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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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. >____>
Shrink Item on a wide, thin plane of iron or some other heavy metal. 40,000lbs translates into 10lbs, and at 2cuft/lvl of material at level 5, you can do a 1 inch thick plate of material, you can get about 5 squares worth of space. Even a half-inch sheet for approximately 9 squares is only a huge sized object. Every level gets you (approximately) one additional square of coverage at .5" thick, and that's only if you read 2cuft to mean volume. Weight-wise, this is pretty impressive though, but unfortunately I don't think there is object collision damage per weight anywhere in the books. Getting hit by a huge-sized block of wood and a huge-sized block of lead is apparently the same amount of damage (officially).
On the other hand, still image of a hallway over a solid surface also has potential! :D
Simple solution: The third law of thermodynamics as science understands it is wrong. It's not the only one, but it's the most glaring example.
Speaking to the actual law you meant... It's also possible energy is coming from somewhere we're not aware of. At this point NASA has torn that thing apart and put it back together again a million times, so it's not complete crud. They've measure the output hundreds of times. They where correct to question it, and still are, but it's got enough evidence behind it that it's safe to say, "It seems to be outputting some energy but we're not sure how it's doing it." As I understand it, the article NASA released did suggest some possibilities using current theories (though not hugely popular ones). The more this thing works the more we'll dig to update our understanding of reality.
I'm glad NASA has the program to test out these sorts of inventions. A good deal aren't worth the investment or are straight up cons, but every once in awhile someone comes up with something good.
For earlier levels you can use dimensional slide to hop past front lines and hit the squishy targets for nearly no effort, rage, smack them down, and then the next round pop out of rage and slide back out to sling some evocations. Overall your attack won't be absolutely maximized, but rage helps counter that, and a two-handed weapon will ensure good damage output.
For later levels you dig deep into the dimensional dervish line and transmutation. Be Mage Armor'ed almost always, rod of quicken to bring up Shield and then cast beast shape 2 for a gargoyle form. Ring of protection + ammy of natural armor will get your AC into stupid levels (40-50). Next round full round attack, letting you port around the battlefield doing large amounts of damage with your ~6 or so attacks (you can still use your armor and weapon in this form too), and end up in the air using your wings to fly. The party will spend a round getting themselves into the air, letting you destroy their mages in the meantime while landing some nasty hits on their front-liners, all without much opportunity to strike back. Eventually they'll ready actions to hit you, but that's a lot less DPS than what you'll be putting out. As long as you don't eat a save-or-die/suck early on (which is a problem for any villan), you'll be quite the challenge.
*Flexes 30 Strength muscles*
[dice=Intimidate]1d20+15
(in a friendly way, of course!)
Spoiler:
DC 26 = Success
I'm impressed by your gusto, and muscles! You should come down to my bar/lodge/Temple to Cayden Cailean in Oppara and compete in our contests of strength, dexterity, and constitution! I've just come back from an important mission, and need a few drinks to celebrate my success!
Spoiler:
Sraxx is now a 13 Brawler / 1 Cleric of Cayden Cailean after an epic series of fights going through All For Immortality!
I've been on a bit of a kick lately looking into various out-of-stereotype builds that are still effective. I'd like to hear what builds you've come across or have designed yourself that fall into this category, and why you enjoy playing them. Instead of a long description to define this, I'll provide a few examples and see what is offered up. I will add this: I'm not looking for the pinnacle of min/maxxing, just effective characters who have rocked and that you've had a blast playing, be it for role playing or for the mechanics.
This build was spun up by my local VL who has had a lot of fun playing a shocking effective character. With a greatsword he was able to port around the battlefield with Dimensional Slide and land very strong blows across his early levels with rage for particularly nasty fights once he was in place. Use of mage armor, shield and a few other spells let him have pretty good AC too. During the later levels of his build he would polymorph into a gargoyle and use the dimensional dervish feat tree to flank with the entire party and drop a mess of damage all at the same time, effectively buffing all melee characters for a single round while also dropping significant damage. His AC topped 40 and may have scraped low 50s through EOTT. He was more maneuverable than most builds I've encountered and could keep up with nearly any classes damage output, while still being fairly effective for skills.
Melee Summoner - (Unchained) Summoner X
Focusing on combat and not buffing as a summoner, this is something I've been toying with to see what I can get out of it, though still in lower levels. AC is around 20 at level 1 with spells, and will rapidly grow as time and money allows. I'm hoping to treat it similarly to a hunter, and branch into teamwork feats as time goes on. So far it's been really effective and I'm enjoying it. I've noticed my choice of Suli for race has caused me to rely a bit more on my Eidolon for skills, so I'm interested to see how that plays out as the build levels.
I've actually wanted to build a home game around this critter. It getting "planted" during the rumblings of a civil war. Things start out with a village or town suddenly being empty (the zombies being used as proxies), but that only comes up to the party in side conversations and in context that suggests it was due to whatever side of the war they're against. Its zombies are blamed on the other side sinking to new lows/propoganda/etc... The war escalates and the Zygomind slowly grows and the players slowly start realizing that something else is at play here. As they figure it out and research very old records, they realize it's far beyond anything they can handle, so they go from fighting a civil war to trying to unify everyone against what is clearly (for them) the greater evil that will kill them all if they spend all their time killing each other...
