The Manyfaced One

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*** Pathfinder Society GM. 323 posts. 1 review. No lists. 2 wishlists. 19 Organized Play characters.


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Grand Lodge

I feel like you're trying to do everything, and it never works out, particularly in Seeker play, because the opening rounds of combat are so incredibly vital. You need to specialize and rely on your party at that level to cover other avenues of attack/defense.

I'll toss in that a +22 in Sense Motive isn't going to do you much as you enter Seeker level play. It'll help from time to time, but it isn't worth the 3 feat investment if you aren't using skill focus and Inquisitor's Monocle, and possibly getting alertness through the ioun stone too. My brawler which uses the full Snake Style tree had been around +35 entering seeker level play, and hits +42 or so at level 15... and that sometimes isn't enough. He has fairly similar attack bonuses (a little higher since he has a couple levels on you), but he also can drop 6-7 attacks a round, and do the same amount of damage as you're doing with a 2-handed weapon (and has been able since he started being a Seeker).

In short, if you're serious about seeker play, consider this... Seekers are the cream of the crop, they specialize and rely on their team's specializations to get them through things. You can't be the whole party and be good enough to keep up at that level. I'd recommend finding something you want to focus on and pushing HARD at it, maybe retrain a little bit to help narrow your focus if you want to take this character into Seeker levels. Even as nice as my seeker is, it isn't uncommon for me to scrape by in some fights. Otherwise you're going to start running into combats fairly regularly where you just can't make much of an impact.

Grand Lodge 3/5

I had a really rough first SFS game on Thursday. Our GM was guessing a lot at skill checks and other combat basics (most of us were, but...). How much time did they get to review the book before running things? Did my GM just not cover the basic mechanics, or did everyone get stuck with not enough time to learn the game? I know this can't be addressed in a meaningful way now, and it won't be an issue next year, but it seemed like there was a LOT of confusion due to a lack of time to review the book, and it led to a fairly negative experience for my first game.

As for overall Sag experience, it seemed pretty well organized, and while I didn't attend any, the late night games seemed insane to me. I did notice a larger number of empty tables than in previous years, no-shows for the most part, which seemed odd, but I have no scope of what was going on or why more would be absent than last year. We had our GMs in place every game, and aside from my first SFS game I thought everything went smoothly. Well Done!

Grand Lodge

Doesn't the Samsarian racial ability put a spell from another class on their class list? Animal Growth is a sorc/wiz spell, so it should work.

That should do it~

Grand Lodge

Tank INT, grab Throw Anything, and use sling staffs as your thrown weapons.

Instructions unclear, works anyway.

Grand Lodge

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SmiloDan wrote:
Divvox2 wrote:
Chromantic Durgon <3 wrote:

16 wis with a + 4 belt on a character built for spell casting.

That is pretty impressive.

reading that made me cringe xD

The Animal Companion had a less than 20 for AC if I recall. Player hadn't bought it armor, or cast any spells like Barkskin on it. Most of his buffs were on the rounds or minutes/level range, and he had utterly neglected common spells like barkskin (and other longer duration spells). No buffs to increase pet damage like lock-jaw, just a regular old magic fang. Half his spells were healing spells, which he would almost never use in-combat, even to heal his pet (he was saving them, rationing them out).

Pretty sure he was also pretty high, but I can't know for certain. That whole experience was cringe-worthy. Luckily, he has been my worst PFS experience and we lived to tell the tale. There was one player who swore like Henry Rollins on a bad day at a public convention who came close, but that wasn't too bad.

I've only seen Henry Rollins do spoken word once, but I don't remember him swearing a lot. I remember him being surprisingly neurotic, though. :-D

To be honest, I didn't expect him to NOT swear, so maybe it just wasn't noteworthy. Good show, though.

I love what I've seen of his stand-up (and I'll admit, his bit in Johnny Mneumonic, shuddup, it's a great movie XD ) though the 2 shows I've seen of his where pretty heavy with swearing. One was an early show of his years ago and the other was a more recent one that was on Netflix, so I assumed all of his shows were like that.

Grand Lodge

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Chromantic Durgon <3 wrote:

16 wis with a + 4 belt on a character built for spell casting.

That is pretty impressive.

reading that made me cringe xD

The Animal Companion had a less than 20 for AC if I recall. Player hadn't bought it armor, or cast any spells like Barkskin on it. Most of his buffs were on the rounds or minutes/level range, and he had utterly neglected common spells like barkskin (and other longer duration spells). No buffs to increase pet damage like lock-jaw, just a regular old magic fang. Half his spells were healing spells, which he would almost never use in-combat, even to heal his pet (he was saving them, rationing them out).

Pretty sure he was also pretty high, but I can't know for certain. That whole experience was cringe-worthy. Luckily, he has been my worst PFS experience and we lived to tell the tale. There was one player who swore like Henry Rollins on a bad day at a public convention who came close, but that wasn't too bad.

Grand Lodge

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I think it was a PFS game at tier 8-9. A druid was "built" for pet combat and spellcasting, and had put all of their spells into buffs to make their pet stronger. However, the poor thing was built so ineffectively that it would routinely go down from AoO on a charge attack, first round, and not even get a hit off. The druid would then run up and CLW wand it until it was back up. He had a whopping 2 offensive spells (2x flame strike), and a Wisdom of 16 (with a +4 headband). He didn't use wildshape. After he got his pet back up, he would sit there and buff it for the rest of the fight.

