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James, as silly as you may think double-end swords are, you have to admit that they looked damn wicked in the beginning of Lord of the Rings. Not to mention Starwars. Make a double-end sword with the brilliant energy enchantment and BAM! El Lightsaber-o :P Which double-ended swords from the start of LOTR?
Why is it a "critical error" for the DM to let a player create the cohort? If the DM is happy for the player to do so then what is the issue? If the DM doesn't set the parameters for the cohort then it's their own fault if the cohort unbalances things. It's easy enough for the DM and player to work out how the cohort came to follow the PC and then the player can run the cohort within that framework. The DM can intervene if the PC tries something the DM thinks is out of line for the cohort. In the Kingmaker campaign I am in my character, the Duke, had a kobold bard cohort. We befriended the kobolds early on so it fit in with the passage of the campaign for the kobold to become my cohort. When the DM wanted to use the cohort for some plot point he took him over, but when we got back to normal play I ran him. Alas poor Giacomo died trying to free a colony of kobold slaves from a drow city (in a DM generated side quest). My next cohort was a sorcerer who was researching dragons - which we had encountered in the same side quest. So it fit in with the campaign for her to join us (plus the Duke is keen for some heirs....). I say "was" as she got disintegrated a bit later on and we don't have raise dead or the like on our campaign. As for what my next cohort will be.... I don't think there will be a queue of applicants!
Thanks, Gallo. Would you recommend picking up the Power Attack and Specialization first or the Combat Expertise and first Trip feat? At 1st level, I mean. Personally, I went CE and Improved Trip first, but as a Human I took PA at 1st too. Whichever of Imp trip and PA you don't take at 1 you will get at 2, so I don't think it really matters. I haven't actually got around to taken Wpn Focus and Spec - too busy taking feats like Master Craftsman and Craft Magic Arms and Armour...... I took Furious Focus as soon as I could to try and counter-balance the drop in to-hit I get by having CE up all the time. If I get a chance when I get home I'll post by build.
Thanks Rapthorn, I'll look into that. I'm thinking of looking into the trip feats as well. I have a 11th level fighter who specialises in the heavy flail and tripping. He is lots of fun to play and pretty effective. With all the feats you'll get you can afford Combat Expertise and trip feats along with PA etc. If you have a party member who is happy to spend a feat on Tandem Trip you can get even more out of tripping. Mithril Plate of Speed is handy for the extra speed and attack - or Boots of Striding and Springing (or, as we used to call them Boots of Dancing and Prancing).
Actually he did through use of the grammatical construct known as an ellipsis which is used to indicate an unfinished thought or, at the end of a sentence, a trailing off into silence.
Irrespective of how badly the players interact with you and whether the group is ever going to function in a way that you enjoy being part of it, the characters deserve to die. Seriously, a sorcerer who deliberately targets another party member? If they can't cooperate with each other then why on earth would they be adventuring with each other? Ask the questions "What Would Conan Do?" - he'd kill the stupid sorcerer, glare meaningfully at the rest of the party and get on with his task at hand. Perhaps you should arrange it so half the party is on the loyalist side and the other half the rebels and then they can happily kill each other as that seems to be what they really want to do..... But, less tongue-in-cheek (and assuming you don't just ditch the whole group), you can set them up for a potential TPK without without just waving your DM wand and saying "you all die during/after the battle". Design the next session such that if they cooperate with each other and stop being knobs they have a reasonable chance at winning/surviving. If they actually do try to cooperate but still fail you can have them be captured. Set it up so if they cooperate while captured they have a chance of escaping, but if they don't then the executioner's axe will be used. It's not immature to set a party up for a TPK a party provided it's not a forgone conclusion and the party has a reasonable chance to survive through smart play. Any encounter could be considered as a potential TPK - the whole aim of the game is to cooperate to overcome challenges and have fun while doing so. A few other thoughts.... - do you think the group would improve if the rogue was gone? Is he close friends with other players? i.e. could you just say "sorry Rogue, you are too disruptive on the group, you are no longer welcome"? - ensure casters have print outs of all their spells at hand, so no interrupting combat to look up books - if there is a dispute during combat tell the "disputer" that it can be discussed after combat, but you are not interrupting play again. DM's say is final during combat. - following on from that, players can't question other character's actions. i.e. if the rogue has a problem with the how the sorcerer's spells are being adjudicated then tell him/her to "play their own character". Only the player concerned can raise an issue about their character. If the rogue persists just say you can discuss it after the session and then move on. - try an egg timer for each player's in-combat actions. I wouldn't set it at 6 seconds, perhaps 10-15. If they don't act in that time then they lose their turn or delay. If the rogue interrupts and impacts another player's ability to declare their action in the allotted time then they will tell the rogue to shut up - thereby effectively helping you shut the rogue up.
