Revel's page

At 1st level, 2nd level, and every four levels thereafter, a master of many styles may select a bonus style feat or the Elemental Fist feat

This part means that you may select a style feat such as snake style or grab the elemental fist feat without paying any attention to their requirements. It does not let you grab someting like snake fang without having it's requirements, that'll come later... sort of.

He does not have to meet the prerequisites of that feat, except the Elemental Fist feat.

This means that the only prerequisite you must meet is the Elemental Fist feat. So, for example, if you want to take djinn style you must have grabbed the elemental fist feat first. It does NOT mean you have to meet any of the prerequisites for elemental fist.

Alternatively, a master of many styles may choose a feat in that style’s feat path (such as Earth Child Topple) as one of these bonus feats if he already has the appropriate style feat (such as Earth Child Style). The master of many styles does not need to meet any other prerequisite of the feat in the style’s feat path

Finally this means that a master of many styles may ignore any of the prerequisites of a feat in a styles path provided that he has learned the appropriate style first.

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So at 1st level you could take the snake style as a bonus feat and at 2nd level you could grab snake fang as a bonus feat, but you could not take them both at 1st level since you only have one bonus feat.

Alternitively you could start with your other class, grab two levels placing 2 points in sense motive, and then level dip grabbing snake style as your normal feat and snake fang as your bonus feat. That way you can avoid taking more then a 1 level dip in MoMS if that's what you want.

Explosive decompression causes him to take 3d6 hp damage (no save) on the first round of exposure. (This is taken from Distant Worlds.)

I’d probably allow a reflex save for half myself. I would think that if a character immediately expels the air from their lungs they should take little or no damage. The reason for reflex rather than fortitude is that it’s a question of how fast you react and exhale rather than physical endurance.

There is no air to breathe but he can hold his breath for (Constitution score x2) rounds.

As you mention a little later I’d definitely reduce this to their constitution score in rounds rather than double that. Without air in their lungs they definitely shouldn’t be able to hold their breath as long.

I like your idea to let them hold their breath normally and take explosive decompression damage each round. If you do that I wouldn’t allow any save for half damage since their choosing not to exhale. However I think I’d force a fortitude save each round to determine if they are able to keep holding their breath.

Sound does not travel, so V component spells could be hard to cast (if not impossible)

I’d lose the ambiguity, spells with V components would definitely be impossible to cast. A silence spell is much nicer to a person and still prevents them. Also remember that anyone trying to hold their breath normally will be taking constant damage and require concentration checks to cast anything.

One could also argue for the Staggered condition, possibly as a result of the explosive decompression.

Perhaps anyone taking damage from explosive decompression gains the staggered condition for one round? Not as sure about this but it sounds like a reasonable rule.

i could write it in monkey blood i guess. but we have no way to collect any wood, short of deadfall. That and it seems we managed to get nabbed again.

Well it doesn't have to be wood either, but the idea is there, wood was just something that is tends to be readily available. I'm curious where are you now that you can't find any wood? A daggers all you'd need to "collect" some provided their is a tree in the area.

Of course the blood skin and bone of your enemies would work too but that seems a bit morbid... but hey, if it's all you got >:)

But then if you just got caught again you may have to wait a bit but I'd keep it mind.

yea... something like that, shoulda been said at the get go. i've played nerfed char, so i dont mind too much, assuming eventually i'll get access to paper, so i can write my memorized spells down so i can use them more than once.

Just curious… who says you have to use a book or paper? Why can’t you grab some wood, a dagger, and carefully etch your “spell book” using makeshift components? Granted the cost would still have to be the same. Perhaps you would need to treat the wood or some such but for 40 gold worth of components is there any reason why you couldn’t create a makeshift book in the interim?

I have always been under the impression there would be nothing wrong with this, spell books are simply used because they are more convenient but with only 4 spells using 4 good quality boards cut to the right size should work fine. Certainly I allow my players to do so if they need or desire to. Or would that be a house rule? (And if it is maybe you should still ask your GM about it they might agree)

Well, for my dream game room, it’d do something along the lines of the following:

A spacious room with a nice thick carpet on the floor, a dimmer switch to adjust the lighting as desired, and several outlets for laptops and the like.

In the center, a solid hard wood rectangular table that has plenty of room for everyone and comfortable chairs.

Along the outer wall, waist high bookshelves running the length filled with all the appropriate books with a large tinted window that has a nice view and a thick curtain that can cut off all nearly all the light from the window when closed.

Along the inner wall, the door people come in and a large white board with dry erase markers, erasers, and magnetic clips for maps, etc.

Along the DM’s side, a projector in the corner, and a walk in closet with materials, minis, flip mats, etc. that are nice to have on hand but not necessarily always out.

Finally, along the wall opposite the GM, a mini fridge and small table for drinks, snacks, and other goodies, like pizza, maybe even a small microwave for reheating the pizza later in the evening.

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Not that I’ve ever thought of this before of course, this is all just off the top of my head and all *cough* ;P

As for where I actually play, in the past it’s been the living room or dining room, usually at someone else’s house or my room on my computer when playing online with some of my friends who have moved away, assuming we can get our schedules to match up.

Well several good possibilities have been stated already but if you just feel the need to be able to defend it by RAW refer to this thread and keep in mind that everything stated would apply to a spell like raise dead as well.

Just decide if you should make it, and thus her, a little higher level, modify the spell in some way, or leave the sorcerer version the same as the cleric equivalent.

Okay, let's back up a little bit because people still aren't able to explain, in game mechanics terms, why the +5,000gp cost for raise dead is appropriate.

Umm… I’m pretty sure I did. Though you may disagree with me.

So let's slightly alter the question:

Why is the cost for raise dead 5,000 gp? Why isn't it 100 gp, 1,000 gp, 7,350 gp, 10,000 gp, or 20,000 gp? Why is 5,000 gp the appropriate additional M cost for this spell?

For the same reason restoration costs 100 gold when used normally or 1,000 gold when used to remove a permanent energy level. Because whoever wrote it at the time felt that that amount would bring it in line with the power level it was set at. I’m not saying I agree with the cost. In fact, I think if it were reduced I'd be perfectly happy with the change and might even prefer it, but in any case I’d bet that’s why it’s written how it is.

I also agree that there may be other ways to alter the spell and remove the cost but I’m not sure how I’d handle it or if it’s needed.

And why is raise dead so costly but teleport and plane shift are not? They're all the same spell level.

But raise dead does more then either teleport or planeshift. I see the cost as the balancing factor. You made a statement ealier…

It is literally easier and less expensive to instantly transport eight people to the outer plane where your dead friend's soul is than to call that dead friend's soul back into its natural body. That doesn't make sense to me from a game mechanics standpoint.

At first as was floored, I thought, he’s right if you can cast a spell and go straight to your friends soul the reverse should be any harder. Then I realized that’s not quite right. Yes, you can go to that plane but once you get there you’d have to use a divination spell like scrying to locate your friend, followed by either some overland travel or a teleport spell to reach them.

So raise dead essentially locates the soul on another plane, planeshifts it to your currently plane, teleports it to the body, and then brings the person back to life. Ya, I’m ok with the gold cost now.

Earlier you stated…

Either raise dead is on par with other 5th-level spells, or it isn't. If it is, it doesn't need a costly material component. If it isn't, then it shouldn't be a 5th-level spell.