So for a recap:
-He didn't do damage except 2 flame strikes with shamefully low DCs
-His pet didn't absorb any attacks because he'd always have it charge things where enemies would get AoOs
-He'd buff in-combat and use a wand of CLW, even when he knew we were going into combat (he didn't want to waste duration)
-He often sent his pet in the way of other players, hindering party members who could contribute
-His spell selection was awful, and he never had enough buffs for the party, and would prep a really wide range of spells JUST for his companion
-He was stingy on using his CLW wand on allies
-His character did absolutely nothing aside from buff/revive his animal companion

We had 2 power builds in the party, and 2 other players who had decent characters but weren't very effective in the unique situation the scenario presented (they did their best). We all survived, but it was agonizing with 2 characters barely carrying the party, mostly due to luck.

Grand Lodge

Drood wrote:
Cool concept but I'm not sure why you call him a cleric.

The movie Equilibrium has "Gun Clerics" that are like martial artists, but with guns, using katas to maximize odds to hit and dodge (literally using statistics to inform kata moves). It's an amazing movie, and a character concept I'm sure more than a few have attempted around here, but I didn't find anything similar to the build I'm going for.

Grand Lodge

I've recently gotten my hands on a ratling boonsheet for PFS, and have been playing around with ideas, one of which is a ratling gun cleric (re: equilibrium) using the Gulch Gunner racial archtype. The goal would be to fight adjacent to enemies and purposefully trigger attacks of opportunity (using a high AC to avoid getting hit) while providing combat bonuses to allies. Here are the concepts I'm looking to include so far... I'd love some input on how to make it more effective, or other fun flavor additions I haven't considered!

P.S. I know that the viability of this build gets a bit shaky in higher levels, but that's not the point. I want to see what the upper limits are here, so I can evaluate if it'll still be a viable build for non-seeker PFS play.

1) Gulch Gunner Ratfolk racial archtype - switches out a lot of early deeds for the ability to regain grit via AoO's against myself and several adjacent damage bonuses. One allows you to spend a grit to get a +4 to AC vs. a target!
2) Armor Trick (light) - for Reactive and Reflective Mobility features (requires Dodge, Mobility, Nimble Moves, and Combat Reflexes for both).
3) Buff up that light armor - More AC
4) Level Distribution - 5 Gulch Gunner, 1 Mouser, 6 Fighter (in this order)

My goal is to remain hard to hit, provide allies good bonuses (mouser) and basically flit around the battlefield shooting people in the face TWF with pistols. Problems I'm encountering include...
1) Reloading - I could just use pepperboxes...
2) Getting my AC to levels where it will reliably allow me to keep from getting skooshed like a bug - I've considered a level of wizard or arcanist to allow me to shield up.
3) Feat starved build - man, I want to do so much but priorities are tight. The Armor Trick shinanigans will help, but I'm not sure if it's worth all those feats, or if there isn't a better way.

Grand Lodge

The walls are where they trapped the souls of those they captured and experimented on. Every once in awhile have everyone make a will save. Pick whoever rolled got the lowest score below 10 and hand them a slip of paper that says something like, "You see something out of the corner of your eye". Don't stop doing the checks from time to time, but don't line them up with the following (in order) slips of paper.

"As you look around, you see the shape of a humanoid on the wall, as if it was just below it's surface, but it rapidly vanishes"

"You hear what sounds like a whisper from a wall to your side"

"As you walk down the hall, your arm brushes up against it, and a whisper becomes loud enough to hear, "help us..." "

If they deliberately put their hand on the wall, follow up with, "the voices become clearer, and rise into a chorus of screams and cries. The figures in the wall slowly become clearer and seem to be reaching nfor your hands..." assuming they keep contact with the wall, continue, "as it touches you your mind is flooded with the sensations of terror and pain." Have them roll a will save vs. fear (shaken condition on fail) and take something like 3d6 damage as torture marks appear across their body and they scream in pain.

Grand Lodge

I've got a melee Summoner I've worked on for a bit that uses teamwork feats and reach weapons to have them both on the front lines with some pretty good AC and abilities. It uses a Suli and only has a 14 CHA, using spells for buffing only. I should mention this is for PFS, so it doesn't have much of a future past level 12.

I was inspired by the Pazuzu miniature I got from a Lost Cost box awhile back. The plan is to just model all obvious abilities from the mini when it comes to evolution points, and probably use the Agathon or Archon subtypes. Though I might lop the scorpion tail off of the model for the sake of my sanity, properly repping the Eidolon, and matching the Agathton description.

Grand Lodge

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I can toss in my melee class "Oh Crap" bag. I use a Pathfinder Pouch to hold everything since it's easily accessible and I can seal it in dangerous environments (underwater for example), but a handy haversack would probably work well enough.

-Air Crystals (useful in an emergency situation when you suddenly find yourself in vaccuum or underwater)
-Potion of Remove Blindness x2 (I mark the bottles with some clay or something so I can find them by feel)
-Potion of Fly (until I have a different way to get airborn reliably)
-Potion of Endure Elements x2 (Screw relying on party mages, they won't always be available. I save them for when I need a break from environment effects to recover since my fort tends to be solid)
-Potion of Invisibility x2 (Sometimes stealth is required, I don't do stealth well. Vanish also works if you just need to run around a corner on the cheap)
-Potion of Lesser Restoration x2 (gets rid of fatigue, annoying stat damage)
-Potion of Daylight (light fo' daaaaaays)
-Anti-Toxin x5 (usually I have great fort saves, but they're good to get rid of poison if you're infected or know you're likely to run into it a lot soon)
-Anti-Plague x5 (see anti-toxins)
-Smelling Salts (Effectively endless, safely wake up most targets while below 0hp but not dead, remove unconcious status effects)
-Soul Stimulants x2 (Negate the effects of 1 negative level for 24hours. Good to mitigate temporary energy drain impacts by at least 1 level)
-Troll Styptic x1-5 (alchemical healing, solid to save a player if you don't have access to a wand/potion for whatever reason)

All of the above fits within the 10lb limit of the pouch (because the alchemical items listed don't have a weight). I often also carry potions of remove deafness (because it's a pain to deal with long-term) and heroism elsewhere (counter negative levels or just because I love getting a +2 to hit for 50min). At higher levels I usually have a dozen of these so I'm always amped up for combat.

