EvilMinion's page

Just to point out, your Judgement of Justice will not stack with Heroism

Umm... yes they do.

Judgements are sacred bonuses. Heroism is a morale bonus.

Do the enemies know the parties abilities at all? I'm sure you don't want things to get too metagamey.

A few potions of Hex Ward might give them a bit of advantage without outright nullifying anything.
Give the sorceress a quasit familiar, who's one and only job is to stay invisible and zap all summoned allies with a wand of Hex Ward as they show up on the battlefield... and maybe a backup buff wand in case there is no one new to zap (protection from good? bulls strength?). That way, an advantage for the bad guys, that the PC's can figure out and stop!

As mentioned, the ice tomb only has 20 hp...
Add some sort of environmental damage effect that the enemy has resistance too, but will burn through the ice tomb in short order.

Hell use a contingency that causes a metamagiced lingering AE damage spell to go off around the sorceress (assuming she and nearby allies are immune to whatever element type you choose). A fireball for instance.
9th level fireball does 31 damage on average, which will nuke the ice tomb... because its lingering, the fireball will also blast any pc's that try to approach in the meanwhile... as well, the lingering effect will give the sorceress total concealment for while she melts herself free, so the PC's can't target her or see what she's up to til its all melted away. End result, yes the hex worked, but only took the sorceress out for a single round, and causes her to be slow for a few extra. So not a waste, but not a game ender.
Though the sorceress would have to be 12th level to contingency a 4th level spell (lingering fireball)

If they ice tomb the melee guy, she can just fireball him normally (and get the pc's too) for the same effect. If you assume a haste spell on him and her summoned minions, that will negate the slow from the ice tomb, so only distracts them for a round. (Again, a small effect at least) And linger that one too, just for the 1 round of sightlines all messed up.

Don't forget your bane ability increases your weapons enhancement bonus by +2 more when it applies.

If you can get a bard, that will apply an addition +2 competence bonus via inspire courage.

Also, see if you can't get greater invisibility. Not only will that give you +2 to hit, but it will remove his dex bonus to AC for what would effectively be another +3 for you to hit him (ie: a 5 point bonus)

Also, if you can come up with a way to get him grappled or entangled, that'd help too (much like the invis does). Grappled would be especially nice, as it would prevent him from using his earthbreaker.

Serpentfolk perhaps.

Caryatid columns work well, as you can style them however you want (appearance-wise).

Wildshape into a giant octopus.

That's 9 natural attacks right there... all with reach.

Now you just need to find a workaround for the no water thing =)

1 person marked this as a favorite.

When I ran a one-shot last semester one of my friends played a Kistune summoner and called his eidolon Melvin. Since it was just a light-hearted one-shot, I didn't pay much attention to it, but when the one-shot became an ongoing campaign this semester, I told him he had to use another name for him in-character, because Melvin doesn't fit his characters backstory or languages, let alone the world at large.

Do other people care about this sort of thing?

We generally don't worry too much about it. Then again, no one typically goes for completely dumb names like Fighter McFightypants. But we do get alot of just normal sorts of names for abnormal sorts of critters.

As to your example above... Melvin is a perfectly fine name for an eidolon! The eidolon is a creation formed from the players head, not neccessarily some preexisting creature with parents who named it. Who knows, maybe it was the name of his invisible friend when he was a kid, maybe (as others have stated) its a shorter version of some much longer name (and as any summoner can tell you, names have power, so never tell others your full name!) Perhaps his real name is unpronouncable by the locals, so the summoner picked one that worked.

Someone above already mentioned the magic sword Irving... which the character in that book named after his son...

Sometimes, they hear a name from another culture and think 'that sounds pretty I'll use that for my kid'... People name things for many reasons, popular local 'naming conventions' be damned.

Besides, Melvin (the name) is of Gaelic origin.... you yourself mention that you use gaelic names in your campaign. What's the problem? (I'm sure its spelled with a W and two or 3 Y's)

Every world needs its Jim Darkmagics!

