Norren's page

I think whoever did the firearm list thinks that they're cleverly disguised re-chargable wands, because comparing a firearm's cost to a Magic Wand feels like a closer analogy.

CL 3 Burning Hands wand: 2250gp, 3d4, 15 foot cone, Ref/half, 50 charges
Blunderbuss w/ ammo: 2550gp, 1d8, 15 foot cone, vs touch AC (?), 50 discharges.
(2000gp + 500gp + 50gp)

You can probably find a closely approximate spell for every gun, or even a better one than above, but that was something that I noticed while playing a gun wizard gish.

Applying the commonplace guns bandaid sort of overcorrects in the opposite direction, making guns "like wands, but way cheaper".

I like the idea of firearms being "Easy to hit with, average damage weapons", but it's alot of feat-tax, alot of cash, and alot of concessions just for one "cool" idea. :(

Ooh, if you want to totally frame it on the devils, get some Devil blood from one of the battles earlier in the day and leave it behind at the scene of the fight. If you have a bag of holding, possibly stow an entire corpse!

Also, claw yourself to make it look as if you were attacked by more than just the turtle.

It's really hard to separate mechanics and scenario in this, the two are so... intertwined.

I think the Pin and hogtie solution you have is just about the only one without going into scenario building.

I recall my DM mentioning that 5th ed is supposed to be looking into addressing this very mechanic, the designer has expressed his distaste with this very issue.

I recall reading once that a good way to increase the survivability of any NPC in an encounter was to give it a level of Monk and a potion of wisdom.

Items are also a good solution. Tanglefoot bags have already been mentioned, if you don't mind digging into 3.5 there's Eggshell grenades, which are guaranteed blindness as a touch attack aimed at the tile you're standing in. Alchemist Fire and Firestones are also good. A smokestick could be used to force the fighter to start making fort saves as he fights, or make him take AoOs to pick up the stick and throw it back.

Choosing beneficial battle locations is also another good one. Make the fighter go prone to crawl through a tunnel.

Pretty much the only "raw" solution I know to this is the Tucker's Kobolds scenario of just pure tactics.

Come to think of it, the Heat Armor spell is available at a pretty low level, isn't it?

Aiee... I apologize if this comes off as hostile, I don't mean it as such. I just don't think you understand the game theory trap you're creating for your players and yourself.

I let the players roll THREE SETS of stats and give them the choice of one of those OR point buy 15. In what way is that unfair?

You're giving them the choice of a 15 point buy or a 3 column dicefest that should yield stats equivalent to roughly a 25 to 32 random point buy. Why does this seem fair to you? Why do you think this is a choice?

Point in fact: your barbarian example is exactly 32 points by point buy rules. If he rolls out on the battlefield next to three characters who took the 15 point point buy, even with his oddly placed charisma, he should completely outclass them. (Especially if the intimidate setup Majuba put forth works the way it looks like it should, that could be really evil.)

You should be able to spot the game theory trap now, if you didn't before: "If you accept random stats that may force you to build an entirely different character, you can have twice as many points to build a character with."

Then you have to actually figure out how to challenge the powerful characters without overwhelming the 15 point buys.

Lastly, the core rulebook even defines letting you place your stats where you want them as the standard, normal way of playing.

The issue is NOT how he ended up with those stats or what other classes might benefit from them, but how to make the best possible barbarian from them. Think of it as a challenge.

I suggested Skald because I thought he might want Barbarian flavor as opposed to explicitly the Barbarian class. They share much of the same flavor, while benefiting more from the stats. Since that's out... let's look at what is on the table, since there's some good ideas that have come up:

Jackissocool's spirit totem concept sounds good. I'm not sure where to find it on the SRD right now, but cha synergy is a good place to start.

Redporcupine's flagbearer feat suggestion is also really good and flavorful both. I also agree with his idea of letting him use a polearm with the flag on it, it's a common place for the standard. Certain countries also had harnesses that you could strap your flagpole to and wear it on your back.

Majuba's build looks really evil to me, but I'd avoid vital strike. Everything else about that build is just... beautifully evil. Your player can also invest ranks in diplomacy, get a snappy set of furs and be the party face on top of being the scary face of doom.

I might try swapping to a small race and combining Ragelancepounce (Mounted Fury archetype) with the flagbearer feat. while mounted, you can use a lance one handed. Lance one handed, raise your flag high. Twin pounce for massive damage, have the mount to split damage between. As a Small race, your mount would be Medium and could fit in dungeons. While Barbarians can't use armor, your mount can. The Mounted Combat feat line also goes to support this, and as an alternative to the flag, you could wear a shield and get a feat to share both the shield AC with yourself and the mount.

Have him look at Skald.

It's like Barbarian, but being a bard it actually benefits from those stats, which are positively awful for a barbarian. Crippling his ability to rage just because you believe in place 'em where you roll 'em is not funny or productive.

Isn't that what knowledge checks are for? Odds are any caster or bard knows a ton of miscellaneous stories about gadgets and contraptions.

