Mischief Mondragon's page

However the rest of the writing is garbage.

Hi Joey,
Good luck it can be a great place to meet new players. I would suggest reading the Guide to Organized play, it should answer most of your questions. Link to Guide

Edit: Ninja'd

How are you taking Natural Spell at 5? The prerequisite is wildshape which as a Shaman you don't get until 6th level.

My favorite use was when a rolling ball of stone was coming down the sewer at us. My character summoned a pit under some mooks, they fell in followed shortly by a 8 foot diameter ball of stone. Handled the mooks and the trap.

Trapper Ranger - Gains trapfinding and disable device.
Freebooter Ranger - Buffs allies.

Actually, we discovered something funny. One cannot cast featherfall on themselves when caught by a trap and falling anyway! According to RAW, ff characters can't take an immediate action! And the wording makes it seem that the spell can only be cast on other characters already falling.

._______. Can I find the writers of this spell and shake them up a bit?
>..c o..<

Immediate Action: An immediate action is very similar to a swift action, but can be performed at any time—even if it's not your turn.

Evangelist Cleric turns the Cleric into a Bard (with delayed channel energy as a bonus) with low skills.

Ok, umm yeah that's odd. Seriously, my wife just called me and told me that exact story. Now I have to find out more about her work friend to find out how that info got to her. Because yeah, that's practically verbatim what she told me lol

If it actually checks out that would be interesting, but I would assume that your wife's friend was playing a prank. First time I heard the story I thought it was true, but then heard it again a couple weeks later from someone else and had to go investigate.

Sorry have to call BS on this one:
http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/humor/a/troll_in_the_closet.htm

Heard the same story when my wife worked for the census.

This is the best thing I have heard all day.

I asked this elsewhere but in interest of it being seen. Please consider doing a flip map for the last and therefor odd level of the spire. Having maps for all but one level is kind a bummer. Thank you.

With the blank map on the back would be great.

For those at the Buddy or Guild level, will there be a way to enter multiple emails and Paizo.com accounts so that the pdf rewards are linked to the correct users?

Smurfy day to you all.

How much extra for the print materials to be autographed by the authors?

That would be a great stretch goal.

Awesome, thanks for clarifying. I knew it would get cleared up eventually.

Hi Mark,

Go here: Gamer Connection and click Add New Thread.

this might be more of a rules question for unarmed fighting, but i'm also interested in this moms to brawler build, so i figured this would be a decent spot after Mischief Mon pointed me in this direction.

so is this build stuck with having to use AoMF like all unarmed monks, or since he won't be using flurry can you enchant a gauntlet and use that for your unarmed strikes since it's in the 'unarmed weapon' section. do unarmed feats and whatnot apply to that given the weapon is an 'unarmed weapon?' I'm not sure how all that would match up.

thanks in advance for any insight

This build will be able to use the Brawler enchantment from the Ultimate Equipment on the light armor (5100 gold total cost for mithral shirt with +1 enchantment and Brawler). This gives an untyped +2 to hit, damage, and CMB on grapples. This also counts as making your unarmed strikes magical. It also stacks with the enhancement bonus from AOMF if you choose to get that. You could also use the enchantment on your AOMF to get flaming or some other enchantment. You can also get the acid gloves from the Ultimate Equipment (I think they are 8000 gold) which add 1d6 acid damage to unarmed strikes. Remember with Unarmed Fighter or Brawler Fighter you lose weapon training so you can't benefit from Gloves of Dueling (at least in PFS, you might be able to convince your GM in a home game).

Here is a DPR calculation I did for the build at 10th level:

mind if i pick your brain a little more about unarmed fighting?

i'm just wondering what weapon you plan on using and what feats you'll be looking to pick up.

i've never been real clear on what unarmed can use. since there's only the two weapons in the 'unarmed' category, are those the only options to wear to be able to enchant and whatnot? it seems weird that things like brass knuckles wouldn't be useable.

in terms of feats, i'd love to use your starting point and then pick up imp grapple and greater grapple while also looking to just improve my unarmed damage. i guess my questions are, do you think that's feasible, or will it just leave me kind of lame in both areas, and my other would be what feats for unarmed damage are usually focused on (weapon focus, power attack?)?

thanks in advance if you notice this and have the time.

Hi elgabalawi,

I would suggest using unarmed, which means unarmed strike. Using anything else does not scale with monk levels like unarmed strike does. Have some other weapon to use for those times when you need to penetrate DR.

So good news. I heard back from the GM and he told me that his problem was not with my build but with how to challenge him with the restrictions in PFS. I think this is now a non-issue so thanks to everyone for the feedback. I think the advice to communicate with the GM is the best place to start. I likely over read the intent of the initial email, so glad it worked out.

doh. forgot about the +1 while in crane and was just thinking about the advantage to fighting to defensively.

if you have a second, i'd love to hear your thoughts on what drew you to brawler as opposed to unarmed fighter.
thanks.

