Abraham spalding's page

Where is the dread shadow from?

Oh yeah, third party publishing.

It's not even Piazo -- you can hardly use that as a claim to the rules, especially when it's a Dread Shadow, instead of shadow on top of it all. I mean these things are more than shadows (evidence by the fact they can command shadows) and shouldn't be used as a means of figuring out RAW or even a lesser monster.

Fleshwarped -- simply give them extra arms with it. You are close enough to the flesh pits that they could have been sold from there.

Ninja can get something along those lines with shuriken however it's pretty piddly damage.

Abraham spalding wrote:

And to clear up my position I see a large difference between the GM suddenly having the AC do something absolutely stupid just to get the PCs herded (oops your AC went over and humped the princess before pissing on the king) and him going, "As you command Fluffy to come he instead whines a bit before pawing at the wall he has sat beside. When you call him again he gets more agitated and stands before pawing at the wall again -- it occurs to you he might have found a secret door."

The second is the GM allowing the AC's perception check to be presented in an in game way that is very helpful -- the first is just stupidity to be a jerk over something the PCs didn't have control over and to punish them for GM fiat.

In that case, you are practically controlling the pet while the GM is simply affirming that it indeed happens. Like if you say "I use channel energy" and the GM goes "bad guy #2 is hit". He's not really controlling it.

Honestly it depends on who rolls for the AC, and the specific check. I've had GMs that roll for perception checks for the PCs such before -- some I've been okay with others I haven't (example -- had a +19 on perception check, needed a 1 to find something and must have rolled a -10 because I failed while the girl with a -2 on her perception checks did fine it).

But again the GM is 'technically' controlling Fluffy in the second case... however he is doing so in a helpful and game improving way.

And to clear up my position I see a large difference between the GM suddenly having the AC do something absolutely stupid just to get the PCs herded (oops your AC went over and humped the princess before pissing on the king) and him going, "As you command Fluffy to come he instead whines a bit before pawing at the wall he has sat beside. When you call him again he gets more agitated and stands before pawing at the wall again -- it occurs to you he might have found a secret door."

The second is the GM allowing the AC's perception check to be presented in an in game way that is very helpful -- the first is just stupidity to be a jerk over something the PCs didn't have control over and to punish them for GM fiat.

Snap shot is the way to go. The build you came up with will be a damage powerhouse. I personally do not like going after Deft Shootist, I would rather take a step back and get my full attack action AND lightning reload at 12 pretty much gives you it for free.

If you are not going paladin too though I would just stick with pistoler, dex to damage pays off big at level 5. I went from doing nothing to pulling over 80damage on a full attack, given that I did crit and I am using a double barrel pistol

lightning reload is once a round.

IF that is the way you read it I would point out that the shadow's strength damage attack specifies that it is a singular touch attack (like a natural weapon) in and of itself -- which means it would not apply to other natural weapons.

Whoa... you are really allowing yourself to get owned when you shouldn't.

With this spell, you infuse your life force and psyche into your shadow, giving it independent life and movement as if it were an undead shadow. Your physical body lies comatose while you are projecting your shadow, and your body has no shadow or reflection while the spell is in effect.

While projecting your shadow, you gain a shadow's darkvision, defensive abilities, fly speed, racial stealth modifier, and strength damage attack. You do not gain the creature's create spawn ability, nor its skill ranks or Hit Dice.

Your shadow has Hit Dice and hit points equal to your own.

Your shadow projection has the undead type and may be turned or affected as undead.

If your shadow projection is slain, you return to your physical body and are immediately reduced to -1 hit points. Your condition becomes dying, and you must begin making Constitution checks to stabilize.

You (or your quasit) isn't doing anything -- your shadow is -- and your shadow is acting as the undead shadow creature.

As such the shadow doesn't have any of your normal abilities -- after all it's not you (it's not even your body which is laying dead like back where it's left) -- you don't get any of your normal abilities with it.

