Darkholme's page

Serious or humor?

Cause if you're concerned about the thing going under your foot and cutting you, I don't see it happening with your sock and shoe holding it in place, but you could easily have a pocket either sewn to the inside of your sock or on a harness on your foot under your sock. It would be trivial to hire a tailor to do such a thing, and since you don't care what the thing looks like, you could likely craft it yourself with a crazy low DC (realistically anyone who understands how a needle and thread work - even having never used one themselves - could accomplish it given a couple hours).

But yeah.

Hide one in your sock, and wear one on your belt. Keep the one in your sock for emergencies and use the other one the rest of the time.

Whereas I mentioned an Adamantine Arrow for non-consumeable purposes - though normally it would be consumeable. - Because it's an affordable adamantine item that you will have taking up space roughly the size of two coins, in your sock.

A bolt would work too.

Gives you a tiny adamantine blade (which is useful outside combat) for 60 gold and either 1 silver or 5 copper, depending if you went bolt or arrow.

If you go with a weapon that doesn't count as ammunition, it'll be +3000 gold. I suppose you'll have it for in combat too (Whereas an arrow with a 1.5 inch shaft and no fletching isn't very useful for shooting) - but having some adamantine blades for outside combat is still crazy useful, and my option is affordable at level 1.

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That's an interesting little piece of information; and while I believe it would be difficult to provide evidence of such a claim - the accuracy or inaccuracy of that claim is irrelevant to this discussion.

Even if you're right about the medieval terminology, a tiny little boot knife is not represented as a dagger in D&D/Pathfinder. It's simply too small. Dagger stats would be excessively strong for it.

In medieval times they didn't categorize swords into short swords, long swords, bastard swords, and greatswords. Instead you had people just refer to it as a sword. Or a one handed sword vs two handed sword. Or if you were talking to an expert, by one of dozens of names for various subcategories of sword - often divided by the culture that designed them. In D&D however, that's how things are broken down. By size and functionality.

And none of that changes the fact that if you look up bootknife, you get a little knife like the one I put up a picture of.

tl;dr - The term bootknife has well established meaning. I said what it was and linked a picture from the first page of google searches of bootknife. Also, D&D (and therefore pathfinder) doesn't use the same categories as used in the real world (which are endlessly complex and many experts can argue about them for hours), they divided it up by size and functionality, which is quite useful for a game.

No man. a Dagger is much bigger. Like three times the size.

Dagger

A bootknife is no more a dagger than a shortsword is a greatsword.

@Darkholme: sorry in Pathfinder it is called the Blade Boot.

Oh.

Yeah, when you said bootknife, I thought you meant bootknife, which is a small knife designed to be small enough that you can holster it in your boot. There are sheathes for them that fit in the side of a boot, as well.

Your option is not great for fine manipulation, though useful in combat. I would still want the arrowhead for cutting through manacles.

@adamatine arrow discussion: what self respecting jailor lets the captives keep their boots?

lol.

You going to take my sweaty socks too?

Oh yeah. Specialty priests where one of the bestest parts of 2nd edition. (Along with setting stuff like Al-Qadim and Kara-Tur and Ravenloft...)

Alternately, I wouldn't mind seeing a priest class that didn't use spells at all. Instead, it would channel energy, and have an assortment of class abilities as it progressed that enhanced it's options to use channeled energy to set up a defensive ward, or purge an ally of unwanted conditions, or impose conditions on a foe, or repel creatures of an opposed alignment type, or temporarily summon creatures of an allied alignment type. Some priests of this type might focus more of their class advancement options and / or feats towards becoming really good at one use of channeled energy (to heal allies, or to smite enemies with holy fire/etc.), while others would stick to the basic abilities (which would scale with levels) and use those advancement options to instead broaden the range of ways they can use that channeled energy (to do the sorts of things mentioned above).

Like the priests in media, they would 'call upon their faith' and it would heal, or smite, or reveal what is hidden, or exorcise a force of an opposed philosophy, but only if the priest had learned that particular 'doctrine of faith,' so that not *every* priest of this sort would necessarily know how to exorcise or summon or dispel magic, but only those who learned the specific rites and mantras to channel their faith in that way...

