Senenmerek

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Organized Play Member. 2,730 posts. No reviews. No lists. 1 wishlist. 2 Organized Play characters.


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Name Violation wrote:
Characters who lack the weapon training class feature can access weapon mastery feats by taking the Martial Focus feat

This is true. If a Brawler takes Martial Focus as their 5th level feat, they can pick up Cut From the Air with their Martial Flexibility. Otherwise, they have to wait til level 6 in order to pick two feats up at the same time with their Martial Flexibility (using up their swift and move actions for the turn).


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I grok do u wrote:
A brawler is a comparable class, and can also get cut from the air by level 5.

A Brawler does not obtain the "weapon training class feature". Weapon Training class feature is a staple ability of the Fighter class and a select few other classes/archetypes such as the Sohei Monk at level 6.

Speaking of the Sohei... That would make a great option as well, though as shown, gets the weapon training later.


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Andostre wrote:
When I mentioned AoOs in my first post, I was referring to a means to more quickly take down opponents making ranged attacks (and reloading) within melee range. Are you talking about ways to use an AoO to raise my defense?

I was mostly referring to using your AoO to make more use of the Cut From the Air feat, as it uses that resource to function. Its a fairly good feat, because you can protect yourself OR an adjacent target from being hit.

If I was building the character, I'd probably start off as a Unarmed Fighter for the first 5 levels (Improved Unarmed Strike) and you can pick up Power Attack anytime while picking up Cut From the Air at level 5. After that, feel free to multiclass out to get whatever Armor Proficiency you want. None of the Unarmed Fighter's abilities require him to be in light or no armor. You can multiclass earlier but that'll delay your ability to grab Cut From the Air. You can just be a regular fighter but you'll lose out on a free style feat (you trade out your first fighter feat for TWO other feats). Some of them are quite good.

Ideally, you want the following feats: Improved Unarmed Strike (or the equivalent), Deflect Arrows, Power Attack, Combat Reflexes, and Cut from the Air. That is all you need (feat wise) to ensure that you can easily deal with several ranged attacks made against you per turn.


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Your best bet is to invest in feats in the early levels to avoid Touch AC ranged attacks. As you get to higher levels, and people get more attacks, you'll want to broaden those means. Once you start using attacks of opportunities to defend against the attacks, you'll want Combat Reflexes to have more chances each round.

Things you may want:
Deflect Arrows
Missile Shield
Vambraces of Defense
Shield Gauntlet Style: Counts as having Improved Unarmed Strike in various instances.
Cut From the Air: Fighter-ish only feat.
Smash from the Air: As Cut From the Air, but also very large objects (like boulders).


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DAOFS wrote:
Equally interesting is how the rest of the party (even an evil one) would react to say, the CE barbarian just murdering the kid.

Hopefully the player of the barbarian is cool with losing their character. As say that from a GM perspective, because now I have all the reason to make that character's life interesting as they deal with the consequences of their actions.

Just to be clear, as a player, I wouldn't be at this kind of table. I do not enjoy the kinds of stories that emerge from this kind of gameplay. I respect everyone else's interest in having fun, so I'd remove myself from the game.


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Bomanz wrote:
Thanks bro, I was reading a different guide and it refenced yours but didn't hyperlink it, and for some reason yours doesn't show up on Google, or maybe because I suck at interwebz I just couldn't bring it up when I did. Regardless, thank you, this info is good s#it.

Thanks for the compliments. I hope lots of people get some use out of it.


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I'll just shamelessly plug in my (mostly serviceable) guide to the mystic theurge: DeathlessOne's Art of Theurgery, as it focuses on avoiding early entry shenanigans and goes into quite a bit of detail on how to maximize the use of the limited abilities you get from most classes that can qualify for it.

To be completely upfront, the guide is pretty thorough but still incomplete in the build areas (largely so). I address my own biases in the guide pretty clearly, so bear that in mind when (if) you choose to use it. Note that any 'builds' I list out are more outlines and suggestions. There are a bunch of rough build progressions the Build tables that show some feats that are recommended, but that sheet is ... messy in parts.

