Turnage |
Liane the Wanderer wrote:Yeah, I can spare the GP, and I can probably use the wand if need be. But I'm personally of the opponent that healing is typically a lost turn. 2-9 points of healing is useful out of combat, but it's also feasible that you can put a creature out of combat with that same action- chances are you're a spellcaster, you should have a proper arsenal of control.I'm not going to waste every turn healing, I'm just going to have the capacity to heal if one of you gets the crap knocked out of you. If you have 30 maximum hit points and you get hit for 16, casting a save-or-lose is not going to save you with all certainty. Meanwhile, healing you would have a 100 percent chance of preventing you from dropping next round.
As a witch, I'd have plenty of other options in combat, with my hexes. I would just feel a lot better if we had someone who could save us if need be than if we didn't.
Characters die Erza, it happens, it just gives us an opportunity to roll a new one :). If you want to change to a healing class by all means do that, I'd appreciate you not trying to guilt other people into it however. I just want people playing something they enjoy to play, I've played plenty of difficult campaigns with no healers at all, just a few potions hanging around. It just means you need to think about fighting before you rush straight in.
Also, you won't win every fight, sometimes you'll have to run away. This isn't a MASH MASH MASH campaign, I'm fine for you to make powerful characters, just your foes will be formidable too :).
Erza Leonhart |
Characters die Erza, it happens, it just gives us an opportunity to roll a new one :). If you want to change to a healing class by all means do that, I'd appreciate you not trying to guilt other people into it however. I just want people playing something they enjoy to play, I've played plenty of difficult campaigns with no healers at all, just a few potions hanging around. It just means you need to think about fighting before you rush straight in.Also, you won't win every fight, sometimes you'll have to run away. This isn't a MASH MASH MASH campaign, I'm fine for you to make powerful characters, just your foes will be formidable too :).
My apologies. That was not my intention. I'll just finish up my witch and post it now.
I didn't think that retreat was really much of an option in a game where we were basically Royal Guards, I figured if we didn't finish what we started every time civilians would die and we would be executed for our desertion of duty.
Skorn |
I will gladly chip in my share of the wand. And I'll have a character up by late this afternoon for sure.
I do not like to play clerics. I have learned that no skill points = no fun for me. I could build an Oracle, but it would likely not be a life oracle and would not channel. Let me review what we have and I'l make a decision on that.
Skorn |
OK. I looked over the proposed builds. Please correct me if I get this wrong. We have no rogues, no rangers, and no divine classes at all, right?
My other question deals with what racial builds we should use. Do we always use the human ability of +2 to one stat and an extra starting feat even if we are elvish looking?
I am good either way, but need to know to do the math. :)
Turnage |
OK. I looked over the proposed builds. Please correct me if I get this wrong. We have no rogues, no rangers, and no divine classes at all, right?
My other question deals with what racial builds we should use. Do we always use the human ability of +2 to one stat and an extra starting feat even if we are elvish looking?
I am good either way, but need to know to do the math. :)
Ok people seem to be a bit confused by the race thing so I'll clarify.
Essentially you play one of the core races, if you pick an elf you use elf stats, if you pick a dwarf you use dwarf stats. However for lore terms, since there are only humans, If you pick something like an elf, you would be a more wirey intelligent human, or if you pick a dwarf you are a shorter more hardy human.
Carey Swanson |
OK. I looked over the proposed builds. Please correct me if I get this wrong. We have no rogues, no rangers, and no divine classes at all, right?
I am an arcane caster who can heal, and we have a bard, so we have a skill-monkeyish character as well. But yes, we do not have any of the specific classes you named.
Also, about you playing an Oracle of Life, it's quite alright, I've already committed to playing our group's healer.
You have some exceptional rolls there, so you should take the opportunity to play whatever class you want to.
Turnage |
I think I will build an Urban Ranger. Good AC. Great with a bow. Decent enough in Melee. But handy around town and will have trapfinding as a class skill. As a ranger he can also use a wand when needed. Thoughts?
Rangers are fantastic in pathfinder. Tracking, trapping, good damage, decent skill points. I'd say go for it.
Carey Swanson |
I think I will build an Urban Ranger. Good AC. Great with a bow. Decent enough in Melee. But handy around town and will have trapfinding as a class skill. As a ranger he can also use a wand when needed. Thoughts?
