Kullen

The Vulture's page

Organized Play Member. 118 posts (143 including aliases). No reviews. No lists. No wishlists. 1 Organized Play character. 1 alias.


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A more realistic comparison would be to eliminate cantrips/orisons from the counts, because at 8th level, those are extremely niche at best. That drops the MT to 25 vs. 21 for the pure Wizard (4w + 1s + 2i 1st level, 3w + 1s + 1i 2nd level, 3w + 1s + 1i 3rd level, 2w + 1s + 1i 4th level because a 20 Int by 8th level for a single-stat caster is not at all unreasonable). That puts the Mystic Theurge at 4 spells total ahead, but the Wizard (or Cleric, or any other single-class caster) is a full spell level ahead, and next level goes to two spell levels ahead. The Wizard's DCs are all higher, spells last longer, has more spell access due to getting spells from leveling, etc.

The Mystic Theurge has a really cool flavor and can still be a fine character, but the Wizard is going to be more powerful. If you let the MT use SLAs, you end up with being a little behind and can't progress your school powers (or domain powers, hexes, etc.), but you gain some minor casting from a second class. This can be enough to make it worthwhile depending on what you're looking for.

However, you seem to be getting a bit aggressive over this, so I'm not going to worry about it anymore.


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Tacticslion wrote:

With a 5th level cleric caster level (3 lvls of cleric, 2 of mystic theurge), you get 3+d 1st lvl, 2+d 2nd level, and 1+d 3rd lvl. Note: I'm actually unsure - do you continue to gain domain spells/domain spell-slots with cleric casting but no cleric levels? I'd presume so... but I've been proven wrong on such presumptions before.

With a 5th level wizard caster level (3 levels of wizard, 2 of mystic theurge), you get 3+s 1st lvl, 2+s 2nd lvl, and 1+s 3rd lvl.

So: 1st lvl (3c+d+3w+s+1a = 9), 2nd (2c+d+2w+s+1a = 7), 3rd (1c+d+1w+s+1a = 5).

That's 9+7+5 = 16+5 = 21.

I actually got to 24 total spells for the theurge.

Wizard
1st level: 3 from level, 1 from school, 1 from stat (5 total)
2nd level: 2 from level, 1 from school, 1 from stat (4 total)
3rd level: 1 from level, 1 from school, 1 from stat (3 total)

With the Cleric's spells mirroring that, just with domain spells instead of school spells. Ends up as: 5w + 5c + 4w + 4c + 3w + 3w = 10 + 8 + 6 = 24 vs. the 25 of the pure Wizard.

But even with that, and counting orisons/cantrips (a total of 8 more spells; but why on Earth would we count these?), the MT is sitting at 32 (still not 35) and the pure Wizard is at 29. Barely ahead at all, and they have lower level spells, worse saving throws on their spells, and less Wizard spell access due to not getting ones from leveling. Plus the other stuff you mentioned, too.


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To the people still believing in the efficacy of torture, I'd suggest reading this study on the matter. The conclusions basically state that it provides so much false information mixed in with the real information, because the victim only wants it to stop and tells the torturer what they want to hear, that it is essentially useless (stating "The goal was to appease the torturer, not to reveal the truth. And, because the interrogators were not omniscient, they could not discern which bits of information were true and which were false.") when compared to other interrogation techniques. In a later section, it also details the long-term psychological effects torture has on both the victim and the perpetrator.

There is no defense for torture as a tool of Good. It does not provide consistently accurate information to save people, it is a horrifying thing in the moment, and it leaves terrible and permanent psychological damage on both participants.


Gilfalas wrote:
Silas Hawkwinter wrote:
Divine hunter is only good as a 2 level dip, you just give up too much otherwise.
How do you 'dip' an archetype?

The same way you dip into any class: You grab a level or two of it, then pick a different class.


I, too, enjoyed the literary quotes a lot. Helps put the class/race/whathaveyou in better perspective.


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Thanks for all the work you've put in here, Kirth. Definitely an enjoyable read. Hoping I get to use it at some point.

Good luck with Baby Gersen! Looking forward to seeing your next project, if/when you're able to get to it.


Shasf wrote:
It should be a lot of fun to try this out with my bard. The main issue I'm having though is boosting the save dc of performances. Many creatures are immune to some of the debuffing tactics usually used. Just need to finish buying items then he'll be going after beasts, with the addition of two more dragons (silver and red).

I think Bard is a great choice. Seems difficult to pull off solo, with so many of the Bard abilities related to group benefits, but having high foreknowledge of your enemies, and a lot of solid buffs, is a great start.

As for your performance DCs, you could take Ability Focus for them. Other than that, I think you just have increasing your Cha.


FrodoOf9Fingers wrote:
Hmmm, I missed furious O.o

Yeah! I thought it was a nice little bit of synergy between the two.

FrodoOf9Fingers wrote:
With the dragon fight, you'd still only get a surprise round, which gives the dragon the opportunity to flee at top speeds (1000 feet). Unless you had a method to prevent it from moving. OR you can get Sandals of Quick Reaction, but I always took the fight as the dragon is constantly moving until at least it sees you (It has to keep moving if it doesn't want to make fly checks every round)

Hrm. I guess I do only get the surprise round. However, outside of its true seeing range, it can't see me, so it has to get at least close enough for me to be within charging range in order to keep track of me to keep using its breath weapon. And if it somehow lasts the 121 rounds of greater invisibility that I have, I can bridge the gap with my ring of invisibility, reactivating it on the round after my charge/attack.

*Edit* Wait a second. I have the surprise round on it, then I go first on the first actual round of combat. So, I get adjacent to it, then:

Surprise round: Single attack, kind of irrelevant.
Round 1: Full attack before the dragon goes, dropping it from the sky.*/Edit*

If you think that doesn't work out, then I'll have to put some more thought into this. Not quite sure how to get around its move speed otherwise.

Also, I wanted to make a note for the solar: if greater dispel doesn't work for the counterspell for SLAs (and if its wish does count as divine because it's a divine caster), I can just run that one as specified in the original post. The surprise round I would saunter up, then round 1 would be a full attack before it goes, whereupon it takes a prolonged dirt nap.

"FrodoOf9Fingers wrote:
The Courageous property is awesome, but be warned that it might get hit with the nerf bat soon: there's been a lot of talk in the rules forum about how it the pluses to moral bonuses might be meant to only increase saving throws.

That's a bit sad. I could drop Courageous in favor of Vicious, though. I'd lose a couple attack, which still lets me hit with all of my attacks against the entire Beastmass, but gain a bit of damage. Until then, Courageous it is!


FrodoOf9Fingers wrote:

There's some errors with your fights, but otherwise it's all good:

First, the Shoggoth is immune to critical hits, just so you know. A minor thing, but it does allow the shoggoth to live another round, which it probably uses to trample (given that was the only thing that has done anything to you thus far).

Ah, I had missed that. Thank you. So put Angelbane down a bit more for that fight. Shouldn't change much significantly.

"FrodoOf9Fingers[/quote wrote:
The Pit Fiend's True Strike automatically bypasses concealment, so it was able to hit you. I doubt he'd really try for a grapple, knowing how real Freedom of Movement is (many, many characters he's fought has had access to it). While I find truestrikeone of the few good options, I do believe there are stronger options for the Pit Fiend (though I can't find them ATM). Secondly, I think the Pit Fiend would move around a lot more, in an attempt to prevent full round attacks (even if it means taking the AoO).

Don't know how I missed the line about bypassing concealment. Thanks! The reason I had thought it would go for a grapple, though, is because a) it knows none of its spells can bypass the combination of Angelbane's SR and saves, b) it knows it can't hit with any melee attacks, and c) even with the possibility of freedom of movement being up, the grapple would be its best chance of preventing her actions. As for moving around, I figured it knew that would be a delaying tactic at best, but given the above, it wouldn't really increase its chances to beat Angelbane.

FrodoOf9Fingers wrote:
The Dragon is also a highly intelligent creature, while not as intelligent as the Pit Fiend, it would use what it has to it's advantages. With this fight, initiative starts when you yell at it: that's the surprise round. The Dragon wouldn't charge headlong at an opponent it cannot see without being completely prepared, since said opponent beat it's perceptions (which is fairly difficult, even when considering invisibility). Using his 250ft fly speed, it would cast true seeing, among many of the other buffs it has, taking about 12 rounds to do so (every self buff it has). This was a problem my Magus had to deal with, as a fellow melee combatant. Fortunately, even if the dragon wanted to, Anti-Magic field would never be a hindrance to you: It doesn't extend past the dragon's body (though, your character doesn't care about AMF O.o). After buffing itself, it'd come for you, but once it saw you, it'd use hit and run tactics, waiting between recharges of it's breath weapon (something I was going to have it do against myself).

I suppose that's fair. I was just trying to speed the combat up with the shouting at it. In that case, I guess Angelbane just flies straight to it without being noticed (even adjacent to the dragon, it doesn't see her while invisible), then full attacks and drops it.

FrodoOf9Fingers wrote:
As for the Solar, everything looks right except the choice of Anti-Magic Field, the original fight entailed her trying to escape and then come back in a few rounds with more buffs, and possibly reinforcements. Regardless, you are able to put her down in one round while preventing her spell casting... Though I'm not sure if SLA's can be countered.

Like I said in my post, I skipped that and just had the solar buffed from the start. Even if it did run off to buff first, I'd just throw my starting greater dispel when it returned instead of during my initial surprise round. Either way, it's basically buffless.

And so far as I know, the only reason you can't counter SLAs is because they have no components to recognize, but dispel still works since it doesn't require a check to identify the spell first.

FrodoOf9Fingers wrote:
As for the character itself, I have a few questions: First, your +5 weapon doesn't grant +3 to your morale bonuses, it's only a +2 (until you put bane on it at least). Second, your weapon is already a +10, and so when you place bane on it, it becomes +11 (in bonuses), which isn't legal... Something has to be given up for it, just like the Magus and the Paladin can't make their weapons go above +10 (in total)

Right you are about Bane -- I suppose drop Vicious from the weapon since it gives me less and deals damage to me; I only originally took it since it was untyped damage and didn't take a penalty from resistances. However, Bane doesn't actually increase the enhancement bonus of the weapon, it just raises its effective enhancement bonus against that type of enemy, or at least that's how I read it. Furious, on the other hand, raises the enhancement bonus by 2, making it +7 while raging. If Bane actually also increases the enhancement bonus, then I'd be getting +4 to my rage bonuses.