Running into people who have been impacted by this creature in some way, or by a cult that's risen up around the zygomind and is trying to help it grow because they think it's some kind of god. I've thought about modifying a kingmaker game along these lines as well, but you could do it a few different ways.
-edit-
The players would start out between level 1 and 3, I doubt they'd top 15 by the end of it... maybe around 12?
Your opponent's size is a limiting factor. Titanic armor lets you be a size larger for 10 rounds. It can help you grapple much larger creatures.
Sadly i would love this but Titanic armor is just armor with Enlarge Person spell on it. If i get Enlarge person enchanted onto me permanently i cant benefit from the armor.
Can't do that in PFS, which is why Tothric went with the armor, but yeah you could do that, though it makes it a pain to get around sometimes.
I have played many a game with Tothric's dwarf, and lo' he has beaten many a MoFo with yet another MoFo, and tossed about many tables, pews, and bookshelves for absurdly large amounts of damage. It's been a much more successful tactic than his earlier approaches to killing things, which amounted to grappling it and then diving into active machinery/traps/off cliffs/etc...
Arcanist does not work well with Eldrich Knight because you don't gain other class features such as increased Arcane Pool or additional exploits. You might want to consider Evangelist (Inner Sea Gods) instead -- d8 hit die, 3/4 BAB and a few other goodies.
You do miss out on that, however...
We have a local player who dropped 1 level into Barbarian, 6 levels into Arcanist, and the rest into Eldrich Knight. The result is a gargoyle who teleports around, never triggering AoOs unless he wants to, with a high 30's AC, flanking for the entire party with the dimensional dervish feat line. It is ridiculously powerful, and he hits like a truck too. He can get into flanking position for anyone with Dimensional Slide, and has enough natural attacks and buffs that his damage output and hit bonus is on par with any 3/4th class, and almost with a full BAB class.
Now that he's gotten ahold of a lesser Rod of Quickening he can usually go from flatfooted to battle ready in one round, and he can make up for the lack of mobility by dimensional dervish-ing into battle to flank with everyone who just got into position, if not just dimensional sliding into position with a single ally.
The combo sounds like a poor choice on the surface, but I can verify that it is terrifyingly powerful.
Since I didn't see her come up... I always really liked Calisro Benarry. She's the, "Hey, I found some cool s@%~ and I can't go in myself because I'm super busy, wanna go check it out?! :D" I went through school for archaeology, I can relate to the desire to go explore some cool thing and be really excited about it (admittedly, IRL we left the antiquarian period ages ago because it's horribly destructive, but this is a game).
A lot of folks seem to groan when they hear the name of her ship at the start of a scenario, but I never understood why...
The fact that, with a dedicated group, everyone can rage all day, and you could have fast healing 4 at level 2 while you rage right along with them? When you hit level 10 (or 11, depending on if you retrain or not) you also can give everyone else the same fast healing.
If that isn't disgustingly terrifying I don't know what is.
It would be so much fun to play all our Shelynite paladins together. I was so excited when a recent scenario had another Shelynite paladin in it as an NPC. We should start a glee club!
I can't tell you how many times people have asked me in a game... "What kind of a paladin are YOU?"
"The kind that doesn't have a stick up her ass."
___
Lyric has:
drunk beer with trolls;
supervised a poo-flinging contest between a goblin and a barbarian teammate;
patted a demonic spider eidolon on the head and said to its summoner: "I see! You're redeeming him! How wonderful!"
This was made even funnier by the comments that the demonic spider was making at the time of "Aaaagh, she's touching me!! Can I eat her face NOW?" which Lyric could not hear because a) she's deaf and b) the spider didn't have lips.
Hahahaha!
Let's see. While Galton is pretty much auto-charge/smite with undead (he's had bad experiences), he has made a connection through an old song with a wayward spirit and helped free her, soothed many a savage beast, and kept up the ritual songs in a mighty temple of Abadar. He's usually pretty friendly, and assumes most folks can be too.
Quote:
"Oh how perfect!" Lyric looks down with delight at the little wooden rose in her hand, and kisses Varg on the forehead. "Thank you so much! I don't carry much with me, but I'll treasure this!"
I'm totally adding this to my character sheet. It's adorable!
Perform Sing: 26
In return, Lyric sings you a song.
A rose bloomed in the wood
A friendship made, we understood
The blessed music of Shelyn
Shining from a heart so pure and good
Giving all the joy he could --
Love is calling! Let it in!
A tall pretty red headed half elf in plate armor comes into the room and smiles at everyone. Prominent is a glaive, a holy symbol of Shelyn, and a permanently chipper disposition. "Hello, I'm Lyric, the Singing Paladin! Um, could you look my way when you're talking? I'm deaf, but I read lips."
