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My 10th level Paladin does both (will be 12th at the end of MOBICON this weekend WOOHOO!). I started off two-handing a Longsword, and it was pretty effective. I did take 1 level of Lore Oracle*, so could add my CHA to AC, meaning I had an effective 18 DEX for AC purposes. This is important because it meant I could go shieldless and it wasn't that big a deal. As I raised in level, the shield became much more important.

I gotta say, if you took away the troubles I had with some of the morally gray adventures the Pathfinders sent me on (DO NOT be a Paladin of Abadar, the Pathfinder Society breaks A LOT of laws), my Paladin was the perfect PFS character. Her saves are through the roof, she has typical Paladin resistances to Fear, Disease, and Charm. Lore Oracle let her use CHA for knowledge skills, she could do damage, heal, or tank, but anyone who specialized in one of those areas would do it better (except Diplomacy/Intimidate, those are pretty maxed out), which was awesome because she could fill in for whatever we didn't have (except ranged).

*Initally I wanted a "Nerd Defender". I wanted to follow a god of knowledge, that bookish types would follow, there is no god like that but that's a different rant.

My point is you don't need the context on the quotes. The laugh track explicitly states what the writers 'think' is funny. In this case they are:

• Comic books are for 12 year olds - hilarious!
  
• Geeks and nerds stare at women - guffaws aplenty!

If you want to see an episode of a TV show that actually treaks geeks and nerds with a great deal of respect and plays off what makes them cool as well as their quirks - go and watch The Phineas and Ferb Episode - Nerds of a Feather.

Really Phineas and Ferb? Where the "differnt nerdy guy" is in constant torment by the white bully? And BBT is offensive?

Just to be clear, I love Phneas and Ferb, and I like BBT. It just find the hypocracy funny. BBT is mainstream and someone said "we should be offended!" and everyone went all "Nerd Rage!". And yet Phineas and Ferb are cartoons, not really mainsteam for adults, so even though the premise is MUCH more offensive, nerdom at large accepts it, and even lauds it.

You can stack this archtype on any others. You can only trade out the abilities listed.

So if the drunken master doesnt give up wholeness of body: youre good to go

Actually there is still some debate on this. If this is for PFS, you will get some table variance. Some GM's may tell you can't combine it, and the character isn't usable. I'm not going to debate it here, but the rules can be read either way, and there is no offical word that I am aware of.

Edit: While I reaize Mr. Jacobs isn't a "rules guy" his opinion is that they don't stack (Link). In the absence of any ruling from the "rules guys" Mr. Jacob's opinion can add weight to a PFS GM saying no.

Assuming your gear configuration approximately.

+2 Full plate 5.5k
+2 tower shield 4k
+1 amulet of natural 2k
+1 Ioun stone 5k
+1 Luck 5k

10 base 11 armor 6 shield 1 dex 1 amulet 1 ioun stone 1 trait = 32. Which while good is simply not high enough even with the +1 off the ring of protection. An at level purple worm has a +25 to hit. The AC would have to be substantially higher to work. Even with the +4 from shield of faith you're at 50% not 75%. Unfortunately as a cleric I'm not able to pickup all the defensive feats It will cost me another huge amount of money to be able to reach that AC the real question is how has your experience been having a high AC melee character?

I wouldn't look at 1 monster and make your judgements from that. Average high hit for a CR 11 Monster (which is 12th level) is 19. At 32 AC they'll miss 60% of the time. You're 38 AC means they'll hit 10% of the time. Considering the lowest you can get that is 5, I'd call that pretty good.

Take 20 represents trying twenty times to eventually get a 20. It's only possible if you can try 20 times ("no penalty for failure"). You can Take 20 to search for a trap, because a failed search attempt doesn't trigger a trap. You can't Take 20 on disarming the trap because failure triggers it.

I don't allow taking 20 to search for a trap. There is absolutely no way for you to know if you've searched your best or not. There's no way to know when you've succeeded if there is no trap, and since there's no way to know for sure if there is or isn't a trap, no way to tell when you've "critically" succeeded.

Of course if the party does somehow know there's a trap there, I'll allow a Take 20, for example if an NPC tells them that the third door is trapped.

I have a 10th Level Paladin in PFS. I took a level or Oracle so he can use his CHA for AC giving him an effective 18 DEX for AC purposes. That and a Mithral Breastplate have kept me relatively unhittable in PFS. The majority of her career she two-handed a Longsword. Recently (level 9) it wasn't enough and I was getting clocked with some regularity, so I have invested in a shield. At level 10 my AC is 30 and I don't get hit very much.

And you still haven't learned how to read, so I guess we're at an impasse.

276. You can't bare to see your favorite Pathfinder thread die.

... your still assuming that the fighter doesn't work based on REALLY bad play. If your not willing to accept that people can actually play fighters better then you and build then up better then you (because lets face it, you don't even know fighter 101 here) and that changes how the game works.

And right here is our disconnect. See you've stopped actually reading my posts. You've completely forgotten what I'm even talking about. In your desire to attack me and put me down, and try prove you're smarter than me, you've completely forgotten what the conversation is even about. I didn't come here saying Fighters suck, I never even said a Fighter can't out DPR a Wizard. All I've ever said is that Wizards can blast. You think that's wrong? Show me a post from anyone other than you that says Wizards aren't one of, if not THE strongest class in the game. Do you get that? EVERYONE but you, says wizards are probably the strongest class in the game.

So let's say we're in a situation where the fighter will be really effective, what can the Wizard do instead of blasting when he's not needed? ANYTHING HE WANTS. He could do Battle Field Control, he could buff, he could Summon some creatures that might be more effective. That's the thing you don't understand. If you looked at my wizard's character sheet, you'd think I listened to Treantmonk. My spells are all utility, control and buffs. I can switch them out to blasting spells on the fly. You think you can customize your fighter because you get a few extra feats? I can completely change my whole concept EVERY DAY.

