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Rogues 'not having a monopoly on skills' hardly affects their ability to hold up their part of a team. They have just as many skill points as they ever did -- more, in fact, since Pathfinder gives you the option of putting points into either hit points or skills when you take a level in your favored class.

If they have any fewer class skills, it's because skills have been consolidated.

On that point -- rogues used to have Balance, Jump and Tumble. Now a Pathfinder rogue can get all three skills with just Acrobatics. Rogues used to have Listen, Search and Spot. Now a Pathfinder rogue can get all three skills with just Perception. Rogues used to have Decipher Script, Forgery and Speak Language. Now rogues get all three with just Linguistics. Rogues used to have Disable Device and Open Lock. Now Pathfinder rogues can get both skills with just Disable Device. Rogues used to have Hide and Move Silently. Now Pathfinder rogues can get both skills with just Stealth.

Pathfinder did make skills easier for other classes, sure. Other classes can get more class skills with traits; and now somebody that boosts their non-class skills are just 3 points behind other characters instead of at half the bonus. But although PF raised the other characters up in skills, rogues may very well be the most improved class skill-wise, as you can see for yourself in the paragraph above that nearly everything they could want to do has been combined with other skills.

The most damning argument that they've lost their special edge is the fact that a few archetypes get Trapfinding, which is the only way to disable magical traps (without dispelling). But that's a matter of balancing classes against each other -- the fact that they released an Alchemist archetype with Trapfinding doesn't suddenly make your rogue unable to keep up in the middle of an AP you were playing. Besides, I seem to recall that archetypes usually have to give up something fairly precious for Trapfinding.

The point is the rogue more easily replaced in pathfinder than in any D&D based game in history. The fact you need less skill points means many other classes can fill the role that used to require a rogue and bring other things to the table. In the early editions of the game rogues or thieves as they were called had abilities no one else had. in third edition that was still somewhat the case due to the number of skills you needed and the fact class skills cost double the points.

The Archeologist bard was the final nail in the coffin for the rogue. Other than sneak attack, there is not a single traditional rogue role that the Archeologist Bard does not do better than a rogue, and that without using spells. Add in spells and the rogue is outclassed so badly it is not even funny. Cantrips like detect magic and mage hand give you an edge no mundane rogue can match. Spells like invisibility, knock, and dispel magic means the rogue is less able to deal with what is supposed to be his niche.

I would advise against multiclassing a paladin with an inquisitor. The reason is not that there is any conflict, but because you will not have the stats to pull it off. Unless you are rolling for stats and get incredibly lucky you are going to be weak in either class.

Also their abilities overlap a lot but you will be spreading yourself too thin. Most of the better class abilities of either class are level dependant. Combining smite evil with bane sounds cool but you would be better off with greater bane or a higher level smite. The power form both of these classes is the ability to go nova. A high level paladin smiting evil against an evil outsider is crazy. Multiclassing is going to mean that by the time you get all your stuff going the battle may be already won. Remember you only get one swift action per turn and both classes have a lot of uses for swift actions.

Play a Magus. At higher levels they can cast in heavy armor. Doom's skill at magic while decent is not anywhere near a full mage. When he teamed up with DR. Strange he used the computers in his armor to analyze the other spell casters. You will not get to use heavy armor until 13th level but DR. Doom is a world class villain. Before he got his armor he was not powerful.

The other way to do it is with a Synthesist Summoner. Your Eidolon is your armor.

Sense motive is good for detecting lies, not confirming the truth. Consider the case of a peasant telling you he is the king. Sense motive can tell you if he is lying about being the king, but will not tell you if he is actually the king. He could honestly think that he is the king, when in fact he is not. Maybe his mother lied to him and told him his father was the previous king who did not have any children.

The best way to handle sense motive is for the player to roll the sense motive, and the GM to secretly roll the bluff. Even if the opponent is not bluffing still roll and pretend to check the results. If the player beats the bluff tell him that other person is lying, if he is in fact lying. If the player does not beat the roll then tell him that he appears to be telling the truth. This only works if you roll the bluff even when the other player is not bluffing. Since the player does not know what the result of the bluff roll is he has no way of knowing if he succeeded. If the player is not bluffing consider the bluff to be a 0. If for some reason the player has a negative sense motive he will occasionally get false negatives.

