Kyoni's page

You might want to look at the "Guide" archetype then...

no favored enemy and the bond is with a type of terrain to get extra boni.

Ranger's Focus (Ex): At 1st level, once per day, the guide can focus on a single enemy within line of sight as a swift action. That creature remains the ranger's focus until it is reduced to 0 or fewer hit points or surrenders, or until the ranger designates a new focus, whichever occurs first. The ranger gains a +2 bonus on attack and damage rolls against the target of his focus. At 5th level, and every five levels thereafter, this bonus increases by +2.

At 4th level, and every 3 levels thereafter, the ranger can use this ability one additional time per day. This ability replaces favored enemy.

Terrain Bond (Ex): At 4th level, the guide forms a bond with the land itself, enabling him to direct others in such terrain. When in his favored terrain, the ranger grants all allies within line of sight and that can hear him a +2 bonus on initiative checks and Perception, Stealth, and Survival skill checks. Also, as long as they travel with him, the ranger's allies leave no trail and can't be tracked. The ranger can choose for the group to leave a trail, or even specific members of the group to leave a trail if he so desires. This ability replaces hunter's bond.

The Terrain Bond is "always on".

Hexcrafter (and the curse descriptor) is from Ultimate Magic... which came out after the APG. Look into Ultimate Magic to find out what spells were given the curse descriptor retroactively.

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I like the new classes, they allow various things:

- DMs can rule to do no-arcane-caster or no-divine-caster campaigns without rewriting existing core classes. (Because Mages or Worshippers are hunted down in that country.)

- Players get more options to individualize: I like the change of pace from flashy bard to infiltrating inquisitor, or from University-School-Wizard to Hedge-Magician-Witches. Sure you can rewrite the background, but feats and skills don't make enough of a difference to actually FEEL the difference between two wizards or two rogues or two bards. especially when your group gets hung up on class names and force you back to stereotype playing:

no sneaky bard
because bards have to sing loudly, I tried "oratory" to inspire through dogmatic talk or dancing to inspire all who can see me instead of hear me -> they would not have it:
"can you do your bard SONG?"
... "I don't sing, I dance"
... "yes, you do... use your bard song, dancing is crap because we might not see it"
... "there are no facing rules" *hate/desperation*

charismatic sorcerers
I can't even begin to count the amount of uncharismatic sorcerers, who are abysmal at diplomacy, I've seen. Usually these players get a high charsima for the casting because they want that cool dragon-blood spontaneous caster and then simply forget everything else about that attribute.

rogues
you've got the sneaky flanker or the feinting swashbuckler... and that's about it for playstyles, everything else is just numbers or fluff (like weapon choice)

fighters
you choose the weapon, which only changes the damage dice, but not much else

I could go on like this... what I like about the new classes is: CHOICE, something NEW and DIFFERENT.
I've played the old/classic classes since AD&D2 back in 1996... I'm tired of them and have tried pretty much any background/fluff there is, I don't want to recycle the old just changing names/origin/minor details, I want something new and fresh and different.

It's wrong to assume the new classes are copied from MMOs, imho.
Most MMOs (except GuildWars2, which was the first to get rid of it, to an extend) uphold the old-fashioned holy trinity of tank/heal/damage...
Make this a Fighter/Cleric/Arcane + Rogue(Skillmonkey) Quartet.
This is as close as it could possibly get!
The new classes actually go away from this:
Witch is about debuffing and is as bit of Damage as well as Healer.
Inquisitor is a mix of Cleric and Ranger(Fighter).
Magus is Arcanist+Fighter.
Alchemist is an odd-one-out.
Summoner is again odd-one-out.
and the list goes on like this, the new classes either being mixes of existing concepts or totally new ideas/flavors.

I'd rule this the same way as armor spikes or other "worn" weapons...

Because basically these are blades attached to a scarf you wear. Sounds awfully similar to spiked armor to me.

I guess there are two ways:

Your group talks to the GM and you try to find a common ground together.
(we also use the fumbling, but just as criticals, you have to confirm them; we use the Gamemastery Decks, I like them)

Or you help your friends to build characters that are less affected by fumbles (more magic-users with save-or-loose spells, unarmed fighting styles and summoned creature).
If his games do away with attacks and fumbles, maybe the DM will realize that most adventurers consider it too risky to to the old-fashioned sword-and-board style: if you hurt youself more with sword-and-board and are better off summoning your own expendable mooks or be a fighting monk, that's a logical choice for an adventurer, and those who don't, will become victims of natural selection...

The non-problem with monsters and fumbles is not only because mooks are expendable, but also because unarmed/unarmored monsters don't risk loosing their weapon or damaging their armor or whatnot.
Are your campaigns mostly against humanoids or monstrous creatures?

But then that's why even my mages systematically wear spiked gloves or cesti (plural of cestus?), you are *always* armed and "threatening" that way. :-)

str bonus to hit the target (or dex with finesse): yes

str bonus to damage the target: no

In that case a monk would only flurry touch attacks... that's not how it works.

You don't get you str bonus as damage to touch attacks, only to hit. You only need to get a finger on your adversary, not an entire fist that's punching.