Brawler is better with straight up unarmed damage. Unarmed fighter is more of a wrestler than a boxer.

one more question (again because i'm liking the sound of what you're doing and have been thinking about what kind of unarmed i wanted to try recently).

just a stats question. with the 18 AC, does that mean you're starting with an 18 dex? and if so, i'm just curious as to what you were able to get your strength up to with that.
thanks in advance.

My strength is 19 17 + 2 human bonus

AC is +3 Dex +1 Natural Armor (Monk of Sacred Mountain) +1 dodge for dodge = 15

Then fighting defensively: +1 more dodge (crane style) +2 defensive fighting = 18

I have a quick question about your feat progression (because i love it and might use it). in order to take crane wing as your monk of many styles bonus feat, i assumed that you had to already have dodge and that taking dodge at that level would not count towards the prereq for crane style yet (which you would need to fulfill since you are taking it as your general lvl. 1 feat as opposed to using your many styles bonus feat for it).

please tell me i'm wrong :-)

Only works for human due to the feats. Level 1: Dodge, Crane Style (human bonus), Crane Wing (monk bonus). Level 2: Crane Riposte (monk bonus).

You can take a prerequisite feat at same level as the next feat. For example level 1 fighters often take both power attack and cleave.

The real question is whether or not you're preventing the other characters from playing their game. Are you untouchable and uber powerful so that you single handedly knock out most bad guys before the poor fighter with 2d6+9 cleaves or barbarian raging at 22 strength have a chance to charge? Are you blocking choke points and not letting anyone through, from either side, while whittle away at a room full of bad guys with 1d6+0 at +2 attack?

[snip]

Not sure about how the others felt, though they all got a chance to shine. For example the wizard with +13 to initiative took out the two enemies in one encounter before anyone even acted with scorching ray. Really the low damage my character puts out unarmed he is not going to outshine any dedicated damage dealer. Yes at this moment I may be nearly untouchable but I wouldn't say I am über powerful.

If you wear any armor, don't you lose the Wisdom bonus to AC?

You do indeed lose Wisdom to AC as well as flurry of blows in armor. However, my wisdom is 10 and I lose flurry of blows with the Master of Many Styles archetype. I planned all along to take the Brawler fighter archetype after level 2 so my character is not the flowing skillful martial artist type of unarmed fighter (i.e. Monk) but a get in your face smash you in the mouth type of unarmed fighter. What the two monk levels did was gain me initial training in how to fight unarmed, which I then took to become a more rough and tumble warrior.

Area-effect attacks are also going to take down high AC characters. How good are your saves? Even if you only take half damage each round, you are still getting pounded.

I also have to disagree with AC 18 being "not that heinous". For a fighter-type or a high-dex rogue, AC 18 is not that difficult at 1st level:
- Dex 14 (+2), Scale Mail (+5, 50gp), and a buckler(+1,5gp) (my 1st level cleric had this)
- Dex 18 (+4), Studded leather (+3, 25gp), Dodge (+1)

After one scenario, my halfling warslinger upgraded her armor and ended up with Dex 16 (+3), Breastplate (+6, 200gp), Defender of the Society (trait, +1 in medium or heavy armor) for a total of 20 AC at first level. Not only was she still "hittable", she was not the highest AC in the party.

YMMV, I guess.

. !

My saves are decent as a monk, though I traded out evasion as a Monk of the Sacred Mountain for 'Iron Monk" which gives me toughness as a free feat and +1 Natural Armor Bonus. I agree 18 is not very high. At level 3 when I take one level of fighter I will have mithral shirt for another +4 to armor and I will have 3 ranks in acrobatics so I will get another +1 dodge when fighting defensively so:

Level 2 fighting defensively 18 AC, when not fighting defensively 15 AC.
Level 3 fighting defensively 23 AC, when not fighting defensively 19 AC.

Not great but with the Crane Style blocking one melee attack per round somewhat more survivable.

I will point these things out, but I am worried that if he is thinking my character is already broken what will happen at level 3 when i take a level in fighter (Brawler Archetype) and learn Dragon style and TWF and at level 4 when I have the Fame and gold to buy +1 Mithral Shirt with the Brawler enchantment (+1 to hit and +3 damage to unarmed strike). Then I will have good AC, can deflect one attack, and hit for decent damage (still not equal to the Paladin two-handing power attack for 2d6 +9).