I acknowledge that would be also cool, but I have been wanting specialty priests since 3e came out; and I'm convinced that having clerics that only cast spells that make sense for their gods would be way more believable than all the clerics using healing and harm spells.

It could be archetypes for the cleric and oracle that trade the spell-lists for other spell-lists and some new features instead of a new class - if necessary. Perhaps make a less martial oracle/cleric as well, and make it so you can take both archetypes.

@Threeshades: I agree, but most people don't see it that way.

People get weirded out when I say I'm building a rogue, and I don't take a single level in rogue - instead using ranger or bard - possibly plus prestige classes. Likewise when I make a 'monk' and it's all ranger, paladin, or fighter, built for unarmed combat (or monk weapons) and mobility.

@Azaelas Fayth

Arrowheads are easier to hide. You can slip it in your sock without hurting yourself, you can make a sheathe for it inside the lining of your boot, you could put it in the sole of the boot if youre clever about it.

If you go with the boot knife, the handle makes it harder to conceal.

Aside from that, I'm almost certain the arrow is cheaper.

If you can do Modern Pathfinder, how about Pathfinder Supers? - something on the order of V&V or GURPS Supers, but using the Pathfinder system, which has some really elegant rules for handling special maneuvers in combat.

Seems like a natural for SUPERgenius games to handle, lol.

You mean like Green Ronin's d20 Mutants and Masterminds, the very popular d20 supers game that spun off of D&D 3.0?

I'm not sure supers for PFRPG would offer anything substantially different from M&M to make it worth choosing over the very well established and supported product.

One thing I'd love to see:
Specialty Priests - 2e style.
Kindof like clerics in that they're divine casters with domains.
Kindof like wizards, in that they focus on spellcasting, and aren't so good at melee combat.
Add in a non-focus on healing, unless healing is one of the domains taken.

Ideally, with whole spell-lists for each domain - and getting 3 or 4 domains from the god's list, along with domain powers.

No ever buy magic arrows though.

You should always buy one adamantine arrow-even if you don't have a bow.

Break off the shaft, and keep the arrowhead in your shoe. If you're ever captured, you pull it out and use it to dig out of your cell/break out of your chains/cut open the door. Adamantine Ignores hardness. You can get out in just a few minutes.

Berserker-Warrior?

I mean, that's what he is (assuming you don't trade away rage.)

@Kthulhu

Ah.

For some of us, combat takes up 60% of the time in a session or less.

Even if all what you say is true, exactly why people have to build fighter for one sinlgle thing?

Building a fighter to do 3 or 4 things, means the fighter is good at none of them.

Of the wizard, sorcerer, or several other classes? Yes, there are a handful of options for them but they pretty much rely on the divine classes too.

Wizard has infernal healing.

Sorcerer has infernal healing. And they can get up to cure critical wounds at the same level as a cleric (or any other divine spell level 1-4 at the same level that class gets them) using a ring of spell knowledge - though yes, you can only wear two of them at a time due to ring slots. Bards can take the Rings of Spell Knowledge too.

Fighters can pull their own weight much more than a barbarian, rogue, or monk, but that doesn't put them at the same level as rangers and paladins.

In my experience, Paladins tend to ruin the fun of other players more than contribute to a party. This isn't because the players running them are dicks or the GM is being one, it just tends to limit a large amount of creative approaches to dealing with situations. When your players spend time at the table trying to work around another players alignment issues, it detracts from everyone's fun.

This too. I'm a firm believer that the Paladin is a better class than a fighter, and yet I don't play them and often disallow them due to experiences of them getting in the way of the rest of the party having fun. Fighters are in the same ballpark as a Paladin or Ranger in terms of power (and they're better than barbarians), but the Ranger and Paladin also have huge amounts of versatility the fighter just doesn't doesn't have.

The problem with the fighter isn't that he's too weak in comparison to the other melee characters. He's about as strong as the paladin, and a bit stronger than a ranger. Unfortunately, he's not much stronger, and the ranger and paladin are both better at a bunch of other stuff, and the fighter is only really good at the one thing you build him for.

That's because every encounter is [a beautiful and unique snowflake]. Ever have an encounter where everyone made the exact same decisions, rolled the exact same numbers on the dice, and everyone come out of the encounter exactly the same as they did the last encounter? Don't think so.

