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monstersdownthepath · 4 years

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Spiritual Spotlight: Kurgess the Strong Man

Neutral Good God of Bravery, Competition, and Sports

Domains Community, Good, Luck, Strength, Travel Subdomains Agathion, Competition, Family, Fate, Home, Resolve, Self-Realization, Trade

Inner Sea Faiths, pg. 64~69

Obedience: Find the nearest boulder, log, or other unattended object that you can reliably lift over your head, and hold it up high for the duration of the obedience while meditating on the ennobling nature of sports and tests of physical might. If you are interrupted at any time by any creature or person, you must challenge your interrupter to a contest of strength, speed, or stamina, with the boulder or another object of your obedience used as the main focus of the competition. Benefit: You gain a +2 sacred bonus on Acrobatics and Climb checks, regardless of who wins the competition.

Obedience: Be a jock. Auto-succeed if you’re a Str-based martial fighter. I appreciate that Kurgess allows even the physically weak to take part in this Obedience (the path to fitness can be walked by anyone after all), and through constant practice one hour each day, your noodle-armed nerd caster may yet gain some Str and Con from their dedication. It’s not a particularly intense workout, mind, but the dedication to doing it for an hour every single day is something the DM should reward! At least until their Str/Con reaches maybe 13, at which point more strenuous activities would be necessary to raise it higher.

Anyway, easy enough to do if you own literally any item or have access to something you can grab and lift. You may look a little kooky doing it, but other Obediences get much weirder than just doing squats and lifts with whatever you have laying around. You’ll just be the local health nut! One who’s weirdly into challenging people to sudden competitions. Your party may quickly learn not to interrupt your meditation lest they get pulled into a 80s training montage, but if some poor citizen or wandering monster prods at you, you’re spurred on by your god to challenge them. Note that this says any creature, so even a non-sapient creature that was just snuffling around gets challenged, even if it can’t understand you.

No word on what happens if the intruder declines the challenge, or cannot accept it in the first place. Maybe you just automatically win? Not very sportsmanlike to declare yourself a victor like that, but it’s also not very sportsmanlike to force someone else into a competition they want no part of. I’m sure Kurgess will understand; not everyone is built for the life you’ve chosen to live!

Benefit’s bad. It’s half the strength of other benefits on two skill checks that are rarely important (Acrobatics can be extremely useful but isn’t as flexible as, say, Knowledge or Sleight of Hand). And... god, you know. I like Kurgess as an actual character, but this benefit is just a small taste of what’s to come. Brace yourselves, because it’s going to get pretty bad from here on out.

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 Kurgess is a true deity, you earn the right to enter the classes earlier than those who serve fiends!

-------- EVANGELIST --------

Boon 1: Blessed Runner. Gain Longstrider 3/day, Cat’s Grace 2/day, or Haste 1/day.

Starting strong, at least! I’m talking of course about Haste, whose power as a buff is nearly incomparable and useful at pretty much every level of play. Longstrider adds a comparatively meager +10ft to your land speed, and Cat’s Grace gives its target +4 to their Dexterity, and though they have a duration that’s an order of magnitude longer than Haste (Longstrider especially, lasting an hour/level), their functions don’t hold a candle to the extra damage output you and your martial allies get from Haste. The only competition it really has here is if two of your allies need increased Dexterity stats for a good long while, but you’ll never see me turning Haste down whenever it’s offered.

Boon 2: Strong One. You gain a +2 sacred bonus on all Strength-based skill checks.

Just skill checks? Not even Strength checks in general? Eurgh. Couldn’t even spring for, like, just a +2 to Strength.

Strength-based skills are Climb, Swim, and... wait, what? It’s just Climb and Swim? Well, congratulations I guess. At level 11 you’re finally getting that +4 to Climb checks you should have been getting at baseline. Absolutely--ok you know what? Here’s what I’ll do.