Lex Starwalker wrote:

What I meant to say is you can tell the people who GM from those who ONLY play. ;)

In that case I say the GMs have more experience and wisdom on their side so they autowin this thread ^^

GM's win because they have unlimited resources and the ultimate ability to rewrite the world to suit their whims -- this has nothing to do with experience or wisdom.

Pistols leave you pretty close to the action -- for that reason I still like deft shootist. If you were a musket guy you could probably avoid it.

I would go with hex strike. Also as a Sensei you still get another bonus feat at first level, I would suggest dodge, which would put you up to an 18 AC -- the shield spell on a wand might be your friend, as well as a ring of protection +1 and bracers of armor +1 (3,750gp) putting you up to an AC of 24.

Your attack line is looking (to me) to be:
+2 (BAB)
+4 (Wisdom)
+1 (weapon focus)
+7

If you take arcane strike you can increase that with your intelligence modifier putting you up to +13.

For your final feat you might consider extra arcana to get wand wielder as that will allow you to use your staff for spells later too.

The shadow's attack is a natural weapon so you wouldn't get iterative attacks with it. I'm unsure how else you are expecting to get more than one attack with it.

I think you read that wrong zrandrews:

"imps often find themselves free and alone on the Material Plane, particularly after they've been summoned to serve as familiars and their masters have perished"

So it's not enough to be summoned, but to be summoned and their master slain in order for them to be free.

As to indirect machinations simply suggesting to the wizard that going adventuring is a good idea can be just such a thing (instead of staying safe in his college or whatever).

EDIT:

Small note, if a caster is casting DEFENSIVELY, and the spell takes a full round action to complete, then if he gets attacked multiple times, is the DC still 15+spell level or....?

Each time he is attacked he makes another concentration check, but he only provokes an AoO on the action he starts casting the spell.

Again -- summon monster does not work that way:

Summoning: a summoning spell instantly brings a creature or object to a place you designate. When the spell ends or is dispelled, a summoned creature is instantly sent back to where it came from, but a summoned object is not sent back unless the spell description specifically indicates this. A summoned creature also goes away if it is killed or if its hit points drop to 0 or lower, but it is not really dead. It takes 24 hours for the creature to reform, during which time it can't be summoned again.

When the spell that summoned a creature ends and the creature disappears, all the spells it has cast expire. A summoned creature cannot use any innate summoning abilities it may have.

Eating him alive will make his hp drop to 0 or lower meaning he is now dead and he disappears from the prime material completely.

Also you don't use circles to control summoned monsters -- they can't teleport or even attack you. You give the order to stand there and do nothing and that's what happens. You can't even really kill the creature since it's not really dead simply reforming for 24 hours.

IF you really want to eat it you need planar binding, and in order to prevent its escape from planar binding you need dimensional anchor and magic circle.

Summoned creatures disappear when slain -- or when the duration goes up. You won't get any nutrition from eating summoned creatures.

You are thinking of calling creatures and even then you are looking at:

Magic Circle costing 500gp for the circle and a check.
Dimensional anchor to stop the creature from just jumping out.
And finally Planar Binding (of some flavor) to just get the creature there.

So you are eating a third, fourth and fifth level spell for dinner.

Also crossing into the circle leaves yourself open to attacks as well -- which is probably not a good idea.

the gm has the right to take what ever they want from your pc when ever they want.

No. He has the ability -- not the right. Any GM that thinks otherwise doesn't deserve to GM.

Summon monster 3 at level 5: Lantern archon.
5 rounds of 2x1d6 damage from a ranged touch attack that bypasses DR and SR means 10d6 damage that can be boosted by bardic performance and what not.

At level 10 you get it for 10 rounds meaning 20d6.

However the lantern archon also has decent defenses with dr 10 and the ability to buff themselves if you choose.

For example the average damage on a CR 5 monster stands right around 8~13 points of damage per attack. That means about half the time that lantern archon isn't taking damage -- but he is stopping you from taking damage (as well as the rest of the party) each time he is swung at while still dealing damage.