Grand Lodge 3/5

Tracking all the math and not being able to get a feel for the build in the first level are the bigguns. GM babies are great for those fun builds that can't do anything until higher level, so it's an opportunity to go for one of those for most GMs, or to create an already leveled support class so they can jump in on a game and always contribute.

However, since you haven't played as much, you may not know what you like to play... it's hard. I'd suggest playing some low level games at level one to find something you like (change the build between sessions) and then decide what you want to play. The real pitfall here is you choose something you don't end up liking and then never play the character again.

Grand Lodge

CrystalSeas wrote:

Diagram from Core Rule Book showing "lines" (scroll about halfway down the page)

From that same page:
When determining whether a given creature is within the area of a spell, count out the distance from the point of origin in squares just as you do when moving a character or when determining the range for a ranged attack. The only difference is that instead of counting from the center of one square to the center of the next, you count from intersection to intersection.
...
A line-shaped spell shoots away from you in a line in the direction you designate. It starts from any corner of your square and extends to the limit of its range or until it strikes a barrier that blocks line of effect. A line-shaped spell affects all creatures in squares through which the line passes.

From the Wall of Fire spell
An immobile, blazing curtain of shimmering violet fire springs into existence. One side of the wall, selected by you, sends forth waves of heat, ,

in which you choose which side of the 'wall' the damage is dealt from.

Well damn. I never looked at that section that way, but rather as an explanation as to how to measure burst effects, rather than in the context of measuring all spells. That offers another way of looking at the intersecting rules... large creatures or diagonals. Aight, I'm convinced.

Grand Lodge

Merellin wrote:

Just asking out of curiosity (And a desire to figure out what to play if my Cleric dies, Wich is getting more and more likely it feels like..) But, Whats the most versatile martial class? Including archetypes, For things the character can do in one build? Is there any good martial class that can do more then hit things with big weapon? Any that can be useful outside of combat too? Any that can in one build do many things in combat?

I'm currently intrested in Paladin, Monk, Cavalier and Barbarian, But other martial sugestions are welcome too! ^_^

If you lean more towards combat and farther from out of combat, my vote is for the brawler class, no archtype. With a base set of feats, you can be exceptional at any combat maneuver (not the best, but you can do them all and land them regularly). Further, there are almost always combat feats to deal with various combat situations. Add in a mountain of feats with no pressure to dive into feat trees because of martial flexibility, and you can get some pretty potent magical abilities by investing in one or two item mastery feats (fly, teleport, see invis, get darkvision, etc...), or useful out of combat abilities and feats like skill focus. Money goes to a brawling chain shirt and an amulet of mighty fists. Beyond that, go for flexibility in equipment (flying carpet!) and/or focus on combat bonuses (attack/damage).

Out of combat you'll have to focus your few skillpoints into where you want to be useful. Since you're probably going to drop CHA, perception or sense motive can be very useful.

tl;dr: Brawler, IMO. Tons of feats + martial flexibility means you have breathing room in a normally feat heavy build type. Grab those out of combat feats and specialize in a couple things! Other classes can do several things and do more damage, but can never match the pure flexibility of front line options. Being able to do all combat maneuvers effectively is a huge advantage.

-----I am bias to Sense Motive as a skill to focus in, but that's because I favor the Snake Style feat tree with my brawler to make up for my builds otherwise shaky defenses. Add in Wisdom bonuses to Will saves from headbands and it starts adding up in benefits. #SwordOfOmens,GiveMeSightBeyondSight!

Grand Lodge

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KingOfAnything wrote:

Koi, the effect of Blade Barrier is "wall" not "line."

Walls, (such as wall of stone) are inches thick at most. They do not take up a full square's width, they exist on the gridlines.

So, unless you can point out where it says it exists on lines of the grid, you're making an assumption, though it's not an uncommon perception. However, having it occupy squares as an area IS covered in the rules of the spells. Like every other spell that has an effect area.

I'd really like someone to post an actual reference here for this walls = on the lines of grids, because I've never heard where that comes from.

Grand Lodge

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Blade Barrier wrote:

BLADE BARRIER

School evocation [force]; Level cleric 6
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S
Range medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./level)
Effect wall of whirling blades up to 20 ft. long/level, or a ringed wall of whirling blades with a radius of up to 5 ft. per two levels; either form is 20 ft. high
Duration 1 min./level (D)
Saving Throw Reflex half or Reflex negates; see text; Spell Resistance yes
An immobile, vertical curtain of whirling blades shaped of pure force springs into existence. Any creature passing through the wall takes 1d6 points of damage per caster level (maximum 15d6), with a Reflex save for half damage.

If you evoke the barrier so that it appears where creatures are, each creature takes damage as if passing through the wall. Each such creature can avoid the wall (ending up on the side of its choice) and thus take no damage by making a successful Reflex save.

A blade barrier provides cover (+4 bonus to AC, +2 bonus on Reflex saves) against attacks made through it.

The spell, like any spell, occupies squares, so your GM should have picked a 5' line of squares (much like casting lighting bolt) that the wall exists in. It's a wall spell except the wall is made of blades instead of stone or fire

One could pose the question about placing the "wall" along the edge of squares, but placing them in a square is pretty clearly an option...

Quote:
If you evoke the barrier so that it appears where creatures are, each creature takes damage as if passing through the wall.

...while placing them between squares starts making wall spells really confusing to manage, and I think intent was fairly clear.