And if that's the case, then I only need a +4 tome and have some extra cash to spend. Not sure what on.


Sandbox wrote:
Amric wrote:
How come N. Jolly's guides haven't been added to the index in the front? They are comprehensive and well done, should be a great addition.

so i'm gonna be nice and blow your mind gently...the first post (index) of this thread hasn't been updated in a long time cuz posts eventually are uneditable...

click Broken Zenith's link to the Comprehensive Guide to the Guides...you will be very happy.

BZ is compiling everyting there. after you're done reading all those guides(N.Jolly's included) you can have fun absorbing the Guide to the Builds that is linked toward the bottom.

Actually, a mod or someone was keeping it updated for a fair while (at least a year, if I remember correctly). I think whomever it was stopped doing so when Broken Zenith started posting his most excellent compilation.


insaneogeddon wrote:
I think spellbreaker includes divine and arcane spells.Its just (for many editions) ALL spells were segregated into the wizard schools for some reason whether castable or not (suppose only wizards bother defining schools).

Nope. It specifically calls out arcane spells of the chosen school.

PRD wrote:
Impervious (Ex): At 20th level, a spellbreaker becomes immune to the effects of a single school of arcane magic. That school of magic must be the first one she picked for defense against magic (see above). Neither harmful nor helpful arcane spells of that school have an effect on the spellbreaker. If a spell of that school is an area of effect spell, the spell goes off as normal, but the spellbreaker is untouched by its effects. Once per day, as a swift action, the spellbreaker can grant this imperviousness to all allies in a 60-foot burst for 1 minute. This ability replaces final judgment.

Emphasis mine. This is also why Angelbane readied the greater dispel against the solar; its antimagic field and greater dispel would have actually hit and potentially stripped Angelbane of any chance to beat it.

*Edit* Though I just realized I missed that it had to be the school first chosen for Defense Against Magic -- my bad. Drop the divination bonus, and lower the others by 1. None of those came up, though, so it's not a huge deal. The only saves she couldn't make were the breath weapon and trample Ref saves, and Defense Against Magic doesn't do anything for that. No harm, no foul.


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I didn't make a full spell list, just put in the ones I was using for this. Leaves a lot of room for more utility and campaign relevant spells. Also, I didn't put a lot of thought into it beyond making sure she met prereqs, so possibly a different order.

Fahana Angelbane is a Spellbreaker Inquisitor. Since they last for 1 hour/level, and she has a caster level of 21, I'm figuring that it's reasonable to count her having bloodhound and countless eyes up before the fight. That said, they aren't really all that important to the fight, I suppose. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

Anyways. The build. Since she practically lives invisibly with her ring of invisibility and uses her alter self SLA to become an undine for the swim speed, she uses the start of the fight with the shoggoth to buff up. Consequently, the only buff not accounted for in the spoiler below is prayer from her crown of conquest.

Fahana Angelbane:
Name: Fahana Angelbane | Race: Oni-spawn tiefling | Class/level: Inquisitor (Spellbreaker) / 20 | Favored Class Bonuses: 20 skill points | Age: 21 | Height: 5'11" | Weight: 130 lbs. | Alignment: CE | Deity: Lamashtu | Point Buy: 14/14/14/10/15/8 = 20

Stats:
Str 42 (14 + 2 race + 4 levels + 6 enhancement + 5 manual + 7 rage + 2 alter self)
Dex 20 (14 + 6 enhancement)
Con 27 (14 + 6 enhancement + 7 rage)
Int 11 (10 + 4 enhancement)
Wis 22 (15 + 2 race + 1 levels + 4 enhancement)
Cha 6 (8 - 2 race)

Initiative: +12
Senses: Perception +34, all-around sight
Hit Points: 193 (253 raging)
Armor Class: 44; Touch AC: 28; Flat-Footed AC: 37
CMD: 52
Fort: +24; Ref: +16; Will +22 (27 raging; roll twice vs. mind affecting); all saves: +5 vs. enchantment spells, +4 vs. necromancy spells, +3 vs. illusion spells, +2 vs. conjuration spells, +1 vs. divination spells
Immune: Arcane abjuration spells
Spell Resistance 37

Movement: Speed 90', fly 60' (average), swim 30'
Base attack bonus: +15
CMB: +30
+5 falchion (Courageous, Cruel, Furious, Keen, Vicious): +46/+46/+41/+36 (2d4+2d6+4d6+52)
vs. Large or larger creatures: +5 falchion (Courageous, Cruel, Furious, Keen, Vicious): +47/+47/+42/+37 (2d4+2d6+4d6+54)

Traits: Prolong Magic, Reactionary
Feats:
1st Judgment Surge
3rd Improved Initiative
5th Power Attack
7th Weapon Focus (falchion)
9th Dodge
11th Intimidating Prowess
13th Big Game Hunter
15th Critical Focus
17th Cornugon Smash
19th Staggering Critical

Special Abilities:
Rage: +4 morale bonus to Str and Con, +2 morale bonus to Will, -2 AC. Morale bonuses increase by +3 from weapon to +7 and +5. 23 rounds.
Judgment: Various abilities. Effective Inquisitor level 23 (28 for one judgment per use). 7 uses per day, three judgments per use. Bonuses chosen during Beastmass combats: +5 profane bonus to AC, +5 profane bonus to attack, +9 profane bonus to damage.
Foil Casting: +2 to DC of defensive casting to threatened casters. Additional +2 to DC for one round after being hit by McKillington.
Greater Bane: +2 weapon enhancement bonus and +4d6 damage vs. chosen enemy type.
Stalwart: For effects that do a reduced effect on a Fort or Will save, take no effect.

Spells (Incomplete list; only spells used for this combat) (CL 21): divine favor, expeditious retreat, bloodhound, countless eyes, greater invisibility, greater dispel magic, spell resistance, true seeing, heal

Skills: Fly +28, Intimidate +39, Knowledge (Arcana) +24, Knowledge (Dungeoneering) +25, Knowledge (Nature) +25, Knowledge (Planes) +25, Knowledge (Religion) +25, Perception +34, Stealth +27 (+67 invisible stationary; +47 invisible moving), Swim +27

Equipment: cracked pale green prism ioun stone, ring of invisibility, belt of physical perfection, headband of mental prowess (Int and Wis) +4, ring of protection +5, amulet of natural protection +5, mithral breastplate +5, crown of conquest, boots of speed, cracked dusty rose prism ioun stone, wings of flying, orange prism ioun stone, dusty rose ioun stone, eyes of the eagle, otherworldly kimono, potion of haste x5, potion of cure moderate wounds x3, bag of holding type I, falchion (courageous, cruel, furious, keen, vicious) +5, shovel, 2173 gold pieces

Fahana's toughest challenge was the antimagic field from the pit fiend's wish and off of the ancient gold dragon. To deal with that is the reason I took the Spellbreaker archetype. Saw that the capstone specifically called out including immunity to area of effect spells.

Everything else was dealt with through a combination of high damage and high Stealth. The ring of invisibility is there mainly to let me get a couple buffs off before the shoggoth noticed me so I could go smashing away.

I added Cornugon Smash, Staggering Critical (with Keen on my weapon), Cruel to my weapon, and the crown of conquest to help mitigate my lowish AC by stacking some debuffs onto them.

On to the fights!

Day One: Angelbane vs. Shoggoth:

Seeking once more to prove her loyalty to the Demon Queen, Angelbane asks her patron for a challenge fit for the truly strong: Beastmass. Her dark deity grants her request, giving her a moment to prepare herself with her daily casts of bloodhound and countless eyes before sending Angelbane to the shoggoth.

She finds the critter deep underwater, at the edge of the 90' range, but being invisible, has a +67 Stealth check while stationary and so the shoggoth cannot see her yet.

Surprise round: alter self into an undine for the swim speed and +2 Str. Lasts 40 minutes thanks to the Prolong Magic trait.
Round 1: Angelbane wins Initiative with a +12 vs. a +11. She begins her buffing with expeditious retreat (lasts 21 minutes), and moves to a different spot, keeping away from the shoggoth but remaining within sight distance. She also uses her judgment, granting herself +5 AC and attack, and +9 damage to the shoggoth. The shoggoth, noticing the spell casting, but not seeing the thing that cast it (47 Stealth while moving vs. 33 Perception) swims its 50' toward the original casting spot. Angelbane is now, to her annoyance, within tremorsense range.

Round 2: Angelbane continues her buffing with spell resistance, giving her 33 SR (lasts 21 minutes), but stays still this time because she knows she can't stay away for a second round. The shoggoth, now knowing where Angelbane is, moves to attack (can't charge; Angelbane is at most 35' or so away at this point). It tries a slam against the Inquisitor, but misses with a 40 to attack vs. her 46 AC (no rage penalty yet).

Round 3: For one more round of spell buffing, Angelbane casts defensively to get in a freedom of movement (lasts 210 minutes), and rummages in her pack with her move action for a potion of haste. In response, the shoggoth attempts a full attack on her, missing with every blow.

Round 4: Angelbane chugs the potion of haste, provoking an attack of opportunity from the beastly ooze, which misses her once more. She waits for the next round as the shoggoth attempts move-through trample, hitting for 33 points as she fails her Ref save against it, but cannot engulf her as its CMB is just not high enough. While doing so, it tries a maddening cacophony against the Inquisitor, who makes her save with a roll of 38 vs. the DC of 22.

Round 4: Angelbane is almost ready to start chugging through these beasts! She casts her final buff, divine favor, on herself defensively to avoid the attack of opportunity from the shoggoth for another +3 to attack and damage. Frustrated, the shoggoth attempts to simply grab the annoying thing at its side, but fails the grapple check with a total of 49 vs. her 50 CMD, even discounting the freedom of movement.

