And here's my cleric app. I could work her up as easily as a synthesist Summoner (or generic Summoner) if there end up being a bumper crop of Cleric applications.
Stats
Spoiler:
Albina Mariposa
Female human Cleric (of Asmodeus) 1
NE Medium humanoid
Init +1; Senses Perception +3
DEFENSE AC 11, touch 11, flat-footed 10 (+1 Dex)
hp 10 (1d8+2)
Saves Fort +4, Ref +1, Will +4
OFFENSE Spd 30 ft.
Melee morningstar +1 (1d8 B/P/x2)
Ranged heavy crossbow +1 (1d10 P/19-20, 120 ft. range)
Special Attacks Spells CL 1st (-/2+1)
Spells Prepared
1st-cure light wounds x2, burning hands D 0-detect magic, guidance, purify food & drink Domains Fire, Trickery
STATISTICS
Str 12, Dex 13, Con 14, Int 13, Wis 15, Cha 16
[2 + 3 + 5 + 3 + 7 +5 = 25, +2 Cha]
Base Atk +0; CMB +1; CMD 12
Traits Sacred Conduit (+1 save DC to channeled energy)
Albina was born prematurely after a difficult birth that required healing magic for both herself and her mother, and left both child and mother suffering lasting weakness. Her father, a prominent merchant, spent much coin to the temple of Iomedae to pay for healing services, but a lingering malaise continued to sap his wife’s vitality, and he found himself increasingly frustrated, as he had parted with such coin in the hopes of having a son to inherit his business. Instead, he had a wife too weak to again undergo the rigors of childbirth, and a sickly girl child, who seemed perpetually on the brink of death.
Albina grew up in seclusion, as exposure to others seemed to almost inevitably be followed by a new ailment, with expensive magical treatments the only remedy. Tongues wagged, and she developed something of a reputation as an exotic beauty, hidden away by her father to prevent her from being harassed, or possibly even abducted, rumors which her father, desperate to salvage at least an advantageous marriage for his sickly daughter, cunningly encouraged.
An elderly tutor, long ago a devotee of Asmodeus, but having long since concealed the faith of his youth, dragged into digression by strong drink and the flirtatious charms of a girl now on the cusp of womanhood, waxed eloquent about a radical theory that the divine magic used at the moment of her birth may have defied fate, and brought her alive into the world, when there was only life allotted for a single soul, that of her mother, causing the spiritual essence of her mother to be split between mother and child, leaving each with only half the strength and health that they should possess. Albina encouraged the absent-minded scholar to dismiss such talk as nonsense, insisting that nobody could defy the will of the gods in such a manner.
But wheels had been set turning, and dark dreams half-glimpsed among the flame of dancing candles led her to a dark theory.
Albina capitalized on her reputation among the local house servants to seduce a young clerk who worked for her father, allowing him rare glimpses of the ‘secret beauty’ that was confined to the upper levels of their home, eventually feeding him many lies. She told him that her father had been grooming him to take over the business, and that he intended for them to marry, so that he would inherit the family name and holdings, but that her mother greatly disapproved and was the only barrier to their love…
It took only a few weeks, and some sampling of the ‘medicines’ that her mother took to get her through the day, to convince the naïve young lad to murder her mother, so that they could consummate their love. Albina had come to believe that her mother’s death would release the life-energy that they shared between them to restore her own vitality to that of a normal girl, and so tricked her would-be lover to slit her mother’s wrists as she lay in a drugged stupor, making it appear that she had committed suicide.
While giving her mother a drug that left her adrift in a slumbering state, Albina had also given her paramour a vitalizing elixir that she and her mother used to energize themselves for public appearances, leaving him agitated and jumpy, so that when she betrayed him by calling for her father to save her mother from the ‘assassin,’ he reacted as predicted and sliced at her as well. Her father entered his wife’s room to find his young clerk standing over his daughter and wife, bloodied dagger in his hand. Albina’s plan was for her father to ‘save’ her from the ‘assassin,’ and kill him in the process, but the clerk managed to wound her father and flee the building, leading to an extended investigation, and her eventual complicity being uncovered by the authorities.
The only part of her plan that had succeeded was that the death of her mother indeed resulted in a rush of energy, greater than any drug she had taken to strengthen her resolve or lend vitality to her movements, as if her mother’s life-force had indeed joined her own, making her, for the first time in life, a whole person, no longer as frail as a child.
During the trial, Albina did herself no favors, drunk on her newfound vitality, and unable to accept the unfairness that now, on the verge of finally being able to live, that some feckless so-called authorities could sentence her to death…
At first, it seemed that murder would be the crime that doomed her, but she went a step further and openly praised the dark forces of Asmodeus for saving her, when the church of Iomedae only kept her and her mother weak and dependent on constant healing, and constant donations of money, to remain alive. And so she signed her own death-warrant, blaspheming in open court and committing the capital crimes of heresy and consorting with dark powers.