My immediate thought is you should pick "Humanoid (Human)" as your favored enemy. *thumbs up*
But at a second glance, I wouldn't necessarily advise Urban Ranger. After all, if this game takes place primarily in the city, you could gain a significant power increase by taking the Horizon Walker prestige class (APG), and gaining the Urban Mastery and Urban Dominance class features. (It would also increase your Urban Favored Terrain bonus to +18 by the end of the class).
Now, you could become a Horizon Walker as an Urban Ranger, but losing Endurance as a bonus feat would make you spend a feat slot in order to get it, and I don't know if that's worth Trapfinding (especially if you decided to prestige out at 7th level, meaning Trapfinding would only give you a +3 bonus).
If you'd rather just single class it all the way to 20, then it sounds like a plan. I was just suggesting another idea. Do you know which weapon style you want to focus on yet?
Skorn |
That would give the party two bow specialist.
Hmm. I must admit I was not expecting a Magus to be focused on the bow. Is that some type of archetype? Can you spell strike with a bow? Can you do that magus flurry thing with a bow?
Please play the character you want, but would you consider being more melee focused? I think that will be your strength unless there is an archetype I am not aware of. Right off the bat a bow focused ranger will get twice as many arrows a round, and I plan on my arrows doing up to 2d6+8 damage each with gravity bow and deadly aim.
Let me know if you are sure you want to keep your idea for a bow Magus. If so I can consider something else.
Skorn |
Skorn wrote:I think I will build an Urban Ranger. Good AC. Great with a bow. Decent enough in Melee. But handy around town and will have trapfinding as a class skill. As a ranger he can also use a wand when needed. Thoughts?My immediate thought is you should pick "Humanoid (Human)" as your favored enemy. *thumbs up*
But at a second glance, I wouldn't necessarily advise Urban Ranger. After all, if this game takes place primarily in the city, you could gain a significant power increase by taking the Horizon Walker prestige class (APG), and gaining the Urban Mastery and Urban Dominance class features. (It would also increase your Urban Favored Terrain bonus to +18 by the end of the class).
Now, you could become a Horizon Walker as an Urban Ranger, but losing Endurance as a bonus feat would make you spend a feat slot in order to get it, and I don't know if that's worth Trapfinding (especially if you decided to prestige out at 7th level, meaning Trapfinding would only give you a +3 bonus).
If you'd rather just single class it all the way to 20, then it sounds like a plan. I was just suggesting another idea. Do you know which weapon style you want to focus on yet?
I love your idea of a Horizon Walker, but my only true reason to go Urban Ranger is to get Trapfinding and Disable Devise as class skills. Right now, with no rogue, I sorta feel that I have to fill that role.
Carey Swanson |
I love your idea of a Horizon Walker, but my only true reason to go Urban Ranger is to get Trapfinding and Disable Devise as class skills. Right now, with no rogue, I sorta feel that I have to fill that role.
Pardon me for suggesting this, but couldn't you just dip rogue 1 for that? I mean, if you like the idea of being a Horizon Walker, then you're not really going to get that much from going straight ranger anyway.
There's nothing stopping you from getting the same entry level (Rogue 1/Ranger 5 instead of Ranger 6), but if you're worried about losing the bonus feat, you could just go Rogue 1/Ranger 6/Horizon Walker X. Your entry is delayed by a single level, but you get Trapfinding and Disable Device and still get all of your rangery goodness. Plus Sneak Attack, and a couple of extra skill points at first level to put in things like Climb or Swim where you just want the Class skill bonus.
Of course, if you're married to the idea of Urban Ranger...there's no reason you still can't go Horizon Walker. The true merit of Trapfinding is the ability to find and Disable magical traps, the bonus it grants is just icing on the cake. And you only need 1 level of Urban Ranger to get that delicious +3 class skill bonus to Disable Device.
Sorry to push this, but you do sound like you'd rather play a Horizon Walker (at least, that's what I'm thinking. Could be wrong), so why not just spend the feat slot to get Endurance and qualify as an urban ranger anyway?
Carey Swanson |
I do like your logic and am looking at the options. Thanks much for taking the time to think about it and make recommendations. This will partly depend the response from our Magus.
Please allow me to point out something I think you'll find very relevant. At 3rd level (so 9th character level), if you take Urban Dominance, you treat all creatures native to the urban environment as if they were your favored enemies. Then you get your Urban Favored Terrain bonus as that favored enemy bonus.
