Drannor Hawksley's page

The Samurai is an alternate class for the Cavalier, and seems to be fairly mount-lite (just gets a mount and the mounted archery ability, not as "charge" focused).

Strip away the cultural implications and the mechanics give a neat "tough Knight" feel.

Get off the forums, brother!

We've had a gnome player who was getting rid of wanted posters of another player by eating them.

DM called for a fortitude save on account of "you've consumed a lot of parchment"

We all thought it was pretty funny.

Haven't had any pee or poop jokes yet.

Possibly a wand of blindness/deafness, as that is permanent and can be done at range, but you wouldn't be able to also attack in the same round compared to the quick dirty trick feat.

There is also a smoke pellet, but it also only lasts 1 round and does no other ill effect. It at least has a ranged touch attack to it, and only encompasses the square the target is in, so it will not affect your allies. It's 5g more than a smokestick, incomprehensibly.

There is also this:

Flash Powder
Price 50 gp; Weight —
This coarse gray powder ignites and burns almost instantly if exposed to flame, significant friction, or even simple force such as throwing it against a floor (a standard action). Creatures within a 10-foot-radius burst are blinded for 1 round (Fortitude DC 13 negates). Crafting this item is a DC 20 Craft (alchemy) check.

If you take up some alchemy, that's pretty cheap per use, and you can target a square instead of a person. But the save DC is very low and it only lasts 1 round :(

I play with max first hit die, and reroll 1s for everything after. I have seriously considered just using max hit die though, as it seems that classes with a higher hit die shouldn't just gain that benefit if they're lucky.

Not sure if spring loaded wrist sheath was mentioned, but I believe it's in the ultimate equipment book.

I played a shadowdancer, it was a lot of fun suddenly stealthing mid combat while being observed. Shadowstepping and having a strength draining shadow was pretty awesome.

I'll warn you just about 1 thing, surprise rounds do not happen often. At least in the games I've played.

Sounds like your monk follows a particular path, one could even call it a Creed.

As near as I can tell, the half speed applies to moving across narrow surfaces only:

"Check: You can use Acrobatics to move on narrow surfaces and uneven ground without falling. A successful check allows you to move at half speed across such surfaces—only one check is needed per round."

There is no mention of moving at half speed for things like long jump, high jump or moving through threatened squares.

But let's say the gap you are trying to cross is larger than a single move action, acrobatics reads:

"No jump can allow you to exceed your maximum movement for the round."

I would say that your maximum movement means a double move action in one round, but good luck with a long jump that long!

Running along walls is more of a climb check, and there are actual ninja tricks for things like this. If you would like to give a longjump fluff by explaining it as a prince of persia move, I don't see why not though.

Running along the heads and tables of everyone in the room also sounds more like a fluff thing, if you pass the acrobatics DC for moving so many threatened squares, you can leave it up to your DM to explain it as such. If you wanted to not use fluff, this I think would be more like moving along narrow surfaces, so the half movement would apply here.

Sliding between someone's legs to get behind them is a legitimate way to pass through someone's square using acrobatics, the other is sliding right around them, or vaulting over them. Mostly fluff.

Charging is a bit trickier. Check out the movement restrictions for charging:

"You must have a clear path toward the opponent, and nothing can hinder your movement (such as difficult terrain or obstacles). You must move to the closest space from which you can attack the opponent. If this space is occupied or otherwise blocked, you can't charge. If any line from your starting space to the ending space passes through a square that blocks movement, slows movement, or contains a creature (even an ally), you can't charge. Helpless creatures don't stop a charge."

A pit I would consider an obstacle that hinders your movement, charging is also a full round action. Personally I would say no, though some DMs might say otherwise, as a 5 foot gap doesn't technically slow you down or block your movement with a successful acrobatics check. The "You must have a clear path toward the opponent" intent behind the ruling is what makes me think you cannot charge over a pit.

Now as for jumping down a 20 foot cliff during a charge. I'd say no for two reasons, first, that's definitely an obstacle that slows you down during your charge, second:

"When you deliberately fall any distance, even as a result of a missed jump, a DC 15 Acrobatics skill check allows you to ignore the first 10 feet fallen, although you still end up prone if you take damage from a fall. See the falling rules for further details."

Your charge, even with a successful acrobatics, would automatically fail because you fell prone from taking 1d6 points of damage.