Your numbers are way off. 500 1th level characters of any class will decimate 10,000 commoners. Even 500 10th level rogues will win. assuming that only 1 in 20 rouges has UMD that will still be 25 fireballs going off every round. Before this happens the other 475 rogues will start taking out the knights. Each rogue has goggles of sniper, a ring of invisibility, and potions of haste and invisibility. Using short bows that is going to be 1425 attacks doing 6d6 the first on is almost guaranteed to hit, and more than likely the second one as well. So after the first round you will have maybe 25 knights facing down 500 rogues that are twice there level.

I would simply change the fluff and keep the abilities the same. Aspect of the owl could easily become aspect of the bat. Find other underground animals with similar traits and change the physical change to match.

By my calculations I can get a 6th level expert using basic NPC stat array a+21 on craft armor. this assumes that he puts INT as his high stat and takes the following feats. Skill Focus (Craft Armor), Prodigy (Craft Armor and any other craft skill), Master Craftsman (Craft Armor), and Craft Magic Arms & Armor. Give him 5 commoners with a single rank in craft armor all taking 10 on their craft roll. So if he takes 10 he is getting a roll of 41 which means he is making 119 GP per week of progress. It is going to take him about 12 weeks to make an ordinary suit of full plate.

He has to pay 500 gold for the raw materials, and 42 gold for his 5 helpers. His living expenses for this time are 30 gold (average). So it cost him about 572 gold to make a suit of full plate. The list value of the armor is 1500 gold which means he should be able to make 928 gold profit. The craft rules say that you can make half your skill check for one week dedicated work. By those rules the smith will make 252 for the same 12 weeks. Now if he sells it for half the list price then it works out within 2 GP margin.

What does this all mean? Our characters are paying twice the real value of the armor. We have been systematically discriminated against just for being adventures. This is an outrage and I demand that a 3rd party investigation into this matter. If any wrong doing is found Paizo must be made to refund all the extra gold we have spent.

I would not worry about a reach weapon for a switch hitter. If your opponent is not in your face you keep using the bow. You want to a good solid two handed melee weapon as your melee weapon. Also your bow is going to be the weapon in hand instead of your melee weapon.

Quick draw is not needed until about 5th level when you are about to get your second attack. Take power attack at 1st level instead. The extra damage at the early levels means you will pretty much one shot everything. Deadly aim should also be taken earlier to get the extra damage.

Using the chakrams still provokes an attack of opportunity so I would not bother with them. If the enemy is to close for you to use the bow use a melee weapon. A weapon with a good critical range is going to be more effective than one with a better base damage. The falchion is probably the best for this especially if you get keen or improved critical.

Just your weapons, armor and some real basic gear is going to put your carried weight at over 100 pounds. Even with a 18 strength that puts you into medium encumbrance. Also having all those weapons enchanted is going to be incredibly expensive. Stick with two main weapons instead of six weapons.

Pick up heavy armor proficiency and get a set of mithrial full plate as soon as you can. AC is one of a switch hitters weak spots.

Also consider picking up Iron will. You fortitude and reflex saves are good, but even with a 12 wisdom your will saves are going to be weak. Will saves are probably the most important save in the game. A failed reflex save usually means you just take some extra damage. A failed Fortitude save usually means you are out of the combat. A failed will save often puts you against your party.

Dervish dance is a good feat for a lot of characters, but works particularly well with a magus. The big problem many non martial classes have with it is that it only applies to scimitar's. Classes like rouge, or bard who want to take it have to spend an extra feat or play a half elf with the ancestral arms trait. While spending two feats to get it at 3rd level is not a big deal, spend three feats to get it at 5th level is not worth it.