I'm not having much fun playing my Witch/Druid (2/2) in Serpent's Skull so he is going to retire to the jungle at the end of book 1..... So as a replacement I was thinking of playing a character who only uses Unarmed Strike in melee - a kind of boxer/wrestler/streetfighter kind of character. My Kingmaker character is a fighter with a heavy-flail so I'd like to try a melee type who doesn't have a big weapon to smack things with, and the challenge of playing a melee type who is unarmoured (or light armour only) appeals. I like the idea of a few levels of monk (possibly either Master of Many Styles or Martial Artist) and a couple of levels of Fighter (Brawler Archetype for the level 3 weapon training) or perhaps Urban Barbarian for the rage powers (Beast Totem line). At this stage he/she will only be level 4, but I'd be interested in ideas for progression up to about level 14. A few considerations: I don't want to play a single class character, so any combination of classes is fine. Race - human or half-orc (biting people while grappling is encouraged :) Point Buy - 20 I'd like to use the Crane Style combat feat chain (for the one attack per round deflection) and possibly Boar style (for the extra damage). Anyway, there seem so many possible combinations so I'd be interested in your thoughts. Thanks!
Hm? I'll remember that in the future. I've seen it tossed around in quite a few threads on the boards in reference to getting ganked, to borrow an MMO term, I figured it wasn't that big a deal..... B) have a good escape plan for getting out of there when they start trying to gangrape you, you make such a lovely target.....How about we avoid such offensive and inappropriate language on the boards...... Seriously, you think using the that term in a casual way is "no big deal"? You need to go take a long hard look at yourself.
Gloves of dueling also improves a fighter's weapon training by +2, like a free weapon specialization and greater focus in one item. Which means the Gloves of Duelling do add a bonus to Sunder CMB checks, as per the PRD : Weapon Training ........ A fighter also adds this bonus to any combat maneuver checks made with weapons from this group.
There is a school of thought that interprets the "must" to be like all the other prerequisites/requirements and therefor can be overcome with a +5. There are numerous lengthy threads on the issue of the ambiguity and inconsistencies in the wording used in the item crafting rules so I won't go into further details here. Someone a while ago made the very sensible suggestion that the terminology used for requirements and prerequisites should be standardised into something like hard and soft prerequisites to cover those things that cannot or can be avoided by taking the +5 to the DC.
Howie fails his will save and engages in a PFRPG magic item creation conversation. Howie - next time you level up take Iron Will and then Improved Iron Will to have a better chance of making your save ;-) but seriously, the whole magic item crafting rules need a serious review, revision and rewrite to clarify a whole range of issues, requirements and terminology.
Does the DM announce the loot after each fight and the psycho then writes it down? If so, you should also keep track of the loot. Whenever your party distributes loot - end of combat, end of session or whenever - you're in a position to see whether she dividing it evenly. In my group we allocate magical loot straightaway to whoever needs it most/can best use it and then split the cash, gems, sell unwanted magic items when we get back to a town. We've found that the allocation of really good magic items is done fairly over time by the DM so there is no need to do the old "You got the +2 sword, so you get less cash" routine as it balances our nicely over a few sessions. But as for the far more serious issue of being abused by a player in your own home and the DM (and presumably the other players) essentially telling you to put up with it.... You say two of the players are good friends - are they better friends with you than with the psycho? If so you should be able to frankly discuss the issue with them after she has gone. Tell them you are not comfortable with the way she plays - presumably she is aggressive to all the other players - and how would they feel about excluding her. What is her relationship to the DM? Is it a case of if she goes the DM goes? How many other players are there beside you, your two good friends, and her? Can you sense if the other players don't like her behaviour? Why does everyone put up with her? I'd much rather play in a happy group of 4 people than a tense, unpleasant group of 5. At best she is an aggressive bully, at worst she has some serious psychological issues. (not that bullying isn't a serious issue in itself). You shouldn't have to be in a position where you have to deal with her behaviour during your leisure time. If she is making you, and others, lose their enjoyment of the game then you need to get rid of her. Pathfinder is meant to be a fun way to spend your leisure time. I've been in groups in the past where it was not fun and either left the group or the group decided one member had to go. If the rest of the group are happy to keep her then you really need to find another group (acknowledging that this isn't necessarily an easy thing to do).