If you try and rely on pure numbers to prove the effectiveness of a class then I'm sorry to break the bad news to you but your findings will not be accurate because there will be factors you are missing.

Here's a piece of advice. When you've been playing D&D/Pathfinder long enough, you will know that certain classes can handle certain encounters better than others at times but that doesn't make it an overall better class.

I disagree with you.

Yes, luck, and quality of player tactics aren't things that can be easily taken into account, however, you can standardize them to compare the other elements, and in doing so, you can quantitatively state whether one class is objectively better than another or not, assuming you account for the other variables. It's not as simple as just calculating DPR, and it would actually involve alot of data entry and calculation. Perhaps spreadsheets, or an application would be needed to make it manageable in a reasonable amount of time, with any degree of useful evidence. But it can be done.

Sure, a more experienced player may be able to make them more effective than a less experienced player. Sure it's possible for a fantastic character of the most powerful class to roll nothing higher than a 3 for an entire evening. But neither of those things invalidates the above paragraph, as those things can happen to all the classes.

By that rationale, while all the Player Character Classes can handle encounters better than the Commoner NPC Class, that doesn't mean they're better than a Commoner. I think that is just blatantly false.

..

Does that mean this class will be appearing in some manner of published source?

That would be cool.

[http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2p4z9?Ring-of-Spell-Storing-Unintended-Effects#5]Ring of Spell Knowledge Unintended Effects[/url]

I noticed that RAW, Rings of Spell Knowledge allow for an arcane spontaneous caster (like a Sorcerer) to add divine spells to his spells known at the same level as in-class spells, but out of class arcane spells are at +1 level.

Oh. Whoops.

Yeah, similar names; and I typed spell-storing instead of spell-knowledge.

Sorry.

I agree with you about the intent not being that it's easier to learn divine spells from another class than arcane spells. It seems unlikely that they would do that on purpose.

I do like the idea of being able to add divine spells, but I would expect them to also be at +1 spell level.

However, it appears, RAW, If I want my sorcerer to learn druid spells, that's easier than having him learn bard spells.

But then, if I had written it, it would have been built to work for Oracles as well.

Looks like you guys have pretty much settled on a tier system.

Do you have any recommendations for putting together a balanced party?

There's some contention about which classes would go in which tier, such as the Cavalier (which has a bit of a hard time in enclosed spaces, and no option to get rid of the mount for other stuff.)

But Basically I would suggest (from my tiers) cutting down on the number of tiers you use. The bigger the gap, the more noticeable it will be.

If you have Tiers 1-6 in a party, it really shows, and the tier 4-6 guys might feel like they make much less important contributions to the party, unless your 1-3 guys are going out of their way to make them feel useful. If you only use tiers 1-3 it should be a bit closer, for instance. The power jump is more from 2-3; and the jump from 1-2 is more about flexibility. Tier 1 characters are more flexible than tier 2, but the power level is pretty similar. Tier 3 is a bit weaker than 2&1, but generally alot more flexible (but similar powered) than tier 4. Tier 4 are close in power to tier 3, but their schtick is useful less often. 5 and 6 are kindof pathetic.

And I would say (as a general rule): don't let anyone play rogues or monks or unless your top tier is 4 (in which case you need to keep that in mind when designing your adventures).
But they are rough guidelines. Someone with alot of system mastery could make a barbarian or fighter that keeps up with a meduim-system-mastery-built paladin; or a rogue who can almost keep up with a fighter. And a couple of the monk archetypes put them around fighter or ranger power level.

If you're going to have low tier characters be played, it helps to have very proficient players playing and building them.

I'd advise against letting new players make rogues or monks unless you're running a really weak tiered game; or it's a really experienced player making the monk or rogue (and even then, I would want to avoid the tier 1&2 characters).

If someone wants to build a rogue, try steering them to rogue-like archetypes of a higher tiered class like a ranger or a bard.

For monks, steer them toward more useful martial classes. An eastern skinned magus could work quite well, for instance. With a little work, again, ranger could do it (afterall, flurry of blows is just a crappier two weapon fighting). And maybe even paladin could do it with the right options.