That said, turn the shopping trip into part of the campaign itself, get their roleplay on by introducing characters, tasks, etc. and disrupt their shopping trip once you believe they're "equipped enough". Let them resume once you feel it's time for upgrades.

At the risk of thinking TOO outside the box: Kidnap one of it's kin, preferrably young/hatchling. Find an epic wizard. Famicide?

On a more down to earth note, looking over the spell list for this thing... I can't visualize an ordinary adventuring party killing it at that kind of level disparity. It's breath weapon is twice as many hit dice as your wizard even has. If it opened with darkness... you'd be blind as a bat and it could perfectly locate and pick you off at will. At those levels, this is a TPK waiting to happen.

Maybe there's a shop with a Candle of Evocation you could use to score a wish? "I wish this dragon would lose all it's con."

Er... While the result is correct, I think the way you got there is wrong.

When I was looking at the same thing, I ran into this incompatibility before I ever got to weapon types:

Starting at 1st level, a monk can make a flurry of blows as a full-attack action.

As a full-round action, he can make all of his attacks with his melee weapon at a –2 penalty and can also cast any spell from the magus spell list with a casting time of 1 standard action

Besides that, aren't there spells you can "hold the charge" on that you could spellstrike flurry? I seem to recall there being one druid spell that produced fireballs you could throw SMB style that might be a candidate.

There are other ways to bypass the standard action action economy other than spell combat that don't have a -2 to attack roll. Some are weapon enchants, some are class features, some use Quicken Spell. It's not that bad, really.

My experience is the Magus is pretty tame. It only gets really bad if you have him fight so few creatures and encounters per day that he can capitalize on his spike damage without having to manage his resources.

Edit: nevermind. I have a migraine and forgot flurry of blows wasn't "just an additional hit".

truesidekick wrote:

at 6th level of sohei... yes, before 6th no

I disagree. Sohei states he can flurry with any weapon in which he has weapon training. It does not specify that has to be gained through the Sohei class feature. How do you support your argument?

I believe his thinking is that at Sohei 6/Weapon Master 3 he would have two weapon training groups, and you would be able to flurry with both. at Sohei 5/Weapon Master 3, you would not have gained the ability stating you can flurry with weapon training, and thus could not.

Which makes sense to me.

Quarterstaff is a "monk" weapon so you can use Flurry of Blows with it.

As a single or double weapon?

It looks interesting to me too, but I probably won't have a chance to play one for a good while. I'm thinking I'd go for Monk 2/Staff Magus *, to get Evasion and the additional bonus feat. Possibly Monk of the Four winds because stunning fist is probably not going to be very useful. Once the shield bonus starts to kick in, it has some interesting promise as a front line unit.

It's going to have MAD like crazy, tho'. STR reqs for PA, Cleave, etc. Dex reqs for TWF to take advantage of the double weapon (unless somehow Flurry covers that?), Int for your magus features, Wis for your AC, Con if you intend to be the tank/point man, etc.

Lots of potential to be very, very fun, but lots of setup.

Style points for wearing a black robe. ;D

"What's true, slightly twisted, and always fatal?"

A scythe's x4 crit on a coup de grace?

That gives 4d6/round (Gravity Bow on Medium longbow 2d6, Vital Strike 2d6), plus whatever bonuses from ability scores, other feats, and the individual spell chosen.

Scorching Ray adds another 4d6, so damage from dice alone is 8-48, average 28.

While good, it takes a round of prep between each shot, and does burn through your spells, so that may not cause the GM as much heartburn.

I'm still not seeing the 60 damage/round, though.

Projectile size is a factor, I'm using a gun with a base of a 1d10. 1d10 becomes 2d8, vital to 4d8.

Slips in with the extra rays as you level: that 8~48 becomes 12~80 when you adjust for bullet size and second ray. That's before the question of Maximize spell. Maximize spell would come close to clenching it by itself with just two rays (48 + 4d8 + dex if you have gun training), you'd just have to roll well on your d8s.

Also, I can't find a time limit on spell storing, so if you're using spell storing bullets, excess spells/day can be channeled into them before you camp. In my own case, I have one of the premade spellbooks that gives you a Maximize Spell for one spell prepared using it per day. (I believe the cost is the spell level in d4s worth of damage?) So as long as the maximize would take, I could maximize one of my regular scorching rays as I dump it in... I think?

This is totally GP toss tho', since you're shooting overglorified +2 ammo.

in that case, I'll offer an idea from a paranoia campaign we did recently:

One of our players drew the "you are a suicide bomber, you must destroy this base" card from the character stack. Other NPCs started making drops to get messages to him to stop him and change his orders to blowing up something, stealing something else and returning to base. Each of us successfully intercepted the orders, inevitably resulting in him blowing himself up.

Until the unveil at the end, he legitimately thought the DM had forced him to kill himself... it was only then he found out we made him kill himself.

Thus, I suggest: Arrange a situation that makes him think his character got itself killed, while making it look like you're all trying to save him and simply are unable to. He'll think it was bad luck.

Then lift the curtain. Maybe yell candid camera.

Ahh, apologies for snapping back, then.