"I've never been to [adventure Location] before, but I bet we'll make lots of new friends!"
Out of character, I hand out sheets with Lyric's paladin code and explain that she's an oradin (Paladin / Life Oracle cross.) She fights, she heals and she makes friends with everyone. She's even made friends with trolls, goblins and other monsters. It's the power of music. Everyone loves music, right?
I desperately want to play my Suli paladin of Shelyn with this character. Also a singer, but carries a bardiche he thinks is a glaive ("I gave the weapon smith a large bag of gold and told him to give me the finest glaive he had!")
I usually don't have a long intro, something along the lines of, "I'm Galton Ranner, paladin of Shelyn! Skilled with my glaive and song."
I fear he'd drive your paladin insane though. He often does that to people. Periodically through a scenario I'll break out singing some ear-worm. Occasionally, when there is an NPC or player who's having a rough time, I'll try to give them some words of encouragement... "Look, I know you're [horribly blunt description of physical appearance or tragic life events], but you're beautiful on the inside, and Shelyn sees that. Now lets go [do activity that helps them]!"
It's also stunning how often opportunities to use Perform (Sing) comes up in PFS. I have loved playing him so much.
-edit-
At some point I'm going to diversity in Perform skills and get Perform (Dance) for that sweet soft-shoe shuffle action.
I don't see why not, primarily because part of the game is being able to RP a character that the player can connect with. Some have hearing loss, so playing a character that reflects that seems completely reasonable as the alternative wouldn't stand up to Paizo's theme of inclusion (or the rules that reflect that in PFS).
Outside of that, as Wei Ji said, just make sure you're respectful about it.
Fear and meaningful traps were two of my many objectives; I'm glad to see that they're coming through.
Any questions or feedback for our GM collective?
I went into this with spoilers because I was originally going to run this, but passed it off when there was an opportunity to play and have it run by our regional commander. I did everything I could to contain myself. :)
Traps Overall: I really appreciated the traps in this scenario. Sometimes they can feel like a straight killer (basalisk, suicide haunt) or just CLW tax. The best traps in my mind force you to adjust your tactics for a scenario (not just be paranoid) or give you a chance to RP. Haunts can sometimes do the latter, and traps that trigger encounters are the most common type for the former from what I've seen. Your traps managed to do both in ways I haven't come across before. GREAT TRAPS!
Traps, Individual:
Our "rogue" got his hand mangled as we were playing down, which I was secretly super excited about because it was a hit to the player's mechanics (he was a THW warpriest(?)), and I had to lend him one of my backup weapons so he could work around it, which he did by climbing the tree several times and dive-bombing the BBEG. I loved how it forced him to reconsider how he interacted in the following fight. Our party had searched the door, but didn't search after opening the additional compartment(GIVE HIM THE CLAMPS!). I'd like ideas on how to get the players to forget to be super paranoid here, but it's kind of an obvious trap for someone even mildly paranoid. My mind was screaming that scene from Indiana Jones: Temple of Doom where the ceiling was falling and the heroine had to reach into the bug-filled hole to stop it. ...I may have kept my mouth shut to... properly roleplay my 6 INT paladin. Yeah. That's it... >_>
The shadow double room was strange. We didn't attack immediately so the duplicates just sat there and we got what we needed (we found the door first) and booked it. I think when I run it I'd like to have the players roll initiative because the shadows are clearly hostile, and just let the players beat themselves silly until they figure it out.
The Night Terrors room: I think that, when I run this, I'm going to ask for the crowning achievement or the big goal of each character prior to the game so I can personalize the effects and then twist them to some nightmarish outcome. For players who aren't big into RP it'll be an interesting room but ultimately they won't get a lot out of it. For those who are into their character it's going to be amazing. My Paladin just kind of giggled and shrugged it off, which really amused me as everyone else biffed the save. He was very confused why everyone else was screaming and throwing a fit.
Things I recommend for unarmed fighting as a brawler:
-Adamantine +1 weapon: Cestus is nice because it leaves your hands open!
-The Brawling armor enchantment: Increases unarmed damage and hit bonus by +2, as well as +2 to grappling CMB! That hit bonus also increases your unarmed disarm, trip, and sunder attempts too, which is pretty awesome.
-Deliquescent gloves: for later on. Avoid the nasty parts of fighting Oozes and add 1d6 acid damage to your attacks.
-Ammy of Mighty Fists: I like Holy because I primarily play in Society play, but adjust for whatever you're coming across. Use it only for weapon enhancements like flaming, holy, and other similar things.
-Body Wrap of Mighty Strikes: for a straight enchantment bonus. You won't be able to apply it to all your attacks, but adding +2 or +3 to your offhand attacks really increases the odds they'll hit.
-Weapon Focus (unarmed strike): you get a lot of attacks, this'll pay off.
-(OPTIONAL) Weapon Specialization: I chose to go for it because you're throwing out a lot of attacks at a high attack bonus, so you might as well maximize your output
-Power Attack: To attack with power. It might not get the 1.5x multiplier, but if you're hitting 4 times a round that +6 damage a hit comes out as +24 damage a round...