Punching a guy in fullplate or touching that guy in fullplate with a shocking grasp is not the same.

If you want the str bonus to apply to damage you need to target the full AC, not touch AC.

I also fail to understand why stealth is so difficult... rule number one should be common sense, right?

So if a spell of inivibility allows you to sneak around in broad daylight with it's +20 stealth... that would mean you need at least 20 stealth to pull it of?
A Ring of Chameleon Power gives you +10 stealth as a start.

To be honest, I doubt any lowlevel character will be able to easily get 30+ stealth to reliably sneak by a guard in broad daylight. At higher levels sneaky characters should easily be able to afford rings of invisibility. Problem solved.

Less rules (facing and such) is more gaming time... right? Just putting the lighting conditions on a paper map is quite a bit of prepping time unless you use a screen with mapping tools that calculate the lighting for you (which also takes time). Those mapping tools usually have no way of pinpointing facing. You'd also have to redo the entire flanking system, which wouldn't make sense any more.

If you introduce facing rules, you'd have to account for "forward" vision and peripheral vision, which don't work the same way at all:
forward vision is for details and color
peripheral vision is great at detecting movement (and is 180° for most humans)

if you do martial arts you actually learn to rely on your peripheral vision to block/evade attacks
all the teachers I've seen, say:
don't look at the arms of you opponents, you will not see their kick coming!
don't look at the area you want to strike, you give away your next move!
...this becomes even more important when you face multiple adversarys

bottomline: facing rules are a headache to introduce, if you want to do it properly

(Dark corners are the reason why I usually pick "Dancing Lights" over "Light"... you get to lighten 4 dark corners at a whim.)

Also: As a DM, I hate it when the party splits up. Just don't, or be ready to face the consequences! :-p

My DM and me settled for linen cloth "spellbook" with a price of 20 gp per 50 pages... and instead of magic inks and stuff I'd buy magic twine and needle...

Sounds fair to me. :-)

VRMH wrote:

73. It may take a while to conjure up enough of them, but they make great litter-bearer. Why ride a horse, when you could lounge in a sedan-chair?

This has promise. I need to do some carrying capacity math.

Well, with their movement of 15ft. you better not be in a hurry.

72) Administer potions for "free", and maybe "Bottle of Air" too in some circumstances

If your DM doesn't allow you to combine Arcane Mark with Spellstriking/Spellcombating:

You have two ways to get access to "Brand" (cantrip/orison):

- Hexcrafter Magus Archetype, because "Brand" is a [curse] (and you get loads of other cool spells, imho)

- "Two-world Magic" trait: select "Brand" as your crossclass extra spell

Since I'm having the same problem with my Magus in that same Campaign, I came up with the idea to do a stitched spellbook, inspired by this:
Google Result

Cloth and thread are usually not concerned with waterproofness, and to me a paperbook is as sensitive to fire as cloth would be.

Right now I'm considering developing a Spell that would function as a stitching machine to avoid putting loads of ranks in craft(sowing) 8-)

Since Warp Wood is 2nd level and Erase is 1st level and Arcane Mark is a cantrip, I'd say 1st level is where I'd set the spell-level for such a spell to develop? My DM insists on stitching book taking loads longer then writing them... unless I learn this as a crafting skill. :-(

Has anyone by chance already developed such a spell? How would you write it?

Is there anything the rules that would forbid the use of stitching for a spellbook?
How would you calculate costs for such a book?

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If you have less attributes you'll have to re-balance the point buy system.

I must admit I like the current system with 6 attributes, which each represent different aspects of a person:
I'm not a big fan of mixing str with con, it makes most melee-ish classes have very similar stats, which is a bummer because it means you end up with even more cookie-cutter builds, when these are already hard to customize as it is.
While mixing wis with cha seems to solve the dump-stat problem, it also means that characters won't have the possibility to have flaws, as in being a bit dense (low int) or annoying (low cha) or reckless (low wis) ... (those are just examples, there's plenty more possible explanations for a low attribute).

I actually remember an old system from AD&D2 supplement "Skills and Powers" that separated the 6 attributes into 2 each:
Strength: Stamina/Muscle
Dexterity: Aim/Balance
Constitution: Health/Fitness
Intelligence: Reason/Knowledge
Wisdom: Intuition/Willpower
Charisma: Leadership/Appearance
If I remember correctly you could increase one side at the expense of the other.
It's a neat idea, that individualizes characters even more, while keeping the old 6-attribute habits. However the system can't be applied to Pathfinder as each attribute doesn't represent as many things as they used to, back in AD&D2, which is both a blessing (less bookkeeping) and a curse (less individualization).

The problem is see with full Skillmonkeys that can't do much in combat is:
While everyone else is participating, they are goofing around. But out of combat they expect to have the spotlight on them alone because they want the Monopoly over all that is skill-related.

I like Pathfinder's approach, where everybody has some nifty niche of skills he's good at and can contribute outside of combats.

The charismatic guy might be sweet-talking the noble after the bookworm told him about how to handle the nobles of that specific country. And the sneaky guy uses that time to sleight-of-hand that important letter from the noble's purse. The fighter-guy who refused to have decent mental stats, is talking dice/card-games with the noble's bodyguard to divide that guy's attention, too.