Round 5: Ready to get it on, Angelbane turns on her bane ability against oozes, begins her rage, and makes a full attack against the shoggoth. Her first attack hits for 70 points of damage, and she Intimidates the ooze with a to make it shaken. The second swing crits for 139 points, which procs the crown of conquest's power to cast prayer on Fahana, giving her another +1 to hit and the shoggoth a -1 to attack (among other things). This triggers Staggering Critical as well, staggering the shoggoth. Third attack hits again for another 70 points, and the fourth attack crits again for another 139 points, killing the shoggoth. However, Fahana takes 14 points of damage from her Vicious enchant.

End of fight: Fully buffed; haste for two more rounds, divine favor for 8 more rounds, all other buffs remaining with 20+ minutes. 21 rage rounds remaining, 6 judgments remaining, 18 bane rounds remaining. 206 health left.

"Take me to my next challenge!"

Day One: Angelbane vs. Balor:

Seeing the ease with which Angelbane smote the shoggoth, the Demon Queen sets her up against one of her foes' most prized commanders: a balor. Little does Fahana know, though, this balor has been looking forward to a chance to clash against one of the Demon Queen's toughest fighters, and knows what to expect.

Surprise round: The balor knows this is its best chance to get something in on the Inquisitor, but also knows her saves are too high, and she's immune to greater dispel magic. Instead of wasting an attempt on a spell, the balor uses its whip to entangle her. He hits against her flat-footed AC of 32 (no judgment yet) for 13 points of damage (she is down to 226 HP) and entangles her.

Round 1: Angelbane wins Initiative again (12 vs. 11), uses her judgment on the balor for her standard array, takes a five foot step up, and full attacks with her last round of the haste potion. Even without bane, all of her attacks hit, and since her weapon is effectively at a +7 enhancement bonus (+5 base, +2 Furious), it bypasses the balor's DR. Between all four attacks, she does 382 damage and drops the balor, but takes another 14 points.

Round 2: Angelbane CDGs the helpless balor on the ground, and takes 3 points from her Vicious weapon in the process.

"Give me a real challenge!"

End of fight: Everything but haste, will have to use boots from here on to not waste actions; divine favor for five more rounds, other buffs sitting at 20ish minutes, alter self still at 40 or so minutes. 18 rounds of rage left, 5 judgments left, 17 rounds of bane left. 176 hit points left.

Day One: Angelbane vs. Pit Fiend:

The last fight being so surprisingly easy, Angelbane is set against a beast she might not be so familiar with: a pit fiend.

It has a few options normally: Targeted dispel, antimagic field, summons, some sort of wall or visual hindrance (deeper darkness, etc.), or trying to full attack. However, given its knowledge of Angelbane, it knows that she is immune to the first two, can counter the fourth with true seeing (even if it doesn't know for certain that she has the spell, it's intelligent enough to guess the possibility) or just going around a wall, and can't be hit by any of the pit fiend's attacks. So its only option left is to summon something to help, though it still knows this is only a delay tactic.

Round 1: This time, neither party has any surprise time, though the pit fiend gets to act first with a +13 Init vs. Angelbane's +12. It brings in the CR 19 immolation devil next to Angelbane to set it up for a full attack next round, and shoots off an ineffective quickened fireball (can't beat Angelbane's SR), because why not? Unfortunately for the immolation devil, this also sets up Angelbane for a full attack this round, which she gladly takes advantage of, choosing devils as her bane and using her boots of speed for a round of haste. Hits for a total of 382, dealing yet another 14 to herself (down to 162).

Round 2: The pit fiend thinks it might attempt to go for a grapple on the Inquisitor, and so it wishes for a true strike to use next round. Angelbane, in response, casts greater invisibility on herself to ensure her own safety against the devil, and moves into melee for next round. With her +47 Stealth against the devil's +33 Perception, she skates right in undetected. She also activates judgment on the pit fiend, granting her standard array of bonuses.

Round 3: The pit fiend readies an action to grapple as soon as Angelbane attacks and it knows where she is. However, since she still has full concealment against him, and so has a 50% miss chance, fails his grapple when she attacks (and even if it succeeded, freedom of movement prevents it). Fahana proceeds to full attack with another round from her boots of speed for 438 points of damage, dropping the pit fiend for good, but taking yet one more round of damage from her Vicious weapon.

Round 4: Being uncomfortably low, Fahana pops a heal on herself real quick, going back to full health.

"This was but a taste of real battle!"

End of fight: Everything but haste; 8 rounds left on her boots of speed, 1 round left on divine favor, greater invisibility has 18 rounds left, other stuff still sitting at many minutes. 14 rounds of rage, 4 judgments, and 14 rounds of bane left over. 253 hit points.

Day One: Angelbane vs. Tarn Linnorm:

Ah, the great, lumbering tarn linnorm. Truly an unimpressive creature to the great Angelbane; it cannot hit her with its normal attacks, and its grapple is entirely prevented with her freedom of movement. The only real threat it has on her is the breath weapon, as her Ref isn’t high enough to save against it, but even then it can only use it every 2d4 (5) rounds.

Surprise round: The linnorm, knowing its main form of attack is melee, and seeing through the Inquisitor’s greater invisibility with its true seeing moves up twenty feet to put Angelbane in range.

Round 1: Tarn and Angelbane have the same Init bonus, but the linnorm has a higher Dex, so it goes first. The lumbering beast opens the fight up with a double breath weapon blast for 198 points of damage, putting Angelbane to 55 HP, the danger zone for dropping from rage. However, she does make the Fort save against the Str damage with ease. In response, rummages around and chugs her potion of cure moderate wounds for 12 HP, provoking an attack of opportunity from the linnorm, which misses her.

Round 2: Tarn makes a full attack at Angelbane in an attempt to smack her down, but misses with every attack. This time, she drops from rage, putting herself to 7 HP, but she then quickly casts a heal spell, going back to 157 HP.

Round 3: The linnorm attempts a grapple, but can’t make it stick with Angelbane’s freedom of movement still active. Wanting to keep her roll going, Fahana once again defensively casts, this time getting another divine favor going for 10 more rounds.

Round 4: Tarn linnorm, seeing its foe still standing, lashes out with a full attack, all of which miss Angelbane’s AC. In response, she uses another round of her boots of speed, enrages once more, makes her weapon dragonbane, and full attacks the hulk before her for 432 points of damage, slaying the beast with ease, but taking 14 points of damage from her weapon.

End of fight: Expeditious retreat, alter self, and spell resistance left with many minutes; 7 rounds left on her boots of speed, divine favor has 8 rounds left on it once more, greater invisibility has 13 rounds left. 12 rounds of rage, 3 judgments, and 12 rounds of bane left over. 191 hit points.

Day One: Angelbane vs. Ancient Gold Dragon:

Amused by these games, Angelbane is sent off to take on the next in this series: the ancient gold dragon, long lived and powerful. Given its intelligence, I’m going to rule that it should actually have at least some knowledge of Angelbane and her abilities, though with its penchant for sleep and long periods of hibernation, it’s a bit out of the loop for specifics. So it knows the major things: Angelbane is dangerous in melee, immune to arcane abjuration spells, and highly resistant to most other spells and melee attacks.

Surprise round: Angelbane’s +47 Stealth check with greater invisibility, especially at a distance of 300 feet, is far more than enough to see the dragon before it sees her. However, at this distance, Angelbane is incapable of doing anything useful, so she spends her action flying 30’ closer to the dragon, and easily beats the frightful presence save.

Round 1: Angelbane is still undetected, but still too far away to do anything with the dragon. She flies another 30’ closer, and takes a potion of haste out of her pack to drink before she reaches the dragon. The dragon still hasn’t seen her.

Round 2: Angelbane chugs the potion, judges the dragon for her big buffs, moves 45’ closer this time, then shouts to the dragon, “COME AT ME, BRO,” to get its attention. Hearing the coming foe, but not being able to see it, the dragon casts true seeing and moves in the direction of the shout until he the Inquisitor is in range of his breath weapon for the next round. Distance: 60’.

Round 3: Finally being level with the dragon, and beating his -1 Initiative bonus with ease, Angelbane turns bane on against the dragon, charges him and makes an attack, hitting for 80 points of damage, taking 3 points in return. Attempting to drain Angelbane of some of her power, the winged lizard uses its Strength drain breath weapon. Unfortunately for him, Fahana’s +27 Fort is plenty high enough to beat the DC 31 saving throw.

Round 4: Angelbane makes a full attack against this iguana with a thyroid problem, dropping it from the sky with another 438 damage, taking 14 from her weapon.

End of fight: Expeditious retreat, alter self, and spell resistance left with many minutes; 7 rounds left on her boots of speed, divine favor has 3 rounds left on it once more, greater invisibility has 8 rounds left, haste has 1 round left. 7 rounds of rage, 2 judgments, and 10 rounds of bane left over. 191 hit points.

Day One: Angelbane vs. Solar Angel:

This is another one I decided to change a bit. Given it is pretty darn smart, and Angelbane’s acquired surname, I figure the solar has at least some knowledge of Fahana. The solar has difficulty getting accurate information on Angelbane, since its fellow good outsiders rarely live to tell tales when they meet her. However, it would know the same things I gave the ancient gold dragon.

Angelbane, however, also knows of the solar’s casting prowess, which is something of an actual danger to her, since it is divine in nature instead of arcane. This means she actually has to worry about its abjuration spells, most notably antimagic field and dispel magic. With that in mind, the solar is the only fight so far that has Angelbane at all worried – a creature truly her antithesis. She steels her mind and carries on (my wayward son?).

Surprise round: Angelbane tosses out a targeted greater dispel magic to strip the angel of any buffs it may have. Between the ioun stone and the kimono, Angelbane is able to beat the DC 31 caster level check against five of the solar’s buffs, stripping it of anything important. Angelbane also triggers her second-to-last judgment on the angel.

Round 1: Angelbane wins initiative against the solar, moves in close, and readies an action to counterspell any spell cast by the solar with another greater dispel magic. In response, the solar backs up with a five-foot step and attempts to cast an antimagic field to stop Angelbane in her tracks. This triggers Angelbane’s readied action, whereupon she uses her greater dispel magic and successfully counters the angel’s spell with a 39 vs. the DC 31.

Round 2: With her final round of divine favor, Angelbane triggers bane against angels and haste from her boots, then makes a full attack against the solar for 408 damage, putting it down for good, but dealing 14 damage to herself in the process.