Prehensile Hair (Su): The witch can instantly cause her hair (or even her eyebrows) to grow up to 10 feet long or to shrink to its normal length, I don't think we need the game developers to chime in on the meaning of instantly.... At 5th level, she can fly, as per the spell, for a number of minutes per day equal to her level.
Flight Hex = per spell. Spell = standard action. Again, why would game designers need to chime in?
Having spent way too long carrying heavy backpacks while in the army, trying to do anything active while heavily loaded is both very tiring and seriously impedes your capabilities. And on the rare occasions I had to carry a second one on my front (usually while helping carry a stretcher with the backpack's owner on it!) my ability do anything else was about zero. Pathfinder basically hand waves away any in-combat issues with wearing a backpack in combat. Though trying to add rules around the issue would get messy. The idea of wearing two backpacks and still being able to do anything other than walk in a straight line without tripping over and do all the things an adventurer does - which is presumably what your player wants to do - is stretching things. Let him have his two backpacks, sack, bag of holding etc. Then ambush the party and see what he does. "How are you wielding a shield? Wasn't that the arm with which you were carrying that heavy sack? What, it was strapped to your pack? Ok, move at more than half speed and the sack swings around and gets in the way of your sword arm". If he drops the sack, or backpacks, keep note of where he dropped them and have the baddies grab them, or present a situation where he has to decide whether to stay and protect his gear or run away and live. You don't have to be mean about it, just present realistic situations and see how he reacts. Will the rest of the party want to stay and risk dying just so Mr Multi-backpacks can protect his gear? As an aside, how much stuff does he want to carry if he can't fit it in a handy haversack anyway? Sounds like he is a compulsive hoarder. A Scroll of Remove Psychological Disorder wouldn't go astray.
No. Both provide an armour bonus.
Any reading of the feat to suggest you can use a craft skill completely unrelated to the magic item you are making would take the level of obtuseness on these boards to new lows.Hello, and welcome to the forums. Thank you Mr Wolf :) I actually follow these boards not because I am a total Pathfinder geek, but purely to get great examples to use in my day job in which I teach things like editing and reading comprehension skills to bureaucrats! Some of the extreme examples of obtuseness I encounter there have nothing on some of it on the boards.....
Actually I'm quite comfortable that I am not. If you think RAW means, for example that, a master leatherworker can enchant a sword's handgrip to make the sword magical then fill your boots (could you then swap the leather handgrip onto another sword to make that one magical?). Or that a master glassblower can put some pretty glass beading fringe on a breastplate to make it magical? But that does not make the actual sword or breastplate magical. That enters the realms of the 3.5 ?weapon gems? (can't remember the exact name) where you could "plug in" things to your weapon to provide for a system of flexible, temporary weapon enhancements. But to actually turn a lump of metal into a magical sword through the creator's skill alone (as an alternative to a spellcaster enchanting it) takes Craft" Weaponsmith. That is RAW. Any craft or profession can be used to craft arms, armor, and wonderous items(with the appropiate feats). That interpretation allows you to have a master artist who draws beautiful art all over items, and makes them magical in the process or a master weaver who weaves magical threads into various items. It also allows you to have stupid things like enchanting with profession: animal husbandry. RAI, I would make the player come up with something that at least logically makes sense. I agree a master weaver could make something like a Flying Carpet or a master leatherworker could create a Belt of Something-or-other. But just as a master swordsmith can't create a Handy Haversack, neither can a master leatherworker create a +1 Flaming Scimitar. If that is what the Devs intended by the feat, then I'd love to get their thoughts on it.
