Crysknife's page

John-Andre wrote:

Master of the Dark Triad wrote:

Really? We haven't learned yet to stop feeding the "why are rogues bad, again?" trolls yet?

Yes, I realize that I'm posting on this thread too, but come on guys!

Then maybe people should shut up about how bad Rogues are?

The core classes -- expecially the non-casters -- all seem to be subpar in many ways. Maybe what's required is for Paizo to finally abandon the 3.5e D&D OGL SRD, and rebuild the core classes to the same level of capability and power as the classes in other books?

Rogue and Fighter are the only classes in the core that are derided as weak.

Fighter is by no mean a weak class. Of course, at very high level casters are more attractive to the powergamer, but fighters start strong and stay relevant until very high levels. Many people (and all of PFS) play from level 1 to level 12: few classes are as consistent in this bracket as the fighter, especially in the hands of someone not well versed in the art of optimization.

In my opinion, rogue is the weakest class because not even the archetypes are any good (except the ninja which is generally considered a different class). Monks are quite bad too, but they have some redeeming qualities. 1) they are great dips 2)they have some archetypes which are among the best options for some niche roles (zen archer and maneuver master).

I actually think that sneak attack and the low to hit is not that big problem per se.

The actual problem is the lack of options besides " I try to sneak attack"

I disagree, it is by far the worst problem. A simple +1 every 4 levels when sneak attacking would almost fix the problem by itself.

AC can be solved by taking offensive defence

I don't mind avoiding dump stats as a player and I enforce a "no dump stats" rule as a GM. The lower I allow is 8 after racial adjustments (15 point buy) and even this penalty has to be roleplayed in some way.
I never got as far as to do what your GM did, but only because I prefer to address issues out game rather than get into an arm race with my players in game. As a player, if I'm told to avoid dump stats I do so. The GM is the one putting in the most effort, so I either respect his wishes or I choose another game.

In your case, I understand your GM position but I think it would be better (and easier) to enforce the rules out of game.

I've never played CC, but I've played an archer ranger (guide). In terms of dps it was one of strongest PC I've ever played in pathfinder (second strongest after a barbarian with beast totem, come and get me and reckless abandon). Cover and concealment are generally not an issue for a medium level dedicated archer.
There were a couple of things that could skrew him up though
1) he did not have particularly good saves (especially wisdom). Your inquisitor however should be far better off.
2) attacks of opportunity were brutal until I got to Point Blank Master. This will work for you
3) his AC was decent but not stellar by any means. Combined to the above, a couple of flanking brutes will give you player a hard time
4) a bow cannot be fired when grappled, prone, blind (well, you can technically but...) and a lot of other conditions. Unless he heavily invested into it, his CMD will not be very high I think, saves will be a bit difficult to target but it could work too
5) walls (not necessarily magic ones...) between him and the enemies will require him to get into position and lose a round. Clever enemies may use this tactic given how strong he is

In the end, you have a character that will perform spectacularly in a standard situation but that you may challenge in a lot of ways

On what level?

At very low level, nothing will beat a warrior with a tower shield and full plate. Paladin, as said by others, is an especially good choice.

At mid level a solid choice would be a finesse fighter with very high dex, a high dex armor coupled with armor training (if allowed, the celestial plate is instane, but a simple mithral breastplate will do) and the crane style chain to get all the benefits from fighting defensively and almost none of the drawbacks. If you go this way, max perception to avoid losing your bonus too often. You will consume a lot of resources in order to do that but you will benefit from higher touch AC compared to the above.

The higher the level, the less AC begin to matter. Give saves at least as much consideration as you give AC. Again, paladin is very solid thanks to cha, bonuses and immunities. A couple of monks levels are great (and useful also to get crane style). As for races, dwarves are a solid choice with a con/wis bonus but mostly with a +2 against spells.

So...advice?

1) Do you have a history of making very optimized characters?

If you have so many issues in getting approval may be because of either (or both) of the aboves.

If 1 is true, don't over-optimize (compared to the rest of your group) and try to show your goodwill by listing in an easy way what your character can accomplish and compare it with a basic character of the same level.
If 2 is true, keep it simple and you will both play fair and spare an headache to your GM...