While she is notably stronger and more healthy than she was just months before, Albina remains pale and slender, and uses cosmetics to accentuate her pallor. Her hair is black and hangs straight behind her, while she affects a languid demeanor, having grown up accustomed to only being able to stand briefly, and being waited on hand and foot, due to her diminished vitality.
Albina is headstrong and selfish, finding the obsession with law and order to perhaps be part of the foolishness that led to the church of Asmodeus being supplanted by his lawful good rivals, trapped by his own honorable strictures and unable to engage in the practical and ruthless sorts of counter-attacks that could have prevented the purge.
Sewers are blocked because the goblins put up barricades to their new homes.
Goblins steel the workmen's tools (hammer, pick, shovel, chisel, etc..) so they can't work on the wall and to use as weapons themselves.
Goblins poison the well. (Maybe just by urinating in it.)
I like these because they aren't necessarily deliberate sabotage, but the sorts of things that would just sort of happen on their own, as the goblins fiddle around in the sewers.
By blocking off flow in a certain area, or diverting sewage from an area they want to use as their lair, they could cause sewers to back up or overflow 'up the line', leading to disease outbreaks or contaminated wells.
By blocking sublight from areas they want to use as their primary travel routes, by stuffing rags into grates, etc. they might accidentally cause a methane build-up, which results in a fiery explosion the first time some torch-wielding sewer worker attempts to pry loose the rags blocking the grate. (And yeah, lots of goblins could get caught in the blast. Civic engineering is not their strong suit...)
A beam or support column might be 'in the way' for whatever the goblins want to do to expand their lair, and, in cutting it down or pulling it over, they might unintentionally undermine whatever building lies above it, resulting in local smithy collapsing into the sewers.
Goblins gotta eat, and sneaking out at night and stealing food from the grainery or killing a horse and chopping it up and dropping it in pieces down the sewer grate to eat back at the lair are only some options. They might also eat rats that live in the sewers, which could lead to rats fleeing the sewers and seeming more common on the surface, or rats being in such short supply that packs of local rat-eating feral cats start attacking sleeping street people for food! Cats vs. commoners, only on pay-per-view!
Initial thoughts, before getting to a real application;
Albina Mariposa ('white butterfly'), a thin pale young upper-class woman who has fallen into diabolatry (and drug use, among other fashionable peccadillos of the jaded youth). Either cleric of Asmodeus, or, possibly, synthesist Summoner (who sees her power as the ability to call up a devil to possess herself and manifest through her body). In either case, she'll have a high Charisma, and be more inclined to bluff or manipulate her way out of situations, if possible.
Favorite Villain? Dr. Doom. He's genteel, when called for, honorable, by his own standards, willing to work with enemies that he respects, and yet utterly megalomaniacal, and uses his mission to rescue his mother's soul from damnation as an excuse to justify the means to his end. Plus he's obsessed with humiliating the guy who warned him how badly he was screwing up, and had the temerity to be right... He not only refuses to own up to his own mistakes, the writers of the comics introduced 'doombots' (robot duplicates that are programmed to believe that they are him, when he's not around) to retcon/rationalize any published instances of him getting beat-down too badly (oh, it was just one of his robots! Really!).
About the only trait Albina would share with Victor Von is a tendency to blame others for her own failings, although the thought of having the cleric version take craft arms & armor and heavy armor proficiency and make herself a suit of armor that somehow magically enhances her fire bolt Domain power could be amusing...
It would be worthwhile for the characters to have a conversation on tactics during combat. It seems you've lost many opportunities, despite poor rolls, to take advantage of the terrain, positioning for flanking, force the beasts to roll out of the Grease spells, etc.
As Set mentioned a while back, fights will get nastier. Individuals can profit a lot from sound group tactics.
I was really, really wanting that grease spell on N to take effect (which is why I was willing to cast it in the same square again), so that N would provoke attacks of opportunity from at least *three* people getting back to it's feet.
But that didn't really go anywhere. My save DCs are about as good as can be expected for this level, but the dice roll as the dice roll.
It's possible Davor didn't flank because he forgot that you can 5 ft. step without provoking an attack of opportunity, which would have given both him and Kriger a +2 to all their attack rolls for the last three rounds.
I screwed myself out of some healing, by stepping back to both be out of 5 ft. step / full attack range of troll 3 and so that fireballs landing between me and the others wouldn't be as likely to hit them and me (which might be an overwhelmingly tempting target for the troll on the bluff), but also putting myself outside the range of Janku's first channel...
As with Inner Sea Magic, a follow-up Chronicles or Companion book (Inner Sea Gear?) that has Golarion-specific gear, such as magical holy symbols, weapons and relics (prayer books, holy oils, perhaps even specific types of holy water, etc.) dedicated to the Golarion pantheon of gods.
Items tied into Nidalese shadowcasting, or relevant to Acadamae-style conjuring or Winter Witch ice magic, could also go there.
Since there a few, if not race-specific, at least, race-dominated, power groups in Golarion, such as the halfling-heavy Bellflower Network or the elf-heavy Lantern Bearers or the dwarf-heavy Ninth Battalion, perhaps that's the sort of place one might find a more-or-less race-specific Prestige Class.
