Rendel Bladetwist's page

So I was doing some freelance work and reading up on some monsters as homework I discovered this tidbit.

Massive and devastating, plasma oozes are mysterious, extraterrestrial beings made of superheated electromagnetic sludge. While their origin is not fully known, it is widely accepted that plasma oozes are not from this world. Some scholars believe they dwell in the sun, while others maintain they hail from the Plane of Fire. That plasma oozes have been encountered in both of these locations does little to help solve the debate.

My question is....who had the balls to go find out that these things live in the sun?

Fire Giant astronauts?
Wizards who are now currently blind from looking at the sun too much?
Eldritch entities of unbelievable power who stopped in to let a sage know that, indeed, plasma oozes live in the sun?

Where are my rules for adventuring in an environment of unbelivable gravity, no solid ground, and temperatures capable of making steel sublimate?

I mean what GM would suggest that his group needs to teleport to the sun in complete and total seriousness?

As you stand now at the precipice of a great gray waste staring out into alien stars you find yourself sighing. A bizarre gesture in this place with no atmosphere but one that comes naturally to you despite your newfound power.

Ah yes, the power. It flows through you now. It is you. What was at once a parasite and a boon is now consumed you wholly. You are the power and the power has become you. No longer content to lap at the edges of your consciousness the power itself has become your consciousness, an extension of your unsurpassed will that comes to you as loyally as a dog and is wielded with all the ease of breathing.

You extend it now spreading it through all the cosmos. You know that others can feel it. You want others to feel it. And as your will extends to the cage you sense thousands of priests scream in abject terror as they realize the birth of a newborn god. Beings more ancient than the past four universes before this one stir in their troubled sleep dreaming a thousand new nightmares that rip from their own flesh to feast on mortal souls. You sense enemies, potential allies, new worshipers, old ones withering and dying in terribly painful ecstasy as they feel again your magnificence.

As you reach out to pull yourself along this will to carve out a new domain something small tugs at your attention. Annoyed you barely hold back your wrath to observe the tiny silver shell of the construct before you. A survivor, much like yourself, of a time before humanity was even a concept of the gods. A tiny chronicler of the ruins in which you reached your ascension. It asks a simple question; to recount the events leading up to your ascension for the benefit of its archives.

Smiling you retract your will, shelve your power for but a moment. Why not cater to posterity for but a few hours?

But where to begin? At what point could it be said you had begun your ascension?

Perhaps the best place to begin a tale about the birth of a new god was to start with the end of a very old god.

Asmodeus, warden of the Rough Beast, Prince of Darkness, and oft disputed but never overthrown lord of the Nine Hells, was slain not by a grand deific conflict nor by some lucky assassins blade but through the courage, willpower, and skill of a group of adventurers. Indeed there names will no doubt go down in mortal history as great heroes of epic deeds and impeccable purity. It's unfortunate you know the truth.

Though your mortal self was originally ignorant of the full scale of this event you were aware that the world was changing. Empires were marching to war, great heroes were emerging, and for better or worse you found yourself in the midst of it all attempting to profit, preserve, or simply survive what you can.

Then it happened.

You canot truly recall what you were doing and given your newfound status you find such details unimportant. All that matters now is what you felt. You felt...darkness. Overwhelming, all consuming darkness the blinded not only your vision, but suppressed your ability to move, to think, to live. It felt as if you were dying, no worse than dying. Here you had not the sweet release of Pharasma's embrace but the ever encroaching darkness gripping you, filling you, tearing away at you until nothing was left but the fear and the pain. Opening your mouth to scream there is nothing but a pathetic whine that begins to increase in pitch and volume as suddenly the blackness simply dissipates and is replaced with a blinding white light that tears your retinas asunder with a burning agony that is a sweet release from the ever tightening darkness.

Falling to the floor it is perhaps the first time since your childhood that you have felt so helpless. Gathering yourself you look up to find that you are standing on a flat surface made of a black and crimson marble. The surface is smooth and cold but only seems to extend around you about five feet on each side giving you some room to maneuver but little in the way of movement. Beyond this flat surface is nothing but whiteness, pure whiteness. There are no features out in the infinite whiteness and until now you hear nothing but your own heartbeat and breathing at the moment. You are uninjured and all your gear is with you. You see no one else.

Yes this means other party members. You are alone on a tiny island on a vast infinite nothingness.

It took four heroes the better part of a decade, a number of powerful artifacts, and the favors of numerous entities nearly as powerful or as powerful as the gods themselves. But four mortal heroes accomplished the almost impossible task of killing Asmodeus himself.

While the ramifications and inevitable conflict of this event has already begun to cause strife and warfare across the Cage these petty mortal events pale in comparison to the upheaval across the planes. Thousand year old plots are beginning to unfold as demigods clash and armies align in heaven, hell and elsewhere for the conflict to end all conflicts.

But something like Asmodeus does not die simply. His will, his power, were too great to be laid low by simple mortal artifice.

You are the Chosen. Given a portion of the dark lord's divine power you are given the task of carrying out Asmodeus's last will and testament. Failure would mean more then your simple demise. For failure to complete the terms of this immense pact would release the dread god Rovagug from the Cage destroying everyone you've ever known or loved in a deific cataclysm that none can defend against.

Failure is to embrace oblivion. Success is ascension to godhood.

Shadows of the Prince of Darkness is a homebrew playtest for the new mythic playtest rules. I need ONE player. The other three slots have been filled already. Recruitment will be equally quick and brutal as I'll only be keeping this open until Thursday with plans to start this weekend at the latest.

Character Guidelines:
8th level
2nd Mythic Tier
Do not bother picking a flaw. I am making one for you.
Amazing initiative is bein changed.
20pt. buy.
Standard wealth for level.
All pathfinder stuff allowed.

Current group is a Cleric, Druid, and Sorceror. So obviously we have our full casters covered.

So I am currently in the process of converting bits of the Skinsaw murders to a Mythic level.

I was going to take a full party I had written up for different purposes, run them solo-wise through the encounters and possibly record the results as I have neither the time nor the patience to write out a full report. Video would be more entertaining.

But then I thought, hey why not stream it while rambling on about about strategy and positioning and group make up while b+!%!ing/exalting the virtues of the mythic system? Get people involved, entertain/boretodeath with the discussion and all that noise.

I'll post link up on the forums here once I go. Going to try and shoot for the first stream around 1:00 pm est saturday. Even if no one shows up I still get the desired effect of the recording.

So so far we've seen the mythic feats that are just upgraded feats. And some feats that enhance some core aspect of the paths. These are good. I like them. But let's think about another level here. Let's think about the truly awesome feats with nigh impossible prerequisites that reward a player for just pushing their characters into certain extreme limits.

Something like.

Legendary Prowess

Prerequisites: Bab +18, Champion or Guardian path, 9th mythic tier.

Benefit: You are proficient with all improvised, martial and exotic weapons. In addition you may apply any feat that applies to a specific weapon (such as Wepaon Focus, Weapon Specialization, Greater Weapon Focus) with all weapons that you wield.

Or perhaps more accurately

Demigod's Strength

Prerequisites: 30 Strength, Mythic Strength path power

Benefits: Something awesome. How about 10x carrying capacity? MAybe add in that you automatically succeed on all strength checks to break objects or lift things?

For a while now there has been a debate on traditional roles and tasks that makes up a typical adventuring group. This has produced a lot of interesting talk and debate on the subject but nothing I’ve felt was a particularly satisfactory way of producing a well optimized party.

Often these roles or at least these philosophies lead to common optimization traps through misleading language.

However I have found that nearly all of these talks attempt to encompass too narrow focuses without truly considering in what it is the group s really trying to do. Consider for a moment what your ultimate goal in combat is;

”TO OVER COME THE ENCOUNTER AS EFFICIENTLY AS POSSIBLE”

Taking this into this consideration we have to take a look at certain golden truths about Pathfinder combat before we can begin to parse out roles in order to consider what a practically optimized group would look like. To begin:

Spamming is usually the least consistent form of defeating encounters

When we speak of this truth we are referring to characters that are essentially one trick ponies such as dedicated two handed fighters, mounted combat characters, dedicated archers, generally characters that are built only to operate in a specific set of circumstances (i.e. adjacent to an opponent and full attacking) must have a means of setting up that circumstance consistently (like pounce for barbarians) or find a different method of accomplishing that goal (switch hitting rangers, gunslingers who carry melee weapons).

The same can be said for support roles as well. A dedicated healer does nothing to quickly end an encounter but may do more to prolong it and even drain further resources as others will be forced to use their own resources to accomplish aforementioned goal. Likewise other spellcaster’s who rely on using a single highly specialized spell will find themselves completely negated in a number of circumstances where that spell will ultimately prove useless or simply not as optimal as a different spell choice.

What this teaches us is that an effective party member must be able and willing to accomplish their assigned task in many different ways or else be able to take on a different task altogether when a situation presents itself to make that method unfeasible.

Initiative is (almost) everything

It is no secret for anyone to discover that having a high initiative is absolutely imperative. Going first allows a group to take advantage of an opponents flatfooted status to get into position as well as set the pace for the battle and immediately be on the offensive or in some cases have defensive abilities up for the inevitable reprisal. Of course having extremely high initiative is not as important as positioning nor is it as important as the appropriate use of it. A dedicated damage dealer who charges before the party wizard lays down battlefield control is actually only acting to make things more difficult for himself as he will be attacking an opponent who is not affected by that battlefield control.

Therefore high initiative is important when speaking as a group. The entire group wants high initiative to deal with the enemy but not when dealing with each other. What a group wants when dealing with one another is an established order of tasks in order to ensure that everyone is doing their job at the utmost best.

Positioning is everything

This is more or less a silent truth but the fact of the matter is nothing you do matters unless you are in an appropriate position to do your assigned task. A pole arm wielding trip specialist can’t do his work forty feet from the enemy, a two weapon paladin cannot swing at a flying opponent, and archers cannot operate effectively in a dense forest. Ultimately more than initiative being in the right place at the right time is more important to the overall success of the group.

Part of individual optimization is about eliminating circumstances or creating new circumstances where your position matters very little or where you can reach the appropriate position faster. As an example the fly spell is not so important purely for numbers but for the positioning opportunities it provides. Wizards can more easily evade ground bound opponents while simultaneously making use of it to provide their group with an expanded range of positions to take from which they can accomplish their assigned tasks. It is no wonder then that knowing this truth that we can understand the importance of spells such as Grease, Create Pit, and Entangle that not only provide serious debuffs to an enemy but also compromise the enemies positioning (i.e. controlling the battlefield) and allow the group to take on superior positions of their own (like flanking, attacking from the high ground, etc.)

Pathfinder is a lot about resource management

Nearly every class has a resource that can be expended to fight at its best. Even rogues and fighters, the most resource efficient classes, can gain one or two abilities that are limited use and even when they do not they still count their total HP as a resource that can be expended. Simply put the harder fights tend to be the more resources a group will expend to overcome those encounters. Pathfinder is written under the expectation that a group will expend about 20% of its resources for an at CR encounter.