In any case you should explain that this creation process is one of the reason for which you love the game: not everybody seek the same return from the game, your GM may simply find it difficult to believe your motives.

Well, if you can spend a quarter of your wealth in your weapon you may be able to kill a CR 3 monster by level 12. Which is quite unimpressive.
To do that I'd go for a greatsword and make it holy, for a total cost of 18300 gp. If you did not totally dump STR (let's say you've got a 10, which is rare for a wizard) you can full attack for 4d6+1 with +7/+2. Please note however that you your main asset here is your "high" BAB, which is related to your level rather than to your weapon.
If you are at a much higher level, brilliant energy will help you to hit, with some other enchantment for damage (holy, maybe some element)
I wouldn't bother fishing for criticals (very unreliable and even if you threatens one you still have to confirm it).
Of course, if you want to focus on a single type of enemy, bane would be your best pick.

That said, a weapon that would make a high level wizard "good" or "respectable" would be heart-shattering in the hands of a fighter.

The only option is to look for a weapon that allows you to cast spells. A quarterstaff, for example.

I've just started playing a level 1 wizard. Could you help me to make what I have in mind more effective?

My idea was to focus on battlefield control, but since the way our group is composed I decided to do not use summoning at all (we are 5 players not very well organized, with one playing online: given previous experiences with fights taking too much time, we all agreed to "ban" animal companions, familiar and summons).

Since most of the best battlefield controls are from conjuration school, I decided to select conjuration school as my specialization school anyway (teleportation subschool, banned are necromancy and enchantment): should I consider other schools instead? Transmutation seems to be good but, even after excluding summons, conjuration seems to have slightly better choices all levels considered.
I'm excluding evocation because I will not take dazing spell. I know, it's an incredible feat, but not many of my group optimize (none actually) and even the simple blast would overshadow them and I don't want to do that.

I'm also wondering which feats I should go for (creation feats are banned but all core+UM+UC+advanced is fine): for my first level I've taken Improved Initiative and Spell focus conjuration (just to increase my DCs, not to take augment summoning). I'm considering stuff like toughness (CON 12 is brutal) and greater spell focus which are not really exciting. Metamagic feats are actractive but I could simply use rods...

As for spells, I've looked at the guides from treantmonk and Prof.Q, so I think I'm pretty much ok on that respect.

I'm open to all kind of suggestion, as long as 1) they don't make my fellow players utterly useless 2) they are not about summoning or dazing spells.
Thanks in advance
Crys

Cool thread, how about a young male redhead wizard (age 15-16), first of the class, quite the nerd?
The guy has just reached 2nd level, here are his stats:

str 8
dex 12
con 12
int 20
wis 10
cha 10

I'd keep DEX as my first stat for every dedicated archer, even for a paladin. That is even before considering manyshot, which you simply must take no matter what.

If 7 makes me mentally handicapped and half-blind, then does 14 mean I'm automatically a brain surgeon?

People seriously exaggerate what a low score represents.

Actually, if you consider intelligence score as IQ/10, a 7 would represent a mild mental retard and 14 would qualified as "gifted".

Depending on how experienced your players are, you may have to get creative in order to have reactions. For instance, one of the best reaction from our group came from having a frost giantess giving birth in the middle of a fight.
Still, it's hard to make your players care about an NPC or a situation every single time, just be ready to understand when they do. Sometime the NPC you tought they were totally going to like simply fails to impress, and the NPC which you came up on the spot is the one which is remembered: simply work with he flow.

** spoiler omitted **

Good explanation, I like it, maybe someone at the pass who came to check on the village

It may be a trinket

A simple clarification, since my players will ask, but don't read ahead if you did not finish the module...

Well with the Ranger dip you also get +2 fort save and +2 reflex save, vs just a +1 fort save with the 4th level of fighter.

You also gain the ability to use wands of spells on the Ranger spelllist, which are actually quite nice.