-Cracked pale green prism ioun stone: 4k for a +1 to your attacks and to your CMB!
At level 10 my brawler has a +21/+16 full attack, +19/+19/+14/+14, flurry, and +16/+16/+11/+11 flurry/power attack. The latter averages 33 damage a hit vs. evil.
(Adamantine would be worth more if you are going up against robots with hardness.) Especially in PFS where stuff rarely damages your weapons, so the extra toughness of mithril/adamantine rarely comes up.
Man, I've hit more than a few scenarios where your weapon gets damaged or you are fighting something with hardness and I have to say I always prefer to have the option as my primary. It also means that you only ever have to enchant a weapon to a +3 to bypass practically all DR, which is handy, and if you need to do some emergency sundering you're good to go.
It doesn't come up really often, but it's saved my butt enough times it's become my first big weapon purchase for all classes that use a weapon as their primary combat tool. I rarely get to the full +3, but I find that things with #/adamantine DR tend to be tougher than most other things, and I'd prefer the advantage in those fights over cold iron.
--To OP--
Go with what suits you! Near TPKs with killer robots has taught me that adamantine is my friend, so I can only recommend it. But as CLH said, it doesn't happen very often. I think I've seen it once every dozen scenarios or so.
-edit-
What TOZ said. Do that. I always forget about PP.
If I might recommend the feat "Skald's Vigor". Fast healing while raging will help your survival! There are some shenanigans to crank it up to 8/round by level 5, but that's pretty cheesy.
Other things that are crazy useful to have available (particularly in early levels:
-Scroll of Gust of Wind: blow away those fog clouds and swarms!
-Scroll of Comprehend Languages: They're cheap, and you'll probably use the spell once every 3-5 scenarios.
-Anti-toxin/Anti-plague: +5 vs. poison/disease for an hour, best after a few levels as 50gp a pop is nothing to sneeze at at your level.
-Rope + Grappling Hook: I don't use them every game, but I probably use them once every 2-4 scenarios in some manner.
...orrrrr
Save your gold! You also might hold off on making your weapon masterwork right now. An alternative option is to wait until level 3 or so and purchase an adamantine weapon for your primary, then enchant the heck out of that. I'd still suggest the two above scrolls though, those are just useful.
Either way, welcome to the fold! Now go forth... AND ROCK!
It's fine if you don't let them hack through dungeon walls, but if you do let them, don't make up exhaustion rules that I have a hard time imagining ever come up except when your party pisses you off.
Exhaustion rules exist, but they tend to cover more common situations in the game (swimming, long marches, running, raging). There are many examples of heavy labor causing exhaustion in modules, adventure paths, and PFS scenarios though, so it isn't unreasonable to ask a player to make checks along those lines, assuming the player is aware that what they want to do is heavy work that may wear them out before they attempt it. In all cases it's either moderate or high levels of exertion over shorter periods of time (a few hours), or extreme levels of exertion over rounds/minutes of time, with the outcome usually causing Constitution saves to avoid non-lethal damage or fatigue/exhaustion status effects (and things like raging not even allowing saves). While digging through a solid stone wall isn't expressly mentioned, it isn't a leap to say that trying to rapidly dig through a 5' stone wall would cause Constitution saves. The Endurance feat would help for all of those types of rolls.
As per rules others have mentioned, you'd need a digging implement, not just any old thing made of adamantine. I'd also ask the kind of pace the player wants to keep up, and ask for rolls accordingly. The faster they want to go, the more I'd increase the DC and penalty for failure. If the player wants to go really slow, like take 6 hours to go through the 5' wall (alone... quicker with more people), I wouldn't bother with more than a single roll (or take even longer and have no risk at all).
Loud noise would attract attention too, so be ready to deal with the consequences of that as well.
We've got a few players who have similar challenges to overcome. We've been trying to help provide them (and others) with the tools to let them improve their game. Things like character audit days, character build days, and helping them level on a regular basis and process all the new numbers. It's been helping, but they're still impacting enjoyment of a session as they have some difficulty doing some calculations on the fly or determining actions for the turn, and they aren't great at reading a situation which often leads to rough RP interactions. However, they are contributing to the games more now, so it's not quite as much of an impact to others.
So far, we try to set someone up with them to help them on the fly, but games they participate in tend to drag on. If I'm playing with them (instead of GMing) I usually try to coordinate actions with them as it gives them a direction during combat. We're still working on solutions to this, but the last thing we want to do is cut someone out.
OTOH, I know how aggravating it can be with inept players, particularly at high level. Where it not for the hands of the gods coming down and making me save every one of a dozen stunning fist attacks, I would have lost my -1 when I had to solo 4 enemies playing up in a 5-9 during the hardest encounter. Words do not express how annoyed I was with one of the players at the table who had the worst druid I'd ever come across making the worst choices possible every round.
