Pahlok's page

Looks good! This is pretty much what I recommend and roll with as well. One suggestion (if you weren't already going to do this) is to still require the ability score prerequisites to do the feats that have become combat mechanics. So you would still need 13 Str to Power Attack, or 15 Dex to use TWF.

Check out the Blinded Blade Style chain of feats. The Blind Zeal trait pairs well with these, so long as you don't mind worshipping Vildeis.

If you'd like a different approach to "blasting", there is a nifty build that can be pulled off with Mind Thrust. Since it is a divination spell, it's very easy to boost the CL to absurd heights.

Race: Human
Class: Psychic 1
Traits: Harrow Chosen, Magical Lineage
Feats: Fortune Teller, Intensified Spell
Alchemical Power Component: Moondew

There are plenty of other ways to boost the CL as well, but those are more general/known. This is what's most easily accessible and potent for boosting Divination. Using your Harrow deck as a focus with a dose of Moondew, you'll be doing 6d6 typeless damage on a will save for half at level 1 with a freely intensified spell. Although mindless creatures are immune, you can get a phrenic pool power that lets you spend phrenic points to affect undead regardless.

This can also be done with a Psychic Bloodline Sorcerer, although you won't unlock the better versions of Mind Thrust until level 9. This is still a potent option however, as you can Crossblood with Orc for +1 damage per die and take the Bloodline Mutation that gives another +1 damage per die. If you can somehow nab a Robe of Arcane Heritage rather early, the wait til the level 9 power is less excruciating.

Hello! I am working on a character for a home game, and am drawn to the idea of a crossbow user that fights using the Overwatch Style chain of feats. This brings me to the Crossbowman fighter, who at level 7 denies dexterity to the targets of readied actions with a crossbow.

This level of consistency for denying dexterity to AC every attack has me wondering if there are any useful effects besides Sneak Attack that I could build around or focus on.

For context, this character is for a continuation of a game that was paused years ago that we are picking back up with new/revised characters. We're building at level 10 with standard WBL, with no more than half our gold spent on a single item. My character is a Serpentfolk from a tribe that was befriended in one of the previous sessions.

I'm only married to the 7 levels of Crossbowman Fighter, so dipping classes for relevant effects is fine by me. However, since Overwatch Vortex requires +11 BAB, I'd like to stick to full BAB classes so that I can nab it as soon as we level up next.

Thanks in advance!

Considering you need to use a free action to draw arrows when firing a bow, and you can make an AoO with a bow while using Snap Shot, I would say you're fine to reload your weapon to fire as well.

It's expensive, but a scatter weapon with the Interfering weapon enchantment would let you fire at an entire field of enemies if just one enemy moves. This could be replicated nonmagically with Snap Shot and Combat Patrol, but that would cost you many feats and a full round of actions.

Also, you cannot use Vital Strike with a scatter weapon. A scatter weapon also only misfires if every roll on the attack misfires, so your chances of misfiring are low.

Check out this post to see what a culverin can do to a ship full of pirates.

If you did want to bring a similar build to PFS, the Gun Scavenger archetype is legal and will let you modify any gun into a scatter weapon, including a double musket.

Well that's a given, considering I can fire normal shots with my scatter weapon anyway.

I intend to use a scatter firearm in PFS, but I am concerned about shooting my allies caught in the blast; both for their health as characters and for my health as a player who has to be on good terms with the players of those characters.

Other than careful positioning, what can I do to mitigate this damage and/or protect my allies?

Pahlok wrote:

Another way is to use Catch Off Guard and wield Combat Scabbards.

But this only works against unarmed oppoenets or am I missing something?

You're correct. The plan then would be either to disarm them, or use the 1/combat ability of Order of the Land to at least knock one enemy out.

You can make up for the lost Sneak Attack from the Cavalier dip with the Accomplished Sneak Attacker feat.

Another way is to use Catch Off Guard and wield Combat Scabbards.

Two levels of Cavalier with Order of the Land lets you make an armed opponent count as unarmed 1/combat and also nets Catch Off Guard as a bonus feat.

Scout Rogue with Rhino Charge and Fast Getaway. Ready a charge as a standard that triggers during your turn, then withdraw. Repeat each turn.

Cheetah's Sprint doesn't increase your base land speed, so you would only get the jump bonus for the extra 40ft from Fast Movement and the bloodline power.

If you're going elemental bloodline, you may as well go air and use the 60ft fly speed instead. You could either fly up 30ft and then Rhino Charge down for 3d6 extra fall damage, or spend one turn flying up 60ft and the next charging down for 6d6 extra fall damage.