It's still a wicked spell to throw in a hallway, and two castings would have made it quite uncomfortable to be around there, but you always get a save. It represents you weaving around the spinning blades. Personally, I'd of had you make an additional save for every turn you end in the AoE if there was nowhere dive to. Maybe treat it as rough terrain if my players were particularly powerful so I could provide a challenge appropriate to their ability. However, there is no reason to claim the wall is 10' thick, or impacts more than one line of squares.

tl;dr: y'all shoulda gotten a save and scooted to the 5' side of the hallway that wasn't full of death

Grand Lodge 3/5

Muse. wrote:
But as they are a "Resistance" bonus, that would not stack with a Cloak of Resistance (+2) or higher... I was figuring the PC owning them would be lower level and not likely to have access to Extra-dimensional spaces. Mostly they are...

True. The handy haversack was the example I had in mind, or the pathfinder pouch, which are 2k and 1k respectively in cost, easily accessible prior to the cloak, or in the rare case someone passes on the cloak, as a paladin might. The concept of hiding things in there to avoid various mechanics like auto-activation or calling abilities is a tactic I've used in other games with powerful artifacts I didn't want their owner to have access to.

Grand Lodge 3/5

Muse. wrote:
Tusk the Half-Orc wrote:
Mitch Mutrux wrote:
Tusk the Half-Orc wrote:
Stephen Ross wrote:

....

Hex Nail $20 (none) ReignWinterPlyrGuide +2 rst all sv hexs, spels, SLA, SU of fey, hags, witches [1 use]. Circumstantial before you get a Cloak +2 $3000 (shoulders) CRB....

Hex Nail is also in the Additional Resources under the People of the North Player Companion, in case that's the book you have handy.
And in fact, the Reign of Winter Player's Guide is not a legal source for Hex Nails. If people want to buy them, they need People of the North.
Is there any way to get hex nails other than buying 7 with a prestige point? Are they on any chronicle sheet? It does not look like they qualify as always available.

careful of buying these things (Hex Nails) in groups. If you have them on you when you need one, all of them will trigger at once, and you only get a single +2 (they don't stack).

:(

There are some potential ways around it. If you have a bag of holding/handy haversack and store the others in there, they probably shouldn't activate as (in my mind) they aren't actually on your plane.

The BoH states Non-dimensional, and the pathfinder pouch says extra-dimensional, so I'm not sure how one might rule those. The former's interactions with a portable hole suggest to me that it is on a different plane, as does the lack of weight (the bag contents are pushing down on a different location, rather than the backpack/your back).

But to be fair, I could be misinterpreting that. Secret Chest (spell) actually calls out a different plane though, which only fuzzes up the interpretation to me. Maybe someone else could shine a little light on this.

Grand Lodge 3/5

andreww wrote:
Sam King wrote:
The final fight was strange. We were starting to run over and didn't want to deal with her sass. So the EK and I won initiative, DimDoor'ed in mid-monologue, and I full round wriggity-wrecked her, followed by a barbarian charge attack that finished her off before she got to activate all her shenanigans.
That should totally trigger at least one of her shenanigans. Also finishing her off should just trigger another buff.

RE: The buff:
I think I triggered it in my initial attack, or I might have forgotten one other front-liner or mage who did damage before me (the game was in October last year). The barbarian had pounce mechanics and easily mopped up the rest of her HP. I had forgotten about that effect since it had very little impact on the opening round.

Things that... spawned:
I believe our GM handwaved them due to time limitations, but we were all in full form and health, buffed to the gills, and the big boss was already down. IIRC we may have dropped one before it even got to go as several of our party hadn't acted and were ahead of them. Looking at their stats we would have easily rolled them in a round or two, even playing up. With the exception of that ghost which took 4 friggen rounds of nail biting fighting, most things went down in a round or two, even the boss of part 2 ate it in 3 rounds.

Grand Lodge 3/5

I'd like to call out the brawler using Snake Style in this mod while I was playing. He came up and triggered an AoO from my brawler using Snake Style. He used his snake style, swung at me and triggered my snake style, and I punched him anyway.

All in all it was a hilarious encounter for me, and I loved running into my own mechanic. Immediately followed by oh-my-god fight with that ghost thing, but myself and the Eldritch Dimensional Dervish Knight managed to take it out (barely) while the rest of the party dealt with the monk things. It was a terrifying fight. I'm curious on this part for when I eventually run it...

The One-Two Punch:
...how many people ran that ghost with a combo of casting harm then con-drain touch attack to 1-round most melee attackers? Our GM thought it was too crazy, particularly depending on what kind of builds were at the table and the fact that we couldn't see the touch attacks coming, but I was torn over it (though glad in my own game)

The final fight was strange. We were starting to run over and didn't want to deal with her sass. So the EK and I won initiative, DimDoor'ed in mid-monologue, and I full round wriggity-wrecked her, followed by a barbarian charge attack that finished her off before she got to activate all her shenanigans.

A+ for the trilogy, it was a blast.

Grand Lodge

limsk wrote:

Johny Mnemonic

How Bad? A 14% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a Golden Raspberry nomination for Keanu Reeves

Why I like It: As a unabashed William Gibson fan, this film showed me the worlds that I spent my teenage years imagining, reading Neuromancer in my school library. Yes the dialogue is so cheesy you could spread it on bread. Ice-T and Dolph Lundgren ham it up gloriously too.

I love everything about this. It was my first exposure to Cyberpunk that I can recall, and it was just amazing for me. I also love Keanu Reeves as an actor, so shaddup. XD

Belabras wrote:

Surely I can't be the only fan here of The Last Dragon?

When I say 'who is the master' you say Sho'Nuff!

You're not the only one! A buddy told me about this movie not long ago and I watched it on Youtube. It's downright amazing.

