Hello, everyone! This is Alexander Augunas here, co-author of Pact Magic Unbound, Vol. 1, avid forum-goer, and one-half of the Pathfinder RPG Dream Team at Radiance House. We're getting very close to the release of Pact Magic Unbound, Vol. 2 so in the meantime I wanted to take a few minutes to run an idea that Dario and I had past the Paizo Community.
For those of you who do not know, Dario is the author of a d20 game called the Radiance RPG, which is a rules lite system for playing in a 1920s electropunk fantasy setting. Dario and I have been exploring ways to bring some of the look and feel of the Radiance RPG into Pathfinder, and one of the major ways we want to do that is through Townies.
What Are Townies?
Spoiler:
Townies are NPCs (Non-Player Characters) who possess an extremely specialized set of skills and abilities. Townies are farmers, acrobats, soldiers, and priests.
Where Did the Idea for Townies Come From?
Spoiler:
Townies come from the Radiance RPG, which is designed to be a rules-lite system. The Radiance RPG is a powers-based system similar to something like Savaged Worlds in that you pick new powers as your level improves.
In systems like Savaged Worlds, building NPCs is not something that is easy to do on the fly. Dario wanted to design a system that let GMs quickly find a set of special abilities that were appropriate for an unimportant NPC to use instead of having to stop play to custom-build an NPC. This resulted in the creation of Townies.
How Do Townies Work in Pathfinder?
[spoiler]In the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, Townies function as archetypes for the NPC classes presented in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook. Since these classes have no class features, they simply replace a feat. Currently we are not planning to allow multiple NPC archetypes per character, but that could very well change with your input.
Why Would I Want Townies in Pathfinder?
Spoiler:
Our reason for designing these archetypes are two-fold; for one, we want Dario's game, the Radiance RPG, to be as translatable to Pathfinder as possible and vice versa. More importantly, we feel as though the NPC classes are wasted; they imply that non-heroic characters have no special skills or abilities, when we clearly know that this is not the case. Our goal is to add simple-to-use and easy-to-manage abilities to NPC classes so that they are more interesting options both for a GM's characters and for followers that a PC with Leadership might recruit; as written, there is absolutely no reason to ever recruit an NPC class character with the Leadership feat. Ever.
Why Make This Thread?
We earnestly want to hear what you, the people of the Pathfinder Community, think about all of this! We hope that you will take a look at the samples provided in the next few poses and give us your honest opinion on the topic of Townies so that we can make this system as useful to you as possible.
I'm making a sixth level character for a game I'm in. I already have a Dwarf Drunken Weapon Adept who is focused on trips, but the GM is allowing us to have "alts" that we swap in and out for, and even though I love my monk no one in the group is willing to step up to the plate and bring any amount of healing to the table. So that's what I'mma do.
That said, I don't know how to proceed with my character. I prefer Spontaneous spellcasting to Prepared spellcasting because I am lazy, but I haven't found an Oracle that works for me. My ultimate problem is that of my group of friends, I am the only team player. Everyone else is speccing out their characters without the rest of the party in mind, so I need to make a character who encourages team play among everyone. When I played my aforementioned Monk, I was the only character giving our ninja his flanking bonus, so whatever I play needs to be able to do that too. My monk is trip-focused which was nice, but I don't know if I want two trip-oriented characters.
So, to sum up:
I want to play an Oracle who can wade into the front lines without worrying about dying, act as a team player by providing bonuses to my allies (preferably without using all of my spells on doing so since I'll be in casting defensively range), and provide healing to my group.
This is what you're going to find within the character sheet:
Page 1: All of the modifiers for the kingdom, as well as the kingdom's name and alignment, are here. One page reference for all your dice rolling needs!
Page 2: All of the Leadership positions (except Viceroy), their vacancy penalties, and any special rules that are associated with that position. Each role also indicates where its modifier bonus is added.
Page 3: A Cheat Sheet for the four kingdom edicts, as well as one of the new edicts: the trade edict.
Page 4: A Cheat Sheet for forms of government, the Fame and Infamy rules, and a nice big chunk of space for you to keep notes on.
Page 5: A place to record your relationship with foreign kingdoms as well as a place to record the information regarding your trade routes.
Pages 6 & 7: A place to list the modifiers of a specific settlement, as well as the number of each type of buildings you have in that settlement.
Page 8: Diplomatic Edicts! Seriously, those rules require the ENTIRE page.
Page 9: Exploration Edicts, Vassalage Edicts, and Settlement Modifiers. This is where the Viceroy position is, so you don't have to worry about it cluttering up page two if you aren't going to be using those optional rules.
Page 10 & 11: A list of every type of building and hex augmentation you can purchase, its benefits, how many lots it takes up, and so on.
So I totally know I'm setting myself up for disappointment when Ultimate Campaign comes out this month and potentially invalidates all of the work I've done, but hey! Don't worry about that, worry about new Character Sheets!
I'm currently in a Kingdom Building game, and after realizing the Kingmaker Character sheet wasn't good enough for my needs, I started scouring the internet trying to find a better character sheet. And although there were tons of great Excel Spreadsheets, there was nothing I could easily stick into by binder and bring to the game.
==PAGE ONE==
One-stop listing for all of your Kingdom's statistics; perfect for the first few phases of a Kingdom Turn.
==PAGE TWO==
Explanations for many of the Kingdom Building rules. As well as a place to put your Kingdom's special resources.
==PAGE THREE==
Page Three is a very weird hybrid of the City Building rules and the Settlement Rules from the GameMastery Guide. The only real house rule on this page is that a settlement's economy is applied to its Kingdom's Economy bonus. It ends up being a very small bonus to the Kingdom overall (especially if you're giving your cities qualities), so if you don't want to do that, you can track the values separately. Small little tables allow you to use your settlement's population to determine what type of settlement it is, and that value can translate over to a larger table.
DISCLAIMER: I am aware that the Kingdom Building rules say that you use only the benefits from your city's buildings to determine your settlement's base value. That seems silly to me, personally, so that rule is hand-waived away here. If you want to stick with that rule, enforce it and ignore the base value entry of the Settlement Table.
==PAGE FOUR==
Page Four has an awesome number of settlement qualities, governments, and disadvantages for your settlement. They're designed with little boxes for you to check which ones your settlement has. There is room for extra notes for homebrew qualities and some governments / qualities / disadvantages I found on the Paizo Boards made it on here, as well as some I homebrewed myself with the help of my friendly neighborhood history buff player.
==PAGE FIVE==
This page is a reference page that has the block size, BP price, and benefits of every Kingdom Building in the game so far. Enjoy it.
==PAGES SIX THROUGH EIGHT==
These pages are all designed for you to be able to record how many buildings you have in a given city of a given type for quicker calculation.
Cutting to the chase, according to the Cursed settlement disadvantage, you reduce one of your statistics by 4 while your settlement is affected by the curse. Crime and Corruption are statistics, but it hardly seems like a disadvantage to "curse" either of those statistics. Thoughts?
About a month ago I posted this thread detailing my attempt at a fix for the Antagonize feat, from Ultimate Magic. In my quest to make "tanking" an easier-to-perform role in Pathfinder, I added a new special action, antagonize, as well as a new combat maneuver, parry. I got a lot of great feedback from that thread, tweaked the rules drastically, and am now ready to share them with the world.