The goal of the balanced and optimal group then is to meet or increase the efficiency of its resource use to this standard. Never expending more than what is required and making the best use of its abundant resources or making use of resource efficient actions in order to defeat an encounter.

To this end proactive abilities that reduce the difficulty of an encounter are typically the most resource efficient. As just two examples consider the difference between Slow and Cure Serious Wounds. Cure serious wounds is a reactive spell that ultimately negates at most two attacks for its level. Slow on the other hand can negate many many attacks over a number of rounds as staggered opponents will be foiled from getting into position and making full attacks time and time again.

Pathfinder combat favors offense over defense

Older players are well aware that combat in pathfinder can be quick and brutal depending on the difficulty of the encounter and the dice of the characters involved. Consider for a moment that every opponent everywhere has at least a 5% chance to hit you if they make an attack (barring miss chances). Consider further that as levels progress a character will take more and more of these chances as full attacks start to include iterative attacks and often mix in with natural attacks. Then consider that damage can easily outclass all but the strongest healing methods while still punching through damage reduction and you start to get a picture of why setting the pace of a battle suddenly becomes more important than having high passive defenses. Optimized parties want to be on the offensive as soon as possible and as hard as possible in order to ensure that battles end quickly before the tide can be turned upon them. An opponent on the defensive is at a terrible disadvantage until which time they can stem an opponents offense and be able to respond with an offense of their own.

Thus it becomes imperative to a group to be able to simultaneously place an opponent on the defensive, stifle any counter offensive, and then be able to launch its own offensive in order to ensure the accomplishment of the above goal. While sounding like a tall order it’s really something groups do all the time. A group that wins initiative and has great position immediately puts an opponent on the defensive. A group that lays down battlefield control or debuffs is usually stifling counter offensives as well. Lastly a groups damage dealers are launching the offensive. So in a sense most groups are understanding this truth already. Groups that rely heavily on reactive strategies and defensive tactics often find themselves in long drawn out wars of attrition that are highly inefficient and do little more than weaken a group’s chances of survival in a game where there is no point or period where a group might be called 100% safe.

Bearing these truths in mind we can now take a look at what a group specifically needs in order to be consistently successful at combat in pathfinder. A group needs to be able to consistently set an enemy up and dictate the pace of a battle while laying out enough relevant damage to end the fight quickly without draining too much of a group’s available resources. With this in mind some groups naturally gravitate towards a small number of tasks or, if you like, “roles” in which they work to turn an encounter into victory.

Typically these groups individual members specialize in one or two of these tasks selecting one of several different methods to accomplish what they want with their chosen race/class combination.

To illustrate how this works we have ourselves a useful metaphor in the Hammer, Anvil and Arm.

The hammer represents characters built to defeat the encounter by dealing damage or otherwise permanently removing an enemy as a threat. Hammers pound the encounter into something resembling victory.

The anvil represents characters built and specialized in holding the enemy down. That is reducing their capacity to fight against the hammers or otherwise defeat you. This is typically done through combat maneuvers, battlefield control spells, debuffs, or other similar methods to reduce an enemies capacity to do the same to the group.
The Arm represents the support center of the group. He allows the hammer to hit harder, the anvil to hold the enemy better and keeps them working before the enemy can break either. Through buffs, heals, or other forms of support an arm allows the rest of the group to perform better than normal and overcome encounters very quickly without an extra drain on resources.

Together this group acts to beat and pound the encounter into something resembling victory or otherwise overcoming the encounter.
Now what I would like to do is break down this metaphor further and explain what each role, the anvil, the arm, and the hammer, would look like in a well balanced party and talk about what is important for them to have in order to perform their proposed function.

Anvil

Anvils work to aggressively control the enemy and drop the overall difficulty of a fight in order to make the hammer and arm’s job easier.
An effective dedicated anvil needs to be able to do the following consistently:

1. The anvil needs to be able to effectively reduce or limit one or more aspects of an enemy encounter such as:

Mobility: The ability for an enemy to effectively move in an encounter and position themselves to deal damage.

Action Economy: The ability for an enemy to take actions such as a full attack, a move, etc. etc.

Numbers: Raw numbers such as attack bonuses, damage, saves, skills, etc.

2. An anvil needs to go first in the initiative in order to set the pace of an encounter allowing the arms and hammers of the group to make wiser decisions about the expenditure of resources in the act of beating the encounter.

3. An anvil needs to be able to effectively perform his task without interfering with the arm’s and hammer’s jobs.

To elaborate anvil’s need to be able to debuff their foes quickly, before the hammers wade in and before the arm’s work to support and especially before the enemy has had a chance to react. This ensures that your hammers have an easier time dealing damage and signals to your arms what form of support they will need to provide.

Spellcasting classes tend to be the best anvils purely because of the variety of the control they have at their disposal and the instantaneous effects they have on the battlefield. Pole arm wielding battlefield controllers, or other combat maneuver based classes can have similar roles and can more easily fall back onto a hammer role once the encounter is sufficiently handled to the point where the hammers can mop up.

Hammer

The hammer’s job is perhaps the most intuitive and easy for most players to pull off. Their job is to essentially finish the encounter. After the anvil has set the encounter and the arm has boosted the hammer (or occasionally the anvil) it’s the hammer’s job to render the encounter into XP and treasure to be shared by all.

A hammer needs to be able to do the following consistently:

1. Deal at least 1/3 to 2/3 of an encounter’s hp without the need of special circumstances such as critical hits in one round.

2. Deal at least 2/3 to 4/5 of an encounter with the expenditure of personal resources or through special circumstances (flanking, critical hits etc.) in one round.

3. Can deal at least two kinds of damage in order to bypass defenses (Damage reduction, resistances, certain AC modifiers).

4. Is mobile enough with sufficient action economy in order to accomplish the above in one round or less.

Full base attack bonus classes do very well going towards being hammers. They tend towards efficient action economies and can easily trade hit bonuses and in some cases defense in order to do the maximum amount of damage with the slightest expenditure of resources.

Arm

The arm works to bring the anvil and the hammer together. It helps make both characters more efficient in whatever way possible.
Therefore an arm needs to be able to consistently do the following:

1. Boost one of the following:
a. Action Economy: Granting characters extra actions typically by expending one of your own.
b. Mobility: Granting characters the ability to achieve superior positioning.
c. Numbers: Boosting a characters raw numbers such as Attack, Damage, AC, saving throws etc.

2. Be able to react quickly to changing combat situations and provide the best possible boosts to the right people at appropriate times.

¾ Bab spellcasters and full spellcasters often fall into the role of Arm. Arm’s have to be able to react to a variety of situations laying down buffs and support whenever called for in order to keep the pace up for the encounter. This can often be a difficult job as situations can change very drastically from turn to turn but given the games nature to favor proactivity over reactivity it is usually best for arms to go somewhere between the anvil and the hammer.

What this means for initiative

Essentially it means that in terms of group tasks and roles your group’s hammers need to have the highest initiatives they can muster going above and beyond normal means to ensure that not only are they above the enemies in initiative but also above all of the group as well. This prevents the group from having to delay actions to ensure the anvil gets his control off quickly and does not endanger the group into accidentally allowing the encounter to go first.

After the anvil’s should come the arms. Arms read the situation presented by the anvil and the encounter and decide on the appropriate action to best support the group whether that is giving a buff to the groups numbers or increasing their action economy to give them a greater advantage over the enemies reduced abilities. In a sense the arms choice of buff encourages the hammers to adopt the chosen strategy and operate from their.

Hammers ideally want to go when the arms and anvils have laid out the encounter and showed them how it is to be fought. If the anvil and arm are competent they should have laid out the encounter in a way that not only makes the fight easier but also takes advantage of the hammer’s capabilities. For example a druid laying out an entangle in such a way as it prevents charging is not doing the mounted cavalier any favors. Likewise a sorcerer casting haste with a bunch of hammers primarily using natural attacks is not really benefiting the group.

What this means for positioning

Positioning is dependent on the group more than anything but there are some basic guidelines that should be followed under this group model.
First Hammer’s need to start combat in a position where they can deal damage right away. Full attacks are preferable but a little damage is preferable to none.

Second arms need to be in a position to support as much of the group as they can with their abilities. For some classes this means they need to be standing around 30 to 60 feet away from the farthest party member though some abilities may require even closer quarters than that.

Finally anvils need to be in a position where they can immediately begin controlling the enemy without wasted action economy. If this means sacrificing defense in initial marches than this can often be worth it since the arm or sometimes the actions of the hammer can prevent an encounter from retaliating against a failed attempt or bad defense.

What this means for the 4 man group

This group make up may lead people to believe that a group only needs to be 3 people to cover all the necessary tasks a group needs to complete for an efficiently defeated encounter. In truth all this means is that 3 optimized people is the minimum amount of people needed to make such a group work. 4 or even 5 people allows much better breathing space in terms of optimization and roles and allows individual characters to split the responsibilities among themselves. Essentially this menas classes can very easily switch roles depending on changing situations in order to take advantage of differing combat environments. Later I’ll show this in action when I put up an example group.

What this means for classes who can’t meet all the requirements.

What this means for classes who cannot meet all the requirements for the specific role a player wants to take is that they must learn to diversify their character to take on secondary or simply another primary role depending on the changing situation. Such an example might be the cleric whose primary role is the arm. Such a cleric can find themselves in a situation where resource preservation and ending the encounter quickly will be preferable to using another spell (i.e. another resource). This cleric would then take on the role of a secondary hammer doling out damage as the situation warrants utilizing the buffs he has already cast in order to increase his efficiency in that role. He may never match the group’s primary hammer’s damage but in providing extra damage rather than a wasteful buff he helpd end the encounter more efficiently ina way his class is capable of.

Likewise a character such as a wizard may find themselves in a situation where their control will do more to hinder or will do nothing relevant to the encounter to make much difference. In this situation the wizard can easily switch into an arm role and provide buffs in place of control in order to help compensate for the inefficient control eh is providing.
Otherwise a character who cannot meet the requirements nor be able to segue easily into a secondary task must compensate for this lack of capability in one or more areas by being exceptional in another. For example Magus’s are often expected to take on the hammer role. However on paper magus’s do not perform this role very well having to expend more than a couple of finite resources each combat in order to bring them on par with full bab classes like barbarian’s or fighters.

Therefore a magus will often make up for this lack of resource efficiency by “novaing” or bringing to bear as much damage as possible in a round in order to go above and beyond expectations effectively sparing resources from other characters by ending an encounter as quickly as possible allowing more resources efficient characters to stretch even farther into the adventuring day at the cost of later capability.

Another way some classes can compensate for lacking abilities in their chosen area of expertise is by sacrificing one or more aspects of their class to efficiently fulfill that role. Usually this is a secondary class aspect such as Channel Energy or skill points. This also applies when grabbing archetypes since they are usually chosen to exemplify one or more aspects of a class at the expense of another.