That is really cool, but still not broken to me. Of course, you have to play with your GM so his view is the one that counts :)

I agree that his view counts, but really with PFS it is the rules that count more, and I don't think I have violated any. My trick is to get the GM's impressions to line up with what the PFS leadership says is fair or not. I just worry that building a character that is less optimized for defense will get that character rapidly killed at higher tiers. It would be like saying that since I can't hit the full-plate armor wearing paladin at level 1-3 he should start wearing scale. Might make it more exciting at lower levels, but at higher levels that paladin is doomed.

I try to live by the "Don't be a Jerk" rule when playing Pathfinder. Now what I am having trouble with is that this is for PFS where play will vary a bit by who is GMing. Additionally, the effectiveness of the crane style will vary by scenario and as I move up tiers single attack enemies will become less frequent so the effectiveness of it will decrease over time. What I need to do is convince the GM I usually play with (and perhaps others if they feel the same way) that it is a very effective ability in SOME situations, but comes with corresponding decreases. For example, rather than doing crane style I could have went Dragon Style (which I plan to soon) at level 1 which would have significantly upgraded my damage output.

Also, don't you have to be 5th and 7th level to take those advanced Crane Style feats? That may be it, although I'm no monk expert.

As a Monk of Many Styles you can use your monk bonus feats to take any style feat you have the base style feat for, ignoring all other prereqs. So I used my first level human feat to take dodge, then my first level normal feat for Crane Style, monk bonus at 1st to take Crane Wing and 2nd level bonus to take Crane Riposte.

AC is 18 when in crane style, no incorrectly stacked bonuses. Again it is likely the PFS constraints driving the tactics to some degree rather than a GM flaw on how the NPCs are behaving. I also tend to use the terrain pretty well to bottle neck the baddies so they have to get past me. However, there was a paladin that had 25 AC and was hitting like a truck that didn't cause the stir that my monk who hit much less like a truck made.

Hi Jodokai,
Thanks for the feedback. I sent him an email earlier today that outlined those points, hopefully it is effective. The truth is a monk is far from optimized even when optimized. I can min-max pretty well, but I imagine that if I made a switch-hitting optimized ranger or tank paladin the Gm would be fine with it since it is something most GMs have run into. The auto-block/riposte is a new mechanic and I think it might take getting used to. I think his major concern is that PFS is so inflexible that he feels he won't be able to do anything about it. I feel that as the tiers increase I will be running into a lot more NPCs that have more than one attack per round, or use ranged, or spells which I can't defend as well against.

Sorry, didn't notice the 5 sessions thing. Looks like you are at least temporarily pooched.

Yah, he is second level. I don't think I am breaking any rules and since it is PFS I can still play the character, my concern is mostly over perceptions of it being a broken character. If the GM thinks the character is broken, I really don't want to play the character (even though I really like playing him). So I can either address the GM's concerns or stop playing the character or go elsewhere to play him (not really an option).

Hi All,

I recently started playing PFS (5 sessions so far) and the first time I played my character (a unarmed fighter) I focused on being offensive and in one scenario was dropped into the negatives 4 times. I went back to the drawing board and created a more defensive unarmed monk taking the Master of Many Styles and Monk of the Sacred Mountain archetypes. My feats are as follows:

Level 1: Dodge (human), Crane Style, Crane Wing (Monk Bonus)
Level 2: Crane Riposte (Monk Bonus).

The Many Styles allows me to ignore the prereqs for the style feats as long as I have the required overall style (thus Crane Style). Now he can not only ignore one melee attack per round that hits him, he can punch back. Now not only have I not gone into negatives, I haven't been hit. Therein lies the problem and the reason I am here for advice.

The PFS GM I play with is concerned about the inability so far to hit my character. I don't want to ruin the fun for anyone, much less the GM(s) I am now and in the future would play with. Is this character broken? A full-plate wearing Paladin will not only be all around harder to hit, it would do more damage and hit more often. I personally, think the build is fine since it comes with drawbacks (-1 to hit when fighting defensively, which is required when in Crane Style, less damage then pretty much any other type of attack, lower HPs than other front-line fighters), but am I just biased? If it isn't broken but the DM I play with thinks it is what should I do? Any advice is appreciated.

Congratulations John. John is literally the on GM for PFS I have had and every session (3 so far) has been great.

-Jordan

Thanks.

Hi All,

So my question is that the Evangelist Cleric Sermonic Performance reads:

An evangelist gains the ability to deliver a select number of supernatural and spell-like performances through the force and power of her divinely inspired preaching and exhortation. This ability is similar in all respects to bardic performance as used by a bard of the same level (including interactions with feats, spells, and prestige classes), using Perform (oratory) as the evangelist’s performance skill. However, an evangelist gains only the following types of bardic performance: countersong, fascinate, and inspire courage at 1st level; inspire greatness at 9th level; and inspire heroics at 15th level.
Sermonic performance replaces the 1st-, 9th-, and 15th-level channel energy abilities. This caps the cleric’s channel energy damage at 7d6 points.