One of my players is using a half elf archeologist bard with dervish dance and does quite well. Combined with Heroism, and Archeologist Luck his chance to hit matches the fighter. Even with Dervish Dance his damage is still not as high as the fighter but is still respectable. He does have a 13 strength so will be able to take power attack latter.

In the campaign I am running the party is a special team of Eagle Knights, and funded by the government of Andoran. I simply tell the players to equip themselves according to the WBL guidelines and let it go at that. Any items they do not want or need are turned over to the Eagle Knights without having to worry about buying or selling items. The player can request any item they want, but if it is over the WBL they are turned down, or the item is not in stock, or still being built.

I did this because I wanted the players to be able to concentrate on playing their character instead of finding the loot. It took the players a while to overcome the find it, kill it, loot the body mentality. The first mission the party won a battle the old loot the body reflex kicked in, but then they realized they did not need to worry about carrying a crap load of equipment to sell they started getting into character more.

Pathfinder assumes that the characters will be equipped with level appropriate gear. This kind of forces the players to be more concerned with economics than is really good for role playing. When the paladin is more concerned with figuring out how to haul away the loot instead of how to help the village role playing is sacrificed.

1a. Don't make complicated characters for first time players. Heck, just don't make characters for other pepeople.

Lanith

This is bad advice. Many new players do not know how to create a character so end up not enjoying themselves. If your first experience with the game is frustrating you probably will not play again. A lot of people who have played are also not good at creating characters so also do not enjoy the game.

Better advice is if you are creating a character for someone else listen to them to find out what they want to play. Work with them to create a character they are excited to play.

When I run I do not adjust for poorly built characters. I tell my players up front what the campaign is going to be about and warn them of problems I see with their builds. If the player ignores my advice that is his problem. Part of the reason I run is I like to write up characters and could never play all the characters I come up with.

It's also unfair to the other players to adjust the encounters down because of one characters incompetence. I am use a 25 point buy and standard wealth by level. I expect that my players have at least competent characters.

You may want to consider a Zen Archer. Dip 3 levels of ninja for sneak attack and fast stealth rouge talent. Pump WIS, and STR your DEX only needs to be 13 for deadly aim.

The problem with a Ranger/Paladin is you are going to need asinine stats to pull it off. you need STR for damage, DEX for skills and to hit with the bow, CON for HP, WIS for ranger class abilities, and CHA for paladin class abilities. That leaves INT as your only dump stat. If you want any skills that is going to hurt. The inquisitor gets the same amount of skills as a ranger but gets even more bonuses than a ranger. Even with a low INT you are going to come out way ahead on the skills as an inquisitor.

The inquisitor is also a lot more powerful when it comes to spells. His buffs are going to last longer and his spells will be able to penetrate spell resistance a lot better. Getting 0 level spells may not seem like a big deal but one of those is detect magic which is almost required for any kind of investigation . He can also detect any alignment not just good. Detect evil is good for spotting enemies, but does not allow you to verify allies.

Judgments allow you a lot more flexibility in combat than either the ranger or the paladin. Whatever you need you can have with a judgment. Also by mulitclassing you are weakening both smite evil, and favored enemy. Instead of one really powerful ability you end up with two weak ones.

By the time you get your weapon bond the inquisitor has second judgment 4 times a day. You also have 3rd level sells including daylight. You are one level away from 4th level spells including death ward. Also next level you get Stalwart which means if you make your save you can completely ignore most SOS or SOD spells.

While there are other ways to get damage reduction taking 10 hp off almost every physical attack is nothing to be sneezed at. But if it is worth it depends on what you are trading it our for.

Dominate person is 5th level spell, dominate monster is a 9th level spell.

Have you tried using the other classes against them? Sometimes the best way to get someone to try something is to use it against them. The next time you are writing up some villains use a new class. Maybe instead of a cleric go for an inquisitor, or an oracle. Use a magus or an alchemist in place of your next wizard.

Chaotic is probably the least common of the aligned weapons so you will pretty get your damage reduction vs. most creatures. Being a native outsider makes you immune to an spells or spell like abilities that specifically target humanoids, like charm person or hold person.