Round 3-4: In preparation for her final fight, Angelbane drops from rage to cast heal, followed by another divine favor.

“My name has been well earned. Take me to my last battle, that I may prove my might one more time! Bring me in right next to my foe, so our fight is not delayed.”

End of fight: Expeditious retreat, alter self, and spell resistance left with many minutes; 6 rounds left on her boots of speed, divine favor has 10 rounds left on it once more, greater invisibility has 3 rounds left. 7 rounds of rage, 1 judgment, and 10 rounds of bane left over. 193 hit points (goes to 253 when raging).

Day One: Angelbane vs. The Tarrasque:

As requested, Angelbane is transported to the tarrasque standing in front of its great head. After a moment of disorientation from the change in scenery, she gets right to the task at hand.

Surprise round: Fahana starts with judging the tarrasque and enraging herself, then takes a quick swing at the tarrasque for 65 points, dealing 3 to herself, and succeeding at the frightful presence check.

Round 1: Fahana follows that last attack with a hasted round of full attacks after triggering bane against the tarrasque for 408 more damage, with another 14 to herself. The tarrasque is, surprisingly to Angelbane, still alive, though it is sickened, shaken, staggered, and has a -1 penalty to (among others) attack rolls from the prayer cast by her crown of conquest. Restricted to a single action, the tarrasque lashes out, attempting to grapple the tiefling-turned-undine in front of it with its mouth to swallow her whole next round, but is foiled by her freedom of movement, even if it could hit her with her full concealment from being invisible.

Round 2: Fahana does another 408 damage with a second hasted full attack, dropping the tarrasque. It is more than 40 below 0, so it does not regenerate enough to get back up this round.

Round 3 onward: Fahana continues full attacking the tarrasque for as long as she can. Even after she runs out of haste, rage, and bane rounds, she’s still doing a few hundred damage a round. When she takes too much damage from the Vicious property on her weapon, she takes a round to cast heal, and gets back to it. Doing this should easily get the tarrasque down several thousand HP below zero. At that point, she takes out her scythe, and begins to CDG the tarrasque until she is confident it cannot regenerate in time to avoid having dirt shoveled into its mouth and nose, suffocating it and leaving it permanently unconscious.

End of fight: Some time, likely days, later, if we include the time for shoveling. Angelbane has admittedly probably rested more than just once, but I feel like that’s a fair call at this point. The tarrasque has long since been brought down, it’s just a matter of making it permanent (or as permanent as anyone can make it with the tarrasque). Probably has all her spells and health back.

Let me know if you thought any of the fights were done unfairly toward the monsters. The pit fiend and solar are my main concerns, as I'm not sure I entirely did their spellcasting justice, particularly the pit fiend's wish. That being said, I don't think there's anything any of them could have done to avoid their fates.


For judo style combat, I'd say that grappling and tripping would both be highly thematic. It's less about "throwing" your opponent across the room, as with a bull rush, than it is about putting them to the ground (and subsequently forcing them to submit, by pinning, choking, or joint-locking, if your throw didn't put them down for good). With Greater Grapple, you'd be pinning them, and then damaging them every round (though admittedly, it's not a lot of damage). With the trip line, you'd be putting them to the ground, just the same as any good leg sweep.

As with any CMB build, it would have troubles later when you start finding things with high CMDs to overcome, or immunity to trips from abilities like flight, etc. That said, you should still be able to do some nastiness with it.


MrSin wrote:
Artanthos wrote:
Quote:
Teleport Blade is "useful" in the same way the Spell Mastery feat is "useful." That is, it's not. It will almost never be needed, if ever, and it has the unfortunate psychological effect of subconsciously making your DM think about stripping you of the item (since you have a class feature or feat to handle that situation), making it more likely to actually occur.

Stop: think about all those published scenarios that force people to enter an area unarmed.

The bladebound magus just smiles. He's never unarmed.

Meanwhile, the sorcerer with all his cosmic power is totally unphased and the fighter weeps that all the things he put into his one weapon are totally useless.

This game is pretty awful and imbalanced about the whole enter unarmed gig, and there are a number of ways to get into those places with a weapon of some sort, that if you use a weapon, you should really consider taking. Never really liked using it as a defense for any ability.

Definitely agree.

MrSin wrote:
Anyways, black blades big losses are its familiar and the lack of control over your enhancement progression. Depending on your game that could be a total life saver and the ease of use with weapons and lack of worries about constantly replacing your gear are both very awesome, but on the other hand if you actually have access to the magic mart or expect to get better weapons than its enhancement, you feel like your falling behind.

Except with your arcane pool, you don't have a huge problem hitting the +9-10 range on your weapon, and not spending 200k on your weapon gives you plenty of opportunity to make it up. A couple two-spell pearls of power costs 140k, and gives you back anywhere from 4-10 arcane pool points from not spending them on Arcane Recall (anywhere from 4 1st-3rd level spells, to 2 6th and 2 5th level spells); I'd say this makes up for the 4 you miss out on (though actually only 3 until 20th level, as I showed in a previous post), and still leaves you with money to spend on other things.

Or grab a bag of rats and a wyroot club and go nonlethal-CDGing after combat, and this is basically an entirely moot point.

MrSin wrote:
The loss of familiar is big because the familiar can do so much and to be honest the loss feels rather arbitrary and heavy handed. Familiars are extremely versatile, wand use, scouting, roleplay, skills, and their passive bonus they give you is almost equivalent of a feat itself, and then you get alertness, which is just icing, though bladebound gives alertness too! The blackblades abilities happen to be somewhat situational or too small a number to care much about(though lifedrinker is made of amazing, 19th level is usually not something you see).

Agree here as well.

MrSin wrote:
The magus arcana loss I've always thought is a bit questionable because it delays taking extra arcane twice, and the loss of your arcana isn't really made up for by the blade having its own pool.

I think the blade is able to make up for the arcana loss overall, but worst case it's just another excuse to go Dervish Dance anyways; spending your 3rd level feat on that means you're only missing out on the 5th level chance to take Extra Arcana. You should be able to shuffle feats around to deal with that one (take something else at 5th and take EA at 7th).

So, I think we are all agreeing here, though, that it's at least a potentially enjoyable archetype, and can contribute plenty to the group so as not to drag it down, even if it's not entirely optimal.


One thing to note about the Beast Rider archetype: Since it replaces the Expert Trainer ability, you can't take Horse Master to keep your effective level up for your mount. Unless, of course, your GM rules otherwise.


So, I'll try to address all of your points, Mathwei, in the most rational way I can.

Mathwei ap Niall wrote:
A). Since the OP was asking about a PFS character with a level cap of 12 delaying all Arcana until 6th level IS half the characters career. I feel justified in that statement.

Except for a quarter of that, you don't get an Arcana anyways. It's a potential loss of 2 Arcana, one if you weren't planning on spending the 5th level feat on it.

On top of the Arcana, the Bladebound loses out on a total of four Arcane Pool points by level 20. From levels 1-3, you notice no difference; levels 4-7 and 9, you're one behind; levels 8, 10-13 and 15, you're two behind; levels 14 and 16-19, you're three behind; at 20, you finally fall your total of four behind. For the entirety of a PFS career, you are never more than two points behind, which is very easily made up for with two first level pearls of power and a second level pearl; in fact, this is easily afforded without having to pay for a weapon, and gives you more than those two points would, and you should have plenty more money on top of that. For everyone else, you're still almost never more than three off, and that can still be more than made up for with your gain in WBL by not having to pay for a weapon. With just paying for pearls of power, you can effectively gain points over that of a normal Magus. Or you can go for more versatile bonuses with the extra money.

Now, in exchange for your 3rd level Arcana, you get the following:

-A weapon that may argue with you from time to time; this depends largely on DM fiat, and can probably be avoided for the most part in PFS.

-Alertness as a free feat. Bonuses to Perception are always welcome.

-A weapon with its own Arcane Pool. 1 point from levels 3-4; 2 points from 5-8; 3 points from 9-12.

-+1 to +3 to damage (+1 at levels 3-4; +2 at levels 5-8; +3 at 9-12) as a free action for one point from your blade's Arcane Pool.

-Change your weapon's damage entirely to an energy type of your choice for two points from your blade's Arcane Pool from fifth level on.

-More if you're playing in a home game that plays that high.

If we think of it as such, I'd say this is quite a reasonable Arcana.

Mathwei ap Niall wrote:
B). The Magus IS a primary caster, just not a 9 spell level class. Everything about the base Magus is designed around it's spellcasting & magical abilities, the martial abilities are strictly secondary to that.

I disagree with this, and I'll show you why. I tallied up all the Arcana, as well as the other class abilities. I divvied them up into one of four categories: martial, caster, both, or utility/neither. Here's what I found:

Martial Arcana: 20:
Accurate Strike, Arcane Accuracy, Arcane Edge, Arcane Redoubt, Greater Arcane Redoubt, Arcane Scent, Bane Blade, Devoted Blade, Enduring Blade, Ghost Blade, Hasted Assault, Maneuver Mastery, Pool Strike, Arcing Pool Strike, Clinging Pool Strike, Thunderous Pool Strike, Prescient Attack, Prescient Defense, Spell Shield, Spellbreaker.

Caster Arcana: 15:
Broad Study, Close Range, Concentrate, Empowered Magic, Maximized Magic, Quickened Magic, Rod Mastery, Rod Wielder, Scroll Mastery, Silent Magic, Spell Blending, Spell-Scars, Still Magic, Wand Mastery, Wand Wielder.

Both Arcana: 4:
Critical Strike, Dispelling Strike, Natural Spell Combat, Spell Trickery.

Utility/Neither Arcana: 7:
Aquatic Agility, Arcane Cloak, Disruptive, Divinatory Strike, Familiar, Ki Arcana, Reflection.

Admittedly, Familiar could probably be put in caster, as well, but it's used for a very wide variety of things.

Martial Class Abilities: 3:
Arcane Pool, Fighter Training, Counterstrike.

Caster Class Abilities: 6:
Spell Combat, Spell Recall, Knowledge Pool, Improved Spell Combat, Improved Spell Recall, Greater Spell Combat.

Both Class Abilities: 6:
Spellstrike, Bonus Feats, Medium Armor, Heavy Armor, Greater Spell Access, True Magus.