If doing a flat comparison between Weapon Specialization and Favored Enemy, I would say WS wins, unless you know you're playing in a campaign where one type of enemy is extremely common.
But considering the other bonuses you get from Ranger 1, it might be worth it.

Will the game forever be level 4, or will you eventually reach 5?

I agree.

Going rogue would also mean that your fortitude saves will lag a bit, so another +2 from multiclassing (in addition to the +2 to reflex, nice for someone with evasion) would be nice.

Guys I was playing an alchemist but the forums told me that I should be playing a paladin because, you know...paladins.

Should I go back to Alchemist?

Paladins are good, but I can't see what they have in common with alchemists... why not play a wizard then? because, you know... wizards.

Hmm...

Fighter(Crossbowman) with all the crossbow feats. Focuses entirely on getting the drop on the enemy then fallback and repeat.

Alchemist is in APG. Explosive Missile though is in UC therefore illegal.

I see. It's a pity, the UC is full of interesting stuff

Alchemists get access to a discovery named explosive missile: you load and fire an ammunition with a bomb inside as a standard action.
Get a heavy crossbow, the vital strike chain and with a couple of discoveries and feats you will be at least decent in damage, with some options for stealth (spells, dex based and lots of skills).
Your BAB is not impressive, but you don't care about iterative attacks as a sniper, and dex is very high (thanks to mutagens).
Special bombs offers some nice options (smoke bomb, the entangling one etc.)

I don't think it's an optimal option but should be a fun one.
On a side note, cheap poisons (thx to master alchemist) can be applied as a swift action from low-mid levels and allow you to target another save, kind of useful against spellcasters.

One of my players insists that magic fang applies to all natural weapons of one type: in particular, he would like to use it on his druid's tiger to get both claws +1 with a single instance of the spell.
Now, I thought that he was joking, but it turned out that not only he believes this is correct, but he also says that many guides suggest to cast the spell on claws instead of bite because you gain double the benefit.
Since he seems to be so sure I thought I'd ask you guys about it. So, who is right and who is wrong?

Magus, almost all diviners, almost all gishes, barbarian, samurai/cavalier, multiclass fighter and even sap-rogues and guide/IE-Ranger.

Guess that somehow covers every single martial class in the game.

Sure, vanilla fighter has some strengths - but its not damage.

Magus burns through his resources like there is no tomorrow, which against a calculating opponent may actually prove true (bbeg that let you run through his ranks before showing up). Or if you are a calculating magus you may spend your fights being uncool because a more serious treat may show up an hour later... They are also subject to more frequent appearance of SR the higher the level.

Diviners: as a diviner wizard you mean? what's so good about them? starting first? impressive, but that's best used for battlefield control imo. Anyway, damage sucks at lower levels, SR becomes a problem later on.

Barbarian: only if you go for certain options, like raging brutality or come and get me. The first requires you to nova like a magus, the second requires an enemy to attack you in the first place and it's quite feat intensive. The only true major point for barbarians is pounce, and you need to fly to use that consistently. Now, when I said that specific barbarian builds are better than vanilla fighters I was referring exactly to beast totem barbarians with come and get me, and I admit they are crazy good: the others? not better than a plain vanilla fighter.

Samurai/cavalier: mount dependant, and even then I'm not so sure about that, since if you compare mounted combatants you have to compare samurai/cavalier with the dragoon achetype, which is pretty good too.

multiclass fighters: well, yeah, I'd say that anything that isn't a full spellcaster can be improved by multiclassing.

sap rogues: another niche, which only deal nonlethal damage (a problem against undead). Requires set up of shaken (not possible for all enemies).

guide rangers or IE: limited use, you are great against bosses, if your DM prefers more similarly powerful enemies you are not nearly as impressive. Weapon training and gloves of dueling are almost as good as a maxed out favored enemy (+7/+7 vs +10/+10) even before weapon spec and are always on. Also, if you put all of your money in 3rd level pearls of power to cast IE you are optimizing for damage in my book.

I believe my points remains correct: vanilla fighter is better at dealing damage than vanilla anything else. Damage-focused anything else can rival and in some cases surpasses vanilla fighter in dealing damage, but at the expenses of much more.