For a summon monster 2 I like the Lemure, with its DR 5 and alright everything else -- devils can see through any type of darkness so dropping a darkness or deeper darkness on it can really boost its chances of messing up the enemy. At summon 5 you get the bearded devil which can really make use of this tactic with its bleeding wounds, though you might find the Bralani more to your liking with its cure serious wounds twice a day, lightning bolt and mirror image to go with its DR to help it live longer. The bralani also brings a 20 foot line for 3d6 -- once a round means 27d6 damage total if it simply uses this ability each round (dc 17 for half would mean 13.5d6 damage on the line instead).

Summon monster 6 is loaded with nice monsters: Erinyes (true seeing, decent DR and nice attacks), Shadow Demon (Incorporal and DR, touch attacks, lots of spell likes, pounce), Lillend (bardic performance as a move action +2, cure serious x2, cure light x5, invisibility x4 and that's about it), and the succubus.

Summon 7 has the Vrock (which is loaded with "make them hurt" abilities and decent defenses), bone devil (four attacks, d.anchor, decent defensive abilities), the ever nasty Bebilith (rot for up to 10 points of Con damage on a pretty heavy DC of 23, and needing two saves, 3 attacks, and against people wearing armor the ability to peal it off), finally greater elementals.

Summon 9 also has a lot of really good choices as well especially if you want a pocket cleric to drag around.

AT is almost good, but it really does need 3/4ths BAB. Or it needs that feat from Undefeatable that allows you to enter with only sneak attack level, and probably a rogue talent in the middle.

Because 3 rogue/3 wiz is a pain. Street mage fixes AT to be a wizard that's good at being roguelike, with 1/5 entry requirement rather than 3/3.

So yeah, you need 3/4ths BAB and a couple of rogue talents to be a rogue that casts wizard spells, or you need the Street Mage feat. Otherwise trickster is at best fun flavor that can help plug the hole of a rogue and a weak arcane caster.

Honestly I wouldn't enter with rogue at all. If I'm going sorcerer I would go with ninja and get the swift action invisibility trick -- with that you can ray snipe all day (almost) I would also pick up pressure points to add a bit of strength or dexterity damage to my attacks. It might not amount to much in a fight (2~4 points of one or the other on average) but it's still something, and if you are getting 2~4 points on each of 4~8 people it can matter.

For wizards (and magus) I like alchemist (vivisectionist) to get sneak attack. This means at level 6 you'll have 6 first level spells, 3 second level spells (possibly 4) plus 5 first level extracts as well as better saves a mutagen and a discovery.

You wouldn't have enough gold to start with for the ki staff (it is 8,300gp) so honestly it would be a side weapon for the start of the campaign. I would probably stat it:

Int > Wis = Con > Str = Dex > Cha

so with your current stats I would probably do:

18 Int 17 Wis 16 Con 14 Dex 13 Str 13 Con

I'm not positive that it would be the best build around, as it takes time to really come to fruition but it seems like a fun play to me, especially if you land misfortune, stunning fist and something damaging all at the same time, before you finish your full attack.

Basically you would spell combat (perhaps with brand) get your attack, attempt to stun (a non-action) swift action to hex strike and after that lands attack with your free touch attack (using an unarmed strike to deliver it) too.

If you wanted to you could go staff magus as well and get a ki staff so you get a shield bonus too while doing this (a ki weapon can be used to deliver attacks as if you were making an unarmed strike).

At 4th level, the hexcrafter magus gains access to a small number of witch’s hexes. The hexcrafter magus picks one hex from the witch’s hex class feature. He gains the benefit of or uses that hex as if he were a witch of a level equal to his magus level.

This feature replaces spell recall.

I read that to say he has a hex, and if that doesn't float your boat:

A hexcrafter gains access to the following magus arcana, or may select any witch hex in place of a magus arcana. At 12th level, the hexcrafter may select a hex or major hex in place of a magus arcana. At 18th level, a hexcrafter can select a hex, major hex, or grand hex in place of a magus arcana. He cannot select any hex or arcana more than once.

Select a hex in place of an arcana and you have a hex (please note you don't have an arcana, you have an actual full on hex).