If you are willing to tweak the classes you are using, I'd recommend the 'Magaambyan Vengeance' Focused Build #1 I have outlined in the Combos #1 sheet. It combines Arcanist and Cleric, and gives you a fairly robust spell list to access (including druid spells) while opening up specific Witch Hexes to debuff and control the battlefield even when you don't use spells.

If you are set on Wizard/Cleric combo specifically, I have a few build concepts on the same sheet under the Wizard section. "Best Friend or Worst Enemy" or "Right! I knew that!"


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I handle this issue very easily in my games and it explains why raising undead is objectively evil. You are free to ignore my opinion on the matter if you don't like it. If you don't like my conclusions, don't use them.

Why is raising undead evil? Because you prevent the natural process of a soul's journey to the afterlife. This isn't a subjective issue. You are choosing to not respect the sanctity of life (and death) of a sentient being and forcefully stopping them from moving on with existence. It is slavery of the soul. Even raise dead (and resurrection) offer consent to the deceased on returning to life.

Why do you interrupt the soul's journey? Because until Pharasma has judged a particular soul and sent it on it's way, there still exists a tether between that soul and its remains. If you animate the body as undead, it uses that tether to animate the body with energy that is the antithesis of life and causes harm to the soul on the other end. Whether it pulls back the soul from the boneyard or merely uses it as a fuel source is up to the GM.

How does it work with bodies that have been dead for a long time, maybe long enough that Pharasma has already judged the soul? First, whether or not Pharasma has judged the souls up to the GM and not up for the player's to determine. And second, either the spell is very powerful, enough that it can reconstitute the body from scratch and powerful enough to pull an echo of the soul back from its dissipated state (similar to how outsider's energies return to their plane of origin) that it is in effect the same thing, or it completely violates the established norms of life/death cycle and gets Pharasma's attention anyway.

So, to wrap around to the original question: Why can a person (body) be made undead no matter how long they've been dead for? Because Evil doesn't care about the rules. It is one of the reasons that it is Evil. Souls are ALWAYS involved as far as I am concerned, just so that the veracity of how EVIL raising undead remains consistent.


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I am only familiar with 'Core' meaning specifically the Core Rulebook(s), specifically when referencing table top game systems. If anyone wanted to reference only the products made by the original company, it is generally called '1st party' sources. I am not familiar with the term 'Core' shifting to mean anything other than that.


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If you want multiple ioun stones that can't be stolen from you, check out the Ioun Spite Bracers.


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If anyone is interested in our Seraphina Nightbloom was generated and how her adventure is going so far, feel free to follow this link to view the transcript.


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If you want to get some better (more on point) responses from the AI, it is generally better to ask them specific questions to help 'guide' it along so it doesn't get side tracked. More specifically, it helps keep the AI from taking several actions before you get a chance to respond to it. For example:

Quote:
Upon returning to Magnimar, proud to tell the tale of Foxglove manor and show proof of his discoveries, Kaelan Thornblade sees that the Pathfinder Lodge, the estate of Sheila Heidmarch, has been enveloped by an unearthly, glowing-black globe of negative energy.

Adding a sentence or two to the end will tighten up its response, such as: "How does Kaelan respond to this display of energy? What is the first thing he would do upon noticing it and observing it, given his initial response?"

That will let you respond to its actions as if you were at an actual table and offer more direct guidance to its choices. It is generally a better idea to not leave its choices very open ended as far as what to do next, but to give it options. You can leave it open ended if you want, but do that AFTER giving it a few options as well, such as "You can do X, Y, or Z... or you can decide to do something else if none of them fit the actions your character would take."


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W E Ray wrote:
I am disappointed, though, that there is no way the website can "Save" our information so we can pick-up where we left off. The AI chose to make a Rogue and named it "Kaeran Thornblade" -- then prioritized Ability Scores values, chose a weapon based on "aesthetics" since I told it the mechanics would be the same, and even a 'theme' or 'style' of a couple spells it could have that I then created.