It's up to the DM to give players the opportunity to do skill-related stuff together. But it's up to the players to actually work together as a team when tackling those "skill"-encounters.

I as a DM avoid situations where the rogue goes off to do stuff alone while everybody else gets to sit around and twiddle their thumbs or scream "I aid" without a ROLEplaying explanation.
In th same way I'll try to make sure all people at the table have a way to contribute to most kinds of situations and are all able to do something meaningfull in combat. I'll clearly advise players against pure skillmonkey, because skill-related stuff should be a combined party effort, not a 1 on 1 rogue-DM session. Otherwise you might just run two separate games and avoid the long twiddle-thumbs times for both player-sides.
Also, playing a rogue should not be a "get-out-of-jail-free"-card for being an attention hog.

There are plenty of skill checks that are opposed. People tend to think "skillcheck=perception"...?

There is Bluff vs. Sense Motive, Intimidation (Dazzling Display...), Diplomacy, ...

Knowlegde checks vs weird Monsters, to identify special abilities/immunities, these get harder at higher levels.

Escape Artist vs Grappling.

Healing vs Diseases/Poisons (which can be handcrafted to resist you usual healing magic)

Survival becomes an entirely new challenge once you hit other planes... good old hunting for food isn't possible on half the planes out there, especially the more hostile ones (fire plane and negative plane as obvious examples).

Skills highly depend on what the DM makes of them. Basic combat is easy to do, skilled combat requires more thought/planning from the DM, skill-challenges (yes similar to 4th ed., but they did it wrong, imho: roll=/=role) are fully dependent on the DMs imagination. It's his story after all, you are the heroes of it, but he's providing the villains and world+fluff background. He has got to give you the opportunities to use those skills against increasingly tough opponents.

Skills are more about social and intellectual challenges. If you turn skills into combat-abilities you make them mandatory for all classes, thus killing classes like the good old fighter or barbarian that don't have many skill points. Magic-users can compensate through spells, roguish/ranger classes have the skill points. But I don't think you should boost the rogue by making the fighter/barbarian suck.

To a DM, I can give this advice:
if your players are going into roll-playing instead of role-playing, give them a malus to their skill-check, if they actually give you examples on how they try to outwit their opponent in a diplomatic challenge (talking sense into a local king), give them a bonus to their check. Force your player into ROLEplay to earn their skillcheck. :-)

As a sad example: one fellow player started giving out "Guidance" all day long as soon as we were about to face a situation that might need a skill-check... have that spellcasting turn against him. And make sure player's don't abuse metagaming "I aid for +2", have them explain WHAT they do to provide that +2 or deny the bonus.

Alternately you could point him to the Bard Archetype "Arcane Duelist" which seems to fullfill most of what you want. :-)

Kyoni wrote:

Also I'd say only one weapon get's to channel the spell as you can't hold the charge in two hands, or hold two charges at the same time.

If you're holding the charge (of a touch spell you cast, from the magus spell list) then you have the option to use Spellstrike to deliver it. This doesn't mean you must use Spellstrike to deliver it. Since you have the option, this means one round you can use your sword, another round you can use your hand to touch. You can even switch weapons all you like, and Spellstrike...

Brain-labyrinth...

what I mean is:
If you have 4 hands and use Spellcombat to channel chilled touch, you could not channel 2 touches with one weapon and two more touches with other weapons:

rules wrote:

he can deliver the spell through any weapon he is wielding as part of a melee attack

He get's to choose the weapon, but once chosen, the choice is final.

as in: any _one_ weapon... not _all_ weapons :-)

Or another example: You cast chill touch... can you then channel 1 touch through your main-hand weapon and do the normal touch with your spell-armed hand? Imho: no.

I don't know about RAW... but to me RAI is:

Natural attacks are made with natural weapons and should qualify similarly to spiked gauntlets and "glove"-weapons for feats and class abilities, like they already do for weapon finesse...
they don't for monk's flurry but I believe that's because of the monk's harsh weapon restriction/code, not because natural weapons are not wielded (thus is a RP reason).
Why specify/write a natural-weapon-restriction for Monks, but not for Magi?
It doesn't make sense to allow spiked gloves, but not claws for a Magus. For Monks the reason is role play, just like Druids are limited to non-metal armor, and Clerics are not.

Actually when you read the monk's flurry and spell combat, you'll read that both are full-round/full-attack (and thus mutually exclusive). They both also state that they work "as if using the Two-Weapon Fighting feat" or "much like two-weapon fighting".

Now a monk doesn't get extra attacks for extra limbs on top of flurry, but he does get the extra attack from haste, right?
FoB specifically calls out:

A monk cannot use any weapon other than an unarmed strike or a special monk weapon as part of a flurry of blows. A monk with natural weapons cannot use such weapons as part of a flurry of blows, nor can he make natural attacks in addition to his flurry of blows attacks.

However Spellstrike says:

he can deliver the spell through any weapon he is wielding as part of a melee attack

That would imply that you could actually wield more then 1 weapon if you have extra limbs capable of wielding weapons.