You've said yourself a fighter isn't complicated. Stop trying to say I don't understand it. I got your entire build from you saying you had a 20 STR. That's all I needed and I completely understood your build. You change your build mid sentence and then wonder why I'm confused. You pretend a fighter is always going to have all their buffs up at all times, and always going to have the exact potion, or scroll available at all times and it's always going to work. Anyone who has played the game knows that only works when you're arguing on the forums. In an actual game, it will rarely work that way. The wizard I presented doesn't need to waste time buffing, he doesn't need a stitch of clothing or magical gear. He gets up, spends 15min-1 hour preparing, and he's set for an entire day.

Bad advice? You're the only one that thinks that, and you think that because you don't really read my posts. I list 4 or 5 things in a post to prove my point, you say a fighter will take a feat that really only helps very little (like improved iron will changing your chance of success from 25% to 35%), and you think that completely negates the other 3 or 4 items. Look at that list of monsters you provide again. A Wizard will be more effective in every case. You have a 5 WILL save that re-roll is only useable 1x per day. Your Reflex is 4 or maybe 6 if you took those feats too, I don't think I'm the one giving bad advice here.

What about Lore Warden? Combat Expertise for free, and plenty of skill points, but you lose Medium Armor Prof.

Ciaran Barnes wrote:

Artanthos wrote:

Sadly, since haste no longer benefits the Magus, my magus will no longer be memorizing it.

I have a haste casting magus in my party. Please explain.

Haste only works with full round attacks, which is a type of full round action.

Spell combat is its own specific Full Round Action so it does not get to use haste.

Which I think is silly since they have an Arcana that grants them Haste... Althought on further thought, do we really need to give a Magus more attacks?

Thats a min-maxed score if i have ever seen one. I think you should take a feat that boosts your will save because I am guessing it should be pretty low.

I don't think the two points he'd gain would be worth taking a feat. It's going to be so low, he'll fail with or without it.

No he doesn't. The TWFer is going up by not more than 66% and the archer by 50%. In a level the archer will only be going up by 33% even ignoring iteratives. And that's only on full attacks anyhow. The archer almost always can full attack, but the TWFer generally can't.

It's good, but with an archer and a TWFer it's not as good as its hype and with only one front liner in a party of four summons increase in importance.

While I dsagree with the majority of his reasoning (the fact that archers can always full attack means they take advantage of haste every round, making it more useful to them, not less) I do agree that Summon III might be a better choice in this instance due to the lack of front line fighters.

EDIT: On the other hand, if one of the other casters are doing Battle Field Control, another tank becomes less important... I guess what I'm saying, is that if you have a way to keep monsters off you, take haste. If your only protection is one TWFer, take Summon Monster.

So...your special forces and room clearing is something you can't grasp?!? REALLY?!? I'm gonna have to call you out of that one. Either your lying about being special forces or you really are bad at this game.

I don't know if you're being diliberately obtuse or if you really don't comprehend what you read. I'm done here, but I do want to clear up that I never said I was special forces.

Wow, Schrödinger's Wizard vs. Fighter strikes again! I love how these discussions always turn to a child's game of "I shot you! No you didn't!".

Just to be clear, my wizard has been posted and not changed at all. So more accurately it would Schrödinger Fighter vs. REAL Wizard.

I was going to leave this alone, but I just can't. It's a problem I'm working on, just failing right now

Wow...just wow. Your fighters make a habit of not taking iron will and improved iron will with their gobs of feats?!?

I want to show you what you're doing here and really try to drive it home. You're acting like my not taking into account Iron Will and Improved Iron Will is the huge deal and I must be a colossal idiot. Let's look at the reality of the situation: Your will save is 5 not 3 5. OH MY GOODNESS I WAS SO FAR OFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Knowing your STR was 20, I pegged your Will save within 2. Yeah I must be an idiot. But seriously, no my fighters never take Iron Will, mostly because I'd never play a fighter since they're pretty useless unless all the enemies stand right in front of them the whole time, and after the fight is over, they're even more useless.

Really? And I just need a scroll of fly if I need fly for an encounter. I think I can squeeze in 375 gold somewhere. Who says I have 1 skill point per levels?

And we're back to theory crafting. In Theory you could have a scroll of fly. In reality you probably used on the a previous encounter, and if not, well now we're up to 6 rounds of the Wizard blasting before the fighter does anything.

20 PB, 17 for str, 2 for dex, 5 for con (yeah I know kinda low), 0 for int, 0 for wis, -4 for cha. That means I have 2 skill points per level. 3 for human. +1 for favored class if I want.

Right 2 points per level, and 1 of them is used on UMD. 2-1=1, and yeah I know. I called your stats exactly from your 20 STR, but all of that is irrelevant, since you can't take fly until you have a reliable way of doing it. Once you do (and I'm pretty sure potions and scrolls don't count), you can't dump a bunch of skill points into it to bring it up quickly. So you have no fly skill... Oh yeah but I don't know how to play.

I can have 13 con to take some risk and get an additional skill point if I so desire. Once again, pretty BASIC stuff here. Seriously, this is new people can figure stuff out here. I am very surprised you seem completely unable to work this out on your own. Not like I'm doing some complex multi book stuff here. And like I said, this isn't even remotely optimized. This is fighter 101 here. If you can't meet fighter 101 in DPS, your a secondary DPS at best.