In that case, it actually can be done legally, but before you mentioned it I'd been trying not to think about it because I'd be tempted to do it. *laugh* That and it makes use of Vital Strike. *frown*

The two easiest ways I found tonight while musing over it.

A: Gravity Bow, Vital Strike, and Spell storing bullets of your blasting spell of choice. (I was going to go with Scorching Ray.)

B: Bullet of Sizing (Colossal), Gravity Bow, Vital Strike. (edit: I'm not ecstatic about how this one uses an enchant that as far as I can tell hasn't been imported to PF)

Ask the DM for Silence potions that last 24 hours and have everyone rotate poison duty, including amongst the NPCs, using notes and texts, so he doesn't realize where it came from?

If you're going A-team, the Bard needs to use illusions to make the enemies think they're under attack from both sides, and be named Frankie. :D

Ask the DM to have his god strike him mute ala the oracle curse with all the handicaps that entails as punishment for his efforts to harm people with the truth?

Erm... Sanity check - Aldori Dueling Mastery gives you a +2 shield bonus to your AC... Shield gives you a +4 Shield bonus to your AC... I don't usually succumb to the temptation of Exotic weapon taxes - am I correct in thinking these don't stack? So you should have 28 AC fully buffed.

Next headache: Shield and Mage Armor can be dispelled, and you can be ambushed with them down. In fact, it's really easy to find ways to catch you without Shield or mage armor, especially since you only get 3 hours of mage armor and shield only lasts 3 minutes. (using your caster level.) Down to 22 again. Send in the save or sucks: ability damage, blindness, DC 5 acrobatics checks or fall prone, and it makes for a generally unpleasant picture.

Mechanics/Thematic thing: I would suggest asking to change to Monk 1/Staff Magus 3, and continue on the staff magus path.

You sacrifice your int to AC mod you've got going, but I really think that's why your DM is threatening to destroy you. Besides that, the path you're on now isn't going to scale very well. Where other tanks would get armor that gives them DR, Enhancement bonuses to AC, and other defensive mechanics, you're going to have a static shield AC, and your two best "AC" items share a slot: Monk's belt and +6 all stat belt. You're going to want to replace Mage Armor with a Mithril Chain Shirt. You can give that normal enhancement bonuses as it functions as a Masterwork Chainmail Shirt, but it also functions as a regular shirt for determining if you're wearing armor, allowing you to fully benefit from Monk AC.

You'd get flurry of blows with a quarterstaff, at level 7 you'd get your enhancement bonus from your quarterstaff as a shield bonus, at 11th level that would increase by +3 effectively giving you a full tower shield with a staff. At level 10, you can use a regular wizard staff as a quarterstaff of their CL/4 as it's enhancement level, which you could then combine with the Arcana that lets you use spell combat with wands and staves. One of the cheapest staves gives you 2 charges of freedom of movement, and you can restore charges to one staff per day by expending arcane points.

Additionally, you could spend your arcana points to increase the enhancement bonus of your staff, giving you a handy way to quickly improve your AC on the spot. Stockpiling some Shillelagh oil would also give you some extra cheap damage bonus.

It will be up to your DM if Flurry of blows and Spell Combat can be stacked. I read them as conflicting but your mileage may vary, since your DM seems pretty lax. You won't be using spell combat at will.

Now, if you decide to go this route, you can swap those Aldori dueling sword feat-taxes. I make Quickdraw and weapon focus as feats you can drop? I'd take Arcane Strike and Combat Expertise - Swift action AB bonus, make an attack and take an identical attack penalty to gain that much AC. It'd offset what you lose. Then just pick up Dodge as normal at level 5.

Lastly... work with the DM to establish yourself as the party's defender without trying to play arms race. AC is vs the opposition's AB, which he dictates, letting him choose whether this creature has a 100% hit chance or a 30% hit chance. The name of the game here is not Kobiyashi Maru, you are not trying to h4x0r the sim or die as gracefully as you can, but if you play arms race with the GM, his efforts to challenge you can quickly become a TPK. As long as you're "ahead of the party", he can throw upgrades your way to keep you in line with what he considers normal.

Focused shot requires you use a standard action to shoot once gaining a bonus to damage on the shot equal to int.

Full round attacks are not kosher, neither is rapid shot or manyshot as they both require full round attacks, which a Focused shot action is not.

Ahah, a trap feat. That would be part of the headache. 'swhat I get for picking feats based on the "benefits" column of the feat tree over at PFsrd.

Even accounting for the -24 that does to my full round attack, everyone else is still barely breaking single digits which is more of what I was worried about in the first place. As mentioned, we're going to be doing a sheet audit next session and discuss how we're going to even everything out, so I expect us to equalize a bit.

I can't really see how you are making 60-70 dps with a single shot at level 8 but I imagine it is clever.

This kind of snark is just not cool. The correction on the action type is appreciated, but 60 DPT is 10 DPS!

As long as his perception is good, the wizard should be able to safely find and detonate traps at will with bizarre use of cantrips (Sift, Detect Magic, Mage Hand, Prestidigitation) and unseen servant.