As a brief run-down, since I understand it is a lot of information.
— My purpose for writing this special action was not to make Pathfinder like 4th Edition, where a tank is a necessary component to a group. My purpose was to make it possible to play a defense-oriented character without feeling useless. The sad truth is that without some sort of provocation, most GMs cannot justify their NPCs focusing on the defense-oriented player when other players are hitting and criting for astronomical amount of damage. The purpose of these rules is to reflect what sort of psychology could throw someone so far off of their game that they would try to attack the Juggernaut.
— For now, Antagonizing is mostly Charisma-based. It is modeled after the demoralize action, and aside from needing to use hostile actions against the antagonist, an antagonized creature suffers no penalties. That is intentional; since Antagonize doesn't actually affect the creature's toughness (no debeuffs or whatever), the action isn't going to make encounters any easier or any harder.
— Antagonizing is designed to be very personal in that there are many ways to do it. There are many feats which I would describe as "quality of life improvements" rather than something you absolutely needed to succeed at antagonizing.
— You can use one of four skills to antagonize an opponent, and each skill modifies the core rules in small ways depending on how you use it. The skills are Bluff, Diplomacy, Handle Animal, and Intimidate. In addition, Sense Motive is vital to preventing yourself from becoming antagonized. The ultimate result is that two skills that people often skip over, Sense Motive and Handle Animal, have very real advantages for investing in now for any character. You're more than willing to debate whether those advantages are important or not, but they exist.
Looking forward to reading some comments, so hop in, grab a copy for yourself, and tell me what you think. I'll be playing these rules myself on Saturday and GMing for them on Thursday, so I'll post some information about them there. I'm expecting them to be a godsend for anyone who focuses their character on defense, because nothing is more frustrating than investing in all of the cool defensive abilities, then flailing about as your GM can't find a way to justify the monster actually trying to attack you.
I'm about to reach 7th level in a campaign I'm playing in, and my GM's required me to take Leadership. [sarcasm]Oh no ....[/sarcasm]
So I'm trying to figure out a cool character to build as a cohort to fill out our party. We're currently a three man band; I'm a sword saint (samurai) / lore warden (fighter), party member #2 is a bladebound (magus), and the GM gave us a seer (oracle of life). We're sort of hurt on skill coverage at the moment, but we also don't have a full arcane spellcaster.
Because of that, I've been thinking about arcane trickster, but considering that my cohort is going to lag behind us in levels, the loss of those spellcaster levels could be huge in his/her helpfulness. What does the board think? Any suggestions for stuff to look at would be great too.
Eldritch Jailor (Occultist) Without rhyme or reason, strange and terrible things have always existed in the corridors between the planes. Completely primordial, these entities have been known to fell entire nations when released upon the material world, and as a reason the errant occultist who frees one by mistake must often dedicate their lives to acting as as a jailer to this horrifying entity.
Eidolon: An eldritch jailor gains the service of an eidolon, which functions exactly like the summoner class feature; see Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Advanced Player’s Guide. The eldritch jailer uses his occultist level –3 when adjucating the eidolon’s abilities, and the eidolon possesses share granted abilities instead of the share spells ability. The eidolon is housed within an extradimensional space within the summoner’s ritual totem (see below); this extradimensional space is treated as the eidolon’s home plane for all purposes. Only the eldritch jailor who bound the eidolon to the ritual totem can force it out of this extradimensional space.
Ritual Totem: A eldritch jailor possesses a ritual totem, which is an object of personal significance that weighs no more than 10 lbs. and can be held in one hand. An eldritch jailor’s ritual totem is pivotal in performing the ritual required to bind and command his or her eidolon.
In order to command an eidolon, an eldritch jailor must assert his or her commands over its mind. Doing so functions as handling an animal, as described under the Handle Animal skill except that an eldritch jailor makes Knowledge (planes) checks instead of Handle Animal checks. Instead of trying to teach tricks to an unwilling creature, an eldritch jailor spends one week “teaching” the ritual totem a desired trick through various rituals. A ritual totem can be taught a number of tricks equal to the eldritch jailor’s binder level + his or her Charisma modifier. After this week has finished, the eldritch jailor attempts a Knowledge (planes) check against the trick’s DC; success indicates that the eldritch jailor can now command the eidolon to use the desired trick while failure indicates that the eldritch jailor must start anew.
Unlike an animal companion, an eidolon never attempts to use its tricks willingly; the eldritch jailor must always command an eidolon by spending a move action (and by making a DC 10 Knowledge (planes) check) in order to command it to take any actions aside from free actions; it cares so little for its master that the eidolon will even refuse to defend itself. Because the ritual totem unwillingly commands the eidolon, the DC does not increase if the eidolon is damaged. If the totem ever gains the broken condition, however, the DC increases by 10 and if the ritual totem is destroyed, the eidolon cannot be controlled until a new totem is created by spending one week of time plus 200 gp per HD of the eidolon crafting a new one Depending on the condition of the ritual totem’s destruction, the eidolon may simply be unable to move or act, but in more terrifying situations the eidolon may become free to act as it will, an unkillable monster until it is contained once more.
Tunneled Lore: Select 1 constellation. The eldritch jailor is barred from this constellation and its allied constellations. The eldritch jailor cannot bar constellations with this ability that have been bared by other classes or that have been selected as an aligned constellation. An eldritch jailor cannot bar the Dark Beyond constellation.
So I've been tweaking my Charisma melee character build for a three-man band that I've been playing in and I was looking for some feedback. The character's general role is a utility character / combat maneuver expect; one of our three players is a blade-bound magus and from previous experience I know better than to try and out DPR that!
The only REAL rule is that storyline wise I need to keep my levels in either cavalier or samurai, my order needs to be the Order of the Cockatrice, and I need to keep my race (kitsune).
We're Kingdom Building; my GM told me I have to take Leadership at 7th level.
How it Plays
The basic idea is to hamper enemies using combat maneuvers and the demoralize action. The character is heavily invested in demoralizing; my character receives a +2 bonus to hit any demoralized foe thanks to Braggart, and Braggart also rewards Dazzling Display as a bonus feat (plus its only a Move Action!). By selecting Enforcer early on, I can take pot-shots for non-lethal damage in order to get a long duration of Demoralized on a foe without needing to use Dazzling Display if I want to (particularly useful for long boss fights or creatures that are difficult to Intimidate, like anything that is larger than I am).
More importantly, free Dazzling Display helps me qualify for Shatter Defenses and Deadly Stroke, which sync nicely with Braggart. In addition, because of Braggart, I can demoralize in an area without having to draw my weapon if I want, meaning that I could theoretically get the +2 braggart bonus to hit with my Iaijitsu Strike on the following turn if I wanted to.
Terrifying Iaijitsu rounds out my methods for demoralizing my foes (a whopping three choices), and its biggest draw / advantage is that it uses a Will save instead of a skill check, meaning it ignores my foe's size. Better still, it happens as a consequence of using another ability.