Soapbox!

Bows are definitely the way to go.
Have some of the party simply ready actions to interrupt spellcasting attempts.
A caster who simply attempts to dispel the fly spell.
The rest shoot to kill.
For added fun, keep a bunch of poisoned arrows on hand for the endeavor. (elven wizards are not known for their fort saves, and enough arrows hit, the DC will be even harder).

Flying wizard won't last long if he doesn't flee immediately.

claws and bites don't sound very iron man at all.
I'd have replaced the default claws with a slam, and went from there.

Also, the minor/major magic stuff seems a total waste of evolution points... once per day use does not really 'mimic' anything. (nor does the thrice per day you get later).
Be more apt to just picture the summoner's spellcasting as techy effects and use those. Be easy to stick to spells that can be explained from a technology standpoint.

(ps imp natural armor can only be taken twice at level 10)

C'mon...

Druid, Wild shaped into a Giant Octopus.

1 bite
8 tentacles

out of the box.

That should be your base...
Then see what you can tack on extra to that (via haste, rage powers, magical equipment, spells et al)

Summon Monster III+ seems to be the answer you want.

Just keep bringing in the little guys, til the golem falls over.

As long as they fly over its head out of reach, the iron golem really has no chance at all.

(The mithril golem at least can turn into the liquid form, and gain a 30' reach... which would allow it to hit the archons back (as their ray attacks only reach 30' as well))

So, for one 5th level spell, you could, on low end average, have an iron golem dead in 9 rounds with no threat to yourself (or your summons)

Now, the smart golem creator does not put the golem in a space where it can't reach the ceiling... which puts a damper on this tactic. =)

A one-level dip in Monk would get me Unarmed Strike for free, Combat Reflexes for free, bumps to my Reflex and Will saves equivalent to Lightning Reflexes and Iron Will for free, d6 damage for unarmed strikes, the ability to deal leathal or non-lethal damage and the (admittedly weak) Stunning Fist feat as well.

If your intention is only ever that one monk level, you might consider tacking on the Hungry Ghost Monk archetype... to replace the Stunning Fist with Punishing Kick.

Might be more more flavorful.

you can't make an attack of opportunity against a creature that has cover.
Any creature behind another creature (relative to you) has cover (from you).

Thus you could make an attack at all the creatures in range (though some of the ones further then 5' out would get some cover bonuses to AC), but you would not necessarily get to make an attack of opportunity for doing so against all of them.

Inquisitors even have greater bane, which makes the bonus +4, making their +5 weapon a +9.

Greater Bane only increases the damage die, not the enhancement bonus.

What does your alignment have to do with anything?

The ability of protection from XX spells to suppress enchantment/compulsion effects has nothing to do with the alignment of anyone on either side of the equation.

So the LN wizards dominated minions will be affected if the opponent uses Protection from Law, or Protection from Chaos or any other.

It will however, make a difference on if the dominated minion gets only a +2 (morale bonus) on his new save (or a +4 (the afore mentioned morale bonus, plus an possible additional +2 resistance bonus from an appropriately aligned protection spell))

Yea, the Staff-Like wand discover alone makes going wizard sort of a must. Though even then, you're not going to see that benefit 'til level 10 or so.

You might also want to make yourself a half elf, and take the racial option for the Arcane Training racial trait... (though I'm a little unclear on how it works, it seems like it might be useful)

You can't use non-magus spells with magus abilities (like spell combat, spellstrike, spell recall, et al) if that's what you were thinking. Though I suspect you already were aware of that. And arcane armor spell failure applies to all the wizard side spells.

Prestige classes like Arcane Trickster (And mystic Theurge) are supposed to be prohibited. If you're GM is allowing them, that could be problematic too.

also, you're magus x // fighter 1/wizard x-1 build does not get you full BaB. Your bab would be that of a regular magus.

(Please note: Byrdology 'trick' for calculating BaB above is not correct. Gestalt does not work that way.)

Seems to me you're gm has not explained how the gestalt rules work very well.