Now you're back to trying to sound like you're smarter than me, but at this point I don't even think you know what you're talking about. Regardless, your way to "win" the argument is to change your build based on what I say. If I say you have no skill points, you say you drop CON and use favored class, if I say you have low HP you raise CON back up and say favored class is HP. Why don't you stick with a REAL build so we can actually speak intelligently about it.

Oh and telling somebody you have spell x and can swap out to spell y ACTUALLY explains in full what those spells do...right.... I can explain EVERYTHING about the fighter...including the expendable stuff in 10 min and a new player can get it. Enough so that when a PFS judge asked okay how do you do that, s/he can explain it back. I highly doubt that is the case with your build. The finer points of when to use spells is a whole other matter as well for learning to play the caster classes.

If you can't figure out what a fireball does, I'm not sure I can help you.

All you really proved is that you seem to think that fighter players are god awful dumb and can't do anything right and that you seem to play your game VERY un-tactically if you have NEVER seen this happen. What do real life special forces do again? Yeah they clear rooms and the search for what they need. They do not dilly about.

Right, right real life special forces, because we all know that if they don't find the Iron Key in Dragon Lair, they'll never make it to the Al'Queda hideout. And once they get there, they're always on the look out for Magic Rune traps. Why just the other day, my Seal buddy was telling me about the Hold Person trap he walked into because the rogue in his party missed it... o_O

PFS is once again different due to faction mission that people seem pretty greedy about. But then even in PFS, the groups that really know what they are doing buff up, clear rooms and then search for their stuff. The fact that you and your group could not grasp this rather BASIC TACTIC does not make this rather basic tactic any less valid. Oh and blasting works fine in the confines of your experience (which being PFS is not in line with the APs or the forum's "normal" game...seriously APL+4 is common).

You seem to think I only play PFS, I assure you that isn't the case. I've been playing RPG's for over 20 years, have you even been alive that long? Not only that, but I've spent 20 years in the military, that means I've played RPG's in general and Pathfinder specifically all over the country, from San Diego, to New York, 3 different cities in Florida, and 2 different cities in Alabama. On an average weekend I play in at least 2 different cities. That's not counting the home games on Wednesday, Kingmaker on Tuesday, and Jade Regent every other Saturday. Paizo says APL +3 is EPIC. I didn't come up with that Paizo did. Even if APL +4 are as common as you say, I've already proven that the Wizard can handle those situations far better than your fighter.

I'll say again, I'm not the one that turned this into a Fighter vs. Wizard, you did that. My point was, and still is Wizards are viable as blasters.

All you really proved is that you seem to think that fighter players are god awful dumb and can't do anything right

Nope not all of them.

Yeah...those would be splat books. What the hell kind of assumption do you run when somebody say core?!?

What are you 12? Quit trying to make yourself sound intelligent and get "digs" in. You're failing miserably. Splat books are non-Paizo where I come from.

To answer a few of your questions:
No the fighter can't fly, he has 5k and hasn't bought armor yet.
Yes his WILL save is 3 he has a 10 WIS and no money for items to raise it.
He's reflex save is a 4 because he has a 12 DEX and no money to raise it.
If you can fly you can't hover you have 12 DEX and no skill points left for fly skill, so you're only making 1 attack per round, wizard wins again.

I'm not saying anyone is playing stupid, you're the one that built the guy, if it's stupid, don't blame me. Right, everyone just charges through a dungeon without searching every room. I mean it's happened exactly never in my 20 some years of playing. And no explaining my ENTIRE character is as difficult as playing a Cleric. You have X spells, you can trade them out for Y spells when you want and add metamagic as a full round. Yup I think that's a pretty simple explanation.

What I really want to say, is that my initial premise wasn't that a Wizard can out DPR a Fighter, you turned into that, my initial premise was that a Wizard can be effective as a blaster. Nothing you've said has disproved that in the least, you've actually helped my case by listing those monsters that your fighter is useless against.

So all that said, the post right after yours is completely right, for those of you keeping score at home, here's my list of feats at 10th level, keeping in mind that I went Teleport instead of Admixture. You don't need Elemental Spell if you go Admixture like I suggest above. My GM also don't like crafting, so we use PFS rules for Spell Focus, but even so I took Breadth of Experience, and Elemental Spell, so one of those could be traded out for Spell Focus instead, and the other could be Skill Focus: Basket weaving. No theory crafting, no changing what I said because based on the argument at hand. This is the build.

Breadth of Experience
Elemental Spell (Acid)
Elven Weapon Proficiencies
Eschew Materials
Greater Spell Specialization
Intensified Spell
Magical Lineage (Fireball)
Reactionary
Selective Spell
Simple Weapon Proficiency - All
Spell Focus (Evocation)
Spell Specialization (Fireball)
Varisian Tattoo (Evocation)
Wizard Weapon Proficiencies

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Killing prisoners is not the paladin's job.

Again, says who?

Another question along the same lines, 20th Level Dwarven Monk, do Dwarf Bane arrows affect him as Bane?

I've never said I agree or disagree. I'm simply asking where you got killing helpless opponents is always dishonorable (I added always because I assume that's what you meant, feel free to correct, and give me an example of when it is honorable if I've misinterrupted)

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Killing a helpless opponent is dishonorable. It doesn't matter what your deities tenets are.

Says who? Where are you getting this from? Is it written somewhere? Or are you taking your 2013 American ethics and applying it to Golorian? If you are (and it sounds like you are), do you do this for everyone? If Orcs break into a powerful (read: high level) Samurai's house and he kills them when he could have easily defeated them with non-lethal, does the Samurai "fall", because he committed murder?

If a bunch of adventurers are going through a dungeon and a bunch of Drow attack, and the adventurers kill them, does the cleric of Abadar lose his powers because technically, the adventurers were trespassing, the Drow were in the right to defend their land, so the adventurers committed murder which is against the law. Abadar being the god of laws.