Things That Could Be Tweaked
I'm aware that Improved Feint is significantly less useful once I get Shatter Defenses; the only real advantage would be allowing my character to deny an enemy its Dex bonus against my allies' attacks via Greater Trip as well, but I didn't budget that feat into the build until much later level. I personally consider anything past Level 12 as "filler" and not as essential to my build; one thing I do know is that I'd like a feat chain that would let me take advantage of having a bunch of enemies demoralized against me by attacking many targets at once. I'm personally wondering if going Greater Cleave is a better route than Whirlwind Attack, if only because Power Attack and Cleave are more useful while leveling than Dodge and Mobility. Spring Attack is nice, but I'm also the party tank somewhat and Spring Attack doesn't seem like a trick that I will be making much use out of. I'm also not sold on the Disengaging Feint feat chain either.
As a final note, I'm not opposed to multiclassing outside of Fighter / Samurai once I have my levels, but anything not in the Core Rulebook Line I'd have to clear with my GM first. :D
So, I have a character I talk about a lot in various forum threads, my kitsune cavalier. We're playing a Kingdom Building campaign and because of my heavy focus on Charisma, I'm the party face and also set to be the King / Baron / Prime Minister / Whatever of the Kingdom we're going to be building.
Now, I really like the idea of the Battle Herald prestige class, but I'm turned off by the idea that all major commanders have to have some level of bardic expertise. That's not my character at all. So this is my attempt to build a Prestige Class that really conveys the "support my allies" theme without resorting to magic. Here's the link if you want to check it out. I'm hoping for some feedback before I present it to my GM and wish for the best.
And yes, Cheapy. I totally used the opportunity to practice my InDesign skills again.
At 1st level, a cavalier receives a teamwork feat as a bonus feat. He must meet the prerequisites for this feat. As a standard action, the cavalier can grant this feat to all allies within 30 feet who can see and hear him. Allies retain the use of this bonus feat for 3 rounds plus 1 round for every two levels the cavalier possesses. Allies do not need to meet the prerequisites of these bonus feats. The cavalier can use this ability once per day at 1st level, plus one additional time per day at 5th level and for every 5 levels thereafter.
and
Ultimate Combat wrote:
At 5th level, a tactician gains this ability as the cavalier class feature. He may use this ability once per day at 5th level, plus one additional time for every five levels after 5th (to a maximum of four times at 20th level). If the tactician also has cavalier levels, these levels stack for determining the number of uses per day, and he can take the better progression.
This ability replaces weapon training 1.
How would you say these two abilities interact for a multiclass cavalier / fighter? Would you get a second Teamwork Feat as a bonus feat to use with Tactician? Does the second ability also allow Fighter and Cavalier levels to stack for determining tactician's rounds per use?
So, I'm playing a Charisma-focused fighter in my current campaign (yes, it can be done!) and one of the things I've noticed is how ridiculous the Antagonize feat is. Based on its current wording, its either laughably broken or depressingly worthless; in nearly three levels of play, I've only had the opportunity to use it once.
I've seen many other people also complain about this feat, so I decided to sit down and take some time away from tinkering with my Pact Magic Unbound writings to bring you my musings on two new combat maneuvers; antagonize and parry.
Maybe I'll find a place to put these in print one day in the future, but for now? Enjoy.
Feel free to leave any feedback you might have, and I'll do what I can to update the document accordingly as I deem it necessary.
I've got a player who wants to play a Multiclass Alchemist / Magus. I have no idea how to approach making a decent character build out of this, anyone have any ideas?
I am planning on introducing a mythic magus to my players forthcoming and when selecting his path abilities, I came across an interesting power:
Sweeping Strike (Su): Whenever you make a full-attack action, you can decide to make only one attack roll and apply the results of that roll to all enemies within your reach. Roll damage only once, and apply it to all foes hit by the attack. If the attack is a critical threat, choose only one enemy to target with the critical threat. You must be at least 6th tier before selecting this ability.
Here's my question. If I'm a mythic magus and I use Sweeping Strike, could I combine Sweeping Strike with Spell Combat and Spellstrike for the following effect:
As full-round action, use Spellstrike to deliver Shocking Grasp as a melee touch attack, then sweeping strike that melee touch attack, hitting all enemies within reach with both a melee attack and shocking grasp at once?
I think it would be perfectly fine output wise (and wicked thematic!), but I'm not entirely sure if that move is allowed RAW. What's the verdict on that?
First off, I wanted to say that I really, really like the ideas of the Mythic system and feel that its already doing its job quite nicely. That said, while I was reading through the Player content, I wrote down notes and questions I had. Many of these questions can be solved with a little bit of Common Sense, I think, but I figured they warranted asking considering that these rules will be used to construct an Adventure Path down the line, and if the system is ever allowed into PFS, it might as well be as rules-tight as possible.
Here it goes:
Notes:
Basic Mythic Rules:
Mythic Flaw (Furious Rage): Doesn't specify if the flaw also doesn’t give you a bonus on Will saves. Assuming that it does not, but should be clarified.
Mythic Flaw (Hubris): Are you staggered in addition to the fear effect’s normal fear effect if you select this mythic flaw, or does the staggered condition replace the fear effect’s normal effect, effectively granting you immunity to fear? Also, how does this flaw function for a paladin with Aura of Courage? Do they effectively have no mythic flaw because they are immune to fear effects and therefore never need to make a saving throw against a fear effect? Or does this ability expect all paladins to make saving throws against every fear effect, penalizing them when they fail a saving throw that would have normally given them almost no penalties.
Mythic Flaw (Insanity: Do any bonuses or immunities to confusion apply to my saving throw if I select this mythic flaw?
Amazing Initiative: This seems like it would be better as a feat instead of something that every player receives. Unless the intent is that you almost always act before non-mythic creatures, which again seems cooler as an Improved Initiative (Mythic) instead of something I just hand out to all my players.
Mythic Saves: Baseline improved evasion to all saving throws against all non-mythic sources is a little ridiculous power-wise. I feel like this ability encourages DMs to throw nothing but mythic obstacles before a group of players and if they do so, this benefit isn’t really a benefit. I think this ability would be better if you had to activate it as an immediate action; that way you can assure that you minimize the one thing you really don’t want to be hit by without becoming a juggernaut of unstoppableness all the time. At the very least, make the player pay mythic power in order to use this ability.
Immortal: Where do you reappear when you return? If my body can be reduced to ash and then my remains are dumped into the ocean, where do you end up? Usually baseline resurrection effects say something like, “1 mile from where you died” or the like. Also, this ability references, “mythic damage” but that term is not defined in the glossary in the front of the document.
Archmage Path
Mythic Spells: Do you need to prepare the spell or merely have it in your spellbook in order to cast it? Does casting a mythic spell expend a prepared spell or spell slots?
Channel Power (Archmage Path Ability): How does the 50% increase to damage stack with Empower Spell? Does the spell deal 100% additional damage, or are the two cases applied separately for a total of 125%? (i.e. 100 damage + 150% = 150 damage + 150% = 225 damage)
Enduring Armor (Archmage Path Ability): How does this ability function with spontaneous spellcasters? Can they select this ability at all?
Familiar Mind (Archmage Path Ability): Can I select this ability if I do not possess a familiar? It’d be nice if it granted the archmage a familiar if they did not already possess one.