So your argument basically boils down to "I like playing Evil and possibly distruptive characters, thus I render your argument invalid" or something similar? Sorry to break the news to you dude, but that does not make the Paladin any less an option as a class. All you did was prove that a DM should ensure the party can work together instead of being a bunch of jerks to one another. It's also why I usually do not allow Chaotic Stupid of the "I am Chaotic Evil but I'll tell the DM I'm Chaotic Neutral instead" variety that piss me off to no end.

In my experience, characters like those listed above make for a very interesting campaign, and not all of those characters would qualify as evil. Some could easily called neutral.

And as for disruptive, I have to say those characters are less disruptive than the majority of paladins I have seen in games.

For instance: Detecting Evil and then smiting random townsfolk without evidence of any wrongdoing.

I'm of the opinion that Paladins are better than Rangers and Fighters, but I often disallow them because they frequently turn out to be more disruptive than a CN Rogue constantly robbing the party.

I will note that I don't assume a good aligned party - I assume the party will include neutral characters, and it *May* include good and/or evil characters as well.

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Ring of Spell Storing

"Arcane spells that do not appear on the wearer’s class list are treated as one level higher for all purposes (storage and casting)."

So far as I can tell, there's no stipulation that the spells put in the ring be arcane spells.

So it seems RAW: Class spells, and divine spells from any class list can all be learned at the regular level, and Arcane spells that aren't on your list are at +1 Spell Level.

Am I wrong?

If not, Sorcerer with some of those nifty cleric spells could be awesome. Perhaps Inquisitor, Druid, Ranger, or Paladin too.

A Sorcerer with Cure Light wounds as a 1st level spell could be handy in some cases, for sure.

A wizard who goes nova in the first combat of the day and then complains would get no sympathy from anyone I've ever gamed with. There's a reasonable understanding that their power pendulum swings a lot more than anyone elses.

Yeah, I gotta say; Casters who expect a 15 minute adventuring day are going to have problems when they don't get it, but I've only ever played with a group who would tolerate that stuff once. And it only works in a dungeon, without time-sensitive plot. (Basically with no plot at all, just the dungeon).

If you rest a dozen times on the way up the wizard's 3 story tower? Well, you likely missed the fight with the BBEG, and maybe you find a little note taunting you for your failure.

It is only a 3rd level spell. A minor rod of quicken makes it a swift action.

In addition to Paragon Surge you also have the Ring of Spell Knowledge and pages of spell knowledge. The rings can be dynamically set to any arcane spell the user has experianced or has knowledge of (including new spells they witness being cast). Non-class arcane spells require a ring capable of holding a spell of the next higher level.

A sorcerer with only a few rings can changes his spells available more rapidly than a wizard, and at a lower total cost. (You only need a single ring of each level as opposed to purchasing large numbers of scrolls and paying the inscription cost for each spell.)

Pages of spell knowledge are less flexible but cheaper for single spells.

I dunno about the rings. I don't see any mention of the ability to empty the ring so you can put another spell in it. You sure you're not stuck with the first spell you teach it?

So it's because he could have a hard time in small hallways?

Anywhere you have to climb or swim to, hallways, bedrooms, kitchens, the local pub, the King's court, anywhere a horse isn't welcome...

I like to store my mount in a bag of holding when I need to do those things. Just long enough to climb, or swim, or what have you. And if combat happens I can let him jump out.

Yes, and the small cavalier is my favorite way to build one, just for that reason. However, once you start making a small melee character, you'll have to give up 4 points on STR, which is a really bad start on a melee build. (-2 for the racial penalty of both Halfling and Gnome, and -2 you would have generally added from Human, Half-orc, or Half-elf.)

You could use Ranged Weapons... lol.

"Good support character" is a way to say "Bad lead character". Don't get me wrong - I love playing characters that aid their companions with buffs, debuffs, cures, etc. In fact, I wish more character types had access to party-helping tools. (e.g. really good ways for melee characters to use shields to benefit adjacent allies, or melee induced debuffs that lower saving throws.) But if a fair number of a characters combat actions aren't spent adversely effecting the enemy, you're probably not contributing very much.

I would argue that giving the rest of the party +your level to hit and damage (I think that's what it is, off the top of my head) to all their attacks is likely a pretty good contribution, especially if you do it once and it lasts a while after that.