I know the intent is to jump on top of the enemy, but you might have an easier time flying instead. With a fly speed, you can fly up as a move action, then ready an action to charge "as soon as a free charge lane is open" which would trigger immediately after your turn ends.

I remember back in 3.5e, where the only ones ever using the actual monk class were self-flagelants, or warriors looking for bonus feats without meeting the prerequisites. Improved Trip was a bigger deal back then.

It's tough not to cherry-pick a little. Thankfully, there's more to dipping Monk than just bonus feats.

Tachi Kamai – Sylph Witch (White Haired)/Monk Unchained
A monk with no WIS bonus? Interesting...

It's a bit unorthodox, but it gets the job done. Stunning Fist is next to useless (especially in a gestalt world), and the Wisdom to AC bonus is nice, but not as useful as Dexterity for her. Her first and second levels will be Unchained Monk, and then she will be a Lore Warden/WHW from level 3 on. This will grant her essential and useful feats and abilities, such as Improved Unarmed Strike, Improved Grapple, Dodge, and Evasion.

Here's a short breakdown of her path to level 4, the point at which her abilities really start to "click".

So, my friend is running an evil campaign for us set in Galt where the party consists of convicts who will now be put to death for their various crimes, but manage to break free and are eventually hired as mercenaries by a few powers in Galt who want the chaotic mob rule to remain dominant. This is especially pertinent because the church of Abadar is vying for power in Galt in order to stabilize the nation.

I have a character concept (approval pending, but I have no doubts he'll love it) for a sort of inside man; a corrupt constable who is complicit with their escape and legal protection while in Galt. For his build, I want to do the Constable Cavalier archetype with the Order of the Penitent in order to make a character that excels at capturing and subduing enemies, something that will be important for questioning and torturing key NPCs we may encounter rather than killing them outright. I'm having trouble applying the order to an evil ideal, though.

Not all knights begin their careers as nobles' children or as squires. Some start out as thieves, murderers, or cheats, and only after they see the suffering caused by their crimes do they dedicate themselves to honorable service. Cavaliers who follow this order seek to make up for the crimes they've committed in the past, and do whatever they can to restore their tainted honor.

Edicts: The cavalier must be merciful to wrongdoers and show unfettered fairness whenever he passes judgment. He must assume that only the most heinous monsters are irrevocably evil, and must deliver all foes capable of fair trial to the appropriate local law enforcers.

I could easily just ask him to waive or refluff the order, but I wanted to ask around and see what other people's thoughts were on executing this a litte more elegantly.

Nutcase Entertainment wrote:

I am thinking Human Martial Artist Monk / Druid, if you know of an Unchained version of the Archetype, you can tell me.

As I understand it, Unchained Monk is not compatible with any archetypes. And wow, a lot of Unchained Monks so far. You guys don't want to pay for armor, do ya?

For me, it's just a 2-level diversion to nab some key feats/features in time for my build. The core of the character is WHW/Lore Warden, but evasion and bonus feats work really well for her and allow for her to qualify for some other feats at the level she ought to get them.

Question: How do overlapping creature type & class features work? From what I've read, it appears class HD typically override racial/creature type HD. But what about saves, BAB, etc? It seems to go against reason that a creature that has learned the skills of a specific class would lose it's genetic features in favor of (less favorable) class features.

This would be particularly true of HD, as a measure of a creature's vitality (the giant becoming a sickly being because he tapped his inherent magic & classed into sorcerer just doesn't seem right). It also seems more permissible to follow the "best applicable option" rule in a gestalt game, where that's already the rule of thumb when determining which class features apply.

Player races all have 0 HD, so this isn't an issue because you'll only ever have class HD. There are no strict provisions for scaling a creature with both racial HD and class levels with a party of normal PCs, so it's a GM houserule kind of thing. Although DM IRONlord has only allowed for player races of 20RP or less, so it's doubtful you can play a character with racial HD.

Dotting. I'll be applying with a White Haired Witch whose other half of the gestalt is Unchained Monk 2/Lore Warden X as soon as I'm done with her.

I'm just gonna pull out, I think. I have concepts for how I want the character to work, but I'm having trouble working these varied concepts into a cohesive and compelling story and personality.

I have a Spellscar Oracle in the works for this, hopefully I'll have it finished up tonight.

You can have a pony instead, but not combat trained. It's not a matter of price so much as the function of the trait.

If you could make a discussion thread attached to this recruitment, we should move our discussion there so as not to continue bumping this thread.

