Mergy's page

I'd like to take a crack at this.

I don't agree that they should have spells, but I'd like to add some raw arcane power: let's key a lot of these abilities to Charisma, which strikes me as more akin to biotics anyway. Let's make charging central to the class, and give them lots of goodies when charging. Naturally they should be melee-based, as shotguns in Pathfinder don't work the same way they do in Mass Effect. I also want this class to feel very high risk/high reward, so it should play like a glass cannon that constantly needs to charge his opponents and knock them down.

D10, Full BAB. Good Fort, Poor Ref and Will, 2+Int skills per day.

Acrobatics (Dex), Craft (Int), Escape Artist (Dex), Intimidate (Cha), Knowledge (Dungeoneering) (Int), Knowledge (Planes) (Int), Profession (Wis), Use Magic Device (Cha)

A vanguard is proficient with all martial weapons and with light and medium armour.

1 Arcane Strike
2 Kinetic Charge
3 Mobility Training
4 Kinetic Boost
5 Aggressive Charge I
6 Bonus Feat
7 Mobility Training
8 Vital Strike
9 Aggressive Charge II
10 Bonus Feat
11 Mobility Training
12 Improved Vital Strike
13 Aggressive Charge III
14 Bonus Feat
15 Mobility Training
16 Greater Vital Strike
17 Aggressive Charge IV
18 Bonus Feat
19 Mobility Training
20 Ultimate Charge

Thoughts? I haven't actually run any numbers, but hopefully it's not too weak or too strong. I like the idea of an arcane warrior, but I don't see the vanguard as buffing up or tossing spells.

I'll say that I would appreciate both. The chronicle-less version because it's simple and can be tailored to a specific player's needs; the chronicled version because there is now incentive for the player to meet these needs before it becomes a life or death situation.

Some players will be thinking ahead, but those players don't need this help anyway.

I like Chris Mortika's suggestion of a Danger Room, but what if we DID attach a chronicle to it upon a full completion? Nothing big, more like a minor boon to show that you've successfully navigated the dangers, and to simulate Pathfinder training. Perhaps a one use bonus to knowledge checks?

Naturally this should be something a player can replay until they're successful, with no threat of death.

Good backstory. A power that he has that he can't come to terms with.

Plus as a dark hero it would be great at high tier if that one abilibity that cost him his paladinhood ended up saving a party.

He could still use the ability but it will cost him an attonement.

Just as I wouldn't ever suggest Deadly Sneak to a rogue, I would not suggest a paladin take a feat they aren't allowed to use. Our characters are supposed to be good, not tragic.

If you want to reduce the impact of Point Buy but have the same feel, use arrays.

The elite array is 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8. It's equal to a 15-point buy, and is very well balanced for Pathfinder.

I'm surprised you're not seeing humans though. Extra feat + skill point is usually exactly what I want for my character.

Noted. No coup de grace if it's not in the tactics.

As for attacking a downed foe, how would a mindless undead know to do any different, especially if it can't move that round?

Adam Mogyorodi wrote:

iterative natural attacks

?

Poor word choice on my part.

Fast zombie owlbear has used a claw to down an opponent, and had no one else to thrash nearby for its other two attacks. There were no iteratives, it was just three natural attacks.

Adam Mogyorodi wrote:

In any case, I think the bigger problem is a combat-trained bison for 75 gp. How many level 1 characters can show up with a CR 4 encounter following their commands?

Oh wow. Just looked up the bison. Trample for 2d6+12 at a DC 20 reflex for half. At level 1, as soon as the bison's initiative comes up you just trample everything and win the encounter. That is a crazy effective use of 75 GP.

I'm pretty sure it's a misprint. If you swap the cost of the aurochs with the bison, they both seem a lot more reasonable. However, I'm still wary of player exploitation.

I've attacked a downed character with iterative natural attacks.

It was a fast zombie owlbear who had already taken a five-foot step and therefore had no one else to attack. Do you think I was wrong in my approach?

In any case, I think the bigger problem is a combat-trained bison for 75 gp. How many level 1 characters can show up with a CR 4 encounter following their commands?

I don't think I'm misreading the rules. Check out the chart of available animals in Ultimate Equipment. There are some that have brackets indicating they have a training package, and the hunting cat doesn't have those. Therefore, no tricks.