Now I've quoted Marthkus, but a lot of people have said pretty much the same thing.

So your resource of choice was splat books then. Because you see, my fighter didn't really use any of those. Oh yes a spell here or there...or an item, but I haven't touch of archetypes and the MCing options like you have. Like I said, it's a pretty basic fighter...one that isn't even REMOTELY optimized for DPR.

If by "splat books" you mean UM, UC, APG, and ARG then yes. My wizard is actually what Trentmonk would call a "god wizard", that has the cool ability to blast the stuffing out of things too.

My fighter build is easy enough for completely new players to grasp and play within 10 min of me explaining it to them...can you say the same for yours? And I don't mean the whole wizard aspect (which I will grant is just gonna go over new player head)...I mean just doing the DPR thing.

No more difficult than playing a Cleric.

And you could not out DPR a basic, bare minimum I do DPR build. That by default means your not very good at DPR.

And yet under most circumstances, and completely naked, I could keep up with your fighter. Actually, under most circumstances, I'll do more while you prepare and try to move and deal with flying creatures etc. (see below for the awesome examples you've provided).

And PFS!=NORM. Seriously, your using the PFS swap out scribe scroll at level 1 as part of your build? Seriously? Is this a PFS specific thread? I could have sworn not.

Wow Cold you got me, you completely negated my whole build... wait I've only talked about 3 feats at 10th level A wizard will have 6... Hmm I think that's fixable.

Your don't need spell penetration you say? You think your elf bonus of +12 to caster level checks is enough? Rakshasa at CR 10 has a SR of 25 (so you need a 13+...9+ if you have the two spell penetration feats)...which I admit is on the high side. At CR 12, the green dragon is SR 23. CR 13 the ice devil and Glabrezu are SR 24. Heck even a nabasu at CR 8 has SR 19 and the babau at CR 6 has SR 17. Yeah way to sell you know how to play a wizard by ignoring one of your bloody glaring weakness and not taking spell penetration line for the spell you plan on using like what was it again? 11 times per day? Great idea there.

Actually, I don't think I'm the one that needs the lesson. You do realize that at 10th level you're CR 9 right? IF you're fighting CR 13 monsters, you're in the wrong game, but let's pit those same monsters against your fighter, and see how he fares, shall we?

Rakshasa - Fighter has what a 3 WILL save? That's gonna hurt against a Rakshasa. Wizard switches all 2nd level spells to intensified snowballs 9d6+14 no SR. Fighter is useless due to Rakshasa's will save spells.
Green Dragon - Dragon's Fly. Fighter DPR = 0, Wizard can use snowball trick again.
Ice Devil - Can fly, again 0 DPR for the fighter. Wizard Launches firey snowballs.
Glabrezu - Confusion DC 19, Wizard needs a 9 (with +4 cloak that the fighter can't afford) Fighter 16.
nabasu - Wizard needs a 7 to do full damage, fighter does 0 because it flies.
babau - Wizard needs a 4, but will lose 10 point of damage due to DR all energy types. Fighter will also lose 10 due to DR/Cold Iron but even when he hits will have to make DC 18 Reflex (so needs a 15) or it will destroy his weapon.

Got anymore great examples to show how much more useful a wizard is?

Wait, I can't cast min/level buffs before fights and have it up for a pretty long time? I could have SWORN you could. Or do you expect silly bad play? You know having min/level and 10 min/level and hour/level spells up and running before fights is not that unreasonable.

You're right, for a wizard. For you your using a wand. So you're telling me you have a 10th level wand of enlarge person? That's 7500 gold so now you're up to 57k for your weapon, gloves, belt, and 1 wand, you have 5k for armor, your other wand (is that 10th level too?), and whatever scrolls you're going to use... tell me again how I don't know how to play, that makes me giggle.

And yes PFS is one of those scenarios where blasting actually is pretty good for a VAST majority of them. There are a lot of weak mooks and the bosses have pretty piddly HP compared to what you see in most APs. If PFS (or the couple of APs that has a large chunk of the enemies be low HP humanoid enemies in hoards...or home games as such) is all you play, your view of this is skewed...badly.

So I can't use PFS scenarios as examples, and I can't use Adventure Paths... So basically what you're saying, is if I was in the same home game as you, that pits CR 9 PC's against CR 13 monsters, a blasting wizard is hindered. Well, to be honest, I think I can accept that.

So again those that aren't Cold Napalm and have an open mind, Wizards can make some mean blasters.

So...on top of your list feats you took eschew material as well there? Because you see, unlike your wizard, I'm swimming in feats. Spell focus, greater spell focus, spell penetration greater spell penetration and you took how many feats to do that damage and swap out spells again?!?

Spell Focus came free from being a wizard (swaping out Scribe Scroll in PFS) and Eschew Materials came free from the Sorcerer dip. The damage swap is free from Admixture School, and the swaping from utility spells to damage spells is free from Spellbinder Archetype and Greater Spell Specialization. I've never said anything about Spell Penetation, as a 10th level Elf, don't really need it yet. So really the only feats I've mentioned are Greater Spell Specialization, and by default Spell Specialization. I have plenty of feats left for Spell Mastery, and Craft Wonderous Item (I'm now making 3rd level Pearls of Power for 4500gp).

And while showing up in your underwear might make you great as long as the spells you memorized last, your gonna pretty dang useless without that spellbook of yours tomorrow (or you wanna add spell mastery to the list of feats you need).

Wow, you completely missed the point of that. The point was that you're comparing your fighter's damage, to my wizard's and I haven't mentioned a single piece of gear. Do you get that? If I started looking through the gear, how much higher can I get that damage? If I spent as much as you have, what could a Wizard do with it?

