The Elders are Coming and I need help.

[IronwolfXVI]

Recently in one of our campaigns (all of our campaigns are based in our homebrew world and happening at reletively the same time) we found out that the elder mythos was coming. I have a character that I rarely play who has been graced as a herald of Torag. Hes had many iterations over the years and I'd imagine that by hearing of the elders coming he is preparing for them. How do I build for this? My instinct is to go for paladin. My character is a dwarf. I can take that 3.5 feat that replaces charisma with wisdom. Thanks in advance for the advice.

[Crake]

Um, if by "elders" you mean... the Lovecraftian great old ones? Yeah, you're screwed.

[JMS]

Look for things that counter abberations, since most of the mythos should have that type. Find a source of immunity to mind affecting ASAP, and work from there.

[Malphegor]

Lovecraftian entities? Groovy. Let's deal with the horrors of a very damaged man in the best way we can- sufficient dakka and plenty of SCP-esque protocols.

Your primary issue is memetic stuff if it's there. D&D largely lumps mind-affecting stuff under, well, mind-effecting, so you might be able to get some immunities that in any other game you wouldn't.
It's rare to find texts that reveal some cosmic secret that makes you gibber upon reading it and understanding, but there's bits here and there. You might want to buy a few literate slaves/hirelings to take on the psychic terrors that lurk on the edge of knowing rather than expose your mind to it.

Luckily, most of the creatures that fit the Lovecraft mold are Abberations. So you've got a Type you can defend against. Main thing to bear in mind is most of them are many tentacle heavy, which generally means lots of attacks per round. Oh, and maybe psionics? I'm not 100% familiar with Abberations if there's a common thing amongst them.

With the elder gods, if your DM is playing as per lovecraftian stuff, then this is going to be like fighting a universe when you're an ant. Possible, but may require cheese, and even if you win, you'll probably lose in some significant way. Pyhrric victory that underlines the hubris of even attempting to win! yaaay!

Druid 2, Ranger 2, Bard 3, Cleric 3, Paladin 3, Sorcerer 3, Wizard 3, all have the spell Invoke the Cerulean Sign, from Lords of Madness, (ask your DM if other classes can have it if you are not of these ones, at spell level 3 since the description suggests that most classes have some variant of it), where you can impart a status effect to weaken an abberation.

Lords of Madness might be a good book to look at for this kind of thing in general, tbh. There's a Prestige class that expands on the cerulean sign ability with more anti-abberation stuff too which advances spellcasting, the only unusual requirement really is a feat, Aberration Banemagic, which means you deal an extra 2d6 against abberations and increases the DC of any saving throws they need to make against your spells or abilities by 2.

You might want to look at Gold Dwarves from the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting book- they're a race of dwarves who specifically are frequently battling abberations from the Underdark, and get +1 to attack rolls against them. Perhaps your character, if not already a gold dwarf, can research those who have battled them before, and send out messengers to call out for aid, maybe the Gold Dwarf version of Rohan will answer with a load of anti-abberation abjurations (try saying that 3 times fast! antiabberationabjurations)


Ray deflection might be handy if your DM considers Beholders to be suitably lovecraftian as servants of these elder beings.

You might want some divine casters involved in getting some Outsider armies in- angels and demons alike aren't often fond of betentacled horrors messing with their mortals, for good or ill.

[IronwolfXVI]

Thanks for the input everybody. I'm not sure if I'll have access to forgotten realms as this is PF. But my GM is pretty oldschool. He may let it slide. I'm looking for maybe a particular archetype or even a prestige class. Paladins are immune to fear, so I thought that would be a good start.

[JMS]

Thanks for the input everybody. I'm not sure if I'll have access to forgotten realms as this is PF. But my GM is pretty oldschool. He may let it slide. I'm looking for maybe a particular archetype or even a prestige class. Paladins are immune to fear, so I thought that would be a good start.

Hmm... Look for player side options in PF’s horror books, and in the 3.5 books Lords of Madness, Elder Evils, and Heroes of Horror
The “Occult” might have some stuff for aberration smashing, and there should be a Paladin archetype somewhere.

[Mnemius]

Big hammers... many tentacled beings from beyond space are oddly weak to them. (If anime has taught me anything).

On a serious note, after running some PF stuff that involved things from BEYOND!...
Will save, you want that one to be good.

Some of them come armed with some strange diseases too.

[IronwolfXVI]

Big hammers... many tentacled beings from beyond space are oddly weak to them. (If anime has taught me anything).

On a serious note, after running some PF stuff that involved things from BEYOND!...
Will save, you want that one to be good.

Some of them come armed with some strange diseases too.


Yeah paladin is sounding better and better because of this.

[IronwolfXVI]

I am looking at the enforcer archetype for paladin, any feat suggestions? I'd like to stick with hammers for damage dealing. I may also be open to the sacred shield archetype. This is a 17th level character with one mythic level btw.