The last time I significantly refluffed/reskinned anything, I was playing the psychic pregen and I declared that the somatic components for the Mind Thrust spell was a pelvic thrust.
Ooo, similar experience, but with the Spiritualist. Her ghost became the ghost of Nicolas Cage, and when he got hit by a despair effect in game, he started realizing how much a failure his acting career was and he began lamenting out-loud how he'd never make another movie.
It's a hard balance, and I worry if I cross the line from time to time. In particular, I will drive the plot forward (forcefully sometimes) if there is more than a little analysis paralysis going on. For example, the group is discussing how to enter the next room suspecting something is there. If they can't figure it out in 5 minutes, or are clearly going in circles, I just open the door and walk in and damn the consequences. I should also note our area has trouble finishing most scenarios without going 10-30 minutes over, and sometimes an hour.
As a result, particularly when I'm feeling rushed, I tend to just keep moving down the path I suspect will move us towards the conclusion. I will also lead up RP if nobody is speaking up or if they don't jump in. I find I can't really tell if it's because I'm driving too much or if they would rather someone else talked, but I do have some people jump in and lead, which I always bow to and take a more passive role (though I'll chime in normally for my character).
One character I have is built to be arrogant. Mixed in with the above impulse it can make for a dominating character, but I back off when others are trying to take the lead (I just can't keep myself from jumping in with lines once in a while... he's so much fun to play). I've gotten nothing but positive feedback on him, but I'm always worried I've gone a bit too far.
I've had to sit at a con with a player whose *third level* character was totally illegal. Rolled his stats, was a banned race, banned archetype. Thanks, home GM, for taking the easy way out because you didn't want to waste any of your precious time, so that I, his first non-you GM, had to waste a bunch of time at a con picking up your mess.
If you're not enforcing campaign rules, you are messing with tables down the road, and making other GMs clean up your mess. This is not *only* about a player enjoying one table's worth of play. PFS is like a career. If your first boss teaches you to break the rules, you are set up for a lifetime of problems.
None of which I do in my outlined resolution. If someone is 3rd level, they get corrected, period. I'm talking newbies, first game of PFS, as I stated above. I suspect both of you are framing my response to include a much wider set of circumstances than I am. I've not had any repeat "offenders" as far as I can tell, and the last time this occurred it was months ago.
Again, it's made clear the character is illegal and they have to change it, but I'm willing to make compromises to ensure the player still wants to play and has fun in their first game. It's the same reason why we hand-wave a 1st game death (something I had happen to me and I greatly appreciated the breaking of the rules).
The kind of situation that spawns a 3rd level illegal character are far afield of the steps I take, and I think it's pretty clear in my descriptions above. The only way this would happen in my scenario is if the player is being deliberately misleading in an attempt to break the rules. It should be, and is in our area, dealt with exactly like someone fudging their dice rolls. However, when someone new comes to our area with such a character, I work with them to correct it beforehand or provide them with a pregen for that game. They've been playing long enough to have had a chance to read the rules, and they get less flexibility.
And if it still concerns you, making sure new players feel welcome and have fun is a ruling that's been made by Paizo for ages.
And in my view, it is possible to both enforce the rules of the campaign and to make "sure new players feel welcome and have fun." Those two items are not mutually exclusive.
And yet there's still nothing wrong with my approach either. There is no willy-nilly handwaving of rules. It's something I break out when the player is really put off by the news, and particularly when the game starts in 5 minutes and a rebuild is out of the question. Seeing as I ensure it's fixed before the next game and I work with the player to find a legal build that they enjoy, there is not really an impact to other GMs either (though I know all our local GMs, so often we're all aware of these things and agree with the approach).
Your approach might be really effective, but not everyone to go about resolving the issue the same way. I've found success with my approach, and we have a really strong player base in our local area despite a lack of a large local population.
I understand what you're saying here, but the answer is an unequivocal "no." It doesn't matter that the gnoll may not have been "game breaking", it is absolutely prohibited.
I understand your concerns, and the ruling. However, I look at PFS and see an acre of rules that many players aren't aware exist and are hard to learn when the're new, and I look for ways to include them and make sure they have fun while they learn them. I also understand the purpose of the ruling here, which is why I make it expressly clear that the build they have is not PFS legal. However, I value a new player having fun over one or two PFS rules, AND I help them fix the conflict for the next game while still keeping as much of the fun and flavor of the build they wanted. Everyone knows how the evergreens goes, so they in particular are fertile ground to allow variation while new players acclimate themselves.
So yes, I'd break a few rules for a new player in a heartbeat, but I'd do it through compromise and reasonably so and work with them to fix the problem. Hardasses only chase new players away, which is not what being a PFS GM is about. And if it still concerns you, making sure new players feel welcome and have fun is a ruling that's been made by Paizo for ages.