And never leave home without an 11 foot pole.

What's his CMD vs the fighters' CMB? I'm guessing he has 15ish?

Does the Alchemist have bombs?

What's this BBEG's touch AC?

Yeah, I talked to the DM some about ways I could do that smoothly, he said before we do anything we're going to do a character sheet audit next session, just do some overall number crunching and look for ways to equalize things. He said that what he remembers of the Duelist's character sheet, the duelist should be doing the same damage I am. So we've got a plan.

I also talked to him about some of the errata, so we're probably about to all revamp our characters to be current anyway. The fighter and Duelist have been using the "old" vital strike, and so on.

And I'll second the weak crap comment. I think he's been throwing single monsters at us to probe out our breaking point slowly, bit by bit.

Also, he's seen Grenadier half orc alch. One of the players keeps threatening to roll one and we all just glare at him until he gives up.

Ah, it's PF with 3.5 PrCs by approval, homebrew campaign. Most encounters are party vs 1 mob.

The issue at hand isn't PrC based, however, since my damage isn't tied to my PrC: it's just basic feat selection and stat stacking. I'd do the same damage with the same stat split as a gunslinger 1/Fighter 7. I've cast one spell the entire campaign, aside from my morning application of mage armor.

So, I'm playing a Gun using Wizard in a level 8 party (I'm built as a Gish using Abjurant Champion as my PrC, so I have CL 5 and 6 BAB) and the DM allowed advanced firearm rules, giving me a Pepperbox rifle and when all feats tally up, some nice damage, rolling around 60 to 70 DPT basically every turn, as long as there's something for me to shoot within 30 feet. (Focused shot on a 26 int is lovely.)

Unfortunately, the DM's looking at me thinking he needs to nerf me because my damage is disproportionately high. (and I sort of soloed a CR 13 last session) I've both told him to stop letting me get within 30 feet so my damage goes down, and I'm already looking through ways to nerf myself without crippling my build in the long run (mostly by redoing my feats so my bigger bonuses come later), but I'm worried that just reducing myself down isn't going to help:

• We have one player who's Duelist build averages 0 damage
  
• Our Longbow Fighter is built exclusively for ranged and has spent the last 3 encounters in melee. (in fairness, one encounter was because he tempted fate and a CR13 single mob encounter grappled him in a surprise round while he was climbing... the rest I dunno what's going on.)
  
• There's one more player who's playing a Divine Trickster (Sniper Rogue 3, Cleric 3, Trickster 2) that's just on an unbelievable string of bad luck with his damage rolls, he's done less than half his average the entire campaign, one turn he hit with both attacks with a revolver (silencing oil'd), from stealth, making iterative stealth checks against the -20 penalty, and did 8 damage. All ones.
  
• Our dedicated caster just falls asleep at the table and can't be woken up.
  

Usually, our party is optimized for damage, so... I'm not really sure what's going on. I feel like something is wrong besides my lawful evil Gunmage invoking "shoot first, speak with dead later".

Norren wrote:

Our group has always played that "anything an earth elemental is carrying earthglides with him", is that not the case? Earthglide itself doesn't specify anything about things you carry, just that "you burrow, swimming through the earth as if it was water."

I thought you were assuming the creatures were digging a hole under the floor, that caved in.

It's debatable that they can drag a resisting creature back into the earth with them; I know as GM, I suggested it to the players once, to help them out of a jam, and they pointed out it wasn't feasible.

I think it works like THIS (0:35 onwards).

That's more or less how I visualize it, too.

The hollowing out bit was "one plan", the grappling another.

I sort of visualized hollowing out a floor as being done "traditionally" - get party members to pass you a bag of holding and dig it out like bailing water with a bucket, stoneshape, stone to mud, etc., then caving it in the old fashioned way.

As for the grappling part not being feasible, I think they're wrong.

It specifically says that you're burrowing.

It draws the Fish analogy to depict that you're basically displacing the dirt around you as you move. (edit: wait... fish can grapple and swim...) It's also Extraordinary, and thus non-magical. Since it's non-magical, I'd argue that it's merely a racial way of parting or compacting dirt and moving past it, and that you should be able to move equipment, items, carried objects, etc.

The fluff description of earth elementals later on also indicates "Bits of vegetation frequently grow in the soil that makes up parts of an earth elemental's body." but does not state if that vegetation is left behind when earth gliding, which would be highly useful information in splitting this hair.

Leaving behind no tunnel, sign of your presence, tracks, etc. just seems to indicate that Earth Glide merely comes with it's own form of Trackless Step. I don't know that "leaving no tunnel" is the same as "nothing comes with you" given that it describes pushing earth apart as you burrow. That elementals can also assume any shape also further confounds this a little bit.

So... I'd say it is feasible, but in need of more rules. I'd argue an unwilling creature should probably take crushing damage and get a bonus on CMD to avoid being dragged.

It works fine. 4 The prohibited schools rule still applies but is diminished by how flexible WoP targeting mechanisms are. It gives quite a few more options for the gun than a VERY small list of spells (I think you only get 2~3 gun-usable spells per level, if I recall correctly).