I suppose my response would be that it is, in fact, more powerful then other 5th level spells. But as to removing it I disagree. First, as you pointed out some nasty spells like disintegrate become available and a single bad save can ruin a Players day. I believe their needs to be a way to undo the problems that can occur when the dice gods frown on you. The 5,000 gold piece cost is there to justify making such a powerful spell 5th level.

Secondly, on the fluff side, it makes sense that someone could have reasonably found out a way to cast a more powerful spell by using pricey components that a higher-level spell simply wouldn’t need. And if you existed in such a world and possessed the skill wouldn’t you want such a spell available to you even if it was costly to use?

Having said that I agree with a lot of what has been said and would like really like to see the resurrect spell have the option to use it as a normal raise dead spell without the any material component. I believe I will add that into my games from here on. I may also extend breath of life’s “resurrection” window a little too, possibly to a flat two rounds to allow some breathing room, or perhaps to something like 1 round per 2 caster levels. I’ll have to think about it.

Unintentional bad pun there but I’ll keep it cause it made me chuckle.

Incidentally this is one of the most interesting debates I’ve read in a while :)

If your DM’s allows a minor overhaul swap your intelligence and strength and then apply reduce your wisdom by two (I’m guessing you have 2 points their from leveling but maybe not) and increase your strength to an 18. This will help your attack rolls considerably.

Next I’d look into attribute-enhancing items. Monks can benefit significantly through them and the more you enhance your attributes the stronger you’ll be. Again, make sure strength is boosted if you can but don’t neglect the others. If possible boost all your physical stats and your wisdom.

I would also suggest retraining Djinni style and taking Marid spirit instead and continuing with Marid coldsnap later down the line. Potentially entangling your target is nice and increases the chance that the following attacks will then hit, you can always be using marid style gaining the benefits such as cold resistance and reach. Later when you get whirlwind attack you’ll be able to make a single attack against every opponent within reach (10 feet when using Marid style) which could be fun if you still want to go that route.

Finally, if are allowed to do a little rebuilding and you get your strength up ditch weapon finesse since it’ll be useless. Instead I’d suggest either deep drinker for the extra ki during combat or spring attack to get closer to your goal of getting whirlwind attack.

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If you can’t fix your monk or would rather not I’d suggest a ranger. It can be good in melee, has decent saves, plenty of skill points to play with, and I just think they are a fun class to play, of course they can all be fun but we each have our favorites :)

In my personal opinion there really isn’t any clear distinction between the two. The characters a GM creates are simply other characters in a story. Flushing them out simply makes for a better more vibrant story with a world that has more depth to it. I have been GMing over 20 years and work in much the same way, in act based strictly off of what you’ve said in this thread I’d say we have very similar style. Now if I were to define a GMPC as a separate thing I would say that they are characters that have a fully flushed out character sheet AND that have become part of the PC group that adventures together.

As far as warning signs go, I have to say, no they are not any kind of a warning sign. GMPC’s, as I'm defining them, are merely another tool in the GM tool belt. They can be used to flush out an incomplete party in small groups of people, to provide abilities that the party current lack so that they can face an upcoming challenge, or even as simply a way to nudge the party in the right direction or create a greater degree of interactivity between party members and add more role-playing opportunities.

That said, they are a tool that can be easily mishandled. While there is nothing inherently wrong with using them in the story or even having one of them take center stage for a bit, as with any good novel or movie, it’s important to make sure that these occurrences are brief and have a reason to occur within your story. The player’s characters, and not your NPC’s, GMPC’s, or whatever, are the main characters in the story and other characters (of any type) should not overshadow them.

Basically, the danger comes from those GM’s that stop making the story about the player’s characters and the decisions they make. If this happens, most players are likely to start feeling like they are just along for the ride and that can kill a game. But as long as everyone’s having a ball playing and likes were the game is going you shouldn’t concern yourself with the opinions of others.

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Having said that, keep in mind that as you can see on this thread, there is no clear definition of what a GMPC is. In fact I almost started arguing with Evil Lincoln after reading his first post but after reading the rest I realized our only real difference of opinion was in our definitions. It’s not in any dictionary that I’m aware off and while definitions of different individuals are often similar, a small difference can lead to a large misunderstanding. This is likely why in some threads you can see such different opinions on them.

Help me understand what it is about these rules that is going to "fix" high level play. By my understanding, the game breaks down severely beyond 12th level (give or take a couple of levels, depending on who you ask). If mythic levels are taken alongside normal class levels (gestalt style?) and that increases the APL of the PCs, how is this patching that issue up?

Well, the way I understand it, and mind you this is just a guess based on everything I’ve been reading on these boards, it will help by allowing lower level characters to fight higher level opponents. This allows a GM to play with a group that say, doesn’t have teleport yet despite being the equivalent of 12th level characters (8 class levels plus 4 mythic levels).

The powers granted, and again this is just speculation, seem to be geared towards strong abilities that give characters fun things they can do without necessarily opening up the harder to deal with abilities such as teleportation and scrying (or at least not till they’d have it anyway through class levels). While a character still eventually gains these abilities, the creatures they are fighting will be considerably higher level by the time they have access to them and thus it’s easier for a GM to adjust, creature will have more options to thwart them, etc.

Again this is all speculation at this point, I’m really hoping one of the developers will hop on now that the weekend over and tell us everything that was said so we can get a better idea of how it all is suppose to work. I’m in the group that thinks it could be good or bad, it remains to be seen. That said, paizo has a pretty good track record so I’m cautiously optimistic and crossing my fingers.

I think the problem I was trying to articulate (and rolled a natural 1 on that attempt) is that, if these problems are perceived by so many already then adding such high numbers to the game at any level only serves to make it worse. On the surface anyway.

I mean, 3d6+wtf cure light wounds spells (I think I read this on the first page of the thread)? That's a ridiculous jump.

As for the powerful cure light wounds, remember the lower level characters wouldn't have access to higher level magic so the magic they did have would need a strong enough boost to compensate. After all my understanding is that the mythic levels grant hit points etc too so your lower level healing spells would need the boost to keep the party healed.

You will probably want to add a little more fluff to a few of the abilities but hopefully this works well for you.

I played with your idea and added another possibility, hope you like them :)

This amuses me. I have always enjoyed interesting and different ideas provided they are implemented well. May I make some suggestions/alteration? Never mind, I’m going to regardless ;P

The following are your ideas but with some changes to each, use anything you like and don’t if you don’t. I’m just having fun thinking about how I might use your idea should I even choose to xP

Ok, I may have overdid a little. These are, I think, a little stronger then you intended. But hey, I was having fun xP

As far as mastery and how that’s attained, if you like the idea I’ll leave it up to you. The idea of story driven abilities made me think it’d be fun if, at higher levels, when the abilities weren’t all that powerful anymore they could get a nice power boost. Hopefully you find some of this useful/usable but either way it entertained me for a while and that’s what’s important right? ;P

I have just found, Yet again anecdotal evidence, that area of effect heals are seriously lacking in power by the time you get them.

For example:
Healing math

This means that the only times the Cure XXX, mass heals do not outpace an average damage fireball ever for single target.

It also means that that they under the old rules average less than half of an at CR monsters average damage.

In my opinion that makes them completely worthless, as why should you have to blow an 8th level spell slot to "mostly" undo what a 3rd level spell can do?

