Djelai's page

Ninja is best built as a brute. [...] For pure consistent damage such a build is superior to the unchained rogue.

I second this.

As an alternative, you could play an archaeologist bard and call yourself a rogue or a ninja.

point blank master <<< impossible for a bard.

It's possible with Advanced Versatile Performance (martial performance).

Any love for the Dawnflower Dervish archetype as an archer?
- doubled inspire courage bonus as a move action (swift action at lvl.10)
- built-in melee option (useful at low levels, before you get the relevant archery feats, or when archery is not an option)

I suppose the archetype would be better for humans, as it lacks the bonus feat granted by other archetypes (arrowsong minstrel, archaeologist, arcane duelist...), but I like the idea of a +6 atk/dmg at lvl.5 by stacking inspire courage, heroism and arcane strike.

Ah. So, say the spell only paralyzed on a failed Will save. Would it then seem like a low-level encounter to you?

I would say "mid-level encounter" (he still can fly, see invisible and teleport at will), but yes: without his "I win, No save" option, your demon is mainly a melee brute in combat. You don't really need knowledge or tactics: luck and/or good saves will suffice.

Again, that's my experience, with the play style at my usual table, so... Expect table variation.

Give your best shot: what shenanigan could you find for such a character?

7- Move + Cast a Spell + Move: your mount is taking 2 move actions, so a concentration check is required

Spells like "Sleep" to coup de grace an entire party exist at level one...

You missed my point.

Spells like "Sleep" allow a save to negate the effect.
At low level, you can just charge pretty much each enemy you're facing without knowing anything about him. If you have "good numbers and a half-decent luck", you will most likely succeed.

In your case, the save is irrelevant: Blasphemy at CL=HD+5 says "You're paralyzed, no save" and the demon can do it twice per day. So:
round 1: demon casts Blasphemy, PC are paralyzed, minions move into position and attack (or are already in position and coup-de-grace)
round 2: demon casts Blasphemy again, PC are still paralyzed, minions coup-de-grace the PC.
At high level, running blindly into the next fight should get you killed (unless your build is specifically designed to do so, like a diviner wizard with huge initiative, immunity to surprise, a random auto-win combo and an "escape button" contingency) because you are now in the "no save, just lose" territory. You must know what you will face in order to prepare the appropriate countermeasures (even if it is as simple as "ok, we have to engage that guy first and finish him before he can act"), you can't only rely on luck and good stats anymore. Being able to know your opponents (strengths and weaknesses) before facing them becomes more important than your DPR.

At least, that's what "playing a high-level encounter" means to me. Otherwise, it would just feel like playing at low-level with bigger numbers.
That's how I'm used to play and that's why I don't think the demon is an unfair encounter. If you play differently, which is 100% your right, you'd better reduce the CL by 1.

[...] I decided for a two handed build instead, because I like the concept of reach weapons and their possibilities.

What ChessPwn said, then.

May I suggest dipping into cleric? It will boost your Will save and some domains have strong 1st-lvl options, such as Travel or Growth (Plant subdomain).

The question is: "Is this unfair for a CR11 monster?"

Thank you for the clarification.

No, I don't think it's unfair and yes, I think this kind of opposition should be expected at high level.
Otherwise, high-level encounters would just be low-level encounters with bigger numbers.

The PC can defeat the demon in one round, it is "fair" to expect that the demon can do the same against the PC.
The PC can defend themselves, especially if they know about the Blasphemy and its paralysis effect: Freedom of Movement, Enervation (to reduce the CL), Silence (makes people immune to sonic effect), or simply focus fire on the demon... probably other tricks.
Gathering intel instead of charging blindly is a thing. Identifying the main threat and PC coordinating their actions instead of playing solo is a thing. That's why lemeres suggested you to introduce "preview encounters".

Yes, high level is "rocket-tag" style. While not ideal, I still prefer this to HP-grinding combats.

My 2 cp

Main concern is the CL14 Blasphemy... [...] If the party was one level higher or the CL was one lower that wouldn't be an issue.

You already know the answer to your non-question (because there is no question in your post): just reduce the CL of the demon by 1.

Pretty sure Enervation can do the trick if you don't want to houserule the monster. Winning the initiative and killing the demon before it gets to act is also a valid scenario (smiting paladin + caster dim-dooring the frontliners into melee position for full-attacks).

A whip build?

Some advices are KM-specific, so (mini) spoiler-alert:

So here's my attempt at making the best Rogue I can at level 17.

Your 17th-level rogue is powerless against a CR9 which can be summoned by SM7 or SNA7. How did you come to the conclusion that this rogue does not suck at lvl.17?