Grand Lodge

Ridiculon wrote:
Mysterious Stranger wrote:
Brawler’s flurry is not two weapon fighting it is its own ability. It just happens to have the same game mechanics.
Actually Brawler's Flurry gives you the feat while you are using the ability. You don't have to meet any prereq's because the ability is bypassing them to give you the feat (it also gives you a couple extra things on top of the feat)

And to expand, you count as having the Two Weapon Fighting feats you get via the class skill in order to qualify for other feats, but feats that require the Two-Weapon Fighting feats will only be activated on rounds when you've used Brawler's Flurry. To put it another way, they will suffer from the same "I am treated as having the feat only on rounds when I use brawler's flurry" effect as the feats you originally get from the Brawler's Flurry class ability.

Grand Lodge 3/5

John Compton wrote:
For years, players have complained that Venture-Captain Sheila Heidmarch a) didn't provide enough information before adventures, b) didn't give the PCs free equipment for missions, and c) didn't seem to care about the dangerous circumstances into which she sent agents—concerns I've tried to combat while at Paizo. Players have also seemed to assume that she and other venture-captains have all of the answers and unlimited resources, rather than just being accomplished adventurers who run lodges out-of-pocket. Now those same players get to play the part of Sheila and other Society leaders they've spent their careers demonizing. As the adventure advises, if you know that the players/PCs are critical of their venture-captains for perceived tight-fistedness, lack of empathy, or incompetence, let the NPC Pathfinder teams give them a taste of their own medicine. You may have heard the classic parental line "I hope your children are as terrible to you as you are being to me." Have some fun with it. Leadership isn't easy.

This seeker arc has encouraged my Brawler to take this into consideration. As a result, he's planning on dropping levels into the PrC Pathfinder Field Agent so he is capable of researching more and passing on more abilities in order to lead more effectively. Previously he would simply break what was in front of him and leave most of the thinking to wiser party members.

Above board I think this has accomplished exactly this. We still lost 2 people and we were trying very hard to keep them alive (lots of equipment and we made all our knowledge checks). We actively attempted to send teams to the places we thought were best suited to their abilities, and never sent them to dangerous locations if we could help it.

How it influenced our choices:
We even opted to bust down the front door in part III in order to draw attention away from the secondary teams in case it would have helped. We still lost one in that scenario despite wrecking everything we encountered :(

Grand Lodge 3/5

Ran it this last Saturday, playing up, with the 4 player adjustment and a group that was all 5-7 and one level 9.

This was brutal for them. I nearly TPK'ed them in the first and second fights. Technically I did dust someone in the second fight (in the throne room) which had particularly expensive implications, but the line at the store register finally died down (there was a ton of card game players that day) and they finally made their purchase to put the table over the $50 limit, meaning the barbarian didn't get killed, and was just unconscious (I let this slide because otherwise we would have started very late). We had to skip a lot of the latter fights because we were tight on time. I can see how this could go faster with a properly balanced party, but if you've got a group of mid/low-ranged DPS, they're going to suffer as they attempt to make it through all the HP. Once I saw that I was going to -easily- TPK them, I spread the damage output around (no way to miss anyone but dedicated AC builds with those to-hits) a bit to make it a bit closer to a possible positive outcome and they managed to figure out a good way to negate the threats they were dealing with.

I let my players know that this one has problem solving challenges on par with Bonekeep 1 and that seemed to help them during prep, but the party build was not ready to output the damage it needed to, so long fights were significantly deadly. There are a lot of critters in this one that, if the party can't put particular monsters down quickly, the chances of success start dropping rapidly due to lingering effects.

Spoiler:
I didn't even get to use the moonbeast flutist ;_;

Grand Lodge 3/5

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Linda Zayas-Palmer wrote:

Popping in here with a quick clarification after some feedback we received at GenCon.

** spoiler omitted **

My read of it indicates that if the PCs kill Aluu-Nekva (picky eater zombie), he heals (giving the PCs time to ready themselves for a fight) and then hounds them. This could spell death for the PCs if they got wrecked earlier, or it could be that they can heal up and gang-up on him. Either way, they will have to finish the fight at this point, and it appears that after he goes back to heal that one time, he does not return to heal again as he, "...following them relentlessly until destroyed" which I wouldn't read as going back and forth for healing.

And it's pretty clear that if the PCs don't kill his mate, he just lets them leave, even after engaging them in combat.

Mike Bramnik wrote:
Quick chronicle sheet question - is the feather token limit one (the language of the boon seems to hint that it is), or is it unlimited # of purchases? Thanks!

I'd vote for the "Single Token" reading in the text, but it is a little weird that it doesn't conform to the standard "Check box and cross off this boon" approach to these kind of things.

Grand Lodge 3/5

Calybos1 wrote:

This could be a scavenger hunt. Bonus points if you can find....

...Two seasons ago: A table without an Arcanist or Brawler...

I got into PFS right around when the ACG came out with the brawler, it was my first character. Even then I have only ever seen about 2-3 other brawlers in the wild above level 1 or 2. I really wish I saw it more around here... The class still holds a special place in my crunchy little heart.

And yeah, Ragathiel is hot (pun intended) with players. I've looked through the other lords and though lots of them were cool, but he's the only one I've seen other players follow.

Mitch Mutrux wrote:
I had a Thassilonian Evoker, emphasis on had...

Our Wrath is... very aggressive in his playstyle. I suspect he's going to bite it first out of all of us, and die due to including himself in an AoE (the player would want it that way, though). I have been playing mine intensely though, so I'm many levels further along than the rest of our group. I think only Wrath, Lust, Sloth, and Gluttony have gotten play time (wrath, lust, and gluttony are levels 3-5 I believe, my sloth is 8 by comparison). I think Greed might have gotten a game or two in, but he just had a kid so that's not a big surprise. I don't believe the others have played theirs yet.