I would rate Cavalier as equal to the other melee classes if I knew the campaign would allow use of the mount 90% of the time. But even in Kingmaker, the most outdoor campaign I've ever played, you're not going to hit anything like 90%. I'm playing a level 11 Paladin with a bonded mount in Kingmaker right now. I'd say mount access is around 50/50...

Hmm. I want to play a Drow Cavalier with one of those Drow Cave mounts (Giant Spiders or Giant Lizards, both of which can stick to walls).

My take on Tiers

Out of Curiosity:

What do you guys think about where I placed the Cavalier, Witch, and Druid?

Would you suggest moving them? and if so, why?

Yeah, I figured the houndmaster wouldn't count, but I haven't really played or seen anyone else play a stock Cavalier. Most of the GMs I've played with (and myself) allow pretty much anything that's in the later rounds of RPG superstar, or made by people who got to the later rounds of RPG superstar; as it's all been accepted or rejected by Paizo (unless something looks really OP).

Hmm.

So it's because he could have a hard time in small hallways?

He COULD dismount, there's nothing stopping him from having the horse trample people, or you could play one that's a small creature if you're in a dungeon crawl.

IME the Teamwork feats and the non-mount based Cavalier abilities make him a decent melee combatant, as well as a good support character, like a bard or a cleric/wizard focused on party buffs.

Out of Curiosity, would you rate the Cavalier higher in a non-dungeon crawl game (Largely wilderness and cities)? - Many Paizo APs and many people's campaigns are mostly outdoors.

Treantmonk's Tiers
Tier 1: Wizards. Still the top of the chain. They can't fufill every role as well as 3.5 due to changes in Polymorph, but I think they are still powerful enough to place them at the top of the pyramid.

Tier 2: Druids, Clerics, Sorcerers. Druids have been demoted due to changes in wildshape, while Core Clerics were never tier 1 - it took Divine Metamagic for that tier placement. All remain very powerful classes though.

Tier 3: Paladins, Bards, Rangers. Paladins have to be pushing tier 2, while Rangers didn't get boosted quite as much, but still did well in Pathfinder. Bards are a mixed bag, but certainly deserving of a tier 3 position (in spite of rumors to the contrary)

Tier 4: Rogues, Barbarians, Fighters, Monks (The Monk is arguably Tier 5 - I haven't evaluated it closely enough)

Tier 5 and 6: Nobody.

It's a bit dated, but this is how Treantmonk ranked them a while back, and he was my go to guy for guides for a while.

Hey Darkholme, just thought i would mention you can't ask an opinion based question and then tell people they are wrong.

I'm pretty sure that's not what happened.

Gorbacz seemed to misunderstand the initially proposed rating scale. So I asked him to clarify. Turns out he did not misunderstand.

I commented that the people who were giving no detail and the people who were not answering the question at all, or were saying all classes are of the same powerlevel were not helping with figuring out the tiers (for the rest of us who believe not all the classes are equally good).

It's kindof like when you see a thread about "Monk Fixes" and instead of helping the poster who clearly sees something he'd like to see addressed, you just get like 30 messages saying "Monk is great, one of the best classes, stop complaining". Not very helpful.

As far as i'm concerned there is two tiers.

PC Classes > NPC Classes. Everything else is an opinion.

I would say that is also an opinion. For instance, I would have a hard time deciding between Monk and Warrior (assuming no funky Archetypes) - which says to me that Monk is likely on par with the NPC classes.

Blueluck's & Minoritarian's Posts about two hours ago were fantastic; and gave all the sorts of information I was looking for.

Tier 1: Cleric, Druid, Witch, Wizard, Oracle (with Paragon Surge), Sorcerer (with Paragon Surge)
Tier 2: Psion, Oracle, Sorcerer, Summoner
Tier 3: Alchemist, Bard, Inquisitor, Magus, Psychic Warrior, Wilder
Tier 4: Barbarian, Fighter, Gunslinger, Ninja, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Soulknife
Tier 5: Cavalier, Expert, Monk, Samurai
Tier 6: Aristocrat, Commoner, Warrior

Tier 1: Cleric, Druid, Witch, Wizard

Tier 2: Oracle, Sorcerer
Tier 3: Alchemist, Bard, Inquisitor, Magus, Summoner, Fighter, Paladin, Ranger
Tier 4: Barbarian, Gunslinger, Ninja, Rogue, Cavalier, Monk, Samurai
Tier 5: Adept, Aristocrat, Commoner, Expert, Warrior

@Blueluck - Why would you arrange them that way instead of as per the guide Minoritarian posted?