How are you getting from point A to point B here? I agree with you that the healing spells could use a bump in power and never argued that, the point I was trying to make is you are close to giving them to big of a boost in power.

Using only your rules for enhancing cure spells works quite nicely, if you stop there. As I said above the cure light wounds, mass spell would heal 1d8+18 for an average of 22 health per person using just this enhancement and nothing else. This means it would undo most of the damage with a single casting even if everyone failed their save. And those that made their save would be healed for all of damage taken. And this is a 5th level spell, not 8th level one.

Also you aren’t taking into account resistances and abilities like evasion and improved evasion that can seriously hurt the ability for AoE spells to do damage in the first place but have no affect on the players that are being healed. In actual play 22 points per character is good and probably will eliminate the vast majority of the damage dealt by a typical fireball. With your cure critical wounds, mass spell at 5th level you could likely ignore the damage for 2 fireballs without any difficulty and this is simply too much in my opinion.

You seem to have this idea that mass cure spells should be able to at least equal the damage being dealt to the party and that line of thought goes to a bad place, I’ve been their. It’s a world were instead of fighting and defeating the enemy you simply outlast them… whoever runs out of healing first losses. I did not find that particularly fun. Healing spells should be weaker then the damage spells of the same level or the party will fight one fight and if the enemy has even decent healing, win through attrition, and then rest cause their low on healing magic. I can’t reiterate enough I have both been in and ran games were healing was made too powerful and it did not go well. Combat can get ridiculously long, many good tactics are rendered pointless, and the combat itself just stops being fun.

The Aoe numbers look great, however if you ever need to heal more than 4-5 people at a time your party is seriously bloated. This does not mean badwrongfun, it simply means that according to normal average party size you will never reach anywhere near your max number of targets.

Umm... I’m guessing you are again taking about without the changes to cure spells because in my post above I already showed that it only 2 to or 3 party members being healed will net you more healing then even the single target heal spell. Also, 4-5 people does not mean your party is seriously bloated a standard group is assumed to have 4 people and I find most groups have a mount, animal companion, or other creature such as an eidolon. So a normal sized party can often end up with 4-6 members.

More importantly there are a number of situations that you can really get some mileage out of the mass cure spells. Have you never defended an inn, keep, or castle against opponent were their were NPC’s around that could greatly benefit from the healing? How about fighting in a war against an opposing army? I’ve done both, more then once, and while the situations may not be common they aren’t all that rare either… at least they haven’t been for me. Remember the spell doesn’t have to only target party members. Oh, I can’t believe I almost forgot an example… How about when you are fighting undead? Heal the whole party and deal some damage to the enemy at the same time. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen a campaign were undead were not encountered.

Anyway I apologize if any of this sounds argumentative. It’s hard to tell on the Internet sometimes. I like playing with house rules and have played with healing spells myself. A little improvement is good but I found the long drawn out battles that result from over doing simply aren’t any fun and I’m hoping you can learn from my mistakes :)

1) Healing changes

I agree that cure spells tend to be lacking and need enhanced but would simplify your changes to them to just; all cure spells have the bonus healing due to the characters level doubled.

I’m not sure why you think mass cure spells are a trap you can try and say that they don’t heal as well but that’s not accurate. How much net healing you can gain is considerably higher. For example at 9th level a cleric has both critical and cure light wounds, mass. Cure critical would heal 4d8+18 for an average of 36 hit points, while the cure light wounds, mass spell would heal 1d8+18 for an average of 22 health per person. Heal just two characters and you net an average or 44 hit points worth of healing and, theoretically, you can heal up to 9 for an average or 198 hit points worth of healing. Now I’ll grant you that a situation like that will rarely happen but still healing 2 or 3 party members at once and from a distance without having to take attacks of opportunity etc is pretty nice, I certainly wouldn’t call it a trap.

As for heal, I believe most people will agree that it’s one of the most powerful healing spells in the game and probably over powered for its level. That said, I would personally just lower the healing to 7 hit points per caster level and leave the rest alone. I think that would be sufficient to bring it down to a more appropriate power level.

For a comparison consider heal and cure moderate wounds, mass both gained by a cleric at 11th level. Heal would allow a single target the cleric touches to be healed for 77 hit points and remove an array of different effects from them. Cure moderate wounds, mass wound heal 2d8+22 for an average of 31 health per person affected but could heal the entire party simultaneously granting a net healing from 31 to 124 depending on the number of party members effected. This healing could be done from 50 feet away without endangering the cleric and could heal for significantly more if there are more characters in the party or if NPC’s, animal companions, etc, around that need healing as well.

2) I require from my players a written background, of at least one paragraph.

Sounds good to me.

3) I have banned leadership and antagonize. (I hate these feats, I may be wrong.)

I see no problems with this… and you can’t be wrong, it’s your opinion and you have a right to it.

4) I have removed the faction requirements for "Master Performer and Grand Master Performer."

Not sure where these are from so I have no opinion.

5) I require all players that choose to play paladins to sit down with me and hammer out the details for their particular paladin’s code before play starts.

Sounds good. In my opinion paladins are always need a sit down with the GM to be sure you’re both on the same page as to how they should behave and what acceptable.

6) Magic item creation and use changes

Not sure about your reasoning here. You say quote realism as being one reason you did. That way you don’t have to mysteriously arrange for an enemy to just happen to drop a certain magic item… except what the chance a person is going to be walking around with unused imbues? Seems awfully unlikely to me unless they happen to be an enchanter. Honestly I’d consider a different approach.

Perhaps allow skilled artificers to swap permanent enchantments for a fee. That way if you find a flame sword you can have it added to your +3 axe and either loss a bonus to the axe and pay a small fee or add both together and add a significantly larger fee. Something along these lines would probably be more realistic then a bunch of enemies that got imbues but never actually got around to using them.

7) Players need to fill out the following questionnaire. Vague answers are ok, this is just to get the player involved with the character as a person rather than a collection of stats.

I would divide it into 2 parts, physical description where all of the “questions” must be answered, and the other half where I’d ask for something like answer any 5 of the following 10+ questions. That way theirs some wiggle room. I for one enjoy developing my characters but never do it all at once. I get ideas that I use for starting points and then flush them out more as I play. So a detailed, or large questionnaire, would bother me quite a bit since you wouldn’t have given me the time I need to “feel out” my character.

8) I give one free Hero point to anyone who fills out the questionnaire and then types a back story that is at least one page double spaced size 12 times new roman font.

I see no problems with that. Can I assume you still get this upon completion even if you don’t get everything filled out until several sessions in? As I mentioned above I doubt I’d be done on day 1 and would be irritated if I were penalized for taking a few game sessions to get a good feel for my character.

While your system my be forgiving there are a number of situations that can arise that can make retrieving a body within the specified time impossible, if it can be done at all. Since the consequence of this if permanent character death I would rather not play with those rules myself. A few examples include falling of a cliff, falling into a pit of lava, being completely disintegrated, teleported into a trap, or plane shifted to a hostile environment.

The main problem I see is that as characters get higher and higher level the chance for something like this happening to them continues to increase. If I played a character to, let’s say 15th level, and then got plane shifted to the plane of fire by a prismatic spray and died permanently as a result, I would not be happy. The longer you play a character the more you tend to get attached to them (in my experience anyway). Normally, high levels means you can usually recover a lost character but with these rules it just means a higher chance for permanent death.