Are you looking at taking an archetype that gives this up, or multiclassing? 20th level also gives monks 2d10 instead of 2d8 unarmed damage, +1 BAB, AC and saves.

This is not really a problem unless you are the type that thinks role-playing means you have to be your character. That is what game mechanics are for. Same thing if you don't have the social skills your character does. The GM is supposed to take that into account and allow your character to do what he is supposed to do even if you can't. Have fun trying to be smarter or more charismatic than you really are.

If you are playing a character smarter than you are the GM is supposed to be feeding you information. If you are playing a more charismatic character he should cut you some slack about how you phrase things.

I agree switching to a sorcerer is probably not the best idea. I would suggest the rogue invest in use magic device, and use wands, and scrolls to cover what the party needs. The reason I suggest the rogue is the cleric is going to have his hands full as the only full caster and he probably does not have the skill points to spare. The rogue is also the weakest class so this will boost what he brings to the party.

What would you take if you were going camping in the wilderness for weeks at a time without access to civilization?

What level are you and how much wealth? Bags of Holding and Handy Haversacks are going to be well worth it if you can afford them. Fill them up with mundane items including tools and camping gear.

You could have multiple identities complete with backgrounds. Think of Silk from the David Eddings books. With a decent use magic device and a few knowledge skills one or more of them could be "Spell Casters" I think there is a cloak that gives you some low level spells.

For fun romance the same person as two different people. Play up the rivalry and compete against yourself to see how far you can get.

Talk to your bow like it is alive. Carry on complete conversations with the bow with a lot of arguing. It of course gets upset when you use other weapons and accuses you of being unfaithful. When you find a better bow have a formal divorce settlement before you can start using the new bow.

This of course does not work if the bow is actually intelligent.

There is no reason you cannot make a well-optimized character also well-roleplayed. However, not all character concepts are able to be optimized.
Basically, optimization doesn't prevent roleplay but it drastically reduces the amount of different types of characters you can play.
Theodor said that the other characters are based upon roleplay as the standard, in other words you pick...

The only concepts that prevent optimization are ones that should not be played. The whole point of the game is to play the hero. If your concept is that you are the village idiot who also happens to the a midget with poor social skills and has no stat over 8, get another concept.

Optimization also happens in real life. How many NBA players are short? How many scientists have low IQ's? Just because you have a concept does not mean it is a good one. Does this limit what you can play? Sure but that happens in real life too, so deal with it. Now if you want to be totally incompetent and play the comic relief, and the rest of the party is ok with it fine. If the rest of the party does not want a dead weight character don't play that character. A good game is a group effort that requires all participants to contribute.

Player characters should not have a magic rune on their forehead that marks them as a PC. If you can't contribute to the party in a meaningful way you have no business being in the party. People in real life want the best help they can get and it should be the same in the game. Let's say you are accused of a crime and you have the choice of two lawyers. One graduated the top of his class from Harvard with years of experience, the other just got his diploma in the mail from Larrylaw.com. Who do you want defending you?

Ilja wrote:

...

Yeah i think this is an issue i can agree with. The reason i like the system we have is that we all (except the archer) like to play characters that is a bit different. The low int anti-paladin is fun to watch as he stumbles into situations based on him being dumb :P

The low chr alchemist who cant talk to ladies and goes around like a social weakling, and ends up everyones punching bag etc.

Ofc, this is not something we cant achieve in your two examples. Its just what made me go with our point-exchange system.

Why can't you have a low Intelligence antipaladin in a point buy? Actually you are more likely to have low stat characters in a point buy than with rolling. Sorry but the fault lies with the GM for allowing this imbalance in the first place.

Stats define the character more than anything else especially at low levels. An elf wizard with an 18 Strength and Dexterity is going to outfight a fighter until around 4th to 6th level. After that the class abilities start to take over. He can use a long sword and long composite bow for more damage and have a better chance to hit. True his HP are going to suck but the point is he is actually better at combat than the fighter.

