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Okay, first of all, I know that RAW a Paladin cannot multiclass with a druid and maintain his powers, and vice-versa. That having been said, a group I am DM'ing for just slaughtered the animal inhabitants of a forest to create flaming, skeletal critters to use as mines for an attack against a cult.

I feel it suitable to design an encounter which implies the consequences of their actions, but make no mistake: My goal is not to punish them. I think they would actually enjoy slaying a champion of the forest. As such, I'm gonna wave the obvious rules inconsistency to give them a fun, but challenging, fight.

The thing is, I don't really know how to optimize this concept. The group will be 7th level by the time the fight occurs, and typically do well in combat encounters (they'll have a CR5 undead ally with them), and there are 5 of them, most of whom can dish out some pretty sick damage, with an Antipaladin, Ranger, and storm Cleric in the front while the Arcane Trickster and Rogue support with flanks and sneak attacks.

I think the Paladin/Druid could manage, but I'm curious to see how the community would build it without my input. My initial thought is Paladin 5/Druid 5 against this group for decent wild shaping smites and some good Summon Nature's Ally spells, but I could also see Paladin 2/Druid 8, or Paladin 6/Druid 4, etc.

Anyways, thoughts?

Just for this, I'm going to add an adventure for my group with a 5 rating LUUUPV. Just because I can. Also, templates... templates everywhere...

I'll be posting Brellig, the Dwarf Ranger/Witch shortly, once I finish the profile. Neutral Good, going into Eldritch Knight ASAP, just FYI. Emphasis is a sort of "jack of all trades" with combat support magic.

I've heard lots of good things about Ravenloft, but have never experienced it. Color me intrigued. Character in the works, probably a martial melee type, maybe a Magus. I'll post my submission later.

You may want to consider 1 different bomb element, as that will help with fire resistance. Wings will be a good discovery to get once you get to mid levels, but for early levels I'd probably take either Precise Bombs and Incendiary Bombs, or take both.

Incendiary is actually a really great bomb choice. Not only does it do more damage (1d6+Int Modifier per round PLUS AoE splash each round), but the enemy can put it out with a full-round action, which makes it a great "damned if you do, damned if you don't" discovery. Precise Bombs is always nice, but as you said, archery may be a good way of negating that issue.

You may want to grab infusion so you can share your extracts. It's always nice to be able to spontaneously prep a cure light wounds extract for a downed buddy, or a resist energy extract for your tank when you know a tough fight is a-coming.

Color me Interested. 40th level? A chance at all sorts of craziness, PLUS cosmic tomfoolery and general shenanigans? Sounds like fun.

The neutral alignments would probably be the most fun to play at that level. An avatar of the law, or of tricks and pranks, or any other number of neither good nor evil philosophies leaves things open for interpretation. But then again, you could have a Silver Dragon god of Paladins and Justice, too. Oh, so many interesting options. I wonder if we might even get to put the ARG race builder to good use? >_>

Nothing says epic like a 30 point point race in a 40th level game :P

Don't know if anyone suggested this yet, but felt I should mention it.

Beastmorph Archetype stacks with Vivisectionist. This gets you pounce at 7th-8th level, I believe. Maybe sooner. If you're going for a full-attack build, this is basically a must have.

I like it. It gives the monk a variety of defensive options (snake+crane+panther is GREAT), some potent offensive options against many opponents, and some fun abilities and benefits. They lose Flurry of Blows, but it's easily made up for with various other abilities.

Lower the Frozen Condition to 1 round, limit it to a few times per day OR once per combat, and I think it'd be fine. It goes over wealth by level a bit, and I would expect the PC to use the weapon for a LONG time, but with the suggested changes it wouldn't be too bad.

Keep in mind, it doesn't need to be an instrument that sounds good, simply an instrument.

Hence, you could summon an Adamantine Double-Bass if you felt so inclined.

Dotting for interest. I'm thinking maybe a magus, but I'll have to think about it for a while.

No.

I could see a Dragon Disciple 4-level dip for a non-Synthesist summoner if you want to have more melee ability at the cost of relatively few spells. Extra strength, some fancy abilities, and not TOO much progression loss on the eidolon.

It isn't optimal, true, but it definitely seems viable.

I actually really wanna try Tephra. If you haven't seen it, look it up. Looks really simple & fun.

Actually, I think any class can make use of the enchantments. I believe they get 1/2 your character level to the DC, which is REALLY good. You don't need sky-high Charisma, just enough to pump the DC's slightly. Cavalier could also function well, as certain orders have Charisma-based abilities.