--Patch Notes: Strong One now grants a +4 sacred bonus to Acrobatics, Climb, Escape Artist, Ride, and Swim checks. There! Now it rolls thematically into the Darechaser Prestige Class and is actually good! Not the best Boon out there, but on par with what some Evangelists get.

Boon 3: Farmer’s Brawn. Treat your carrying capacity as though your Strength ability score were 3 points higher than it actually is. 1/day as long as you are wearing light, medium, or no armor, you can lift up to two unconscious or dead Medium or smaller creatures and their equipment onto your shoulders and still move up to your base speed, ignoring the added weight. You cannot both attack and move in the same round while carrying one or more creatures in this way. You can carry these bodies in this way for a number of rounds equal to your Hit Dice; afterward, they encumber you as normal.

The amplified carrying capacity grants you, on average, about 25 more lbs to your maximum load depending on how high your Str was before. Neat! This should have been part of Strong One, though, even with my little buff. Also, carrying capacity rarely matters at the level you get this ability at, either because of Bags of Holding or because nothing really becomes worth carrying aside from what you already have. Aside, I suppose, from unconscious allies.

This is just... A flat bonus to Strength would have been better than whatever this is. An emergency tool of rescue, I suppose, Combine with Longstrider or Haste to grab your fallen allies and get out of there! Oh, wait, no, because “still move up to your base speed.” So there goes that. Also, despite the fact they don’t encumber you, you’re still basically staggered while carrying them (you can still take two move actions, though!). ALSO also, this ability only lasts for around a minute and a half, which is pathetic if you’re using this ability for its intended function (narrowly escaping a complete party wipe); it’s likely to cut out about halfway out of the Evil Lair.

I suppose there’s the utility of just picking up whole entire enemy bodies and running off with them, but seriously, just...

--Patch Notes: Farmer’s Brawn now reads “Gain a +4 sacred bonus to your Strength. Once per day, you may carry two Medium or smaller creatures or corpses and all of their worn equipment without counting them towards your encumbrance for 1 minute per HD you possess.”

-------- EXALTED --------

Boon 1: Holy Strength. Gain Enlarge Person 3/day, Bull’s Strength 2/day, or Rage 1/day.

Oh hey! All three of these are good and useful at any level! Rage can whip a whole party into a frenzy at once, giving them +1 to attack and damage rolls with melee weapons and giving them +1 HP per HD they have, at the comparatively minor (but still noteworthy) cost of -2 AC. Having a legion of summoned creatures, some hirelings, or just a party with a decent number of martial fighters can expand Rage’s usefulness even further... but a meager +1 to a whole lot of people is only useful if you, well, HAVE a lot of people. If you don’t? Bull’s Strength gives +2 to attack and damage rolls for minutes at a time, and has the added utility of beefing up someone’s carrying capacity and skill at lifting and throwing things around.

Enlarge Person is really the way to go if you have (or are) a powerful melee fighter on your side, though. A nice +2 to Strength is secondary to the delicious, tasty +5ft of reach, letting the target hold a much greater area within their threat radius. Knowing that you always have this spell on hand (3/day with a 1 min/level duration basically means you have it every time you need it) can prompt your primary tanks to take feats like Pin Down and Step Up to make themselves into inescapable tar pits of pain.

All three of these are good and flexible choices! Excellent! Now lets see what else Exalted can do...

Boon 2: Coordinated Escape: 3/day as a standard action, you can shout an inspirational command that affects you and any allies within 60 feet for a number of rounds equal to your Hit Dice. During this time, affected characters can use the withdraw action to move up to triple their base speed (instead of up to double their base speed).

... run away real good, apparently? The ability is described as showing Kurgess’ wisdom, fleeing from a fight that cannot be won rather than standing and accomplishing nothing, but like. He’s the god of bravery! Eurgh. At least there’s the amusing use of using withdraw to get CLOSER, since it essentially gives you an extra move action. And, for what it’s worth, it IS a decent escape tool, provided the enemy you’re running from has no way to catch up with you or slow you down. Much like the original Farmer’s Brawn, this ability just kind of doesn’t represent a god of sports and athleticism, which is what drives me nuts.