What this means for defense.

It means that defenses are not the responsibility of the individual but rather the responsibility as the group as a whole. Positioning and efficient control count as the first and best line of defense against most encounters. Personal defenses like resistances, saves, armor class and so forth are certainly considerations but do not function well considering the games lean towards offense. However personal defenses should not be ignore when building a character to do any of the listed tasks. By having a good personal defense you help the group conserve resources that would otherwise spent on your protection.

All this really means is, in the end it is best to work for superior positioning as a form of defense rather than dedicating the majority of a character to passive defenses such as AC or active situational defenses such as Crane Style. While these builds can stand on their own merit when it comes to resource conservation defenses still do not work towards the overall goal of defeating the encounter.

How this model identifies unbalanced groups

Groups without Hammers: Groups without hammers are exceedingly rare due to the ease of which many classes naturally fulfill that task. However this is usually noted by extended battles with supposedly easy encounters where more than a normal amount of resources are expended to control the enemy and buff the group sufficiently to quickly end an encounter without taking too much damage.

Groups without Anvils: Groups without anvils typically end up having an overabundance of hammers with one or two members playing the part of arms. These groups typically have fast, furious fights where the group takes a lot of damage. In these situations the arms often take on a reactive role providing healing and buffs as able while the hammers frantically try to end the encounter quickly. Depending on the nature of the hammers this often drains the arms very quickly of resources or forces the hammers into more and more defensive roles draining overall resources more as the group is not ending encounters efficiently enough.

Groups without Arms Perhaps the most forgiving of the three major imbalances. These groups usually spend more resources than necessary to finish an encounter. When they don’t they exist on a razor’s edge where an enemies passed save or a characters failed save can mean the difference between failure and victory. This is much worse in groups that lack the means to magically heal themselves and are thus forced into shorter adventuring days or burning wealth on tons of cure light wound wands.

Groups with an insufficiency in one of the three tasks.
Groups with an insufficiency usually show one of more symptoms of one of the above sorts of groups. In those cases the characters are assumed to be built competently and played well. However some cases are more difficult to diagnose than others. In some groups it has been poor optimization choice (the ranged rogue being a sole source of damage as an example). In other’s it’s been poor tactical decisions (hammers beating the anvils in initiative constantly and rushing in before proper control/buffs can be applied). For some groups it’s simply a blatant lack of cohesion.

These sorts of problems can only be talked through both in and out of characters. It makes sense for an adventuring group accustomed to dealing with constant danger to work out how to handle those dangers and make sure every party member is clear on what their main goals in combat should be in any given situation.

What an ideally balanced group looks like

So right now I want to provide an example of the group model I’ve described making use of the metaphor I’ve provided. Keep in mind this is merely an example and individual group needs may call for different sorts of characters to maintain the necessary balance. This group is meant to handle a variety of situations for a given level and helps illustrate how group balance is achievable. These are not super optimized characters and certain options I picked merely because they were interesting or fun sounding.

First up is the Wizard

Primary Role: Anvil

Secondary Role: Arm

As the groups main anvil Buffs McGreasy here wants to go first thus much of her resources are dedicating to ensure that nothing short than a great roll by his opponents and a poor roll by herself will allow them to get the initiative on her.

Like most GOD wizards her primary goal is to control the enemy through a series of good battlefield control spells. Glitterdust will be her spell of choice in most situations that aren’t too close ranged since it effectively destroys an enemies effectiveness in ranged combat.
However if, for example, ranged combat is not a viable option than Buffs can make use of grease to knock enemies prone or slow down advances so her groups superior reach can more easily come into play or she can resort to buffs from her class abilities to increase the effectiveness of the group as a whole.

After our wizard we have the groups cleric.

Primary Role: Arm

Secondary Role: Hammer

Tusky here is the groups cleric. Her evangelist archetype gives her bardic performance giving her an excellent buff ability right off the bat. Stacked with bless she gives an easy +2 to attack rolls and +1 to damage rolls that will stack with everything else the party has. If this is not enough she can also use her luck domain power to give rerolls to her groups hammers providing even better buff potential.
Once she has provided all the buffing necessary and combat gets too close for one of her hammers to operate effectively she can easily take the buffs granted and start swinging her big glaive around for very respectable damage and even provides a respectable screen with her reach weapon and combat reflexes that would allow her ranged hammers a bit more breathing room to work. Overall Tusky is very versatile and while being a hammer is a second job she can still perform it quite well in later rounds.

Next we have the groups bard.

Primary Role: Hammer

Secondary Role: Anvil

Indiana Bardo here is a very respectable ranged combatant. Easily pulling solid damage from round one and doing even more with the inclusion of Allegro and Arcane strike Indiana is excellent at dropping big damage down range.

Unfortunately he is not as competent at melee as Tusky and Grumpy so when combat gets too close he falls back to a controlling role using grease, glitterdust and combat maneuvers with his whip to befuddle and control encounters while Tusky and Grumpy work on the encounter with their polearms. It’s notable that even though Indiana is a bard his Archaeologist archetype changes his inspire courage so that his Archaeologists luck ability actually stacks with the clerics inspire courage. This is particularly notable since it allows the bard to get a greater benefit from the buffs being thrown around than what would normally be available.

Last but not least we have Grumpy McShootsfaces the dwarven ranger.

Primary Role: Hammer

Grumpy McShootsfaces here is the groups dedicated hammer. His one and only concern in combat is to deal as much damage as possible in as short amount of time as possible. He accomplishes this by being a competent archer and a great melee specialist allowing him to full attack as soon as it comes to his initiative. By waiting for his cleric and wizard to go he effectively boosts his own chances of doing a lot more damage to easily hit opponents. With his animal companion to add even more damage Grumpy easily out DPR’s much of his group most of the time and many encounters at this level will be ended before too many resources are exhausted. I left favored enemy and favored terrains blank as these tend to be campaign dependent choices made by individual players. Since this group is meant to operate in nearly every campaign I can think of things like miscellaneous gear and choices like that I’ve left blank.
Some things that are worth noting about this group is that it does not ignore other aspects of the game. It still has very solid passive defenses with the groups dedicated hammer by far being the toughest cookie to crack ensuring that it will take quite a bit of effort to stop him from ending encounters. Likewise the group is still solid in the face and utility skills department. In terms of healing you have three characters who can cast healing spells and two of them even carry cure wands for out of combat healing.

Overall the group is meant to be solid and work cohesively under the model I have described. It’s easy to see a group of players coming together to make these characters (the prototypical elven wizard, the half orc “cheerleader” fun character, the Indiana jones inspired character, and the somewhat optimized dwarven ranger). Only one of the party members is completely married to his role (and even out of combat still has a number of thins he can do) There is no singular build or ability that ties this group together. It is just a simple straight forward strategy that works.

IN CONCLUSION

Ultimately a lot of the information provided here will not produce any amazing epiphanies or sudden realizations about the nature of group cohesiveness and balance. Primarily because a lot of this knowledge has been gathered over a period of time from reading and rereading various guides, topics, debates, actual play experience and the testimonies of others that illustrate what works and what doesn’t. Simply put this model for group balance only includes what is known to work and nothing more. While a group’s actual needs in order to accomplish these tasks may differ this is fundamentally what is known to work. We know that putting out a lot of damage is important. We know that controlling the enemy and the battlefield is important and we know that providing the necessary support to keep this cycle going is important. Therefore a group needs to be able to do those three things. Many groups naturally gravitate towards this model without even realizing it. Saying something as simple as “we could really use a full caster” or “we could really use a cleric” says volumes about how a group or individual feels about group balance. The only real challenge in these cases is not only ensuring the the individuals are competent but also ensuring that the group is cohesive enough to play off of one another’s strengths and be a benefit to one another rather than a detriment.

So it has occured to me that there really isn't as much community swupport as I would like. Or rather, there is support, lot's of support. But it ultimately amounts to individuals voicing an opinion in various different threads and guides and gripe sessions.

Basially what this amounts to are a number of well written guides based upon individual experiences. While this is certainly not a bad thing particularly when the individual takes the time to make a comprehensive and encompassing guide I think these guides fail newer players and readers by presenting what is ultimately a heavily biased viewpoint.

So I have a proposal to make to guide writers.

Open up your documents to the public.

Seems easy enough. You open up your guide to accept the knowledge and advice from other people. Now of course this also opens up to deletion, trolling, and other obnoxious nonsense that can turn a good thing into a bad thing because people are just plain jerks.

Still however I think the carefully guided good can outweigh the bad if simple guidelines are followed.

So sometime this weekend I plan on opening up my cleric guide for all to add their own thoughts or quotes to in order to make it better. So I want to give a couple of guidelines for writers and contributors to follow to keep things clean.

For Writers:

First, before you open it, save a back up. This is basically to prevent trolling or people from simply deleting it for some reason or another. It'll save a lot of heartache if you do that.

Second, respect other's opinion's especially if they're opposite to your own. Some people have different play styles and may point out certain things you might have missed or made arguments for things you might have derided for one reason or another. The point is to respect these arguments and acknowledge that their viewpoint may not match your own.

Third, add a build section if you have a class guide. Let people add their own builds and explain them lots of neat tricks and capabilities are only revealed once you've actually built a character with it,

Lastly, check back frequently, make sure things are going okay. This is your guide and your work after all and the others are merely adding to it; refining it into something that is suitable for as many groups as possible.

For Contributors:

1. If you feel the need to edit the main body please only do it to correct spelling and grammar errors. If there is a rules error try to contact the original writer first and sort it out or make a note of it on the doc.

2. If you add something, another paragraph, another entire section, whatever please format it slightly differently from the main body and be sure to sign it so the contributor is known and your contribution is obvious. This makes editing easier as well since others can tell the difference between one thin and another.

3. Police the document a bit if you see something that is just blatantly wrong, or find someone trolling or deleting portions of the document please be sure to correct it. It makes lives so much easier.

4. If you just want to express an opinion and don't have anything real to contribute please do so in the guides discussion thread. This is why it's there afterall.

Thoughts and opinions on the idea are welcome. I think it's possible to make such guides very good community tools and not just the well informed opinions of a few.

Just a few questions for the rogue players out there.

Mainly what drew you to playing and enjoying the rogue class?

Does the rogue satisfy those needs?

Do you think the rogue is better or worse than relatively equivalent classes in terms of role (alchemist/ninja/bard)?

Whether yes or no why did you not play one of those classes?

What do you think could be done to improve the class in achieving the flavor you desire?

There are secret motives behind these questions and I feel this will inevitably turn into a "rogues are crap/fine" thread which is all well and good as long as there's some actual logic and discussion behind it.

Well it appears I accidently hit "ignore" rather than "edit" on one of my aliases posts so now I can see none of my posts.

So, how do you go about unignoring someone?