Specific organizational or regional Prestige Class options that would be focused around gnomes, half elves or half orcs don't come to mind as readily, granted, although something relating to fey (perhaps getting one as a companion or familiar or cohort) and / or the First World and / or resisting (or embracing!) the Bleaching could fit the Golarion-specific gnome flavor, without necessarily connecting to a gnome organization or gnome nation (both of which are thin on the ground, at present).
Ali's thoughts about flying and brother Lunas being unable to enjoy it with her makes me wonder if the PF changes to polymorph/wild shape have toned it down sufficiently that a feat that allows a druid to share the effects of wild shape with her animal companion would be no longer considered overpowered. It would be neat, at least from a role-playing perspective, if a druid could share whatever new worlds of sensation they are discovering with their furry buddy, and useful for many out of combat situations if they could grant their companion a swim, climb or fly speed to get into and out of adventure sites thta aren't 'quadruped-friendly,' like up or down ladders or cliff-faces or whatever.
Where grease really shines is against stuff like zombies. At 1st level, skeletons and zombies are not uncommon, and they completely scoff at the traditional 'wipe-em-out' spells like sleep, but a grease in a 10 ft. wide corridor is a wonderful stop-gap.
I have just come up with what may very well be the STUPIDEST way a PC could try to break the game.
1. Cast Planar Binding to call up a Glabrezu.
2. Apply debuffs to Glabrezu's Charisma and checks.
3. Force Glabrezu to give you a wish for free (opposed Charisma checks with Glabrezu getting +6 bonus).
4. Repeat as needed.
5. Realize you have angered several demon lords by enslaving their minions.
6. Die horribly.
Of course, that's assuming that you don't word the first wish in a way that allows the Glabrezu to twist it into something that kills you.
Alternately;
1-4) same
5) Realize that you have *pleased* several demon lords by bringing more abyssal power into the mortal plane, and given the forces of evil and chaos a stronger foothold, in addition to corrupting yourself by casting [chaos] and [evil] spells to do so, which, *again,* increases the power of chaos and evil on this plane.
6) Eventually die and go to the abyss, bringing all that power you wished for right back to the people who loaned it to you, like pretty much everyone else who summons a whole bunch of demons.
Demon lords really couldn't care less if you wish up bonuses to your attributes and a pony made of solid gold.
They wouldn't send demons to the mortal plane to grant wishes if they didn't *want* to grant wishes, after all.
It costs them nothing to grant wishes, and the simple act of calling up a demon to get a wish from it is increasing the amount of evil and chaos in the world, and the number of souls they get to turn into new demons at the end of their lives.
The game is rigged. Be as clever as you want, the 'house' always wins.
2) The prestige classes in this book were designed by the thought process of "What group/religion/organization/whatever in Golarion needs a prestige class,"
Might there be Kalistocracy or Arcanamirium themed Prestige Classes? Those are two of my favorite 'factions.'
Terrain is a funny thing. We have a wide area of rolling plains a hundred miles or so from here called the "Pawnee Grasslands". While it is by and large a flat and featureless area of grasslands (thus the name) it is punctuated with sudden towering buttes and mesas which are the roosting places for thousands of hawks and eagles who feast on the rodents living in the grasslands.
A collection of IOU's in draconic, a dozen enormous slate tallyboards with references to many notable events of the the last century and the names of the dozen or so dragons who have been betting on which human kingdom will win this war or that and a big pile of vigorish.
This particular dragon was the 'bookie' for every gambling dragon in 500 miles, and since many of them were 'in' to him, they aren't exactly crying in their beer that he had an accident. Except for that one dragon, who happened to win the last big bet, and comes to collect just after the party takes his winnings away... He'll be pissed!
Invested in local good and lawful human and demihuman communities, earning a tidy return, and helping foster and sustain the dragons ethical and moral agenda.
It is even more relevant to this conversation because according to Mythical Monsters, krakens and aboleths have been at war with each other for a very long time.
An increase in Aboleth activity could have something to do with the rise of a kraken to rule Wangshou, in the Dragon Empires. Their dominion over the sea threatened, one enterprising kraken has moved his operations ashore and conquered a nation of walkers...
An outsider might adopt such a community in an attempt to garner more of their souls for its respective outer plane.
A devil would be the most intuitive sort of creature to attempt this, but there's nothing preventing a demon, daemon, angel, archon, azata, etc. to take on this role, in an attempt to turn the entire town towards it's respective ethical / moral bent, and gin up worship of it's own celestial/fiendish patron.
A powerful outsider that happens to have a vested interest in this specific area (bones of it's last high priest interred here, a buried gate to plane X, holy ground, much of the community is *very* distantly related to it as it once dallied with some mortals in the area and left behind it's seed, or even *was* once a mortal in this area) would be even more appropriate.
A weaker outsider, like a lantern archon (who is 'stuck' on the material plane, due to some mishap), would make for an interesting choice.