I have seen some GMPC, they ranged from "small nuisance" to "big problem".
I tried to use GMPC a couple of time too: always thought they were doing great, always learned months later that every player would have been happier without them.

The further you go from NPC to GMPC, the worst. Even the occasional NPC who travels for a few sessions with the PCs should be avoided in my opinion. The only exception may be the damsel in distress, only because she makes the PCs feel more heroic (therefore she should be utterly useless and vulnerable, no rescued princess with the same number of levels as the PCs).

I use a vanilia 2HW fighter with PA, weapon spec. to compare other melee builds - and really if they aren't doing better than the vanila fighter they aren't doing it right...

Fighters are not the best DPR melee class.

Sorry guys, but what are you thinking about?

The others have already suggested some good options, but I'd rather point out that a fighter taking the w. spec. tree is not really devoting himself to damage dealing only: the fighter get so many bonus feats to both take w.spec. tree AND do a bunch of other stuff.
Also, fighters should be the best in combat and they are. Being the best in combat does not necessarily mean being the best DPR: with the other features (weapon training) they have as good DPR as the bests of the bests, with other feats they can be the best in combat using other powerful options. If one fighter wants to dwarfs a specialized barbarian in DPR he will have to devote extra resources in terms of feats (w. spec.), but we are speaking of being better that a dedicated DPR from a class that's devoted to fighting. If you take the vanilla fighter without weapon spec. and compare it to the vanilla barbarian, ranger or paladin, the fighter is already ahead in terms of damage more often than not (the other classes can't even come close).
I don't see why a fighter should have higher DPR than another character that's focused on doing just that simply because of the fact that he is a fighter. If you create a focused tripper you will still be better than the others in combat by using that tactic, why do you think you also have to be the best in DPR?

Ranger, I love it!
You simply stay incredibly close to a fighter in terms of effectiveness in combat and yet you can do a lot more out of it.

I've looked around a little bit but I can't find anything on the subject

EDIT: to be more precise, I'm looking for a comprehensive list of poisons, tactics, crafting etc.
Also, does anyone know if you can apply a poison to a bullet using a firearm weapon?

Really makes no sense, I'd say to use the big cats progression reskinned as a bear (get pounce and rake out of the way and give it a +2 to CON).

As for creatures that starts large, it's because they suck (both camel and horse have hooves as secondary attacks), they are large because they are mainly mounts.

Do gloves of dueling work with archer fighter? That's relevant, without those the fighter's DPR is significantly below that of a ranger.

Of course it should be noted that ranger 15/fighter 5 is a rather interesting alternative if you want to max out DPR. You still get 1 level 4 spell (some are pretty nice, just think about bloodsworn retribution or freedom of movement), favored enemy at +8, weapon training (+3 with gloves of dueling, with no arguig about if they work or not), some feats (the ranger is almost on par with the fighter with its style feats, this closes the gap even further) including weapon specialization.
Also, the fighter cannot really dump wis, and investing into wisdom is saving the ranger a feat or two (iron will).

That said, the ranger's spells are a very nice feature, I would rather have those instead of a slightly higher dpr.

To conclude, my vote is for the ranger, but speaking about archer one should also consider the arcane archer, which may actually manage to take the crown (I would consider it superior at least to the archer).

On a side note, the benefit of having an animal companion should not be ignored too.

Guided enchantment.

Why would that be better on a crossbow than on a bow?

I'm playing an alchemist in a steampunk campaign.
I'm going to take the explosive missile discovery for flavor reasons only.
It allows you to use your bombs with ammunitions or bullets (only onehanded firearms, but that what I would have taken anyway). I'm not going to do secondary attacks (not my role, I don't want to be a striker), so don't take those into account.
I'd like both options, but I slightly prefer the crossbow since it's make more sense to apply a poison to a bolt than to a bullet (I don't think the rules prevent to do that). The problem is that using a crossbow requires a normal ranged attack instead of a touch ranged attack (which may make it worse than simply trowing my bombs): so, is there any reason to use a crossbow in this case instead of a gun?