You need too many favorable conditions:
- able to full-attack in melee
- able to sneak attack
- opponent vulnerable to sneak attack
- opponent with low AC
- opponent waiting for being full-attacked by a guy with 2 short swords when all the above conditions apply

1. Str build w/ 2 handed weapon

Your friend will play a melee character and this is the most effective way for melee.
Even if he solved the to-hit problem mentioned by Rory, 2WF would also require him to face stupid opponents who will wait in front of him to be full-attacked.

Improved Precise Shot doesn't help with miss chances from Blur

Actually, it does.

I suggest Improved Precise Shot and a "boring" +3 Bow. More to-hit bonus is nice, especially when your Dex is lower than the standard for a dedicated archer.

How would you adjudicate this?

I would use the standard rules.

Your blaster sorcerer should be happy: it is one of the rare situations where his lightning bolt will prove to be useful...

My view is there is not one definitive answer. Normal English just isn't that precise.

The final answer, albeit interesting, has little impact on the conclusion. Either way, I do not think it is worth to be a sub-par caster from lvl.3 to lvl.11, but I can see why the OP thinks otherwise.

Anyway, I am very interested in this upcoming Pact Wizard...

Djelai, I see what you're saying now.

Arcanist would fuse Conjuration School (which starts good, then lessens in power), with the Bloodline ability to gain an additional summon (which doesn't come online until level 11). The additional summon is a guarantee, which will kick off Superior Summoning. That, compared to, say, a Pact Wizard (also evil, so I get a large list of Standard action summons), who casts one level higher (for one creature), or at the same level as the Arcanist, bringing out either 1, 3, or 4 summons. In that sense, it's better to get the guaranteed 3. Also, I really like the Arcanist's counterspelling, which is top-notch stuff.

Thank you for the answer. Here are my concerns:

2. Regarding the counterspell stuff:
Considering that the counterspell exploit requires to expand a spell slot of the same level (if you are extremely lucky) or (more likely) one level higher than the spell you try to counterspell and that you miss a whole spell level compared to a prepared spellcaster, I doubt you can counterspell anything meaningful effectively.
Quick comparison:

So, does the ability to summon 3 creatures 100% of the time instead of 67% at lvl.12+ really worth having the spell progression of a 2/3 caster for the first half of the game?
I still doubt it. Is there any arcanist's trick (I admit, I do not know the class very well) that could help the build at low levels?

Anyway, thank you again for your time.

Djelai, I know common wisdom says no. But if I can optimize enough for where my summons can hurt enemies, then on the surprise round, I can get several attacks in from weaker summons. Compare that to: not the surprise round, not the first round, but the second (if I don't lose the spell in the first round), I get attacks in with a slightly stronger summon. The difference is two rounds of full attacks, which is usually a chunk of the battle.

I get that, but acting during the surprise round and summoning as a standard action are abilities tied to your cleric dip. My question was more like:

I'm gonna start with one level of Divine Strategist Cleric. Then go Arcanist.

Honest question here: is it really worthy to be a whole spell level behind a single-classed wizard, cleric or druid?

@ the OP: Just a few remarks, please do not take offense.

Firstly, regarding the form:
I am willing to help you here, but the "quote-war" posting style is a real mood killer. Could you please write your posts in a more synthetic manner?

Secondly, regarding those comments:

I'll just adjust monster stats/tactics/numbers for enemies to remain a challenge as needed.

[...]
I'll hammer down individual spells if needed
[...]
Then I'll adjust the amount of enemies, their saves, their other defenses, or whatever until that isn't the case.

Not each encounter is supposed to be challenging. Some of them are supposed to be easily overcome by the PCs, to grant the players the feeling that their characters have gained power.

As a DM, you can/shall offer some "cheap" encounters, so everybody can have his money time...

And my players aren't trying to pull "optimization" stunts like that in the first place.

Then, I concur with Arillia Kaenath: your house-rules are probably not needed.

Anyway, you can try this: « increase the damage dice by two steps for blast spells ». d4s become d8s, d6s become d10s, and so on.
No trick, no gimmick, no extra sourcebook, no optimization of any sort. Just plain and simple damage boost. This should help your sorcerer without out-damaging the rest of the party.

Failing a grapple check to maintain only allows the opponent to break out if you can only make one grapple check that round.

My point was to mitigate the "damage estimation", which should be reduced by at least 25% (failing to maintain the grapple does not allow you to deal damage). I should have been more explicit.