As far as it causing problems, he will have have all the diminished casting problems of being a word caster AND the problems of having 4 schools take up 2 spell slots to prepare.

Spellslinger is a nerf wrapped in flavor that makes you go "ooh, cool!"

It's a lovely visual; unfortunately, earth glide doesn't work that way.

You don't leave a tunnel, or any signs of passage.

Our group has always played that "anything an earth elemental is carrying earthglides with him", is that not the case? Earthglide itself doesn't specify anything about things you carry, just that "you burrow, swimming through the earth as if it was water."

It's made for some particularly horrific moments when one of our guy who likes gimmick-kills summons a trio of small earth elementals and had them earthglide over to enemy casters, grappled them (usually all 3 grappling at the same time to increase the chances of success and drag distance) to break concentration, and pulled them down into the "water-like earth" with no trace other than anything they dropped.

I've also heard tales of creative adventurers casting earthquake to collapse dungeons, and sending in earth elementals to carry the loot/heads of any enemies/bodies of anybody they were supposed to rescue back out, which is one of the reasons I assumed bringing things with you as you earth glide was fair game.

Edit:
As an afterthought, can you still choose to fail grapple checks as the victim? I haven't grappled since 3.5, but if your DM lets you grapple and drag things under the earth, you could just group-hug and grapple around into the back of the room, and all let go.

The phrasing "as if it were invisible" has interesting ramifications vs detect invis and trueseeing enemies. EG - They're not actually invisible, they're being ignored as if they were... Would they still be able to hear you? I could visualize using this to hold a secret meeting in the middle of the street.

How did this thread become a discussion on defining dexterity?

Failed Sense Motive check: Too much dex, not enough wis.

Have the druid wildshape into an earth elemental, earthglide under the room and hollow out the area under the floor, then break the floor open so everything falls. If his CMB is good enough, Grapple and drag his opponents underground instead.

While the mobs are running around screaming "Landshark! Landshark!" you should be able to infiltrate pointy ends first.

The thing here is that there's so many things you can do to augment him that you're better off not trying to feel useful "on your own", but find themes that synergize with his.

I have a similar problem with my own group, I'm usually a good alignment, and have a chaotic evil group, and they love being evil. I finally decided if you can't beat 'em... join 'em.

The earlier Bard/Antipaladin suggestion for example, would play powerfully into what he does. You'd share his love of carnage, buff him, gone the right way you could even make a supermount charger build.

Another prospect you may not have considered is neutral evil druid. Epic Meebo posted a fascinating homebrew variant that wildshapes it's animal companion. Wildshape the animal companion into something with 4+natural attacks and let the barbarian ride it. If your DM won't allow that - just go big cat. Charge, medium BAB and three natural attacks, the barbarian can still ride it, and both get full attack rounds on charges. Lots of story mileage available with that one. (Just say the two of you are out for a common cause that lets you be evil with sympathy - someone killed his wife/your sister and you two want to see them and everyone in your way dead.)

An inquisitor might also be nice, give the barbarian teamwork feats that fit the situation. See if he'd be cool with running a good cop/bad cop routine with you and bend him to the true purpose of evil: extort people to do your bidding instead of killing them.

A wizard or cleric could just cast enlarge person on him. You actually have alot of options for buffing him as a wizard. Polymorph tricks, etc. Just imagine your bloodthirsty barbarian friend as a large flying creature with 3x attacks, rage and full BAB. the seige-mage could be an option, but I don't think that'll mesh well with the savage makeup of things.

You could also see if the DM would let you be some kind of tiny fay wizard or sorc with a tiny devil familiar and both you and familiar could ride his shoulder pretending to be his conscience.

Options abound! :D

A wand of enlarge person would work, too, wouldn't it?

It's also kind of strange that Bard is one of the few (only?) arcane caster classes without enlarge person. I wonder if that was explicitly to deter trip builds?

Hmm...

#1: Playing off Mr. Leonhart's suggestion, If you're willing to open up the 3.5 backwards compatibility can, start at level 8+, an option I can visualize that might actually be workable with the right roleplay, magic items and feats is to mix Battledancer and Cloaked Dancer with a dip of assassin for death attack. The core class itself isn't that outstanding, but I think this is one of those places where flavor and roleplay will trump optimization.

Battledancer 6 -> Assassin 1 -> Cloaked Dancer 1~5 -> finish battledancer.

Benefits:

• Improved unarmed strike and monk style fist size scaling so you can use the entire unarmed combat feat list.
  
• AC bonus that functions like monk wis to AC, but Cha based.
  
• Perform (Dance) and a variety of acrobatics-check dances from Battledancer (useful) and x/day dances from Cloaked Dancer (iffy)
  
• Increased movement speed.
  
• Magic type unarmed fist damage.
  
• Death Attack and a dance that renders your opponent flatfoot vs your attacks if he's controlled by your dance and the luxury of waiting 3 turns.
  