... well now that I think about it, using it exclusively for a sporting event like football or some other “keep-away” type game would be hilarious. But, still:

--Patch Notes: Coordinated Escape has been renamed to “Audacious Escape” and now reads “3/day as a standard action, you can shout an inspirational command that affects you and any allies within 60 feet of you. Any creature affected by this command can move at double their movement speed for one minute, and while they’re affected by this ability, their movement does not provoke Attacks of Opportunity.” Capped the time limit and shrank the movement buff, but made it a far more powerful defensive OR offensive tool.

Boon 3: Break the Anvil: 1/day, you can perform a disarm or sunder combat maneuver with a +4 competence bonus against an adjacent creature and a weapon it holds. If you succeed, the creature’s weapon is simultaneously damaged and disarmed, as though you had succeeded at both combat maneuvers simultaneously. If you exceed the target’s Combat Maneuver Defense by 10 or more, the target drops the items it is carrying in both hands, but you only sunder the weapon you initially targeted. If you don’t have either the Improved Disarm or Improved Sunder feat or a similar ability, this attempt provokes attacks of opportunity as normal; however, if you have one of the feats or a similar ability, this attempt does not provoke attacks of opportunity.

Alright I’ll admit, this is a... well, it’s not a complete letdown. It can be pretty good! Or, it would be better if it were attached to the Sentinel, rather than the caster-focused Exalted. And also if you could use it more than once. Needing to invest in Improved [X] (or at least Dirty Fighting) to avoid being slapped for your attempt to do something cool is also kind of a letdown. Now, I’ll admit, sundering at this level is very difficult to actually make viable, as most enemies you’ll face will have either enchanted weapons (which are very difficult to damage), skymetal weapons (again, difficult to damage), enchanted weapons made of skymetal (basically impossible to damage without one of your own), or no weapons at all (either because they use natural attacks, or use magic)... but that’s why this ability is also attached to disarm, which IS viable even at high levels, because knocking an enemy’s weapon from their hands and allowing an ally to pilfer it can render a great many foes impotent.

It does also require you to be adjacent to someone, though, which means you, the caster, must put yourself in arm’s reach of an enemy. And probably the BIGGEST weakness is that enemy CMD at levels 15+ can get ridiculous, so you’re going to have to focus at least part of your build on it, augmented by either spells or feats or, more than likely, both. The +4 bonus you get from Break the Anvil--which I have to admit is a really good name--is certainly some help here, but you’ll still need to build around it if you really want it to work.

--Patch Notes: Break the Anvil can now be done 3/day.

-------- SENTINEL --------

Boon 1: Master of Games. Gain True Strike 3/day, Bear’s Endurance 2/day, or Heroism 1/day.

It’s been one week and True Strike is still bad, even for the martial-focused Sentinel. Let’s just ignore that.

Bear’s Endurance is the weakest and least flexible of the ‘animal aspect’ spells, granting a +4 bonus to Con which translates to a whopping +2 HP per HD and +2 to Fortitude saves, and basically nothing else. It’s a bandage when someone’s suffering from disease or resisting a poison, and while it may occasionally save someone from being Blood Drained to death, it doesn’t justify taking Endurance over Heroism.

Heroism is a great buff to just use on yourself right before entering the final stretch of a dungeon, or even just after entering the front door. It’s a +2 bonus to attack rolls, skill checks, and most importantly saving throws and lasts for a tremendous 10 min/level, meaning it lasts two hours when you first get it and only rises from there. There’s no reason to take anything but Heroism, and little reason to not have it running the instant you enter hostile territory.