To me Spellstrike+SpellCombat would mean: 1 hand is doing the casting and does no attack.
However you get all other attacks you'd normally get from all other weapons/limbs.

I must admit I don't see how getting an extra attack from haste would make a magus overpowered. Just don't forget to apply the -2 for Spell Combat to all attacks.

Otherwise how do you rule a magus, who has extra limbs/arms... let's say it's a 4-armed race who normally can wield 4 weapons and do multi-weapon-attacks with them? (Or classes that give you extra limbs to wield weapons)

I'd say: He has to dedicate one arm/hand to casting and does the attacks of all other arms as he would normally do, but with an additional -2 to all attacks (and I'd cumulate this with the -2 for multi-attacking).
-2 from Spell Combat
-2 multi-weapon attack
= -4

Also I'd say only one weapon get's to channel the spell as you can't hold the charge in two hands, or hold two charges at the same time.

he can deliver the spell through any weapon he is wielding as part of a melee attack

He get's to choose the weapon, but once chosen, the choice is final.

Holding the Charge: If you don't discharge the spell in the round when you cast the spell, you can hold the charge indefinitely. You can continue to make touch attacks round after round. If you touch anything or anyone while holding a charge, even unintentionally, the spell discharges. If you cast another spell, the touch spell dissipates. You can touch one friend as a standard action or up to six friends as a full-round action.

[u]Alternatively[/u], you may make a normal unarmed attack (or an attack with a natural weapon) while holding a charge. In this case, you aren't considered armed and you provoke attacks of opportunity as normal for the attack. If your unarmed attack or natural weapon attack normally doesn't provoke attacks of opportunity, neither does this attack. If the attack hits, you deal normal damage for your unarmed attack or natural weapon and the spell discharges. If the attack misses, you are still holding the charge.

The rule from "holding the charge" means you don't even need Spellstrike to do Spell Combat with natural weapons: unless you are actively holding a charge, anything you touch gets a "discharge" from the touch spell.

tldnr;
Imho haste gives you 1 extra attack.
One weapon channels your spell and you get a -2 from spell combat.
If you have extra limbs with weapons you get an extra -x from multiweapon fighting on top of -2 from spell combat.
Natural weapons don't use Spellstrike: you only use Spell Combat with "Holding the Charge".

Ok, I hope that my line of thoughs wasn't too messy, sometimes it's a labyrinth. :-)

While a full-attack is a type of full round action, not all full round actions are full-attacks.

While Spell Combat allows a magus to make "all of his attacks with his melee weapon" it's a specific full round action, not a full-attack.

Full-Round Action: A full-round action consumes all your effort during a round. The only movement you can take during a full-round action is a 5-foot step before, during, or after the action. You can also perform free actions and swift actions (see below). See Table: Actions in Combat for a list of full-round actions.

This, to me, means you can use the feat "Dimensional Agility" combined with the "Spell Dance swift action DimDoor" to do a SpellCombatAttack on your enemy you just teleported to.

I'd do:
Round 1 - activate Spell Dance and cast some helpfull spell for me/group (Shock Shield, Impr. Invis, Glitterdust, Wall of [whatever], ...)

Round 2 - swift-DimDoor to the enemy's back and Intensified Shocking touch him with a full attack

... because I have Acid Orb (and can enhance it with my bard songs, neat trick).

... because I _am_ the ranged missile (50ft of movement, 10ft-step and at-will flight: psionic).

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you would piss off people that wanted cute and innocent, just like a pony in a grimdark campaign would irk the ones that want that.

You mean like the my-little-pony-cow-level in diablo 3? ^^

@Umbral Reaver

I get to play a "human" every morning when I get up. ;-P

I enjoy playing that aloof elf or that pranking gnome or that tinkering dwarf or that cleptomaniac halfling. And when I'm done with that, I'll try an uncatchable/unfathomable sylph...

How about keeping the "burned city" part a big city part...

The locals went to get help from the local mage&paladin guild who feel like sending them on a prison-demi-plane? General alignment on that plane would be lawful-evil-ish.

Ok, I know, I'm evil, when I DM an evil campaign... >:-D

I don't think enforcing what is and isn't allowed at the start of a campaign impinges creativity. Why is a minotaurling more creative than an elf?

I've run all halfling games before, because the story was about rescuing halfling slaves from Cheliax. The story has less impact if any player says: "I want to play a psionic half-giant and if you don't let me, you're impeding my creativity."
Why can't a halfling be fun and creative?

I'm not saying it's less creative that one time. But it gets boring as hell when you get to play a halfling thief for the 20th time, because your DM wants to do a halfling campaign and the group in general disallows anything but the core rule book... which means, while you can flavor your character, you'll end up playing the same character that you've played 5 times already.

To make a non-gaming analogy:
wouldn't you be sick of roast-beef at every lunch even if it can with a different sauce and different veggies every time? I would. And I would also be sick of a menu if I have to eat that same menu every monday and that other menu every wednesday. I like new things, I like different flavors and exotic types of food I've never seen or heard of before.

Maybe some people love to go eating at that same fast-food restaurant every day... I'd have to be starving to keep eating the same food over and over and over.