Spell Endurance (Archmage Path Ability): Just wanted to call this one out for being really, really cool.
Champion Path[/p]
[b]Distant Barrage (Champion Strike):
Is this attack made with a ranged weapon?
Sweeping Strike (Champion Path Ability): How does this ability function with a reach weapon, such as a guisearm? How about the infamous spiked chain?
Wall Smasher (Champion Path Ability): This seems pretty useless unless it ignores the wall’s hardness; an average of 1d6 + ½ Strength is not going to mean much to most walls.
Guardian Path
Dimensional Grapple (Guardian Path Ability): Does your equipment go along for the ride?
Quick Recovery (Guardian Path Ability): How does this ability function against permanent conditions, such as permanent blindness? Seems like an oversight that a 3rd level spell (aka Blindness) can completely thwart a 2nd+ tier path ability.
Hierophant Path
Plantbringer (Hierophant Path Ability): Giving all plant creatures fast healing seems like something a bad GM could use to grief their player. I’d either allow the player to decide if a creature receives the benefits or increase the starting attitude of all plant creatures who receive the benefits.
Servant of Balance (Hierophant Path Ability): This seems pretty terrible. It saves you from additional critical hit damage at the cost of assuring that you AND your companions can never critically hit? No other mythic power I’ve seen so far has a penalty like this yet.
Marshal Path
Fight On (Marshal Path Ability): Does the creature ignore being staggered based upon its hit point total while you concentrate on it?
Loyalty (Marshal Path Ability): Do you ignore Leadership’s usual prerequisites when you gain it as a bonus feat?
Trials
Lesser Trials look more like a list of video game achievements than anything wondrous or mythic.
Feats
Dual Focus seems too good. Its like a scaling version of the Additional Mythic Power path ability.
Dual Path should specify whether your tier applies to both paths. For example, does me being a 6th tier Marshal with this feat (Archmage) allow me to select 6th level abilities from both the Marshal Path and the Archmage Path?
Great Fortitude / Improved Lightning Reflexes / Improved Iron Well: Can I use the feat to reroll the saving throw that I rolled two of with my Mythic Power?
Heroic Arrogance doesn’t really look like an attractive feat. Might be better as a Path ability instead, though even then almost no path abilities actually come with a drawback. Might be better as a Heroic Flaw?
Finally, the high priest spoke that it was time. The Keeper reached deep into the basin and pulled out Damon’s body. It was dark jade and slimy to touch. The keeper gently placed his ward onto the alter and picked off a bit of the greenness; seaweed. He slowly unraveled all that Damon, the man, was. Bit by bit the seaweed came off as though Damon had been mummified in the stuff. Damon’s body grew smaller and smaller with every piece until, finally, a bit of pink appeared beneath the green. The Keeper, tearing through the seaweed now, pulled forth from Damon’s body to reveal a soft body; scarcely three feet long and innocent. His eyes opened wide; they were the color of ocean waves and two flaps of skin on either side of his neck rippled, making a sound akin to coughing. The Keeper embraced the tiny gillman; sobbing lightly.
“Are you my father?” the boy asked. The Keeper nodded his head.
“Yes. Please, my son needs clothing.” Someone among the villagers brought forth a garment for the boy; the Keeper dressed him and placed the child bare foot onto the stone floor. He clutched his father’s side, looking frightened.
“Do not be afraid my son,” he chastised, “These are your people. You are one of us.” The boy’s eyes darted nervously around the room until they spotted something that made his face open into a wide, toothy grin. He ran across the room to a group of boys and before long he was shouting merrily among them.
The Keeper, now the father, watched his son, his new playmates, and their keepers and smiled.
Welcome, would-be readers, to the Open Playtest for Pact Magic Unbound, Volume 2! If you didn't get the message before, thank you so much for making our first open playtest the huge success that it was. Dario Nardi and myself were very pleased with how everything turned out and we're excited to announce that our second volume, Pact Magic Unbound, Vol. 2, is well in the works. Originally we weren't going to have a Playtest of any kind (this is why this playtest is occurring so late in the book's creation), but our fans in our Facebook group enlightened us that there was a specific portion of the book that they wanted us to make sure that we got absolutely right. That section was on Anima.
For those who are not familiar with Dario's original book, Secrets of Pact Magic, Anima basically broils down to build-a-spirit. Anima provides a number of generic spirits with heavily themed powers for a binder to pick and choose from when building a spirit. This iteration of anima functions very similarly to the original incarnation; with some serious differences.
Ultimately, I want your feedback on these rules. Give me your gut interpretation, build some spirits of your own, try it out! I'm not sure how long this playtest will run; as I mentioned, we were not planning on doing something like this. I wouldn't expect it to run much longer than three weeks at the absolute most, however.
One final note, this is not all you will see in the book when it is released. This is roughly 9 pages out of a 109-ish page document and we don't feel the need to run a public playtest on the rest of this material at this time.
Cheers, and let round two commence!
Spoiler:
You will house me, it continued. Damon though to himself, You want into my house? Fine, we’ll have tea and biscuits if I get out of this alive! The being’s terrible eyes began to glow bright until they finally overtook Damon’s own. Then … a feeling overcame him; swept him up like a wave at the beach. If Damon could see his own face, he would have called it a stupid grin. Today was going to be a good day.
The Keeper stood stoically as ever, overlooking his ward. The room was etched with runes and signs, with seals and vessels. It was spacious; most of his village’s people gathered here today; mothers and fathers with their children, adolescents with their lovers, and fellow keepers with their wards. The high priest stood before them; a handsome gillman barely old enough to father children of his own. The Keeper knew better; few in the chamber were older than youths themselves.
“You have done well, noble keepers.” The high priest grinned, looking over the Keeper’s ward, the final one. “If the last keeper’s ward succeeds, then this will be the first time an entire crop has flourished into kin.”
“We picked only the best; heroes of the surface world,” the Keeper proudly explained. It had been his idea to lure would-be heroes to their doom by attacking a local wharf unprovoked. Four heroes came, and the keepers returned with four wards. The high priest nodded his head in approval.
“It is time for your ward to step forth,” the high priest commanded. The keeper bowed his head and grabbed his ward, Damon, by the wrist. The human was staring off into the lights, drowned in bliss as the gillmen called it. The keeper worried not; his ward would learn in time to overcome those feelings, perhaps even learn to subdue Vishgurv’s effect on the weak willed. The keeper lead Damon up to the high priest, careful not to hurt the human; any sudden pain could remove the bliss and foil the ceremony. Gently, the keeper lifted his ward onto the alter and laid him down. Damon laid there in all his glory, the blanket long since discarded after Vishgurv had been imparted upon his soul.
The high priest prayed to the gods of the gillmen, prayed to Vishgurv, and with a single fluid motion, whipped out a dagger from his side and plunged it into Damon’s heart. The human coughed blood, and with only a single spasm, fell still. As he had done countless times before, the Keeper lifted Damon’s corpse as the high priest pulled a level that pushed the alter aside, revealing a man-sized bastion filled with brine. The Keeper gently lowered Damon’s body into salty water.
Aw man, you have no idea how long I've waited to make this thread! After a grueling month of play testing, and several months of preparing the final product for all of you wonderful people, ITS HERE!