If it were a 10 foot fall and you successfully made the check, I'd say it is still impossible since you do not have a clear path to your target for the charge.

Landing on a target doesn't count towards unarmed damage or for your charge. I would argue you'd have a +1 from higher ground bonus, possibly, but otherwise landing on a target inflicts the same falling damage you would incur onto them.

There is also rules in the Environment section for falling objects, which states some things are left to GM discretion but it pretty clearly writes that any damage you would take from a falling object also happens to the object dropped. The intent behind this likely isn't a person either, so take what you will from that.

Hope this helps, and as always, I could be mistaken.
Dran

They aren't a fifth wheel, they make your regular tires into winter ones, or racing tires. They just make the wheels you have, better.

If you have fun playing a class, then you're already doing it right. Don't even bother listening to anyone else.

If your GM thinks that low level spells and abilities are ruining his/her game, tell them to wait until a bit higher level, when everything doesn't depend on one die roll so much (Sorry jim, I critted your wizard, might as well roll a new one). There are MANY creatures that are mindless, or have high will saves. They also need to understand that a bard is practically useful in every situation, so your character WILL come up a lot.

Hopefully your game goes well, Bhaene!

Long time ago we used to put braveheart soundtrack on...

More recently, I had done papercraft to create an entire undead dungeon, and I played this song as they looked for a horn that was causing the undead. Very similar to the thief level.

They did not enjoy being in there, so mission accomplished! :P

A lot of the thief games have good non-vocals music that can be used for creepy/tense situations.

I believe this has been noted, but if you can use Ultimate Combat, you can pick up levels in the Fighter archetype, Brawler.

Punch daggers qualify for close weapon group for fighter, and for your 1d8 dagger sneak attacks from knifemaster.

Couple it with fighter feats, and you can pump up your to hit and base damage pretty well, making those flanking dual wielding attacks hurt quite a bit more.

This is all supposing you want to be a combat rogue though, and it seems that you have a 10 strength, so other options may be more beneficial.

Looking for experiences people had with their homebrews, to aid mine.

We ran into a similar scenario: After talking to a spirit guarding a vault, who was bound to the current evil bbeg, but not evil himself, we decided to do things the tougher way and not break into the vault.

The paladin in the group was kinda iffy about killing a good person just to make killing an evil guy a bit easier.

Turns out I was incinerated during that bbeg fight, dems the breaks.

A facet of chaotic characters would not stand for imprisonment, it was either let evil go, to possibly do more evil, or to put it out of its misery. I'd say the cleric made the right call, they freed the orc from continued evil and imprisonment (by killing them).

What is the cleric's Faith? Their God's/Goddess' tenants likely would determine what to do as well.

So we are using an OR function to qualify... (as long as I can qualify for arcane spellcasting OR divine spellcasting).

Then using an AND function for the benefits... (Since I qualify, both arcane AND divine spellcasting are improved).

While ignoring thematic concerns, explicit arcane-only wording and the definition of a spellcasting class.

...

It's like saying I can make a true neutral cleric/life oracle. I choose to channel negative energy as a cleric, but my life oracle gets to channel positive energy like a cleric.

Now I am going to take selective channeling, then say that while I channel, I can use both negative and positive channeling at the same time (because thematic concerns and explicit wording be damned), and apply the selective channeling to heal all my friends with positive energy and hurt all my enemies with negative energy. (Because since I qualify, I can apply them to both!)

...

That would be one awesome cleric/life oracle though.

*crosses finger for Gnoll Iconic*

Roleplaying a gnoll was super fun. Monster races are just fun.

I'd work with your players and ask them to stop metagaming if that's what the real issue is, but if that's not possible...

It seems fine, though a bit of extra work. There are rules for disclosing information under the knowledges already, if you're curious.

Personally I make up a lot of unique monsters based on other creatures, and have descriptions of them ready for when they see it. My descriptions will usually hint at 1 or 2 abilities it may have, but they can be misleading. If someone gives me a knowledge check though, I'll give them more information about it if that's what they roll.

Just avoid giving the wrong descriptions, I've had a GM that made a balrog out of an imp, which led to the party trying to find another way around, which led the GM to penalizing us for going off-course, which led to total party kill by falling.

False descriptions that aren't illusions can kill. Don't go down that slippery slope.