Basically, look at each side of your gestalt build as a seperate character when calculating pretty much everything (bab, saves, et al) and pick the higher number for all levels of progress thus far. NOT the higher number at each level.

So a 20th level magus has a bab of +15.
A 1 warrior/19 wizard would have a bab of +10.

Thus if you gestalt the two, you end up with a bab of +15 (not some weird mix and match version thereof that gets you to +20)

Flying straight up at 60 feet per round, you can get up there in 16 minutes - very doable.

Given that at level 10, their fly spell only lasts 10 minutes... a 16 minute flight straight up does have a few hazards... =)

Obscure Object - I've never needed this spell until higher levels, when enemies have access to scrying. Also, since it lasts 8 hours, it's most useful when you can afford to cast it three times per day.

Off topic, I know, but wanted to comment on this bit

Based on the spell descriptions for the two referenced spells, I've always assumed that:
a) Obscure Object only works on objects (not creatures).
b) Scrying can only target creatures (not objects).

(so the above scenario would never come up)

But now, of course, looking at the description for obscure object, it specifically call out hiding said objects from the scry spell.

Which leads one to wonder if the wording of the Scrying spell is incorrect in its wording that it targets creatures, or obscure object is wrong in saying it protects from scry. Or is there a spell somewhere similar to scry that does allow for the targeting of objects (or places for that matter)

Appears to be a disconnect there...

And to make a note on the 4 nat attacks, even if the summon can only make 3 attacks, he can still have all four arms with attacks available - he can just only make 3 attacks until the summoner is high enough level.

The rules for summoner max attacks is:

If the eidolon is at its maximum, it cannot take evolutions that grant additional natural attacks.

This seems to imply that no, you cannot take evolutions that put you over your maximum, and just say you're not using them.

If you're max attacks is 3, you cannot have 4 attack options until you get to level 4, as Kolokotroni mentioned.

Though folks could I suppose argue the 'at its maximum' wording to try to get around the seeming intent.

if you don't account for its size, you're basically saying a full grown person is as easy to notice as a fly if both of just standing there.

That is not even remotely accurate.

I stick with my DC 20 number!

Though I do like Anvil's suggestion of tacking on a knowledge check of some sort to recognize it (arcana or spellcraft(or both)).

One solution to this problem that is relatively simple...

(The tricky part will be getting the spell to land... Though there are ways to get past that, with patience and some prep work, as others have suggested above)

Anyway, the spell you want is the level one witch spell Hypnotism.

While the subject is fascinated by this spell, it reacts as though it were two steps more friendly in attitude. This allows you to make a single request of the affected creature (provided you can communicate with it). The request must be brief and reasonable. Even after the spell ends, the creature retains its new attitude toward you, but only with respect to that particular request.

I've highlighted the relevant text in the quote above. But basically, if you 'suggest' to him something along that line that all the spells you cast are good and wonderful... even after the duration expires, he'll still believe that.

Heavy shield (or tower shield) + weapon = no casting in combat due to no free hand.

It was my impression that you could only do that with a light shield or buckler. Though I suppose you could cheese in a weapon cord and fake it.

Use the 2nd level Misdirection spell instead of Undetectable Alignment (it will cover both the alignment issue and the undead issue)

You could then not cast the Undetectable Alignment, and instead use that 1st level spell slot to tack on a Magic Aura spell to conceal the nature of your 'buff' to those who really look hard.

Dispel Magic on a magic item, does not turn it into a non-magical object.
Its still a magic item, it just has those magic properties suppressed.

So, yes you can shatter a single non-magical sword. No you can't destroy a magically suppressed magic sword as its not a non-magical item.

well, it describes it as a bead... which is pretty small.
If you assume that puts it at Fine (a reasonable assumption)... that will make it hard to spot on general principles.

If we treat it like a creature:
So a DC of 0 to notice something visible...
+16 due to its size...
+5 due to distraction...
perhaps a minus for favorable conditions (its glowing in a dark room or the like)

DC 20 seems a decent rough ballpark.