A local community of 'monsters' might also have a vested interest in keeping the village intact, for whatever reason.
Perhaps the fey of the local woods are just as sick of dragon rampages or local humanoid warbands roaming around burning down their forest as the human villagers are, and are willing to make some sort of loose alliance to work together against such threats, in exchange the humans not logging in certain sections of woodland, etc.
Even something as outre as a mated pair of wyverns, who very much don't want a dragon moving into their territory, and equally don't want some orc warchief deciding it would be cool to snatch their babies away to make into an exotic warmount, could find it tactically advantageous to show up when the village is being attacked and wreak some havoc on the attackers, not so much because they want to 'save the village' as they want to get in some good 'at the worst possible time' surprise attacks on a foe they aren't powerful enough (or brave enough) to face on their own. They might be all evil and savage or whatever, but they have an Int score of 7 (average, which means some might be smarter), which is more than some PCs, and significantly more than an Int 2 wolf, which lives or dies by that sort of 'bite when the back is turned' tactical thinking.
The worst sorts of 'allies' would be will-o-the-wisps, who might fight cheerily alongside human villagers to repel a dragon that is intent on burning the entire village to the ground. The will-o-the-wisps regard the village as their all-you-can-eat-fear-buffet, and will repel the dragon, so long he seems intent on *killing everyone.*
But they'll just as fast turn on the villagers if it looks like they are going to kill the dragon. It's in the best interest of the eaters-of-fear if the villagers don't get a morale-boosting victory, and live in perpetual dread of the dragon's return...
A 20 ft. diameter hole filled with dirt, and, in that dirt, a single bedraggled looking white oak tree, ever on the brink of death from lack of natural light and the shock of having been transplanted to this unnatural location. Within this tree, a dryad lies in a near comatose state. The dragon went through great effort to transplant this tree into his lair (without killing the dryad, and he unintentionally killed four other dryads before getting this far), and is fussily attempting to keep the tree alive via watering the soil, watering the soil with blood, 'feeding' the soil various kinds of meat or dung to richen it, providing magical light all year round, etc. He's quite frustrated, but has no intention of giving up on this 'project.'
Anyone who can find a way to get the tree back into a more natural environment (without killing the already shocked plant) will restore the dryad to health, and earn her eternal gratitude.
Toughness might be a useful feat, if you are having to roll for hit points, and are rolling poorly.
Generally, Eidolons and Animal Companions just get 'monster hit points' (average, no roll, no max hp at 1st level), but I have no idea if that's stated anywhere in the books, or just something you have to find out in a FAQ or something.
Froggy Go Plish - This sugarcane rum is liberally seasoned with the toxic sweat of Mwangi Cane Toads (a live one is thrown in the cask, sometimes, just before it is sealed, but usually it's just waggled around in the pre-cask brew to wash the sweat into the mix). If the 'seasoning' to alcohol ratio is just right, and it's aged the right amount of time, it causes pleasant tingling and numbness and euphoria (in addition to a good drunk and, rarely, visual hallucinations, rapid heartbeat and panic attacks). If it doesn't age long enough, it causes nausea. If it ages too long, it causes blindess and paralysis and death. Beware cheap substitutes...
Pie, on the other hand, is mechanically sub-optimal. It's a trap. That's been proven by *statistics!*
I see people say all the time that they don't allow ice cream at their table, that it's 'broken,' and I think they fundementally fail to understand the pie/cake imbalance. Ice cream just lets pie have nice things, instead of letting broken cake run all over the place.
.
On a more serious note, I totally agree with DeathQuaker. Write up a three paragraph statement, and then some yob misrepresents something out of context from an illustrative example to disregard the entire point.
It's like trying to explain how a retrovirus works to a LOLcat. "Ha, I refute your point with this picture of a cat wearing a cape!"
A fighter can wield flails, all types of armor, shortswords, longswords, greatswords, maces, shields, lances, spears, halberds, axes, hammers, bows and so much more but nobody taught them how to throw a punch?
Valeros was too busy learning 'glaive-glaive-guisarme-glaive' and 'bohemian ear-spoon' to figure out how to punch someone.
What's even more amazing, is that every time a new supplement comes out with some new Simple and Martial weapons that he's never heard of, he has a brief dizzy spell as all that new training gets retroactively fed into his brain! :)
"Huh, I drank some dwarven ale, and I woke up next to a satisfied-looking goblin of indeterminate gender, with the knowledge of how to use a poison sand tube and a three-sectional staff..."
In fact there are several creatures in myth that are used like that. Sæhrímnir is the name give to a beast (possibly a boar) that is slaughtered every day to provide meat for the nightly feast in Valhalla then resurrected so he can be re-slaughtered the next day, and Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr are the goats that pull Thor's chariot who he will occasionally kill for meat then resurrect after eating.
Yup, that's kind of where I was going with that. :)
Saehrimnir seems to have the suckiest job in the universe, until you factor in that this is the Norse 'heaven,' and *everybody up there is doing the same thing,* getting killed every day in glorious battle (by each other, nonetheless) and then getting ressurected afterwards.