However, a few people have mentioned the larger problem of just how cheap it is to purchase a combat-trained animal. This is the issue that should be discussed I think, because the gamebreaking nature of a bison or tiger is really not in the spirit of Society play.

I thought it was the shadow mastiff as well.

You know that evil alignment isn't just because it cheats at cards, right?

I understand that you don't want to kill a player's character that they probably worked hard on, especially in so inglorious a fashion.

However, I would personally be insulted if my character was saved by the GM deciding that THIS dog in particular likes to spend thirty seconds running circles around my dying body. I don't want my life to be saved by the whims of the GM. I want my own good playing to do that, and if the dice happen to be against me, so be it: I'll make a new character and have learned something.

Hungry animal? It eats! At most it would drag the body somewhere, but not for very long, and not in a way that makes it EASIER for the character.

Evil outsider? They REALLY like to kill things. If you don't give it a threat nearby, you had better believe it'll kill.

Random human? Maybe not. Hostages are pretty useful.

An animal can wait. It has all the time in the world to do whatever it's planning if nobody else is around.

For the sake of the player not losing a character to a completely helpless situation, it's worth finding any excuse.

It wasn't a helpless situation until they got knocked unconscious. Furthermore, I don't know of any animal that would wait to eat until enemies showed up to try to take its dinner away.

I try not to softball my games, and that includes looking for reasons not to kill a character when every sign points to killing the character as the most logical thing for the creature to do.

As written in the FAQ, nope. One rank = one trick, and the general purpose includes six tricks. The time limit of six weeks for the general purpose training is there to show that you are essentially training your animal six times.

I didn't mention this in my last post, but your character ALSO needs to invest themselves in Handle Animal in order to manage the DC 20 training check.

Let's take a fighter at level 1. He gets Handle Animal as a class skill, and with a rank and a 10 charisma (generous for a fighter) can pull off +4. With the training harness from the ARG he can get a +6, which means he cannot reliably train his animal to attack. To do that, he could invest Skill Focus and a 12 charisma, or another combination of feats, traits and stats. However, that's resources he's using to make use of that 100 gp leopard.

I will still call it a powerful option for someone who is dedicated to the task. Overpowered? Possibly, with a permissive GM and an adventure that doesn't force the leopard to need tricks like Heel and Stay.

Outsiders don't need to eat, but they do like to.

I fully support an enemy finishing off the only alive person in the vicinity. This applies if they've run because of a fear spell, or they've retreated because the encounter was too difficult.

Tactics don't cover everything. If a player is being yo-yo'd, if the healer has been WAY too effective, or if there is absolutely nothing for the enemy to do but finish off a downed opponent, then it's a viable option.

From the entry, it's not trained for combat, so it would require a DC 20 Handle Animal check to teach it to attack, and you could only train it a number of times per session equal to your ranks in Handle Animal. Personally, I do Handle Animal only at the end of a session.

Let's see how this plays out!

So in the first session, your beastmaster has an untrained cat. How's your Handle Animal skill? You need to hit a DC 25 to get it to do anything, and it's a full-round action each time you try! Anyway, you get past that so you can teach it 'Attack' as its first trick known.

By the start of your second session, your beastmaster has taught it the Attack trick. It can now attack things and nothing else. It will do a decent amount of damage, but don't try to take it anywhere scary without that DC 25 push to make it heel. Don't try to leave it anywhere interesting either, as it may just run off chasing screaming townsfolk. Lastly, don't try to get it to attack anything unnatural, because it won't! Moving on, let's make sure it follows us by teaching it to heel.

By your third session, you've managed to get the kitty to follow you into scary dungeons, and you can get it to attack things, all with a move action spent to make a (relatively) easy DC 10 or DC 12 Handle Animal check. I hope you don't encounter undead, because kitty still won't listen to you without that DC 25.

By level 2, you have taught the little guy three tricks, and they are likely Attack, Attack, and Heel. I really hope the kitty doesn't get crit at any time, or your hard work is down the toilet. Furthermore, kitty's usefulness window is shrinking: by the time you get to the 3-4 sub-tier, his numbers are looking a lot worse. By the time you're at 4-5, he's the equivalent of a summoned monster.