Personally my preference would be to switch your minutes to rounds to add a sense of urgency in combat to hurry and heal a fallen comrade and then make the resurrection type spells more costly, possibly even requiring a successful save to be brought back to life with a DC the increases the longer you have been dead. That way high-level characters aren’t killed permanently due to a bad die roll in an unfortunate situation.

Another way to speed things up is to share NPC's AC with the players, this is one less piece of information that has to go back and forth between you and the players.

I do that as well, though I never give the information until after a player has committed to attacking them. My players sometimes ask questions like, "I'll attack the golem with my longsword, what's it's AC?" I find it's easier to let them know then to have to figure out which attacks hit and which don't by asking me each time.

Revel wrote:

Group initiative - everyone rolls normally to start things off but I always do all of the enemies together and once they have gone it simply cycles back and forth between the party and the enemies with the party going as a group without regard for the order in which they rolled initiative. That way you simply go with whoever is ready and keep the game moving.

I was very excited to try this method, but in practice I don't think it worked out for me. The players ended up discussing who should act first, and it became harder for me to track who had acted vs. who had not.

Am I missing something that makes this technique work? Or is it just not for me?

I can see how it could be problematic if you and your group aren’t used to group initiative but I’ve found the solutions for those two particular problems, both are fairly simple and have worked well for me for many years.

First, inform your group that you’ll be using group initiative and that they are welcome to collaborate and strategize with one another… However, and this is very important, when you ask “Who’s ready?” you expect someone to step up and take their turn. If no one does you can and will skip the players turn and they can try again during the next round.

Then when it’s the parties turn give them a brief moment (how brief is entirely up to you) and then ask who’s going. If no one steps up to go simply say the following: “Well, if no one’s ready I’m going to go ahead and go again, anyone?” I don’t think I have ever needed to skip the players’ turn to get them moving and once a group gets used to it you only have to ask that question once in a while to get things moving. Usually, if you do, it’s because things are not going well and they’re uncertain how to salvage a bad situation. If your feeling generous, give them a little extra time to strategize otherwise repeat the statement mentioned above.

As for tracking who’s gone… don’t. If you know everyone’s gone great start the creatures turn. But if you aren’t 100% simply ask “Is that everyone?” If your group says yes, or if no one responds, go ahead and go. It isn’t your responsibility to ensure that they have gone it’s theirs and if they aren’t paying attention and haven’t gone they lose out.

To sum it up, you are giving the players the opportunity to work together and strategize but in return you expect them to be prompt and take responsibility for whether or not they have gone. I’ve been using this for many years and never had any real problems. Once in a while I have to give a warning that I’m going to go if someone doesn’t step up and start their turn but so far I’ve never had to actually had to actually skip the whole group. That said, I have on rare occasion skipped a player that was to busy talking or otherwise not paying attention when I asked if that was everyone was done. But they know that’s their responsibility and I’ve never had any arguments from my players about it, at most they look sheepish and that doesn’t generally happen again for quite some time.

Anyway, hopefully that helps, if not perhaps it’s not for you. Though if you haven’t tried the things I mentioned above I’d give it another try before deciding, expect it to take a session or two for everyone to get used to it, but probably no longer then that, good luck.

edit: added the quote I was replying to xP

Would they still try and alter animals around giving them different traits to enhance them?

I’d say it’d depend on their alignment. A good druid would be more prone to protect or relocate existing aberrations in an attempt to give them a chance to shine. An evil druid might have no problems experimenting and trying to help nature along, so to speak. A neutral druid could go either way but wouldn’t want to risk hurting the animals or plants he wanted to modify and would want to be sure he wasn’t doing more harm then good so it’d take him longer if he did at all. At least those are my views on it.

If in fact it was a Alien druid what might his wildshape be and animal companion options be.

Most likely those abilities would replicate natural creatures from the world/plane that he originates from. You’d have to have an idea what those would be first of course which would probably take a bit of work. To simplify you might try creating a template and say that for the most part similar creatures exist but have the template applied to them then fluff the appearance a bit and your good to go. If you try something like that don’t forget that the template shouldn't really make the creatures stronger just different. Otherwise the entire power would need to be rebalanced.

Aberrations don't have to have anything to do with dungeons. Here’s one way you could play it…

Druids that command aberrations view them as simply a step in the evolutionary chain that may or may not become the norm depending on how successful they are, how many others are born with the aberration, and blind luck.

Say a fish is born with gills that allow it to walk on land, albeit in a limited fashion. None of the other fish can, obviously this fish is an aberration to the norm. But its ability allows it to forage for food where other fish can’t and escape purely aquatic predators. It manages to not only survive but also thrive and has young that inherit the same ability. Years later it’s now a new species of fish.

An aberration oriented druid looks for creatures that are unique or have unique traits and tries to give them the chance to shine, grow, and thrive without being done in by some random misfortune thereby allowing nature to grow, adapt, and strengthen more rapidly.

Short version: They are about evolution.

Well done, I really like your guide and how you approached it. I’d like to do something like this for the core monk and all of their archetypes but it’d take forever and be a full sized book when finished xP Over all I think I agree with most everything you said though I have to say beastmass wasn’t exactly fair to the creatures.

Intelligent creatures don’t leave their treasure sitting in a pile in the corner waiting for and adventure to take it after they have been defeated. Try equipping them with some of their treasure and I bet one will be hurting by the end of the first day (if he survives at all) and never make it to the end of the second. Still, it did show off the Zen archer’s abilities nicely even if it wasn’t quite accurate in that regard.

I agree that the sensei looks like he could be fun to play. Unfortunately their seems to be a fair amount of ambiguity as to how exactly his advice ability works. For example, I'm still trying to figure out exactly what happens if a sensei uses battlemind link with his advice ability. I actually started a similar thread here to try and get a better feel for how he works but never got all of my questions answered as well as I'd have liked.

Group initiative - everyone rolls normally to start things off but I always do all of the enemies together and once they have gone it simply cycles back and forth between the party and the enemies with the party going as a group without regard for the order in which they rolled initiative. That way you simply go with whoever is ready and keep the game moving.

Laptops - I enjoy rolling dice but the dicebot's ability to roll and add a bunch of numbers from a macro is really nice at high levels. Over time I've gotten used to using it and if you have internet access you can look things up fast as well. Also, while I prefer to look things up in my books you can open and run a search of a pdf faster to easily look things up if you need to.

Group leveling - Have everyone level together after the game is over for the night, they can check each other and gab about the game and their plans for the next day without slowing down the game or being distracting. You can also do a similar thing during lunch or dinner if you know everyone should have the xp to level.

Relax - Don't worry or let yourself get wound up if things seem to be taking longer then you planned. No matter how much you plan and prepare there are never any guarantees and getting stressed will probably only slow things down more. As long as everyone having fun go with the flow and enjoy yourself.

Plan shortcuts if needed - if you really want a group to be able to finish an adventure before the mini con is over look at things ahead of time and think about what you can cut if you need to. For example drop a random encounter or make the creatures in a room easier so the group will blow through them and get on to the more important encounters so they can reach the end.

Be ready to add content - the reverse of the above is also possible if the group is using their not inconsiderable resources well or making unexpected choices and bypassing things you thought they'd do, essentially "skipping to the end". I find this to be pretty rare but I've seen it happen before so having something such as a couple wanderings in you pocket just in case can be a good idea.