So what, your gonna get a bandolier of empower and maximized meta rods (Okay so 14k to do 96 damage 3 times per day. That still isn't more then two hit from the fighter). Not only that but haste on 2+ people who do that kind of damage = WAY better then your silly fireball...with NO feats required...at all.

I don't need rods, I just need the feats. I can convert them WITH metamagic... EVERY TIME. And who's casting Haste on you? Who's enlarging you? Who's casting that besital body thingy on you? Are you doing it yourself? Cool, you do know about action economy right? Let's say you have 2 wands and and a scroll.

Round 1 Fighter: Move action to draw wand, Standard to cast
Wizard: Fireball 66 damage
Round 2 Fighter: Move action to replace wand, move action to draw wand
Wizard: Fireball 66 damage
Round 3: Fighter: Standard to cast, move action to replace wand
Wizard: Fireball 66 damage
Round 4: Fighter: Move action to draw scroll, standard to cast
Wizard: Fireball 66 damage
Round 5: Yay the fighter's in the fight. Has to move up to baddies so only get's 1 attack for 34 damage
Wizard: Fireball 66 Damage
Damage after 5 rounds Wizard: 330, Fighter: 34. And that assumes there's only one target. If there's 2 targets within 40' of each other now it's 660 to 34.

Now maybe your GM blows off action economy, or allows you to drop your wands and they're still there when you go back for them, or even worse, you just say you have wands that you just use when they run out, and your GM is okay with that. A different GM, and the scenario above is much more accurate.

Just one plain old 3rd level spell. So yeah, you CAN blast...but your still SHOULDN'T blast barring 48 CR 6 critters in fireball formation. All your math proved is that blasting is still a bad option in many cases. Now certain APs are great for the blaster wizards. If your in one of those, have fun, blast away and enjoy your shiny moment.

This also assumes that the Wizard only has 1 spell, I assure you, a Wizard has more.

I realize I wasting my breath here. You've been told for so long that Wizards shouldn't blast it's become gospel to you, but for anyone else keeping score, Treantmonk made some awesome guides, but they only cover core and are really outdated. Take another look.

I had a evil druid that would do stuff like that..use his druidness to lure animals to him then kill them to make hunting easier and use them to find traps and stuff like that.

And yes I know that has nothing to do with the thread, just felt like saying it.

I dont want to contribute.

If I were your GM, you could hang up your mistletoe, you're no longer a Druid. Even an evil Druid has to revere nature. If you do things that show you lacked that reverance, no longer a druid.

I agree with your position, and understand you sentiment. At a certain point though, it is no longer within our interest to proceed further with this argument. I think both sides have realized that we come from fundamentally and perhaps even diametrically opposed views. I think we can all agree that we are unlikely to change anyone's view here, and to try further is a waste.

I wholehearted agree with your sentiments, but I am still baffled as to why it's only the Paladin. As I've said before, Clerics, Druids, Inquisitors, Cavaliers, Samurai, and Rangers all have a similar code. Why do we never see a Druid used summoned animal to trigger traps, should they fall? thread?

Oh well means I can get my sword to have 2d6 elemental damage then instead...or be holy or even just do a flat out +2 enchantment to get that average damage at or above your fireball damage.

I had a long post with a bunch of math and other proofs, but really this quote says it all. Your fighter has to use wands and scrolls and +3 weapons just to catch up. My wizard shows up in his underwear holding a beer. Let's buy him some gear and see what he can do. And my wizard is useful outside of combat too, again, in his underwear, holding a beer.

Are you ready to concede that Wizards can make viable blasters?

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I find it funny you think an average of 66 damage is high at level 10.

Fighter with 26 str is +19 to damage right from the get go. Add in an enlarge person off a cheap wand and your at +21 (you can pre-cast it into the cracked ioun stone if needed). +9 for power attack. Your weapon training should be at +4 (with the gloves) and +2 for weapon spec. With a +1 impact great sword and potion/wand of lead blade you do 6d6 with the weapon. So 6d6+37 damage...PER HIT...and I get two of them...three with haste. If I REALLY wanted to get things broken, my UMD should be high enough by then for monstrous humanoid 3 scrolls (yes yes, don't do this every fight as that gets damn expensive). In which case, my damage goes to 8d6+43 damage...or more damage then your fire ball per hit. Yes the ability to hit multiple opponents is nice...when they are in fireball formation. Yeah evocation got a boost since core...do did DPR. By level 10, if your suppose to be doing DRP and your not in triple digits, your not doing DPR. Still it's not bad damage...I'd just rather take...

Okay, now let me theory craft. I do an average of 66 damage to 48 enemies that's 3168 DPR, so I'm in quadruple digits. You see a 20ft radius fireball covers 48 squares. That's 48 enemies. Oh and that's AFTER I move and the enemies are 800 feet away, on the first round, since I don't waste time buffing.

Now after doing some more math, with your +3 Weapon and your +6 STR Belt, you're at 54,350gp WBL only gives you 62,000 and you haven't bought armor yet. Add your gloves at 15k and you're 7,000gp over your WBL and you haven't bought a single wand and have no armor.

Assuming you didn't tank your CHA, your UMD is probably around a 13, assuming you wasted a trait, but probably closer to 10, meaning you'll fail to use the wand around 50% of the time, all the time praying you don't get a 1 or you just lost your lead blades.

Let's continue the example, what happens if your fighter can't reach the bad guys? How much DPR does he do then? If a Wizard can't reach the bad guys, well neither can anyone else because they pretty much have to be out of sight.