If at the beginning of the campaign the GM makes the themes, races and classes clear the player can then choose to play under those constraints or not. Nobody is making you play in a game. A creative player is creative when he can play anything or when his choices are "must be human and must be a martial class".

I'd probably say: "No thanks, I'm not into bashy-bashy... I'd end up ruining your fun by either optimizing the s~&~ out of a dwarf barbarian (that group dislikes damage-optimized-1hitting-machines) or I'd be playing on my smartphone and not paying attention... because I'd be bored... You'd want neither so you go ahead and play without me."

I must admit that whenever DMs try to push me into Warrior-roles, these characters end up as lawful-stupid-me-bash, no matter how high their int/wis/cha is on the sheet. I know they can be great when others play them, and I can play them myself for a short time as NPCs... but I can never grow attached to them as I do when I get to play some sneaky/caster/weirdo: I think I have run pretty much any multiclass combination of sneaky and caster (arcane/divine/psionic) that's remotely possible.

Edit: To be clear, it's not that I cannot play a human warrior... I can, but I'll never get attached to it. I'll play him like an NPC and thus won't really care about that character.
When you DM an NPC you have a little background and thats it.
When you play a PC you flesh him out in detail and at least I care a lot about my PCs, so a DM with a habit for regular TPW would not sit well with me.

Finally, my Kingmaker sessions are 3-4 hours each. Every minute spent catering to one weird PC is a minute not doing something else. Focus is important as is everyone (GM included) being willing to serve the story. I don't allow homebrew races, and most ARG races for that reason.

I'm not sure why you feel you have to pay special attention to that "weird" guy?

When I DM I usually try to take one thing out of each character's backstory and tie a little gimick around it... usually the choice of traits is a nice target, or something that hits my eye about the character's parents, siblings, former teacher, bullying classmate, ... it keeps my players more. Especially when they put a big red attention plot-hook in their story I try to go with that, but always give it my little twist, I never let them write what's gonna happen for me. :-)

African Greys have been found to have intelligence similar to chimpanzees and dolphins.

Thanks for that little read, I really enjoyed it. :-)

@Icyshadow
I guess the spotlight issue can come up when you happen to have a player who craves attention AND you have a DM who doesn't know how to handle that.

I don't know how often such a combination comes up, but it can come up. If that's the case, allowing custom stuff or not won't change the problem... at that point you are treating the symptoms instead of treating the problem itself.

I say: go creative, that's what Pen&Paper games are about :-) Just make sure everybody is having fun.
8-D

DMs coming up with homebrew stuff, for me, are creative DMs willing to give new ideas and weird approaches a try. That doesn't mean they won't find a way to fix it if that DM realized it doesn't work out.

The biggest thing is, the DM has to be very clear about how your average commoner reacts to those new creatures, or to that guild grabbing power.

Also make sure that players who want to play that cool "uber" race, understand _all_ the implications.

If a player insisted to play a Drow (D&D Forgotten Realms Drizzt version), I'd tell him clearly before the game starts, to expect harrassment in pretty much all fights... his evil siblings are probably helping whatever evil the group is going for and that Drizzt-ish guy can expect to be target number one from enemy perspective... he'll be biting dust often.
I'm fairly sure that while some players might find it cool to be target number one, they'll soon realize how unfun it is to allways be number one down.

Every advantage comes at a price, make sure everybody _knows_ the price, and don't allow them to complain once they realize that they will have to pay the price in full, no discounts.

And while that Drizzt-guy gets spotlight-harrassed in combats, I'll make sure that commoners giving the party intel will be wary of that black-skinned guy, thus the'll gladly talk to the other party-members... but in private, so Drizzt-guy can't hear them. That way the others get sure spotlight in towns.

Usually just explaining this, will either be planned for by all players and expected. Or the player with crazy ideas will tone it down and go for cool/weird without grabbing the spotlight.

On the other hand I don't like it when races are enforced (ie. you have to be all humans, or have to be all monsters). As a DM I like my players to go as creative, as I strive to be with my DMing.
As a player I dislike it when a DM cuts down my creativity and forces me to play "his way"... feels like running a guest NPC, usually I loose interest quickly (getting distracted during the game) or the (N)PC dies some stupid death because I don't care.

Maybe it's a thing about how long you've been roleplaying and what games... playing the same things over and over gets boring, so after a while you want to try something new and different... after that you want to revive some old cool character you loved "back then" and really want to give it another go... Or you get tired of starting as low-level yet again but no DM feels like running an old group that's high level? So you start as highlevel monsters and realize it's just like being lowlevel just with more hitpoint and more damage (might as well play D&D4 at that point, not my cup of tea).

@Icyshadow

would you mind telling what that custom race is, that so irks your ex-DM-now-player?