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Milan Badzic wrote:
Sam King wrote:
Since the conversation is on Wizards... I rarely see other Thessalonian Specialists outside of our own meta, and I see it there because a whole mess of us decided to do a group of wayang TSs. For those of us who have gotten some serious play time in with them, they've been an absolute blast of extremes in both builds and RP (I do sloth[conjuration]).
Considering they are not sanctioned unless you *cough**cough**cough*, that might be the reason.

I guess. I've known a couple dozen people who've gone through it, but nobody else has one. I've actually really enjoyed not having to pick spells from those two schools.

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Edwin Wessels wrote:
Bonekeep 2 - Certain room where will saves ruined our winning streak.. first time I had to "rescue" my fighter...

Spoiler:
I remember going through that scenario with my brawler, and the grapple barbarian and I were wrestling those stupid fricking brain-tick things off people and tossing them in portals. We timed out shortly after clearing that room, but found out later they started attacking enemies in other rooms, doing some of the work for us. It was kind of hilarious and I'm sad we lost so much time figuring out how to get through that stupid maze.
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Since the conversation is on Wizards... I rarely see other Thessalonian Specialists outside of our own meta, and I see it there because a whole mess of us decided to do a group of wayang TSs. For those of us who have gotten some serious play time in with them, they've been an absolute blast of extremes in both builds and RP (I do sloth[conjuration]).

Outside of our group, I've only seen one. And for wizards, I've seen a few others, but they're definitely less common than martial/ranged builds, but the spread is pretty even between wizard, sorcerer, alchemist, cleric, arcanist, witch, and similar classes.

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One build that you could consider is a level drop in fighter or some martial class and then 6 levels of arcanist. Max out that Strength, and you'll get some pretty decent output early on with superior maneuverability (dimensional slide). After that, dump levels into Eldritch Knight and you'll do pretty darn well.

A local built the same thing, and used barbarian for his martial so he could rage after buffing up. At higher levels, he would quicken-rod mirror image, always have some long-duration buff spells up, and then dimensional dervish his way around to flank with everyone, AND have the option to dimensional slide away afterwards, AND be able to monstrous humanoid himself into a gargoyle with something like 5-6 attacks. It was disgustingly effective, and he was only a couple CL from a full mage. Often he'd get his buffs out of the way during the surprise round and then full round everything in the room on future rounds. If he had a chance to throw up shield before a fight he could get high 30's low 40's AC, which was enough to avoid most trouble, with mirror image covering his butt the rest of the time.

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I have a conjurer wayang in PFS who uses Snowball as one of his primary damage output sources. I keep it pretty simple, but I use Wayang Magehunter and Magical Lineage to dip the metamagic adjustment, empower them all, and intensify them all. I then bought a minor rod of maximize, which lets me drop 90 cold/hit. I have room for another +1 metamagic, but I don't have much I want to throw it at. It looks like there are a few more methods though from what I've seen in this thread, so there is room to improve.

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Kevin Willis wrote:
andreww wrote:
Sam King wrote:
The next round our level 8 paladin (88hp) went from full health to -71 and nobody saw where it came from.
I don't believe this is possible in that scenario unless he was crit, possibly twice.

Yeah, I'm not seeing how this happened.

** spoiler omitted **

It was a double crit. My interpretation of the 2 stealth shots was that both got the SA damage because the feat that grants the ability to get that damage on both because you're considered hidden for both (thus overriding the normal rule), but there could have been a miss-play as I haven't looked terribly close at the setup. Either way, the paladin got crit-hit twice by this guy, so he still would have been absolutely flattened.

After that first round he hit/crit someone else and took them to 3HP, but they spotted him and he got hammered, so it didn't last too long. Everything else got flattened pretty quick. I was just floored with how much damage came out of that setup.

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A goblin summoner with the broodmaster archtype. He always wanted to be a chief, but nobody let him, so he decided to go make his own tribe.

There is a laundry list of personality issues there, and he would just be so much fun to play, particularly when his "tribe" starts talking back to him.

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RealAlchemy wrote:
Joe the Devout wrote:
4-26 The Waking Rune: Didn't know there was anything special about this scenario, not sure if the other players at the table knew there was something special about this scenario. We were not prepared... My character plane shifted away when he was the last one standing.
Haven't played it yet, but I think that scenario would call for me releasing the kraken APG summoner who blows through scrolls of Evolution Surge/Greater Evolution Surge like candy.

Sad to say that will not necessarily help you, at all. My only played TPK (kinda, one guy got away) was in that very scenario. I'll spare spoiling it, but despite all of us having particularly strong builds, our GM was crafty and we, foolishly, opted for hard mode.

-note-
The changes due to hard mode actually wasn't even what killed us, we did fine against those.

While not a TPK, there was a player death that was of particular amazement for me. We were in a crowd of people, waiting for an ambush we knew was going to happen. A few of us were hidden, a few of us in the crowd. The ambush occurs, and we're all trying to find where a specific pair of arrows came from, but came up with nothing. The next round our level 8 paladin (88hp) went from full health to -71 and nobody saw where it came from. The rogue spotted the attacker the following round, and the immediate area got hammered so hard I'd wager the stain was still there where it not for the extensive damages to the building.

I'd never seen someone get turned into a fine red mist like that before. o_o

scenario in question:
Ageless Ambitions

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Quentin Coldwater wrote:

You might be confusing me with someone else, I'm pretty sure I haven't played with you. >_>

But yeah, compared to a Paladin smite or a Ranger's efficiency, most Brawlers have very little going for them. They're certainly not bad, but I haven't seen one that wowed me yet.