Hello all. I'm the 2nd player Ari mentioned. Was going to post with an alias however when working on a build yesterday I ended up working on a couple of different ideas. I have the basis for a hunter, 2 paladins, a kineticist, duelist, slayer, and magus. Not sure what the others besides Ari is planning on running so don't know which class would work well with the others we would be having.

Also Pahlok, I read you reference and wanted to ask one question because I didn't see anything regarding it. Are you ok with the leadership feat? I only ask because one of the paladin builds goes into the sentinel prestige class and they get it automatically as a bonus feat in their progression.

Yes, the Leadership feat is fine for this campaign. Keep in mind, though, that you won't be custom-building your Cohort. You'll either take on one of the scenario NPCs as your cohort, or I will create and assign one that fits. All Cohorts will be built with the Heroic NPC stat array, and all additional followers will be built with the Basic NPC stat array and be limited to NPC classes only.

Here is a link to the reference document for this campaign. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.

I'd rather keep it to 4 players due to time constraints and the logistics of getting everyone online each week. I've found that with any more than 4 players in an online campaign, sessions tend to draw out or get flat out postponed weeks in a row because people can't make it.

I'll be putting together a google doc of my specifics so that you can make characters and adjust accordingly, though it's a fairly standard and free criteria.

Sold! I'll GM this, if you would like. Friday's time works best for me. I have experience playing and GMing since 3.5e, and I've run a couple adventures online over Roll20 already and am very familiar with the tools and resources that it offers. I'm also well-versed in Pathfinder's ruleset across the books.

I don't think you'll need to change much if I GM this, since I'm open to the use of any Paizo books and prefer a 20-point buy. Your alias is put together very well and is easy to read, so that helps a lot.

Seems convoluted and penalizes unnecessarily. I'll go ahead and retract my interest, thanks for sharing.

I have a ranged Zen Archer monk who worships Erastil that I'd like to try out. PM me with the details and I'll have him sorted out tonight.

One of my personal favorites is a Ninja with the Bushwhack feat. Swift action go invisible with the Vanish trick, move action approach, standard action grapple against flatfooted CMD, free action pin against flatfooted CMD. Making them flatfooted eases up the CMD on most enemies, and it's also one of the few ways to pin an opponent without already starting your turn adjacent to them. The invisibility also gives you the freedom to maneuver around the opponent so that you can get into flanking for another +2 bonus.

It just seems to be some reminder text that left out the word "Adamantine" because the creators thought it was obvious. There's really no reason a nonmagical crowbar should be able to bypass DR/-, no matter how far you want to rely on the poor wording.

Casting Anthropomorphic Animal on an Orca (or other sea creature) doesn't give it a base land speed.

Only one person can be grappling another at a time. All you can do to aid the grapple is provide an Aid Another bonus to the main grappler's check.

Multiple Creatures: Multiple creatures can attempt to grapple one target. The creature that first initiates the grapple is the only one that makes a check, with a +2 bonus for each creature that assists in the grapple (using the Aid Another action). Multiple creatures can also assist another creature in breaking free from a grapple, with each creature that assists (using the Aid Another action) granting a +2 bonus on the grappled creature's combat maneuver check.

It turns out that on the tables for Nethys and Yamatsumi in Champions of Balance, they don't have the Solitude subdomain listed. But if you flip ahead to the Solitude subdomain itself, it says "Associated deities: Nethys and Yamatsumi"

So that would be why it's confusing and hard to find. If one were to just reference the table, they'd never know. It takes digging into the book to find it.

This definitely seems like it ought to work. I'd be glad to see an FAQ on this to confirm.

Ah, thank you! I used that site to try to find it when I was looking, but there were no listings under the Solitude subdomain's page, and the quick reference didn't have it either for some reason.

Edit: Going to the wiki pages of them, the Solitude domain isn't listed. :?

Unlike D&D 3.5e, Pathfinder doesn't have level adjustments on monster PCs or templates. It could vary wildly based on what the base creature is, and it would ultimately be up to your GM to come up with an appropriate level adjustment for such a character compared to the rest of the party.

Force Punch is a great spell to add to your list, being both Force and Touch. If you dip one level of Psychic, you can get a Phrenic Point pool and the Focused Force amplification to turn those d4's into d6's.

I've looked in all my books and scoured databases, but I can't seem to find a single deity that grants the Solitude subdomain. Does one exist?

Uncanny Dodge would also be a great class feature for a blind character. A blind character isn't a burden, some options are just better for the concept than others given the change in capabilities.