That's ... odd. Each new conversation of ChatGPT has its own thread when I interact with it, so the chat history is saved between us. It might be that I have an account (not a paying one) but I don't know if you can access it without one.


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Yes. It is pretty much a universal rule that to make more than one attack (normally a standard action), you must use a full-attack action (uses up your standard and move action) in order to do so. There are feats, class abilities, and other ways to get around this, but that is the general rule.


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That would be feeding the trolls. And unless you are raising a troll army for your BBEG, that isn't advisable.


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Cackle effects all that hear it within 30ft, if they have a specific hex it can effect on them. I'm not sure anyone was saying that Soothsayer is effected by Cackle.


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Heather 540 wrote:
Important distinction to make. Is it the player saying this, or the character?

Life isn't fair (for the character). The character suffers due to the actions and choices the player makes. They also succeed and thrive based on those same choices.


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The players of my homebrew PF1e have successfully completed their adventure that was two years in the making. They tackled a level 20 gestalted BBEG that had 10 mythic tiers, while they possessed only 17 levels and 8 mythic tiers. The final fight lasted about five hours in total, and took nearly two game sessions to complete. I had intended them to be a little higher level (and mythic tier) before they sought him out, but they chose otherwise and managed to survive, if barely.

Their reward was three character levels and two mythic tiers, in addition to a personal miracle from the divine entity they had been serving. So, once they've leveled up, completed any retraining they wish, and are ready for epic level adventures, their characters will see further play. Until then, they've got a new campaign to explore, also homebrew.


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Lord Fyre wrote:
Also, a bit of a pity that no one else has piped into this thread.

Attention is being paid, but I have nothing real to offer the thread. Comparing how traits are balanced to one another across different adventure paths isn't really something I considered looking into.


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Personally, I'd go out of my way to create a character that CAN work with a necromancer, just to avoid the inevitable conflict to come. I am currently running a Psychopomp summoner in the Extinction Curse campaign and we have a necromancer in the party... but not one that makes use of undead or seeks lichdom, only uses the dark powers as weapons against enemies. Which is good since my character is a devout worshiper of Pharasma. The two characters get along famously as they both have a very specific kind of dark 'grave' humor that the other characters just don't get.


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Melkiador wrote:
But when could you reasonably access that? At minimum that's a +2 weapon. 8000g. With expected wealth by level, that's level 8. If crafting is available, then you could maybe make one at level 5, though you'd likely have to wait for level 6. That's just not reliable enough for a lot of people.

I hardly think that an extra 3 to 5 damage per attack is actually worth that much gold investment anyway. I pretty much ignore that weapon enchantment's existence and only bother with Dex to damage when it comes as a class feature.

Sure, its nice if you need to pinch out every single bit of damage from every source you can but outside of certain games of a particular power level, I have better things to spend my feats and gold on. Especially when I am playing a Magus that is already capable of some robust burst damage.


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Golurkcanfly wrote:

Aid should definitely have its usefulness flattened a bit across the level range.

It doesn't feel good to use at low levels and at high levels it feels too good not to use.

Something I agree with. As often as I play lower level PF2 characters, I always wonder why we are even bothering attempting to 'aid another' at DC 20 just for that +1 to a roll that will likely be even less that what we rolled to aid.


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Jacob Jett wrote:
I don't know if I believe in a "forever" system. Although we did play (A)D&D 2E until like '02 and I was still running 3.5 as recently as 4 years ago. (The last 3 have primarily been Genesys [SW] or OnyxPath's now moribund Chronicles of Darkness games.) There are still plenty of folks out there still playing (A)D&D1 and 2 and 3.5 and 4. If folks like PF1, there's no real reason they should shift. That said, like you, I find the more different games I'm willing to play and GM the more frequently I get to play and GM. I think I got lucky with my undergrad group. We play a lot of crazy systems in the '90s and '00s. Hero, TORG, and Gurps, among others. All great in their own way. (IIRC, TORG had this fantastic system for screwing with GM called plot cards which were cards with random plot points that you could hand your GM and then they would have to work whatever was on the card into the story.)