I quite likely am! :D

I understand the view of brawlers, though I think Martial Flexibility gets wildly underrated, particularly at higher levels given all you can do with combat feats. My build also maximizes Sense Motive (+38) for the Snake Style tree which allows me to get an extra attack most rounds, dodge one attack, and auto-confirm any crits. They do come online in later levels because of how Martial Flexibility scales, though. Earlier levels only allow you to branch out in combat feats a little bit, but my brawler has been known to drop 300+ damage/round, get 5-6 attacks a round, and be able to roll a +30 on any combat maneuver instead of just one or two with almost no investment.

I'm a little sad they don't get much love. I feel like it has been my most cheese character since I started playing PFS.

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William Cleveland wrote:

I once played a table of day of the demon with a 6 player all human party. It was rough.

Things I see rarely
-Cavaliers, really uncommon around here. I have one of the few.
-Rangers, almost never.

There are probably several other things but those are the two that spring to mind.

I completely forgot about Cavaliers. Once in a blue moon I might see someone who dipped in a level or two to an archtype, but the last time I saw a full classed cavalier was 2-3 years ago.

Quenitin Coldwater wrote:
...I think Brawlers just aren't as flashy as other classes. One guy made it really work, but it's still kinda underwhelming compared to other martials, I think.

:DDD

Though to be fair when you played with my brawler he was okay. I think it was a level or two later a lot of his abilities exploded and he's laid waste to many seeker arcs.

But now that you mention it, aside from two low-level exceptions, I've not seen another brawler... Which is too bad. The class is amazing, if a slow starter. Mechanically it is absolutely insane, but it has very little flair compared to a lot of classes.

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Bahb, Herald to Kala Foerender wrote:
Sam King wrote:

-A human blender (Gencon)

My Mistress prefers to be addressed by her formal title

THE BARONESS OF BRUTALITY
THE DUCHESS OF DESTRUCTION
THE MARQUISE IN MITHRAL
KALAAAAA FOOOOOOOEREEENNNNDDER!

:D Best intro to a character yet.

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Okay, I can probably provide some practical experience for this. I have a 14th level human brawler and have spent weeks on figuring out different builds for a grippli monk.

-It loooooks like you're already considering it, but Agile on an Amulet of Mighty Fists is an obvious choice. Just max your Dex out and have a decent AC along with your attack and damage.
-Brawlers = Best at combat maneuvers. I don't mean the highest CMB for a single maneuver, I mean they have a high CMB for ALL maneuvers, whenever they want. Make sure you take Power Attack and Combat Expertise so you can use them to dive into Improved Maneuver feats with Martial Flexibility. If you are really into a particular maneuver, get the Improved Maneuver feat, and no more. By the time you'd have the tree, you'll be able to spend a move action to get it for a fight, and at higher levels you'll only need a swift action.
-Power Attack is needed, because it's such a common prerequisite. I know it won't be great to dump 7 points into a penalty stat, but you're going to need the feat if you want to take full advantage of your class ability.
-Weapon Focus (Unarmed) is another big prereq feat. I'd also recommend Weapon Specialization, but probably ignore the greater versions of both. You can pass on Specialization if you want.
-Once you can afford it, get Brawling on your light armor anyway. I don't care if it's expensive. It's an untyped +2 to attack, damage, trip, disarm, sunder (unarmed), and grappling. It completely offsets your Brawler's Flurry penalty and then some, and it stacks with everything.
-There is 4k cracked Ioun stone that also bumps up your attack bonus by +1. This includes CMB. Grab it once you can.
-Grab Iron Will. You'll suck at Will saves and you'll need to cover that. You might even consider a clear spindle Ioun stone in a wayfinder for extra coverage against getting dominated and killing your party.
-Agile Maneuvers has already been mentioned, but will be necessary.
-Style Feats: These are hard, because they will suck up your feats. My brawler uses Snake Style, and ended up spending like... 6 feats for it, and that one has pretty low requirements. If you use a style feat tree that focuses on a combat maneuver, expect it to be useless sometimes due to immunity, and require more feats because you'll want the whole combat maneuver feat tree. I started out focusing on grappling, disarm, and trip but ended up keeping only Improved Disarm because when it matters it's incredibly useful and I normally don't have the spare action to grab it (swift and immediate actions are usually already spent).
-I find that if you want to be viable in the widest range of situations, you need to have good damage output. You can blind, trip, and grapple your opponent all day long, but it's still breathing and can potentially still kill you dead. As you get higher in level, rely more on Martial Flexibility and ensure you have the basic prereq feats to allow you to grab whatever you need.

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DungeonmasterCal wrote:
I'd LOVE to have some mammoth ivory dice from them. But there's no way I could ever afford it. I can't even afford to GenCon, so there's that.

Those are neat, but I'd never want to roll them because A) they'd be lopsided as hell due to density variance, and B) holy bajesus those are expensive what if I lost it or it hit cement and shattered no thank you!

I really like their flame treated titanium series, and I have one of the d20s. I'd -really- like the flame treated trimascus that has yellow and purple hues, but those are a cool $300 for a single d20.

...at least I wouldn't be afraid of breaking it. >____>

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-I one-rounded a villain my regional coordinator had been waiting to kill in PFS for the entire life of a character in a seeker-level game. I've never done that much damage in one round in my life. I didn't consider how much I was doing, or that I could even have done that mechanically. I thought I was going to just soften it up.

-I like very expensive D20s. Artisan Dice is my favorite, and I regularly get something from them every year at Gencon.

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Quentin Coldwater wrote:
BigNorseWolf wrote:

also rarely see a wizard.

The "go to "spells are so much better than anything else, and such a prominant feature of the casting classes that most arcane casters feel kind of samey once the battlemat hits.