Ya, coup de graces would get players crying foul.

The best you might be able to hand wave is maybe an automatic critical hit.

Perhaps, do it as a surprise attack vs flat footed PC, and if the pc fails a check (sense motive/perception/whathaveyou), then make it an automatic critical. Beyond that, you're asking for trouble.

Possibly 'cause lots of people still interpret it using old dnd3.5 rules rather then pathfinder rules (much like remove disease and neutralize poison).

They *used* to be guaranteed to work if you used them.
In pathfinder, its not...

Lots of folks I've seen seem to still assume the former.

Though Death Ward at least still guarantees protection from negative energy at least.... if not the death effects.

Theoretically, the only weapons you can't use while grappling are the two-handed ones. So first knee-jerk response would be the best one-handed weapon you can get.

But realistically, something that didn't take up one of your hands would be best (as you then don't take a negative on any subsequent grapple checks (to break free, reverse it, et al)) ... and if you can make it something you don't have to spend an action to draw, even better.

A natural weapon not tied to your hands is probably best, avoid the negative to grapple checks (so like Ciaran Barnes suggested, a bite... or perhaps the armor spikes also suggested)

Dunno about making her an archer (it fits the medusa concept, but doesn't mesh well with natural attacks)

A couple of weapons might be doable though.

Your Monster Girl image would be difficult to do, as eidolons are really designed to be physical combatants, not magical. Most evolutions that might give you the elemental attacks or gaze attacks would cost way to much, and have limited uses.

Elemental Attacks and Frightful Presence might mimic some of it though, I suppose. Not familiar with the source material.

Fantastic Voyage them.

Micro-miniaturize 'em, and inject them into some creature/person.
Add an apparatus of the crab for fun. Then just define all sorts of creatures reskinning existing things (like oozes and the like) to represent white and red blood cells, immune system responses, diseased/mutated cells, viruses, bacteria, et al.

Give 'em a task (kill some cancer cells, fix a failing heart valve, etc)... work out a map (using an existing circulatory system map if you have to) ... give 'em a starting point, and let them figure out how they are supposed to get out (if you want, put a time limit on the miniature effect, so that if they don't get out in time, they will return to normal size wherever they are, killing the patient.

Might be fun, though requires some prep work and a bit of biological knowledge to map things to.

Perhaps some random assignment has them setting off a trap, that randomly magic jars each them into the body of one of the others (perhaps adding in a few 'bonus' creatures to spice things up as far as choices go (npc's, monsters, farm animals, et al)). Keep their mental scores, but new physical ones... whether class abilities stay or travel with might vary. Just seems like it might be fun to swap character sheets (but not personalities) for a day. =)

Couple of thoughts anyway.

They then cast Ghostbane Dirge and began attacking.

Now...I've never encountered this spell before, so I asked the player for the description. He said the spell allows 1/2 damage from all weapons and full damage from all magic spells.

Ya, missing the full damage from magic weapons wouldn't help. You don't want to be nickle and diming a creature with a 7d6 melee touch attack at level 4.

In my own experience, Ghostbane Dirge is a big disappointment. There are so few ways to get passed incorporeal creatures you'd think the one spell that is actually designed for just that, would be more effective.

Our group has cast it half a dozen times recently, resisted every time but once (most undead have good will saves)... and the one time it wasn't resisted, it failed to bypass the 50% failure rate for corporeal source spells.

Personally, if it were me, I'd house rule a 'force' descriptor on the spell so it at least wouldn't have to bypass a will save AND a 50% spell failure chance every time.

As a side note: If one does successfully cast ghostbane dirge on a ghost like this... would it change its incorporeal touch attack to a regular attack?

1 person marked this as a favorite.

I'm sorry, but the problems here seem mostly a GM design issue, not the players. What you've created is not a 'classic dungeon hack' so far.

When not one, but two, of the very first encounters are epic level CR's with creatures that start the fight themselves and no way around... the party has no choice but to stop and recuperate constantly. Large dungeon crawls are supposed to be about resource attrition, not constant novas.