That's not "society" building up that idea. That's the political reality of a first-past-the-post voting system. If you don't want to use the system in the way that is most beneficial to yourself, that's fine. But you don't, for instance, get to vote for Ralph Nader in a swing state in the 2000 election and then complain about Bush being elected.

I didn't, and I wouldn't :P.

Because democracy is not about getting exactly what you want all the time, and throwing up your arms and complaining about that by calling your choice "the lesser of two evils" makes you sound like a spoiled child. You should bother voting for them because one of those candidates is a better choice for you than the other (and if you disagree, you aren't paying attention).

I forgot that you got to decide how I should vote. If I decide that neither of the Republican/Democratic candidates represents what I want in a president, and don't feel that either person is a better choice than they other, then it really doesn't matter if I vote for someone else, does it?

Ya know, I've tried to stand up for you in the past. I've ignored the fact that you can be a little abrasive, because you have clearly given your ideas a lot of thought. That having been said, your posts in this thread have done NOTHING but make you look like the infant you claim others to be, because the elections didn't go the way you wanted them to.

Which is a good thing. I hated passives that do something like just boost armor, damage, etc. I mean, I use them because they're great, but I don't like it :P

The Gayroller has literally derailed this thread.

@Slaunyeh: Yeah, found that out the hard way, too :(

On a different note, I'm also trying a Berserker going Frost Howl, Howl, Cold Weapon Master, Retaliation, and Shred Armor. I'm finding that the armor reduction on enemies pumps my damage up immensely (doubling it, almost), and that the immobilize and slows from all the above abilities drastically increase my survivability. The reduced attack speed debuff is really, REALLY good... almost too good, in fact. It makes dodging even slightly telegraphed attacks incredibly easy, and I rarely, if ever, need to use potions, and I don't even have any health steal gear, just 7 extra health per second >_>.

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That's not the entire point of voting. The entire point of voting is to exercise the political muscle allotted you by the U.S. and state constitutions in order to produce the most desirable outcome possible. You absolutely should be using game theory when casting your vote, because this is a democracy and a democracy is not about you trying to get exactly what you want; it's about compromise with everyone else. If you try to get exactly what you want, but go about it blindly, you will end up worse off than if you had compromised.

Well, on that point we may need to simply disagree. I was under the impression that democracy meant voicing our opinions and letting the majority decide the outcome, rather that purposefully limiting my choices to fit the majority. I understand that isn't how it works, but I'm not gonna bend on a fundamental aspect of democracy because society has built up this idea that your vote doesn't matter, or detracts from some other candidate.

That's an over-used cliche, and only true if you believe both candidates to be evils (a view that is, in my opinion, tough to legitimately support upon any kind of substantive analysis).

I use the phrase "lesser of two evils" not because I believe the candidates to be evil, of course, but to say that, if neither candidate is my choice, why should I bother voting for them? Yeah, we have party primaries, as A Man in Black pointed out, but those are still party oriented primaries, and serve no purpose but to further narrow the range of potential candidates. This does nothing but put blinders on the public, which is pretty ridiculous, imo.

oh, and @Anklebiter: Yeah, the electoral college is abysmal.

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The entire point of voting is that you should vote for the person you feel should be elected. Whether or not they are elected is irrelevant.

I hate the two-party system we have because it encourages the "lesser of two evils" mentality. But then, if it were up to me, we wouldn't have Democrats vs. Republicans, we'd have Candidate vs. Candidate vs. Candidate vs. Candidate vs. etc...

Yeah, my advice is get it from Steam. It auto-updates, and even though I was skeptical about it at first, I've really grown to like steam. It's got everything you need in an instant messenger system (voice/video chat), friends lists so you can see what friends are playing (and, in the case of Torchlight, play with them), and keeps all your games neat and tidy for you.

Plus, if you ever need to free up space on your comp, Steam remembers which games you had and will allow you to download them again at any time.

Yeah, I just hit 14, and he's STORMING through the early game. Took a while to get two decent pistols, but he pretty much got the 1000 critical hits achievement by himself. Thanks to the Charge increasing skill on Executes, Charge is up almost all the time, without the duration increase. I went ahead and dropped some points in Cold Iron, to up the physical damage, and at later levels it'll double the damage I get from Cold Gems, so it's win/win. Also, I recommend getting the shadow wolf pet that steals health, as my current build is pretty squishy, though I focus on 2 str/2dex/1foc atm.

I actually just built a new berserker around the concept of dual-wielding pistols to maximize the speed at which I build charge and score crits. It's... it's fun.