And no utility class features.

Finally, the spells themselves have a large variety of both martially focused and debuff/control focused effects.

Overall, this is a wide spread of power. The Arcana, which account for 6 of your 23 class abilities (read: over a quarter) have a more martial focus, and make up for the three more caster focused abilities in the rest of your class features. I would say this points to a balanced approach to magic and martial prowess in the class, not a leaning toward one side or the other. It's almost as if it's supposed to be both together, and not one with a flavor of the other.

Mathwei ap Niall wrote:
A Gish (which is all the magus is) is just a specialized caster who uses their spells in melee range to eliminate their target(s). It sacrifices the high end reality bending powers of the usual wizard for superior direct damage dealing ability. Trying to match the nova output from the spellcasting with the blade is doomed to failure.

And both the normal Magus and the Bladebound Magus do this spectacularly; nowhere do you lose your ability to enhance your blade (such as during the first round, which will inevitably be pre-buffing before busting the door in or moving up to the enemies; in either case, before you attack and are worried about using your swift action on Arcane Accuracy and whatnot), use pearls of power (in place of spell recall to save on points; or just grab a wyroot club and a bag of rats and never worry about it again for either side), or use Spell Combat and Spellstrike. You don't miss out on any spells as a Bladebound, and you trade one low-level Arcana for one that gives you a variety of bonuses that scale with your level (the black blade).

"Mathwei ap Niall wrote:

An example spell based caster will focus on something like Frostbite instead and easily double the damage output (an extra ((1D6+level)*1.5) BEFORE factoring in regular attacks) and with his spell-storing weapon he adds an additional an extra 60 pts (intensified maximized Shocking grasped stored in it) and throwing Natural Attack build on it kicks it up an additional 60-90 pts a round (AoMF-Spell-Storing).

On top of that since he picked up Spell-Scars and accurate strikes and doesn't need to burn an arcane point to enhance his weapon on the first round he instead uses that action to go accurate strikes and make sure all of his attacks hit instead of missing with half of them like the BB does.
He can EASILY destroy his target in the first round while the BB is still getting ready and manage to have enough spells available/stored to be able to do this for every fight, every day. The BlackBlade traded away this power to save a little cash at the early part of the game.

The Bladebound could still do all of this. Nowhere in the archetype does it say you can't Spellstrike or use Spell Combat; it just also gives you some other bonuses in place of a low level Arcana, and some Pool points that can be made up for with your gain in WBL over the normal Magus. If you're so focused on the Spellstrike damage, and you're in melee on the first round of combat, and you absolutely have to nova on your first round, you can skip the Arcane Pool enhancement and go straight to Spellstriking your enemy in the face. You'll do a few d6s less damage without your bonus weapon properties, but as you say, the majority of the damage is from the spell anyway.

Mathwei ap Niall wrote:

Everything the martial focused Magi can do the Caster focused one can do faster, cheaper and better.

Now I will say that calling the BlackBlade a terrible archetype may be overstating it. A more accurate statement would be that the BB is a significantly sub-optimal choice. Not TERRIBLE but really less then ideal use of resources.

I'd say that you're vastly exaggerating what's lost by the Bladebound. The changes are actually fairly small on the whole. Only two things are changed between it and the Magus: a fairly small reduction in the Arcane Pool, which isn't a huge loss and can be made up for easily as mentioned above, and the trade of one Arcana for the blade itself. I'm not going to say that it's strictly more powerful than the normal Magus because it's not; it's different, but neither noticeably less or more powerful than normal.


Katydid wrote:
The OP did state he was looking for something for PFS, but, true, standard WBL makes a better basis. And, good catch; I originally made the assumption on level 12 and didn't correct it to 13-15.

This is true. Though this just makes it an even larger portion of your overall wealth, meaning it'll have a larger impact on your character than normal WBL.

Katydid wrote:

Using Pearls of Power is definitely a tried-and-true method, and that's just one thing to do with your wealth. An even more economic method would be to have someone craft what you need with your money - you've just doubled your cost efficiency.

I mean; of course the Blackblade is going to be weak if the player buys something silly; that almost goes without saying. But it's a valid option if you want items for a specific advantage and you're strapped for cash.

I think...I think we're agreeing here; the black blade's monetary value can make up for the class ability cost, basically. I thought you were trying to say that it wasn't going to be that significant of an impact on your wealth.


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Katydid wrote:

To paraphrase a few, the Bladebound gives you bonuses and some money at the cost of this weapon's enchantment and a limited arcane pool.

Whether or not this becomes a good option depends on a very simple principle - is the money you save a significant amount in your campaign?

The maximum wealth achievable by PFS is 185k and the theoretical maximum around 15-ish. That's a +3 for 18k at 15. Add intangibles from class features and suboptimal wealth gained/leveling and you're looking at maaaybe 15, 20% of your total wealth.

It's not a huge benefit, but what if we changed wealth in non-PFS campagins? Say, everyone has 0 gold and is naked. The Bladebound is suddenly overpowered. Or if everyone is fully equipped with stuff worth 500,000 gold... at that point there's no big difference.

So knowing how much relative cash you'd be getting would be the first step. The second step is forming a plan on how to spend that money, and you should have a very good plan.

I think it's generally assumed in these discussions that you have standard wealth by level. House rules, and PFS is included in that, make things wonky. By 15th level, you actually have a +4 black blade; this is worth 32k, which is 13% of the standard WBL at 15th level of 240k. This doesn't sound like a lot, admittedly, until you start looking at what you can do with 32k gold. At 15th level, you'll be behind by 2 Arcane Pool points; two 1st level pearls of power and a second level pearl of power more than make up for the lack of points, and your cost savings on your weapon have barely been dented. Get a few more pearls, and you suddenly have even more to enchant your weapon with your Arcane Pool or use on your Arcana; you're suddenly ahead of the normal Magus's Arcane Pool, and you haven't even started sapping your blade's pool yet or gotten any other magic items with the 15-20k or so you still have left from not buying a weapon.

Or, again, you could just grab a wyroot club and a bag of rats, and suddenly your Arcane Pool size is mostly irrelevant because you recover it all after combat anyways.

*Edit*

LazarX wrote:
Actually if you've stuffed your weapon with +10 worth of enchantments, you're DONE. You simply can't do ANYTHING with it with Arcane Pool points at the time because you've hit the ceiling.

I think you're misreading me there -- I was talking in the case of the black blade, not a fully enchanted weapon for a normal Magus. The black blade can be enhanced with your Arcane Pool beyond its base enhancement.


Rylar wrote:

It seems to me that it's later levels that the archetype falls short. It gets +4 2 levels later than someone purchasing their sword normally (assuming ~ 1/2 wealth on a weapon) and +5 5 levels later. After that it never gets higher bonuses than +5.

So, at 17 a normal magus is swinging around a +5 keen/ holy/ flaming burst, while the bladebound magus is swinging a +5 weapon that can talk to him as his class feature.

Except you can still enchant your weapon with your Arcane Pool, and with the money you've saved by not purchasing a weapon normally, you should have plenty of magic items (such as pearls of power) to make up for your somewhat smaller pool. Especially since, at 13th, you can start draining the points your blade has in its own pool for yourself (it does require a Will save vs. its ego, though). Or you can have a wyroot club and a bag of rats like many other magi do already, and as long as you're not running out of points every battle, you'll be fine.


Nefreet wrote:
The Vulture wrote:
Nefreet wrote:

Musket Masters can reload a Musket as a free action by level 3 using Alchemical Cartridges.

Pistols can be reloaded as a free action at level 1 using the same.

That's fair. You'll still be perpetually one attack behind a bow, though, because you can't have Manyshot, and you still have to deal with misfiring one way or another. Basically, you trade Manyshot for Rapid Reload and a misfire chance.

If a Musket Master takes Rapid Reload (double barrel musket) they end up getting more attacks than even a Zen Archer with a bow.

Imagine BAB of +16 and Haste. The Monk Flurries with Ki, the MM uses Rapid Shot:

MM gets +11/+11/+11/+11/+11/+11/+6/+6/+1/+1/-4/-4 (against touch AC)

ZA gets +15/+15/+15/+15/+10/+10/+5/+5/+0

And Musket Masters no longer misfire at 13th, either.

EDIT: adjusted the MM numbers by -4 for using double barrels.

You have me on both counts there. I completely forgot about double barrels, and my tired eyes missed the line for musket masters not misfiring. This is what I get for arguing while sick, I suppose.

I still think the 40' range on the touch AC (20' for pistols) is a reasonable drawback, though. Not a big deal against the single big bad, but large single fights rarely work in the soloer's favor, anyways. You take out everything in front, your friends take out everything behind.


Nefreet wrote:

Musket Masters can reload a Musket as a free action by level 3 using Alchemical Cartridges.

Pistols can be reloaded as a free action at level 1 using the same.

That's fair. You'll still be perpetually one attack behind a bow, though, because you can't have Manyshot, and you still have to deal with misfiring one way or another. Basically, you trade Manyshot for Rapid Reload and a misfire chance.

Nefreet wrote:
By level 13 you no longer misfire with your firearm of choice. If you get a +1 Greater Reliable Firearm you won't misfire, either.

Only pistoleros can get 0 misfire with class abilities. Normal gunslingers and musket masters don't get that (or at least I see nothing in their abilities that would give that). As well, greater reliable puts you +3 behind on your weapon compared to a normal archer or other martial. This is dealable, but definitely a drawback.

Nefreet wrote:
With the Quickdraw feat you can effectively unload one Pistol, drop it, free action draw your other, and unload it, too (or use a Glove of Storing).

And this quickly gets very expensive when you start trying to enchant your weapons. Dual wielding is expensive enough as it is, but having four, six, or even eight pistols and trying to keep their enchantments relevant becomes absurd.

Nefreet wrote:
And since enemy touch ACs tend to drop as you go up in level due to size penalties, high level Gunslingers are hitting 95% of the time.