It'd be based on context for me. I read the ruling above, which is cool and makes sense more or less. But there are some situations where I feel I'd be fine in breaking it in PFS play:
It's a new player who didn't understand there were all these rules. I'd feel it out during the discussion and explain how to find the PFS rules, but depending on how bummed they were, I'd go as far as letting them play with whatever they brought assuming it wasn't horribly game breaking. I've seen a gnoll played during the confirmation and wasn't a broken character. Guy had fun and came back with a fixed character during our next monthly game with a (I think) human who was convinced he was a gnoll. After the immediate games, I'd work with them to adjust their concept into something they enjoyed, but was more in-line with the rules.
The player has fully accepted and is using the legal stats for what they have, but is excited for being able to have something else once they take a few feats. I would suggest they stylize the animal's barding/saddle to look like what they want, or use a costume, as long as they are mechanically playing accurately and they are made aware/are okay that other GMs don't have to allow it. I've found suggesting delusion as a character trait an effective tool that most players really find fun. Again, I'd let them get away with it the first game (or monthly game day that we hold), particularly if they were new and it wasn't broken, and work out RP reasons it "loses" any broken abilities (young, etc...). This tends to be reasonable to most players and they come back with fixed builds.
In the end, I care that the players are having fun, and I work with them to get what they would like while still being able to have fun. Mechanically I tend to draw a line though, with examples like the first one above being the only sort of exception (new, not min/maxed and broken). But I opt to see more value in active players than a rule that has no mechanical impact on the game
What does the Ring of Regeneration list as the attack form that shuts it down?
RoR wrote:
When worn, the ring continually allows a living wearer to heal 1 point of damage per round and an equal amount of nonlethal damage. In addition, the wearer is immune to bleed damage while wearing a ring of regeneration. If the wearer loses a limb, an organ, or any other body part while wearing this ring, the ring regenerates it as the spell regenerate. In either case, only damage taken while wearing the ring is regenerated.
gee. At first glance, no attack forms are listed. Oh wait, it says only *living* creatures, so that must mean (since it is required by the rules to designate a type of damage that bypasses regeneration) that any damage that would normally kill you bypasses the regeneration, and in that round you do not regenerate and can die.
there is also another way to look at it FLite. as you said there has to be a way to bypass the regeneration ... The regeneration is linked to the magic items...the way around the regeneration...is to remove the magic item!
No, because that is not a form of damage. That is like saying the way to suppress a trolls regeneration is to cast a spell that suppresses regeneration. Besides which, if the ioun stone is implanted, this is not really a viable option for shutting it off.
Regeneration requires that there be a simple form of damage. In this case, it is enough damage to drive you under -con.
Already for 3400 you are buying immunity to bleed, organ damage, and fast recovery from dismemberment.
To give you some sort of comparison, First aid gloves, which largely give you the death immunity effect you are looking for, cost 4500 gp, can only be used twice, require a standard action, and must be used within one round.
The more expensive ioun stones and the ring give you effectively overnight full heal, with no need for UMD.
** spoiler omitted **...
Also, it's a moot point because it isn't the monster regeneration ability, it's a specific effect.
New companion will be a skittergoat from battle of bloodmarch hill. giving it int so it can take dragon style. Getting amulet of mighty fists +1 for it with bane construct. Take that constructs!!!! lol
I read this as "Skittlegoat" and immediately thought, "TASTE THE RAINBOW, B***H!".
To be fair, if you do a tier 1-2 GM at Gencon, you're pretty much living out of the ballroom that weekend. You earn that sucker and you dropped some serious dough to get there to basically work crazy hours, so it makes sense to me to save the shiniest of the chrome for those willing to do all that. My buddy who did it this last year had something like 4 hours to himself at the con. He ran around like a madman at the dealers room, and was running games or sleeping the rest of the time.
All the other boons are available at local cons (or should be, work with your local VO!). There are some GenCon specific boons you can get with those coins, but those boons are also handed out sporadically at local cons anyway (usually through lottery or sometimes contest around here). Contact con organizers to ask if they can offer opportunities for boons you're interested in. Last year you could get any of the elemental races by GMing at cons (or winning lotteries). This year I think the first quarter GM boons are an Aasimar or a GM star refresh boon (both crazy nice). No clue what the rest will be.
In my opinion, if you have to explain your actions or defend your build starting with the phrase, "Well, by RAW..." or some version of it, you need to start asking yourself some fundamental questions.
Beyond that, go bonkers. In my experience my biggest frustration in PFS comes from one of two categories:
1) The player's character dominates the scenario and doesn't let anyone else participate. A good player can have a character like this but know when to throttle back.
2) The player's character is so ineffective that they significantly risk the rest of the party, primarily this occurs at higher levels of play when a build should have come together 3-5 levels ago.