If the enemies are spread out what does your fighter do? Well after a round or two of buffing he runs up and hits one of them for 6d6+37 damage... assuming he hits. Meanwhile the Wizard has been blasting for 3 straight rounds with an intensified snowball vs Touch AC, for 10d6+25 per shot. So in three rounds your fighter has done an average of 58 damage, the wizard has done 180 damage. And oh yeah, big baddie has DR20/Piercing, what's that do to your Fighter's DPR? Cold resistance you say? That's cool my Admixture Wizard was launching acid snowballs.

We can play this game all day, you can set up scenarios that make the fighter shine, and I can come up with scenarios that hurt the fighter and make the wizard shine, but that's really going to hurt you more than me. The ONLY time a fighter will truly shine is if the baddies line up for him... except that helps the wizard too... Reality is that your fighter will probably be around 3d6+24 averaging 34 point of damage per swing, and assuming he doesn't have to move may get two of them, for about 68 points of damage... hmmm Wizards average 66, fighter average 68. Interesting.

YES :-)

Come to think of it, maybe this harshness is reserved for the CN ninja who got so many stupendous powers due to his following a very strict code :-))

I don't see what the Paladin did as evil, it completely follows the tenets of his god.

Not EVERY evil act is an instant alignment shift, but this one? Oh yes absolutely. And I don't care if it was a CN Ninja, or a LG Wizard, his alignment just went evil. The motivation is what decides it. You killed an innocent for the sole purpose of hurting a beacon of goodness.

Now, for those that take exception to me saying "you killed" when the Paladin actually did it, I submit to you, if I shoot you in the face with a bazooka, I didn't kill you, the bazooka round did. Sure I knew what would happen if I pointed it at you and pulled the trigger, but I didn't make your head explode the round did.

To further the Motivation discussion, what was the Paladin's motivation for killing the prisoners? In my estimation, it was to stop them from inflicting more evil. The prisoners were captives of evil people (assuming I've read this correctly). The captors would probably use the captees for evil means. If the captees could be redeemed and/or were doing evil against their will, and wouldn't do evil if released, that's one thing, and that wasn't the case in this instance. The captees would continue their evil ways even if released. The paladin removed a tool of evil that would continue to do evil in any situation.

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I admit as to only reading the first page so something to this effect may have been mentioned.

After reading in another thread about a "must kill all evil" paladin, I have been wanting to run across one with my CN sorcerer. I want to slap a random person with an infernal healing and then point the paladin in his direction to watch the comedy. Imagine the paladin's horror when he found out what happened.

If your ninja has UMD, you can go this route for the low price of a 750 gp wand.

I missed this yesterday:

While it might be taxing on his mind, it won't make him fall. He has to willingly commit evil. He has to know what he is doing is evil and do it anyway. He was tricked, he didn't know it was evil. Although, you your CN Ninja did this and I was your GM, you just became CE for having an innocent person assassinated.

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But wait, it gets better

Jodokai wrote:

ub3r n3rd - you're running into a common theme on these boards. The majority of the people on treat rules as a mathematical formula A + B = C. A+B will ALWAYS = C there is never never never any variation or circumstances where A+B does not = C.

In this case A = Helpless Prisoners B = Paladin kills prisoners C = Evil Act Paladin falls.

No amount of convincing, proof or even RAW will convince anyone that A+B does not ALWAYS = C. There are no variables to A. A Prisoner, is a Prisoner wheather it's Winston Churchil or Hitler himself, A = A. There are no variations of B, doesn't matter if it's a Paladin of Torag, Sarenrae or Irori, B = B. Which stands to follow that C will always be C.

To go deeper, if you allow variance then have to allow the GM to actually have some control over the enviornment and, perish the thought, the player's character, and that my friend, is THE cardinal sin on these boards.

So, those that do not agree that the killing was okay (for example Shallowsoul) are against the GM.

It is amazing how people can...

The Black Raven, let me give you some advice:

1. Read the entire thread until you understand what is being said, and quit taking things out of context.
2. Quit looking for people to fight. You take every post as if it's a direct attack on you. This ties in nicely with...
3. Get over yourself. You are not so important to me that every post I make is about you, or even something you post.

Now to clear up a few things. You use a Straw-Man to imply that I said it was okay for a Paladin to sneak in and slaughter people in their sleep. There was no obvious tongue-in-cheek there. You wanted my statement to sound ridiculous, so you made implications that weren't there. What I did was show another way the conversation could have gone with two imaginary beings. Not only that, but if I remove "die by starvation and thirst" to "No I let them go because they were slaves and slavery is evil" the conversation becomes much more plausible.

In my post you quoted above, you continue your straw-man attacks, by saying I said "always pro-players". I never said always, I said majority. But let's forget about that for a minute, what we're talking about is player vs player NOT player vs GM, so even if what you said was correct, it really has no relevance to the discussion. What is more accurate, is that I feel my opinion is correct because my opponents refuse to take the circumstances into account when deciding if a Paladin will fall. If you think I'm off-base with that assumption, look at the conversation taking place right before this post. People want a set of rules that applies to every Paladin every time. That is the very conversation taking place right now. The post you attacked I made on the top of page 4, here we are 4 pages later, and you see I was pretty spot on. That post goes on to say, that the reason I think people want a set of rules that always apply, is because to do otherwise puts the power in GM hands, and people don't like that. If you think THAT assumption is off-base, well I could probably find you the numerous threads I've used to draw that conclusion as well.

Here's something I just thought about: Isn't slavery universally evil too? I mean if killing a helpless evil person is always evil, shouldn't slavery always be evil? Shouldn't the Paladin also fall for not freeing the slaves?

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All depends on how you look at mercy...

Paladin: Father Torag met some of our most hated enemies.