This is definitely a big deal, and something I did already bring up. But the investment required to avoid having your weapon explode or to spend rounds not full attacking makes up for it a lot. You also have to remember that the touch AC is only in the first range increment -- for pistols, the easiest to get worked out, that's 20', and for muskets, which take a lot more investment, it's still only 40'. 20' is severely limiting, and 40' is fairly close range. Anything you're shooting at touch AC, the fighter or ranger have been easily shooting for a round or two more than you.


gnoams wrote:
Gunslinger- normal bullet plus powder made yourself costs 1.1g per shot. Hardly breaking the bank. Paper cartridges cost 6g EA, but you don't really need them until you are able to take multiple shots per round. Also, gunslingers get op fast, the gold tax on ammo is a little something to help keep them in check. Note gunslingers get all martial proficiencies. At low levels you can throw axes, fire a bow, etc, you don't have to only use the gun. Low levels targeting touch AC isnt as big of a bonus, and all your ranged feats ( PB shot, precise shot) work with any other weapons too.

I actually want to broach this a little bit real fast: I keep seeing people claim gunslingers are overpowered, but I never see how that actually works out in reality. Sure, a 3/4-armed dual-pistol gunslinger can get a bazillion shots off in a round, wasting everything in sight...until they misfire, which when you're shooting that much happens fairly often. Gunslingers get, at least with the usual choices in guns, anywhere from 2x-5x (base 1-4 misfire chance, +1 for using a paper cartridge) the chance to automatically miss with their attacks over that of a normal martial. And when you do inevitably misfire, you have to spend at least a move action to clear your weapon (by spending a grit; it's a standard action otherwise), or it has a chance of being permanently destroyed while also doing damage to you. No other martial class has that problem.

Then they also have reload times, which until 11th level, is at best a move action for a two-handed gun with Rapid Reload, keeping you from making a full attack that round, or a free action with a one-handed gun and Rapid Reload, but you have to keep a hand free, so no dual wielding them.

The combination of both these things basically negates any benefit you get from being able to target touch AC in the first range increment. Sure, you basically always hit (when you don't automatically miss), but you have a lot of other hurdles preventing you from being a living Gatling gun.

The biggest problems I've seen with gunslingers revolve around having extra limbs from taking levels in alchemist while also using advanced firearms, which is a bit of a corner case to say the least. So yes, gunslingers can be powerful if played right, but no more so than any other ranged martial character, and their one trick (touch AC in the first range increment) is overcome by just placing the big baddie in the back of the room. So I'm honestly curious where they start being such an issue over the traditional longbow ranger or fighter.


Email:
andrewvit92@gmail.com

I'll definitely want this last update. Even if I can't play it with anyone (having trouble finding a group out here), I've quite enjoyed reading it and rolling up characters with it.

Looking forward to your next project. I've always enjoyed classless systems.


Douglas Muir 406 wrote:

Oh, a character who optimizes can drive DCs up really, really high. My DC 21 was for Joe Average Wizard. He's not Fey bloodline or kitsune, he doesn't have Spell Focus... he's just got a 20 Int and a +2 headband.

As I said upthread, if you do optimize for it, you can get Dominate DCs so high as to be somewhat unbalancing. A kitsune using the awful kitsune favored class -- really, who let that one slip through the design process? -- can get DCs around 31-33 at 12th level. That gives better than even odds of double-save dominating pretty much anything that's level appropriate.

Doug M.

I was mentioning a more moderate level of optimization because the OP mentioned in one of his posts that he was playing an enchanter in this case. I figured that meant pushing DCs of enchantment spells at least a bit. Even without the bloodline bonus or being kitsune, you can still have a 24-25 DC with the basic optimization of Spell Focus and Greater, and a headband by 9th level. That's still enough to make the Fighter fail (now assuming a +4 Will with a cloak or something; reasonable to have by 9th level) 81% of the time, and the Wizard fail 49% of the time. I think, though, that we're in agreement it's a good spell.

The most basic amount of optimizing for enchantment spells I can think of gives the low-Will enemy a horrible chance of success, and the high-Will enemy the flip of a coin. Compare to a Fighter full-attacking, where they don't even normally have that good of a chance (high AC targets are difficult to hit with all your attacks, and low AC targets have other defenses like a miss chance or mirror image). Dominate person is hugely powerful.


Douglas Muir 406 wrote:
Check the math. Say your DC is 21. Against a fighter with +3 will, you'll double-save dominate him 90% x 80% = 72% of the time. Pretty good! But against his colleague the party wizard, with his +9 Will, you only win 60% x 40% = 24% of the time. One-third as much! Bad odds! Don't try this unless you're desperate. The doubled save dramatically compounds the difference between bad Wills and good ones, you see? That's actually good design IMO -- it's both thematic and balanced. You Dominate big stupid weak-willed things like giants and fighters, but you hesitate to throw it at Will monsters like wizards, clerics, dragons or outsiders. That aspect, I got no problem with.

Basically this. At 9th level, you can have a 26-27 DC on it fairly easily (20 starting Cha, two level points, +2 headband for a 24 or a +4 headband if you want to push it for a 26; 5th level spell; Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus; +2 from Fey bloodline). That Wizard with the +9 Will save, even, would still have a 63.75% chance of failure of both checks, and the Fighter would be sitting at a 90.25% chance of failure of both checks. I would say that's pretty good odds in your favor.

Also, even though the spell is limited to humanoids only, that still covers a huge swath of enemies. Giants, trolls, orcs, the vast majority of enemies with class levels. It's not at all an uncommon enemy type to be fighting.


On the matter of the domain stuff, I think you're taking the right tack with keeping domains working generally the same, but with updated/better powers. It makes picking a god somewhat like choosing a mystery; you then pick your domains from there, and they "scale" by way of granting powers as you level up, which also scale to a degree on their own. And I certainly wish you luck with them, because that's a lot of stuff to go through.


Jarl wrote:

Mithral Breastplate. +6 AC and -1 ACP. Counts as light armor and you could stealth just fine.

If really are giving up stealth, you really should consider mithral heavy armors since they count as medium and you can wear them with no issues. Mithral field plate will net you +7 AC with -2 ACP and Mithral full plate +9 AC with -3 ACP.

Only for the purposes of move speed, not for proficiency.

prd wrote:
Most mithral armors are one category lighter than normal for purposes of movement and other limitations. Heavy armors are treated as medium, and medium armors are treated as light, but light armors are still treated as light. This decrease does not apply to proficiency in wearing the armor. A character wearing mithral full plate must be proficient in wearing heavy armor to avoid adding the armor's check penalty to all his attack rolls and skill checks that involve moving.

That said, mithral breastplate is still pretty amazing if you're trying to have a decent AC and still be able to stealth. It's only 3 less AC than full plate, but it doesn't require any extra effort to wear.


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Coridan wrote:
Excaliburproxy wrote:
I hunt and have a tiger friend, and I am preeeeeetty sure the tiger is the reason that I hunt. What is your point?
And your ram, auroch or giant frog companion?

What about being friends with animals prevents you from also hunting other animals? Duck hunting, fox hunting, and falconing all spring to mind. As does the archetype of the wild man with the giant bear hunting the frozen north (translate that to the mountains, plains, or swamp for your examples). Tack onto that a bit of shamanistic magic, and you've got yourself exactly what was described in the flavor text for the class and a fitting concept for a "hunter".

I'm seriously having trouble understanding what's wrong with the name here.


BigDTBone wrote:
Claxon wrote:

Well, this is a prime example of why I will never use mythic.

If a 10th teir mythic character has a reasonable chance at soloing Cthulhu et al. then I want nothing to do with it.

I'm inclined to agree. I had never looked at mythic before yesterday and I will say that some of the abilities were pretty staggering.

Considering that non-Mythic characters can do similar things relative to non-Mythic monsters (scry and die tactics, AM BARBARIAN, archer Paladin smiting, etc.), I'm inclined to believe it made things no worse than they already were in high level play. Things break down with the system at that level.


chaoseffect wrote:
Kryzbyn wrote:

Great, now we have Schrodinger's Psion, who apparently knows all the disciplines simultaneously and can do it all at once.

Very nice.

Well there is Psychic Reformation. You can have it all, just not at once... like a Wizard.

It says feats, skills, powers, and spells. Says nothing of other class features. So no, you can't have every discipline power.


lantzkev wrote:
It's highly unusual and against the pattern of game mechanics for something to basically do the same on a fail or success.... as we learned it was just the GM playing it wrong. I find psionics as a whole fairly well balanced, there's still some parts I think are just not good, that the sustainability of a wilder is amazing, even if they are a "one trick" pony, they will be as versatile as any blaster sorc if not more and can potentially never stop at all.

Nnnnnnoooooot so much. The blaster wilder gets basically one spell of each level as a blasting spell, plus a couple other 1st level spells. The Sorc gets one blasting spell per level, plus 4 other first level spells, 4 other second level spells, 3 other third level spells, 3 other fourth level spells, 3 other fifth level spells, 2 other sixth level spells, 2 other seventh level spells, 2 other eight level spells, and 2 other 9th level spells. Even if the wilder only takes two or three blasting spells, and relies on augmenting them to get different shapes and energy types, the sorc still has much more versatility in spells chosen than the wilder. This also includes what happens when the sorc and the wilder run into a target where blasting isn't the optimal choice, which comes up often.

lantzkev wrote:

The dread class I feel is an archetype that gets too much. The "it doesn't ignore mindless immunities" etc clarification is good, but it needs to be in the d20pfsrd, or a FAQ note with it since that's where alot reference psionics, specifically when a GM is playing a game where he's allowed a character to play it but the gm doesn't own the books themselves....

And again, it doesn't indicate that ignores immune to fear only applies to a trait "immune to fear"

I may be the only one here to feel this way, but I never felt it was ambiguous that it only applied strictly to immunity to fear. There's a reason that the Terror that makes it affect mind affecting immune creatures exists, too, which helps to dispel any lingering doubts of what it's supposed to apply to.

lantzkev wrote:
there are many archetypes that are ineffective because of things that can occur in the game, letting a powerful ability such as fear go into a archetype that already specializes in it, and is indeed nearly impossible to fail at such a task at even +5 ECL or greater, is just a bit much.