With a lot of effort, you can make it pretty scary. I don't view it as a problem, necessarily. Have you seen this at work? Did a player go through the training steps, and is the kitty being controlled by the GM (as NPCs should be controlled)?

So it is shocking? Put me down for 'not the MOST optimal choice, but certainly not the worst'. An extra 3.5 damage per hit is nothing to sneeze at, and electricity is not resisted often except by all the things you seem to have fought in the last short while.

Avoid hitting shambling mounds with it, by the by.

Personally, I never want to see a magus pregen. Can you imagine a brand new player trying to figure out Spell Combat? People have enough trouble with Valeros' two-weapon fighting.

I know this has been mentioned already to some degree or another, but I agree that PCP is actually more likely to cause social pressure to play up than already exists. As it stands right now, I don't have a lot of problems playing down because I know I might play up in the next mod and the wealth is a wash. But with PCP all you can do is lose wealth. You can never regain it. So the pressure to play up is a lot higher.

Agreed. A mixed party of level 2s and 4s in a 1-5 will have both sides clamouring for their subtier, because there is no advantage to them playing up or down. I think more pressure, not less, is the result in a lot of gamespaces.

Not every gamespace is like yours. Not everyone will respond well to being told they need to play a pregen, or not play the character they have been waiting to play. That doesn't make them bad people either.

You would still be removing incentive to folks playing down as they would still be taking a hit if they play up in order to "catch up"...

In that case, there is the option to give 1/2 xp to players playing down, to show their lack of challenge.

Downsides to this include farming of prestige, and absolute confusion for players playing down in slow track (1/4 xp is officially ludicrous).

Giving a level 5 character playing down in a subtier 1-2 scenario the tier 4-5 rewards is a HORRIBLE idea. We will have the opposite problem where all higher level characters will want to play down, dominating their scenarios and not leaving a challenge for the characters in the appropriate subtier.

This would also be a problem with "fixed" payscales. Players in the higher subtier would always want to play down. (Ok, not always, as some players will like the challenge, but...) They get "paid" the same but less risk playing down.

I didn't catch it earlier in this thread, but I will this time.

This is, by the title, a thread for brainstorming. Please do not call any ideas horrible, terrible, stupid, etc.; do not say that proposed ideas make no sense, or that the poster must have been drinking. Nothing of that nature is conducive to brainstorming.

Then you schedule a night specifically for 1-5. You schedule the next game day specifically for 3-7. And you continue. This gives everyone a heads up of what is scheduled, when it is scheduled, and they plan accordingly. If someone can't play in one game session out of four, that is not necessarily a bad thing. This allows everyone at the game day to play a character they created, and to even plan balanced parties and the like.

Mike, I feel like the solution you're giving could be utilized keeping the WBL options in scenarios exactly the same. I also truly feel that this option will cause more animosity, while powergamers still play up whenever in mid-tier. There is still a vast amount of gold to be achieved by playing at level 3 in a 4-5 three times, playing at level 5 in a 6-7 three times, and playing a level 7 in a 5-9 three times.

The solution proposed on the podcast won't stop that. However, if you give a player 2 xp when they play up from low tier or mid tier, you are eliminating one of those advantageous sessions, while at the same time letting Rainydayninja's new players catch up with the older players. You are reducing the WBL exploitation while allowing catch-up, and all without the very disadvantageous slow track.

Alright RE, I'm going to log this down using a 1-5, 3-7, 5-9, and 7-11:

(Numbers are approximate, as I'm only opening up a single chronicle sheet; Scenario names are in the spoilers)

1-5

1-2: 520 - 520/xp
4-5: 1904 - 952/xp

3-7

3-4: 1309 - 1309/xp
6-7: 3260 - 1630/xp

5-9

5-6: 2512 - 2512/xp
8-9: 5512 - 2756/xp

7-11

7-8: 4342 - 4342/xp
10-11: 8053 - 4026.5/xp

So the advantage is only really to 1-2 players playing up. Even then it's only a minor advantage, and they could easily die based on their wimpy hit points at that level. Everyone else ends up with negligible advantage, but is still able to get up and out of that subtier so they can play with their higher-level friends.