Just wanted to say that Monster races can be a plain in the back for players, too:

my old D&D3.5 group had a half-dragon-group (DM made the Half-Dragon template mandatory)... right now that campaign is on indefinate hold for lack of general fun.

now another person (we switch DMing, so everybody get to do some) felt like doing a were-tiger campaign: we are all half-elves with the were-tiger template... I asked to leave that campaign after 5 sessions because I simply don't like it at all.

with both monster-games, one of the biggest problems is:
- offensive spells are worthless (the enemies make their saves 90% of the time and Magic Missile does pitiful damage when you are a weretiger with 3 levels of spellcaster)
- healing through anything but items is pointless (and restorations/curing spells too high level)
- the only thing we are really good at, is melee with claws

well that's not totally correct, my weretiger druid (3 levels, yay :-/), was brutal in half-form (large) with a self-made large quaterstaff enchanted with Shillelagh. Still melee though. We were actually squabbling over who gets to stand in the front row as everybody wants to be in the front row: those who are not get to twiddle their thumbs

Oh and as a side-mention: in both campaigns we found out about our "heritage" during the 2-3 session, sucks to be the spellcaster, when you find out.

Inquisitor Level 2 gets: Cunning initiative = add wisdom modifier to initiative

I think there a sorcerer bloodline out there that uses constitution as casting stat... something about orcs?

The one who wants to use the wand has to be the one holding it.

A familiar can try to use a wand by doing a "use magic device" check. But only certain familiars can do that, afaik all of these special familiars need "improved familiar" (feat).

If you want to compare equal spell progressions, you have to take paladin and ranger...

Even with the duration difference, the wording found in other spells would suggest them to replace, not to stack...

Being able to change weapon damage types or materials usually means a straight +3 or +5 equivalent... getting the enhancement on top of that makes Greater Magic Weapon close to useless...

Imho, to make it work as "both" you'd have change the sentence:
...except that it also subtly alters...

I disagree...

Imho "except that" means "except instead":

greater magic weapon is a third level spell... for a second level spell (Versatile Weapon) to duplicate a third level spell and do even more sounds overpowered.

School transmutation; Level cleric 4, paladin 3, sorcerer/wizard 3
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S, M/DF (powdered lime and carbon)
Range close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Target one weapon or 50 projectiles (all of which must be together at the time of casting)
Duration 1 hour/level
Saving Throw Will negates (harmless, object); Spell Resistance yes (harmless, object)
This spell functions like magic weapon, except that it gives a weapon an enhancement bonus on attack and damage rolls of +1 per four caster levels (maximum +5). This bonus does not allow a weapon to bypass damage reduction aside from magic.
Alternatively, you can affect as many as 50 arrows, bolts, or bullets. The projectiles must be of the same kind, and they have to be together (in the same quiver or other container). Projectiles, but not thrown weapons, lose their transmutation after they are used. Treat shuriken as projectiles, rather than as thrown weapons, for the purpose of this spell.

School transmutation; Level bard 2, ranger 2, sorcerer/wizard 3
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S, M (iron filings)
Range close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Target one weapon or 50 projectiles, all of which must be together at the time of casting
Duration 1 minute/level
Saving Throw Will negates (harmless, object); Spell Resistance yes (harmless, object)
You transform the physical makeup of a weapon as you desire. This spell functions like greater magic weapon, except that it subtly alters the physical properties of a weapon, enabling it to bypass damage reduction of one the following types: bludgeoning, cold iron, piercing, silver, or slashing. The affected weapon still inflicts damage of its normal type and its hardness and hit points are unchanged. This spell can be cast on a natural weapon or unarmed strike.

The wording of magic weapon vs greater magic weapon is also a replacement...

The "Calling" weapon property looks like a better replacement then "Returning" for people who'd want the latter... you recall the weapon as a swift action:
So you get your weapon back before the end of your current turn and enemies who try to disarm you are going to be dissapointed. :-)

Don't have to book with me, but I vaguely remember there was an item that lets you do a dimension door and you lightning bolt everything in the path. The DC was low, but so was the price IIRC.

Look at it this way:

it doesn't say that when you go from sorcerer 6 to sorcerer 7, you gain 1 level 1, 1 level 2 and 1 level 3 spell...

it says a sorcerer counting as level 7 for spellcasting has x level y spells... at no time does it say how many spells you gain for level up... only what your total amount of spells IS. And Prestige Classes that increase your spellcasting clearly say they stack with your base class

You are the one substracting the amount of spells a level 7 sorcerer has for a level 6 sorcerer to come up with a progression that isn't there... sure the increases are regular/linear, but nowhere in the rules do they come up with "when you go up in sorcerer you get +x spells".

:-)

When I think of Glitterdust or Fairy Fire, I think of something like this:
picture from a game

I know this is not realistic but then how can you tell what looking straight at an invisible lightsource would be like?
I'd say it's looking at a transparent lightbulb, I tend to see a miniature sun that does not provoke blue spots in my vision instantly...
as glitterdust obviously does not blind people after the inital casting the light is not strong enough once cast, but still strong enough to frame in a "solar-eclipse" style?

If you liked arcane and rogues until now...
why not try an inquisitor?

It would still give you sneakiness and skills and spells and fighting...

does arcane types you played include bards? you might want to try those too? some bard archetypes are less heavy on the music if you are scared by that (some groups do like to tease their players to sing when starting bard songs or stuff like that... I managed to get that under control very quickly though >:-D )

Kyoni wrote:

I <3 spheres back in old AD&D2 days, I used to play clerics all the time back then... now? meh... carbon copies with fluff...