Pact Magic Unbound: Volume 1!
Yeah, yeah. I made a mistake. >.< I'm pretty sure I called it "Spirits Unbound" instead of "Pact Magic Unbound" when I alerted all my play testers about its eminent coming. Sorry, folks! I'm going to play the newbie excuse card. :)
Now, with that out of the way I can finally talk about the book! I posted a bit of this in the Product Page, but here's a not-so-brief rundown of what's in the book:
New Class!: An all-new 20 level base class, the Occultist. A probationer of old and sometimes forbidden magic that allows him to call upon spiritual entities and bargain with them, temporarily bringing them into their soul in exchange for power.
New Archetypes!: All new archetypes and class abilities based around pact magic! Inside you'll find the totemic sage barbarian, the soul muse bard, the occult priest cleric, the spiritshifter druid, the warshade fighter, the empyrean friar monk, the seal-etched and unbound occultists, the oath against spirits and the templar of souls paladin, the foe reaper ranger, the unbound rogue, the ravaged bloodline and ergon bloodline sorcerers, and the soulweaver wizard.
Rules for Pact Making: Remastered and enhanced rules for binding renegade spirits to one's soul, based off of the rules originally published by Radiance House back in 2007.
32 Spirits: This book contains 32 spirits, from Aza'zati the Green Wrymling to Malebolge Moors, the 13 Traitors of Hell. The selected spirits come from all sides of life and include spirits that were fan favorites from Radiance House's original books as well as spirits that were re-imagined and redesigned. The spirits range from 1st level to 9th level and include 3 spirits never-before-published by Radiance House: Sevnoir, the Meandering Mastiff, Serapith, the Scouring Light, and Daeminthos, Crystal Eye of the Mind.
One last detail, for the time being Radiance House is offering a printed version of this product through our website.. The website also includes a PDF / print bundle offer.
Now, as for the rest of this thread, feel free to make comments, suggestions, ask questions, or do anything else of the sort. Ancient secrets have surfaced once again; now its time for you to seize them with Pact Magic Unbound: Volume One!
So I was in the shower this morning thinking about my least favorite class (the Summoner) and what someone could do to make it a little less ridiculous. My mind started wandering and I thought of an old TV show used to watch as a kid.
And then, slowly at first, the parallels started to add up.
The summoner is an arcane spellcasting class that relies on one (or more) minions to battle for them. Using their 'spells,' a summoner is able to beef up their eidolon. As the eidolon grows in power, they earn 'evolution' points to 'grow' in power. The summoner's key ability score is Charisma, which is widely known as the strength of your mind or personality.
Charisma could also be tied to the strength of your virtue.
You're summoning a weird monster that no one knows existed, making it fight for you and as you and it grow stronger it evolves into new forms. You increase its powers via a well-defined mean and if it dies, it will simply re-materialize later.
Why yes, I'm calling it.
Eidolons are actually Digimon.
Summoner Spells are like the cards from Digimon Tamers.
The Summoner is either a Digidestined or a Digimon Tamer (your preference).
Kenneth wiped the sweat from his brow as he slowly poured the venom into his mother's chalice, careful to never spill a single drop least he ruin the delicate chalk lines that danced across Vandrae's seal. He lifted the chalice up slowly, his hands shaking as the cold metal touched his lips.
It won't hurt me, he thought. She won't let it kill me. He took the first sip and nearly gagged, as if every natural fiber of being was trying to warn him that what he was doing wasn't 'natural.' Kenneth knew it wasn't and drank deeply anyway.
It wasn't bad at first. However, the very moment that Kenneth allowed himself to feel a twinge of relief was when it started; violent, gut-wrenching pain seared his stomach as he clutched it, watching in horror as his blue veins pulsed an acidic green. The horrendous sight was too much for the occultist to bear; he vomited onto the seal that he had spent so much time drawing and perfecting. His bile was a dark, sickly black; the color of dried blood.
Wiping his mouth on his sleeve, Kenneth was sure that he had failed the ritual. That is, until he noticed something. Something repulsive. His bile had begun to faintly twitch in the faint candle light, slowly at first and growing faster and faster, until finally a large lump of black ichor complied in front of him. Roughly two feet tall, the ichor shaped and modeled itself; Kenneth fell back upon the moist ground, a testament to his prior sickness. Slowly the ichor bleed and molded itself as if it were nothing more then clay under the command of an invisible sculptor. The figure of an elf stood before him. A slit that could only be its mouth opened, speaking.
"Thou hath summoned Vandrae; state your bargain."
Forgotten Secrets have been unearthed ....
Radiance House invites the Pathfinder Community to partake in an event that, quite frankly, we're very excited for. Dario Nardi and myself have been working tirelessly for the past few months to bring something extraordinary back from the sands of time that buried it. I'm talking, of course, about Pact Magic.
What is Pact Magic? Pact Magic refers to the binding of otherworldly spirits onto the soul of a person that prepares a relatively simple ritual, often known as a binder. Texts referring to this particular form of magic date back to the 17th Century, featured the first section of the Lesser Key of Solomon. As a game mechanic, Pact Magic is a supplemental rules system that was made famous by the world's most popular roleplaying game in 2006 and was expanded upon further by Dario Nardi, owner and lead of Radiance House publishing.
Now, Dario and I want to bring pact magic to more roleplayers then ever before, through the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game community. After some in-house playtesting, Dario and I would like to invite anyone who is interested in playtesting the new rules for the first installment, Secrets of Pact Magic, before its upcoming release.
About Secrets of Pact Magic
This book is NOT just a rehash of the original Secrets of Pact Magic book. The Pathfinder version of this book features all-new content; everything from the core of the rules to the spirits themselves have been tweaked and altered to bring them in line with the modernized philosophy of roleplaying games, as made standard by Paizo Publishing. Here's a small (i.e. not comprehensive) list of material that you'll unearth in this book:
A new base class, the occultist, as well as an occultist archetype.
Archetypes for the 11 core classes.
New abilities such as a new cleric domain, barbarian rage powers, rogue talents, an oathbound paladin oath, and more!
A new type of feat to modify your pact magic, known as occult feats.
Binder Secrets; special abilities that can be taken by an occultist in place of a feat.
Constellation aspects; effectively 0-level spirit powers that allow you to increase the binding DC of a spirit in order to gain an additional granted ability.
32 spirits, ranging in level from 1st to 9th. These spirits have been compiled from both of Dario's books, Secrets of Pact Magic and Villains of Pact Magic.
And much more!
When Is This Being Released?
Right now, Dario and I are planning to officially release Secrets of Pact Magic at PaizoCon this year; that means that we don't have a whole lot of time to get this open playtesting started!
What Can I Do to Help?
If you are interested in helping out with the Beta Testing of these rules, you need to do no more then announce your interest here. Here's how you do this:
#1 - Leave a post in this thread clearly voicing your interest. You get bonus points if you include a short remark as to what interested you in this playtest; it can be anything from "I used the original books!" to "You caught me at Playtest!"
#2 - I'll send you a PM with a link to the playtesting document. Its really that simple!
I'm something of a forum lurker, so if you post, there's a fairly good chance that I'll get to you reasonably quickly.