Also you gain access to the brand cantrip which is a touch attack curse spell.

With so many flat out awesome non-core classes out there, can't you put something else in the initial launch in place of the bard?

Bards are despised all over the world for the fact that they sing in battle. This is pretty much the lamest thing ever and I think a lot of people will get behind me on that.

How about an alchemist or magus?!

Really? You are aware that the only bard abilities that even suggests taking levels in perform is versatile performance, countersong and distraction right?

You can quite easily play a bard that never sings a note (or even plays an instrument) -- in fact my current character is just such a bard.

Beyond that the bard is (currently) the single best buffer in the game, and the more allies he has near him the more he shines as he provides those great buffs to every ally near him.

My understanding is that he would get spell recall at level 11 -- however I've seen people claim that he would still get improved spell recall since it's not a progression thing like say losing a dice of sneak attack damage.

If you go with the Hexcrafter archetype I would alter my suggestions some:

I would consider having a bit more wisdom and going with two levels in monk, specifically the sensei. This lets you use wisdom to attack with when using unarmed strikes, then pick up the hex strike feat so that you can deliver in one attack:
Stunning fist, a spell, a hex and damage.

Also when you aren't able to use spell combat you'll still have two or three things to do that are simply casting a spell.

Abraham spalding wrote:

Can't use spell combat with a two handed weapon.

Yea i noticed, but could i use spellstrike to strike twice with the falchion?

No because that relies on spell combat.

You use spell combat to get your normal attack (while casting the spell) then use the free touch attack substitution to get another attack with your weapon.

Personally with those stats I would put the 18 in my intelligence, the 16 in my Constitution the 17 in my Dex and the 13's in my strength and charisma finishing with the 14 in wisdom.

I would head towards the dervish dance grab arcane accuracy and then power attack (since piranha strike doesn't work with scimitars).

Interestingly enough two levels of monk can go really well with gunslinger -- you can grab dodge and mobility so that you have access to deft shootist faster and since the gunslinger likes wisdom (as does the monk) you're alright on that too. If you don't really want to take a lot of wisdom you can go with the Sohei archetype and gain a bonus to initiative as well as the act in surprise rounds ability. The bonuses on saves don't hurt either.

Can't use spell combat with a two handed weapon.

Well I covered the magus arcane trickster in my guide that I put up. I feel it works best if mixed with vivisectionist alchemist myself so you gain some additional buffs and some useful extracts (at lower level) and the ability to largely ignore UMD (at later levels)

Personally I would look more to arcane accuracy when it comes to arcana. Part of the problem is that you end up with a BAB of +13 if you follow up the AT with EK... which means another caster level lost, and you have fewer spell levels and spells per day.

Having the armored casting is nice though and with offensive defense can leave you feeling fairly solid on the front line, and your save throws balance well (good fort and will mixed with good fort and reflex before finishing with good reflex and will).

I'm a bit more forgiving (towards a GM) when it comes to ACs, but familiars no where near as much.

Greater Hat of Disguise is actually hilarious. He doesn't lose anything from that (aside from obvious size-related bonuses to AC, etc.), does he? Even his fly speed?

It's polymorph so he'll lose his fly speed, natural armor, and natural attacks.

There are some useful things about teleportation magic, but you have to control it somehow. You literally can wind up with something like Sir Palomino and Jeeves discussing how Sir Palomino is teleporting to the Dungeon of Dread tomorrow at 8 am. He will break for lunch, circumstances permitting, at noon. Jeeves should have lunch ready at 12:30, and there is a possibility Sir Palomino will have guests (prisoners), so plan for eight in attendance. Sir Palomino will then return to the dungeon and will eat supper at 7. The bath will need to be drawn by 6, so Sir Palomino can bathe before the repast.

If any changes need to made for this plan, Sir Palomino will Send Jeeves the details.

It doesn't make for a very interesting book to read, and definitely not a game after you do it once or twice.

Hey if it means anything to you, I think this could be a spark for a great bit of fun.