This is when your GM should be stepping in and saying, I do not allow it. Because to allow this would be pure violation of the spirit of the rule. It just seems that it should be common sense. Don't you think so? Actually this is where the DM steps in and says read the feat description with a modicum of logic applied.... Benefit: Choose one Craft or Profession skill in which you possess at least 5 ranks. You receive a +2 bonus on your chosen Craft or Profession skill. Ranks in your chosen skill count as your caster level for the purposes of qualifying for the Craft Magic Arms and Armor and Craft Wondrous Item feats. You can create magic items using these feats, substituting your ranks in the chosen skill for your total caster level. You must use the chosen skill for the check to create the item. The DC to create the item still increases for any necessary spell requirements (see the magic item creation rules in Magic Items). You cannot use this feat to create any spell-trigger or spell-activation item. Any reading of the feat to suggest you can use a craft skill completely unrelated to the magic item you are making would take the level of obtuseness on these boards to new lows.
Master Craftsman does not allow you to take Forge Ring. If you want to craft a magic cloak you would need to have specified the craft skill to which you are tying your Master Craftsman feat - Craft: Weaver perhaps - and then take Craft Wonderous Item. Nothing in the Master Craftsman feat description suggests you can use Craft: Weaponsmith to do anything than create magic weapons. You can only use one craft skill as the basis for qualifying for Master Craftsman and subsequently either Craft Magic Arms and Armour or Craft Wonderous Item.
+1. I long for the good old days of "what does pre-requisite actually mean", "which requirements can I avoid with a +5 DC" and so on..... ;-)
Using the same tendentious reading comprehension skills you should be arguing that the feat Master Craftsman can only be taken by males as it doesn't have "woman" in it. Or that only humans can use it because otherwise the feat would be Master Craftsdwarf/elf/halfing etc. Just because Spellcraft has the word "craft" within it, does not mean Spellcraft is a Craft skill. The very fact that Spellcraft has its own entry and specific description points to that. Specific trumps the general - Spellcraft skill has a specific and individual description. Craft has a more general description and then list the range of possible Craft skills - all of which involve physically making something. Ideally the feats should have read "enchant" rather than craft as in the normal course of crafting/enchanting a magic item you do not make anything, you merely make an item magical. Using Spellcraft as a skill as part of enchanting an item does not involve actually making the item to be enchanted - nothing within the description suggests you are actually making the item to be enchanted. That is what the specific Craft skills are for.
You still use CL for determining whether you are able to create the magic weapon/armour. +2 weapon needs CL6 (or Craft: Weapon 6 ranks if you are using Master Craftsman), +3 needs a CL9 or 9 ranks in Craft: Weapon and so on. So surprise, surprise it isn't "entirely useless".
That's why a clear cut "If you want to use a weapon, you have to use one that lists "trip" under its Special category" or a "You can't trip with a weapon unless that weapon has the word "trip" listed under its special", as per James Jacobs's posts is the way to go.Except we're now willfully ignoring Sean's more recent FAQ (not opinion) post that says you can trip using a non-trip weapon? You say wilfully ignoring, I say open to interpretation. In the absence of an unequivocally clear statement, preferably as a change to the actual rulebooks and PRD, then you can continue to go around and around in circles.