It's difficult to say how long you were out but easy to say that part of you wished you never woke up. Pleasant dreams of music, free flowing alcohol, and the beautiful night sky were all that comforted you in your state of unconsciousness. Later, when you recalled the tale later, you recalled that these were the last of such dreams for what felt like an eternity.

When your eyes fluttered open it was to darkness ,moaning and some dark pit of your stomach was afraid to roll over for fear of finding out just what you did last night.

As you attempt to reassert your grip on reality there's a sudden brightness as a lantern lights up spraying its oppressive cone of sharp brightness right into the pain receptors of your brain. A voice then adds to the cacophony of cerebral agony as gravelly and rough as the cheapest ales.

“Still abed with the sun over the yardarm? On your feet, ye filthy swabs! Get up on deck and report for duty before Cap’n Harrigan flays your flesh into sausage skins and has Fishguts fry ye up for breakfast!”

There is a crack of a whip and a sense of urgency as you reach hurriedly for your weapons or some means to defend yourself and almost choke on the realization of being unarmed, unarmored, and all but the clothes on your back stripped of you. There are other bodies around you and behind the light and the man with the whip are a number of eager looking individuals wielding blunt instruments.

It's difficult to say how long you were out but easy to say that part of you wished you never woke up. Pleasant dreams of music, free flowing alcohol, and the beautiful night sky were all that comforted you in your state of unconsciousness. Later, when you recalled the tale later, you recalled that these were the last of such dreams for what felt like an eternity.

When your eyes fluttered open it was to darkness ,moaning and some dark pit of your stomach was afraid to roll over for fear of finding out just what you did last night.

As you attempt to reassert your grip on reality there's a sudden brightness as a lantern lights up spraying its oppressive cone of sharp brightness right into the pain receptors of your brain. A voice then adds to the cacophony of cerebral agony as gravelly and rough as the cheapest ales.

“Still abed with the sun over the yardarm? On your feet, ye filthy swabs! Get up on deck and report for duty before Cap’n Harrigan flays your flesh into sausage skins and has Fishguts fry ye up for breakfast!”

There is a crack of a whip and a sense of urgency as you reach hurriedly for your weapons or some means to defend yourself and almost choke on the realization of being unarmed, unarmored, and all but the clothes on your back stripped of you. There are other bodies around you and behind the light and the man with the whip are a number of eager looking individuals wielding blunt instruments.

Ask any local of the shackles and they'll tell you this: nowhere in the world is more beautiful, that has more freedom, and is so full of the opportunities given to all men with sharp wit, sharp blades, and the will to succeed. These words were said to you as you were served drink after drink in a surprising show of hospitality. The bartender was a pleasant sort given to idle chit chat about nothing, the weather, the rats that keep infesting his cellars (commenting about how this is highly unhygienic is a great way to start a fight). Perhaps it really was good alcohol. Perhaps it was late and the business of the day tired you out. Perhaps it was the hypnotic way the bar wenches cleavage swayed as she served another round. But soon you grew drowsy and before long you slumped in your bar stool. You never felt the collision with the floor, nor the arms drag you away.

This is an open recruitment thread for the Skull and Shackles AP path.

I will be looking for 4-5 players and may or may not run two groups depending on the amount of interest there is in this game. Posting frequency and good roleplay skills are an absolute must I really hate reopening recruitment threads.

Characters are 20pt buy, all core books (except ARG) allowed, two traits one from the players guide and one of your choice. Do not bother with equipment as you start out wiht none. Other sources may be allowed if can be cited on the pfsrd site but I reserve the right to say no to the shenanigans you attempt to pull.

Characters must have a backstory to go along with their numbers and it is through this that I determine how my groups will be built.

No paladins as the AP expects you to be pirates at some point. Paladin pirates sit ill with me. No you are not a privateer. Privateers are just pirates with a prettier name and a piece of paper calling their actions "legal".

Firearms are slightly more common so gunslingers not from Alkenstar are possible. They are still ludicrously expensive. There are reasons behind this but I will not detail them here.

A note to people building "fun" characters. I'm merciless and this AP hates you. That's two strikes right off the bat. So be warned.

Ultimately my goal is to build a group (or two) of interesting mechanically viable characters with solid players behind them. I've pulled this off once in council of thieves and im looking to make lightning strike twice.

Finally in your submission answer the following questions however you wish.

1.What set of circumstances found you in Port Peril at a tavern having a lively drink anyway?

2.Are you the type who struggles against his chains as they are being put on or waits for an opportune moment to murder the jailer?

3.How do you see your character developing mechanically? Storywise?

4.Be ye a dirty scoundrel who would sell his mothers soul fer a farthing and a pint o' rum or be ye some heroic type who be thinking himself better 'n 'is fellow black hearted bastard?

5.THAR BE VOIKINGS OFF THE STARBOARD BOWWW!!! What do you do?

Recruitment closes in one weeks time or until I feel I have enough to start a group or two.

Everything hurts. Breathing, thinking, moving, living. Each is an exercise in agony as you open your eyes. You feel things crawling on you and you are lying in something gritty yet smooth. Sand? Yes, that's what its called. Sand. And that sound like a windy roar must be the ocean. Maybe. You're sure it's the ocean.

There's a smell permeating in the air one that you are familiar with yet you don't remember why. In fact you can't remember much of anything. Name? Yes you have that. You can remember how to swing a sword, how to cast a spell. But, where did you learn these things? Why? When? In fact just how old are you? Wonderful.

Naked, on a beach, feeling like ten different kinds of hell and incapable of remembering anything beyond the most basic things you lie on the beach waiting for the world to stop spinning for five seconds.

As you are about to slip into the kind bliss of oblivious unconsciousness a voice calls out a small away from you.

"Papa! Papa! These ones are still alive!"

Right so while everyone finalizes their characters and gets everything squared away let me lay down some ground rules.

1.Minimal metagaming: It happens and I don't particularly mind it so much. But blatant metagaming won't be tolerated.

2. I fill in gaps.: There's a good reason why you don't remember your backhistory. It's far from uninteresting. But let's jsut say if you had a particular story your character thought he had. Think again.

3. How combat works.: Essentially I roll everyones initiative and take the average of those rolls as the groups initiative. Same as the badguys. Initiative for the group itself is done in order of posting. If there have been a bunch of posts and you have not posted for 24 hours since the last actions than you'll get NPCed for that action so we can get through the combats quickly. I'll use a battlemap with X/Y coordinates to make things simpler on you.

4. Ask questions: If you need to know something; ask. preferrably with some kind of roll attached. That way I don't have to ask for them. Sometimes I'll roll knowledge checks ahead of time so I can give ou that knowledge beforehand to save time. But not often.

5. Posting: Let me know ahead of time if you can't post for a day or two for some reason. One psot a day is the minimum I ask, If you disappear for three or four days without notice expect to be replaced and not let back in until someoen drops again.

The first thing you can remember is suffocation. Followed by fear. Followed by pain. You cannot recall what the rubbery membranous substance was that covered your entire body. Nor could you determine the language of the person who punched you hard in the gut when you struggled against it. That is if it was a person at all.

These concerns quickly became secondary as you felt clawed hands lift you bodily from where you lay and a brief feeling of flying before you hit the water. Whatever substance had been used to hold you before quickly dissolved in the briny turbulence you could only guess was the sea. The concept of drowning and swimming came quickly to you as you kicked upward for air and with one free gasp you only captured a brief glimpse of the others around you before a wave kicks all of you up and over into the unknown. There are screams of terror, and then darkness.

A Pound of Flesh is a pbp game set in Exodus a 3pp campaign setting that includes nearly every genre you can imagine and more. Players take on the role of a group of amnesiacs who wash up on the shore of the Arman Protectorate (steampunk russia if you will). This is a very open ended game about self discovery and exploring a strange yet familiar world.

Needed Books:
Core Rulebook

Recommended but not Required Books:
Ultimate series.
Advanced Player's Guide.
NeoExodus Campaign Setting
Psionics Unleashed.

Character Guidelines
20pt buy
1st level
No wealth. You wake up naked on a cold beach.
Neoexodus races plus Human only. Other pathfinder races are exceedingly rare.
Psionic characters will be allowed but I won't take more than one.
Classes that come with equipment or pets can stat these things out if they choose they'll gain these before any real adventuring begins.

If there is a 3pp thing you wish to use that is not in one of the allowed books it is subject to GM approval.

A personality to go with a physical description. You don't remember a back history so putting one up will be ignored.

Recruitment will be up for a week or until I feel I have what I need.

Thank you in advance for applying.

So I've got this itch to abuse the living hell out of paired opportunist.

So other than your standard ways of provoking AoO's (movement getting up from prone etc.) what are some other ways one can get your opponent to provoke an AoO.

I'm trying to figure out how exactly this feat works.

Some specific questions. Could I use it while mounted to gain the benefits of ride by attack, spirited charge or mounted skirmish?

Could I gain the benefits of other such abilities like radiant charge or the cavalier's banner bonus?

So since the fighter thread some time back I got to thinking about Eldritch Heritage and the various things you can do for it. The classes that can act as a vehicle for it, and how it can essentially add things to a class the few feats feasibly could.

So the purposes of this thread is kind of a guide, and kind of an outline of what can be accomplished by various classes making use of
Eldritch heritage and company. None of the builds here will be supremely optimized and are meant more as a demonstration of what the feat chain can accomplish if the race isn't listed you can expect most of the races to either be half elf or human. Likely half elf. So let’s start with some simple fighter builds.

So the celestial archer is one of the weaker cases of eldritch heritage awesome and one of my earlier experiments with the feat. But still a decent case. Ultimately it’s about giving yourself abilities that would normally be outside your purview. In this case the abilities are to fly, make a reroll, and have a small healing ray or damage ray that ignores damage reduction. Overall it really isn’t a bad use for the feat. All you need o take it work is a 13 charisma which you can boost through magic items to meet the other prerequisites with ease.
Overall this is a fair start and helps a class gain things they would not otherwise.

So the Fairy Puncher is a nasty kind of build that takes full advantage of Eldritch heritage to do things that would make a GM cringe. Charge, smash faces while not getting a response, turn invisible, proceed to smash faces even more. Now, a lot of these feats you can decide to do without this is just one take on an unarmed build, but ultimately it solves one major issue with fighting builds by stopping the first retaliatory strike. While the last build focused on giving more options an already tried and true strategy this build instead uses Eldritch Heritage as a sound core in which to build on. This next build looks to actually enhance and improve an original strategy.

Falchion Frank here demonstrates that even a fairly boring build can benefit a great deal from tapping into the family tree. Resistances to fire, natural armor, flight, and even a fairly good backup weapon in the form of natural attacks that scale with you should you be forced to separate from your falchion. With the natural armor built in you can use your amulet slot on an amulet of mighty fists if you desire or on something else more to your style. This can easily build in other directions and you could possibly go with Abyssal or Orc instead if there are other things you are more concerned about.
Now, so far eldritch heritage has been tacked on to builds that already exist for fighters and honestly didn’t need them to begin with. In fact it can be argued that he might be better off with a different line of feats. So, is there a kind of fighter that actually needs these feats to function? Perhaps there is one.