I really like the extra experience + gold idea for playing up. Being the guy with the level 2 while everyone else has a level 4 sucks, and this would reward the brave level 2 while also moving them swiftly out of the lower tier.

So if Osirion gets cut, should we expect mass ritual suicides of Osirion members before the deadline?

AKA, getting The Risen before it's too late! :)

Thistledown: If it's season 0-3 and there are six of them, their APL is one higher. It is POSSIBLE that their APL can round up to 9 and they have the option to play up.

If it's season 4 and the highest is level 8, they do not have the option. If there are any whiners, show them what they missed: after the game is over, run the final fight at high tier as an exhibition game (no risk of death, no rewards for success), and see if any of them change their minds. :)

To combine with DM_Blake's idea, move into the Noble Scion prestige class! Your cohort can be more powerful, and you gain a second NPC class cohort whose only job is to run errands for you.

Move your 2 into wisdom and be completely nuts. :D

This is a response to a number of rules question threads that have been started in this forum. If you're asking how different rules interact with each other, this is not the place for it. The only exception to that should be if PFS has a campaign rule that messes with the way the rules usually work.

Crafting being banned in PFS, how does a wizard's bonded object work?

Can I make a trip manoeuvre as someone gets up from prone in PFS?

With very few exceptions, if your question is just a rules question with 'in PFS' tacked onto the end of it, please move it to the rules forums where it belongs.

Synthesist is your best friend right now.

That, or committing suicide by elf. Then telling the GM to stop being a tool.

I'm going to run this tomorrow and I am planning to play around a little loose on the death attack. I agree completely at no point should a character die from a death attack in this scenario. Just how I view it. However I want to develop the theme she's a bit older and maybe she doesn't realize she's not as powerful as she used to be. I'm going to let her get a death attack in, however because she's weaker now, if it hits, it's only going to paralyze the PC, if they make it it will leave a smoking hole in their shirt. The players don't know about her limitations, so the sheer "OH *&%^" of that happening I feel would really add some excitement to the encounter. At worst one of the melee guys is paralyzed for a bit while all hell is breaking out. I would like them to enter the shop and find an old lady smiling and offering them tea and snacks. I'd love to be able to RP them into a false sense of security then BAM. I think it would create a great moment that they would talk about. Just my thoughts on it.

Please don't change the encounters. I understand you're trying to make it fun for your players, but this is not the way to do it.

I like the smoking hole idea, so long as the mechanical effects include the death attack not working at all.

3. The "failure is good for you" is another ad hominem, lacking merit and accuracy. See the above about character death. More to the point, characters will still fail faction missions. Adding an option for a second more difficult faction mission means more failure, not less.

That's not what ad hominem means.

The 7 int = IQ 70 is fundamentally flawed. You're assuming that because a 10 intellect and an IQ of 100 are both considered average, therefore it's the metric system all the way down.

There's no reason the scale has to be like that. As others have said, a character with a 7 intellect has a -2 penalty to knowledge skills, and lost a few skill points. That just seems to me like a poor memory.

Here is the way I would fix rogues.

Combine the ninja class and the rogue class to make... the rogue! Instead of a Ki pool, call it Guile. Done.

Kerney wrote:

That said, I live in an area where the VO's are often not the lead at a given event. If this person is playing is playing in such an area, can such a ban be enforced?

I believe that Mike has already confirmed that VCs/VLs have no power over games they are not running/organizing. In this way, they're no different than anyone else.

We have nicer shirts.

But what is dreching her in evil can stop a worse evil?

Some paladins believe in no compromises. That is not a code to be taken lightly, but I respect a character that is willing to accept death before dishonour.

He wants a PFS character. By level 10 his career is nearly over. Most Society characters don't reach Seeker levels.

Pounce makes full attacks almost always possible, except when the charge lane is blocked, which happens all too often. I'm not saying that Beast Totem is a bad line, because it's an amazing line. However, it's ridiculous to say that a barbarian that doesn't take a rage power cannot still function well.

Anyway, advice thread! Give the OP some advice to help his character, and try to actually keep to the restrictions he set. Otherwise you're giving useless advice, because he isn't going to take it.

You guys are not really helping. If someone posts asking for advice and then SPECIFICALLY SAYS that he doesn't want to choose option A, try not to force it down his throat.