So does a Creative Director trump a Lead Game Designer or a Developer? Just because you believe James and Sean have a different position on tripping with a non-trip weapon, it doesn't therefor mean that the "development team" does not feel the same way as James Jacobs. My personal reading of SKR's "+5 longsword" comment, is that he is saying that it doesn't matter whether you are holding a funky longsword or a plain old longsword or even a a hand sandwich when you try and trip someone - there is no benefit as you aren't using the longsword itself. The "the sword doesn't help you make the trip attempt" bit suggests to me that if it isn't helping it isn't being used. And as far as it pertains to tripping when adjacent to your foe, it is irrelevant whether you actually use the weapon or not as, if you were to actually be able to use the weapon, you get no benefit over not using the weapon. The only relevance is to the argument about whether you can trip with a reach weapon that does not have the trip special quality. As James said "In order to trip with reach, you either need to have reach on your own as a virtue of your race, or you need to be wielding a reach weapon with the trip ability". One thing I have found from working as an editor for many years is that what a person actually writes and what their intended message is don't always match. A writer can be sure that they are saying "X = Y" yet some people read it as "X =/= Y" or "X is similar to Y". So you can either parse the sentence to death and then go back to the author to ask them to clarify what they have said (particularly if what they are writing related to rules, assessments or instructions). Or you can try and work out what the author's intent is, based on the rest of what they have written. For something like Pathfinder the former is preferable as the latter approach leads to all these posts where multiple positions are held and no one agrees even where someone in authority makes a definitive statement on the issue.
The whole issue of trip-or-not has been caused by inferring things and implications resulting in different views for different people. Plus the "you can do X, the then normal state must be that you can't" is also fraught with potential for differences of opinion. That's why a clear cut "If you want to use a weapon, you have to use one that lists "trip" under its Special category" or a "You can't trip with a weapon unless that weapon has the word "trip" listed under its special", as per James Jacobs's posts is the way to go.
Given Jiggy's posting of James Jacob's definitive ruling on the issue, it would be helpful if the trip weapon quality description and the trip manoeuvre itself in the PRD were amended to explicitly state that: a. the only weapons that can be used to make trip attacks are ones with the trip quality b. you can still make a trip attack if you do not have a weapon with the trip quality, but you are using your body when you do so. or words to that effect.
A weapon with the trip quality allows you to make a trip with that weapon and possibly get lots of relevant bonuses. If you have a weapon that does not have the trip quality you can still trip but you are not using that weapon to do so and therefore get fewer bonuses. So my Fighter 8 with Imp Trip, Greater Trip, a +2 heavy flail (with Weapon trg flails) is really good a tripping. He gets +4 for feats, +1 Weapon Training and +2 from the flail (plus possibly Weapon Focus etc). So he is pretty good at tripping - and does not risk getting tripped if he fails. If he puts his flail away and is fighting with a +5 longsword he can still trip but he is using his leg or something else to do the deed. Thus he does not get any bonuses from the weapon itself or weapon training, but still gets +4 from the Trip feats. If he fails in his attempt he can get tripped by his opponent. So in the first example my fighter uses the flail to hook his opponent's leg and trip him over. In the second he is face-to-face with his foe, swords crossed between them, snarling curses at each other. He then slips his leg behind his opponent's and does a neat judo-style trip. If you want a weapon you can use to trip at reach buy a gusiarme.
Depending on the culture, slings were used as often as bows and more than crossbows. It's just a Eurocentric view that places bows and crossbows above all other missile weapons. I meant Eurocentric in the sense that our historical viewpoint is strongly influenced by European history in which missile weapons were looked down upon by chroniclers, and slings were the lowest of the low in that regard. So the prevalence of slings in historical records is much lower than their actual usage should suggest. Lots of cultures used slings. I used to have a map showing where slings and bows were used and there wasn't much overlap. Off the top of my head: Hawaii, various North American peoples, Aztecs, Tibet, ancient Celts, Balearic Islands, Rhodes, Middle East, all over Africa. Penetrating power depends on the type of armour. There are historical accounts of people wearing metal helmets being killed by a sling bullet hit to a metal helmet. Plus not all bows had the same penetrative power of an English longbow or a good composite bow.
You can't have your cake and eat it too. Why would you be able to wield a crossbow in two hands and still get your buckler AC bonus, but if you wield a halberd you don't? The reason you can wear/wield/carry/whatever a buckler and still be able to use that arm to wield/use/fire a weapon is that it is small and doesn't greatly encumber you compared to any other type of shield you may have. Without dwelling on the ergonomics of combat, the buckler arm is held steady while firing a bow or crossbow so it doesn't affect your attacks. Whereas wielding a melee weapon involves a lot more motion and the buckler would slightly encumber you, hence the attack penalty. But if you are doing something else with the arm that the buckler is on - namely attack - then you aren't in a position to use that arm to defend yourself. The advantage of a buckler is that you can choose to switch between using it for an AC bonus instantaneously when you want to use it for defence - that is, you don't need to take an action of some kind to put it on as you would if you had another type of shield.