How long will playtesting last and what are you looking to have tested?
Excellent question! As publisher, Dario has informed me that he needs the book shipped out to places like the editor and eventually the printer in the month of June. This means that we only have about two weeks, maybe three to really get this show on the road.
As to what I'm looking for? Go wild with the playtesting and theorycrafting. I want to see and hear everything you people have to say. Please keep all of your comments in this one thread, however.
Send me as many impressions as you can muster; does this look too good? Does this look not good enough? Did you find a potentially broken combination of spirits / abilities? Tell me everything!
As I mentioned before, I'm something of a lurker, so I'll do my best to respond as frequently as I can; however, I can't promise that I'll respond to every question I receive. Just most of them :). Any questions, comments, concerns, criticisms, whatever can all be posted here in this thread and I think Dario himself is planning on stopping by and chatting when he can.
So, I'm playing a Halfling Oracle in one of the campaigns I'm in and I am designing his spell list to be both healing magic (he's "cursed" by lyrakin, a type of azata) and luck magic, since he's a halfling.
As of right now, I'm a Dual-Cursed Oracle of Life with the Haunted Curse as my primary curse and the Tongues Curse as the one that will not improve.
Naturally, I took the Misfortune revelation and have Ill Omen as one of my spells. I'm looking to be a mix of a combat medic and a control character, using luck-based elements to accomplish the second part of that.
I'm looking for spells, traits, feats, anything luck-related. What'cha go for me, Paizo Advice forums? :D
Bit of background before my download; this is a rules expansion for the rules found in the Kingmaker Adventure, "Rivers Run Red." It is designed to allow a PC(s) to own and operate a business instead of a full kingdom. These rules were developed because I got tired of trying to micromanage one of my Player's attempts to run a business using only the rules provided in the Core Rulebook; they took up way too much time and I had to put hard caps on everything he did (this especially became problematic when the PCs would essentially skip weeks for Kingmaker, all the while he'd say "I use all my extract slots for the day to craft potions to sell."
Here's the document; it's saved in PDF. Please leave all questions, comments, critiques, and suggestions here. I truly want to hear them, and I check back on these sorts of posts fairly often, so if you do leave a comment, expect for me to get back to you on it shortly!
Okay, so I'm looking for some advice on an Oracle / Witch / Mystic Theurge build. Before I go into what I'm thinking of for the character, I want to give a little bit of background information so the reason why I'm picking such a strange, uncommon build makes sense.
Basically, my character had a lyrakin (a type of Azata) become soulbound to him several months prior to the start of the campaign. He's an Oracle with the Life Mystery (level 2 currently) and I was originally planning on giving him a lackluster sling fighting build. However, my group already has an archer for ranged weapon damage and several melee fighters (a cavalier, a samurai, and two magi). We also have a wolf shaman druid. So as you can imagine, it's kind of difficult for me to figure out just where, exactly, I should build my character's niche into so I'd feel useful. Since the Druid is planning on focusing on shapeshifting combat and we don't have a full arcane spellcaster, I thought it might be cool if I build my character into a full mystic theurge build. But which way to take it?
My character already had a history with spirits, so I thought that taking the witch class, choosing a patron that thematically fits with the Azata (I'm thinking about Agility as of right now), and then going for Mystic Theurge would be fun. So I'm looking for some advice to make this character work; support-centric using Witch and Oracle of Life. Right now, here's what I'm thinking of:
Hello everyone! I'm working on a Prestige Class for my homebrew campaign and I was looking for some critique on it. You can see the link here. You can also download a PDF of it here.
I'm looking for any and all feedback. Too weak? Too strong? What do you think?
Quick question before a game; can I transmute pebbles with the Magic Stone spell, then use Abundant Ammunition spell to make additional Magic Stone projectiles whenever I use them?
Magic Stone wrote:
You transmute as many as three pebbles, which can be no larger than sling bullets, so that they strike with great force when thrown or slung. If hurled, they have a range increment of 20 feet. If slung, treat them as sling bullets (range increment 50 feet). The spell gives them a +1 enhancement bonus on attack and damage rolls. The user of the stones makes a normal ranged attack. Each stone that hits deals 1d6+1 points of damage (including the spell's enhancement bonus), or 2d6+2 points against undead.
Abundant Ammunition wrote:
When cast on a container such as a quiver or a pouch that contains nonmagical ammunition or shuriken (including masterwork ammunition or shuriken), at the start of each round this spell replaces any ammunition taken from the container the round before. The ammunition taken from the container the round before vanishes. If, after casting this spell, you cast a spell that enhances projectiles, such as align weapon or greater magic weapon, on the same container, all projectiles this spell conjures are affected by that spell.
Does it stand to reason that a relatively high-Intelligence character could learn virtually every language in the game if a race possessed both of these two traits?
Quote:
Gift of Tongues (2 RP): Prerequisites: Standard or
linguist language array; Benefit: Members of this race
gain a +1 racial bonus on Bluff and Diplomacy checks,
and they learn one additional language every time they
put a rank in the Linguistics skill.
Members of this race gain a +4 racial bonus on Linguistics
checks and they learn one additional language every time
they put a rank in the Linguistics skill.
Not saying that languages are overpowered or anything, but several other traits (most notably the ones that grant bonuses to Stealth) specifically mention that you can't take a bunch of traits that stack the same bonus. I was wondering whether people think the same rule should apply to these two traits.
Or is that one race from 3.5 that was completely focused around languages coming back? :-P
I just bought this product now because I was interested in the description of the spellcasting system. I'm currently reading the PDF over and working on a Review for it, but in the meantime, I am going to post the oddities (if any) that I find here as sort of an FAQ system.
#1 - How does the Arcane Extension mage talent interact with spells that have an instantaneous duration? How about spells that are benefiting from the Extend Spell feat?
#2 - As written, the Quicken Spell metamagic is all but useless for the Mage unless you Quicken Cantrips, as you cannot take more than one Swift action in a round (I suppose you could prepare a Quickened Spell beforehand, cast the spell on turn one, then prepare a spell a spell with your remaining turn, but this is still a very underwhelming benefit for +4 spell levels. Is this intentional, or simply an unfortunate result of this new casting system?
#3 - Can you take the Arcane Feat mage talent multiple times?
#4 - TheCunning Accuracy and Arcane Accuracy mage talents look extremely similar. As written, they stack, but it's still a little odd ... is this intentional?
#5 - Does Forceful Casting mage talent require any actions to use? If not, why wouldn't I take this exactly?
#6 - Does the Mage suffer from Arcane Spell Failure? If so, it's not listed anywhere in the document, as far as I can see.
#7 - Does the Summon Horde college talent stack with similar abilities? There is a summoning feat in Ultimate Magic (can't remember the name; might be Greater Augment Summoning) that has a near identical effect. Further more, this talent lists your Charisma modifier as the bast number of times per day instead of your Intelligence modifier.
#8 - Does the Contract of Peace college talent apply to only specific creature (say, Bob the Horned Devil from the 8th layer of Hell) or to all creatures of the selected type (as in, all horned devils)?
#9 - Several college talents (Summon Horde, Contract of Fear) refer to using your Charisma modifier to determine the talent's effectiveness, where everything else involving the class seems to be based off of your Intelligence. Is this a typo or is it intentional?