• Take two weapon fighting. Battledancer is a full BAB class and you'd have 3d6 sneak* attack under most circumstances, you'll lose a little BAB from the medium class dips, but you would hit level 20 with 17 BAB. Flank your opponent for 8 attacks at 4d8 + 3d6 each. (I would personally convert cloaked dancer's "sudden strike" to sneak attack since PF doesn't do sudden strike, but that's up to you.)
  
• Wind Stance as a source of concealment has been mentioned already. With battledancer, you'd easily have the BAB to get it by level 7. Another alternative would be to find a magic item that gave you such concealment.
  

Some strategy thoughts:
Get a monk belt asap as it will stack with unarmed attacks and your DM will likely let it stack with Battledancer bonus AC as they are the same thing.
Next up, I seem to recall that there's a magic item for monk that changes your unarmed to slashing damage and provides enhancement bonuses, decorate them up as veils/ribbons and either RP that you're killing people with hidden weapons or Xena style pressure points.
Ask for 3.5 improved natural attack (+1 fist size).

Main problem: the will save DC of your Cloaked Dancer dances will be too low. The formula is 10 + cloaked dancer class level + cha mod. At level 8, that would be 11 + cha. It would cap out at 15 + cha because cloaked dancer only has 5 levels. I'd ask your DM if you could combine your ~dancer levels then divide by 2 so that you could at least get to 19 + cha. (This would be the same as PF bard mental save DCs)

Unfortunately, I'm not all that familiar with ways to increase the save DCs of SLAs. There's probably feats, buffs, items, etc. you can use to that end tho'.

Plan B:
As above, except
Battledancer 5, assassin 1, continue battledancer.

With 1d6 sneak, death attack, full two weapon fighting, and full monk unarmed attack damage progression, you'll actually hit 8 times at -2. Use feats and bluff to catch your opponent flatfoot instead of cloaked dancer class features. It'd actually probably work better than trying to work cloaked dancer in, it just doesn't have the enrapturing dance angle, but you could easily roleplay that in.

Plan C:
Effectively the same as above, but you could easily make a PF Monk archetype for battledancer.

Just swap wis to cha, add the dances in, and decide if you want to keep flurry or swap it for full BAB. That would basically be exactly the same as battledancer with pathfinder upgrades. Design a few Ki consuming abilities for hypnotic dancing and a way to make an opponent helpless vs you, possibly by failing progressive will saves or sense motive checks. Once helpless, coup de grace them.

#2: I can't add anything to this.

#3: For an undersized mouse leader, let's pop open the 3.5 miniatures handbook: The Marshal class, or it's Homebrew Tome of Battle upgrade are designed explicitly to provide strategy and leadership to a party, cohorts, and small army of level 1 followers.

Whichever version you invoke, it's actually very nice for your concept. The core mechanic is to provide leadership in the form of always on 60 foot auras, and can order specific units to move again. It's highly Cha driven, so if you take and optimize Leadership, you can get a cohort and a bunch of 1 HD minions that will benefit greatly from the auras.

I'd recommend both doing your homework and asking your DM first you touch/consider the Tome of battle homebrew... Tome of Battle was very poorly written and edited, and it's rules are easily misunderstood. As a consequence it's often banned. Just remember, if something sounds too awesome compared to an equal level wizard spell, you're probably reading it wrong.

If you do look into it, given your size limitations, I would look into either white raven for "leading the charge" (every ally within x ft of you gets a free move action right then and there and follows your charge. With a cohort and the right 1HD minions, you can easily contribute damage even though you yourself do none) or the homebrew school they added that gives you maneuvers for use with ranged weapons.

Speaking of range weapons, Probably not fitting the Narnia theme, but another option would be to make your cohort a bard, and your 1HD minions gunslingers with muskets for a Napoleonic flavor. I can just imagine the look on the DM's face when you go "Ready... Aim... FIRE!" with the Ranged accuracy aura up, Inspire courage, and 12+ lv 1 Gunslingers.

Isn't there an Inquisitor build that can grant it's allies teamwork feats? That'd also probably be a good second runner up to marshal. it could also be a cohort. There's also a "grants bane vs marked enemy" feature for inquisitor, giving a bunch of archers or gunslingers bane vs a target would be convenient.

Anyway, I think I've gone solidly into the realm of overkill here, Sorry if I got too carried away!

Interesting coincidence! I need to start reading the advice forum more often. I've been sticking to rules with a pinch of homebrew and general. With regards to the veil dancer, it's sort of just an amusing concept. You know, I think I'll post over in your thread, although with all the 3.5 or homebrew stuff I'm going to suggest, it might have been more appropriate over here. *laughs* :)

I think I found a solution to my problem, too, I'm just going to roll with Paizo style psuedo-feats. (ala rogue/witch/magus/etc.) Didn't particularly want to write a whole bunch of them, but it seems like one of those "if the shoe fits" solutions.