Yeah I think waypointing or simply taking most teleport spells out of the game would be fine, if discussed ahead of time and something that is world wide.

I've played exactly one character that was a dimensional specialist type (teleports spacial distortions, time lapsing and the like) and even then actual teleporting and what have you is only a small part of the whole. I don't think losing a large portion of it would hurt the concept too much -- though I would ask for the dimension step (from the subschool of teleport) and d.door be left in as those are rather short range.

I'm inclined to say that the knife is magical and as a spell ignores parts of the 'normal' flanking rules and simply say if you have an ally threatening the target then the knife treats the target as if it was flanking it.

I realize it's a bit of a cop out but that's my thought on it for what it is worth.

If you are going to do bard/something I would agree with Mort and say go Archaeologist, and instead of rogue I would suggest ninja.

The ki pool will be advanced by advancing your charisma and it can give you and extra attack when you full attack (as well as swift vanish and possibly mirror image if you want) -- plus several of the ninja tricks work better for a cat burglar (and those of the rogue talents you want you can always poach off their list).

With Archeologist/ninja I wouldn't do more than 2 levels of ninja and just let the rogue talents from archeologist see you through.

I'm seeing something along the lines of Zoe to Captain Reynolds, "He won't have to because I'll do it for him." sort of thing right?

Also if you decide you do want to do an arcane trickster I as well as A Highly Regarded Expert both have arcane trickster guides you might want to read (you might want to anyways honestly).

Here's the exact text you want:

A burst spell affects whatever it catches in its area, including creatures that you can't see. It can't affect creatures with total cover from its point of origin (in other words, its effects don't extend around corners). The default shape for a burst effect is a sphere, but some burst spells are specifically described as cone-shaped. a burst's area defines how far from the point of origin the spell's effect extends.

Now several spells (like fireball for example) state the following:

The fireball sets fire to combustibles and damages objects in the area. It can melt metals with low melting points, such as lead, gold, copper, silver, and bronze. If the damage caused to an interposing barrier shatters or breaks through it, the fireball may continue beyond the barrier if the area permits; otherwise it stops at the barrier just as any other spell effect does.

However channel energy doesn't have any such line and is a 'normal' burst effect, therefore stopped by anything that offers total cover.

Rage Subdomain + Anger inquisition = Battle raging cleric.

Abraham spalding wrote:

Ross Byers wrote:

I removed some posts. Serenity, folks.

Good movie, but why did they have to kill Shepard and Wash?

I was thinking more Costanza than Whedon.

Costanza? Is that like Vera?

I removed some posts. Serenity, folks.

Good movie, but why did they have to kill Shepard and Wash?

I think it's probably a squaring thing so I would go with 25,000gp myself.

(4 squared is 16x1,000 = 16,000gp so a +5 would be 5 squared = 25x1,000=25,000gp)

The DC for any of these abilities equals your DC for the polymorph spell used to change you into that form.

Unfortunately the ability to use isn't set by wild shape in its text -- in general (please note not specific) spell like abilities default to charisma:

For creatures with spell-like abilities, a designated caster level defines how difficult it is to dispel their spell-like effects and to define any level-dependent variables (such as range and duration) the abilities might have. The creature’s caster level never affects which spell-like abilities the creature has; sometimes the given caster level is lower than the level a spellcasting character would need to cast the spell of the same name. If no caster level is specified, the caster level is equal to the creature’s Hit Dice. The saving throw (if any) against a spell-like ability is 10 + the level of the spell the ability resembles or duplicates + the creature’s Charisma modifier.

However Wild shape is a supernatural ability.

Unfortunately (again!) in none of the places that supernatural abilities are explained do we receive a default:
Here
Here
Here

Or even here under standard actions.

So what's this mean? We don't have anything that specifically ties the supernatural ability wild shape to a specific stat. We would if it was a spell like ability.

Personally I think there is a strong case for wisdom and for charisma both, however I'm not willing to argue either -- so ask your GM.

rouge

Rogue. Sorry it bugged me today.

pure I've found the fighter can easily have a higher AC than the eidolon.