I find allowing a Cleric to spont-cast their domain spells (all of them, no limits except your spell slot amounts) and treating the extra domain slot as just another regular spell slot to be filled or spont-cast away went a long way toward helping with this. Not quite the same, but a step that direction.

Each domain grants a number of domain powers, dependent upon the level of the cleric, as well as a number of bonus spells. A cleric gains one domain spell slot for each level of cleric spell she can cast, from 1st on up. Each day, a cleric can prepare one of the spells from her two domains in that slot. If a domain spell is not on the cleric spell list, a cleric can prepare it only in her domain spell slot. Domain spells cannot be used to cast spells spontaneously.

1) Many people do not like the expected (and most say not-needed) healbot role.

2) Many GM's really encrouch on the players free will because of the religion. "Your god wouldn't allow that." Some is ok and helps immersion. Too much is annoying and frustrating. Even if the GM doesn't do it, some players feel like they should be severly limiting themselves (I do this sometimes).

3) Some that decide to play a full caster want the full on power of a wizard or sorc. The arcane spells have a reputation (deserved or not) that on average they are more powerful.

4) For us old guys that remember the old editions. They weren't very fun back then except being very survivable. The healbot really was necesary. So you couldn't put too much effort into being any other kind of caster unless someone else was willing to be a cleric/healbot at the same time. So they bring back memories of, "Carp, I guess it's my turn to be stuck with the cleric."

Wholeheartedly agree with those first 4. (Never had #5 in my groups)

my 5) Clerics in all editions, except AD&D2, are basically copy&paste no matter what deity you have... sure in 3rd and up you have domains and feats to fluff it a bit. But the impact for wizards choosing their school is waaaay bigger then clerics choosing their god.
In AD&D2 a cleric would get spell lists (plural!) according to the portfolio of the deity (spheres). Basically each domain has 1-3 spells of each level and a cleric gets all domain spells of his deity. Thus a war-god's cleric would have a completely different spell list from an elemental-god's cleric.
I <3 spheres back in old AD&D2 days, I used to play clerics all the time back then... now? meh... carbon copies with fluff...

Are Skirmisher, Urban or Guide ACs of the Ranger allowed in PFS?
Those seem like good choices...?

Bards have too much stuff going on for somebody who wants to limit things to keep in mind (heck I have to re-remind my group about my bard-song all the time).

I strongly vote for any Ranger version.

Personally I'd not take Exra Performance. It's only useful for the first level, mayyyybe second, but that's it. Unless your DM likes big hack&slash dungeons?

Also, Arcane Duelists have to bond with their weapon at level 5.
Are you sure you want to bond with such a big weapon? I'd use a small weapon (ideally one that can be thrown), a ranged weapon or even spiked gauntlets.

Here a non-power idea:

Halfling

trait: river rat (+1 dmg to daggers)

focus your arcane bond on a dagger

Furthermore, an unoptimized rogue is still going to be able to do things that an optimized fighter can't do.

An unoptimized rogue who's heavy on charisma (charlatan archetype) and who wanted to do archery, will have lots of trouble in combat when in the hands of a new player...

Getting sneak attacks with archery is tricky to begin with... on top of that you get -8 to all attacks because you need precise shot & impr. precise shot... most new players aren't even aware such penalties exist.
Take those penalties away (houserule) and you turn the party spellcaster into a death machine with ranged touch attacks.
As such I think it's veeery iportant that the people who know such "traps", help the new players build characters that are good at what that new player had in mind.

Restricting material won't help to keep "optimizers" at similar levels compared to new people.

The biggest problem is when new player thought it's gonna be like "x", but isn't and then either the DM throws them houseruled bones (pissing of others because of favoritism on the way) or the player gets annoyed/discouraged because his character "sucks".

My experience so far has proven that veteran players suggesting stuff to new players is the best way to go.

Simple example I had recently: Player wanting to play a rogue archer... if I hadn't told him about Precise Shot, about the ways to coordinate with our wizard to get sneak attacks (have enemies loose dex), he'd probably be very discouraged by now.
At a point he was still discouraged because the first few encounters were hard to coordinate with our wizard, but right now we are learning to work as a team and it's getting better and easier for him, as we start to know what tactics work well for this team.

Sometimes new players really want some cool idea that simply does not work well in the rules... a GM with a group of new people might say:
- no, can't play that
- ok, I houserule (opening a can of abuse-worms that can backfire, especially if the DM isn't a veteran either)
- ok, I'll make the characters (result: the players play a bunch of NPCs, not fun for me)

In my old group I do play such a DM created NPC... result being that I barely RP because I can't identify myself with that character, the background I was given is veeery brief (3 phrases) and I simply don't know what that character's POV/feelings/opinions are. Since our DM made all characters it's understandable she didn't write out 2 pages of background for 6 characters.
I talked to my DM about my trouble to RP that NPC "right"... result: she now made that character suuuper-important to the campaign and I feel even worse, because my character now has a DM-enforced spot-light, because we found out about a piece of background we didn't know... so it just got worse. :-/ Not only do I still have trouble RPing that character, but now I'm constantly afraid of stealing too much shine-time... and if I drop out I might wreck the entire campaign. I've come to dread her games, I guess I'll have to talk to that DM again to figure out how to fix this mess.