Does this mean that at 7th level he will be able to start a performance as a swift action as would a bard of 7th level?

Thanks everyone for the rapid response.

Hi All,

I am fairly new to PFS and had a question about purchasing from Chronicle Sheets. Say an item appeared on a Chronicle Sheet that I did not have the gold to buy at the moment, but three sessions later I did. Could I then buy it from the previous Chronicle Sheet? That is, once we have something on a previous sheet does it become always available to that character or does it have to be bought that session?

Thanks.

Hi TG,
Sorry didn't have a chance before to really look into it. I really like the build, and think I might steal some of it. However, I see my character as more of a big strong (dumb) beast of fighter rather than a dexterous bob and weaver. Once I hit 4 I will be buying Brawling (+2 damage and to hit for unarmed) armor so will lose the wisdom bonus to AC, so a high wisdom won't be a huge help.

Drago (Monk 3 (Master of Many Styles/Monk of Sacred Mountain), Fighter 7 (Brawler)

His average DPR in Dragon Style when not in Crane Style is 69.14, when in Crane Style it is 64.05

I didn't mean for adding the enhancement bonus from weapon (as I read only disarm, sunder, and trip can apply weapon enhancements, weapon focus, etc.) but rather if I could use a reach weapon to hit someone in the groin.

Can you use the Dirty Trick maneuver with a weapon?

Is the loss of two more fighter levels going to be a problem?

Two questions:

1. What are the consequences in PFS of changing my alignment from Lawful Neutral to true neutral to take the level in Barbarian? Since I won't be taking any more Monk levels it shouldn't be a big deal should it?

2. What abilities would I be unable to perform while raging? Could I still fight defensively and use style feats?

Gallo suggested that I take a third monk level to bump up the base attack of unarmed strike with Monk's Robe, it would also allow me to take Monastic Legacy to increase it further. Now this would result in my feats being out of order at level 12 (no bonus fighter feat) so I couldn't take Greater TWF. Now an option would be to take one level in monk and another in a different full BAB class to have my 8th level Fighter feat at 12th to get Greater TWF. The only class that would be reasonable would be barbarian. What do you think of the following build?

Monk1: Dodge, Crane Style, Crane Wing (Monk Bonus)
Monk2: Crane Riposte (Monk Bonus)
Fighter1: TWF (Fighter Bonus), Dragon Style
Fighter2: Weapon Focus (unarmed)
Fighter3: Dragon Ferocity
Fighter4: Weapon Spec (unarmed)
Fighter5: Improved TWF
Fighter6: ??
Monk3: Monastic Legacy
Fighter7:
Barb1: Extra Rage
Fighter8: Greater TWF

What I would lose from not having 10 levels of fighter would be 1 Bonus Feat and the Brawler ability No Escape (see description below). I would gain fast movement X2 (once for monk at 3 and once for barbarian at first), more base damage with unarmed, and some rage (12 rounds with extra rage feat). With monk's robe and monastic legacy I would be doing 2d6 unarmed versus 1d8 with just monk's robe). Do you think the positives outweigh the negatives?

No Escape:
At 9th level, taking a 5-foot step out of the area of a brawler’s menacing stance or moving out of the area of a brawler’s menacing stance with a withdraw action provokes an attack of opportunity from the brawler.

I was also thinking of flipping the Monk levels to the beginning to qualify earlier for Crane Riposte:

Monk1: Dodge, Crane Style, Crane Wing (Monk Bonus)
Monk2: Crane Riposte (Monk Bonus)
Fighter1: TWF (Fighter Bonus), Dragon Style
Fighter2: Weapon Focus (unarmed)
Figher3: Dragon Ferocity

This would mean a two level delay before two-weapon fighting, but the defense would be really good out the gate, with the ability to counter attack once per round with Crane Riposte at 2nd level rather than 8th since with MoMS you don't need the prerequisites other than the style feats.

Prerequisites: Crane Style, Crane Wing, Dodge, Improved Unarmed Strike, base attack bonus +8 or monk level 7th.

Benefit: You take only a –1 penalty on attack rolls for fighting defensively. Whenever you use Crane Wing to deflect an opponent’s attack, you can make an attack of opportunity against that opponent after the attack is deflected.

Do Gloves of Dueling work with the Brawler Archetype? The class feature Close Combat replaces Weapon Training (does a similar thing though). This is for PFS so that might not work.

Any advice?

I would try to get Furious Focus earlier. When you have a single attack, it makes power attack a freebie. It's not quite as good once you get to multiple attacks because there is a cost.

Until BAB +4 weapon focus will usually be better than furious focus.

I was thinking Berserker of the society and Indomitable Faith for traits.