If you want the players to RP with one of those encounters, then it certainly shouldn't be attacking them on sight, else their options are extremely limited. You can't really stop to assess and/or chat with something touch attacking you for 7d6 at level 4. That'll get people killed.

(a paniced creature should run away from the source of the fear... which should be back the way they came, not further into the dungeon, neh? The randomness of killing off the AC seems a bit suspect, though not knowing the dungeon layout, hard to say.)

Was a goofy comedy some time back, with Kelsey Grammar as a submarine captain (Down Periscope, methinks it was called)...

Anyway, Grammar's character in the movie apparently got drunk one night, and got a tattoo of some sort on his penis... which became the topic of conversation pretty much any time people started talking about him.

Though it might be difficult to get him into a situation to get him an actual tattoo (even if its just an arcane mark)... A nice big tattoo of Calstria on his ass might do him good. =)

but you could still spread the rumour about it, whether its there or not... Just make sure to rumor it somewhere that if he wants to prove the rumor wrong to anyone, he's going to have to drop trou... every time.

Hmmm. can you attach a permament illusion to a mobile source? All sorts of possibilities open up then... sure he's wearing his shiny suit of armor and fancy clothes... but for some reason, all anyone ever sees him wearing is a dirty leopard print banana hammock and calistria nipple rings...

The reason folks think rogues suck in melee is they require certain conditions to get the most damage (flanking, flat footed, et al).
So work her char so she can get these conditions herself.

Assuming she's sticking with light armor (for her roguely side), definitely tack on the Lore Warden archetype to the fighter. This will give her a few more skills for those 4 fighter levels, and some combat maneuver stuff to replace the armor proficiencies she's not using anyway.

On the rogue side, not sure what archetype might work best.

Next, tack on a single level of Monk with the maneuver master archetype. Get Improved Dirty Trick as the monk bonus feat.

Now, in combat, without assistance, she gets a free dirty trick attempt to start off (lets say she blinds her opponenent) ... after which she can quite possibly get sneak attacks with the rest of her attacks in the same turn.

Pick up greater dirty trick when possible so the foe can't just remove it as a move action each turn, and go to town.

It can be alot of fun for a player describing how they are going about their 'dirty trick' attempts.

I like the medusa-type option Rogar suggested.

tack on a tentacle attack whenever your max attacks goes up.
Add some grab and constrict options on the tail.
Everything else up in the air!

This is just asking for a cursed... er.... customized Gray Bag of Tricks.

The Doctor uses the screwdriver to open (and bar) portals, as you've noted... but it also seems to do a lot of scanning and analyzing of things... which I suppose is the Identify, but I'd add Detect Magic (no charge expenditure) (All identify does is add a plus to your spellcraft check when using detect magic... so is kinda pointless on its own).

For thematics, I'd consider adding Jury Rig to the list of spells too.

Although the shadow witch thing might sound fun, its going to be affecting your fellow party members just as much as your enemies, is it not? Does not sound particularly group friendly.

What's wrong with a duel wielding rogue? Its quite a common type.
Admittedly, he doesn't have two-weapon fighting yet, but he's only level 1, and only gets the one feat.

How is this rogue any less survivable then any other rogue build? (Hell, given his stealth focus, and 18 con, he might be ahead of some).
And just cause he has no skill yet at removing traps, that doesn't mean he can't notice them, and that's the important part for most traps. And, as a dwarf, he can find some without even trying. And who says he might not learn to disable them later?

I have no issues with this build, depending on where he goes with it after level 1.

Maybe just tack on the Qinggong archetype instead? It stack with pretty much every other archetype, and will allow you to add a extra spell-like buff ability or two.

If on the other hand, you're looking at sorcerer for the spell list specifically, what the others mentioned about the Empyreal bloodline might be good (use wisdom as his spell stat) (or even crossblood it with some other bloodline for a different 1st level bloodline power option)

I think there's a race in Advanced Race Guide that has toxic blood.