#10 - Does the Reign of Death college talent have uses per day?
#11 - Does the Lifesense college talent work like blindsense / sight? If so, you may want to add it there, because it's written extremely liberally and could be subjected to cheese. EDIT: Wait, just read Lifesight. So wait, what exactly is the point of Lifesense?
#12 - The Dimensional Steps spell-like ability really ought to be a supernatural ability; that way, you wouldn't need to add the line about it not provoking an attack of opportunity. Regardless, can you use this ability while prone?
#13 - Innocoulous Form college talent specifically says that I can't speak human languages. Can I speak elven? How about gnome? :-P
Okay, so a few days back I posted this thread in the Conversions section about the Slenderman; I had written a Pathfinder-ized version of him. People seemed to like it and I had a long weekend of nothing to do while the women-folk in my family were at a Bridal Shower, so now I present to you, for the very first time ever, the Tome of Slenderotica.
...
It's not as dirty as it looks. I promise! (Heck, it's even pronounced slender-ot-ic-ah!)
Anyway, this lovely little shop of horrors clocks in at 21 pages long, including a short story written by yours truly of some poor, helpless adventurers that encounter the slenderman as a prologue; a section informing all of you slenderblind out there just what, exactly, the Slenderman is; a playable Pathfinder Stat Block, where old Slendy is a CR 22 monster; a section on how to create the Slenderman's loyal servants, the proxies, and four different types of proxy for your personal use (and three templates with both quick rules and rebuild rules for making them); a section with some tips on including the Slenderman in your game; and last, but not least, a small, one-paged section with some player options for you (a new Wildblood Sorcerer option and three new character traits).
At any rate, if you see any errors, have any comments, want to scream at me for unleashing this on the world, whatever, feel free to post here in this thread; I'm pretty good about responding to comments and whatnot!
Alright, so I was kind of bored on Wednesday night and the new Marble Hornets had come out several days prior, so I thought I would sit down and try to build Slenderman as a monster for people to play with.
Before I link the document to you, I want to make this entirely clear - I did not design Slenderman to be a monster that you just throw into a campaign and he only spooks the players out a little bit before they kill him and take his stuff. In my opinion, that is not in the spirit of Slenderman at all.
So if you're going to use this monster, here's what I suggest. Inform your players that you want to play a campaign gain entirely around Slenderman, with the monster as the main antagonist. Similarly to the tarrasque, there's no actual way TO kill the Slenderman. He just keeps coming back. Again and again. In the words of one of my friends (who I showed the stat block to), "It's really kinda frighting. I don't know what I could possibly do to it." That's the emotional response that you want when playing with the Slenderman. You want the CHARACTERS (not necessarily the players) to be completely freaked out of their minds.
Alright, so once upon a time I read a book called "The Monster's Ring," which is a story about a kid who is given a ring that turns him into a monster, with the warning that he should never twist it around his finger three times. It's a pretty cute read; its made for the 4th - 8th grade range, so it's quick, but if you're one of those people who can't appreciate children's literature, you have been warned.
Anyway, in a conversation with a friend of mine about how to make the ego mechanic more interesting, I ended up creating this crazy idea for a random ego; an item that became more powerful as the effects it produced became more powerful. Remembering that book caused me to create this item, the Monster's Ring.
I wrote some pretty interesting fluff for it; it certainly has the potential of having an entire campaign / side quest built around it. I don't want to give any spoilers, but the ring provide an alternate answer for the creation of a certain super-powerful monster that we all know and love :-P.
Anyway, I wanted to get some feedback on the ring, so here I am! This first document is a PDF file. Anyone and everyone should be able to view and open this document. You will have to download it, however. If you want the PDF of this item, please click here.
If you want the Word Document of this item for whatever reason, you can download it here: I only ask that if you use either copy of the document, you provide a link back to this page.
I hope you enjoy this item, and I am hoping for some feedback on it soon!
This may not be the best place for this thread, as Ultimate Combat isn't out yet, but I figured this would be the best place for the question.
I'm working on a villain to go against my group; I'm going for an "alternate opposites" theme, and one of my players is a Drow gunslinger. To combat him, I am also making a gunslinger. I planned on giving him two-weapon fighting and giving him a one-handed pistol in his primary hand and a spiked gauntlet in his secondary hand. Here are my questions:
#1 - Does this qualify for the -2 / -2 TWF penalties? (the lowest one)
#2 - A character needs two hands to reload a Firearm. Can the gunslinger use his spiked gauntlet hand to reload his pistol?
#3 - Are there any penalties for the Gunslinger TWF in this manner in melee combat? I believe there's a feat that makes it so that reloading a firearm does not provoke attacks of opportunity; the villain would have this feat if it does exist.
Just voted myself; If Paizo wins enough categories, do you think you could talk the Development Team into doing an extra Ultimate Combat preview next week, Jason? :-P
Okay, this is going to sound extremely odd, but I need some advice for building a high-level NPC that is designed to be a parody of Lady Gaga.
...
Okay, you can stop laughing now. Basically, I'm running a campaign where the head of a city-state is being manipulated by a bard for nefarious purposes. After a conversation with a friend (who is also a player in the group) I decided to parody the Bard after Lady Gaga because, "She's crazy enough that she just is a monster."
Now, I've trade and I've tried, but I'm having writer's block coming up with the following things for this character, and I was hoping for some fresh ideas form the forums. What say you, Paizo Forum-goers?
#1 Class Combinations: (My original draft was a Sandman Bard with levels in Assassin).
#2 Motivations: (Why is she manipulating the duke? What does she serve to gain?)
#3 Personality Quirks: (I admit I'm not a Gaga follower, and I don't know what personality quirks to adapt to the campaign setting.)
Below is some quick information on the campaign that I designed this Prestige Class for. It is stated to appear EXTREMELY soon in my game, so I would like as much feedback as possible. It was designed as an NPC Prestige Class, but hopefully its good enough for anyone to want to take. It is designed using material from the Core Rulebook and Dreamscarred Press's Psionics Unleashed.
way-too-long background info:
The campaign takes place in the City of Sigmar, which is part of the territory of Duke Karl Sigmund. Sigmund's lands are part of the Kingdom of Angelest, a former king having dividing his land among appointed dukes and duchesses to reduce the amount of land he personally had to govern. Those dukes and duchesses pass their titles down from family to family, but the king can (and has on occasion) revoked the status from appointed families.
Roughly 20 years prior to the beginning of the campaign, Duke Karl Sigmund took the title of Duke from his father. Upon parading through town with his wife, an assassination attempt was made on the Duke, but thanks to protective wards, the Duke wasn't killed. Instead, the shot meant for him ricocheted off and killed the duchesses, leaving Sigmund a widower. Blaming mages everywhere (though no proof ever arose that it was a magic user), Sigmund outlawed the practice of magic within his realm.
This was easier said then done, so Sigmund sent his men out to find a way to enforce this law. His men came across an ancient tribe of psicrafters who taught their younglings to negate the magical powers of the powerful aberrations that constantly besieged their home. Sigmund offered then sanctuary within his city if they agreed to stamp out magic within his home. The psicrafters agreed, and within five years all mage guilds were abolished and all but one clergy left the city. When argued against, Sigmund merely claimed that psionics was not magic (even though they are different means to identical results) and therefore was not illegal.