Create Water is amazing.

If you have the money:
muleback cords
ring of sustenance
sustaining spoon

also: travel by night and sleep during sun peak (10am till 6pm) under a desert-tent (sand- and sunproof).

"rope trick" is a neat way to sleep in a hazard-free zone, starting at level 3 (4 for sorcerers)

camels, as said before

I guess a specially made bridle is less of a problem for a horse to sleep with.

By "specially made" I mean one that's similar to those put on horses to ty them to posts while getting cleaned up or saddled.

However saddles actually compress the horse's rib cage. Imagine sleeping in a corset... Or (if you are not a woman) ask your wife/GF/... if she could sleep well with a push-up bra.

Even with training you won't sleep as well... you might not get penalties (endurance), but after a while you will be in a constant bad mood.
Thus it's highly likely that a horse could get unruly, if you keep doing that.

@meibolite

could you talk him into playing a support character?

I found that "powergamers" can be great in groups when they are playing the guy who buffs the rest of the party. Because of him everybody would be performing waaaay better. :-)

Maybe a cleric evangelist or something like that? :D

Maybe downgrade true sight to see invis I've never actually played with access to true sight in PF.

You confer on the subject the ability to see all things as they actually are. The subject sees through normal and magical darkness, notices secret doors hidden by magic, sees the exact locations of creatures or objects under blur or displacement effects, sees invisible creatures or objects normally, sees through illusions, and sees the true form of polymorphed, changed, or transmuted things. Further, the subject can focus its vision to see into the Ethereal Plane (but not into extra-dimensional spaces). The range of true seeing conferred is 120 feet.

sooo... you'd ignore all illusions, all transmutations and can see all incorporeal and ethereal creatures, and ignore darkness

permanently... um, not gonna happen in my games

and if you like some ideas I had for the flavor tricks, you can use them as rogue talents... but bards/etc would get access too

don't forget the feat: Extra Rogue Talent
a bard could get that as soon as he gets the rogue talent feature through that Archetype

gnomersy: No permanent true sight... permanent true sight is a very bad idea, especially as a (su) that's not dispellable.

Ok, here's my suggestion:

All rogues loose "trapsense" (I guess we all agree it's close to worthless).

All rogues gain Ki, like the Ninja.
However: Ninja's key ability isn't charsima any more, instead Ninjas will use wisdom.

Rogues in general will have to choose between 5 flavors:
- swashbuckler (cha)
- assassin (int)
- cutpurse (dex)
- ninja (wis)
- thug (str)

this will settle what their key modifier will be.
Depending on what flavor they choose they will gain special tricks at these levels: 1-4-7-10-13-...
I make this a different mechanic vs rogue talents on purpose... these are supposed to be rogue-only (and bound to a single flavor, worst case the dm and player can always houserule their own flavor according to the background).

swashbuckler
- special attack "piss off", will save: infuriates the enemy, he gets +1 dmg and -2 atk for the rest of the fight (power attack progression)
- charisma to AC for cha-mod rounds, swift action to activate, costs ki-points
- Improved Feint
- Dazzling Display
- Shatter Defenses

cutpurse
- Improved Called Shot
- cut armor straps, 1st hit: armor is considered "donned hastily", 2nd hit: armor entangles, 3rd hit: armor drops to the floor
- disarm: sleight of hand check to disarm opponent as move action

assassin
- study 2 rounds while stealthed, single attack + fort save: drops the enemy to 0 HP
- crit multiplier with finessable one-handed piercing weapons equals your int-mod... if your int is 16 and you use a rapier, it crits for x3 on 18-20
- use poison (no self-poison chance)

ninja
- light-footed: you cannot be tripped and you cannot be tracked by footprints (scent still works)
- ghost: requires light-footed, you cannot be tracked by scent
- see through the fog: pinpoint creatures 2 square away in fog/smoke, no penalty for fog for adjacent squares

I might add more at some point, but that's a start

If you read the entry for undead: •Immunity to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, morale effects, patterns, and phantasms)

[...]
Haunting Mists: Works? Can undead be shaken?

fear is a morale effect, afaik

afaik carrion crown is heavy on undead

undead are mostly immune to mind-affecting stuff

illusions are mostly mind-affecting...

... I think :-)

Full BAB won't help the rogue.

More skillpoints is a bad idea, imho: I want that whole "skill-monkey" concept gone! It's just making the rogue the center of attention out of fights and everybody else just gets bored while the skill-guy does his dice rolls. That's roll-playing, not role-playing.

What I would like to see for the rogue is some kind of skill-tricks that rogues can use in combat. Basically some cross-breed between Ninja Tricks and maneuvers from the Swordsage (Tome of Battle).
Rogues could be choosing a "type" of tricks depending on their flavor:
- swashbuckler (cha to maneuvers): charisma to defense or dazzling tricks
- assassin (int to maneuvers): crit multiplier if he studies his target
- cutpurse (dex to maneuvers): gets to cut laces of armor and disarm with better chance even at high level

something along those lines...