To expand on B, I will tell of a game I played with Bob (not a real name) the Druid. Bob's druid was a spell focused druid with a wisdom of 15 (after the +2 headband of wisdom) at level 9-10 play. His feats were all over the place (several focused on summoning, but he prepped no summon spells), and his highest level (5th) spells had a DC of 17. In a fight, he would send his animal companion into a fight, it would get dropped or nearly dropped by a single opponent in one round, and Bob would spend the rest of the fight attempting to heal it with a CLW wand. His spell selection included 2 damage spells that never did much damage due to low saves, and the rest were buffs or cure spells for his companion. The animal companion's AC was in the mid teens because he hadn't done anything to ensure it's survivability on the front lines. I wouldn't be surprised if he never even applied feats to his animal companion because it had no armor to speak of. Bob would have his druid cast defensive buff spells only on his animal companion, usually ones that wouldn't help terribly much in a given situation, or were applied halfway through a fight when the companion was already down. Bob did not shapeshift. Ever. Bob could not cast while shapeshifted, he didn't have the feats. His skills were spread so thin he couldn't make most checks at that level.
While any one of these isn't terrible, all together it made for a character that, with tactical decisions on when and where he'd send his companion (read: always put his companion in a charge lane), made fights harder for the party. I'm all for a fun flavor build, but be able to do something effectively.
That said, I refer back to my first comment. As long as you don't have to defend your build with "Rules as Written" and let other players shine, be as effective as you want.
The real reason?.. Because min-maxxed mages are booooooooooooring.
The kind of power levels, builds, and experience that is talked about regarding these uber-powered mages basically turns the game into a schlong-measuring competition of who can clear an encounter first, with practically no risk. If your goal is to get from point A to B, congrats, you drew the shortest line. But if you're there to have fun in a way that doesn't involve hogging the lime-light... the game itself isn't about never failing, it's about the story. And stories get more interesting when you have to fight back from failure (Consider how the show Avatar: the last Airbender would have been if Aang just went Avatar state on Ozai two episodes in.) The better the GM, the more fun you can squeeze out of failure.
IMO an average build mage or two backing up martials/skillmonkies is where the game gets fun. Instead of just auto-winning every encounter, there are challenges that you have to think around instead of just spamming X, Y, or Z spell at until it goes away. Everybody gets to contribute. I'm not saying purposely kneecap your builds, but you also don't need to squeeze every statistical advantage out. It's just not necessary unless you want to flop your magical bits down on the table and basically give the finger to the rest of the party.
I'd encourage mages to choose fun spell options instead of optimized ones. So X isn't as good as Y, but it's a lot more amusing/can be used in wider situations. Do some buffing/debuffing. Don't hyperfocus. Let the rest of the party shine too.
Also, because SR neuters most mages who don't build to penetrate it, and the kinda stuff with SR tends to make ground meat out of soft mages. But for those who do build for that, see aforementioned comment about drawing the shortest, most boring line. You turn into Presto the magician, stamped from shiny plastic like the last 500.
tl;dr - I like playing martial classes with complexity.
Aside from making sure I can contribute to a fight, I attempt to make people smile/laugh with voices and (some light) pop-culture quotes.
Galton Ranner is a Suli Paladin of Shelyn who carries around a bardiche. He believes it's a Glaive, yaknow, just like Shelyn has. His personality is a mash of Captain Hammer (Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog), Zapp Branigan (Futurama), and Gaston (Beauty and the Beast). I pulled quotes from a wide variaty of things, including Minsc from Baulders Gate 2, and I just have fun. Check out this thread for a list of the lines I've come up with so far. And yes, he does have Perform(Sing). I even used an Extra Trait boon to boost it as much as I could.
Tempest is my Undine druid. She is basically 90's cartoon Storm, with the bombastic and dramatic declaratives. And there to back her up is Logan, her Owlbear companion.
LOGAAAAAN! DESTROOOOOY THEEMMMMM!!!! WE'LL MEET YOU, AT THE LIIIIIIIIBRARY!!!!
I also have a "russian"-esque brawler who I consider my most developed character personality, and my mid-1800's British antiquarian and naturalist, Sir Theophilus Reginald (hunter) and his gorilla assistant, Judith. Less amusing, but still fun characters to play.
On the side-lines I've got Shmebulock, the gnome keneticist, currently ripped straight from the gnome of the same name in Gravity Falls, with a healthy dash of Freakazoid. I haven't gotten to play him yet, but soon.
I also have my Wayang Thassalonian Specialist Prenumbratari, who will be (once we get everything going) part of a 7-person group of wayang Thass specialists, each master of a school, and all competing with each other for power and glory.
Finally, I have Franz, part of a pair of Ifrit brothers my VO and I play together (Hanz and Franz). It's basically improv at the PFS table, where we just make up stuff as it comes to us, and try to have a lot of fun. However, we do have our standard greeting, and it has started more than a few in-game fights...
"I'm Hanz!
And I'm Franz
(together) And we're here to BURN *high-five and then point* YOU UP!
...It's not typically received well in the Land of the Linnorm Kings...
Hahahahaha! I'm loving these! Particularly because I'm putting some of my precious ranks in Perform: Sing, because reasons and because how could I not. So, here's a list of the ones I feel best represent Galton Ranner.
If you want to go full out with this, insist that someone cast silence every time the group discusses their plans.
Ignorant? Ha! I don't know the meaning of the word!