Most of the houserules we use have already been stated by others. The most relevant one though it's that stat enhancers do not exist (belt, headband, manuals and whatever). Instead, you get one ability increase every two level, in addition to the one you get every four level. At levels 4th, 8th and so on you have to choose two different stats to enhance.
This result in slightly worse stats (in particular for casters, who would go for the +6 headband right away), but the wealth by level chart do not change.
Pets get only 1 point every 2 level (no double points every 4), since they generally get far less gear than PCs in the average game (I also thought about letting the player decide to allocate freely the additional points between PC and pet but decided against it).
The overall result is to have more iconic objects in the game. Also, cat's grace, bull's strenght and the other spells which enhance stats remain relevants longer.

For the same reason other two houserules exists: cloak (clasp) of resistance, amulet of natural armor and ring of protection are all slotless (this way you don't have to die orribly just because you liked a cloak of the manta ray).
Finally, for every +1 in a weapon or armor, a special property must be bought (so that weapons and armors too are a bit more iconic).

We are currently trying these houserules for the first time in two campaigns (my kingmaker one, just started, and a custom one, which will start next week). So far the only issue is a greater amount of homeworks in keeping track of the treasure, since I can't get it straight out of the adventure path.

Since I think the overall result is to have slightly stronger PCs (especially low-mid levels, we rarely go over lev 12, never above 15), we are using 15 points buy instead of the usual 20.

3 CR 11 dragons could be too much unless your players are really strong. If they play it smart I can't see them loosing against almost any APL 11 party that I can think of...

I play fighters because they are strong.
I usually mix in something else though, like ranger or rogue to get a few more skills and to give my PCs a different flavor

By the time the paladin get up his buffs and become as good as a fighter, the fighter has already made his first kills. This is for me the key of the fighter: you see an enemy and BAM, you strike it at full power. BTW, that's the reason why magi are that good.

Also, paladins have limited resources. This come up more times than you think, for example when an ally kills the enemy you were smiting (and it's not paladinesque to b*$&@ about stolen kills) or when you are smiting an opponent and have to focus on another one to help your dying ally (and choose between being ineffective or wasting another smite, two if later you go back to the first enemy).

There is ninja.
Knife master is a good start for TWF, but the issue with rogues is their to hit. 3 levels of weapon master (fighter archetype) allow you to take weapon training and use gloves of dueling: that alone gives you a +3 to hit and damage which is very good of course.
In my game you can't multiclass rogue and ninja, but I've seen people propose getting 1 level of knife master and the rest of ninja: the level of both should stack for determining how many sneak attack dice you roll and they are all d8. If this work this is surely your best bet, since ninjas are better than rogues in all relevant aspects.
If agile property is allowed for weapons, buy two agile kukris and take the dexterity route (I'd take it for most games anyway, I'd go for STR only if you have exceptionally high starting stats).

In our game the GM has to work pretty hard to avoid 3/4-round combats (assuming CR=APL+1).

Of course a combat can last longer if:
enemy is buffed and ambushes the PCs (1-2 rounds);
enemy's CR is more than +1 over APL (about 1 round for every +1);
enemy employs special tactics (fly, burrow etc) that make it difficult to attack (1 round)

This for a group of 4-5 PC only two/three decently optimized and another 1/2 almost dead weights.

One of my players would like to be a bastard tiefling heir of House Rogarvia.
This could generally cause problem, but the player is very good and said that his PC does not want to became a king in the new realm, and even less claim Brevoy for himself.
The idea is that he was raised by the Issian master of assassin in secrecy, and for some reason ended up in prison (more or less at the same tome of the Rogarvia disappearance) where he stayed until now.

So: I'm not worried about him doing something outrageous as a Rogarvia descendant. What I'm worried is that the Rogarvian themselves will appear again during the Adventure Path and that their disappearance will be explained in the last modules. Will this happen? Do you have some cool ideas on how to mesh this element in the story?

When i see words like sourceror, resistence, rouge and similar, i get very annoyed, but i resist correcting the people who wrote them. And i see some people persistently write like that. Why does that annoy me so?

