KramlmarK's page

A fully-optimized sorcerer is going to outperform a fully-optimized bard, every time. That said, at "typical" table, both are going to be fine if the person playing them knows their role.

Bards tend to get a bad rep because nobody knows what they're supposed to do, so people play them poorly. You're playing a secondary fighter who can cast spells when necessary, not a secondary spellcaster who can fight when necessary.

Well, what specific interactions have the pathfinder gods had with humanity? Aroden is said to have raised the starstone from the sea, but even according to legend he did that while still a mortal wizard. There's very little a god can do that an epic or near epic level spellcaster can't.

Unless I'm mistaken, angels and the like come from time to time without being called by a cleric. That constitutes involvement, imo. Though I admit that I'm not completely up to cannon; I usually play homebrew settings.

Here's a hint: You don't need to change everything. Just remove the magic, figure out what still works, and stick to that. You end up with a much smaller game, but really, you don't use the whole monster manual in ANY game.

Also, if you want to include a particular monster that has supernatural abilities but seems fair, you can always re-skin it. The werewolf loses his DR and suddenly becomes a madman. The reverse works as well: If a mundane monster that you want to use is designed with magic in mind, just use a different stat block. They don't have to know that the troll was secretly a dire bear. Also, a pit fiend is still scary sans-DR, SLA's and supernaturals.

Look for small changes; don't rebuild from the ground up.

I did a mini-campaign set in real-world ancient Greece a while back that didn't have magic. It worked out fine. +1 swords and armor became really well-made weapons/armor; most other magic items were just thrown out. We never made it past 5th level, so I can't really say how it scales, but if you keep your players relatively close to cities (where they can rest) and keep adventuring days short (like, 1-2 fights, tops), it can be a lot of fun. Even mundane traps become particularly compelling, since you can't just cross off a few charges of your CLW wand and call it a day.

My guess is that at higher levels you'll have to make some adjustments to the monsters to make it work, since damage reduction and the "high HP, low will save" monsters both really assume a caster is around to make them CR-appropriate.

*real-world atheist talking*

If he wants to play a character who denies the existence of the PF gods who actively involve themselves in mortal affairs and occasionally visit, he's going to be playing a character who is in willed denial of observed phenomena and calling it an atheist. Now, I can't control what you do at your table, but I would find that incredibly offensive, since it echoes a real-world view held by some religious folk that atheists are just "too blind to see God around them" (whatever that means).

If there's anyone at the table who is an atheist in real life, at least check with them before allowing that character into my game. I wouldn't allow that character in any more than I would allow someone to play a black character with an int of 4 or a gay character with a str of 6 who whines when he gets hit. Offensive stereotypes are offensive, and nobody should be having real-world feelings hurt over this game.

That said, if he just wants to play an atheist but has no idea how to make that concept work, I'd suggest following: "Gods and us are wrought from the same stuff, they're just more powerful. I see no reason to worship a being that is every bit as fallible as I am. Fear, yes. Respect, maybe. But worship? Not unless they can prove to me that they're somehow different from the most powerful mortals."

You're basically taking away the divinity of "gods" with that ideology, which is as close to real-world atheism as you're going to get in Golarion.

Oops, I was under the impression that bites were secondary unless they were your only natural attack. That not being the case, you don't need multiattack unless you want to add in unarmed strikes.

2 claws (aspect), bite (orc). I count three.

If your GM will let you take the monster manual feats as regulars (not bonuses), getting Multiattack at 3rd after claws at 2nd seems pretty decent. You're definitely going to want to put your highest stat and racial bonus in STR.

@blackbloodtroll if you're going that route, why bother with Feral Combat training at all? Just make a full attack with unarmed strike kicks and use all nat weapons as secondaries.

Hell, I'd be HAPPY if they targeted the mount on my mounted archer. I'm rolling lvl + DEX + 3 against your attack roll with mounted combat to avoid the first hit, and the second means you're focusing fire on a charge from my wand. Congrats, I make DC 15 ride check to soft fall and am on my feet, still fighting fine, albeit with less mobility. Good use of actions, champ.

stuff

Why don't you cease your fanboyish groaning and actually discuss the pros and cons of blasting, how to use blasting effectively, and how to minimize your collateral damage while maximizing your overall effectiveness; eh?

Because the pros and cons of blasting have been discussed, at length, elsewhere. (They get out-damaged on single targets by strikers and don't have the nearly the tactical value of controlers. We know.) Because this thread, explicitly, is not trying to make the best character; it's trying to make the best character within the limitations of being primarily or purely a blaster. Because, believe it or not, some people aren't trying to "win" DnD. Because your table is not the same as my table is not the same as everyone else's table. Because in a game that is mostly doing EL-appropriate encounters played as intelligently as INT scores suggest by a GM who is not metagame-screwing his players, you don't need to be the "best". Because you don't have the right to utterly derail a thread because "someone is wrong on the internet".

Also, saying you talked about how to make a good blaster is more than a bit of a cop-out; that's not why you're here. That's one paragraph in two pages of posts. You're here to argue, and unfortunately we're not just ignoring you like we should.

stuff...

Well we are talking about the RAW pros and cons of blasting here.

...stuff

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this thread is about making blasting worthwhile. Not the best, but worthwhile. Can we leave the tired "blasters VS non-blasters" argument elsewhere? Please? It's been a dead horse since 3.0

Here, let me help:

I'm a big fan of taking a 2-level dip in arcane archer for imbue arrow. Getting longbow range on Stormbolts can be decent, and is a lot of fun.

+1 on the mob suggestion, it weakens the barbarian while still making him feel like a badass. When he drops the goblin to -43 in a single hit, just make sure you describe just how comically mutilated the bodies are.

Will-save VS Barbarian is overrated; if he's put even an ounce of thought into character creation, a raging human barbarian has a +5 morale bonus to all saves against magic by 7th, putting his will save roughly on par with an equivalent-level wizard and the rest of his saves in the "nutty" category. Also, he can and should be readying actions to attack when the caster starts waving his hands, forcing concentration for both the damage and casting defensively. "Barbarians have crappy will saves" is mostly a holdover idea from 3.5 when they were rolling with +3's at that level. This fight comes down to the initiative war, and fights that come down to initiative war are almost never fun or worth running. It's a fine way to "defeat" your players, but if you're trying to "win", you're doing it wrong.

That said, a more battlefield control spellcaster could actually be a fun challenge for your barbarian. Say, an invisible conjurer focusing mainly on summoning, fogs, and movement impairing abilities while silencing all of his spells. That would be fun.

Given that what NotMousse just described is identical to one of the better class abilities of the Pathfinder chronicler, I'd hesitate to just give that away as a bonus power for flavor's sake. Having access to whatever 4th-or-lower spell you need whenever you need it is more than a little good.

I really wouldn't change anything and flavor it as a start-up business that doesn't have the funds for a large stock, so he mostly does commissioned work. Either that, or let him re-skin scribe scroll as a "potion" (i.e. only the brewer can drink or administer the potion, but it costs half as much and uses his caster level and ability scores).

You could probably get away with reducing the cost on a lot of potions, since potions in general aren't super-powerful, but then the few good ones (i.e. potion of Spell With Long Cast Time) would be pretty nutty.

So, I'm looking into running an AP for some friends, and know absolutely nothing about any of them besides Kingmaker, which is off the table because another player is running it next fall. Any recommendations?

The group is a mix of new and intermediate players that tend towards being RP-focused over combat-focused, though we have one notorious optimizer who, while probably not playing in this (he prefers sandbox-style games), will almost certainly help some players during character creation.