At this point, including the Favored Terrain bonus you had as a ranger, that's a +6 bonus on several skill checks, as well as to all your attack and damage rolls, against basically every enemy we will be fighting. It's a very strong boon for an archer and will be much more effective than relying on Favored Enemy as a single-classed ranger alone. (Remember before how I pointed out your Favored Terrain bonus will end up at +18?)
And I'm glad to have helped, whatever you decide to do.
Turnage |
I do like your logic and am looking at the options. Thanks much for taking the time to think about it and make recommendations. This will partly depend the response from our Magus.
There is a specific feat that allows magus to deliver his spells via bow, so you get the bow damage and the spell damage. Coupled with a few of the magus spell buffs you can actually build quite a nice ranged magus, kind of similar to the arcane archer but with slightly less power but more utility. I personally prefer the melee magus for pure damage, but the ranged magus can be formidable foes.
*Edit*
Sorry it's a specific archetype, not a feat.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/magus/archetypes/paizo---magus -archetypes/myrmidarch
Beohawk |
Ok guys. Here is a first cut at my Ranger. I did the crunch pretty quickly and decided to go with Urban for now for trapfinding. Comments are welcome and appreciated. Note I have purchased a couple of wands that a partially charged, representing having them for 4 levels now. If this is not ok just let me know.
Carey Swanson |
Ok guys. Here is a first cut at my Ranger. I did the crunch pretty quickly and decided to go with Urban for now for trapfinding. Comments are welcome and appreciated. Note I have purchased a couple of wands that a partially charged, representing having them for 4 levels now. If this is not ok just let me know.
Assuming your "human" is a true human, you're missing a feat. You have three listed, and you get one for 1st level, one for human, one for your Combat Style, and one for third level.
Carey Swanson |
Hey Carey, A question about witches in general - can cackle extend the fortune hex? i.e. can someone benefit from it multiple rounds in a row, getting to roll twice each round, as long as you continue to cackle?
Why yes, they can. And I can spend a standard action to give another party member the fortune hex, then my move action to cackle and extend it for both of you.
Porter Potts |
I'll mess around with changing up Porter...but with his terrible HP rolls, and the Magus unable to use heavy armor (If I could afford it that is) I don't know how that would work.
One house rule I use is that you roll two dice for HP's when you level up. Still gives you the opportunity for low rolls, but lowers the odds. Also roll an additional dice for all the "Cure Wounds" spells and discard the lowest. Just a thought...
Turnage |
I'll mess around with changing up Porter...but with his terrible HP rolls, and the Magus unable to use heavy armor (If I could afford it that is) I don't know how that would work.
One house rule I use is that you roll two dice for HP's when you level up. Still gives you the opportunity for low rolls, but lowers the odds. Also roll an additional dice for all the "Cure Wounds" spells and discard the lowest. Just a thought...
Not sure if you have seen my previous post, but I would HIGHLY recommend playing the myrmidarch magus archetype. It allows you to deliver your spell strikes through ranged attacks. Also I think that house rule is coddling the players a bit, you're adventurers, you laugh in the face of danger!
Porter Potts |
Thanks. I did see that, but really my character's and Skorns play basically the same scout/archer role in the party. I'm really not a min/max player, but making a 4th level character that goes into melee with lower AC, and not enough HP to survive one blow is not coddling, it's insane. The neighborhood bullies would have ended his adventuring career before it began.
I see future difficulties because to make a challenge difficult enough to challenge the more formidable characters, they will be able to wipe out Porter with one blow. I don't see any way I can make him work as a more melee oriented character with that lack of HP.
I appreciate the opportunity, but I'll probably bow out before I grow to attached to the character :-).
Skorn |
Thanks. I did see that, but really my character's and Skorns play basically the same scout/archer role in the party. I'm really not a min/max player, but making a 4th level character that goes into melee with lower AC, and not enough HP to survive one blow is not coddling, it's insane. The neighborhood bullies would have ended his adventuring career before it began.
I see future difficulties because to make a challenge difficult enough to challenge the more formidable characters, they will be able to wipe out Porter with one blow. I don't see any way I can make him work as a more melee oriented character with that lack of HP.
I appreciate the opportunity, but I'll probably bow out before I grow to attached to the character :-).
One idea:
Switching out Wisdom and con would lower your will by 1 but increase you fort by 1 AND give you 4 more health.And I really did not know you were going range before I built my ranger. I really don't mind making something else. I have lots of interesting character concepts I would like to try out. I am the new guy. So I propose this. Look at the party as is without me and ask me to fill a specific need. I'll come up with something fun and interesting to handle any one need you have. Face? Traps? Tank? Controller? Buffer?