Anyway, since I am here, I have a few questions:
Greater Grapple lets you roll to maintain the grapple as a move action. If you succeed, the course of actions is pretty clear. But what happen if you fail?
1. Does it release the grapple immediately? I would say so.
2. Then, how do you get a "retry" as a standard action (from the Greater Grapple feat, you can make 2 checks and only need to succeed once)?
3. Should you decide, at the beginning of your turn, if you want to make one or two grapple checks?
4. If you make two checks, succeeding as a standard action and failing as a move action, does it trigger Rapid Grappler? RAW would say No (« Whenever you use Greater Grapple to successfully maintain a grapple as a move action,[...]»).

if you hit you immediately make grapple check with nearly 100% success rate (grab).

Success rate can't be higher than 95% as a natural "1" is always a failure for combat maneuver checks.

2. You maintain as a move action [...]

3. You maintain as a swift action [...]
Second and subsequent rounds:
You maintain grapple three times, [...]

Which unfortunately increases your chances to roll a natural 1 and fail to maintain the grapple.

ill state the same thing i was told when i last quoted JJ he is not a rules guy and those are just his homebrewed stuff in his own home game the official rules are npcs get npc wealth and pcs get pc wealth

Except JJ was using the CRB rules => Source

NPC Gear Adjustments: You can significantly increase or decrease the power level of an NPC with class levels by adjusting the NPC's gear. The combined value of an NPC's gear is given in Creating NPCs on Table: NPC Gear. A classed NPC encountered with no gear should have his CR reduced by 1 (provided that loss of gear actually hampers the NPC), while a classed NPC that instead has gear equivalent to that of a PC (as listed on Table: Character Wealth by Level) has a CR of 1 higher than his actual CR.

If you look at ALL THE DAMAGING SPELLS you see that 1d6 per level is the best it gets, single target or AoE.

Not true. Disintegrate gets 2d6/lv.

there's a conversion for that :D can't link it though as i don't have the link saved on this computer :(

For the records, I am not saying the OP should convert the warlock from 3.5 to PRPG or play a warlock.

Simple modification of the existing sorcerer class:

More homebrew:

The whole point of maximizing PC/NPC HP (and giving a similar bonus to monsters) is to slightly tone down the rocket tag, mitigate burst, and lessen the impact of losing initiative. Giving everything 50% more HP and then giving everyone 50% more damage is pointless.

Now, if for OTHER reasons it turns out damage spells need a 50% bonus, fine, but we're looking at the damage per round aspect (or something similar) in that case.

There is no "other reason" to boost damage spells than damage spells don't do enough damages to kill the enemy quickly. Because spell slots are a limited resource for casters.

As it turns out, I start to believe that the problem is not the amount of damages. The problem is the gameplay of the sorcerer class. The player chooses to play an arcane full-caster but actually wants to (or you want him to) play a class with blasting power on par with martial classes. In this case, he has to be able to blast all day long to eliminate the need of ending encounters quickly in order to save spell slots, especially if combats last longer than usual due to the overall HP increase.

Basically, it seems to me that you (or your player) want a class with the gameplay of a warlock from D&D3.5...

[...]a feat whose only purpose is to replace carrying a particular light, inexpensive object.

Then you missed the point of the feat.

Otherwise, an extra bloodline feat seems indeed appropriate.

I like your train of thought here, though, and think it's worth considering/continuing. But I don't think APL-2 is a good indication of mook status.

And I am glad you like it.

But, ok, let's say [CR=APL-2] is too challenging for a mook. Do you consider [CR=APL-4] a fair definition of a mook?
Because honestly, I have issues with your CR1 mooks for 7th-level characters. A CR1 is not even a nuisance: this guy will miss 80% of the time and deal 5~7dmg on a hit.
So, your 7th-level sorcerer deals 31.5dmg on a failed save with his best spell. This won't kill a CR3 with your house-rule (max HP/HD). To do so, he would need ~50dmg. A 60% increase.
Now, let's fast-forward a little and assume your sorcerer reaches the 9th level. He can now cast an Empowered Lightning Bolt (with Magical lineage) for 1.5x(9d6+9)=61dmg (I rounded up...). Unfortunately for him, your average CR5 has ~100HP. He needs again a 60% increase.
At lv.12, he could cast either an empowered intensified LB for 81 dmg or a maximized empowered LB for 92.5dmg against the ~150HP of a CR8 mook. Again, he needs a 60% power-up to be considered "working".

As you can see, your sorcerer needs to increase the damages of his best blast spell by 60% (and keep going) to be able to "work as a blaster", which, in this case, means "dealing with CR=APL-4 mooks".
With your house-rule and without CL-boosting stuff + metamagic cost-reducers, it seems impossible for the sorcerer to blast efficiently, except for non-blasting tricks like dazing flaming sphere or lightning ball.