Don't hide armor class, DC's, and other such checks - I don't tell a player a creatures armor class until they attack it but once they commit to an action I'll tell them what they need to succeed, it's easier and faster then having them ask repeatedly if an attack hit or not.

****

Hope everything goes well, it's been far to long since I've had the opportunity to do something like a mini con but they're usually fun.

One of the most common questions I use as GM is, "Are you sure?" I’d at least have given him this much when he said what he was going to tell muscles. Any time a player says that they want to do something I feel their character would probably not do because they’d know better I ask this. I also generally allow players to make an intelligence, wisdom, or skill check as I feel is appropriate for a hint as to what I perceive as being a problem (Providing this is the first time they made this mistake). Afterward, I usually let them squirm and scramble for a minute. Then, in the interest of keeping things moving, I tell them I need an answer or they’ll miss their turn.

The way I see it, people make mistakes. Whether they forgot or simply didn’t learn it well enough I don’t know so I typically give them the benefit of the doubt. Case and point, as wraithstrike pointed out above you yourself erred as to what the rule was. All of that said, I think your solution; using a grateful NPC to provide a raise dead and restoration for free is fair.

Some GM’s really dislike it when players ruin their carefully laid plans and go well beyond what I feel they should to prevent it from happening. For example, they may fudge saving throws, skill checks, etc. to ensure that their well made BBEG doesn’t die to fast and ensure things go "as planned".

It sounds to me like he decided to create a template just for the express purpose of being able to give himself a “legitimate” reason why these things won’t work without “cheating”. Personally if a GM ran a template like this in a game I played in I would probably talk to him about it after the game and in all likelihood bow out and go elsewhere if it was going to continue to be used.

If a GM wants to create a reasonable explanation why something doesn’t work that’s fine. In fact I find it can be a lot of fun. You start asking yourself questions like "Is there any way I can use this to my advantage?" But as a player, I strongly dislike GM’s simply stopping something just because it’s not what they wanted or expected to happen. Consequently, powers that amount to it doesn’t work because I said so just don’t fly with me.

And honestly I don't like it as a GM either, I actually enjoy it when my players surprise me, after running games for over 20 years I think I’d be bored of it by now if they didn’t. Naturally all of this is just my opinion, if you are enjoying the game, then keep playing, there’s certainly nothing wrong with that.

Possibly something like this:

1st – Selective channel
3rd – Extra channel
5th – Reach spell
7th – Heighten spell
9th – Channeled revival
11th – Echoing spell
13th – Spell perfection (heal)
15th – Preferred spell (heal)

And yes I know he's 12th but I was trying to plan ahead a little, at 13th level he can cast heal and echo it for another heal or memorize a reach heal in a 7th level slot for healing party members across the battlefield without going to them and then echoing it so he can do it again. At 15th level he can do the same kind of things spontaneously allowing him to free up those slots for other spells like buffs, attack, spells, etc. for times when the party just doesn't need the healing.

One thing you may have missed and is important to realize, is that wizards do not have to prepare all of their spells ahead of time. With 15 minutes of study they can “prepare” an unused spell slot with any spell in their spell book of that level or lower. Because of this they often leave a few slots open just for this purpose. Naturally how many spell slots are left open will be dependent how many total spell slots they has at their current level. While this isn’t helpful in the middle of combat it does allow them to adapt to a wide range of situations.

In fact this is one of the wizards main strength's, always being able to have the right spell for the job. As far as their standard spell selection goes its not to hard to put together a decent list of daily spells that they always like to have memorized for combat or frequently occurring situations. If you or one of you player's needs help figuring out what's good, several people on this forum have made guides for most of the different classes in pathfinder, links these guide have been mostly compiled into a thread named Guide to the Guides here is a link

Having many house rules myself I see nothing wrong with making house rules as you want to whatever you want. That said, if you've never played pathfinder before you might want to play a couple of times to get a feel for it before you change things. That way you'll have a better idea of how they work, if you actually want to change them, and how to change them if you do.

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Oh and as to your original question, I myself have an optional spell point system that my players may use if they wish. I've always liked being able to cast spells more freely then the current system allows for. There are several alternate ways you can handle spells if you want more casting freedom but you'll need to carefully consider how it'll affect all of the different spell casting classes.

Thanks, that answers 1 of the questions. Any more ideas about the others?

Personally my opinions are as follows.

1) Yes, bard feats like lingering performance or extra performance should be able to be taken since it is supposed to be identical to the bard's ability. In my mind if it doesn't work they can't be considered identical.

2) No idea what feat to remove but I'm pretty sure either the one at 1th or 14th level should be removed. Until told otherwise I'll probably take away the level 10 one but that's just arbitary, I have no idea which it should be.

3) Yes, answered and the reason is linked above (thanks again)

4) Yes, I see no reason why it shouldn't so I'll probably treat it this way unless someone can give me a reasonable reason why this should not be the case.

5) Yes I believe he can dimension door the party, but I'm not sure if he could change where appear with regards to each other. I'd probably rule against it unless I am told otherwise or given an example of a time when this is allowed so I at least have a precedent.

6) I think he can but really don't know how to rule on who decides who is battlemind liked to who.

7) I tend to agree that deuxhero's interpretation is the most likely I can think of so far, though I don't really like it as it stands. It may not be RAW or RAI but for my home game I'll probably rule that any saves that would be made against a poison or disease during the time a character has immunity are automatically treated as having succeeded.

I kind of like your 2nd idea but would suggest modifying it as follows:

Any metamagic a spell caster knows can be spontaneously applied to any spell upon casting. Doing so requires the spell caster to make a Spellcraft check equal to 15 + twice the spells modified level. If this check fails the spell is lost and has no effect. A Spells modified level cannot be higher then the highest level spell of that type that they can cast.

This allows a spell caster to try and modify a spell of the fly if they need to but also lets them to memorize them with the metamagic feat added to it to prevent any chance of spell failure.

Adding a question:

7) If a sensei uses mystic wisdom to grant an ally immunity to disease or poison via purity of body or diamond body what happens to any disease or poison currently affecting them? Is is neutralized? I like the idea that they could use this ability to cure others but I'm not sure if that's how it's supposed to work.

Also there have been so few responses if you aren't chiming in because you aren't sure of the answers please click faq. I'd really like to have a solid understanding of how the sensei should work.

And Qingqong Sensei actually (sadly) gives a point to the "self only" note on True Strike.

Actually, I don’t see why the sensei’s mystic wisdom ability wouldn’t allow you to affect your party members with true strike, several other abilities I do know it effects normally only effect the sensei. Or can you cite something that would indicate otherwise?

3) Yes, you are your own ally.

While I agree with your belief is their anything in the book or from a developer that shows this, or is it simply your opinion? I’m trying to be as sure as I can about these since I’m considering adding a number of basic builds to my guide and wouldn’t want to steer anyone wrong if I do.

*****

Anyone else have any thoughts as to the RAW, RAI, or even just how they would rule?

All right, so as some of you may or may not know monks are one of my favorite classes. I even wrote a guide for playing them. Recently however I ran into a problem of sorts. I wanted to make a sensei for a support oriented build and found several points unclear. Now it’s easy enough for me to house rule in my own game and the games I play in are similar so I could simply state my belief on how it should go and ask for a ruling, but I’d like to know what the community thinks and if anyone knows if any of these questions has been answered in errata or by one of the paizo staff.