Davor wrote:

Necromancer wrote:

Speaking of which, has anyone gotten a giant (permanent) fish yet? I killed fifteen minutes in town fishing and all I got was a few big varieties and a belt...

I got a perma-spider fish on my Berserker. Between frost howl and the pet's immobilize, I can keep enemies locked down pretty well while my cannon-wielding engineer friend goes to town.

Was the perma-spider catch made in a town or in the wilds?

Wilds. Fishing areas apparently got a boost in Torchlight II, and I caught my permachange fish in a Secret rarity fishing spot.

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There are two correct answers to this question:

1) If you use the 3.5 ruling on volley spells, sneak attack only applies once on this spell. Whether or not you believe that this spell is a volley is irrelevant, as the 3.5 ruling specifically calls out Scorching Ray as a volley spell.

2) If you DON'T use the 3.5 ruling on volley spells, then you get to use sneak attack damage on every damage roll that requires an attack roll. Therefore, scorching ray would get 3 sneak attacks per cast at 11th caster level+.

Speaking of which, has anyone gotten a giant (permanent) fish yet? I killed fifteen minutes in town fishing and all I got was a few big varieties and a belt...

I got a perma-spider fish on my Berserker. Between frost howl and the pet's immobilize, I can keep enemies locked down pretty well while my cannon-wielding engineer friend goes to town.

Overall, I'm really enjoying the game. The number of viable builds is pretty staggering, as pretty much every character keeps not only the melee/ranged/magic build setup, but also has damage/support/control to balance as well, leading to things like my melee-magic/control-support berserker, my melee/control-support outlander, and my melee-magic/control-support engineer tank.

I think the only problem I've noticed is that the Embermage (to me) is distinctly unfun. I've tried so many builds, and I just can't get into it enough before level 14 to justify playing it above the other classes, which get cool abilities from the get-go. Personal preference may have something to do with it, but I just don't care for it.

As far as challenge goes, it's difficult to gauge because even Torchlight I vets are, essentially, learning a new system. The first major boss fight for me in Act I was REALLY tough on my first character, but I had spent my attribute points poorly and had bad gear. My later characters (the ones mentioned above) had better gear & stat allocation, and TORE through the same fight, but things are getting noticeably more difficult. I'd say, give it some time before making any difficulty judgments.

Looks good. Would probably be a bit strong compared to most people I game with (most aren't very good at optimizing), but everything seems to be in order. Plenty effective, wild shape gives good reach for Bodyguard, and you can deal decent damage to boot. It's an odd multiclass choice, imo, but if it fits, it fits. Nicely done.

Which is what the race guide recommends, but doesn't really seem necessary. Heck, the Fetchlings are a 17 point race, and they really don't seem all that special. Aasimar is 15, Suli 16, and they are barely better than standard races, and they definitely aren't good enough to justify a level deficiency.

Now, it's true with that many points a player could theoretically make a combat BEAST with all sorts of inherent bonuses, but that's why it's up to the DM to make sure the race makes sense and isn't just the mad experimentation of an insane wizard.

@Starbuck_II: Your post is the exact reason why simply adding the template shouldn't be done. A character either has too few HP, or their abilities are too strong for their level. The ARG is EASILY the best way to go if your friend wants to play a draconic character. If you want to make him a bit more powerful, you can go up to 16 Race Points without making other players feel too bad about it, if at all.

I would guess that Wild Shaping is already such a strong option for druids that any other enhancements to it would make it too effective.

I mean, druids get close to the top of the damage charts as it is. Anything else would make it ridiculous.

You can absolutely contribute, but Illusionists, more than any other archetype, require an abundance of creativity on the part of the player, and a willingness to participate on the part of the DM.

For example, in a combat situation, the arcane trickster in a group I play with used Silent Image to create an exact copy of the party Anti-Paladin. It worked, essentially, like a single mirror image, and the monster they were fighting failed it's save against it the first time, but passed the save when it attempted to claw the image (50/50 chance).

There are lots of great things you can do with illusions, but it all boils down to your creativity. Illusions, arguably more than any other spell category, require direct player involvement. Evocations take tactics, but Illusions take brilliance.

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If the extra damage bonus from two-handed weapons were to disappear, you'd likely see a more prominent use of shields (because the extra dice damage from two-handers is basically irrelevant), and a renewed emphasis, I think, on Combat Maneuver-oriented builds. Barring high damage, there are very few other roles martial characters can take. This means that they can either go Support or Control.

Support means a little more focus on defense, and supporting allies. Things like the Bodyguard feat and higher dexterity melee builds would become more prominent. Cavalier's would probably get a little more use, mostly because they have so many ways in which they could buff the party.