Depending on the culture, slings were used as often as bows and more than crossbows. It's just a Eurocentric view that places bows and crossbows above all other missile weapons. Plus slings were considered even more lowly than bows, so the chroniclers largely ignored them, hence the limited reference to them in historical records (at least in Europe). Crossbows were not that widespread outside of Europe and parts of Asia. For many cultures slings took precedence over bows in warfare. If the devs were intending to focus on weapons that were used more often in battle then the list of available weapons would be pretty small!
I don't see why a slinger should have to take two feats to do something a bowman can do for free. When you add in the fact that sling damage is lower than it should be, why would anyone bother trying to specialise with the sling in Pathfinder? Plus the characters that might want to use one have to take a couple of feats to make it slightly more effective.
I don't see why you couldn't. I am guessing it wasn't included due to low use of slings. Slings should be able to be fired just about as quickly as a bow without the need for an extra feat. Not all slinging techniques use lots of twirling. Compare it to, say, using Rapid Reload to load a heavy crossbow as a move action, and it is not at all unrealistic. Consider a person with 3 Strength and Rapid Reload loading a heavy crossbow as a move action and we definitely enter the realms of unrealistic. Then again slings should do the same damage as a short bow (based on historical data) and...and...and... I think the reason that not many people use slings in game is not because slings are actually poor weapons, but rather the game designers have continued with errors about slings that existed in the very earliest versions of D&D, so the D&D/Pathfinder sling is actually a lot weaker than it should be..
I don't believe magical lineage will let you reduce a spell's level below its starting level. Merciful is irrelevant. You can't turn a level 1 spell into an orison regardless of what you do. All you can do is modify the effects through metamagic. And as per Jason quote above, do you really think the designers would allow unlimited healing? If you have to go to all sorts of weird twists and turns of the rules to try and achieve it you really need to have a long hard think about whether you are doing is within the spirit of the rules even as you go into contortions trying to twist the wording of the rules.
I'm pretty sure there was a recent thread that shot down this approach. Magical Lineage only treats the spell as one level lower for metamagic. It doesn't actually make the spell a level lower, ie it doesn't turn a 1st level spell into an orison/cantrip. : Magical Lineage: One of your parents was a gifted spellcaster who not only used metamagic often, but also developed many magical items and perhaps even a new spell or two—and you have inherited a fragment of this greatness. Pick one spell when you choose this trait. When you apply metamagic feats to this spell, treat its actual level as 1 lower for determining the spell's final adjusted level. For example, if you cast your Lineage spell with the Enlarge Spell metamagic feat the level adjustment would be +1 (Enlarge) - 1 (Lineage trait) = 0 level adjustment. The issue of unlimited healing comes up reasonably often. The reason Paizo removed Cure Minor Wounds when it brought in unlimited Orisons/Cantrips per day was to prevent unlimited healing. Any attempt to selectively interpret feats, traits etc is not going to achieve the aim of unlimited healing.
I'm certainly looking forward to the final version. The Giants trilogy was my favourite set of modules back on the early 80s (not that I can remember exactly when they came out).
British and Commonwealth troops successfully used camels in WW1 in the Egypt and Palestine campaigns. They functioned just like the Light Horse regiments as mounted infantry. From the Australian War Memorial website: The Imperial Camel Corps (ICC) was formed in January 1916 in order to deal with the revolt of pro-Turkish Senussi tribesmen in Egypt’s Western Desert. The first four companies were recruited from Australian infantry battalions recuperating after Gallipoli. Four battalions were eventually formed. The 1st and 3rd were entirely Australian, the 2nd was British, and the 4th was a mix of Australians and New Zealanders. The ICC also had its own machine gun unit, and a battery of light artillery recruited in Hong Kong and Singapore.