How does the Paragon Surge thing work? From what I can tell, you can only pick spells that are on your class list, not any arcane spell. (though it's still pretty neat).

Monk 20

Wizard 1
/thread

You just said the wizard is as weak as the commoner, and no class is as good as the monk.

I believe you meant

Monk 1

Wizard 20
/thread

Also, even if I agreed with that (monk is as good as commoner, wizard is the best), that doesn't say anything about where any of the other classes fit in.

Summoner > 9 Level casters > 6 Level casters (other than Summoner, but including Alchemist) > 4 Level Casters > Full BAB non-casters > Monk and Rogue

Archetypes
Qinggong Zen Archer = 4 level casters
Master Summoner > Summoner

Thank you! This is the sort of detail I was looking for.

How big is the gap between each step? How much better is a 9 level caster than an alchemist? How much better is a Full-BAB non-caster(barbarian) than a Monk or Rogue?

Google JaronK Tier system Pathfinder. What you are mostly asking for is described as a tier system as to how powerful AND versatile classes are, these are ranked 1 (highest) to 6 (lowest) .

Generally full spellcasters come out way on top, followed by spellcasters and the tougher warrior types then Bard, Monk and the NPC classes. Biggest debate is where Summoner, Bard and Rogue fit in.

Tier 1- prepared spellcasters
2. Spontaneous full spellcasters.
3. Not full spellcasters- Alchemist, Inquisitor, maybe adept.
4. Warriors, skill monkeys. (some of the better classes may be T3)
5. Cavalier, Monk, maybe expert or aristocrat
6. Other NPC classes.

Excellent. I'll look this up.

I knew that 9 level casters (druid particularly) and summoners were somewhere at the top, and that Monks and Rogues near the bottom, but I had no idea where the other things fit in.

Looking it up, I can't find a decent version of the list for Pathfinder, just 3.5. If someone can link me a version of JaronK's Tier system that's geared at pathfinder, let me know. In the meantime, I'll be looking for it on google.

So.

Just curious

If one were to rank (based on performance/power) all of the base classes (stock, not using archetypes) 1-20, with 1 being Commoner, and 20 being either Druid or Summoner whichever is 'better performing', how would you rate the other classes?

Classes can have the same number if they are the same overall power/performance.

Curious to see how people rank them.

Arguments or links to why you rank things a certain way are welcome.

There was a 5-level Grave Digger base class in a 3.0 book called Legends & Lairs: Darkness & Dread. It was geared at running a horror game. Similar in concept to Heroes of Horror.

It included a Gravedigger class as well as a few others. I believe one of them was Beggar.

It was kindof neat - but I think it would make a pretty underwhelming 20 level class. They only had 5 levels for a reason.

Hmm. That would be a terrible trade.

I would think if you're getting rid of the Animal Companion completely, you should be getting most of the evolution points a Summoner gets for the Eidolon, and you should have them all the time, not just the brief period while shapeshifted Druid shifting is nowhere near as awesome as what a synthesist does. If it's time limited as per wildshape, I could see an argument for allowing ALL the evolution points a summoner would get. You're giving up the biggest class feature besides spellcasting.

But yeah. That's the basic idea. Trade some druid class feature, for the ability to be better in the animal forms, and use evolution points to determine the guidelines for how good the things you turn into can be on top of normal shifting.

Wildshape a bit closer to what it was in 3.x, but with a check on the character powerlevels.

Yeah. I know a straight up swap of Animal Companion for Eidolon wouldn't work, just like a straight up swap of Familiar for Eidolon. I was thinking the trick would be less points, or counting as a lower level summoner, or something.

It also occurred to me that there might be cool things which could be done involving Evolution points and shapeshifting druid style (building a couple different forms you can change into or something).