Oh, when I said 'forever' system, I didn't mean EXCLUSIVELY that system forever. I just meant the one in which I would never give up and have a preference to play above all other systems. I pretty much get to play with three or four different systems a week, ranging from PF1 to PF2 to Blackbirds to traveler to Savage Worlds to Castles & Crusades to Dangerous Journeys to Mage: The Ascension to Rolemaster to Starfinder to (most recently) Warhammer 4th. That's just to name a few and doesn't touch the variants within or between them.

My favorite spot to be in is where PF1 hits home. I've even played Pathfinder with the Savage Worlds system. Character died horribly but it was fun.


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WatersLethe wrote:
Broadly speaking, Starfinder has attracted a lot of "never PF2"-ers. Often people who liked 1e and didn't want to move on, and found Starfinder close enough to be a new haven. This is a rather large problem currently being kicked down the road.

To add a personal note to this, I was never eager or ecstatic with PF2 to begin with. There were certain things I liked about it mechanically, but it just doesn't sit right for what I am looking for in a 'forever' system. I like it well enough to play it despite this and enjoy running the game for my players, but it is because of those players mostly.

I've mostly just sort of settled into playing PF2 when in the company of those that enjoy it but still mostly focus my attention on PF1, and the houserule I've made to make it more fluid and dynamic.


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I've only played Starfinder a handful of times, and PF2 a great deal more. Still want to play more of it, but I generally get my fix for it just by using PF1 and injecting the Unchained Action economy into it with a hefty amount of stuff from the Technology books.

Starfinder with the 3 action economy would probably be a lot of fun.


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1) I agree that Item DCs need tweaked. I'd probably handle that through a dedicated skill feat where a character can spend an extra action to 'heighten' the DC based on a skill roll and their overall rank in the skill. That way, anyone can get access to this kind of thing if they want it. Let's call it "Item Mastery" feat.

2) I have yet to use, or seen used, a talisman in any of my games. I am not kidding. We collect them and then sell them. We'd rather have the increased wealth than make use of their one time use effects, because that gold can be used for items that last longer. My first reaction to seeing talismans was disappointment. Apologies if that seems harsh towards the developers.

3) Tweaking the animal companions to make them more able to survive combat is something I would like to see. I cannot quite remember the number of times I've seen an animal companion dart in to take its actions and within one turn, it is already at a dying value. As for the extra actions... A haste spell is usually enough to handle that.

4) No real opinion on this one. It has not come up in play as of yet. So, I'll defer to others.


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CaptainRelyk wrote:

I get that a lot of people take the archetype only for the heavy armor, but that isn’t the only reason someone would

Maybe my Eldritch trickster (cleric) rogue worships Bastet and wants to take the champion (liberator) archetype to show that

Or maybe my swashbuckler follows a god of freedom and wants to become a liberator champion and out the “liberte” in “vibe la liberte”

Sometimes playing against the grain of the game system has costs that have to be paid. It is up to you to decide if the sacrifice is worth the results you get. Hypothesizing justifications for a specific outcome does not change that what you are asking for is an exception to be made, and that should be on a one-to-one basis with your GM. As a sweeping rule change? Well, now that effects everyone. You will need a lot of convincing reasoning and thought behind why such a change should be made, and how doing so will effect the game for everyone else.


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I don't think the requirements need to be changed. Unless someone is intentionally trying to keep their unnecessary ability scores to an absolutely minimum (and hence 'gaming' the system), it seems reasonable that would-be fighters have mediocre stats in the two physical ability scores needed to HIT stuff, and for the champion... getting that heavy armor proficiency without enough strength to wear it is ... not smart.

If you feel really strongly about it, talk to your GM and see if they can relax the requirements rather than make your specific exemption a rule for everyone else to follow.


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Melkiador wrote:
That's an extra 1d6 per channel. It's not terrible, but I'd rather have an amulet of natural amor in in that slot.

Agreed, but not worth the 12k price tag.