With no one willing to oppose Sigmund, his government ran fat and corrupt, using magic for his own cause. The city and its outlying towns are suffering, and it is in this state that the players discover Sigmar in. They have agreed to band together in an attempt to usurp control of the city. However, one of the primary factions that the group will have to deal with is the Sigmarian Mage-Slayers.
Anyway, here's the link. I'd really appreciate any and all comments, as I want this to be a good, flavorful prestige class without too much crying of foul. :-P
The campaign I have my players in right now is styled after Portal with a heavily modified Alchemical Golem serving as GLaDOS. Friday is the night that I have decided that they will escape from her clutches. Right now, the encounter line-up for the night looks something like this:
Monster Encounter (Sub-Arctic Conditioning Test)
Puzzles
Boss Battle (vs. one of GLaDOS's limbs)
Before the boss battle will end, the players will be ejected from the demi-plane that GLaDOS's testing facility is located on (one of the puzzles needs to involve damaging the demiplane's alchemical systems to eventually justify this).
To this end, I want to give my players a gauntlet of puzzles / traps for them to navigate to before confronting GLaDOS. My party consists of five fifth level advneturers with the following combinations:
So I've been placed in the glorious situation of having my Evil party stumble into the ruins of an Alchemist's laboratory in their quest to recover an evil artifact for a dark god. Fun, right? Why yes! It's even more fun when you think of all the fun I can have in an evil laboratory.
I've decided that the laboratory will have been abandoned for many years thanks to one of the creations taking over. Originally designed to prolong the life of a dying human girl, her father could have never predicted what would happen when he fused his daughter's brain into his breakthrough invention, the Gradual Life and Death Override System. The combination of alchemical fluids and physical trauma warped the girl's brain into that of a whimsical, yet cold and efficient practicer of alchemical Science. She's been waiting an awfully long time for someone to wander down into these ruins; she needs new, living test subjects, after all!
I'd like to present the braniac and boss behind this encounter to the Homebrew board for suggestions and critiques. Foremost, I'm looking for the following things: comments on mechanics and balance, an estimated CR (she's based off of the CR 9 Alchemical Golem from the Bestiary 2, coupled with 6 levels of Alchemist, a dramatic boost to Intelligence, and the Giant Template.) Here's the link, below:
So I DMed a game last night where my buddy played a Gunslinger. Party comp was a three-man band; Human Sorcerer, Halfling Caviler 2 / Cleric 3, Drow Gunslinger. All players were 5th level.
To sum up the night, the Gunslinger kind of sucked. He chose the Two-Weapon Pistol option, and even with Rapid Reload, he didn't get to attack very often. Really hurt his ability to fight and you could tell that the player was getting bored rather quickly because he had to take every other turn to reload instead of actually doing something.
The major problem with the class is that what it gets as class features aren't worth it and what it needs are all nicely wrapped in feats. Finally, the class does not feel like a Fighter; it plays more like a very neutered Rogue. This is mostly because of the lack of feats; the character doesn't have enough of the Fighter's options or special modifiers to feel specialized in guns. At 5th level, the Character felt more like a privileged novice.
Here are some suggestions to improve the class, based on what I saw:
1) Detach Deeds from the Gunslinger Class/ One of the core concepts of the Fighter class is that they don't have tricks that no one else can do. They have more tricks then anyone else involving combat. Gunslingers should be the same way; it doesn't FEEL right for a Fighter or even a Wild West Sheriff to have a list of abilities only they can use, while being starved in the sense that they won't know how to properly shot a gun into melee combat.
2) Change Amateur Gunslinger's name and function. The fact that the Gunslinger has its own, private, "better" version of this feat is silly. In my opinion, Gunslingers should get Amateur Gunslinger as a bonus feat at first level, with levels in the class modifying its use like every Monk Combat Feat in the game. I'd change the name to Gunner's Grit or the like. Add a Special entry that states that Gunslingers have a maximum number of grit points equal to 1 + their Wisdom modifier and that they start each day with the maximum number of grit points. There is no reason to have a feat like this that just disappears for a character (see Improved Unarmed Strike).
2) Remove Signature Deed as a feat and add it as a class feature of the Gunslinger class. Even though the changes I am proposing will allow anyone to use Grit and Deeds (which is a good thing in my opinion), the Gunslinger should be the ultimate master of Grit. Because of this, I recommend replacing the old Deeds class feature with a Signature Deed class feature every few levels. Same function as the current feat of the same name, but Gunslinger only and granted enough times through the course of their career that the Deeds that are chosen define the character. Face it, as long as Lightning Reload exists (again, it SHOULD. It alone makes the Gunslinger actually competitive in my opinion) every Gun-based character is going to take it and Signature Deed at 11th level to essentially have free reloads. That combination should be limited to the Gunslinger only, and getting rid of Signature Deed and making it a Gunslinger class feature is the best way to do it.
3) Change around the conditions that grant a Gunslinger Grit. I like the Grit system. I really do. But it's so limited right now that its not even worth it. I have a hunch that the developers wanted regaining Grit to be cool. Guess what? Its not cool if it never happens. Gunslinger as written is a huge throwback to 3.5 when characters would have all of these X/Day abilities that they never wanted to use. Isn't that why Bardic Performance and Rage were changed to Rounds/Day instead of uses? Grit is a complete regression of the Pathfinder philosophy unless it can be restored more reliably. I suggest the following things:
a) Remove the rule Grit on dropping a foe to 0. It encourages metagame thinking, and while that's really a player issue, it doesn't help when the rules themselves support such thinking. (For example, even though they're the very last player to go, all of the other characters delay their turn so the Grit user can be the one to get the finishing blow on the monster so he is actually useful in combat).
b) Change the Daring Act to be less contrived. Gunslingers weren't awesome because they did stupid things. Gunslingers were awesome because they did things that seemed impossible to US, the audience, but were well within the physical and mental abilities of the Gunslinger. How it SHOULD be is whenever the Gunslinger succeeds on a Str-based or Dex-based check in combat, succeeds on a Combat Maneuver, or a creature fails to to overcome their AC or CMD with an attack, the Gunslinger gets a grit point. Challenges, for the most part, scale with character level; enemies are constantly getting stronger and areas are constantly getting more dangerous; as a result, you don't NEED the 50% line, because a lot of these occurrences will be rare enough as it is. For example, a Gunslinger trades away their Medium and Heavy armor proficiency; how often are they going to be able to resist an attack roll from, say, another Fighter or something nasty like a dragon?
In conclusion, the special ability progression of the Gunslinger should look a little bit like this:
Note: At 1st level, the Gunslinger MUST select a Grit Feat. At subsequent levels, they can pick any Grit Feat or any of the following Combat Feats: Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Reload, etc.
Also, that remains me. Can you use Manyshot with guns if your gun's barrel is big enough?
Hey, I'm busy working on homebrewed races for my campaign setting, and I think I'm just about done. I was hoping for some feedback before I present them to my players, so if anyone would be so kind I'd appreciate it.