Here's my attempt:

Reckless Abandon: This makes up for the penalty from Power Attack, and if you're going to be swinging one big weapon, you don't want to miss.

Raging Leaper: This is a ho-hum choice on its own, although by mid-levels expect to be able to jump as far as you can run. What it's mainly for is as a prerequisite for—

Bestial Leaper: This is Spring Attack for barbarians, except you're allowed to Vital Strike with it. For the big honkin' hit build, it's what you want. The downside is you still take the attack of opportunity, but that's what your DR is for!

Another way you could go is the Overrun build. It's actually quite effective in PFS, where a large number of fights involve multiple humanoids:

Overbearing Advance: You now do damage whenever you overrun someone. You are a mini-trample monster as you move up to your enemy, and hopefully they're prone by the time you get there.

Overbearing Onslaught: You may now overrun multiple targets. Knock down all the mooks for your party members, and then finish close enough to full attack the boss next round! Combine with Greater Overrun and Combat Reflexes to take an attack of opportunity against every foe you knock down!

If you're multiclassing so you can have 10 minutes of higher intellect, and you're spending two rounds softening up a single target, I think you've broken things the wrong way.

I really don't see an issue. Heart of the Fields hasn't been legal for ages, and the Additional Resources page has said so.

Before you make a character, check out the Additional Resources you're using and cross-examine with the page to see what's not legal. If you have friends who are cheating (knowingly or unknowingly), they may find themselves without a legal character if they encounter a GM who knows the rules. You're saving yourself a headache by making your characters legal now.

As for your elf not being allowed to have darkvision: that's because elves in Golarion with darkvision are drow or have drow ancestry, and those people don't become Pathfinders. That's Golarion canon.

You don't craft your bullets, but you can buy them at the price at which you could craft them. Buy your bullets and powder at 1/10th the cost, and your alchemical cartridges at 1/2 the cost.

There is some very cool 3rd party stuff out there. Unfortunately, it's very hard to adjudicate what 3rd party stuff should and should not be in an organized play game. Not to mention Paizo would likely need to pay for the rights to use it in their organized play game, and GMs would need to familiarize themselves with non-Paizo material.

Luckily, it's very easy to make awesome characters with even the most basic material. Otherwise, check out the Additional Resources page to find out what other items are legal in organized play.

Adam Mogyorodi wrote:

So a bunch of low levels played up to a 6-7, and you were disappointed that some of the character builds weren't functioning?

This thread makes me sad. You're complaining about someone behind their back when you could instead be working with him to improve his build.

If you're going to whine about not getting into a group that's playing UP then you better be ready to play UP and you better not cheap out and think that someone else is going to do your job because you won't spend 100gp to buy some decent ammo. Don't show up with your lackluster skills and take the spot of someone who's actually competent unless you are going to pull your own weight.

Elitism. You have someone who you feel wasn't pulling his own weight, and rather than help him you're whining about him on the forums. I'm using the word whining because if he whined to play, you're certainly doing so after the fact.

Does this attitude suck? If you are the player who is dragging everyone else down, then sure, my attitude sucks. Do I want to play with someone who isn't up to snuff? Heck no. Some people pull their own weight and some people don't make an effort and could cost your PCs life. Guess what, I don't want to play with a player who isn't making an effort and that's my prerogative.

You don't have to play with him. However, it's not your prerogative as a player to keep him out of a public game, even if you believe he 'isn't up to snuff'.

Its not his build, he could have bought some decent bullets for a 100gp and been ready to rock out, with his knock out. (Yes, I know the real saying.) I'm realizing now that its not the build that was the issue, it was his cheapness and inability to grow with the game.

I'm not seeing a lot of growing with the game from you either. If you feel you're better than this guy, then work with him. Don't come to the forums to tell us how bad a new or inexperienced player is.

So a bunch of low levels played up to a 6-7, and you were disappointed that some of the character builds weren't functioning?

This thread makes me sad. You're complaining about someone behind their back when you could instead be working with him to improve his build.

I believe the OP has left. You all can stop saying the same thing over and over again.

Be patient with a full-time teacher who has 15-odd things to read and judge. He certainly hasn't forgotten about it, and he's getting to it.

Rogues get sneak attack?

Not very often, no.