Here we have a build that is made possible through the use of Eldritch heritage. Normally you would have to multiclass in order to make a savage warrior work. Include feral combat training and you have a pretty nasty claw monster. The only real limitation is the duration of the claws. But even this case can be solved with magic items, spells, and what not. The beauty of all these fighter builds is the charisma emphasis pens the door to making good use of Use Magic Device so you can eventually make use of spells to give you even more natural attacks to use your weapon training with.
So overall the fighter is a pretty good vehicle for the feat chain. But what about other martial classes?

From what I’ve found out, paladin’s generally don’t benefit as much as their spell and class ability selection means they rarely need what sorcerer blood lines offer. Beyond that, they have no bonus feats that help justify sacrificing combat feats for them to work. Still, two handed paladins tend to be light on the feat side and so can probably get away with the three or four feats necessary to make eldritch heritage work.

An unmounted cavalier can make some fairly good use of the feats since they will have feats free over the course of their career for combat purposes. The more physical bloodlines like Orc, Abyssal, and Draconic all benefit cavaliers.

Rangers usually don’t have good enough incentive to bother with it. They don’t have a high enough charisma normally to care for it and generally can get a lot of the benefits of eldritch heritage through their class without it.

Gunslingers are normally in the same boat as rangers, but, with the Mysterious Stranger archetype they can qualify fairly easily and they themselves have a few bonus feats. Boreal and Stormborn provide some of the better benefits but more stealth oriented gunclingers will appreciate the shadow blood line.

So, we know that eldritch heritage can give some good benefits to martial characters. So what happens if we look outside the full BaB classes and into the ¾ classes like summoner, bard, and ninja? Funstuff.

In this first step we play with a mostly unarmed dexterity ninja. This in and of itself isn’t anything special. What makes it truly nasty is our unarmed dexterity ninja can run up invisibly and completely ruin a spellcasters day. How badly? Well for one he can sorcerous strike you with his Oni bloodline power and lay on continuous damage, forcing concentration checks. Second, he can start laying on laughing touch while punching you from invisibility.

Later on our death ninja can use Alter Self to help with his disguise, gain better vision, and eventually get what is essentially a permanent boost to dexterity. If this isn’t enough he becomes pretty hard to kill as he’ll get a fast healing power that kicks in when he falls over. Overall not a bad way to play a ninja.

For more ninja goodness you can also try the Raksasha bloodline and be the ultimate master of disguise. Or you could play the Shadow bloodline and build a ninja who has soemthign like Hide in Plain sight (a weaker option since by the time he gets that he can use greater invisibility.)
Taking a look at another ¾ charisma based BAB class we find ourselves looking at the bard.

The bard has lots and lots of options and can pretty much benefit from all the blood lines in some form or another. You can grab the abyssal or orc bloodlines to get some rather decent melee bonuses or you could go with Boreal or Stormborn to get an edge on your archer. Arcane can help dedicated spellcasters and lines like Raksasha can give you an unfair advantage in the deception game. Really outside of elemental based bloodlines or bloodlines that aren’t very good to begin with *cough*maestro*cough* you can get away with quite a bit. But because I’m a sucker for gishes let’s present a fun little arcane duelist build.

There might be some problem with this (the arcane duelist gains an arcane bond ability that syas you can only choose the weapon) but the trick is to get an ally that benefits from your bardic music and gives you a solid ally to make use of that has all of your ranks in skills, your bab and half your manly hp. Simultaneously you gain spells to add to your list that makes you an even bigger badass.
S
o to date we’ve seen mostly skill and beat down types make good use of eldritch heritage. Needless to say this feat chain smiles on classes that can spare the feats and to players that can make use of them intelligently.

But let’s face it the sorcerer bloodlines belong to a full caster. So what kind of shenanigans can we pull with casters?

Well Oracles can benefit immensely from the arcane bloodline as they can get spells to their list to expand their capabilities. In fact any caster with a spells known list can benefit from the Arcane blood lines various abilities. So, stating this there’s very little reason to actually post a build for it.

What I will show is a potentially very good build utilizing the crossblooded sorcerer with the arcane blood line.

So a +6 bonus to compulsion spells (most offensive enchantment spells fall under this category). You can grab spells you would otherwise not get and you can get any variety of familiars to aid your cause.
So that concludes our little journey through the eldritch heritage feat chain. Later on I might present more builds for you to consider.
For example at the moment I’ve been thinking about Eldritch Heritage Arcane for familiars on Full BAB classes. This kind of silly idea amuses me since they get half your hit points and use your BAB.

So later on once I have all my notes gathered I think I'll sit down and tackle a summoner guide. However before you point out "there is one" I would like to say that this will be a very very different summoner guide than what you are used to.

So for my first summoner ever I wanted to try and see if I couldn't work around the idea of being an archer.

Up until now it's worked splendidly. I shoot, she glaives it to death, I stop to cast a spell or two and everything works out well.

However there's one bit that's going to make things exceedingly difficult.

Namely the shared items slots issue. Eventually I'm going to need to boost my physical stats in order to remain at least relatively competent as an archer.

However these same stat boosting items take up the same slot as I would throw onto my eidolon. Buffs can make up for some but not all of these issues.

If there is one saving grace in this it's that I haven't really determined a lot on what my eidolon is going to do. Eventually she'll be flying and yes she's currently very melee oriented but given the malleable nature of eidolons she can shift focuses.

Help and thoughts would be appreciated. Simply keep in mind the restrictions I'm under considering this is a "living" campaign as it were.

My sheet for reference.

So I've been simmering an idea for some time now and I've decided to pose the question to you.

Would there be any interest in a book, series of books, or one big book that detailed one or more micro-settings? That is 30 to 50 page descriptions of small gimmicky worlds that are suitable sprouts to kick campaigns off of without having full giant books of campaign material. Simply settings based around ideas like, "the sun has died and now the udnerdark races rule" or "a setting that takes place on a demiplane ruled by fallen angels stifled by heaven attempting to create it one that all can see and enjoy". Like I said, gimmicky stuff that really doesn't work for full on campaign books but detailed enough that a GM can use it as an excellent head start on games built along similar lines.

Jaded guardsmen, hellknights, criminals, and most unsavory types agree; Egorian produces a special kind of evil bastard. The oppressive environment, hellknight presence, infernal influence, and obsession with order and decadence breeds the type of seedy individual that leaves no witnesses, has few friends, and would just as likely rip out your spine and strangle your firstborn son as look at you.

It comes from a sense that, if one is caught, the government will make a sport of your grisly and painful death. Therefore it behooves one to ensure that either people are too afraid to turn you in, or no one knows you did it from the start. Hence where you come in.

You disposed of the note as soon as you could fearign that it might be traced to you or seen as contraband, or worse planted on you to frame you for something you did not do.

Walking through the crowded streets shoulder to shoulder with slaves, merchants, and devils of all shapes and sizes there is a comfort in the crowds and tall vaulted architecture of the city. The leerin gargoyles, black and red paint, and narrow alleyways somehow provide a unique form of cover to you. While the common man might grow fearful in the presence of so many dark places and terrifying silhouettes you exalt in the fact that the silhouette in question is often yourself.

However as you cross into the region known colloquially as Whipcrack you suddenly start to feel an uneasiness that you've never felt before. This is a halfling neighborhood. The buildings are short, light colored, and you stand among the homes and people as a giant. The people notice you and either cast their eyes away forcing themselves to ignore you or stare at you from windows, doorways and alleys. You are being watched. You are exposed. And it dawns on you why your potential patron chose this area. There is nothing you can do here that won't go unnoticed.

When you finally get to the textile mill at the other side of the neighborhood near the edge of the city you are somewhat relieved. It's size is comforting compared to the small homes and thatched roofs of halfling cottages and slave barracks. The text tile mill has lines of halflings pouring in and out wearing crimson bandanas around there mouth and nose and there eyes are covered by a pair of goggles. It appears you've come in the middle of a shift change. It's at this point you become aware of the smell emanating from the place. The sharp chemical odor of acrid dyes, chlorine, and various treatment agents for fabrics. At the entrance a large half orc with a whip on his belt and a large club next to him calmly watches the halflings expecting no trouble and recieving none. He nods as you walk up apparently not opposing you until you try to enter.

"Sorry sir/maam. Can't let you through without a mask and goggles. It's the rules you see. Stuff in there can burn your eyes and make you cough up a lung." With that he gestures towards a crate next to him where half lings are reaching in and either dropping off their headgear or picking it up. After a moment or two of digging you find a pair of goggles and a bandana the proper size and put them on. The smell of sweat and blood is strong but as you enter the textile mill proper you quickly discover just what the overseer was talking about. The fumes in here are thick and potentially deadly were it not for the chemically treated mask you wear. More, it provides you with something you've missed since entering Whipcrack, anonymity.

Feeling your way through bodies, vats of chemicals, loud embroidery machines and your own lack of direction you eventually make your way up the stairs and into an office labeled "Management".

Upon entering you find yourself standing in a small windowless room with a single round table surrounded by six chairs. Directly across from you sitting at the table is a middle aged man with a large round baldspot on his head shining in the light comign from various lanterns in the room. His face appears smooth and his hair (what's left of it) is a silvery white, clinging desperately to his head in a vain effort to remain. He wears an entirely blank expression that suggests your arrival is neither surprising or welcome. He is dressed neatly, in a lawyers outfit that is perfectly tailored and immaculately clean. In front of him on the table is a brown leather suit case.

"Good afternoon." The man says after a pause just long enough to make you feel awkward. "Please, have a seat. The others will be arriving shortly. Do not remove your mask nor give out your name until our business here is concluded. Doing either before you leave is grounds for forfeiture. I will not answer any questions nor give any statements until all others have arrived and we can begin properly. Understood? Good." With that the man clasps his hands together and awaits quietly for the rest.

Order of posting will be the order of arrival. The mysterious lawyer says the same thing to everyone as they enter until the last one arrives.

...is under construction.

Yup, sorry, still working on it and have barely gotten it started. So really I'm starting the thread early to get an open dialogue going on it. To gather opinions, thoughts, and ideas while I write this guide.

Meanwhile let me share some thoughts of my own while working on this.

~Order of the Cockatrice does not have to be a douche or a loner. In fact they are amazing when others are around to bask in their glory.

~Gendarme is actually a pretty bad archetype.

~Tactician is very powerful. It's only a shame that the level you get it at kind of makes it suck.

~Cavalier's are at their best when others are around to join them in the fray. They are enablers that make the good great and the great overwhelmingly good.

~Every cavalier needs to be a beast rider if not a hound master or musketeer.

~The mount, when compared to a paladin mount or druid companion sucks. Better off just riding around on the druids Roc companion. At least it can fly.

This is the OOC thread for the Spider's Web. The following are soem basic rules.

1.Minimal metagaming: It happens and I don't particularly mind it so much. But blatant metagaming won't be tolerated.