1) The advice ability states that it is identical to bardic performance. Does that mean you can take lingering performance with it?

2) Mystic wisdom states that it replaces the monk’s bonus feats at levels 6, 12, and 18. One problem, monks don’t get a bonus feat at level 12. So should it replace one gained at 10, 14, both, or neither?

3) At 12th level a sensei can use mystic wisdom to give an ally within 30 feet one of several monk abilities such as evasion or fast movement. Can he choose himself? And when using mystic wisdom to grant an ability to all allies in range does he count as an ally to himself?

4) Since mystic wisdom uses the monk’s advice ability does it benefit from lingering performance if the monk has it?

5) Can a sensei use mystic wisdom to dimension door party members with abundant step? If so what happens when he tries to dimension door the entire party? Do they all arrive in the same relative locations to each other or can he place them in different spots?

6) What happens if a sensei uses battlemind link on the party? Or can he? If he can, does he choose the target they link to or do they?

For clarity, since their seems to be some confusion on the subject.

At 1st level, as part of a full-attack action, a maneuver master can make one additional combat maneuver…

Emphasis mine. This means that when a maneuver master uses a full attack action they can use an additional combat maneuver, it does not state that you have to be attacking with your regular attacks or using other maneuvers so that is your choice. Either way you still get the additional combat maneuver(s) as dictated be the flurry of maneuvers.

You cannot however, use one of the bonus maneuvers as a regular attacks. The ability specifically states you gain additional combat maneuvers, and normal attacks are not combat maneuvers.

Can you give any advice on how I should be building the enemies. Should I include more skill stealth enemies or just more mooks style ones.

I always suggest variety, plan for a combination of weak and tough fights and make those fights vary as well. You could have a challenging fight with a horde of goblins one time and a carefully decked out evil party another time. So some fight should be stealth, other brute force, etc. Don’t limit yourself to just one encounter design.

For balance issues low-level mooks are easier to balance simply by adjusting numbers. When designing challenging fights with fewer enemies it gets more difficult since they tend to be power houses and thus do significantly more damage and may kill someone. That said at around 14th level or a little below (guessing based on the enemies level) they should be able to raise dead, probably resurrect, and of course breath of life is a lifesaver, literally.

Personally I play with a house rule that regardless of how much damage someone takes a character does not die until exactly one round later. If they are healed within this time they can fully recover. This lets me take the gloves off, so to speak, when making a truly frightening enemy that would otherwise kill several party members before being dropped, and the panicked rush to heal characters before they die helps create tension. Just don’t overuse this if you decide to do something similar. It can go from having fun and challenging to irritating and old quickly if overused. Players do not like having to spend a large portion of battles running around healing other or getting back on their feet rather then fighting.

Also I would seriously consider splitting the group into two separate groups, as mentioned that would help considerably when trying to balance encounters as well and might be your best option.

Also a while back a PC died to a haunt and liking his character he just added a "II" and just used his background…

I’m confused, you have a party with nine gesalt characters, all about what? 10th to 14th level or pretty close to that, giving a total of 18 classes and no one has raise dead or resurrection? Now I can’t remember of something happens to the body or not when a haunt kills someone but still I'd expect characters at that level to have the ability to get their hands on a true resurrection if they had to. But then again, I don’t know the situation, or how you play, or if I'm right about their respectively levels.

His out of game reasoning was "I've already made one character for this campaign It's not like I'm gonna build another"

If this was word for word it kind of sounds to me like he doesn’t really care about the game and is just there to goof off and socialize. Naturally I could be completely wrong, I don’t know the situation nearly well enough, but if that is the case I’d consider dropping him. It sounds like he is becoming a source of disruption within the game and if it continues it’s likely to get worse.

Now personally I hate dropping someone that’s there to play but I have to ask, is he? Again I don’t know enough to judge this but if you don’t think he is I’d cut him or t least have a talk with him.

also he said if there was a losses were even if there was a TPK minus him.

I had difficulty reading/understanding this but it kind of sounds again like he isn’t invested in the group. Players have a responsibility to make and play their characters while keeping party cohesion in mind. Even in groups where a GM allows evil characters to be played this is important or a group would just fall apart. With nine people there, be certain that everyone is trying to not only have fun but also help the others in the party have fun too.

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Well hopefully at least some of this helps. I almost didn’t post since there is so much information I’m lacking so please take everything I said with that in mind.

While I take my hat off to you for wanting to provide a truly unique experience for your players and really change things up I’m afraid that this particular method will be ultimately futile. Here are a few problems with your current scenario.

1) We exist and experience time in a linear fashion and, not surprisingly, trying to imagine anything else is very difficult and any attempt to get around this is likely to come across as very clunky.

2) Starting at the end with the BBEG dead is sort of anticlimactic. Yes Suddenly he is alive and you have to fight him but honestly if you already know you kill him then it’s just crunching numbers till you are back were you started.

3) Since you don’t know how things will go it’s impossible to accurately describe the beginning of the fight, were characters health are etc.

And these are merely a couple of my initial thoughts, I’m sure I could come up with more problems, in fact I have already but I won’t bother adding them at this time. If you are absolutely intent on doing I think Naedre's idea is probably the best I've heard to do something like that, though it would only be effecting the BBEG and not the players and I think it would still feel a little clunky.

Now if you are not adverse to a different approach I have played a bit with the realm of madness and here are a few ideas I like using.

Create a list of changes to physics/magic and roll a die at regular intervals to see what changes. For example, gravity could change to a random direction. One or more characters or perhaps an entire area could be rewound in time undoing anything that was just done to them or it. Energy types on spells and even normal effects could change so you could have fire generate cold instead of heat. Some effects can even be harmless, like fire light suddenly turning green. Let the players minds run as to what implications that may have.

Some effects may have durations and others may last until the end of the battle, or at least until you roll that it changes again. Meanwhile being from the realm of madness I’d give the BBEG one extra ability, let him know what has changed so he can act accordingly to best make use of it. After all you’d expect creatures that live in that kind of a chaotic environment to adapt to survive or even thrive in it. So if all fire was suddenly more intense he might cast a fireball, etc.

In any case I hope these ideas are useful to you, good luck with whatever you decide to go with.

Having been a DM for over 20 years I have to say we aren’t perfect. Sometimes we have misconceptions and need to be educated. I think most of us are willing to try new things, if our players what to try something different we will work them to see how it goes, and in doing so sometimes learn something that leaves us more knowledgeable and better DM’s then we were before.

I understand your DM’s point of view as well as his reluctance. Dedicated healers are needed in many fantasy RPG games, especially computer RPG’s, and the thought the party needs one tends to be become a little ingrained. After all his main concern, presumably, is that the party will wipe or players will die which is rarely fun.

When you sit down with the group encourage the player of the barbarian to stick with his choice and say it’s worth trying to do without a dedicated healer to see how it goes. Also, point out that it’s not some random stranger but a lot of other gamers like yourselves that have played in or ran pathfinder games in which there was no dedicated healer, and that, while there is a little bit of a learning curve, we found it doable.

In short, some DM’s are stubborn and need to see first hand that something works but if you “force” our hand you may be glad you did since it’ll help us learn and potentially break one or more of the misconceptions we have about the game as well as letting all the players make and play the characters they want.