The fighter sounds about right. +21 damage at 8th level is hardly over powered. On the other had +9 damage for an antipaladin at 8th level seems very weak. Assuming a 16 Strength with power attack and only a +1 weapon the antipaladin should be doing +10 before smite good. At 8th level you should have more than just a simple +1 weapon. Is this a low magic item campaign? Pathfinder assumes a certain amount of wealth by level and if your GM is not giving out enough it screws with the balance.

A lot of people seem to think that role playing and optimization are opposing forces and the more of one you have the less of the other you have to have. Optimization takes place before the game, role playing takes place during the game. Some people are better at one than the other and there is no shame with that.

What people should be doing is helping each other. Instead of each person working alone on their characters make it a group effort. Have everyone write up their character and then pass the character around the group. The optimizers will be able to see the weak spots of the character and help out the person with less system mastery. The role players can help the optimizer come up with the background and character concept.

I often see a someone who prides themselves on role playing having a character who can't live up to his conception. If you are supposed to be an expert swordsman you better be able to tell one end of the sword from another. At the same time I have seen optimizers who have no clue who or what their character is. Help each other build the characters and everyone will benefit.

Interesting question.

I would treat it like the PCs failed Sense Motive.

Why? After all, it's the players that control their arms when they swing their swords - what would you do if, in combat, a player chose to have his fighter stand there and not attack the enemy. Each turn, he just takes a delay action until his turn next round. Would you say the PC still gets actions even though the player isn't taking them? Would your force the player to make his character act?

Of course not.

For stuff like this, the player and the PC are intertwined. They both must succeed (the player to recognize the situation and the PC to make the necessary skill check) for them to detect the deceit.

So now you need a fallback plan. You were counting on them to be suspicious but they bought it. Fine. After the NPC leaves, have some other NPC, maybe a rival of the first one, approach them and laugh at their gullibility and accuse them of being fools to believe such a preposterous story.

Of course, they'll now be suspicious of the second NPC, but maybe now they'll roll some Sense Motive rolls, and when he seems to be what he claims, then maybe they'll finally get suspicious of the first guy. In addition, maybe being laughed at by this NPC might sting a little and help remind them to try those sense motives next time a NPC is regaling them with a story.

I have to disagree with this. Most of the times people play characters that have skills and abilities they do not have. To penalize someone for not using a skill they do not have, but their character does is plain wrong. Do you require you high strength characters to lift heavy objects? Expecting a player to notice what their characters should is the same thing.

There are a couple of ways you can do it. First would be to assume that anyone not asking for a roll is taking 10. This allows characters with a high skill to make most rolls.

The second way you could do it is to just make the roll for them. This works fairly well but a lot of people like to roll for their own characters.

The third way would be to just ask them to roll a d20 without telling them what it is for. Many GM's don't like doing this because they it tips the players off. One way to handle that is to ask for meaningless d20 rolls periodically. Be sure to pay attention to the rolls and pretend to check things to keep them on their toes. Make a big deal out of the fake times and your players will go absolutely nuts.

I think the comment boils down to "an entire wand of cure light wounds doesn't last very long at higher level play".

1 or 2 charges per PC patches everyone up at 1st and 2nd level, making one wand last an entire level or very close to it.

The lifespan of a fully charged wand of cure light wounds drops precipitously fast as the APL increases. In some cases, the entire wand won't be sufficient to replenish the hp of the entire party (let alone any eidolons, familiars, pet rodents, cohorts, animal companions/mounts, etc).

A Life Oracle is even more of a health dispenser than a Healing domain Cleric. At least the Cleric can prepare death and destruction, spontaneously converting cures. The Life Oracle ... not so much.

A life Oracle does not have to prepare any spells. He also has the entire cure line of spells in addition to any other spells so he can spontaneously cast them. There is no reason an Oracle can't chose death and destruction spells as his spells known. Keep in mind most of the condition removal spells are on his bonus list. That pretty much means that he can chose combat spells and still heal as well as a cleric. With right revelations he can get more mileage out of his lower level heal spells then a cleric.

