then you encounter something like Moro from Princess Mononoke: A scary intelligent wolf the size of a school bus with pups the size of a Ford F150. Unless you have balls of steel, you'd likely crap yourself.

Same goes for trolls, ogres, giants, etc. They don't have fear auras. Elephants are [REDACTED] scary IRL and they weren't given fear auras.

[Silus]

By the sounds of it, you are going with a fairly low fantasy, and low CR, world. After all, even the most powerful of Dire animals is only CR 10ish, what are you intending to do that would even make these high level spells necessary?

Two words: Interplanetary Teleport.

Specifically in the form of an experimental magiech stargate. Big fanfare and hoopla about colonization, alien artifacts, riches and big game hunting the likes of which have never been seen.

[Bhaakon]

1) I don't see a problem. The fear aura entry is pretty bare bones, so you might consider making it explicitly an intimidate ability or bonus rather than a magical effect.

2) If you want to stick to pure PF, beastmorph alchemists and synthesist summoners can do it, or something like it (albeit for limited time per day). Alchemist can also get the thematically appropriate vestigial arm discovery (though, unfortunately, they top out at 7 limbs w/ 2 vestigial arms and a tentacle).