And there's a reason most people say you should avoid specializing a character around something that is a common immunity. Also, the dread is an entire class, not an archetype; archetypes have a bit more freedom in having things immune to them, but a base class does not have that option. Rogues are the only class that I can think of where a major class feature is largely ignored by a significant number of monsters, and most people agree that they are in sore shape (at best). Casters can use different spells (because any caster with a brain covers more than just their specialized type of spell, even if it's only a few other spells chosen). DSP wanted to avoid that kind of problem with their base classes, and I rightly agree with them on that.

lantzkev wrote:

you're downplaying how versatile that 34 abilities known is.

If you did a survey of wizards, you'd find that few if any ever use much more than 34 different spells in their entire career, and that if they do those spells were easily substituted by one of 34 spells. Specifically when psionic spells can manifest as one of four different elements, now that 34 known is effectively 50+

And of course there's the issue of not needing to know what you're up against, and having a very deep well to spontaneously pull from.

This is, by and large, no different than a sorcerer with a fair number of metamagic feats. The wizard can prepare a general list when they don't know what they're up against, but the sorcerer, psion, and (especially so) wilder have to make sure they know a general list to cover all their bases rather than be so specialized that they can't do anything when their preferred target doesn't show up to play, whereas the wizard can also specialize when they do know what's coming up. Psions have very strong versatility in the moment, but very weak preparation versatility. They're far on the sorcerer side of the sorc-wizard scale of versatility. This also means that they can't specialize their repertoire to the known enemy ahead of time beyond what they already have, which becomes increasingly common as you get higher level and have more access to scrying magic.

So yes, psionics and psionic classes can be powerful, but are certainly no more so than the classes already in the game.


Kirth Gersen wrote:

For saving throws, Improved Iron Will, etc. could also increase the critical success range -- that would mean that people might actually take those feats!

For attack rolls, maybe Critical Focus could also increase the extra dice range to 19-20, or maybe use the weapon's crit range after all?

I think it would be neat to have them give a choice to either increase the exploding range or increase the exploding dice (by some amount that is roughly equivalent to increasing the range). Makes a fun choice (having higher reliability or higher top-end) that should be mostly equal, but still worth taking.

Maybe even make them allow you to remove the chance of critical failure, though that might be a bit strong/defeat the purpose of having it in the first place.

As for the PP discussion upthread, much as I would like the ability to pick and choose some of the paladin stuff as Fighter Talents, I feel like that would remove some of its flavor. You could probably put a couple of paladin-like abilities in the Fighter Talents to allow a more divine-knight feel, but that can be pretty easily covered with a fighter/cleric or fighter/incarnate multiclass already (while also grabbing some of the knight related talents).


Sellsword2587 wrote:
Kirth Gresen wrote:
Referencing your critical results comments, we could probably accomplish the same thing for skill checks by tossing a d20 and saying "OK, if you roll a 20, roll again to see what extra bonus to add, and if you roll a 1, roll again to see how much to subtract." The advantage of that approach is that you've got a d20 system still, and you just have to remember that 1s and 20s are special (Skill Focus might give a 19-20 "crit range" instead of a +3 bonus), so it works like critical hits do, and people are used to that.

Now we are beginning to talk about exploding dice and critical successes/failures. I really dig this approach, actually. Even if you roll a nat 1, you could still roll a 1 on your other dice (unless you keep rolling d20s if you get a 1 or 20, like true exploding dice), or 2, still giving you a chance for success after modifiers.

And in opposed rolls, someone could still roll a 20, but then roll really low on their next roll, giving you the chance of success after modifiers.

Going with this method, what would happen if you rolled a 20, and then a 1, a wash? What about the other way? Do the dice keep "exploding" in a given direction if you roll multiple 20s or 1s?

I kind of went into my ideas on this a little bit above, but I'll expand on it here. I feel like having a d20 explode to another d20 just feels weird. The chances of getting more than one is incredibly low, and it makes the range of possibilities extremely wide (allowing for some wonkily bursty rolls, in my opinion). Instead, you could have it explode to another die, like say a d6 or a d8 (maybe even a d12 to make it feel less lonely). This increases the range of numbers while allowing you to limit the bonuses because you're also increasing the average rolls in the process. Having it explode in the opposite direction (imploding, if you will), then this counteracts the average increase, but specialization can change this.

To go beyond this, you could have specializing give higher and/or more dice, or even reduce the number required to explode the die or reduce the imploding penalty (because when Greatest Swordsman Ever makes a misstep, it's going to be a lot less noticeable than Average Joe). You could then limit the static bonuses they get and still increase their average roll in a more randomized way (plus, rolling more dice is always fun).

I think this gives exactly what you were looking for; Billy has a chance at getting a few exploding dice, but Mom could also get a few imploding dice, while keeping Billy from really being able to build a space station while still in grade school. Lowering the die you get from exploding also removes the need for limiting the number of times it can happen, because it becomes less of an issue when it happens more than once.

*Edit* Stupid classes delaying my response. Ah, well.


Kirth Gersen wrote:
Sellsword2587 wrote:
What about something as simple as roll 2d20, add results together, plus skill bonus.
I like where you're headed, in terms of caps, but the 2d20 thing (to expand the range of the number generator) means that the shape of the frequency distribution curves is getting warped in exactly the opposite of how I'm wanting it to -- instead of expanding the high- and low-range ends, we're truncating them by starting with a bell curve instead of a line. 3d20 would make that worse, and so on.

Well, the action dice idea could help with the potential high and low end stuff, though adding more dice does always create a curved probability set.

I'd suggest doing exploding dice, then. To represent having a higher potential, you could make it so high ranks in something reduces the number needed to gain an additional die (or dice), and/or increasing the dice you gain; so maybe base you can get a d6 bonus when you roll a 20 naturally, and at 6 ranks you get the extra die at 19, at 11 you only have to roll an 18, and at 16 you can get it on a 17. Add this to Sellsword's suggestion for the bonus cap, potentially excluding the bonus from the exploding die. This increases the chance for higher numbers while also letting you reduce the static bonuses. You could potentially do the same thing for the opposite end, and reduce the potential numbers that cause...imploding? dice.


Honestly, the more I've been getting into D&D5, the more I've realized I like the idea of adding more dice (a la advantage and disadvantage, where you roll multiple dice and take the highest or lowest one, respectively) rather than increasing static bonuses like Jess suggests in the post Caedwyr linked. It would keep the needed rewriting to a minimum and keep things relatively simple (not having to worry about what ranges change to finer gradations and all that, just knowing that you get more dice). Plus, it's always more fun rolling more dice rather than just adding more bonuses.

For things like skills, you could say that after a certain rank, it starts adding more dice. Say, for every 5 ranks above the 5th rank (so, at 10, 15, and 20), you get to roll another d20 and take the result of your choice. Classes cap out at maybe +5 BAB and get another die every 5 after.

This would probably require some rewriting, but it feels like a good way to minimize that while also limiting top-end bonuses very significantly.

*Edit* Oh, hey, got ninjaed apparently. Still think this could work nicely, though.

As for it working against what you've already written, I don't see why you can't have characters who can specialize in ways not determined solely by dice, like how the rogue gets skill tricks; these are ways to make skills important that are above and beyond what anyone else can ever do, and is still a form of specialization. You can also have unique things that come from specializing into a skill. Having a certain number of skill points in Athletics (something high) could let you climb smooth walls or swim in extremely choppy seas, high BAB could still give you more attacks, etc.

So specializing would still give you noticeable bonuses that aren't just adding more numbers on top.


Basically, the usual problem with stacking AC is that, unless you're going specifically for it, attack bonuses will tend to outscale it in the late game, and it doesn't do anything against spells (though you getting both your Dex and Int to your touch AC certainly helps against touch spells). That said, the spells you mentioned, mirror image and such, and having good saves makes up for what AC lacks.

Also, having a high health pool can be an effective way to survive, especially given that he has damage reduction as well (up to half his level, depending on if he took the invulnerable rager archetype). And, again depending on what he chose, he can get rather high saves while raging due to Rage Powers like Superstition.

So yes, your AC isn't going to be the only way to stay alive later. However, a 31 AC at level 7 is going to keep most things from being able to hit you with a physical attack, and if you manage to keep your saves up you'll be good there, too.


Kirth Gersen wrote:
Perfect example illusionist: Uncle Coleman from Peter Straub's Shadowland.

That sounds like something I'll have to read at some point. Reminds me that I should go re-read the Highroad Trilogy; from what little my memory serves me, it has some good battle sorcerer or possibly incarnate examples.

And while I know you've said you're not a fan of anime, I'd say that the entire cast of alchemists in Fullmetal Alchemist are great transmuters. They change objects into other things made of similar materials (a la European alchemy), but do so through the use of rune circles written around/on the object. Edward Elric (older brother of Alphonse Elric, the two of which are the main characters in the series) is able to perform transmutation by only clapping his hands and touching the object to be transmuted.

Snorter wrote:
Has anyone read the Dune prequels, and if so, how do they rank up?

They weren't bad, but Anderson was kind of stuck working off of a very small number of notes (apparently Frank Herbert was notorious for keeping most everything in his head) in a style not his own. Ends up not being as good as the original six, but I thought they were still worth a read. The seventh and eighth books are...a different matter, though. They had issues that left a bad taste in my mouth. Worth it to finish the story, but it wasn't much more than that.


Kirth Gersen wrote:
And, also from Dune, Gurney Halleck is a great fighter/bard.

Ah, Gurney. Somehow I had forgotten him. Don't know how, especially when I know Duncan admits that Gurney was the better fighter between the two of them (in Children of Dune, I believe it was). Paul could be a monk, between his prescience and Bene Gesserit/mentat training, too. And on the note of mentats, Thufir is a good intelligent, non-stealthy rogue.


Kirth Gersen wrote:
@Vulture -- thanks for your input! I'm not familiar with all your citations, but I'll look up the ones I don't know. Keep 'em coming, please! (But for obvious reasons I'm specifically trying to avoid novels based on games -- Salvatore, etc. -- Ray Feist and Steve Brust skirt that line very closely but don't quite cross it).

That makes perfect sense. Don't want to give self-defining examples; hard to really take anything from that.

And I got thinking, and it hit me that Vanyel Ashkevron from the Last Herald Mage trilogy is a good example of a battle sorcerer. Also from Lackey, Alberich and Skif from her Valdemar prequels are a good fighter and thief/rogue (though Skif doesn't really have skill tricks, per se), respectively. Though these are a bit more on the young adult side of literature, not sure where exactly you want to pull from.