10 things I like:
#1: Improved feat cycle. It seemed baffling to me that there were ~hundreds~ of feats in 3.5 and you only got to pick seven unless you were human or a fighter.
#2: Consolidated feats. This one's a tie in to the above, and it's ugly stepsister, feat-division, will be #1 in dislikes, but in general, I like it when I don't have to pay feat tax to get to a particular perk.
#3: Some of the martial class buffs. I wish my bard actually got to benefit from them, but Paladin is a little more fluid now and I enjoy it!
#4: Simplified skill system.
#5: Psuedo-feats like Rogue talents, alchemist discoveries, etc. I like minor, subtle customizations.
#6: Animal Companion progression tables. My first and last 3.5 game, I played a Druid and we basically skipped my animal companion rather than try to figure out how to properly progress it by level. Having a simple, straightforward way to progress a creature is great.
#7: Simpler Grappling Rules.
#8: Firearms vs touch AC. My current character is a disaster of a hybrid gish with a gun, the gun eliminates the need for so many traditional pre-combat buff cycles.
#9: The Paizo rules forum. It's funny, educational, makes you think, and the dev team offers both official and unofficial commentary.
#10: The artwork. I love the digital coloring that makes me wonder if you went to japan to get a decent colorist.

Things I dislike:
#1: Split feats (Improved/greater trip). I loathe being feat-taxed simply to achieve basic functionality.
#2: Vancian Magic and x/day effects in general. Linear Fighters Quadratic Wizards is a symptom of False dichotomy: when you feel spells have to be "Worth" the per diem limit, you tend to erratically make them more powerful. Eventually you get to the point where Wizards can create their own pocket dimensions because "Hey, they can only do that once per day!"
#3: Wildshape nerfs. Wildshape has dual purpose - Fluff, and combat prowess. The wildshape nerfs guarantee that I'll only ever be able to use it for fluff, as opposed to the 3.5 wildshape I only ever used for combat because it was too valuable. There must be a healthy medium.
#4: Polymorph/Alter-self nerfs.
#5: Did I mention...? Yeah, sorry. I really, really liked 3.5 Wildshape and Alter-self. There were better ways to make polymorph spells workable than to remove the reasons to ever cast polymorph.
#6: Paizo's Bard update is terrible. From will save based songs being a guaranteed failure, to the misunderstanding that bardic knowledge = I know everything. Bardic Knowledge is "Hey, I'm good at picking up rumors, legends, gossip and local politics at the pub!" Not "I've never put a point into kn(engineering), but I can take 20 x/day and be just as good at it as someone who's put points into it every single level."
#7: Arbitrary flavor costs. Some class themed, flavorful weapons require exotic weapon proficiencies. More powerful weapons (by both damage and crit range) are given to martial weapon users for free. It simply doesn't add up.
#8: the 2D alignment axis. What if I'm not chaotic, but adhere to "blue and orange morality?" D&D says "that's chaotic". I say "That's lawful, it's just not your law." It makes paladin more complicated than it needs to be.
#9: The paladin code needs to be taken out of the DM's hands, period. He can already nerf you at will, he doesn't need to be encouraged. My current DM's cool with grey-case morality, but my first DM had a policy of "if you roll a paladin, you will fall because the class has a feature that says I am required to make you fall as punishment."
#10: PrCs having Medium save progressions.

Mundane candles cost 1cp and have no weight. Buy a hundred. Light one and mage hand it in. If the trap goes off, light and throw a bunch in, maybe make use of an unseen servant to spread them around.

Given that the trap went off when the door opened, it's highly likely you wouldn't even have needed to light them.

I'm working on a bard variant (inspired by the 3.5e truenamer's skill-check based casting, with more reasonable check scaling, but more on that later.) that I intend to use in my group's campaigns, and I'm trying to make sure that I hit the pathfinder balance points right. (I also figured if it works out, I'd post it so people could use it if they were so inclined)

1: I'm not sure how to phrase the search for this so that it gets useful information... a year ago when introduced to pathfinder, I found a post that explained what the natural multiclass breakpoints for a pathfinder class were, based on some levels tending to be heavier than others. My memory and own evaluation of the classes is that odd and prime number levels tend to have the strongest features, and I want to make sure that I capture the general pattern correctly.

2: Bonus feat "value". I've noticed that among 3/4 BAB classes, the ones with narrow bonus feat lists tend to have them more often than the ones with regular combat bonus feats. Inquisitor having teamwork feats every 3 levels, Alchemists and rogues getting "psuedo-feats" every 2 levels, but monks getting bonus feats every 4 levels.

I have been thinking to replace Lore Master with a "knowledge bonus feat", allowing a skill focus, magic school focus, or weapon focus feat, but am uncertain how many or at what progression to provide them. These all strike me as "minor" bonus feats, once every 3 levels seems reasonable... but I see the skill focus feats so rarely I'm not sure if that's just flat out too generous?

3: Bonus Martial/Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Fluff). How in Kromm's name do I balance this? I've noticed some very bard flavored weaponry in the SRD (Bladed scarf, Totem spear, off the top of my head) that seemed very intriguing as bard concepts, and my test bard is going to be a veil dancer using bladed scarves, but I simply do not like the associated feat tax.