Torag: Did you destroy them and scatter their familes like I decree?
Paladin: Well, not exactly. They were half starved, half dead prisoners.
Torag: Ah, so you left them in their cells to rot?
Paladin: Oh no, making them suffer a slow painful death of thrist and starvation would have been truely evil. I let them go
Torag: So they could become healthy and kill our people...?
Paladin: Probably, but it was only honorable to let them kill us before I kill them.
Torag: Umm yeah good plan. Why don't you hang up your hammer, you won't be needing that anymore.

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The black raven wrote:

Jodokai wrote:

I think people are confused about a Paladin's role. When his church/god needs someone killed or an enemy defeated, they send the Paladin. His job is to be a killing machine for his god. So yes a Paladin is supposed to slaughter his enemies, it's in the job description.

I did not see that part of the Code, nor of the LG alignment.

Is it also okay if he sneaks into their chamber and hacks them to pieces while they sleep, all in full view of their loved ones ?

Wow, I can understand that the Ninja is upset with the Paladin doing the assassin's job for free.

Gee, he did that? Where did you get those details?

He didn't. What he did was set up a Straw Man Fallacy. It's when you put a whole bunch of words in someone's mouth that they never said, or even implied, then you attack those words instead of what the original person actually said. It's typically done when you can't come up with a valid argument for what was actually said.

EDIT: Funny you should say "in front of loved ones", read what Torag expects his Paladins to do to his enemies' famlies.

I think people are confused about a Paladin's role. When his church/god needs someone killed or an enemy defeated, they send the Paladin. His job is to be a killing machine for his god. So yes a Paladin is supposed to slaughter his enemies, it's in the job description.

Paladins do not slaughter or kill helpless opponents.

Wow as if I needed more proof.

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ub3r n3rd - you're running into a common theme on these boards. The majority of the people on treat rules as a mathematical formula A + B = C. A+B will ALWAYS = C there is never never never any variation or circumstances where A+B does not = C.

In this case A = Helpless Prisoners B = Paladin kills prisoners C = Evil Act Paladin falls.

No amount of convincing, proof or even RAW will convince anyone that A+B does not ALWAYS = C. There are no variables to A. A Prisoner, is a Prisoner wheather it's Winston Churchil or Hitler himself, A = A. There are no variations of B, doesn't matter if it's a Paladin of Torag, Sarenrae or Irori, B = B. Which stands to follow that C will always be C.

To go deeper, if you allow variance then have to allow the GM to actually have some control over the enviornment and, perish the thought, the player's character, and that my friend, is THE cardinal sin on these boards.

The Paladin, by the description, went barbarian on them and had an elemental, a neutral planar being, an outsider, shred them. There was no "Good Godly character" justification other than "I detected evil." He butchered them. This is not the way to play a Paladin of almost any porthos. (I say almost because I'm sure there are homebrews or clergy that exist that I don't know about.)

You may want to re-skim the thread, especially the parts about Torag's tennets which say yes you pretty much "go barbarian" on evil.

What really baffles me aobut all these threads is the fact that people only mess with the Paladin. The Inquisitor, Cleric, Druid, Samurai, Ranger, and Cavalier all have similar codes, yet we hear nothing about them. Why does everyone take the Paladin code so seriously, but ignore all the rest?

Lincoln Hills wrote:

1) If, on the other hand, you are just dipping into wizard from some other class to gain access to low-level spells, universalist is probably your best option, since that allows you to exploit any spellbooks you plunder to the fullest.

But the benefits of the Divination (Foresight) or Conjuration (Teleportation) vastly outweigh the disadvantages of specialization.

Lincoln Hills wrote:

2) When specializing, be very careful about which schools you give up. Do not give up abjuration: and unless you see no other option, it's not a good idea to give up transmutation. The third-least-indispensable school is either evocation or illusion - give up one or the other if you must, but not both. (Other opinions will differ.)

That's crazy talk. Evocation is, no contest, the worst school. When you're making a wizard, you write down "Opposition Schools: Evocation, " before making any other decisions.

Still reading Trentmonk's guide I see. It was a great guide for its time but it is old and out dated. The idea that a Wizard can't out DPR a fighter or barbarian has been disproven. When you can memorize all utility spells, and then convert all those utility spells into blasting spells, it is no contest. Mix a level of crossblooded sorcerer with Dragon and Orc bloodlines, Magical Lineage Fireball, and at 10th level (9 Wiz / 1 Sorc) you're casting 12d6+24 fireball than can hit multiple targets,cast it 11 times per day and still have access to spell completion items from opposition schools.

Immune to fire? No worries convert it with Elemental Acid feat for zero level increase. Damage goes down to 10d6+12, still not bad.

Barbarian won the init and charges? Fine, convert it with selective, again no increase in level and damage only decreases to 10d6+24.

A Blaster Wizard is perfectly viable, with the right build.

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The schools I typically give up are Necromancy and Divination.

A few weeks ago I would have told you going Wizard was a waste of time, Sorcerer was better all around. I have since learned some tricks, that have changed that opinion. Sorcerers are a great class and they are just as versatile as a Wizard... at lower levels. A Human sorcerer can get just as many spells known per level and can cast them in any quantity they want. A sorcerer can pick the mental stat they want to use to cast (CHA, INT or WIS) and can add metamagic on the fly. That is H U G E and had me convinced that it made the sorcerer more versatile.

I made a high level Wizard and found the feat Greater Spell Specialization. Basically it allows you to pull a cleric and trade out spells for 1 special spell. Make that special spell fireball, take a trait to lower Metamagic and you have a versatile blaster.