Eidolon-Mechanics Based Animal Companion Replacement for Rangers, Druids, and Cavaliers, and Paladins.
Eidolon-Mechanics based Familiar Replacement for Wizards, Sorcerers, and Witches.
Ideally, allowing for non-outsider options, and definitely having them stay around 24/7. Also, a method to get the Animal Companion strength one for the wizard would be good (like the Animal Companion Wizard mentioned upthread).

Maybe an Animal-Companion-Mechanics based Eidolon Replacement for Summoners. Less customizeable, but maybe it stays around all the time, and you're getting outsiders instead of animals. So it's not the "summonable eidolon" but you keep your summon spells, the companion is around all the time, and at higher levels you have like, a bearded devil following you around - or like; 6 imps with upscaled BAB (but still low damage)

Eidolon, Animal Companion, or Familiar options for non-caster classes. Perhaps a Beast taming Ranger option with support for two full animal companions, giving up spellcasting or something.

Archetypes that let you use Eidolon Build points to customize your own character; gaining claws, or wings, or whatever, and having a pool of evolution points. Perhaps an 'evolving' Barbarian.

Eidolons, Familiars, or Animal Companions for Clerics.

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In some settings (Not sure about Golarion) when a character dies they go to the land of their god, and become native to their god's plane.

In such a setting (Say: Forgotten Realms for example) you could easily use Planar Binding to summon your dead. I used it once to summon the party cleric after an almost TPK, and I had him raise himself.

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I played a LN Orc who ate the dead. He skinned and cooked them.

One of the other players insisted it was evil. I insisted it wasn't evil. They're made of meat, and they're not using it anymore. My orc wasn't killing people just to eat them; but once they're already dead, why waste the meat? I even told the party that if I die, they shoul'd eat, and just save a hand so for resurrection.

It looks pretty good.

I'm curious why you went with a base class instead of a Cavalier archetype.

Also: Dotted.

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But if you have a conflict where the rules and the setting depart (which happens frequently) which one holds higher value at your table.

I'm a firm believer in consistency, and following RAW as much as possible without it ruining the game experience.

Unfortunately this does sort of problem does happen.

Genie Binding, Peasant Railgun, Peasant Grapple Speed Train, D&D 3.5 City Nuke.

And on a smaller scale, it happens constantly: In the established setting, they pretend hitpoints don't work the way they do. For Instance, a level 20 barbarian can be riddled with arrows and crossbow bolts, and just keep coming. The system tries to handwaive it away as the skill to reduce serious injuries to minor ones; and endurance, and all that stuff. And yet, it takes more and more magical healing to repair more and more minor injuries under this explanation.

So either you get supernaturally tough as you level, or you get supernaturally resistant to healing magic and get begin to heal from wounds slower.

When it comes down to choosing stupid or gamebreaking but technically legal, or reasonable, but saying no to RAW, I say no, and then amend the rule that raised the problem. After a while, my game rules drift more and more away from pathfinder RAW. Sometimes, fixing the break from verisimilitude would be painfully difficult to the point of rewriting the game. If the problem can't be dodged, I change the setting to match the mechanics.

So it's a bit of both.

I felt the need, years ago, to work the supernatural toughness from leveling into the setting, and explain it as such. (Otherwise I'd feel the need to rewrite the HP and damage of the game to match the setting).

Same goes for armor. It stops you from being hit. It doesn't protect you when you get hit. Otherwise, when you got hit, you would take less damage if wearing armor than if naked, and that's clearly not the case.

Everyone in the world isn't ignorant to these facts. That's how the world works. They might not know exactly how levels work, but they have a vague idea, and understand how far you can get from training and experience. NPCs take levels. Often in 'adventurer classes'.

Pathfinder and D&D do a bad job simulating a fantasy world without these really weird idiosyncrasies.

If I'm not going to just accept them and use them, I generally play a different game - removing them would involve rewriting pretty much everything (I'd want HP to not scale with level, and armor to protect from harm when struck). If I want to still do fantasy, I do have other choices: Angel, Ghosts of Albion, Witchcraft, Dungeons and Zombies, RuneQuest 6, Mongoose' Legend, SIFRPG, or maybe Dresden Files RPG.

You could also go with an Urban Skirmisher Ranger.