I have a lot of points to play with and will honestly have fun with the challenge. Just let me know.
Carey Swanson |
Look at the party as is without me and ask me to fill a specific need. I'll come up with something fun and interesting to handle any one need you have. Face? Traps? Tank? Controller? Buffer?
I have a lot of points to play with and will honestly have fun with the challenge. Just let me know.
I personally like games where we don't have a trap-finder, because I like traps. Traps are interesting, they're a real surprise and they mix up the normal flow of a game with a challenge that you can't solve with a high attack roll. If you just disable traps, you get some XP for a skill check and you move on, and I find that boring.
One of my favorite traps was a self-resetting boulder trap. We couldn't find a way around it, so we would walk down the hall, trigger the trap, the boulder would drop down and roll down the hallway towards us. The two casters in the party ducked into the adjoining hallways, which was fine for them (they stayed there afterwards while I tried to figure out the path around the trap, so after they got there once they didn't need to move again), while my barbarian ran 160' feet per round, staying just ahead of the boulder until the very end of the hall, at which point I got to make a Reflex save to dive out of the way or get trampled by the boulder for 7d6 damage.
Then the cleric would heal me and I'd try again. We never did find a path around the trap, but the trap ran out of boulders after five or so.
Then there was the black tentacles trap. Man, did I hate that one.
Anyway, as for a real role we could still use, well, we have a disabler/healer (Disabler is a Controller who only uses single-target removal), a melee fighter, and a ranged DPS (magus). That leaves plenty of options. The ones that stick out at me are Buff/Utility (wizard) and anti-magic (Anti-spell dwarf barbarian with Steel Soul or a sorcerer with Improved Counterspell and dispel magic).
Turnage |
Thanks. I did see that, but really my character's and Skorns play basically the same scout/archer role in the party. I'm really not a min/max player, but making a 4th level character that goes into melee with lower AC, and not enough HP to survive one blow is not coddling, it's insane. The neighborhood bullies would have ended his adventuring career before it began.
I see future difficulties because to make a challenge difficult enough to challenge the more formidable characters, they will be able to wipe out Porter with one blow. I don't see any way I can make him work as a more melee oriented character with that lack of HP.
I appreciate the opportunity, but I'll probably bow out before I grow to attached to the character :-).
Well a house rule I've used before to help poor HP roles is this.
You may reroll any hit dice, but you take a -1 to that roll. Next reroll is -2 etc. And yes if you roll a 1 when you get a minus 1 you get 0 health. So you can keep rerolling to get higher but you will get an increasingly higher minus score.
Turnage |
Well I don't have much to lose.
1d8 HP Reroll
1d8 HP Reroll
1d8 HP Reroll
So 5,4,4...Now I can readress making Porter more melee oriented.
So you now have 22 health. To be fair with a con of +0 you're not going to have a high health score. You could always take toughness in place of one of your feats? Would give you a total of 26 health, make up for that low con score a bit.
Beohawk |
Impressive rebuild Mr. Potts. Nicely done.
How about a role call here. I am not sure who all is playing. Was there 6 of us?
Here is what I think we have. Correct?
Barbarian - Ezra
Witch - Carey
Magus - Porter
Alexander's character - Monk?
Sorcerer - Liane
Ranger - Beohawk
Since we are starting as 4th level characters in what we suspect will be a dangerous world, is there anything we can do/discuss to prepare ourselves to play together?
Carey Swanson |
Impressive rebuild Mr. Potts. Nicely done.
How about a role call here. I am not sure who all is playing. Was there 6 of us?
Here is what I think we have. Correct?
Barbarian - Ezra
Witch - Carey
Magus - Porter
Alexander's character - Monk?
Sorcerer - Liane
Ranger - BeohawkSince we are starting as 4th level characters in what we suspect will be a dangerous world, is there anything we can do/discuss to prepare ourselves to play together?
Erza was my original character. I replaced her with Carey when I realized we didn't have a healer, so she's no longer in the group.
Alexander Kilcoyne |
Sorry, still not got a profile up but i'm all good in Herolab. I'll be totally done tonight. I've just been super busy, all my other PbP's are seeing similar levels of neglect.
P.S- Turnage make an OOC (Discussion) thread and make an IC thread even if all it says is "Bleh". I have to keep manually searching for this campaign, but if I post in the IC it will appear on my campaign page (assuming you've made it a Campaign). And its weird we're still using recruitment :P.