I've penciled in a "performance weapon" mechanic based loosely on the arcane bond concept, where you get up to level/5 of weapons that you customize and practice with and can treat as parts of your performance. (The flavor being that you could decorate a weapon and make it a display of physical or acting prowess eg: "I put streamers on my quarterstaff and twirl it like a baton!") This opens up all weapons as fluff weapon, but I really like the idea of making the existing "fluff" weapons baseline proficiency for the bard, since, well, the class exists specifically for that fluff.

Would it be reasonable to add a weapon proficiency feat to the list of "knowledge bonus feats" I mentioned in #2? Perhaps if I specifically state "Performance themed bonus weapon proficiency feat"? There are so few of them it almost seems overly specific, and PF performance weapons often end up being functionally worse than their non-exotic counterparts. (the bladed scarf losing reach/near reach is one example that comes to mind.)

What really bugs me about this, is I know Monk's bonus feat list doesn't include bonus weapon proficiency choices for monk weapons, resulting in exotic monk weapons that the monk simply has to pay feat tax for.

I was going to post Music progression balance questions, but that's probably a full post on it's own, it's a touch after 4:30 am, and I think my first three questions are bordering on too extensive anyway. *nervous chuckle*

Thanks in advance!

A party member would need to utter the command word for him via readied action. Assuming he provided that, and that the shooter did something to get past the fact he's shooting a token (tying it to a rock maybe?)

There's a fall damage chart based on size under environmental rules, a swan boat holds up to 32 medium characters or 8 large characters, scaling up... that'd be 3 huge, I believe gargantuan is 4x4 so 2 gargantuan, or 1 colossal, so it'd be colossal?

Colossal on the falling damage table is 10d6. A note says "objects made of lighter materials might deal as little as half the listed damage, subject to GM discretion." and gives an example of a huge boulder vs a huge wagon, with the wagon doing half damage. It also says that if an object falls less than 30 feet, it deals half the listed damage.

It seems reasonable for a swan boat to be lighter than normal, so half colossal (5d6) and if they just shoot it straight from their normal sling range increment of 50 ft, that really wouldn't be falling... your choice of dealing either 2d6 or 3d6, or the "full" 5d6?

Cute, but somehow less impressive than what they were hoping for, I think.

Seems to me the target of the Gambit would get a Sense Motive check if it would be within the character/creature's normal faculties to do so.

After all, they're on that side of the fourth wall, right? How do they know you've just given them a +2 bonus?

I think the part where it describes "peeling the weapon open like a grape" would be a sign that it might not really be a good idea if you think about it.

There's not much room in a monk's hand or a claw to store a wand inside of it.

It then goes on to say that there "revealing a space large enough to insert a single wand within." and continues on to say "at which point the weapon returns to its original form with the wand held inside of it without negatively impacting the weapon’s integrity."

Certainly not the most disconcerting thing that you can do to your skin with a spell, and seems to hint more at extra-dimensional space more so than actually opening the target of the spell. :)

I think Adam is right about the "treat it as the original wand with an enhance bonus" part, but I've submitted for FAQ.

Also, is there anything keeping you from using the spell on a natural weapon, like claws or a monk's fists?

Isn't there actually an existing rule for this? Dragons can suppress or resume their aura of fear as a free action each turn, the fey with "Blinding beauty" can suppress or resume the aura as a free action.

Seems reasonable enough to just suppress the palpable aura. It's not even a house rule - it's a pattern of the mechanics.

Even if you choose not to implement it as such, Shah's suggestions have some strong merit - Without knowing better, it could easily be passed off as a paladin's auras. You could always giftwrap an interpretation in knowledge(religion) rolls that baits them to decide he's a paladin or cleric. Maybe instead of non-detection use Misdirection on a cleric prisoner and say his aura takes on the traits of the cleric's aura of good.

If your group is like my group, they probably don't even have knowledge(religion), so possibly just use a hidden roll for each of them - they'd almost have to fail.

Still, I'd just turn it off. There's plenty of precedent for free action suppress/enabling of passive auras.

That's kind of odd, because the Magus version specifically states you can, but there's that "specifically" word again.

I ended up going Ranged Gish with a regular generalist Wizard chassis and a gunslinger dip amongst other multiclass and archetype shenanigans. I was having a hard time choosing my opposition schools and just felt like I was losing too much.

Thanks for helping with the rules!

You only add the enhancement bonus of the weapon to the attack or the spell DC.

...

The reason is that when the spell calls for a attack roll you can add the bonus of the gun and when it doesnt like burning hands, you usually add that to the spell DC.

...

That makes sense, a little disappointing, but it makes sense. (I had visions of sniping from a bit farther away. I guess I still can with regular ammo. Gish build, ho~) I almost wonder why I can't just cast all non-personal spells through the gun in the first place then, down to pistol whipping for the regular touch spells.

The enhancement bonus brings up another question. Enhancement bonus added via sacrificing spell slots stacks with a bonus already present? Say my starting wealth allows a +1 enhance bonus, I can drop a level 2 spell slot for an additional +2 enhance bonus, totaling +3 to attack rolls and save DCs?