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Fear does make a lot of Evil people stay in line, and a lot of Neutral people fold on their convictions. Good, on the other hand, tends to stand by that river of truth and demand the world move first. It goes hand in hand with the defining characteristics of Good... willingness to sacrifice for others, even when it costs them.


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Mysterious Stranger wrote:
The idea that evil will always turn on itself is misquoted. It should be that evil will eventually turn on itself. This is subtle but significant difference. What it really means is that given enough reason an evil character will betray anyone.

Yeah, that is true. Certain. Inevitable. It just needs the proper reason.


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Azothath wrote:
Most people could not give a good technical answer as being an idea individual interpretations give it a probabilistic spread.

Most people cannot give a good answer because they don't spend enough time examining themselves, their motivations, reflect on how their internal world relates to the greater outer one, and because they are simultaneously their own worst critic and their own best maker of excuses. I believe the most common excuse is "It doesn't hurt anyone else. Why do you care so much?"

But that is deviating too much to real world ideologies and not a topic we (I) should derail the conversation with.


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Mysterious Stranger wrote:
I think there are a lot of people that just want to put evil on their character sheet because they think it is cool. A lot of them play their characters more neutral with some evil tendencies. They are usually the ones arguing that evil can have redeeming values and be kind to people. The baseline alignment is actually neutral. Being either good or evil is actually a lot of work. One evil act does not make a character evil, nor does a single act of good make you good. All sentient life has the potential for both good and evil.

The older I get, the more I think that the baseline alignment is actually Evil with just enough Neutral tendencies to make it hard to find that line that separates the two. I don't agree that being Evil is a lot of work. I think it is the easiest thing to do in the world. It just has some of the more severe consequences if you get caught. I see being Good as the hardest thing to do, because it costs you something to be so. Evil costs everyone else something.


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My first Magus I played in PF1 was a strength based Magus. Lawful Good half-elf that had hopes of becoming a Paladin but didn't quite make the cut due to certain ... let's say interested parties. So, instead he became a Magus with the Staff Master and Hexcrafter archetypes.

Survivability was moot past level 5. Those that could reach me in the air were dealt with swiftly. Those that could not were not long to survive.


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The Purity of Violence wrote:
Yes. Some arranged marriages work out. Even if it takes years. {note I consider arranged marriages as the same as slavery.)

Strong stance to take. But you are free to hold that opinion, I suppose.


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Dragon78 wrote:
I think most(if not all) classes could have used a "unchained" version even if I like the original version.

I'd rather opt for a complete (and revamped) collection of Variant Multiclass choices before Unchaining the rest of the classes. Specifically, I'd like it to work something along the lines of PF2e dedication feats. You pick and choose which character feats you give up to progress and you don't have to take all of them.


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For the law vs chaos issue, it is better represented when you think of the matter more as:

Lawful = the needs of the community outweigh the individual
Chaos = Individual needs are paramount

So many people get caught up in the: "Its the LAW so it must be lawful!" mindset that they never look past the surface level meaning of the word and take it in full context. Laws are meant to collectivize the wishes of a community and set down punishments if they are transgressed. It is ORDER above FREEDOM, not legal vs illegal. While Chaos is simply the opposite, where individuals get to decide for themselves and are not held (internally) to being consistent. The only consistent thing about Chaos is its inconsistency. Hence, why Paladins RESPECT legitimate authority, even though they might disagree on the specifics and why some chaotic characters will go along with the laws and customs of a land, as they might agree with them according to their own personal outlook.

That is why Monks 'tend' to be Lawful. That is why Barbarians 'tend' to be chaotic. Monks tend to require order and mastery of their inner forces in order to do the things they do. Barbarians tap into inner reserves of energy are wild, uncontrolled, and volatile. There are archetypes that change how these things work (or are described with more specific terms that push towards control) and SHOULD loosen the alignment restrictions.

Alignment is not that complicated at all, UNTIL someone attempts to bring the real world into it, or project it into the real world.


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I see you are posting in both 1E and 2E forums about this issue. You must feel very strongly about the alignment system in previous editions to vocalize it this much.

Did someone not let you play what you want in a recent PF1 game?

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