This. There are so many spells, but only a handful are actually good (coloured blue in all the guides), you're just making your character worse by not picking them. As a Wizard you get only so many free spells, so you go for the best options first, and never really get to buying your pet spells.

The above is one reason why I haven't had a wizard until I could build (and apply a ton of boons to) a Thassalonian wizard (level 8 I have 28 INT if that helps draw a picture). It lets me to pick crazy spells without giving up really strong options for when a scenario goes absolutely sideways. My current favorite is Fleshworm Infestation, but Touch of Slime is also fun. I haven't had an opportunity yet, but I also plan to enjoy Lesser Animate Undead (don't worry about it you silly paladin, the zombie bulettes burrowing below you aren't a threat!). Also a wayang because creepy gnome.

Things I've seen only once:
-A human blender (Gencon)
-A goblin character who thinks he's a long-dead hero (Local)
-A Shaman (Gencon)
-A Samurai (Gencon)
....
-I've only seen 1 Damphir, but they are this quarter's GM boon for conventions, so there are a ton on the horizon, including mine.

I've seen pretty much all of the other classes and races you can get without participating in the Paizo GenCon bids at least a few times, almost completely within a 60 mile radius too.

Time to get weird..
-A dragon using potions as a bra (in the scenario art and everything! Shaddup, that's totally what it looks like! Who cares if they are reptiles, not mammals. That hasn't stopped Paizo from giving them mammary glands anyway.)
-A Gnome Life Oracle of Zon Kuthon (okay, that one is my creation, but I've never seen anything like it)
-3 players, a father, son, and grandson, who where all playing gnome brothers. Best impression of the 3 stooges I'd seen in a long time.

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Rule number 1 for GMing: help the players have fun.

If it helps the players have fun, go for it. If it doesn't, don't.

It really doesn't strike me as any more complicated than this because if a game isn't fun, why bother playing it? (Hard can be fun too!)

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Wei Ji the Learner wrote:


I was actually surprised in a couple of scenarios to have my rogue's max'd level Disable Device *do* something for a change.

Usually it doesn't come up, but when it does, it's amazing.

I get the same thrill when my brawler's maxxed out Sense Motive comes up somewhere (though I rarely need to even roll anymore the bonus is so high... I just do it for the look on the GM's face if they haven't played with him yet), or when my Paladin's Perform(Sing) comes up... which is a shockingly large number of scenarios...

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It is. You could do butterfly sting and then drop a high crit multiplier weapon on your Eidolon (x3 or x4). I've played with the build several times, and I find a Suli to be one of the better choices for obvious reasons, though you could get the same goodies with an aasimar or tiefling.

Typically you'll have lower Dex, 16-18 STR, 14-16 CHA, terrible INT, and at least 14 CON.

Personally I decided to use teamwork feats in my build (outflank, escape route, etc...) which lets me get into position for a flank and make up for the lower BAB.

I like the idea of using Butterfly Sting though. But I would go with a Nodachi or a Falcion. Alternatively you could do a dex build with TWF and Kukuri or something like that, but I am weary of the feat tax in that build. If you wanted to skip Butterfly Sting, you could keep it simple and use a longspear/spear, and save your feats for things that help you kick more butt. Obviously your Eidolon will be able to care for itself in combat.

Spell-Wise, you're chock full of buffing spells, so focus on those. No need to spend too many stat points in CHA when you need them in your physical stats.

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SillyString: Somewhere in the rules is a bit stating that you can't use the same limb to make more than one type of attack, which is specifically meant to stop you from doing exactly what you're looking to do. :)

It's to keep the game balanced with numbers of attacks. It also means at higher level, some builds are going to be more or less effective. If you want a stupid amount of attacks, look at Gargoyles. You can hold a weapon(s) in two hands and attack with your iteritives there, and use the other 3 natural attacks on top of that.

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"For every fight-ending ability there is an equal and opposite immunity."

A rod of Threnodic Metamagic seems like a great place to start. Also, scrolls of command undead will at least make mindless undead easy to deal with. If you're running into things like golems or other more rare mind-effecting-immune critters, you'll need to diversify your spells prepared to deal with them.

I'm a fan of Shadow Evocation/Conjuration spells for flexibility (though they are higher level), and glitterdust for all-around function.

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RE: Snake Style and your request for comments.

It takes some dedication for it, but I've found it to be stunningly useful on my brawler. Currently level 14, he has a +38 to Sense Motive. Opening round charge attacks mean I can disarm/trip/sunder/punch an opponent and avoid the attack, THEN get a full round attack. It's also great against nasty ray attacks (Enveneration!) or poison stingers or anything else that could be potentially dangerous. I find that I usually have a decent chance to avoid even the super nasty one-hit/round monsters with absurd attack rolls.

More importantly, I find the fact that I can use it to confirm crits to basically auto-confirm whenever I roll a 20 on the dice. Even if I roll a 2, that's still a 40 to hit, and there are few things, even at that level, that I wouldn't confirm on. The rest of the abilities are secondary, but I should also add that a high sense motive has proven to be a great out of combat ability on a class that doesn't get many. For a monk, you've already got a great WIS, much better than my brawler, so topping 38 shouldn't be hard, or at least shouldn't cost as much money as I had to put into it (you can at least save the skill focus feat I spent on it)!

I think for a monk, however, the value is diminished a little bit as your touch AC (and regular AC) is already going to be pretty good. Still, I would recommend it a bit as I still use it to massively great effect even at my current level.

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666bender wrote:

What feats / abilities allow dirty trick to be faster ?

Skulking slayer rogue dip
Quick dirty trick
And ....?

Quick Dirty Trick was the one I was referencing. Dirty Trick Master could be fun too, particularly when you have one big-bad boss to focus on.

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