Using that knowledge I started looking and found the Elven Archetype Spellbinder. This allows you to pick a spell to spontaneously swap out every other level. So 1st level pick Magic Missile (or other favored blasting spell), then use your first level slots for all utility spells. Need to blast? Change out Comprehend Languages for a Magic Missile and blast. On top of all that you get your School power (personal favorite is Teleport, extended summoning and swift action teleports, yes please!).

Now I don't even remember what your initial question was, but I hope this helps :)

In my opinion, Haste is the best buff in the game. If you don't have it get. If you have it, get it again :)~

What level is the Paladin? Charm Monster and Dominate are pretty high level. Dominate Person requires an 11th level Wizard. At 8th level the Paladin gets aura of resolve making him immune to charm.

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my character is a ninja but even he has rules and has been in jail has part of his back story.

And here we see the problem. If your Ninja has a set of rules, or a code, that he won't break, then he isn't CN, he's Lawful.

Whether something is overpowered or not depends enntirely on your game.

Personally I would never allow it. A Zen Archer effectively gets more feats than a Figther from levels 1-12ish. The last thing I'd do is give them anything more for free.

Joesi wrote:

What kind of spells are you talking about that a level 3 wizard can use that essentially guarantees killing any living creature in the game (any creature with skin)?

Pyrotechnics, Hideous laughter, Hold Person (clerics get it as a 2nd level), Blindness/Deafness, Color Spray....

As others have pointed out, the victim can just end the effect of skinsend on its turn (it does lose a lot of hp even so, though), so you have at most 1 round for the rest of the party to finish the guy off.

It is melee touch range (unlike ALL the examples I listed), takes 2 slots to make the combo happen, and a feat/discovery on infusion. In return for not having a save, as opposed to a caster just targeting a monster's weak save and nearly auto-winning.

Touch Injection + Skinsend might be stronger than basic, core spells. But really not by that much, and none of those require much or any investment or planning to use.

Wow, I think this marks a first for me. The first post by Stream without the word "tax" in it.

Yikes, didn't notice the Necro.

Isn't there a feat that allows you to attack and keep the shield bonus from the buckler?

Edit: Sort of, not a feat, and at 19th level a fighter archetype (Thunderstriker) can do this.

Rondelaro can also use a buckler to sheild bash, then you can take the feat Improved Shield Bash to bash and retain AC bonus.

Bucklers are great for people that use Bastard Swords or Longswords. Go two-handed when you need the hitting power, one-handed when you need the extra AC.

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ciretose wrote:

FTFY

Cute, but the setting is still the DM's. Any number of suggestions have been given on how to easily fit the character into it.

I've said it before, though -- if someone's vision is too narrow to allow other players to play in it, then they should be alone writing a book, instead of pretending to run a game.

Just so I'm clear, your position is that the guy who will allow any race but 1 has a narrower view than the guy that will only play 1 race?

Or he could have flat just said no.

He gave his reasons, as silly as I think the reasons are.

But there's a HUUUUUGE difference between "No, I dun like it" (and especially "No, and here's a good reason why")

It doesn't matter what his reasons are. He's the GM, abide by his rules or don't play. It really is that simple.

and "Sure, I'll just secretly make your life miserable while we play".

I think we have different definitions of a secret. If I say "If you do X, Y will happen" and you do X, when why happens, I didn't really do it secretly did I?

A lot of people on either side of this "player entitlement" argument seem to think it's always one way or the other. It's either "My way or the highway" or "Allow everything".

Of course, in my experience most people IRL aren't like that. It's "I don't like these things for these reasons, everything else is fair game".

Which is exactly what the GM said, and you've made disparaging comments to him throughout this entire thread.

The only reasons that really pisses me off is "I don't like the fluff" or "It wouldn't make sense to me for some unexplained reason, even when it's explained in detail".

You can hate it all you want, the GM has the right to run his game anyway he pleases. As players, you either trust the GM makes his decision based on the enjoyment of all, or find a different game. I know I said a naughty phrase "Trust the GM", these boards feel that trusting the GM is the same as cutting out their own eyes for some reason.

In addition (and this goes out to some other people as well. You know who you are) not everything is about your petty little "ZOMG mah playerz are entitled wat do guyz" train, stop trying to make it about that.

How is this thread not about player entitlement? A player wanted something the GM said no, and you call him a douchweasle. Pretty clear cut if you ask me.

_Cobalt_ wrote:

If you were to run a light-hearted adventure, and someone insisted on playing a angsty and somber half-orc barbarian who laments the gods for killing everyone he knows, would you say that this adds or subtracts from the game that you have crafted to be light-hearted?

So what's so inherently silly and non-serious about playing an anthropomorphic animal versus a pointy eared hippy or a hobbit?

_Cobalt_ wrote:

Ok, so looking at this thread, I've made up my mind. I'll let him play a kitsune, but will play out society's reactions /exactly/ as I have said I would.

However, feel free to continue the discussion.

Did you ever think about just...NOT being a dick?

Why is it so much a problem to you that he's playing a Kitsune that you're going to make every NPC go, and I quote "zomg animal person must be lamashtu kill it with fire!!!!!!!1!!!!11!!!!" and round up a mob to kill him.

His past actions are irrelevant to this case. The Kitsune race is not inherently disruptive and spitefully deciding to "punish" him in-game because he's made trouble in the past and wants to play a non-standard race just makes you the bad guy in this scenario.

If he's troublesome, boot him. That's well within your rights. But being a passive aggressive doucheweasel about letting him play his character but NOT REALLY won't help matters.

Oh absolutely, I mean every GM should absolutely allow EVERYTHING a player wants, and if they don't they are completely a doucheweasel. I mean sure the GM does the L I O N's share of the work and has to make sure that every person has fun, but he should totally change his world view and the way he wants to run the game to accommodate someone who isn't even willing to come up with a backstory to explain his odd choice.