Boon 2: Reveal Frauds: You can, as an immediate action, activate Discern Lies as a spell-like ability. You can maintain this ability for a number of rounds per day equal to your Hit Dice, but these rounds do not have to be consecutive.

I had originally wished this ability had been granted to the Exalted instead... but a character going into Exalted likely started as a Cleric, so their Wisdom is probably already sky high and augmenting their Sense Motive to similarly heavenly levels. Thus, Sentinels gaining this power isn’t as bad as I initially thought, especially since it can be used as an immediate action in response to someone opening their lying gob to speak. Discern Lies doesn’t reveal the truth, nor will it ping you if the target is being evasive or changing the subject (such as by answering your question with a question of their own), so you have to keep on top of that. That being said, this ability has three advantages the vanilla spell sorely lacks which elevates it from ‘sometimes good’ to ‘indispensable:’

1) The lack of components means there’s absolutely no tell that you’re using this ability, aside from perhaps you focusing too hard on them. That means your target has no idea you’re using magic to read their speech; they may conclude you’re simply that good at reading their tells.

2) The casting time of “immediate action” means you can use it right when someone talks, rather than needing to prepare it beforehand. You can catch them in a falsehood without alerting them to the fact you’ve done anything supernatural.

3) The on-off nature of the ability means a hostage you’ve taken can’t simply wait out the duration of the spell. You can shut it off the instant they stop speaking and turn it back on when they start again; a canny caster may know the duration of the vanilla Discern Lies, but your version can be raised or lowered more or less at will.

While it won’t truly help you in a fight, this makes you an amazing interrogator, and not even necessarily a mean one! Just throw your arm around some badguy’s shoulder in the middle of a party or a bar and chat them up all friendly-like, sniffing their every word for a hint of falsehood. Sometimes, knowing what’s false helps narrow down what’s true.

--Patch Notes: None. Good as-is!

Boon 3: Unchained Savior 1/day as an immediate action, if an ally within 60 feet of you would normally take enough damage to fall unconscious or die, you can move to an adjacent space and intercept the killing blow, taking the damage in your ally’s place. If the attack would have inflicted any effects other than hit point damage, those effects are negated. If the damage would bring you to negative hit points, you are brought to 0 hit points instead, and the remaining damage is negated. Any attacks of opportunity you provoke by moving in this way are resolved after you take the damage from the intercepted blow; you take any damage from those attacks as normal.

Ohohoho, it’s been nearly two years since we’ve seen a Boon like this! Unlike Milani’s Martyrdom, though, this ability has a MUCH shorter range, a MUCH more restrictive activation condition (it only activates in response to damage!), and doesn’t save your life if you fall in the line of duty.

But you know what? It’s still a damn solid power. Your tankiness will absolutely allow you to survive a blow that could outright kill an ally of yours, but even if the attack COULD crunch you instantly, Unchained Savior flat out stops your HP from going below 0 from excess damage. 1000 damage, 100 damage, or even just 1 extra damage are all turned to Nothing as soon as your HP hits 0, AND this ability negates all extra effects from the attack, such as diseases, poisons, or additional spell effects. This, very importantly, means that even the dusting effects of Disintegrate and Destruction are negated!

Leap in the way of that 40d6 damage without fear! Well okay, SOME fear, since being dropped to 0 still means you’re unconscious. Unless you have Diehard or Ferocity. Y’know what? If your martial build doesn’t have Diehard, it probably should if you’re gonna walk around as an Unchained Savior! Just imagine the look on your enemy’s face when you tank their best shot and just keep coming.

Oh, also, since this power puts you adjacent to your ally, you’re probably now in slapping range with whatever attacked them in the first place. Draw your javelin and show them that you can give just as well as you take!

--Patch Notes: None! A 10/10 ability, Kurgess! Now if only you had this power while you were still a mortal, eh? Haha ... ha... ha... hwoof....

You can read more about him here.

#Spiritual Spotlight #Saintly Spotlight #Pathfinder #Dungeons and Dragons

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