*****

Having said this, a note for the group. When going without a healer there is a bit of a learning curve and it does add additional expenditures to the party (though at higher levels cost tends to stop being an issue). Also you have to think ahead and make sure you have your bases covered. As has been mentioned above, not all damage is hit point damage, you’ll need to be able to cover, disease, poison, ability damage, etc. as well (though not all at first level of course). Still, if you plan for it, it is doable, and ultimately what's important is that everyone is having fun.

Some time ago a there was a thread about playing by post. Here's a link to it.

DH's Guide to Play By Post gaming

Hope it helps.

Well the one possibility I can see for recovery is the cleric. On page 191 of the CR are rules for recovering from negative hit points without help and at the bottom of a pit seemingly dead there is a very real possibly that the dragon ignores the body giving him a chance to recover. Also at his level with presumably a good fortitude save I'd say his chances for waking on his own are good.

Once awake healing himself is easy... given that he's a cleric and all. The tricky part will be escaping alive with or without the other characters bodies. If he can, 13th level is high enough he should be able to rez the rest of the party himself.

If he can't reach the bodies, for whatever reason, to dangerous, no longer there, been eaten, etc. he could escape and follow up on the idea mentioned above. He could gather or hire a new adventuring party with which to confront the dragon and try again as proposed above.

I did hear an interesting option (may have been Game Masters Guide) that you have them play a new party trying to rescue the old party and then once they have done so each player can choose between their new and their old characters.

This option gives them a chance to recover, by the rules, without making it easy or making the players think you'll be a push over in the future should anything like this ever happen again. In fact, I think if it's done right they might even be on the edge of their seats knowing this is their very last chance to recover there characters.

Well, I’ve stated my opinion and thus far it hasn’t changed though this discussion has been very interesting and I have learned a few things that made me think through everything some more. I was going to bow out quietly but I thought I’d throw out some food for thought. Take this for what you will.

Revel wrote:

@dragonfire8974: I may have missed something somewhere, where is the 50% more wealth then the rest of the party coming from?

assuming a party of 4

3 get a -10 percent. so 3 are at 90%
the crafter gets 30% so the crafter is up at 130%. while it isn't exactly 50% more, it is very close. exactly 50% more would be 135%

This didn’t read right to me so I wanted to run some numbers. Please keep in mind that these numbers are not meant to be an accurate representation of how a group spends their money on crafting but rather to give me a better idea of the wealth advantage potentially possessed by characters that craft.

Each of the following is a break down of % magic item wealth and % gold wealth. I then make a few stated assumptions about how the loot is used in the imaginary group simply to look and the resulting discrepancies in the crafters net value vs. the groups net value

<disclaimer>I am tired and the numbers or equations may or may not be correct, I’m generally good with math but as I said I’m tired, if I’ve made errors feel free to correct them, also this post is a bit long</disclaimer>

@dragonfire8974: I may have missed something somewhere, where is the 50% more wealth then the rest of the party coming from?

Quantum Steve wrote:

Expecting crafters to craft at half price is just as selfish as crafters expecting their party to pay full price. Both from an in-game and meta-game standpoint.

And this is the rub of it I think.

Can we come up with a mathematical formula that evenly disperses the effective party wealth among the party, assuming the crafter crafts for everyone else?

Well I'm not going to try, to tired, but if anyone does want to try you'll have to set a standard gold wealth vs item wealth first. That is to say what percentage of the parties incoming wealth is from gold vs from found magic items. Without that bit of info it'd be hard... ok unless it was part of the equation. Grrr... now you got me curious and it's going to bug me <glares at Ravingdork> ;P

As I have said all along Revel, if you are playing an evil, or potentially even a neutral character, then this behavior is justified. But then so is the behavior of the other evil or neutral party members who say "oh yeah? well buddy, here's my menu!"

Good characters as part of an heroic party, this is uncool.

Even during down time when there is no one shouting for help and you aren’t adventuring? I’ve never considered good meaning must work for free. You have stricter standards than I. <shrug>

And just to be clear when I say not adventuring I mean between adventures not in town (if it matters).

but you're not really losing two weeks. you're losing 4 hours a day, which is trivial in game. now i'll admit, that's a good chunk of time every day. but as someone else said, even with the highest profession check (dc30), you can only make 3d6 gold per day. so time, even for the most expert of people, isn't worth 100 gold a day. but if the other people aren't contributing to help you out while you're helping them out, then they're not good companions, and charging, while i think 10% is too much from a gameplay standpoint, becomes less of an issue

In game sure but I consider 4 hours a day a large chuck of time for someone to ask for every day for weeks. Also I never said only 4 hours a day I was thinking in town working for 8 hours a day for a couple weeks. As for what fee is reasonable I didn’t quote an amount or percentage. And while I think 10% is fair I run in a high magic world and do wages differently (house rule). In a normally RAW game I may ask for signifiacantly less idk.

real life examples aren't applicable because most of us can't do what our characters can

That can be a cop out. The entire game is fantasy but that doesn’t mean we ignore things such as gravity. Magic might let us do exactly that and damage for falling is pathetic to a high level character but we don’t throw gravity out altogether. So real life examples are fine but like everything subjective. Those that play from a “real-life” perspective are simply trying to envision the fantasy world in question and play as they believe the character would act if it were real.

No. Not remotely. It is, however, what the profiteers are accusing the non-profiteers of, in spite of roughly 200 posts explaining why this is totally erroneous.

Eventually it becomes clear that people aren't "getting it" because they don't WANT TO.

Actually I disagree, elaborating on what I said above a little from the “real-life” perspective if you have me spend say two weeks of my free time making items for you at cost and you save 10,000 gold then you just got 10,000 gold and I lost 2 weeks… who’s profiteering? Meanwhile if I at least make a little you still come out ahead but I get something for my time.

Of course from the game oriented perspective no time is really passing and my character is earning gold beyond the groups norm at the expense on a party member and that’s not cool at all.

IMHO it’s entirely about perspective and play style. But as always that's just my opinion.

The problem as I see it is that there are 2 very different play styles here and both come with subtle but distinctly different points of view. I’ll call them the real life play style and the game oriented play style.

Real life play style

In the real life play style, the players view their characters as living breathing people in a fantasy world and have them act as such with there own lives outside adventuring. This is the perspective being taken by those that say charging for services during down time is generally acceptable and even expected.

From this perspective it is completely acceptable to charge some fee during down time between adventures. Most people do not put their friends and family first, spending days, weeks, or even months doing things for them and sacrificing there own time without expecting some form of compensation. And yes, even if you are military and have had you life saved repeatedly there is still a limit as to how far most people will let someone milk it before they expect or even demand compensation for their time or simply say no. You don’t suddenly become someone’s slave because they saved your life.

As for the arguments about you charging me so I’ll charge you, they really don’t apply. When adventuring, the entire party works together and gets equal shares of the treasure. If you are in a dungeon or the middle of an adventure then you use your abilities for the party without asking for compensation beyond cost. If this means spinning out a batch of potions, a ring of invisibility or whatever, so be it. Now between adventures when you could be relaxing at home and pursuing your own interests, that’s when you would charge a fee. Again this is all from a real life perspective. So let’s look at it from the other point of view.