Yeah. That's one culture's interpretation of paradise, getting gorily butchered by your best buds every single day until Ragnarok, when you, they, and your gods all die 'for reals.' Hardcore.
Quite a few feats that allow a single combat option that wouldn't otherwise be allowed *at all,* such as Step Up or Lunge I kind of wish were possible at greater penalties without the feat.
Making those 'maneuvers' more like disarm or sunder, something that *anyone* can attempt, but only the user of the appropriate feat is gonna be really good at (and not possibly risk an AoO or expend your own swift action that round or something to use), would, IMO, open up a lot more tactical options for the melee combatant.
And yeah, Weapon Finesse is probably the number one feat that I'd just axe completely. Any feat that every single size Tiny animal has to take by default, just to function, seems more like a patch over a hole on the hull of the d20 ship, than an actual 'advanced combat training' feat.
I seem to remember that some of the Old World of Darkness Books have somethings too.
World of Darkness: Combat went *nuts* with the idea of fleshing out the Storyteller/d10 combat system with all sorts of maneuver-type stunts, but, IMO, it was kind of a mess.
Also Irrisen bugs me. Covered in eternal winter, and people still find enough to eat. The animals somehow too. This is just the kind of thing I don't like. I've got no problem with magic covering a kingdom in endless winter, but I like to see what that would imply if it actually happened.
The Witches use of trolls (who will eat *constantly* if not prevented from doing so) and winter wolves (who aren't exactly strict conservationists when it comes to managing their supply of game animals) does kind of leave one wondering where all the meat comes from. They're gonna run out of humans eventually, and all the herbivores must have died in the first six months (from starvation, if nothing else).
I remember something about herds of caribou being driven across parts of Irrisen for some unfathomable reason, but there's no food for them in Irrisen, and only a thousand thousand things desperate to eat them, so I can't imagine that would happen more than once...
The secretest secret of the Winter Witches? They have a meat generator. Some colossal supernatural critter chained below Whitethrone creature that regenerates no matter how much meat they carve off of it, and doesn't taste like troll. Perhaps there was a local demigod-ish 'Wild Huntsman' figure in Irrisen before Baba Yaga came, and he had a huge elk that he rode into battle, and some large sized 'hunting hounds' that all regenerated if slain, and after she kicked his butt and bound him up and took him away (in an EPIC battle), she left the perpetually-regenerating hounds and steed to be a never-ending gobstopper for her children and their armies, since they'd otherwise run out of food in a month or two.
Adventure Seed!
If only some heroes could discover this (and the Witches have done a fairly thorough job of stamping out all references to this event, even if one or two of them may have gotten a little careless and bragged about Little Grandmother *beating the local god up* after two many cups of mead), and sneak into Whitethrone and either free the creatures, or, if necessary, arrange their final deaths, the Witches of Irrisen would suddenly find themselves with the mother of all food riots on their hands!
I've, in the 3.X era, only once before gotten more than 1 summon on a 1d3 roll, and that casting was interrupted before it went off by a 15 pt. bonk on the noggin, so I'm totally stoked to have broken this curse!
If troll H doesn't kill one or more on AoO(s), and one or more on his own round, I'm gonna be rolling nine attacks on him next round. Sure, they'll be d4s and d3s, but still, it's the thought that counts. :)
Hmm. So I need to develop some sort of ritual then, eh?
If a particular d20 fails once too often, it can be satisfying (if not really statistically relevant), to place it on a table in view of all your other dice and crush it slowly with a pair of pliers, so that the other dice see the dire consequences of failure.
[Just don't try hitting one with a hammer. They tend to fly off and hurt someone as their last act of defiance...]
Your gaming shop will particularly approve of this, if it keeps you coming in to buy new dice. :)
A better way to look at wizard spells is to say that it is not an issue of memorizing/forgetting, but rather one of spell completion. Each day while preparing spells, the wizard performs the lengthy ritualistic parts of each spell, leaving out only the final words and gestures necessary to enact the effect. Then, later during the day when he needs the spell effect, he performs the final words and gestures, and provides the materials, and the ritual is complete and the effect happens.
That's pretty much the way I see it.
A more flowery description could portray magic as threads of possibility waving around, that only wizards can see, and gather together into intricate patterns, capturing leftover energy from creation itself, possible things that never were created, and bind them into a creation of his own design. They lie within him, pulsing, waiting, trembling slightly and ready at any moment to be unleashed, and he simply has to reach within himself and pull a single thread that binds this arcane knotwork of forces together into a stable pattern, causing it to rush free, unleashing whatever magical effect he constructed it to manifest.
Arcane magic is the leftover 'raw material' of creation, raw unforced possibility itself, and the wizard is the man who has peeked at the blueprints, and can reach out and temporarily cause forces and effects and substances and even creatures to pop into (or out of...) existence.
Other wizards might have completely different theories. None of them can truly be proven right or wrong, as all of the wizards seem to be able to cast the same sorts of spells, regardless of how they think it all works behind the curtain.