Not a bad suggestion OP. Ratfolk, Kitsune and Nagaji would be cool to see as iconics.

YMMV from group to group, but I'd think that too far is when someone at the table signals to you that the game is making them uncomfortable.

Fantasy worlds are not nice, and I think that most people who play D&D know this, it's supposed to be set in a medieval setting with magic tacked on. The medieval times in our own history (and, arguably, current times) were horrible. Now we start adding in ripping souls out of people, or using magic to dominate peoples' minds.

In my groups, we deal with slavery, murder and all manner of bad stuff, but we never deal with anything sexual, good or otherwise. Sometimes it is implied but never described, as I believe most of us would be uncomfortable with that. (None of us want to play FATAL :P)

But I can see what you are getting at, without these topics there is often not a real conflict. Personally I like campaigns where everyone is grey, and nothing is black and white, it makes for interesting situations, and makes it challenging for the paladin/good players.

In the example that you gave, that stuff happens. Many races in pathfinder use slaves, and slavery is accepted in a number of countries. Nothing feels better than freeing slaves when you're a good guy too. Even evil moustache guy, you're putting a face/painting a target for the group to exact vengeance, even if there might be implied rape/pedophilia.

TL:DR Depends on your players, as long as everyone's having fun I think you're fine.

Create a magic item that applies any of the ranged weapon enhancements to thrown weapons, in glove form.

Argue with your DM that since a starknife has multiple points, at least two of those will hit during melee/ranged attacks. Bump up the damage to 2d4! (I'm not being serious)

There could be a thrown weapon magical enhancement or feat that allows you to hit multiple enemies with the same weapon. (akin to whirlwind attack, but for ranged thrown, and only uses 1 ammo) Limit to within first range increment for the weapon (scalable with distance enhancement). Limit to chakram, boomerangs and starknives. Have the item return to the user.

Become Xena, Profit.

Put a Life Oracle on the enemy team and see how hard things get.

Kept my cavalier up even at higher levels, definitely this.

If you're interested:

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2php6?Introducing-VillageMaker

First off, you've built some lore into the temple being invisible to nonbelievers until they eat the golden wildflower. Evildoers could find out about this and the flowers need to be harvested/collected/guarded.

Second, the powerful wards on the temple likely need to be maintained, some form of yearly ritual done by the priests of the temple, which may require reagents (golden wildflowers maybe? Something more remote?)

Small villages (especially remote ones) tend to be self reliant in order to stay alive. They deal in goods and trade more than money. How do the people eat? Do they have farms/animals? Do they have a source of clean water nearby with fish? Do they use magic/magic items to fill in the gaps? Do they trade with caravans?

Starting quests can be simple things to aid the town.

If you are interested, read this over for ideas:
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2php6?Introducing-VillageMaker

Good luck!

I have demanded a few things from a DM as a player before. Things like, allowing the use of saving throws vs spells that list that the target gets a saving throw. When that was ignored, and the DM argued that a level 1 spell his NPC had cast worked like a level 7 spell, and had to DM fiat it, I chose the highway.

Good luck with 2 players and no healer!

Dying needlessly serves noone but Pharasma.

But it sounds like you might be getting counter-disrupted.

Read over all the posts and thought I'd just add a few things, I shall try to remain super neutral.

If I were the DM and someone wanted a golem as a cohort (which I have wanted for a long time too), I would look into having a modified summoner eidolon.

Say that they had the traits of a golem to start at level 1, which seems quite overpowered, but you can counterbalance this with restrictions. It doesn't come back later when destroyed but needs to be rebuilt (which is time consuming and costs money), it can be upgraded with evolution points but you need the material (clay, metal, etc). Things like that.

Something of this sort was done for me when I wanted an undead eidolon. I could only upgrade my eidolon with the dead parts I could find, so I couldn't take whatever evolutions I wanted. In turn, my eidolon was classified as undead, which also has it's benefits and drawbacks. I also had to keep that eidolon hidden practically at all times.

If the player doesn't want to be a summoner and would rather have a cohort, they'll have to sacrifice in other areas to get it. (feats, money, etc).

Personally, I don't think the encounters would need to be rewritten. If your enemies are intelligent, they would likely avoid the horrible golem thing and focus on the player commanding it. Change your tactics and focus instead of the encounter, s'all good.