Vishkanya, if i'm not mistaken

Toxic, in the race builder, is only 1 rp standard offense trait (though you'd have to handwave the racial requirement, or perhaps have it cost more rp for races not listed). And it covers exactly the ability to poison his weapon by licking or bleeding on it thing.

Poison Resistance, as mentioned, is 3 rp standard defense trait. Although not 100% immunity, at +1 to saves per HD, it does mimic his descriptive fluff about slowly building up immunity.

You could then trade those 2 abilities in for an equal number of rp points taken out (say the (4 rp) human bonus feat). And you'd still be sitting at a 10rp standard race. No fuss no muss.

The Eldritch Heritage feat chain can mimic the one ability as mentioned, but at a rather high feat investment that doesn't reach fruition until level level 11 (and includes the fang bite attack which might be a bit too over the top)

Seems more like fluff descriptive stuff that might explain a power/ability gained elsewhere..

The wildblooded serpentine bloodline (Envenomed) gives weapon licking as a 3rd level bloodline power. That sounds exactly what he's after for the 2nd part of the effect. (But would take 3 feats for a non-sorceror character to achieve (Skill Focus, Eldritch Heritage, Improved Eldritch Heritage)

As to the poison immunity... not sure if there's a blanket immunity option out there, but given his description on how he's going about it, sounds like you're after something like the Poison Resistance racial trait... perhaps allow him to switch his bonus feat or skilled trait (both 4 rp points in the race builder) and switch it out for the Poison Resistance trait (3 rp points). Hell toss in Plagueborn (1 rp) to even it up if you're feeling generous...

Methinks Andreww is indicating that you cannot take the same feat more than once, unless it specifically says you can. Spell Perfection is not one of those feats, so once only.

Does a caster need to have all the spell a staff is capable of casting, on his spell list, to use the staff?
Or if he has any of them, he can use all of them?
Or can he only use it to cast the spells that are on his list and the rest he can't use?

Some staves seem to require level dipping to make full use of.

For instance, a Staff of Defense... is there any straight caster that can use all of the spells in it? (shield and shield of faith are typically mutually exclusive on most spell lists)

Explain to them that they can still craft items while adventuring, or bits at a time. Pathfinder crafting rules are more then generous enough for even the busy adventurer to feel they're getting some use out of it.

If they're trying to make items expensive enough (or in large enough quantities) to require they stick around for months, there are other issues going on.

Both) Both characters have Combat Reflexes, Outflank, and Paired Opportunist.

Step 1: Flank someone

Step 2: Two Weapon Warrior attacks until he crits, which he does 1/4 of the time

Step 3: TWW passes the crit to the Kensai, who, thanks to Outflank, gets an AoO and spends Arcana points to raise the crit multiplier of his weapon to x5 and lays in a massive blow

Step 4: Thanks to Paired Opportunist, the TWW gets an AoO as well, which might potentially crit and set the whole chain off again.

Outflank and Paired Opportunist don't work so well together.

Outflank requires you be flanking.
Paired Opportunist requires your ally to be adjacent to you.

These two conditions cannot typically be met with just 2 folks.

Don't worry about the traps.
Anyone can be trap detector, its just a perception roll.

Its the trap disarming that might be an issue... and even then, just the magic traps, as anyone can disarm the non-magical ones with the appropriate skill roll.

Once you know there's a trap, there are usually many ways to get around/avoid/bypass them that don't require a rogue with the Trapfinding ability.

I'd say just don't worrying about it (and suggest your wizardly types learn erase or dispel magic or animate object et al if they care that much =) )

JJ seems to be equating maintaining a grapple and a generic grapple check. Not sure if thats right, but there's a definite disconnect there.

You can Standard Action Attack/Grab and Move Action Greater Grapple in the first round.

I've seen this said before, but can't figure out how folks are doing it.

Greater Grapple doesn't allow you to do any grapple check as a move action. It allows you to maintain a grapple as a move action.
In the first round, there is no maintaining roll going on.