I wouldn't have minded if some of the options were nerfed. But instead they were buried and left to die. Admittedly, some of them were overpowered. But now they might as well not even be options. There are definitely some strange, nonsensical nerfs as well (such as the Vanara climb speed).

The Aasimar/Ifrit/Sylph FCB nerfs are the worst offenders. I would have been fine with a nerf to +1/4 honestly. But +1/6? This means that the best you can ever have is a +2 effective level at level 12+, which is basically meaningless. Because at level 18, when you can finally get +3, that puts you beyond max level anyway, which doesn't do anything. And for a standard PFS character's 11-level career, they'll only ever see a whopping +1 effective level. There is zero reason to take these FCB options at all now.

Eh, I'm going to back out. I'm having a hard time getting into the Eberron setting. I've done a lot of reading and I have some ideas, but I'm just so involved in the Golarion setting that it's a strain to invest myself in other complicated settings that aren't on-the-fly homebrew.

Mm, I think saying I'd finish up tonight was pretty ambitious haha. I need to familiarize myself a lot more with the Eberron setting before I pull everything together for Alton's story. I have his build finished up to level 8 as well as his character sheet if you care to take a look.

I'm planning for him to be kind of a dandy merchant's son whose privilege blinds him to how hard life can be. He hasn't been spoonfed his whole life, per se, since he is quite capable as a tactical leader. Rather, he's just sort of oblivious and stuck in his war fantasy without realizing how cruel war can be. Also, he's had his father purchase him a tyrannosaurus as a companion for the novelty of his halfling "heritage," despite having no close relation to the nomadic tribal halflings who actually raise and train dinosaurs as a way of life. He also has a lot of hobbies that he never sticks to, since he's had the time and money to try lessons in just about everything.

His party role is in tactical leadership, providing advantages in combat and setting up his allies for synergy and success. He actually has selfish motivations for doing so, however. Although he's boastful, he's learned quickly that he's no match on his own. In order to ensure his own success, he knows he needs to ensure the success of others. Afterwards, of course, he'll try to reap all the benefits and praise.

I have the perfect build for a halfling beast rider cavalier that has a T-Rex that I've never been able to find the proper setting for. I think Eberron is the only shot I'll ever have with him, so I'll build him up and apply tonight.

Since this setup already seems high-powered, would you consider taking it an extra notch and making it gestalt and/or mythic?

Grappled: -4 Dexterity
Pinned: Denied Dexterity (not even flatfooted, just denied dexterity)
Tied Up: Helpless (Dexterity of 0)

Pretty simple.

Dotting for interest, I'll be a while since I'm theorycrafting something pretty nasty.

Edit: Whoops, it'd help if I rolled some stats to work with.

5d6 ⇒ (6, 6, 4, 2, 3) = 21 = 16
5d6 ⇒ (2, 5, 6, 5, 4) = 22 = 16
5d6 ⇒ (4, 6, 4, 5, 6) = 25 = 17
5d6 ⇒ (1, 6, 4, 2, 2) = 15 = 12
5d6 ⇒ (2, 1, 6, 2, 1) = 12 = 10
5d6 ⇒ (2, 3, 3, 3, 5) = 16 = 13
5d6 ⇒ (2, 1, 3, 5, 4) = 15 = 12

Dropping the 10 gives me:

16, 16, 17, 12, 13, 12

Before my added 10 points and moving points around.

Want: Undine

I don't have anything to trade, unfortunately, but I really want an Undine boon. :( I don't have any opportunities to receive boons where I live, and the one time I did GM at a con, Brock didn't give any boons to the VC.

Neat.

Now let's say the grappler also has the Rapid Grappler feat. Rapid Grappler says "Whenever you use Greater Grapple to successfully maintain a grapple as a move action, you can then spend a swift action to make a grapple combat maneuver check." Note that it doesn't say that the swift action grapple has to be to maintain (like Greater Grapple specifies) nor that it has to be on the same target.

So could you then Standard action grab your buddy, Move action maintain to move them adjacent to an enemy, then let go and grapple that enemy as a Swift?

Wow, whoops, somehow I shoved this in the wrong forum. Can I get someone to move this please? I don't even know how that happened.

Some players I know have discussed using the grappling rules in order to reposition their allies advantageously. For example, grappling your ally, then using Greater Grapple to maintain and move them adjacent to an enemy, then letting them go as a free action, allowing them to full attack. Is this allowed in PFS with player consent? Would you allow this at your table as a GM? Why or why not? It does seem a bit cheesy, but it also seems well within the rules, and it does use up a player's turn to do it.