Alternatively, you'd see more players move towards control, i.e. Combat Maneuver builds. Monks would get MUCH more popular, as they'd actually put out decent damage compared with other classes, and you can choose to specialize in control. Reach weapons would still be in style, because reach is a great way to maintain control over the enemy.

Personally, I'd probably go with a Captain America build. There isn't really a reason not to, in my opinion, since you could put out the same damage as everyone else, have good defenses, and be able to spec for a little CC with Combat Maneuvers.

@OP: Your interpretation of the rules is correct. Just remember that you need a free hand to cast spells with somatic components.

There is a trait that increases the duration of morale bonuses for multiple rounds. This allows you to gain roughly 4 rounds of benefit out of Touch of Rage, making it one of the best buffs in the GAME for those few rounds. Plus, it isn't tied to spells, just your Charisma modifier & effective Sorcerer level.

My favorite build for this that I'm just ITCHING to try is a CN Cleric of Lamashtu. You can get both the Demon and Ferocity domains, which grants you access to two massively damage increasing passive abilities that can be triggered on-hit. Combine with one or two buffs and you will be tossing out some pretty sick, and pretty accurate, damage. Channel Smite and Channeling Negative Energy helps, too. Pick up a Spell-Storing Falchion and you can even toss Inflict Spells into the mix.

*Edit: Oh, and maybe Versatile Channeling later on so you can use Channel Smite against the Undead. You are Chaotic Neutral, after all :P

Ray of Sickening and Ray of Enfeeblement both require a touch attack and a saving throw.

Just for the record, I think each creature affected by Weird Words should be allowed a single saving throw to halve the effect of all targeted words. I don't think the alternative is overpowered, or weak, but making one save saves a lot of time.

Oh god, I hope PFO will NOT be like GW2. I've played several hours now but I just can't get into it. Somehow it's even MORE themepark-oriented than other themepark-MMOS, which is kind of crazy.

You have these heart events, spawnpoints, points of interest and vistas. And you just... Kind of work through the points marked on your map. Crafting is really time-consuming and in my opinion useless.

The resounding message I've heard around the internet is that if you play this way (moving from map event to map event), you're missing out on the core of the GW2 experience. Exploration is the goal, and if you put the map down, there are lots of fun things to discover and participate in.

Wanna be a good party buffer, with solid skills and decent combat ability? Go Bard. Trust me. You'll be glad you did.

Inspire Courage is an amazing buff, and they get plenty of spells that both buff and support allies (Timely Inspiration for example). They have great skill points, even more thanks to Versatile Performance, and if you slap Power Attack on them they can even put out decent damage. They can heal if necessary, and get plenty of crowd control abilities.

*edit: Or Freebooter Ranger. Their archetype ability is just SICK, working like a group-wide inspire courage against a single enemy, usable an unlimited number of times per day. Good skills, good spells, good combat ability. /win

They're both great books. Check the website for any errata. There really isn't a reason to not use them.

A Magician archetype Bard could get access to Color Spray at 2nd level. You lose out on Inspire Courage, but still have Medium BAB and decent buffing abilities.

Otherwise, just take a level in Sorcerer and go full BAB class for the rest. In an E6 campaign, those multiple daily uses of Color Spray will ALWAYS be useful. You could also consider taking levels of Cavalier, possibly Order of the Lion, to keep your Charisma score relevant. Alternatively, you could just go full Sorcerer, specializing in Transmutation spells and Color Spray. Buffed up you could get to Fighter level accuracy, and you'd have a decent array of spells to choose from.

The wording on the Diamond Spray spell had me confused, too. Glad to see that's getting changed to make a bit more sense with current abilities. Thanks, Sean.

A couple of points:

1) The damage dealing magus has a huge crit range for his beastly Shocking Grasp, and hits pretty hard when he does.

2) Weird Words grants a fortitude save against each Word, not the whole effect. As such, enemies could save against every word for 1/2 damage, or multiple ones. The odds of a Weird Word bard doing full damage are pretty abysmal, especially considering the rolls the bard has to make to do it. Even average damage is pretty low, because not only does the target get a save to resist the effect by 1/2, but the bard can miss on the attack roll, too.

@Amuny: All of the above character can do equal or more damage without worrying about saving throws. Pouncers can still trump this guy, and this guy actually can't do too much outside of Weird Words. He'll have sky-high charisma, but he'll probably ignore everything else to get there. Sure, he'll have access to skills, but in combat his great damage is mitigated by the fact that he has almost no mitigation to speak of, unless he spends rounds casting spells, at which point his words aren't doing him any good :P

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^ posts like this are why I backed out in this discussion 2 pages ago. You just can't disagree with people regarding sexual matters in a civil manner.