Armor helps.

Losing shield bash isn't the same as, "can't use tower shields more effectively" which was the part I was protesting, as they are more effective than others with tower shields.

Though I don't think it would hurt to allow them to do such personally.

Spirit of waters granted proficiency, and I wanted elf iirc.

Other options include half elf and human of course.

I would prefer not to have to create a new class/archetype/weapon rules everytime somebody complains something is not possible in PF that is possible in real life.

The phalanx fighter isn't bad, but it's not very good from an optimization standpoint. I think they lose weapon training, which is really big. Also, they can't use tower shields more effectively. Although Greeks didn't use tower shields, I think the level of protection and use fits tower shields rather than heavy shields.

Um... but he can: He can use a two handed reach weapon with a shield (tower or otherwise) and he reduces the penalties on attacking while using a tower shield.

halanx Fighting (Ex)

At 3rd level, when a phalanx soldier wields a shield, he can use any polearm or spear of his size as a one-handed weapon.

This ability replaces Armor Training 1.

Deft Shield (Ex)

At 7th level, the armor check penalty from a shield and the attack roll penalty are reduced by –1 for a phalanx soldier using a tower shield. At 11th level, these penalties are reduced by –2.

This ability replaces Armor Training 2 and 3.

At 9th level, when a phalanx fighter is using a heavy or tower shield, he can, as a move action, provide partial cover (+2 cover bonus to AC, +1 bonus on Reflex saves) to himself and all adjacent allies until the beginning of his next turn.

At 13th level, he can instead provide cover (+4 cover bonus to AC, +2 bonus on Reflex saves) and evasion (as a rogue) to one adjacent ally until the beginning of his next turn. This cover does not allow Stealth checks.

At 17th level, he can provide cover to himself and all adjacent allies, or he can provide improved cover (+8 cover bonus to AC, +4 bonus on Reflex saves, improved evasion)to a single adjacent ally.

This ability replaces Weapon Training 2, 3, and 4.

Irresistible Advance (Ex)

At 15th level, a phalanx fighter gains a bonus on bull rush and overrun CMB checks. This bonus depends on the type of shield used: +1 with a buckler, +2 with a light shield, +3 with a heavy shield, or +4 with a tower shield.

This ability replaces Armor Training 4.

I mean argue the abilities are late or not enough, but don't say they don't exist.

Abraham spalding wrote:

Also I was under the impression that eidolon's couldn't use shields either, however that could easily be me misreading or misunderstanding the rules.

Only armor is explicitly forbidden. Shield can be used as long as the eidolon has free arm to wield it and proficiency to avoid penalties (rendered moot by mithral shields with armor check penalty of 0). Personally, I'd prefer to share shield spell with my eidolon but not every summoner can spare spell or action to do this - and being surprised or even just denied the chance to prepare is weakness of this approach.

I can certainly understand where the position is coming from -- we've just always treated shields as a specific form of armor, since they have all the characteristics of armor minus the weight categories.

This isn't an argument for me being right, only an explanation of where I'm coming from.

Something I have done is allow people to take the exotic weapon proficiency to handle changing a simple or martial weapon in one of the following ways:

1. Handiness (moving it up or down one category).
2. Damage increased by a step.
3. Critical range increased by a step (maximum 18-20 critical range).
4. Improve the critical multiplier by 1.

Also I was under the impression that eidolon's couldn't use shields either, however that could easily be me misreading or misunderstanding the rules.

Something else -- the eidolon is a chain and a chain is only as strong as its weakest link: We need to see the summoner as well to account for the possibility of weak defenses there too.

Personally I would go with either an archer fighter or a sword and board two weapon fighting.

I thought about a net character a while back and here is the thread from that.

The builds I ended up looking at were:

And

The elf ranger however uses a third party archetype that Cheapy had a hand in. I must say that that product was well done. It is currently the only product I have reviewed, so if you want an easy link just go to my profile and check my review.

The beastmaster ranger is the only way to gain additional animal companions. This include multiclassing.

I believe there is a druid archetype that does this too.