2. I fill in gaps.: For the sake of clarification and story it's not uncommon for me to fill in gaps in character backstories that have remained empty or vague. This is mostly to make the backstory fit the game or to give a character incentive to take part in soemthign he'd otherwise not care about.

3. How combat works.: Essentially I roll everyones initiative and take the average of those rolls as the groups initiative. Same as the badguys. Initiative for the group itself is done in order of posting. If there have been a bunch of posts and you have not posted for 24 hours since the last actions than you'll get NPCed for that action so we can get through the combats quickly. I'll use a battlemap with X/Y coordinates to make things simpler on you.

4. Ask questions: If you need to know something; ask. preferrably with some kind of roll attached. That way I don't have to ask for them. Sometimes I'll roll knowledge checks ahead of time so I can give you that knowledge beforehand to save time. But not often.

5. Posting: Let me know ahead of time if you can't post for a day or two for some reason. One post a day is the minimum I ask, If you disappear for three or four days without notice expect to be replaced and not let back in until someone drops again.

Egorian is not a city of angels. Not even fallen ones. It seems no matter how tight the iron gauntlet of authority squeezes the slippery snakes of society squeeze through and bite the face of the bastard that's holding them while the rabbits and sheep get crushed. It's the way of things. And as you enter your inn room after another bad day doing your part to ensure that the underworld continues operating right underneath the bastard Hellknight's noses you find a curious thing on your person. It's a note written in clear common. You start to sweat a bit as you read it trying to think about who planted it and how easily the letter could have been a very sharp point inserted into a very vital organ. Intrigued, frightened, and perhaps angry you stay awake that night checking the shadows and thinking about who it could be. And as you lay there awake the letter palys itself over and over in your head...

To: The holder of this letter.
From: A potential patron.

No doubt the location and circumstances upon which you recieved this missive has captured your attention. You should know that it is within our power to end your life at will. However it is not in our interest or desire to do so. Instead we are searching for men and women with a particular set of skills. Skills of which that you possess. Know that we pay well for these skills, and more, for discretion in the execution of their use. Names are unimportant at this juncture in our relationship. Know only that we are not associated with any law enforcement, noble house, or other such lawful organization. We are not a cult, band of brigands, or any other such dirty organization that sullies itself with a lack of professionalism, uncalled for greed, or pointless bloodthirst. If these are ideals you can agree with than we can do business. We ask that you meet in the second floor manager's office of the textile mill on the corner of Grimstone place and Erebus road at noon. We will not presume that you come unarmed. However we cannot guarantee the safety of any friends, relatives, or bodyguards you decide to bring with you. We are an organization that protects its secrets as you will soon see.

The Spider's Web is a pathfinder game starting at level 1 about a secretive network of assassins. You play as one of the cells who accept jobs from the network, perform them, and gain reputation based upon the quality of their work. The game starts in Egorian but will go beyond that shortly. The network prides itself on professionalism. You should too.

Character Submission Guidelines.

Answer the following questions in whatever way you deem fit (In or out of character)

1. What can you bring to our organization?

2. Why should we trust you?

3. What future do you see with us?

4. How religious are you?

5. Your target is sitting in his study smoking a pipe. Next to him is his prized warhound. Across from him his maid is quietly dusting the mantle of the well lit fireplace where a blaze is going brightly on top of the stone floor of the hearth. Thus far you are unseen. What do you do?

Character creation guidelines.
1st level
All pathfinder material allowed.
20 point buy.
2 traits.
Average wealth.
Neutral to evil characters only.
No Red Mantises, we have no interest in religious fanatics.
No psychopaths, we're professionals here.

Some hints: Stealthy characters are useful.

The direct path is almost always the worst. Make sure the character you build is capable of other means of reaching the target.

Jobs start with a set amount of reputation (explained later when game starts) completing a job will gain you this rep. However actions taken while working can lower or raise this reputation. It's possible to completely botch a job and utterly ruin your rep. You need to keep your reputation.

Recruitment will start now and end at about this time next week or unil I feel I have a suitable group.

Well it appears another player in a different group of the same module I'm running needs a replacement.

Submission Guidelines:

Submit a character with backstory and a brief description of physical looks, personality, class and race. In addition please answer the following questions in whatever way you see fit.

1. Why are you in Westcrown?

2. Given a chance would you hurl down the ruling houses and take their place? Or create a new form of government?

3. What will you be able to contribute to the group?

4. How do you expect the character to develop roleplay wise? Mechanically?

5. I'm a Hellknight about to lay down some police brutality down on you. What do you say to stop me from breaking off my spiked greaved boot in your butt?

Also, no Paladins thank you. The region can really mess with a paladins code and I'd be better off not dealing with a ticking time bomb ready to go on a Smitepage. I'm not going to get into a debate about it.

You also must be able to post at least once a day twice a day being a preferred minimum but not required. If you cannot post for a day or two please let me know in advance so we can get your character moved on. If you do not post for three days in a row without informing me then you will be dropped. Even if it is a simple one line post dictating your character picking his nose while other PC's are chatting it up that's fine so long as I know you're still there and interested.

Character Guidelines

Start at lvl3 with 2nd level character wealth.

20 point buy, core races plus tieflings others will be considered on an individual basis.

2 traits one must be a campaign trait.

I will be keeping an eye on this thread and make comments/heckles until then.

Group currently consists of

Aasimar Ranger
Human Barbarian
Human Cleric
Human Urban Druid

This will keep going until group decides there's someone they like.

So one of my CoT groups is nearing the end of the first book. Unfortunately the groups Monk disappeared without a trace. I'm afraid the recent trouble with Hurricane Irene may have put him out for a long time.

For now he is simply being NPC'd until they finish the dungeon.

However I'd like to knock this out of the way so that way when we begin book 2 we can start with an established character rather than a new guy unused to the group's modus operandi.

So without further delaying let's get down to business.

The character will need to be Lvl3 but wiht lvl2 wealth equivalent.

Also to apply you will need to answer the following questions in whatever way you deem fit (OOC, IC, it doesn't matter)

1. Why are you in Westcrown?

5. I'm a Hellknight about to lay down some police brutality down on you. What do you say to stop me from breaking off my spiked greaved boot in your butt?

What we have so far:

Witch-Madman
Wizard-Karcist Accountant
Cleric-Best Not to ask.
Inquisitor-of Milani

As you can see the group could certainly use someone with a more martial bent. Recruitment will end until they reach the end of the dungeon and I make a choice OR the group simply unanimously decides that you are the perfect candidate. The group has a slightly evil bent.

Would a summoner fused with his eidolon still benefit from somethign like boots of dexterity? Would they apply to the new stats gained while fused?

So I'll be headed to Dragon Con to do what I can to further my own ends as a freelance writer while paying my keep by running some fun games for people who aren't planning on participating in society play.

BEyond that though I think I'm gonna participate in soemthign I haven't done since 3.5. That Is I plan on participating in the Cheese Grinder.

So here are the creation rules.

So I need to figure out what character or series of charcters to get brutally murdered in this year.

I think I'm gonna go with a Synthesist that loads up on the skill evolutions to make sure my bases are covered good and well. I'll become the Guyver bringing death to monsters where I go. Might include some paladin.

That's one idea.

I might attempt some kind of gunslinger or other kind of build.

So, I kind of have a crush on the dimensional feats (d. door or abundant step for insanity). They seem to have tons of delicious potential in high levels. So, I already made a cleric of cayden cailean who spontaneously casts D. Door and can full attack with rapier and shield.

Here's something featuring the flowing monk.

Human
Cleric (Divine Crusader) 1/Monk (Flowing Monk)2+

Domain: Oh let's jsut say Fire.

20pt buy:
Str: 11+1+1
Dex: 16+2+1+1+1
Con: 14
Int: 13
Wis: 14
Cha: 7

Cleric
1st: Weapon Focus (Scimitar)
1st: Weapon Finnesse
1st: Combat Expertise

Monk:
2nd: Agile Maneuvers
3rd: Dervish Dance
5th: Crusader's Flurry
7th: Sidestep, Combat Reflexes
9th: Power Attack
11th: Tripping Strike, Vicious Stomp
13th: Dimensional Agility
15th: Ki Throw, Dimensional Assault
17th: Dimensional Dervish
19th: Bodyguard, Dimensional Maneuvers

So, he essentially has Dex to AC, most of his major abilities, combat meaneuvers, and damage. He can flurry of blows with a scimitar and with tripping strike can knock people over and stomp them on the ground when he crits. On top of this he can BAMF anywhere on the battlefield adn slap people silly while being nigh impossible to nail down. Even surrounding him just makes him harder to deal with. THere's no greater trip in this build but I imagine if you're more concerned with tripping than damage like I was you can replace power attack with it. Overall thsi looks to be really fun and crazy without getting past a 1st level of casting.

I know we can get even crazier with it. I'm going to go take a look at the dervish dancing bard...

So my question is trying to figure out the interaction between alternate channeling adn greater channel smite. i.e. if I split my dice up between multiple attacks are they assaulted with the negative effect with each dice of split? Do these debuffs stack with one another?

It has been a year of tragedy adn triumph for the people of Sanctuary. Early in the year a faction of Telvani intellectuals, magewrights, and craftsman teleported the first Scry Satellite into orbit around the planet and within weeks dozens more joined them. For the first time the Telvani could see their homeworld from high above the clouds and for many it gave them hope. For those in the budding military it gave them something to plan with.

However any celebration was cut short as Ahrimal, the oldest of the sorcerer kings, died inside his sanctity crystal weakening the shield around the city and causing the crystal to go dark. There have been no official reports made on the cause of death, only that no foul play is suspected at this point. The people are on the razor's edge of excitement and terror. Change is coming, for better or worse

You have up until now been living a mostly normal life. Yesterday however you were given a message, sent via a small amgical construct to have lunch with Sorcerer Hyral and Sorceress Queen Amaya in the grove of sanctity surrounding her mana crystal. Such high profile people asking for the company of nobodies like yourselves can only mean oen thing; they're asking you to do something.

Such summons are not unheard of. The ways of sorcerer's are strange and it's not such an odd thing to occasionally hear of one or more asking a small favor or large quest of a person or two.

When you enter the grove, there's nobody around. Well that is to say no one but Sorcerer Hyral, Sorceress Queen Amaya, and a number of what you guess are Unseen Servants doing the catering.

Hyral is but a boy by Telvani standards. Unfortunately such standards can hardly be applied to sorcerers. Hyral, like all sorcerer's, has brightly glowing eyes. A sign of the very real raw power contained in him. Overall you gauge that he's only reached perhaps the 4th or perhaps 5th level of spellcasting. However sorcerers are the only being on this world that can reach the mythical 9th level which is a full 3 beyond what normal Telvani are capable of.