Piccolo wrote:

Honestly, I am tired of the hate I keep reading on this forum about the standard classes, like Rogue, Cleric, Fighter etc. It's getting monotonous.

Part of my intent in this campaign is to get back to some of the classics of d&d. It seems everyone wants a sorcerer, an alchemist, etc. - there's nothing wrong with that. But mention the core classes, & suddenly nobody wants to mess with them. There's 'always a better option' it seems, but I feel the core classes can still have a lot of fun.

Same thing with the original core races (human, elf, dwarf & halfling). Everybody wants to be a tengu, the aasimar, the dhampir, etc. Again, nothing wrong with them, but there's nothing wrong with the classics, either.

Maybe I'm weird, but I'm not always worried about the most optimal way to defeat the monsters - the flavor's just as important.

If someone wants to play a cleric great, people should be able to play what they want. The cleric is a good class and there is not a single reason not to play one. The problem comes when you ask do I need this class. There is not a single class that is needed. There are roles that must be fulfilled but the great thing about pathfinder is there is not any role that has to be filled with a specific class. If you come to the boards and ask do I need <favorite class> the answer is always going to be no.

You need a cleric unless you know the GM isn't going to use monsters that have abilities only a cleric can mitigate.

Since you're the GM just don't use anything with its CR dependent on the level at which the counter appears on the cleric list (shadows and spectres are the most notable, each having their CR equal to the level at which the restoration line spell capable of repairing the damage is available to a cleric -- and screw parties with oracles or druids.

There are no attacks that only a cleric can migrate. The spells you mention being needed are indeed very important but a cleric is not the only one who has access to them. Alchemists, Bards, Druids, Inquisitors, Oracles, Paladins, Rangers and Witches all have access to some healing spells. Not all the classes have access to everything but you can cover what is needed without a cleric.

The life Oracle is probably the best healer in the game. His revelations mean that his spells can cure more damage than a cleric, and add temporary HP as well. His bonus spells include the most common needed non HP healing spells.

A Hedge Witch will match a cleric on everything but channel energy, but that is not as important as most people think.

Another big danger of relying on a single healer is what happens when he is taken down. If he is the only one able to heal the party is in big trouble. Spreading out the healing responsibility is good tactics. You may have a character that is better at healing then the rest, but he should have backup.

With a Bard, Inquisitor, and a Paladin you do not need a cleric. If you also have a Witch that lessens it even more. Healing HP is actually the thing you should worry about least. What is going to be more of a problem is removing of conditions. Luckily Paladins get lesser restoration as a first level spell.

If you are really worried about healing have the witch be a hedge witch. A hedge Witch gets pretty much all the condition removal spells as bonus spells. They can also spontaneously cure like a cleric, which will probably be more useful than channeling energy in the long run. Don't bother with healing hexes in this case focus on buff and debuff with both hexes and spells.

The weakest character I see is the dwarf rogue. The inquisitor and bard can cover any role he can and bring a lot more to the table. Consider going with a Dwarf Ranger with the trapper archetype. He will have almost as many skills as a rogue and a lot better combat.

To me this is the same thing as a flying mount. The fact it is using its legs to move instead of wings does not make much difference. An unusual mount will often have a specially made saddle instead of using a normal saddle designed for a horse. A saddle for a flying or climbing mount probably has straps to keep you in place. Anne McCaffery dragon riders series uses this aproach.

Right of hand I am not that familiar with the rules for mounted combat, but I would suggest looking up how flying mounts are treated.

The way I understood alignment channel was to allow a good cleric to channel energy to harm and evil outsider. Normally positive energy only harms undead, with alignment channel you could harm evil outsiders.

Inquisitors are agents of their deity. What exactly they do will depend on the nature of the deity. While they operate outside a lot of the normal rules their power still comes from their deity. They are often spies, trouble shooters, monster hunters and assassins, but fill many other roles.

From a game point they are one of the most versatile classes in the game. They may not have the staying power of a full martial class but they have a lot of class abilities that can more than make up for it if only for short periods of time. Judgments can give them a lot of different abilities depending on what is needed. Bane allows them to lay down the hurt on whatever they happen to be fighting at the time.