Also, as a different choice for them, the Fremen from Dune could be used as an example of barbarians (again, less blind rage and more hyper-focused fighting), and the Bene Gesserit Sisters are great monks.


I would actually really recommend against playing a rogue (class) even if you want a sneaky assassin. Rogues generally start running into problems hitting their targets, and a lot of the Rogue Talents are highly situational, not helpful, or (in the worst cases) actually hurt you. And while they get more base skill points than any other class, the slight hit you'd take there by playing a ranger, alchemist, inquisitor, or bard is made up for by the skill points of your other party members and spells you/your party has available. Even moreso when you take into account that you drop back to 4+Int when you go into assassin.

What I would suggest, if you really want to keep the sneak attack dice, is to go with the vivisectionist alchemist archetype since you get 4+Int skills on a semi-Int-based class, and ways to make yourself and your party stronger through your mutagen (for yourself) and your extracts/infusions. Also, as a rule, Discoveries are always better than Rogue Talents (even the ones with expensive material costs are better because they at least do something useful).

If an alchemist isn't what you're looking for, then as I mentioned, rangers, inquisitors and bards (if you're looking to avoid performing, take the archaeologist archetype) also make good sneaky people, and ninjas are at least significantly better than rogues if you want to go that route.


Kirth Gersen wrote:
BTW, People might have noticed the quotes at the start of the Fighter, Incarnate, and Sorcerer documents -- it's my goal to have something similar for every class. Suggestions and recommendations are welcome -- I've pulled in a Tennyson quote from "Galahad" for the Prestige Paladin, for example. Robert E. Howard might be a good place to look for a Barbarian quote! I may also include quotes for some of the races -- Poul Anderson for High Elves (Three Hearts and Three Lions or The Broken Sword, but probably the former), maybe The Hobbit for halflings and/or wood elves, the Prose Edda for mountain dwarves, etc.

I did notice them! I thought it was really neat at the beginning of the fighter page. I'll go through some of my favorite books and keep an eye out for potential quotes.

Kirth Gersen wrote:

Also, I'm always on the lookout for more examples of classes from literature/mythology/fiction. For example:

  • Gérard de l'Automne, from Clark Ashton Smith's "A Rendezvous in Averoigne," is a textbook minstrel
  • Väinämöinen from The Kalavala might be a bard (minstrel)/wizard or bard/sorcerer).
  • Miyamoto Musashi exemplifies the Fighter class.
  • Kveldulf and Berdla-Kari from Egil's Saga are barbarians ("In fellowship with him was one Kari of Berdla, a man of renown for strength and daring. He was a Berserk.").
  • Of course I'll reference Elizabeth Moon's Paksenarrian as a Prestige Paladin.
  • Others?
  • Assuming you're looking for more than one example per class, and I don't know how familiar you are with the series, but Sanglant in the Crown of Stars is another good example of a fighter. Very talented with weaponry, and ends up leading armies. Alain could be considered a ranger depending on how you look at it. Hugh is a good example of an evil cleric (religious, uses magic, very Lawful Evil).

    Some of the magic in Katherine Kerr's Deverry series is also very druidic (shapeshifting, often involving nature and life forces), which makes sense given the series is largely based on Celtic mythology.

    And Raymond E. Feist's Riftwar series has a lot of examples for wizardry, and possibly a couple examples of more sophisticated barbarians (more the super-focused fighting state than an uncontrolled rage) in the taradhel in the Demonwar saga.

    I'll look later for more specifics from the books if you're interested.

    Hm...Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn might be good for something or other, as well. I'll have to go re-read some stuff. Dune might even have something helpful.


    Neo2151 wrote:
    That example code does not hold up to scrutiny with the Paladin code. It blatantly says if it helps the Order he will willingly mislead others. That is not honorable behavior, and could cause a Paladin fall.

    Not necessarily. It says that the paladin is not allowed to lie. However, using the truth to mislead an untrustworthy foe or illegitimate authority figure is not breaking any rules set forth in the paladin description.

    Neo2151 wrote:

    Also, I'm still waiting on the explanation from anyone for where you get to ignore this part of the Paladin code:

    Quote:
    Associates: While she may adventure with good or neutral allies, a paladin avoids working with evil characters or with anyone who consistently offends her moral code. Under exceptional circumstances, a paladin can ally with evil associates, but only to defeat what she believes to be a greater evil. A paladin should seek an atonement spell periodically during such an unusual alliance, and should end the alliance immediately should she feel it is doing more harm than good. A paladin may accept only henchmen, followers, or cohorts who are lawful good.
    Hellknights are not typically champions of morality. Devil-summoning, even if only used for training, etc, is always an Evil act, for example.

    Because you're missing the second part of that, which states that under exceptional circumstances, a paladin can ally with evil associates, but only to defeat what she believes to be a greater evil. Allying yourself with evil Hellknights in an effort to defeat greater evils would fall under that category, and while it says that the paladin should use atonement spells during this time, it does not say this is a requirement. If the paladin should fall due to this alliance, they can then seek atonement and ask their deity (or deities) for guidance on the matter and act accordingly from there, as they rightfully believed that the Hellknights' pursuit for justice and order was a good one.

    Neo2151 wrote:
    Or how you justify belonging to an Order that venerates Asmodeus, the Lord of the Nine Hells (even if he's only one among 5, he's still one).

    I don't have to. As I already mentioned, the Order of the Godclaw was founded by a paladin and one of its two leaders is a paladin. As in, it's already been justified by the people who wrote the world, and it hasn't caused these paladins to fall, so it must be okay to do.

    But even so, Asmodeus is not worshipped in a specific sense in this case; he is simply part of the whole. They select bits and pieces from the tenets of each to make a "doctrine inspired by yet wholly unlike the faith of any of the engendering figures." Quote taken straight from Pathfinder #27.

    *Edit* I also just checked the alignments of all the leaders listed in the different orders, and there are: 8 LN leaders, 5 LG leaders, and only 3 LE leaders. So the Evil Hellknights appear to be in the minority at the moment.


    So, I went digging a bit and found a few posts that are relevant to this discussion. The first is a post where James Jacobs (the creative director of Golarion) explicitly says that paladins can be Hellknights, and mentions that Pathfinder #27 and #28 have details on how. The second is where James Jacobs (again, the creative director of everything in the setting) talks about how a few Hellknight orders are led by paladins, and that while there is, as he puts it, "infernal infiltration" in the ranks, Hellknights don't worship hell in any sense beyond using its denizens for training and appreciating the order/law/structure. The third is a post by F. Wesley Schneider (the editor-in-chief) going more into detail on how a paladin could be in the ranks of a Hellknight order. Finally, I have one by a non-Paizo-staff-member detailing his paladin-Hellknight's code as a member of the Order of the Godclaw.

    Outside of forum posts, reading through the Hellknight sections in Pathfinder #27 and #28, Order of the Godclaw was founded by a paladin (a paladin of Aroden by the name of Seldinin Choaz), and is currently led by a LN fighter/cleric/hellknight and a paladin. The other orders often have LG leaders in their mix (along with LN and LE).

    Also, the paladin code of conduct only states the following:

    PRD wrote:
    Additionally, a paladin's code requires that she respect legitimate authority, act with honor (not lying, not cheating, not using poison, and so forth), help those in need (provided they do not use the help for evil or chaotic ends), and punish those who harm or threaten innocents.

    None of that contradicts a Hellknight's code. Helping those in need is not against any of the Hellknight orders (though the others in your order may scoff at your displays kindness), and the rest holds true with being Lawful. It also states, quite explicitly, that you must only follow legitimate authority; this means that laws that contradict the laws you uphold (in the case of a Hellknight, the laws of your order and of Cheliax) are not necessarily considered legitimate, and you would thus be allowed to break them if necessary to upholding your codes of Law and Good.

    I see no reason why a paladin could not be a hellknight.


    necromental wrote:

    no problem, friend has it. just have to wait till sunday...

    EDIT: thanks for the Fire Angel pic.

    If you have/make a gmail account, you can send the email to yourself there and open the docs in the Google viewer in the meantime. Seems to read the docs just fine.


    Oh, neat-o. Going through it a little, though, I noticed that you have Weapon Aptitude as a Fighter Talent, but all of its effects are already base for the class (though the levels are switched around a bit).

    Looking good, though. I like the changes to the fighter overall. Still need to go through the bard; I'm feeling like it's time to make a bardbarian.


    For the Red Mantis assassin, I would actually suggest something a little different: kensai battle sorcerer multiclassed with monk or fighter. Or just a straight kensai battle sorcerer. I feel like monk would fit well with a finesseful, lightly-to-un-armored magical melee fighter. You have options of shapeshifting and illusions with spells. You don't get a sneak attack with a monk (and it seems worse than fighter talents, though you could take it with levels in fighter), but kensai (or fighter levels, I suppose) gives you a way to an instantaneous death strike in a surprise round. Well, not quite a "death" strike per se, but maxed damage, which is pretty close.

    Plus monks aren't penalized for using only one melee weapon, thanks to Flurry of Blows with Two-Weapon Fighting.


    Adding my email to the list for the new doc when you get to it.

    Spoiler:
    andrewvit92atgmail.com


    Put points in Knowledge: Engineering. Either drown the stupid wizard in his underground lair, or bring his tower down.


    calagnar wrote:

    Just play a magus your much better off.

    ED gives you more casting options, magus makes you into a better martial combatant. It really depends on what you're looking for from the character.


    Zotsune wrote:
    I thought that Power Attack worked with all attacks not just those from 2 handed weapons or one handed weapons being used in 2 hands... I thought that only gave a 50% bonus to damage if done in that way.

    Power Attack works with any weapon just fine, but Furious Focus specifies a 2H weapon or a 1H weapon in two hands.

    Furious Focus:

    Prerequisites: Str 13, Power Attack, base attack bonus +1.

    Benefit: When you are wielding a two-handed weapon or a one-handed weapon with two hands, and using the Power Attack feat, you do not suffer Power Attack’s penalty on melee attack rolls on the first attack you make each turn. You still suffer the penalty on any additional attacks, including attacks of opportunity.

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