As for the philosophy of the thread: Why can a GM/Game designer get away with bending the rules that a player cannot? It is a good question, as a GM/DM can make a campaign challenging without resorting to rulebreaking abilities/combos, just as much as a player could. A GM has all the power though, a player doesn't, and as my friend always says, "%*#& the player". It can also be used as a curveball to make an encounter particularly more challenging, or for a GM to try something different.

In this particular case with a golem cohort, which is being used in another campaign apparently, I'd be fine with it.

I believe that a lot of players would be welcoming to the idea of working out something with their GM, if balance issues were a concern.

Thematically, I was pleased with having to use dead parts to upgrade my undead eidolon, that was pretty awesome.

Thanks for the feedback! This project kind of got put on the back burner because I started working on a campaign setting. I can't really respond in depth right now because I'm on my phone, but I will when I get home. Thanks again :)

Sounds like me, a million projects and no time to complete any of them :P

If you are limited to being a rogue (or multiclassing with some rogue levels) I'd suggest focusing on range. If that's not your style, then make a burly rogue and flank with the fighter a lot. Either of these options would be useful in combat, and rogues always have plenty of use out of combat. There is always ninja as well, if thematic concerns aren't an issue.

If you can stray from rogue, another type of utility/skillperson could be useful, it just means you are limited to disarming mundane traps. Things like ranger, bard, inquisitor. All of which can be both melee/ranged or even switchhitters, and all get 6+int skill ranks per level.

Good luck!

I had also wanted to create an avatar RPG and was a little disappointed when I couldn't find any created yet.

My thoughts...

System:
Base on D20, likely change up the core stats, remove alignment but keep saves. Keep combat very similar in terms of movement and actions, but change the "magic" system.

Base your bending ability on an alotment of points per rest, but you can exceed this number but with fatigue and penalties to your rolls, etc.

Setting:
Write a timeline up, allow players to play in any of those timelines by giving them all the information (so there will be stats for satomobiles as well as stats for carriages and so forth)

Nationality:
Choosing your nationality would give you bonuses and detriments like choosing a race would in pathfinder and the like. There is also the option of having no nationality (or merely, you did not adhere to your nationality, and thus you get to choose a small benefit of your liking)

Classes:
Warrior (fights with melee/ranged weapons), Martial Artist (fights with hand to hand, chi abilities, chi blockers), Beast Tamer (Uses animals in and out of combat), Engineers (They build their weaponry/devices), Benders and even Avatar.

Sokka, Jet and his freedom fighters, Mai, etc, would be examples of warriors, though they specialized in different things.

The Kyoshi warriors, Ty-Lee, etc, would be Martial Artists.

June and Nyla, Aang and Momo/Appa, King Kuei and Bosco, Korra and Naga, etc, would be examples of beast tamers.

Asami, Equalists would be engineers (and martial artists, but w/e)

Multiclassing in this system should not be penalized like I feel it is in pathfinder.

Other stuff:
Benders gain very few new abilities when they level up, and rely on meeting masters or finding scrolls to learn more techniques.

The only healers in the game are water benders, and if they learned the healing techniques. There is ample usage of chinese home remedies in the shows to build a system to counterbalance the constant requirement for a waterbender with healing.

Comets, full moons and other natural phenomenon would give benders temporary boosts to their abilities. (though there seems to lack one for earth and air)

Playing the avatar might result in outshining your friends, but I believe most groups would like to run with that. Making it so that the avatar still only learns a few new abilities and must get lots of training, and requires him/her to master an element by meeting certain criteria before they can move on to the next element scales that back a bit. Having the same point pool for bending unless in the avatar state (which they learn at a certain level, or storywise at a certain time) would also help.

Every element has some special technique (Fire: Lightning, Water: Healing & Bloodbending, Earth: Metalbending) except for air? Figure something out for them.

Say a character starts off as a warrior but wants to multiclass as a bender, there is a precedent they set there, as most benders learn their abilities early on in their life it seems. There has been mention of an avatar test, where they have a table with the 4 elements on it (see the ATLA movie), you could use that to determine (likely via rolling a percentile) if they are a bender or not, and what element.

The setting has alot of spiritual stuff in it as well, having another spiritual plane that the characters can eventually reach would be neat.

Hope this gives you some new ideas.

Both.