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Bards can be built well that way.

Pffft, English. Easymode language for the unwashed masses. Try ours, we'll make you cry and grind your teeth until your gums bleed. But in the end, if you'll be able to say one proper sentence in Polish, you will feel like you were made of victory and win.

Hehe. If you think English is easy, you should see German :P

I actually recently discovered something that makes a lot of sense. When a word becomes part of a language, it adopts that language's pluralizations, etc.

For example, the plural of Octopus in English is Octopuses. The same goes for Cactus, Platypus, and any other words ending in "-us". The great thing about the English language is that we are free to change things so that they sound more acceptable. Heck, look at French. Some words don't even use half the letters in them. >_>

If you wanted to use the plural associated with a word's roots, you would have to discover the language of the word and learn to conjugate it based off of the conventions of the language. For example, Octopus comes from Greek, so the plural would be Octopedes. Octopi, however, is the Latin plural of a Greek word used in the English language. :P

And, despite all of this, I've adopted the plural for Platypus: Platypedes. It's so wrong, it almost hurts, but it's funny, too :P.

Davor wrote:

@Bobson:

PFSRD wrote:

Even if the spell can normally affect multiple targets, only a single missile, ray, or effect accompanies the attack.

This line limits the number of rays fired by multi-target ray spells. The 11th level ability modifies this statement, allowing each ray to be fired separately.

Taken literally, that line is meaningless. A spell which is a "single-target touch attack ranged spell" will never be a multi-target spell, by definition. So restricting a single target spell so that if it normally affected multiple targets it now only affects one, does exactly nothing to it.

Yay for literal readings.

Incorrect. Looking at the spell Scorching Ray (which I assume is the SOLE spell this ability was designed for), you can either have a single target or multiple targets, which makes the spell simultaneously single-target and multi-target (Schroedinger's Scorching Ray?).

As such, at 4th level, a Magus COULD use Scorching Ray through a ranged attack, since it fulfills the criteria of being a single-target ranged touch attack. At later levels (i.e., level 11), Scorching Ray can be a multi-target spell, which could be used through Ranged Spellstrike if all of the rays were fired at a single target, fulfilling the "single target ranged touch attack" requirement.

It's like the geometric idea that all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares. I won't say all, because new spells are always being added, but almost all Multi-Target touch attack spells can also be single-target, while not all single-target touch attack spells can be multi-target.

And yes, you cannot used Ranged Spellstrike with Spell Combat, but the 11th level ability functions independently of Spell Combat, so you may full attack and cast a ranged touch spell as part of the attack (but you CANNOT cast any other spell).

At 4th level, a myrmidarch can use spellstrike to cast a single-target touch attack ranged spell and deliver it through a ranged weapon attack.

Okay, so Ranged Spellstrike functions like spellstrike. Let's check Spellstrike:

At 2nd level, whenever a magus casts a spell with a range of “touch” from the magus spell list, he can deliver the spell through any weapon he is wielding as part of a melee attack. Instead of the free melee touch attack normally allowed to deliver the spell, a magus can make one free melee attack with his weapon (at his highest base attack bonus) as part of casting this spell. If successful, this melee attack deals its normal damage as well as the effects of the spell. If the magus makes this attack in concert with spell combat, this melee attack takes all the penalties accrued by spell combat melee attacks. This attack uses the weapon’s critical range (20, 19–20, or 18–20 and modified by the keen weapon property or similar effects), but the spell effect only deals ×2 damage on a successful critical hit, while the weapon damage uses its own critical modifier. See FAQ/Errata at right for more information.

You'll notice that there is nothing about requiring that the magus have a free hand for this ability. The text you are quoting comes from Spell Combat, not Spellstrike, and Spell Combat has no bearing on the functionality of this ability.

The 11th level ability specifically refers to this variation of Spellstrike, not Spell Combat. Therefore, a Magus can use his 11th level Ranged Spellstrike to fire multiple rays from a spell through his weapon.

@Bobson:

Even if the spell can normally affect multiple targets, only a single missile, ray, or effect accompanies the attack.

This line limits the number of rays fired by multi-target ray spells. The 11th level ability modifies this statement, allowing each ray to be fired separately.

1) Money: Are you really willing to spend tens of thousands of gold to have essentially limitless storage space?

2) What HaraldKlak said.