Behind him is the softly blue glowing crystal as large as a castle tower looming over you emitting a column of pearlescent white light into the shield above you. You see the faint shadow of a female Telvani inside the crystal but avoid looking at it for too long. It is rumored that Amaya, the youngest and last of the Sorcerer Queens to voluntarily encase herself in one of the sanctity crystals to power the shields that protect this city, was also the most beautiful. But you avoid it lest your own lusts commit some kind of unknown blasphemy.

The dinner smells good tantalizing your senses with exotic dishes not seen or tasted since the founding of the city. All around you is greenery, and the songs of birds vying for territory and mating rights. It's a serene and peaceful scene that is jarring compared to the crowded chaos of the city proper.

This is for ooc discussion. Before we get started let me make some thigns clear.

1.Minimal metagaming: It happens and I don't particularly mind it so much. But blatant metagaming won't be tolerated. Sneaking into he group whose ahead of you to get an idea of what's next might be unwise anyway since I expect both groups to operate very differently.

2. I fill in gaps.: For the sake of clarification and story it's not uncommon for me to fill in gaps in character backstories that have remained empty or vague. This is mostly to make the backstory fit the game or to give a character incentive to take part in soemthign he'd otherwise not care about.

3. How combat works.: Essentially I roll everyones initiative and take the average of those rolls as the groups initiative. Same as the badguys. Initiative for the group itself is done in order of posting. If there have been a bunch of posts and you have not posted for 24 hours since the last actions than you'll get NPCed for that action so we can get through the combats quickly. I'll use a battlemap with X/Y coordinates to make things simpler on you.

4. Ask questions: If you need to know something; ask. preferrably with some kind of roll attached. That way I don't have to ask for them. Sometimes I'll roll knowledge checks ahead of time so I can give ou that knowledge beforehand to save time. But not often.

5. Posting: Let me know ahead of time if you can't post for a day or two for some reason. One psot a day is the minimum I ask, If you disappear for three or four days without notice expect to be replaced and not let back in until someoen drops again.

In any case I'm giving everyone a chance to finish their characters or make any appropriate changes they might want to do now that they are aware of what the rest of their party consists of I will post Incharacter threads this weekend with a deadline for finished characters on friday. In the meantime I have to watch a movie under the vague promise of getting laid s I'll brb.

So, one of my less post happy players disappeared off the face of the map recently. As such one of my council of thieves games is again looking for players.

Thus far we have:

A Magus
Ranger
Barbarian
Urban Druid

There's been some call for a more dedicated support character in terms of healing. Don't really need any face skills. I'm leaving the actual choice up to the players. They're currently at 2nd level (20pt buy, 2 traits one from campaign) and have just rescued Arael from the carriage.

So far a Monk/Cleric has applied.

After checking for interest I've seen that there's enough interest and excitement for people to give this game a shot.

So here's the recruitment thread for that world discussed adn mentioned earlier.

Our world is dying. The demons we have hidden and fled from so long have taken their wrath from our cities, our people, and turned it to the one thing we have left; our world.

We will never again be the people we once were. But we will triumph. We must triumph, for the only thing left to take is our lives.

World of the Telvani is a kingmaker/horror hybrid

~20pt buy.
~Race detailed below
~Summoners only
~two traits one from APG one from campaign
~max wealth for the class (120gp)
~Core, APG, and UM allowed

The Telvani do not know when they were first born to the world. Only that the world made them. They believed that they were the ones tasked with the sacred job of maintaining harmony and peace with the world. They did not know war, or hate, or conflict. All lived in peace with nature wnad with their mastery of magic their were no such things as fights over resources or territory. The planet thrived and communed with the Telvani as a god speaks to its followers. For ten thousand years the Telvani were like this. Until the demons arrived.
They came without warning, without fear and without mercy. They emerged from the shadowy corners of the world. They came from the deep places beneath the earth. They even emerged from their baleful portals from high in the sky and descended upon the Telvani in a ravening maw of flesh eating evil. The peace loving Telvani, who had never before even considered developing magic and tools for combat, were ill equipped to deal with this sudden and savage onslaught.

In desperation tey took their powers over the natural world and magic and applied them to the largest predators on their world turning them into terrible monsters they called Kujai. With practice and a strong will the Telvani could direct these massive warbeasts to their defense.

They had bred hundreds of Kujai and released them into the wild to kill the demons. This tactic proved ineffective as the Kujai were merely beasts and could not hope to provide an organized defense. On top of this the training of proper handlers was long and arduous. The war, for the Telvani, was already lost.

They retreated themselves to the northern most reaches of their world where the most powerful sorcerers of the Talvani called the Alberics, immortals with powers not unlike a demi-god, cast a great spell to seal the last of their great cities, shielding it from the dmeonic onslaught, and cutting the Telvani off from their beloved world.

Two hundred years has passed since the founding of Sanctuary. The Telvani have trained more sacred warriors and even developed new methods and weapons to combat the demons and now the rampaging wild Kujai. It would take four more centuries before the fighting force would be strong enough to face down the hordes of demons outside the city. However their have been a number of changes to the society of the Telvani, famine, poverty, and resouces are stretched. The city is overcrowded. It needs relief. On top of this the demons have begun the slow and terirble work of killing the planet itself. Already a full 30% of the planet has been blighted by their dark influence and the blight spreads every passing year. The world needs heroes.

So what of the Telvani?

As of yet I have not written a Demonbinder Archetype. If someone is interested in playing such an archetype please let me know and I'll get to work.

Some tips regarding characters:
~Traits that grant you skills that you don't already have will be your friend
~Buy winter equipment! Sanctuary is located at the north pole of the planet the game will start ina cold environment at the edges between an icy desert and a tundra before movin into a coniferous forest. It will be cold.
~There is no divine magic. Think about that. In essence it means summoners won't heal HP quickly or easily. So take advantage of your Eidolon/s or Kaiju.

Synthesists:
Synthesists can get their Eidolon healed while they are fused but the eidolon must be specifically targeted.

Bonuses stack like normal between the two even armor bonuses. This means that if the synthesist is wearing armor and the eidolon grants an armor bonus then they don't stack. However if one or the other is wearing armor and the other has a natural armor bonus they stack like normal.

So a while ago while in the midst of a number of wonderful painkillers during hospitalization I came up with the concept for a homebrew game set in a post apocalyptic world of magic and horrific monsters.

Now while I never got around to actually building the system the world itself was mostly built in my head. However it did involve people who could summon, control, or otherwise deal with the massive mosnters and devastating demons of the world and use them to defend themselves. Whether these mosnters came from the persons subconscious, was bred to do battle, or was a captured and magically bound monster. Sound familiar?

So everyone's a summoner.

There are other classes, but they fall into NPC categories or are so rare that they are simply unavailable to pc's.

So let's talk about the world starting with a bit of history.

So what of the Telvani?

So this is for now mostly an interest check. If you have a character idea that's cool just keep in mind that this is restricted purely to Telvani race and summoner class. So consider it something of a challenge to creating a concept to wrap around these ideas and still somehow be compelling. By Monday I'll have some solid character creation guidelines for people to follow.

I'll be answering questions for now and will prbably close down any potential recruitment on the 14th of July. That is unless the interest is such that I can get away with it.

I have yet to decide on the specific style of game so you can put a vote in for that as well.

Campaign/Character Plot oriented: Basicallya classic storytelling type game where the characters help drive the story along with their backstories and development while going through the plot.

Wilderness/Kingmaker: The city of sanctuary is overcrowded. So it's up to you to explore the frozen reaches outside the city to develop a colony and help ease the population by building a new place to live. Perhaps one day the twin cities can grow to take the entire planet back.

Horror/Investigation: Mysteries and alien creatures abound and it's up to the characters to find the cause and put an end to it.

Pokemon: Ack! Put your rotting tomatoes down! I admit Pokemon was one of the inspirations for this game. Basically think in terms of becoming the baddest summoner in the land. Go around the various schools, challenge people to one on one duels. Earn rewards. Get famous.

Anyway I look forward to the responses.

So the skilled Evolution allows the eidolon to gain a +8 racial bonus to a skill.

However the synthesist says that an eidolon has no sklls.

Will I still be able to take the skilled evolution adn thus give my summoner a +8 racial bonus on something?

Vizio's tavern lies in one of the less traveled streets in westcrown. The dottari rarely if ever bother patroling this area as it was not long ago that this tavern was frequented by merchant guards looking for a quiet place to complain and have a drink, simply not a good place to start a fight.

As you approach the tavern you watch it cautiously for but a moment, noting that what few passerby's there are either seem completely disinterested in your doings or are too busy with their own shady dealings to care about yours.

The tavern looks as if it had done some brisk business at some point with the paint being brightly colored and the iron on the signs and doors still free of rust. But signs of neglect are showing as the exterior appears to have not been cleaned in a while and the pain is beggining to chip. The rain provides a good cover for you while you wait. When the streets are completely clear you make your move across the street.

Upon entering there's no one inside but a small handful that have arrived before you (if you're not the first). An attractive but anxious looking woman is sitting behind the bar organizing the bottles and cleaning the spotless bar out of wht seems like nervous habit rather than necessary maintenance.

The order you post is the order in which you will arrive feel free to interact and get introductions out of the way until everyone has arrived and had a chance to meet.

Vizio's tavern lies in one of the less traveled streets in westcrown. The dottari rarely if ever bother patroling this area as it was not long ago that this tavern was frequented by merchant guards looking for a quiet place to complain and have a drink, simply not a good place to start a fight.

As you approach the tavern you watch it cautiously for but a moment, noting that what few passerby's there are either seem completely disinterested in your doings or are too busy with their own shady dealings to care about yours.

The tavern looks as if it had done some brisk business at some point with the paint being brightly colored and the iron on the signs and doors still free of rust. But signs of neglect are showing as the exterior appears to have not been cleaned in a while and the pain is beggining to chip. The rain provides a good cover for you while you wait. When the streets are completely clear you make your move across the street.

Upon entering there's no one inside but a small handful that have arrived before you (if you're not the first). An attractive but anxious looking woman is sitting behind the bar organizing the bottles and cleaning the spotless bar out of wht seems like nervous habit rather than necessary maintenance.

The order you post is the order in which you will arrive feel free to interact and get introductions out of the way until everyone has arrived and had a chance to meet.

As a matter of convienience I'm dumping both groups into a single ooc thread so I only ever to hit that post button once. First the ground rules.

1.Minimal metagaming: It happens and I don't particularly mind it so much. But blatant metagaming won't be tolerated. Sneaking into he group whose ahead of you to get an idea of what's next might be unwise anyway since I expect both groups to operate very differently.

2. I fill in gaps.: For the sake of clarification and story it's not uncommon for me to fill in gaps in character backstories that have remained empty or vague. This is mostly to make the backstory fit the game or to give a character incentive to take part in soemthign he'd otherwise not care about.

3. How combat works.: Essentially I roll everyones initiative and take the average of those rolls as the groups initiative. Same as the badguys. Initiative for the group itself is done in order of posting. If there have been a bunch of posts and you have not posted for 24 hours since the last actions than you'll get NPCed for that action so we can get through the combats quickly. I'll use a battlemap with X/Y coordinates to make things simpler on you.