Game oriented play style

The game oriented play style looks at it for what it is, a game, and focuses on accomplishing the games goals as efficiently as possible. This is the perspective being taken by those saying items should be made for the party at cost and charging a fee is unacceptable.

Since no actual time passes for the player whose character is making the equipment and they are being given what they need to make it, they are out nothing. Groups that are game oriented are generally group oriented as well focusing first on the group and second on the individual characters. Consequently, they often see asking for a fee as one player trying to “get ahead” of the other players rather then role playing their character and how they would really act, because of this it is generally frown upon.

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So who is right? The answer is both sides are. Ultimately you should find out what the groups mind set is before choosing any kind of item creation feat so as to avoid potential problems. For example, I tend to prefer games using the real life perspective and have charged a nominal fee for items created during down time. I also expect to pay others that do similarly and have no objection to it.

This doesn’t mean that I think others, such as say Admantium Dragon, are wrong or even that I couldn’t play in the same game as them, merely that I’d need to know the expectations in advance so I could choose feats accordingly. In a game of that nature I would probably be less likely to take item creation feats not because I’m mad or am being a jerk but because I focus on RPing my character as I see them acting in real life and taking an item creation feat and acting that way would “feel” weird and shake my sense of verisimilitude thus detracting from my fun, not greatly but enough to make me think twice before taking one.

I could say a lot more on the subject, heck I could probably right a paper on it and the differences I’ve observed playing in games of both types, but I think I’ve hit the highlights. Incidentally, I got a little lazy reading so if I skipped over someone saying all this before I apologize.

edit: ninja'd by Ravingdork, and ya I think it pretty much is... though I guess from my post that's obvious xP

No, all characters, no matter what class they are, are limited on the number of attacks they get with a full attack action. This limit uses a characters base attack bonus (abbreviated BAB). Normally, someone such as a gunslinger that uses a high BAB gets 1 attack at 1st level, 2 at 6th level, 3 at 11th level, 4 at 16th level, and finally 5 at 20th level. (Incidentally this is the best BAB a character can have)

To modify this number you either need to get a feat if one exists (depends of what you are doing), use both hands (which gives penalties to attack rolls), or have magic used on you such as the 3rd level spell haste.

Projectile weapons that have reload times such as crossbows and firearms may eat into this slowing the rate at which you can attack. While firearms may slow you attack speed they let you use touch attack AC while within 1 range increment (about 20 feet). Because of this you rarely miss within this range which can be nice.

Consequently, to do as much damage as possible you want to reduce the reload times on your firearms so you can shoot more and reload less. A pepperbox is a 6 cylinder/barrel pistol and you can have all 6 preloaded thus you don't need to reload until you run out of ammunition. But as mentioned, this will not increase the number of attacks you can make per round merely avoid reloading for a while so you can get the full number of attacks normally allowed.

-I get shot of per round, can i in any way get more?....

Sure, the simplest solution is to get a pepperbox, which you can have preloaded giving you up to six attacks before reloading becomes, an issue. I’d also use alchemical cartridges, get the feat rapid reload, or both. You can find the feat in the core rulebook; it normally works with crossbows but works with firearms as well. At 11th level you get deed lightning reload, which combined with either of the above lets you load your firearm once a round as a free action and can be use to extend the “life” of your pepper box as you can then reload a chamber each round for free providing you either use alchemical cartridges or have rapid reload.

At 7th level you get dead shot, which helps here a lot. You can effectively pool all of your damage into a single attack. It’s not quite as effective as using your full attack because bonus damage is only added once but it’s good for when you’ve used up all your preloaded shots.

-Is there any good way to go from here to get higher damage?...feats etc...

Well at 5th level gun training lets you get to add your dexterity bonus to damage, also get the feats point blank shot and deadly aim, both found in the core rulebook. Normally, deadly aim doesn’t work with touch attacks but firearms are an exception making it a must have imho.

-Should I go multiclass?....and what, why and how?...

Depends on your character concept. You can if you want but I don’t think you need to. That said a level of rogue might be nice for the sneak attack damage when flanking if you feel you need it.

-What weapons should I use?....We have only early firearms in our campaign, no advanced....what should I go for?...

I’d probably go for a pair of pepperboxes. Fire until it’s out and then switch. As I mentioned above once you get lightning reload mentioned above you can potentially reload one of the used chambers each round for free letting you get your full attack longer before you need to stop and switch guns or need to start using move actions to reload (at which point you should start using dead shot as mentioned above).

-Should i kill my character, and create a new one?...

Completely your call, if you aren’t having fun with him then yes, of course. But if you’re worried about being effective I would be patient and try it out for a while. The gunslinger isn’t a DPR machine but they can deal out decent damage and do it consistently. Getting to use touch attack AC at short-range means at medium to high levels you’d rarely ever miss. If you find only getting this with the 1st range increment to limiting consider getting the signature deed feat at 11th level and using it with deadeye effectively doubling your touch attack range.

I could have sworn there was a guide to the gunslinger out there somewhere but I’m failing to find it, perhaps someone else will chime in.

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Well I was ninja'd on several, ok most points, but what can I say it was a long post x.x

How about if we just associated each skill with two attributes? How would that feel to people?

Sounds like a good idea, though I wouldn't force it. If a skill doesn't seem to fit more then 1 attribute don't add 1 just to add it. Not saying that this would even come up necessarily but if it does I'd just leave the skill with a single attribute rather then trying to force it to have a second attribute.

While I like the concept around what you are trying to do, there are 2 very large problems I see. First, characters or creatures with high stats and second characters or creatures with low stats.

High stats such as those given to many creature such as, say, your typically demon, will give an insane amount of skill points. For example, your average babau demon would get 17 skill points per level. And while I understand it's a monster and not a player character I’d really prefer a system that works for everyone myself. Also, how do stat increasing items work with it?

Low stats are just as big of a problem imho, and more likely for your average player. If I read correctly, a character with an average intelligence could not have any ranks at all in a knowledge skill. The one and only exception being if they choose to get skill points for there favored class bonus, which not everyone wants to do. This seems pretty stiff to me considering they have average intelligence.

Subtle point but you are not forcing him to play any alignment you are simply changing his alignment to reflect the way he is playing. He can still behave however he wants.

As to chaotic neutral meaning that he gets to do whatever he wants :/ Ask him what he thinks he'd have to do to become evil. After all, the way I see it if that was the case the alignment chaotic evil wouldn't even exist.

Once you have explained to him the difference between neutral and evil and perhaps more importantly the fact that the chaotic side of his alignment relates only to laws, keeping his word, and such, and not to morality, tell him if he persists to act evil he'll become evil. If he ignores you and continues to act evil I would change his alignment and tell him he can RP finding a new god (I assume he is a divine spell caster or I don't even understand the issue).

I think walking out on a game for having his alignment changed is a little childish. Now if you nerf his character or something I could see being irritated but even then as long as he can switch gods and get his powers back I think it's a silly reason to walk out on a game.

If he walks tell him it's his call but you'd rather he stayed and that you can't just do what he wants because he threatens to leave. Perhaps even ask him if he'd prefer to bring in a new character with a different personality so that there would be no conflict.

Mainly, I think you need to talk to him about alignment and clearly explain the difference between chaotic neutral and chaotic evil. Also I really do think you need to ask him the question I stated above: What does he thinks he'd have to do to become evil? I thinking forcing him to think about it might help.