"Wait, I'm getting one of those things... a headache with pictures... An Idea!!" (this and the next one are spot on)
"I have great Motivational skills, everyone always says they have to work a lot harder when I'm around"
"Ah, it's the old [unusual thing that just happened] trick."
"I'm going to turn you inside out like a sock!!!!" (this is just innocent sounding enough to be something he'd say, and horrible enough to get a great reaction from other players.)
*If my team reacts in shock to the above comment* "What? You need to air out the evil!"
"So....I use the cleric like a salt shaker to get the healing out?" (including attempting to shake the cleric over wounded allies)
"Everybody relax, I'm here."
"Smite Evil: 60% of the time it works every time."
"Listen, all we need to do is kill that (insert boss monster here), and all the dominos should fall like a house of cards. Checkmate."
"Ah, yes, I remember defeating that golem. He just kept punching my face until he reached his punch limit and shut down. It was a great victory for justice that day!"
If on fire: 'Oh, god! I'm burning! That's much worse than other things burning!'.... If the fire is not put out: 'Oh, god! Why does it keep chasing me!' (I like this one, but I have 7/fire natural resistance!!)
Rock breaks scissors. But paper covers rock, and scissors cut paper! Kif, we have a conundrum. Search them for paper... and bring me a rock.
I see you have already raided the Minsc toolbox. Carry on! (had I an animal companion....)
*Singing* "It's just a cut to the left, and then a cleave to the ri-I-I-I-ight!"
(modified from a submission) Hello, this is the part where I smite you... Smote? Smeet? Hey, does anyone know the the proper term? (waste a round talking it out if I go before the enemies, try to ask them about it)
He's the dumb part of most of the aforementioned characters, with an ego that is more ignorant confidence than Gaston's maliciousness or self righteousness. Nearly died at the sock comment trying not to burst out laughing!
I recently got a hold of enough elemental boon sheets to get a Suli Paladin together in PFS. I've got all the mechanics worked out, and I enjoy the build itself, but I am still struggling to put together the most important aspect of the character.
The responses to everyday situations an INT 6 character might have.
My Paladin is based off of a mash-up of Gaston (Beauty & the Beast), Captain Hammer (Dr. Evil's Sing-Along Blog), and Zapp Brannigan (Futurama) (speech patterns most closely based on Captain Hammer). Sure of himself, trying to do good, and woefully inept all at once. I fully expect to need more than a few atonements, and probably even one or two with the full component cost simply because he is too dumb to know better (he tries).
I've been digging through quotes and bits I can find from numerous sources, and I'm hoping the community might come up with some more. Below are the ones I've come up with thus-far, and should give you an idea of what I'm looking for (pop culture references are fine if properly masked). The goal of this guy is to A) make other players laugh/have fun and B) make them regret not speaking up during RP (before most games, I will ask our GM to add bonuses/penalties as he/she sees fit).
General:
It’s curtains for you vile fiends! *distractedly* Lacy, wafting curtains…
Look friend, you don’t have to be pretty on the outside, you just need to be pretty on the inside. *flexes convincingly*
Oh GODS, this is what fear feels like! I NEED SOMEONE MATERNAL! *running away*
Say Hello to the psychopomps of Pharasma, or whoever does their job, but for EVIL!
Ewwww…
*if he sees a book* What?! How do you read this if it doesn’t have any pictures??
*if he has some time with a book* Ohhh, this is word paper! If only there was a way to understand its strange markings, we might be able to unlock its secrets…
Jump on my glaive while you can, evil… I won’t be as gentle!
This group could do with a swift kick in the morals…
You are amusing, in a "what the hell is wrong with you" kind of way…
*after making a knowledge check* Feel my amazing brain. Go on, touch it!
Evil 'round every corner. Careful not to step in any.
Fear not! I will inspire you all by charging blindly on!
When empowering his bardiche:
May Shelyn grant my glaive her POWER!
*if empowering with sonic/electricity bonuses* Thunder, thunder, THUNDERGLAIVE HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
*empowering w/ fire – singing* Fire, to destroy all you’ve done! Fire, to end all you’ve become!
Regarding his choice of weapon (a bardiche):
*if someone notices his bardiche* You like it? It’s a glaive, just like Sheyln has.
*if called out that it is not a glaive* What? Sure it is! I made sure when I told the weapon smith what I needed to buy with my enormous sacks of gold! *he ignores any further attempts to correct him*
Taste my glaive of JUSTICE! *attacks with his Bardiche*
After he gets Ioun Stones implanted:
*if given a reason to bring them up* I had these stones implanted into my body. They make me better, and make my skin rock hard. *flexes*
*if he's had the above conversation and gets into a fight* I’m rock hard and coming for you!
*if someone actually shows interest* They are great, aren’t they? *starts stripping* I’ve got one here, and it does X, and this one here does Y…
When you start a Bonekeep special and someone is playing a ninja (period?) who, over the course of the game, lands only a single blow and otherwise just fumbles around on the edge of combat/encounters "trying to get into position" while invisible.