4. Ask questions: If you need to know something; ask. preferrably with some kind of roll attached. That way I don't have to ask for them. Sometimes I'll roll knowledge checks ahead of time so I can give ou that knowledge beforehand to save time. But not often.

5. Posting: Let me know ahead of time if you can't post for a day or two for some reason. One psot a day is the minimum I ask, If you disappear for three or four days without notice expect to be replaced and not let back in until someoen drops again.

In any case I'm giving everyone a chance to finish their characters or make any appropriate changes they might want to do now that they are aware of what the rest of their party consists of I will post Incharacter threads this weekend with a deadline for finished characters on friday. In the meantime I have to go grocery shopping so I'll brb.

So there's something of a spirited debate going on right now in this thread about clerics. There's been some good arguments, some bad, and both sides in my mind have valid points to bring to the table. So I've decided to present a relatively simple alteration to the class.

Which is here.

So first let's talk about some of the problems brought up in that thread that could at least be fixed without too many drastic changes to the core chassis of the cleric.

~1. The Cleric has no reason to go past level 8 without going to prestige classes.

Essentially the argument is that once a cleric has hit 8th level they have obtained all the cleric abilities they'll ever get outside of spells. Since spells are one of the most common kinds of advancements that prestige classes give than clerics have no reason not to get out of the class at the best oppurtunity. The cleric is currently one of the very few classes where this is a valid option.

~2. Energy Channeling sucks.

After 5th level Energy channeling craps out as a decent ability whether for healign or damage. On top of this it's based on an ability score that aside from a few skills the cleric almost never uses. Thus adding a touch of MAD to the class.

~3. Samey clerics.

Let's take two clerics, both are neutral good but worship different gods but pick the same domains. Both channel positive energy and both ultimately have the same spell list and set of powers for all 20 levels. Essentially that means that the choice between one god over another is purely a point of roleplaying. While in theory that's fine, in practice a player may want the class to better exemplify their own god.

4. The spell list sucks.

With a ton of situational spells, bonuses that don't stack, wasteful spells, and spells that just plain suck clerics might feel that they have relatively few daily options to fill their slots with. There's no easy way to fix this, but I think the domains are key in making it less of a problem.

So with this in mind I sat down with the cleric and cut some things that I felt were unnecessary, bad hold overs from previous edition or otherwise cut for balance reasons.

So who got cut?

1. Spontaneous cure's/inflict's.

One would think that this ability would have made it so the cleric didn't always get stuck in the bandaid role. In practice it meant that the cleric was the only one to ever be forced into that role. Now, there's really no excuse for it. We can replace it with soemthign much more flavorful.

2. Two domains at 1st level.

Does it not bother anyone else that a 20th level cleric, the pinnacle of divine power, has about the same mastery over domains as a 1st level acolyte? I think here wecan comfortably.

3. Domain slots.

Considering what I'm planning I think this we can comfortably cut. You get less spells per day but much greater versatility over the slots you have. It's a fair enough trade I believe.

Now we've cut somethings out of the cleric. What do we add?

1. Better Energy channeling.

We've upped the energy channeling dice up by a step and gave a number of bonus feats. For the record I define channeling feats as ones that manipulate, change, or add one to energy channeling as a class feature. Ultimately I want this class ability to be one that's worthy of being focused on. We make it wisdom based so clerics don't find themselves scrambling to spread their scores out so they don't suck at anything a cleric is supposed to actually be half way decent at.

2. More domains over time.

To me, Domains are the closest method to helping define the gods, what they represent, and how clerics symbolize that power in the mortal realm. So why limit ourselve to two? Should not a cleric represent their god fully rather then a tiny portion of their power?

This might rankle others as being too much, but consider that in few cases can you actually activate more then one of these powers gained at a time. Sure, in some cases you get passive powers but those are generally minor bonuses. This has the side effect of making normally crappy domains somewhat alright choices since you won't be gimping yourself too hard for picking a sub par domain.

Lastly it makes domains, something it seems every divine caster is dipping into, something that the cleric is outright best at. They can cast all the spells, use all the powers, and ultimately represent their god in was that no other class can. The higher level you get the more of your god you begin to represent.

3. Spontaneous Domains:

This is a tough one to balance since you don't want to let them spontaneously cast from all their domains. I think I did well enough. It basically gives much more versatility to the cleric and actually maintain their flavor a bit. Even clerics who want to be healers lose nothing in that they can take the healing domain and continue spontaneously casting the spells they used to plus some nice additions. It basically means that every cleric of different gods can be wildly different from one another depending on their choice of domains, not just alignment.

This in a small way also makes the cleric spell list not altogether terrible. You can comfortably memorize more of those situational spells you've been wanting to since you can always cut them out to cast spells that are part of your domain. Oracles can still cast more spells then you but that's ok. Because ultimately you have a lot more control on what to do with your slots.

4. Capstone:

So ultimately the capstone gives you access to all of your gods domains and subdomains, BUT not all at once. You are the doorway to his power but you have to open it. On top of that you become a native outsider which is a nice bonus. Finally you get to activate abilities as swift actions which is even nicer. It gives you something to look forward to which is something the previous cleric lacked.

So ultimately we end on a class that's much more customizable in terms of options.

So we get on to the polishing point.

Did we go too far? Or not far enough? Keep in mind we wanted to use as little new mechanics as possible.

Is it balanced? If not why? What are you comparing it to? Did you playtest it?

So, I decided to go ahead and run one of these damnable things to satiate my rampaging desire to run a game whenever.

In any case let's get down to it.

Submission Guidelines:

Submit a character with backstory and a brief description of physical looks, personality, class and race. In addition please answer the following questions in whatever way you see fit.

1. Why are you in Westcrown?

2. Given a chance would you hurl down the ruling houses and take their place? Or create a new form of government?

3. What will you be able to contribute to the group?

4. How do you expect the character to develop roleplay wise? Mechanically?

I'm a Hellknight about to lay down some police brutality down on you. What do you say to stop me from breaking off my spiked greaved boot in your butt?

Also, no Paladins thank you. The region can really mess with a paladins code and I'd be better off not dealing with a ticking time bomb ready to go on a Smitepage. I'm not going to get into a debate about it.

You also must be able to post at least once a day twice a day being a preferred minimum but not required. If you cannot post for a day or two please let me know in advance so we can get your character moved on. If you do not post for three days in a row without informing me then you will be dropped. Even if it is a simple one line post dictating your character picking his nose while other PC's are chatting it up that's fine so long as I know you're still there and interested.

Character Guidelines

20 point buy, core races plus tieflings others will be considered on an individual basis.

Average wealth per class.

2 traits one must be a campaign trait.

I will be selecting up to 5 players (6 if I can't decide) at around this time next week with a game start hopefully the following Monday.

I will be keeping an eye on this thread and make comments/heckles until then.

Assuming I hold the charge for somethign like bestow curse then follow up with an ability like say, touch fo chaos, will both effects be triggered at once? I'm referencing the part where it says that if I touch anythin the spell discharges.

So, I'm kind of concerned with the recent actions of the group. Having failed to secure Happs, they immediately rode off to the thorn river camp and after a rough fight (lots of ranged badguys no ranged good guys). They killed the bandits but managed to capture Kressle.

This si problematic given her reputation. Heck, I decided that when they dropped her with a slumber hex adn tried to grapple her after dealing some damage the bandits turned on one another to try and off her, while a few more loyally minded ones turned on them. It was ugly but in the end they managed to stabilize the insane woman and finish the others.

That's when the session ended.

So this, combined with the inquisitor's penchant for torture and execution means for a a rather brutal interrogation. So, should she be belligerent in the face of torture and execution? Or should she cowtow despite a likely inevitable death?

Inquisitor is LG, buuuuutttt not for very long.

So this will be my first summoner. He's going to be a half elf support archer so in terms of that we're golden.

The eidolon however needs to follow a certain theme and look. I'm not worried about raw damage output since I'm supplementing it with death from afar anyway.

Eventually I'm going to get a large, multilimbed angel of swift mercy that wields multiple two bladed swords. Oh and lot's of intimidate, because if that's not scary to have coming at you nothing is. Reach has been ruled to only apply to natural attacks. No quadrepeds here as they're not "angelic".

Bipedal

1st Level
Evolutions: Strength Score increase, Improved NAtural Armor
Feats: EWP Two Bladed Sword

2nd Level
Evolutions: Strength Score increase, Improved NAtural Armor, Magic Attacks
Feats: EWP Two Bladed Sword

3rd Level
Evolutions: Strength Score increase, Improved NAtural Armor, Limbs(Arms)
Feats: EWP Two Bladed Sword, Multiweapon Fighting

4th Level
Evolutions:Strength Score Increase, Improved Natural Armor, Limbs (Arms), Flight, Magic Attacks
Feats:Ewp Two Bladed Sword, Multiweapon Fighting

So I'm sort fo at a loss on where to go from here. She definitely needs more attack, so probably weapon focus or double slice (for more damage) later on. Thoughts? I'm avoiding just cramming as many natural attacks as possible on her since I don't want too much refluffing to maintain her theme.

So after a few weeks of casual lazy work I've managed to get this to a stage where I feel comfortable actually presenting it.

Link

Note that like any of these guides much of it is opinion so your experiences may vary. My games tend not to include traits so I didn't include those. Additionally not everyone runs games in Golarion so I avoided settin material except in the case of gods.

There's more to add including a run down of spells and what not plus I need to do more editing. It's a work in progress.

At some point I plan on a complete guide to pathfinder necromancy

So I recently joined a group about to run through the carrion crown ap.

I'm going in with an inquisitor of iomedae with heirloom weapon (bastard sword). So the first level is already pretty much determined.

Right now however I'm stuck on how I want to consider progressing. On the one hand inquisitor is great for all thosecombat type feats that work off intimidate. On the other hand it's very very difficult to use those feats agaisnt the undead which is what I'm afraid the AP will be filled with.

So, is it feasible for me to go the route of fear and go into Ustalav with a sword of vengeance and terror to those who have forgotten the light of hope that Iomedae brought them? Or are the legions of death so prevalent that my sword should forego fear and go straihgt for blunt force trauma via power attack?

Sources allowed are core and apg.

Sheet:

So I find myself at something of an impasse with my pathfinder game.

There's no lack of good roleplayers or stoytelling in our group. We don't have a THAT GUY in our group.

The trouble however is that we have about 5 people, two with leadership (one a necromancer with undead minions) and a druid with an ankylosaurus animal companion so I have to forego a lot of description for the sake of speed. Sadly this is making combat rather tedious. So now I find myself at a loss on how to make combat "fun" without dragging things out.

It doesn't help that the party is getting rather good at combat. So what am I to do?

Group is level 8 homebrew viking setting. Players are out to stop ragnarok currently by reactivating an ancient lizardfolk artifact to drive the world serpent back to the worlds edges.