And we only considered CR=APL-4 here. Of course, it will be worse against tougher monsters, who will more likely save against his spells and/or have SR, energy resistance, etc.

Define "blasting work." [...]

The problem is that, right now, he's doing 31.5 damage per Lightning Bolt with Draconic Bloodline. [...]
I hope your argument is not that we need to more than triple his current damage per spell to make "blasting work" (or nearly quadruple the base damage of Lightning Bolt).

Actually, the argument to triple the current damages to "make blasting work" is not as silly as you seem to believe, if we choose to define "blasting work" as:

Details in spoiler:

My advice for a person who wanted to play a sorcerer under those house rules would be to not focus on damage, but go for other effects.

This. The party has enough damage-dealing PCs already. It would be wiser for the sorcerer to focus on battlefield control and/or debuffing.

Etheral Jaunt

With that said, Blur has a few distinct advantages.

This.

My 2 cts.

If we're still going at 15th level, [...]

No, we don't (or, at the very least, I don't).

...stuff about stealth...

Except all of this is not directly related to 2WF and a 2HW-rogue could do it just as well (even better is you consider that 2HW is less feat-hungry than 2WF, so you may have more feat slots for your stealth stuff).

IMHO, you are crippling yourself by going 2WF. [...]

You are better off trying to 2-hand a weapon. [...]

So. Much. THIS.

I'm looking to focus on battlefield control with decent melee backup. Someone who's closer to a full caster.

[...]
Would you do something different?

It seems to me that you could simply go full cleric or druid and achieve your goal.

Name-dropping Archetypes, feats, and obscure Rogue Talents interests me, though!

Ok, just name-dropping then :

Enjoy! (or not...)

+1 for full bard.

Corporeal creatures cannot pass through force effects and Tiny Hut is a force effect.

Could you cite the rule, share you source?

I do not want to be rude or trolling. I just want to point out that a standard force effect is not necessarily a impenetrable barrier (which you seem to assume), and Tiny hut is not necessarily a deviation from the standard.

I really think the question of the OP deserves a FAQ and I can see the answer going both ways.

I would think "specific trumps general" applies here. The spell is more specific. It says how it interacts with creatures, and makes no exceptions for incorporeal creatures.

Even if the "specific trumps general" rule was anywhere in the CRB, how can you define that "a spell description is more specific than a creature's special quality"?

it's certainly beyond the intended power level to make it a barrier against some of the [...] creatures in the Bestiary

I refuse to make any assumption regarding the thoughts of the author when he wrote the description of the spell. I am interested in what the spell actually does instead of what it is supposed to do.

Don't get me wrong: I understand your position. I just don't buy it and I have no interest in argument. That's why I FAQ'ed the OP.

Incorporeal creatures cannot pass through force effects and Tiny Hut is a force effect. How the spell affects physical creatures and objects does not seem relevant.
Therefore, I do think Tiny hut blocks incorporeal creatures (Tiny hut extends into the ground, preventing the incorporeal creature to bypass the edge of the "hemisphere" by going into the ground).

Anyway, FAQ'ed.

Chains of Light - reflex based no SR helplessness, very strong even if it does allow a save.

The OP can only pick spells from the CRB and APG.

Even if another party member can cast it, I would still pick wall of stone with a sorcerer... Anyway, you might also appreciate prying eyes for scouting or telekinesis for its versatility.

If you think you'll need teleport so badly, just buy a couple of scrolls (or scrolls of greater teleport: you automatically succeed at your CL check with 1d20+12 vs DC13 as there is no automatic failure for rolling 1 on CL check).

SM VI is indeed a very versatile spell, but I think it's still a 2nd pick for a sorcerer: Greater Dispel Magic is really a must-have.
Mass suggestion is very powerful but very enemy-dependent, especially at that level (enchantment + mind-affecting + language-dependent + will negate + GM-dependent... Ouch!).

Greater Dispel Magic is your no-brainer at that level.
Swap Phantasmal web for Wall of stone.
The next level will give you Shadow walk, which basically emulates teleport and plane shift, as your bloodline spell. If you can wait for lv.13, you won't really need teleport.

You could use wands instead of potions.

I agree with andreww on the archery style.
I would, however, take power attack instead of dodge and adjust the stats to be a bit more effective in melee (more like a switch hitter but still with higher Dex than Str).
Also, I would skip the critical feat chain for penetrating strike and greater, to deal with exotic DR (because clustered shots is not in the CRB).

We're restarting at level 8-9 [...]

Then I suggest not playing a non-caster class.

With the Preservationist archetype, you can cover underwater combat situations by summoning water elementals or other waterborne creature.
Nice option for an alchemist with low physical stats.