Any ideas?

It's "I", not "i".

Premise: in a couple of weeks I'll begin GMing Kingmaker. Up to know I've read rather accurately the first three modules and I'm planning to start playing having read all the six modules. I've also read a bit from the inner sea guide, but aside from that I know very little about Golarion.

One of my player would like to play an half-elf bard/ranger. I asked all of my player to create a PC who would have drive in creating a new kingdom (too many times my group's fun has been ruined by "the oppositor", the one PC who does not care at all about all the others are trying to achieve). This one player said that his PC would like to reunite all the elves and create a kingdom where they can live in peace together with humans.
How can I implement this in the campaign? I was thinking of saying that there are some small elven settlements in the stolen lands, whose number have been dwindling for centuries because of the various threats of the region. All these elves don't trust humans (because of history and because all the humans they know are bandits) and can't unite because they lack a leader: with a series of challenges I'm planning to have this one player demonstrate his valor and unite all of them under his banner.
Is there any better way to do this? I'm looking for ideas, since I find this general outline rather uninteresting...

Ring of freedom of movement, or the new item on the item compendium that does something similar on command.

I can't help you, but I can say you that your ideas are very cool.

Talk to your players before the start of the campaign and discuss this kind of stuff.
Do you (all) want to roleplay or not?
Do you want all encounters to be beatable by strength alone or not?
Do you want random encounters or not?

And the list goes on. Simply, discuss the kind of game you all want to play and find something you all would like to play. Even if you can't agree on everything, knowing what will came up will help a lot.

Yes, it's all about expectation.
You are playing at the wrong APL, it's just that. If you want your PCs to slug it out with balors and great wyrms (or even frost giants and adult dragons) you can't expect them to feel threatened by a simple fall or by the local tavern's owner. There was a fantastic post on a blog (Alexandrian or something, can't search from here) which did a great job at explaining this.

So, either play at levels 1 to 4 or understand that a level 12 character is not someone out of our world.
If you want environment to be significant, make your players go to really dangerous places (which mostly means other planes), and make the local tavern owner a balor with a wooden leg.

Antagonize, one of the only ways for tanks to be useful.

Okay but why does it need to be a feat? Can a character not insult an opponent with out a feat and a rule?

I agree, I'd simply embed the relevant text in the skills.

I would say the item is worth about 10000.

I agree.

Bracer of archery are not obsolete: they were a level 16 (and higher) item before, and they are a level 16 (and higher) item now, you just have to add the bracer of falcon aim as a secondary property.

On second thought I'm not sure this would be legal...

If you think one rules lawyer is bad, imagine this if you can. A table of 6 PC's and 2 GM's... of which 6 are practicing criminal attorneys, one is a sitting criminal court judge, and the other is an electrical engineer. EVERY comma has a meaning... every prior edition and errata carry weight as "legislative intent". Blog posts are printed off and brought to table as "persuasive authority" but only FAQ and Dev's posts count as "binding authority". Unfortunately, sometimes players have been known to slip back into the mindset of the "adversarial system" where if something is missed that goes against the GM, it was the GM's fault for not catching it (although incorrect rulings against the players are always ret-conned to the correct result). There are usually 5-6 laptops or Ipads at the table w/ the SRD or electronic copies of the rule books always open. Flow charts of the grapple rules are laminated for quick reference.

Scary.

Anyone have anything else to add before I go off to the drawing board

Check out the archetypes. The guide is my favorite, it's always an amazing choice, and probably the best one at low levels.

Not sure if they are "must-haves", but the adaptive and designating ranged weapon qualities seem nifty!

Adaptative is the new standard for archers, I lost the count of how many times I've been screwed by a ray of enfeeblement.

As for designating... if you want to let the other players have fun why are you playing an archer?

Split the group in two and stick with the best one.

Also, the figures you see on these boards are often quite insane and I wouldn't use them as the bar for what works well and what doesn't.

Go by price, cloak of resistance = 1000 gp.
The wealth reflect their capabilities, not how big a tavern they will get when they retire and sell everything in their possession.