What they do better than anyone else is investigation. With perception, sense motive and intimidate as class skills it is hard to hide things from them. Many of their spells also are very useful for finding things out. Being able to detect any alignment and tell when someone is lying to you is a huge advantage for any investigator. They also have a lot of divination spells on their list including speak with dead, Find Quarry, and True Seeing.

With six skill points per level and bonus to lot of skills they make excellent skill monkeys. Take the feat Improved monster lore and you will be even better at identifying creatures than a bard. Spells like invisibility, disguise self, and nondetection makes trying to spot them very difficult.

Sorry but it does not work that way. The deflection bonus only affect your opponent not you. If it worked the way you seem to think it does you should be taking a penalty to hit equal to the deflection bonus. The deflection bonus is from the intervention of some higher power.

Even if it did work that way how do you know why a person did not hit you. Other than a armor or shield bonus there is no way to tell what caused the person to miss. If your opponent misses you by one point was it the dodge bonus, the deflection bonus, the morale bonus, the luck bonus, or was it his strength penalty kicking in?

Assuming you are starting at 1st level put your lowest stats in Con and Dex, then play a commoner. Don't waste a character sheet use a blank piece of paper. He will die in the first combat so just roll up a new character. Keep doing this until you get a decent set of stats.

I had thought about celestial but the party is good so the heavenly fire is useless vs. a good party. Boreal is interesting but the bloodline spells are week for a ghost. Shadow has some potential but the night eye and dark vision spell don't add much.

The ghost interfered with the grandfather of NPC business man who the party is dealing with. He was murdered to silence him. The party does not realize the business man is evil yet. He is under 5th level and followed his grandfathers ways. The grandfather is still alive but senile at this point.

In my next game the party is going to encounter a ghost of a sorcerer. The sorcerer was originally good and was trapped using a set of magical shackles that bind the body and soul of anyone locked in them. He became a ghost when he was trapped and left to die.

The problem I am having is coming up with a good bloodline. The only one I have decided on is not to use the undead bloodline.

Why do you need to pick up another class anyways. You could just as easily say your rage powers are a gift from your god. As Blackbloodtroll has said on many different threads ignore the name of the class and concentrate on what it does. This also has the advantage that your "divine powers" work in a antimagic field and cannot be dispelled. Go through short ritual every time you rage and you may even trick some spell caster into trying to dispel your "spell".

My favorite character was from 1st edition AD&D. He was a elven fighter/magic user/thief. His background was what made him interesting. He was a spy and had a dozen different identities. I had a folder full of notes on the his identities. Most of them where elven or half elven, but one was a female human wizard.

I pulled of some really crazy crap with that character. The GM was pretty cool about working with me to keep my background and abilities secret. My cover with the party was that I was just a thief and it took them a while to figure out I could use magic.

I am not sure I could build the character in pathfinder because so much has changed. That was when you could cast spells in full plate without arcane failure. The multiclassing rules were a lot different then so I was only 1 or 2 levels behind the full casters. The extra HP and saves as well as the ability to wear armor and improved fighting ability more than made up for the loss of spells.

1st level paladin spell hero's defiance does exactly what you are looking for.

I see nothing wrong with a ninja with a high charisma. Quite a few ninja skills such as bluff, intimidate disguise are based off of charisma. A ninja is an assassin and needs to be able to deceive and manipulate people.

Charisma is more than being cute and charming. It represents force of personality more than appearance and charm. Hitler was neither cute nor charming but had a very high charisma. A monk uses wisdom because his powers come from remaining calm and serene. A wizard uses intelligence to understand how the universe works. A ninja draws upon his own inner strength to dominate his surroundings.

Dexterity is a physical stat so it does not make sense to use it for mental powers. How does being fast allow you to impose your will your surroundings without moving?

I would suggest an all divine party instead of all cleric. This would allow more classes so there would be less duplication. It would also allow for a single deity to minimize the religious conflicts. I could see a party worshiping Sarenrae having a cleric, paladin, inquisitor and a oracle of flame.