Following on from the theme of the Nile flooding annually to revitalise the soil and the comment about the benefits of volcanic ash for agriculture... Every winter the land freezes over and people have to survive the long winter days off stored food. There are many volcanoes and hot springs in the land that make life (barely) survivable in winter and make the land relatively bountiful in summer. Each year as winter ends the volcanoes start rumbling spreading beneficial ash across the land (an analogue to the annual flooding of the Nile). Some years the volcanoes are quiet and the soil does not get replenished, some years there are major eruptions that cause widepsread destruction. As the ash disperion is uneven the location of the best agriculutal land changes from year to year, adding to the difficulties of both the populce and the rulers (population more mobile than the rulers would like, conflict over the best land, etc). The summer fecundity of the land allows for a large population - the pressures of such a large population being cooped up over the long winters create further social tensions. Occasionally there are winter eruptions that cause even more damage as people cannot easily move to safe areas without suffering from the winter exposure.
We have just hit level 10 in our Kingmaker campaign. We have an Arcane Trickster who specialises in sneak attacking with Scorching Ray. He can do a decent amount of damage but none of us, especially the DM, think he is overpowered, even when he gets sneak attack damage on multiple rays. Compared to our Ranger/Zen Archer Monk who can fire multiple arrows per round indefinitely or the heavy flail tripping fighter, the AT fits in just fine. He has a huge range of scrolls and utility spells that really help out of combat. So while he seems to a bit weak in some areas, the overall package is fine.
I think fitting in a few levels of bard would be great. Especially if you envisage the character having a bit of flair. I imagine there is a Bard alternative class feature(s) that allow for benefits for a bit of witty repartee. I'd skip the TWF path as you are not as likely to be shooting and stabbing in the same round. Use your feats for Dodge, Mobility and the like. Quick Draw would let you drop your fired pistols and pull out a loaded one easily. While pistols with bayonets might work according to the rules I think they are plain silly. Pistols aren't really designed to function as what would effectively be the haft of a bladed weapon (as a stop-gap weapon sure, but to build a character concept around no), reloading a muzzle-loader with bayonet attached gets harder and the other swashbucklers would laugh at you :)
Thanks for the suggestions everyone. I am definitely going to be a druid for the divine side of MT - for flavour as much as anything else. Bard sounds good (masterpieces, chanting and all) but in our other KM campaign my Duke has a kobold bard cohort so I don't want to play another one in this campaign. Sorcerer would be good (in part to reduce the bookkeeping required for having two spell lists to choose from!). I'll have to look at how the sorcerer's limited spell choice would mesh with the druid spell list. At least Wizards aren't limited by what they can put in their spellbook. The Empyreal bllodline (Wis-based casting) looks really good too. Getting the right balance right will be tricky because as soon as I take MT all the non-spell aspects of the two base classes stop (feats like Boon COmpanion notwithstanding).
My group is starting Serpent's Skull tonight and I am planning to play a "Witch Doctor" style character, with the aim of taking the Mystic Theurge PrC at level 7. He would not be a "blaster" but do lots of summoning and buffing/utility stuff. I know MT has some potential power issues but still want to give it a go as much for RP potential as anything else. My DM says I can take the Magical Knack trait twice to boost my caster level of both classes to help compensate for the slower access to higher level spells. I am starting as a Druid (Saurian Shaman from UM). But I am not sure whether to have my arcane class as a Wizard (Divination or Conjuration) or Witch. The other members of the party look like being an Elf Alchemist and a TW Fighter or Ranger (not sure of race - though me and the TW player are thinking of having "pygmy" like characters - basically small humans - to fit in with the jungle theme). A Witch feels more flavoursome, but with an animal companion already I'm not sure a familiar is what I want. Given I'll probably initially only take 3 levels of each class (levels 17+ not really in my thoughts at the moment), what do you think? A wizard gets scribe scroll and bonded item.
With Boon Companion my Triceratops companion will become large at level 7 but not progress beyond that unless I keep taking some levels of Druid (which I probably will do anyway to get basic wildshaping).
We did Legacy of Fire before Kingmaker and Age of Worms before that. Three of us take turns to GM entire campaigns. Looks like the guy we were going to lose isn't going so we have a solid group of five. If we find someone who can't make our regular Friday's we can point them in your direction to see if your group'd timings suit better.
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