My ring of contrariness kicked in and I think I'm gonna bow out of this one. My interest in super-hero stuff has waned a bit lately, and I'd rather bail now than risk just putting in a half-arsed job of playing the character and dragging it down for everyone.
Hopefully, you guys can find enough interest to get it running.
Perhaps recruiting at the Atomic Think Tank might help.
I meant this looks like a good chance we won't survive it.
That's always possible.
The deep, deep burn of having been effectively killed by Grigori (who basically double-dog-dared us to go deal with the trolls) may not subside for some time, 'though... Talk about an ignoble fate! TPK by Diplomacy roll!
Servayn's motto will be, "Fight like every day is your last, 'cause eventually you'll be right."
Ember's motto is, "I'm dead again? Must be a day that ends in a 'y.'"
:)
Go, go, Janku the Burninator, keeping the fallen ones from rising!
Okay, explain to me how you can justify this as an "unarmed strike only, doesn't affect natural attacks" sort of item. If a human can put this on his hands, why can't a lizardfolk put it on his claws? It's very metagamey.
I wouldn't justify it at all. If a lizardfolk wants to wear a handwrap, that's fine with me. If a non-Monk wants to wrap his hands and buff his unarmed combat options, I'm fine with that, too.
I did say 'for Monks,' but did not intend to exclude it from anyone who isn't a monk.
Some handwraps, with 'fantasy kung fu' / wuxia-like effects or powers, might specifically require one to have a point of ki remaining or a ki pool, to use, but those would be as specifically 'monk-ly' as a spellbook is specifically 'wizard-ly' and not of much use to the other 10 core classes (and countless monster types) that can read.
Alternate character? Is Davor not doing it for you? The class seems sound, if a bit 'all over the place' with so many fidgety situational abilities that I'd not really care to keep track of (says the guy who keeps track of an eidolon, a PC and / or various summoned critters, with no grasp of irony...).
Or do you think he's just going to die horribly in the next round, and want to start planning now? :)
I'm less worried about the race/class combo of a new character than that the character has a vested reason to be in this particular campaign (and the player has an interest in the goals of the AP, obviously!). Kingmaker calls for more involvement than the average hack-n-slash.
219. Green Kin. Your skin has the color and patterns of hewn wood, and can range from white oak to dark mahogany in color, and green sap-filled vines surface from your body where another person would have visible veins below the skin. When you rest on the earth, which is your preference, these vines root into the soil beneath you, with more roots forming the longer you rest on the soil, but these tiny rootlets break away and dislodge in mere seconds if you arise in the night.
Already been said, but I'll say it again, more alchemical stuff.
By 10th level, 15th level, 20th level, craft (alchemy) should be making *better* alchemical fire (more initial damage, longer-lasting, more splash effect, etc.) and thunderstones that really go *BANG*, not just the same old stuff. The 'Epic Alchemy' rules from the 3.0 Epic Handbook were a decent idea, but that was in no way worth an epic feat. That's the sort of stuff that should have shown up around 10th level. Alchemical 'ice' and 'spark' and whatever would also make sense, as well as longer-lasting acids, etc.
Religious items. The game has been around for twenty years, and a decent selection of magical holy symbols or icons has yet to make a splash. The basic model could just be sort of a 'masterwork' holy symbol that adds +2 pts of damage to a use of channeled energy, while the better models add +1 / die to channeled energy usage, and up the DC by 1 or 2. Diety specific models would allow extra use of Domain abilities or domain spells, or even spontaneous use of domain spells from domains that the cleric didn't choose (using their domain slots).
Theurgic items like holy oils (It's holy water! It's alchemist's fire! It's *both* when splashed on a demon or undead!) and saints bones and reliquaries and sacred texts could all use a place in the game.
Handwraps for monks. Long, long, long past time for those.
A magical spell component pouch that A) never needs filling, and B) has X number of charges of 'power components' that can be spent during the casting of a spell to raise caster level by 1, raise DC by 1 or offset one level of metamagic.
Mnemonic crystals or special one use candles or sticks of incense that allow certain benefits when used to meditate / prepare spells, granting either some flexibility (memorize one extra spell of a certain level, but gain no additional *castings,* so that a 5th level wizard able to cast 2 third level spells per day could 'memorize' a fireball, dispel magic *and* a lightning bolt, but only cast two of them, since he only has the two spell slots).
Items that tie into Pathfinder-specific mechanics, like rage powers or bloodline powers or channel energy. A holy symbol or amulet dedicated to a god with the fire domain (Asmodeus or Sarenrae) that causes anyone who takes damage from their channeled energy to catch on fire could be cool (or, yanno, not cool, if you're the one who ends up on fire...).
Other examples; a 'rage-totem' made from a bear paw or viper's skull that allows a barbarian to gain bear-like endurance or a viper's venomous bite while raging, a sheet of music (or prepared speech, etc.) that when used with bardic performance adds a secondary effect, or increases the duration or modifies the DC to resist it, a bloodline talisman that increases a sorcerer's effective level and / or Charisma to determine the effects of a bloodline power that he's already attained through class levels. Do we have magical maps that tie into / enhance / play off of a Ranger's favored terrain ability? No? Someone make one of those!