A drinking contest in a bar.

Because he is a employee not a partner. This is the same thing as the mercenary Capitan taking the largest share of the loot. How much loot do you think the common soldier gets in a mercenary army? Not a whole lot. I think they got somewhere around 1% divided up among the entire army. The Captain and officers get the majority of the loot. The ordinarily soldier is way more at risk than the Captain but gets paid almost nothing.

You may want to see if you can find an old copy of the thieves world RPG. It was around in the 1980's but is exactly what you are looking for. It was written for the 1st edition AD&D if I remember correctly. You may be able to find a used copy as it is long out of print.

Like I said there are multiple ways to build a cleric. The one drawback of using channel energy in combat is like you said the fact it is feat intensive. The other thing is that often the whole party may not need healing. If the BBEG is whaling on a particular character he may be the only one injured. Using a cure spell of your highest level on the average heals more HP to a single character. If the fighter is about to die and the rest of the party is pretty much unhurt the cure spell is the better option.

Melee clerics are pretty easy to build. Start by making sure your deity has a decent favored weapon. Also pick up heavy armor proficiency. A lot of people suggest dipping as a fighter but that slows all your cleric abilities. To me it is better to just burn the feat. The key to a melee cleric is his spells he has some of the best buff spells in the game and should use them. If he is casting mostly buff spells and healing his Wisdom does not need to be as high because boosting the saving throws does not matter.

From what you have said I would suggest playing human for the extra feat and pick up selective channel since you want to channel in combat. Heavy armor would also be a good investment but you may be able to hold off till 3rd level for it. Combat casting is probably another good feat as you may need to cast while in the front lines.

At higher levels eagles splendor may be a good spell to keep memorized if you don't have a charisma boosting item. The reason I suggest it is by casting it you can get 2 extra channels for the cost of a 2nd level spell. that is a minimum of an extra 4d6 healing to everyone in the party and at higher levels it only gets better.

Increasing your caster level may not be as glamorous as getting a feat but a lot of spells level up as you go up. Also most domain powers are increasing or being gained on even levels instead of odd levels.

Not all clerics focus on channeling energy. One very valid school of thought is that if a cleric is channeling energy during combat he is not doing his job. He would be better off casting a spell to bring the combat to a close instead of healing the party. Most of the time in combat healing is not about bringing the whole party up to full HP, but saving someone from dying. Converting a spell into a cure x wounds is often better at this then channeling energy. This is not to say a cleric can't focus on channeling energy but that he does not need to.

Creating a ranged cleric is normally not that big of a deal All you really need is point blank shot and precise shot. If you are human you can pick both of them up at first level. The fact you want to use a firearm is what is causing the problems. To use them is going to require at least exotic weapon proficiency and probably rapid reload which means it will be 5th level before you have what you really need. If you could talk your GM into allowing a deity with a firearm for a favored weapon that make the build a lot easier.

The cleric is a pretty solid class and is hard to screw up. Its biggest limitation is his selection of weapons. You almost have to have a deity with a good favored weapon if you are going to be focusing on combat. Just keep in mind a cleric is not a combat focused character. If you are trying to keep up with the damage of a fighter or paladin you are for the most part not going to do it. The exception is when you are expecting trouble and are able to buff yourself up fully. Very few classes can match a clerics ability to go nova but it is uncommon for them to get the advance warning and enough time to do it.

Hurm... what do you think about making building the PCs at 4th level and then leveling them up to 5th level, saving both builds? That way, they can start off simple, and I can level them up at the end of the first night, and they can get the rush of gaining their cool new abilities during play.

That would work also gives a taste of advancement. You said you probably will not be doing it again soon but this does give some incentive to continue gaming.

I would suggest at least 4th so the characters are different enough without getting too complicated. I am in the planning out a campaign I want t run and plan on starting the characters at 4th. For a one shot adventure I would suggest going a little higher just so they can get to play with some of the cool stuff. In my case I plan on running the campaign to high level so they will eventually get the cool stuff.