Roleplaying wise, I had the most fun when it was a night out in town of shopping for dresses with the girls, eating dinner and watching the theatre. Then ruining a jerk NPC's day and pretending not to notice.

Rollplaying wise, everytime the outcome of the battle looks extremely grim and it comes down to an ingenius tactical idea, or a final roll to determine the victor.

I have heard fellow players say that the best ending of their campaigns have been where they completed their ultimate goal (the world was saved), most of the party was dead, and the last one or two turned to face off against the last of some evil army with no escape, and they end it there.

I like the idea, but instead of flat bonuses to stats, I would rather alter the flow of combat (or out of combat).

Things like extra attacks, bypass DR/AC, invoke AoO, reroll and take better result (lucky theme applied here)...

This would be very similar to ki, grit, etc.

I would base it off of intelligence myself.

- Spell cards for all the spellcasters. They would detail all the necessary information on a single playing card, so that casters can simply have a deck of cards to refer to instead of books/handmade notes/typed up sheets.

- More Urban/Evil APs.

- More official papercraft minis!

- An official paizo multiplayer online tabletop tool (not an mmo), so I don't have to drive 45 minutes to game :3

Moist Towelette

This handkerchief functions as a Universal Solvent or a Prestidigitate on whatever it rubs. After use, it takes 24 hours for the moist towelette to clean itself.

Brawny Man's Sweat Absorber

This handkerchief can absorb a 10' cube worth of non-acidic liquid. Once absorbed, the handkerchief is squishy and drips water over the next 24 hours before becoming dry again. The owner can squeeze the handkerchief to empty its contents as a standard action, then reuse it immediately. If the handkerchief comes into contact with a creature made of liquid, it does 2d6 points of damage and the handkerchief is destroyed.

My wife used aqueous orb, trapped a guy, summoned a squid in it, who then inked the orb for total concealment and then attacked him.

I would not want to be that guy.

As per RAW you're correct Rynjin, in practice I'd change alignments eventually with behavior like that though. I just like poking fun in alignment threads :3

You know who else tried to denigrate arguments by pointing out that bad people said similar things?

Hitler!

Pot calling kettle black doesn't mean pot is wrong.

I'm with scavion here, "killing is killing/death is death" is pretty much what an evil person would say.

I hear that, former campaign that's coming back soon I'm DMing has two witches in it. They DIDN'T take sleep, but it's still ridiculous lol

Certainly something to think about for intended power behind a talent.

I think you could be bolder on some of these changes. Sniper's Eye for example. Make it at least medium range, maybe auto scale into long range at lvl 10.

That is a great idea, I had considered making some advanced talents that built off of these, but that's probably pretty safe. I would probably just make it medium range though, 300 feet sneak attacks at level 20 instead of 1200 feet sneak attacks seems more realistic to me.

I was worried that I'd be making some talents far better than some feats. I disliked a lot of the "once per day you can roll twice" talents as it seemed to me like there could be a lot more flavor to these talents... I shall think of rewriting them too in a while.

Thank you for the feedback PA.

Hello, I've been making a compilation of all things rogue, and at the same time, tweaking some things around. I just finished the 1-10 talents and I'd like some feedback.

Going back to the OP, I am pretty sure I have run into a situation like that before. There are NPCs doing something at a short distance, I do not know exactly what is going on, we are called to roll initiative and let's say I go first.

My first instinct would be to ask the GM if I notice anything at a quick glance, usually a free perception check to notice what's going on. Are the NPCs armed? or are they attacking each other? do they notice us? is someone attacking them? do I notice anyone sneaking in the area? (this last one might take up an action though, like a search) Are they saying anything? yelling? etc.

If NONE of those things are occuring after my perception check is rolled, I roleplay as if my character is completely unaware of anything out of the ordinary. Maybe I hail them, maybe I check with my fellows to see what we should do, depends on the character.

What I'm saying is that the GM offered a certain amount of information, then asked for initiative, he did not describe any hostility, he didn't mention whether they had even noticed the party yet. The initial response for a typical person would be to ask some probing questions to your GM and then base your actions with as much of the facts you can get.

Now as a GM, I would NEVER EVER EVER have given so little information. If you spot something in the forest, you should at least give as much description as whatever anyone who isn't blind and deaf can see/hear.