That would have been my first approach. It would also be fairly effective with two weapons and light/medium armor, and pretty straightforward to play. Particularly if he takes the non-animal companion option.

Thanks muchly! :)

I look forward to receiving it.
If there are any difficulties or I don't get the package I will contact you guys for support. :)

I tried it again, and this time the button worked and brought me to a page to enter my address.

So I put in my address where I live.

Can you let me know how the shipping would work? If it would be Canada Post dropping it off (usually the case if USPS has it at the border, stateside) then I dont have any difficulty getting my mail.

If it's UPS, or Purolator, or DHL, I've had nothing but headaches, and it almost always ends up taking hours of phonecalls and 3 or 4 days of me taking a whole day off or I never receive my mail. There have been times I'm still trying to receive my mail a month after the tracking said it 'arrived in the city'.

So its really important to me I know how the package would arrive.

... How do I change the address in the My Pledge Drives or Order History page?

There seems to be no option to do it in the Order History, and My Pledge Drive page has a button but the button doesn't do anything.

Hello again.

They said the reward shipments will be sent through Paizo. Just want to make sure I've got the address straightened out.

Which address I give will depend on which shipping company is sending them out.

If it's USPS I can give my local address, but my experience is that UPS and Fedex and DHL and Purolator often don't bother to deliver to apartment buildings (their policy is to not bother delivering to apartment buildings if they are behind schedule), and none of their offices to pick up the item are within 1 hour of my house.

So depending on who you guys use for shipping, the address I will want to use will be different.

Also, I need to make sure you guys have an address I can receive packages at.

So.

Who do you use for shipping?
How do I fix the address for my preorder of thornkeep?

Darkholme wrote:

Hmm.

Monk Needs an AoMF.

Alchemist need anything that got left off the list? Witch? (any other class that's missing it's necessities?)

Magus: gloves of elvenkind

Sorcerer/Bard/Summoner: rings of spell knowledge, pages of spell knowledge.

Oh, Interesting! I've never heard of Rings of Spell Knowledge. I guess I should sit down and read Ultimate Equipment.

Is there something like Rings of Spell Knowledge that gives higher level spells known? The wizard can always pay to learn spells up to 9th.

Extrapolating costs, All of the prices given are 1.5x the price of armor bonuses of that level.

Theoretically they could cost (if available): Type V (37,500), VI (54,000), VII (73,500), VIII (96,000), IX (121,500)

Hmm.

Monk Needs an AoMF.

Alchemist need anything that got left off the list? Witch? (any other class that's missing it's necessities?)

I want to make sure I've got all the essential nonconsumeables for all the classes.

I'm throwing together a little subsystem for my next game based on Kelso's work, with input from myself.

Basically, I want to not have to worry about the quantity of money or magic items the players get; and if they're over or under. I'd like to also have the option to use sunder maneuvers without so many hard feelings out of game.

Therefore, bake the necessary math boosts which people get from items right into character advancement; giving the players points they can spend on the math boosts they want, and reserving magic items for cool and interesting things.

What would you say are the essentials for say, a wizard?

Okay. So I'm familiar with the concept that some of the magic items are considered "Essential".

I'm trying to get a better idea of what magic items are considered "Essential" for any of the classes.

Here are the ones I'm used to, and I'm interested in hearing about any I'm missing:

Weapon Enhancement Bonus.
Armor Enhancement Bonus.
Cloak of Resistance.
Ring of Protection.
Amulet of Natural Armor.

What else counts? Pearls of Power? Metamagic Rods? Wands? New Spells Learned (Wizard)?

I'm looking for any "Essential" enhancements or items for any class.

Also: Is there a magic item that gives insight or dodge bonuses to AC?

Thanks Guys

Lists should now properly show threads.

So they do.

Thanks! :)

The links seem to be working again, but my list is still missing the vast majority of pages I read and reread on here (Most of the things in my lists were threads). I had been using it as a cross-device bookmark list.

I had a number of threads I had listed.

Some of them were not currently updated anymore, but still contained a wealth of useful information for games. (That was why I listed them in the first place).

Alternate Game mechanics, GM Advice, Analysis of Classes, etc.

The pages aren't in my lists anymore, and links pointing to them no longer work.

HELP!