Items that relate to a wizard's school, such as a spellbook under a permanant shrink item, so that the wizard can scrunch it up and put it in a sealed adamantine locket around his neck, a necromancer's 'spellbook' that is the skull of a dead necromancer who recites the spell information he needs in sepulchural tones, or an illusionist's 'spellbook' that he summons via illusion cantrip, as it is an illusion of a spellbook, stored magically, it's pages and inks having been reduced to figments of light and color.
That sort of stuff, that would never be 'Superstar,' but characters would find useful.
Are there any summons with spells that can SoS or SoD? I think just the dretch?
Bralani (SMIV) can charm, Erinyes (SMV) can fear, various Mephits (SMIII) have stinking cloud, glitterdust and pyrotechnics. An air elemental whirlwind is pretty sucky for those that get sucked into one and carried away at 100 ft. per round, taking damage the whole time. Lilendi (SMVI) tend to have charm monster, hold person, sound burst, suggestion, charm person and sleep memorized, all of which have potential. Shadow demons (SMVI) have at will fear and telekinesis, and can duplicate any low level conjuration (like grease or glitterdust or stinking cloud or create pit) with shadow conjuration, plus magic jar.
Worshippers of the right dieties get extra options, like the Grig (SMII) with 3/day entangle and pyrotechnics, in addition to their Fiddle attack, or the Nosoi psychopomp (SMIII) with sound burst and Haunting Melody.
You might think that summon nature's ally might have some cool fey options, but, not so much.
Lead or gold or anti-magic skymetal seems like a good route to take.
In 2nd edition AD&D, I vaguely recall that people could use gorgon's blood mortar to prevent intrusion by astral travellers, or grow ivy on the walls of a building to prevent ethereal intrusion (or vice-versa?). Coming up with tactics like this to prevent scrying or teleportation from messing with stuff, could be funky. Naturally occuring magically-charged ore, or even an alchemical 'essence of lead' paint that you could slather on the walls, could do something similar.
Certain cultures might have special naming ceremonies that would require their 'anti-magic warriors' to hide their true name, to become more resistant to magic, at the cost of A) never being able to use any sort of activated or triggered magic item and B) having no saving throws at all versus a caster who has discovered their true name.
Armor made of magic-resistant ore might similarly interfere with the effects of magic cast on the wearer, turning the Arcane Spell Failure of the armor around and making it a defense against magic. [So a breastplate made of this substance might give the wearer a 25% chance of being unaffected by a spell, but also a 25% chance of resisting even friendly magic, when he's wearing it, such as an ally's haste spell or even the effects of a cure moderate wounds potion, making it sometimes necessary to take off the armor to benefit from healing magic.]
Non-armor wearers, such as monks, might have tattoos imbued with alchemical 'true lead' or anti-magic skymetal, to grant them similar bonuses against magic, without the advantage of being able to 'take it off' to benefit from beneficial magic...
Will they be ok without a tank (Paladin or else) and will they miss a pure arcane caster (mage or sorcerer)?
They should be fine with the master summoner's minions as 'tanks,' although the lack of someone with burning hands means that they might be swarm-bait for a few levels. One nice swarm can murder a party that doesn't have a source of AoE damage.
For a tweak on that, perhaps dwarves are the true 'native sons' of Golarion, and humans (the ancestors of the Azlanti and Shory) are more recent arrivals, refugees from a world that was dying millenia ago.
Hey so im a noob too pbp games but i was wondering how to do the sweet little thing where it shows what you rolled on like a d20 roll. Could someone either post it for me or tell me where to find it and any other cool commands that i can use on the boards? thanks that would be sweet.
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<dice>1d20+5</dice>
Just replace the <> brackets with [] brackets and it's good to go.
1d20 + 5 ⇒ (5) + 5 = 10
Out-of-character text is done as <ooc>Albina moves to square G5 and casts grease on Ogre 3, Ref DC 15</ooc>
Bold text (often used for speech) is <b>"I mock you, clumsy Ogre!"</b>
As above, swap out the <> brackets for [] brackets and the code does the rest.
Albina moves to square G5 and casts grease on Ogre 3, Ref DC 15
"I mock you, clumsy Ogre!"
I think I've seen people do bigger or smaller text, but that's too fancy for my simple tastes. :)
Doh! I remember velociraptor/deinonychus being only available at 4th level at 4th level in the 3.5 days; I should have checked the rulebook!
Still it is a little ubiquitous; are there any alternatives? Unfortunately I don't have bestiaries to refer to. I'm pretty sure ankylosaurus, T. Rex and stegosaurus are not options for a 2nd level druid.
Any companion dinosaur that a druid can take, they can take at 1st level, in Pathfinder.
Your 't-rex' will start out as a Medium-sized T-Rex, and never get larger than size Large (at 7th level), but you can start out with him, if you like.