I remember a DM describing this horrendous creature, showing us a picture of it in the bestiary, which had us all freaked out and trying to find a way around it which later led to our deaths (GM fiat, did not want us going that way). Later we find out this thing is a foot tall and dies in 1 hit.

Too little information from the GM is the GM's fault, but when not enough information is given to make any sound judgement at all and you act hostile toward it, is the player's fault. (Unless your character is a lunatic, then I'd say good show.)

I do not see how Gauss was being rude there...

I played a cavalier up to level 14 in kingmaker. The way we took it as, was that when mounted, my character and horse acted as a single unit. We were both still constrained by the same movement and actions that a single unit would allow for.

People seem to think that the two are completely separate in initiative, or that the rider is suddenly piggy backing on the horse's movement and can now full attack every single round, but this seems extremely overpowered and is likely not intended.

We always took it as such:

Though movement is increased, our movements are now tied together, if the horse spends a move action, the character has also now spent a move action. I cannot make my mount do a full move, then hop off my horse and take a move action after that. Logic follows that I spent the time in that round atop my horse as it was moving, thus my movement for that round was also used up.

If I decide to charge an enemy with reach, my attack at reach goes first, I can then decide to stop my charge and negate my horse's attack, or I can charge directly up to the enemy and my horse can then also make a charge attack. We are both charging, and both gain the benefits and detriments.

We also decided that I could not attack someone atop my mount, then make a move action beyond 5 feet and then my horse attack, as my horse had to spend its action waiting and doing nothing when I spent my attack action.

What I'm getting at, is that a mount and its rider are one. *Queue disney music*

As for pounce, I would not believe that a rider with iterative attacks qualifies for this, as the mount has multiple attacks usually through multiple limbs, whereas a rider typically is repeatedly attack with the same weapon. If you can get pounce as a feat through your class however, I do not see why both your mount and yourself could not pounce on something, though it may certainly look awkward.

Mounts are still super awesome though, as often if your mount gains a feat, you reap the benefits of it too (in some cases), and you get awesome movement and beastly full attack actions.

Just read over this thread, I found it a bit amusing that people debating over the interpretations of a fictitious doctrine intentionally left vague parallels our own history very well.

And we killed each other for that too.

No God/Goddess can fault a Paladin for what they do not know, nor can they fault them for doing their best with truly good intentions.

Personally, I think becoming a fallen paladin and taking the path of redemption or complete corruption would be sweet for the story.

I can't imagine a high level paladin making it through the stuff they got to deal with without having gone through atonement a few times.

It seems rather counter-intuitive to tell a rogue that stealing won't do anything to help his WBL. It's like the GM saying "I don't like how you play your character, so I'm PENALIZING YOU." The rogue now has to risk his life adventuring AND then stealing on the side just to make the same amount of wealth his fellow party members do? That doesn't make any sense at all. A rogue can be a professional thief AND an adventurer at the same time. You don't necessarily need to go into nitty gritty time wasting details on every sojourn the rogue takes, that is what profession checks are for. It's like the healer going to temples and making a wage off of healing that week. If it is something worth considerable gp, then it becomes part of the story, or stealing comes with cause and effect. No rogue can go around every single town, stealing everything in sight without slipping up and landing himself in jail or worse, and then that becomes part of the story.

Adjusting loot tables to deter good roleplay sounds like you as the DM are wasting your time because you're hung up on "fairness" in wealth. If the game was fair in terms of wealth then everyone would start with the same gold at character creation. Playing a rogue should mean your skill and wit garners you more access to blackmarket items, plus more money, etc. If that is the type of rogue the player wishes to play.

Everything you're worried about getting out of hand can be fixed by roleplaying, adding awesome story elements to your campaign or simplifying it down to a skill check. The rogue doesn't need to be punished.

if you think the rogue needs to be fixed, you are doing it wrong.

I don't think it's broken, I think the rogue is less effective at it's own core role in the group as other party members are at theirs, and thus needs some improvement.

This could be partly due to the fact that a rogue's role can vary so much.

The rework I had in mind after thinking about it for 1 afternoon was this:

1. empower the archtypes a little so they'd be more effective in the role they wanted to take (some don't need this), examples would be that ranged rogues can sneak attack at a range of 30ft + 5ft/lvl.

2. add low budget/low CR poisons, traps (especially recyclable traps) and alchemical items to give rogues more options at lower levels. (though other classes could use this)

3. IMO, rogues should be able to purchase items none of the other party members can, sometimes a far lower prices, due to their fence, their black market connections and the like. This depends heavily on the type of rogue you roll up, however.

4. write details on rogues by country in pathfinder, write about Honor among Thieves for the lawful rogues, etc.

This thread has made me come to the conclusion that I must rewrite the rogue, purely for my own satisfaction.

In the few campaigns I've played with a particular GM and my friend who always plays a rogue, they would be spotted instantly by the first enemy standing guard, every single time, nearly die as we rush up to save them. It got to the point where they simply didn't want to play anymore.

Other games I've been in and GMed, rogues going off on their own could gain valuable information of a situation, disarm some traps or unlock doors prior to the rest of the party being there. This makes me agree that it is player/GM dependent on how effective rogues can be in solo situations.

It also irks me that a rogue cannot simply take an opponent unawares and instantly kill them without some extremely high level ability, but I can see how it would be game breaking, as the rogue could kill everyone out of combat if their stealth were maxed out.

You can deal a considerable amount of non-lethal damage to knock an opponent out, but it is feat heavy.

In combat, you can two weapon feint, have improved feint and boost your bluff skill, but again, also feat heavy.

Using something like a garrote might be an option, as it would silence but also give the victim a chance to escape.

I've also toyed around with the idea that dirty trick can be used to blind your opponent, and a blind opponent is flat footed. This assumes your opponent has eyes.

I would agree that a ranged rogue is very difficult to make viable, sniping sucks.

I've also come up with alchemical items and simple traps (and the combination of the two, traps that release alchemical items) that would make rogues a lot more fun to play as someone who infiltrates, traps everything ala spy vs spy, then runs home to the party snickering along the way.

But yeah, even multiclassing with rogue on numerous occasions has left me wanting a change for the class. I think the only fun I had with a rogue was shadowdancer, because HIPS and shadowstep is just that awesome.

Sorry my thoughts are so disjointed, touching a bit on a number of posts here.

VillageMaker is a low level campaign that puts the PCs in charge of starting their own village off the beaten path. Designed as a simplified KingMaker campaign that focuses on a weekly basis instead of monthly, it gives ample use for crafting and profession skills. Also, it focuses on sometimes rarely used portions of the Game Mastery Guide for settlements, NPCs and the like. It's not all about building, maintaining and defending a town, however. There are rules for exploring and dungeon crawling and claiming resources for your village.

If you'd like to try it out or give it a read, please click here

Comments, suggestions, critiques are welcome.

Stuff about cavaliers losing their mount.

I played a cavalier up to level 14 in kingmaker. Even in such a heavily outdoorsy campaign, half the time it was impossible to bring my horse around.

Cavaliers seem to be a bit of a mixed bag, though. On one hand you have great charge feats and challenges. But you also have teamwork feats and orders that help the team.

Most of the time, the people in my campaign were too far away from me to benefit from my teamwork feats and such. Because I had charged in.

I feel that if you are using 100% of your resources 100% of the time, the game is too easy and the DM isn't making it a challenge for you.

If you lose your horse, you can always obtain a new one later when it works. A hard done by character, builds character, and teaches the player to diversify instead of making a one trick pony.

Ghost Touch allows an incorporeal creature to wield weapons and wear armor against corporeal foes. And that weapon or armor is considered both corporeal and incorporeal.

A third level shadowdancer can summon a shadow under their control and equip them with ghost touch weapons and armor.

How effective that will be? Still uncertain, as a shadow has no strength score.

I am playing a Cavalier in this campaign and it is working pretty well for me, but keep in mind that it isn't all outdoors, and there are places we've gone that I've had to leave my horse behind.

Just a few things I'd like to let you know without spoiling anything, this campaign lets you have time between tasks to roleplay things out. Everyone having mounts as their cohorts is okay for combat and issues about movement, but you might get more with a noncombatant cohort that can scribe scrolls or make magical items or help run your kingdom. This assumes your group isn't gungho right when you hear about suchandsuch quest.

Paladin of Erastil is good, we chose Erastil and Cayden as our patron gods, but don't think that you're forced. When it gets time for you to start Kingmaking, you might find politics particularly challenging as a Paladin :3

Good luck and have fun!