Click that link that Adamantine Dragon posted in the very first reply, it's got all of the dinosaurs available in that list.
Deinonychus is cool, but there's also Allosaurus, Ankylosaurus, Basilosaurus, Brachiosaurus, Dimetrodon, etc.
For largest damage output at 1st level, and again at 7th, when their size increases, Deinonychus and Allosaurus seem pretty good.
Rocs are more portable, 'though. Nothing is less fun than trying to get an animal companion up a ladder, down a cliff-face or across a river... :)
The vast majority of druids I've either played or gamed with, online or tabletop (all but one, in fact), have gone for wolves, bears or big cats, so a dinosaur is at least something new and interesting.
GURPS has some awesome fighting stuff (as it was built off of Man-to-Man, a magic-less melee fighting game).
Called shots to arms, legs, vital organs, hands, feet, *eyes,* etc. Different effects for cutting, crushing and impaling damage types (and fire, electricity, acid, for when you get into magic or high-tech damage sources). All-out attacks for multiple attacks or higher damaging attacks are available to anyone, all-out defense for an increased chance to not die available to anyone. All characters have a low enough HT score / hit points that a single lucky hit, particularly to a vital area, or with the right weapon, can drop them in a single shot, making active defenses like weapon or unarmed parry, shield block or dodge (and armor!) far more important than just 'soaking' damage with tons of hit points.
Combat can be very tactical. Choosing to 'all-out attack' at the wrong moment could get you killed. Targetting a limb could utterly wreck a foe's utility. In various supplements, you can even find rules for obscure (and cinematic) combat tactics like stabbing someone's foot to pin them to the ground.
The downside is that certain D&D style combats are hard to run. A mob of 'mooks' may well murder a 'higher level' character, just through attrition and lucky shots. Between two highly skilled combatants, a single fight could last 20 combat rounds, as they parry, shield block and / or dodge each other's blows. (In 3rd edition, we 'sped things up' by just eliminating Passive Defense, making defense rolls less able to effectively stymie a single physical attacker. 4th edition did something like that, but then arbitrarily added +3 to all defense rolls, effectively countering the entire point, IMO.)
If you can find someone in the area with some familiarity with it, Man-to-Man and the 1st, 2nd and 3rd editions of GURPS are relatively easy to learn (especially if you start with basic rules, and maybe have a few man-to-man style arena combats to get familiar with the basics). 4th edition starts to head into the ultra-fine-detail customization of Hero Games, and, IMO, seems to be headed for Star Fleet Battles levels of rules complexity...
I pretty much soundly loathe 'melee' classes in D&D (being, all-too-often, optimized for one attack sequence, and then spamming it for the rest of their lives), having been spoiled by all the buttons that I get to push and all the 'follow-up styles' and 'chain attacks' that my warrior types get in online games like Dark Ages of Camelot and Age of Conan, but I've played and enjoyed as many fighter-types as mage-types in GURPS, due to the sheer effectiveness and fast-paced and brutal nature of the melee combat. Playing a mage in GURPS means you'll be super-versatile, and, most likely, out of mana in the first few seconds of a fight. Playing a warrior-type, you can be inflicting killing blows every few seconds on foes who lack defenses on your level, and get into truly epic ten round or longer fights with those who are more balanced to face you, each one either waiting for that lucky hit (or unlucky defensive fail on their foes part), or gambling that an all-out attack (which will leave them defenseless against a counter-attack!) might smash through the foes defenses and take them down before they can take advantage of that gamble.
For 'maneuvers,' in the sense of PF's Combat Maneuvers, all of the stunts you can pull off, *anyone* can do. In addition to anyone being able to 'power attack' (all-out attack) or use 'combat expertise' (all-out defense), anyone can attempt to attack a weapon or stab someone in the foot or whatever, with your individual weapon skill taking whatever penalty for that action. GURPS Martial Arts introduced the concept of advancing a stunt as a 'secondary skill' based off of the core skill, so that one could attempt a Sweeping Kick at a penalty to one's Karate skill, and then buy off the penalties to that Sweeping Kick maneuver, rather than spend even more points attempting to increase the base Karate skill. Applying this to weapon combat was toyed with, but I'm not sure if it ever went anywhere...
The 'logical' progression would be PCs tricking out their characters by reducing their 'stab for the vitals' or 'stab for the eyes' penalties instead of raising their Spear to exorbitantly expensive levels, and I'm not sure anybody wanted that, so they may have shyed away from that.
my best explanation is that he wants to cover his hair from the rain.
I suppose getting rained on a lot would be a logical side-effect of having to get hit by lightning to turn your powers on and off...
That would be a funky tweak, if everytime he called down the lightning, he created a brief localized thunderstorm. He'd probably be more 'at home' in a city that already has a ton of annual rainfall, like Seattle, and completely out of place in, say, Albuqurque.
It could even become a plot point, if he couldn't transform as easily (as the 'storm takes longer to gather') in an arid area, and might be unwilling to risk transforming in the middle of a torrential downpour with flooding, for fear of making things worse.
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