Trample's page

I'm going to be playing a dwarven inquisitor wielding a dwarven LongHammer. Any recommendations would be appreciated! Thanks!

Kain from Hasslefree miniatures.

Should I take both sickening and dazing spell for my sorcerer, or is that over the top?

He's 9th (replacement for dead character) and will have Toughness, Spell Penetration, Improved Initiative, Improved Familiar, and Dazing Spell for sure. Then two of Great Fortitude, Combat Casting, and Sickening Spell.

Incidentally, here's a fighter ENTIRELY focused on cleaving to level 12... (Almost. Just missing feats for 9th and 10th level pertaining to cleave.)

** spoiler omitted **

Isn't surprise follow through an orc racial feat?

Also, Trample, I am not so sure about about his wisdom. In one story, he was honestly surprised to find out that the Earth revolved around the sun. Because honestly: what does that have to do with catching criminals. No, he is an extremely well read savant that focuses intensely on study in order to facilitate his obsessions. Maxing out your knowledges (at least the key 4) would reflect that nicely.

Holmes is deep into a few very focused types of knowledge skills, but is absent many as well. In the books he is an expert at the various types of mud and clay around London. He has a deep knowledge of tabacco. He knows absolutely nothing about many things the average Englishman would know.

The way he analyzes problems lends itself to sense motive, perception, and survival (track) more than anything else. Those are wisdom-based skills. Holmes always observes what others only see (you could argue deep knowledge in certain areas helps here, but I would see ranks in knowledge - local filling this).

Get the Kirin Style Feats so you can add your Int mod to damage as well as Str

I think maybe snake style (although kirin is better fluff) and a massive sense motive (skill focus, alertness, trait) for Holmes. I think his wisdom is the primary trait rather than intelligence.

I think urban ranger (unarmed) with a couple of monk levels.

What would this look like with APG spells too?

What are you 5 most Important skills you like and why?

Depends on what you want to do. My fighter does get 5 per level and acts as the party face and scout, so diplomacy and perception are maxed with acrobatics and stealth close behind. I have a few in climb, swim, survival, and engineering as well.

I wouldn't ever give up armor training for the +1atk/Dmg... Especially, with bravery tossed in there, and the weapon training for other weapons. You even said the other stuff from the weapon master wasn't that useful for you, so why go weapon master at all then? Only good thing beside the extra wt bonus would be the rerolls.

The armor training is difficult to give up. Although, as an archer, I hope to stay out of melee anyway, so I decided to live without it. The weapon guard bonus rarely comes up, but is very nice when it does. I never want to be without the bow.

I'm not making an argument that the WM is better, they both have their pros & cons. I chose the WM because the +1/+1 is worth it to me. It really adds up when you're using 4-5 arrows per round.

To be honest weapon master isn't that great for an archer, except if your trying to do a little extra damage. They get a reroll, and a crit bonus, which isn't that great for you since you won't crit often. Also, their AC bonus is only vs the exact weapon you use, so in that case it would be a longbow, which is worse than the archers AC bonus which is vs. all ranged attacks. Other than that, they can increase, once away or something like that, their crit multiplier. For a bow, it's already at x3. If you didn't kill them with that, the x4, isn't going to be much help. And even if then x4 does kill them, not a big deal since technically that is just the use of an extra arrow.

Just to get 1 more atk/Dmg, a retool ability, and a crit booster, is not enough to not go regular fighter for an archer. As for vs. the archer archetype, again depends, but I would say no go weapon master, only if my DM'ing didn't allow the gloves for the archer. If they did, then go archer.

I hear ya. I really do it for the extra to hit and damage. We don't allow the gloves for the archer, so between regular fighter and WM I go with the weapon master for the +1/+1 for the most part. The other stuff is nice, but probably not quite as nice as bravery/armor training. I'm not going to be as good in melee with my version of weapon training, but I'm OK with that.

If lots of open areas, go vanilla fighter.
If lots of dungeons, small areas, go archer.

Actually, I would go weapon master over either of these.

Actually, archery builds suck from a teamwork standpoint. Sure, they deal out great damage, but what role do they fill?

Well, my straight fighter archer also servers as the party scout and diplomat. Maxed perception and stealth + darkvision for scouting (half orc) and is good in that area even without class skills. He has diplomacy as class through a trait and keeps it maxed as well. Int 12 + racial bonus per level gives him 4 skill points per level.

Other classes could be better with these skills, but in our party my straight fighter still has the best diplomacy and stealth.

Ok, looking to build an interesting Fighter.

Basics are: 20pt buy, Core rules only, Don Quixote Style(a bit mad, but loyal).

What are some good traits,feats,etc.

GO!

A bit late on this, but I built a character some time back modeled specifically on Don Quixote. He was actually a melee bard who thought he was a paladin. So in 3.0 or 3.5 (don't recall) his healing replicated lay on hands, heroism the aura, etc... He fought with a bastard sword (which was knightly) and shield. He was NG, but imitated paladin behavior in every way.

Awesome character, but one-shot-killed by a green dragon.

Thirded. Immunity is immunity. Tireless rage doesn't make you immune to fatigue, it makes you not become fatigued in the first place. This makes you become fatigued even if it normally wouldn't, but immunity still prevents it outright.

I disagree. Furious finish basically says you're fatigued no matter what. It's a limiting mechanic that isn't intended to be bypassed by a lame exception, which is, in my opinion, a bit of a lame bypass for fatigue immunity anyway. Not as bad as rage cycling, but still lame.

I detest gnomes. I refuse to play one and I constantly mock them when I play. Why? There's nothing that gnomes bring to the table that another race doesn't do better.

1. Want to be small and sneaky? Play a halfling.
2. Want to be an underground dweller, perhaps with a penchant for things mechanical? Play a dwarf.
3. Want to be in touch with nature and magic? Play an elf.

They're worse than Jawas!

Gnomes make excellent sorcerers! The only competition they have there are humans with the favored class bonus - but I prefer gnomes with sorcery. The con bonus is a huge addition to the cha bonus for gnomes.

I had a gnome sorcerer who was a cunning linguist (gift of tongues) with maxed bluff and diplomacy (infernal) and with a handful of languages you can befriend or pursuade anyone!

Pyromaniac is awesome for a crossblooded blaster and the +1 DC for illusions comes in handy for your more sublte casters.

They're awesome sorcerers!

I have a martial artist 4/urban ranger 3 in CotCT right now who will take the rest of his levels in martial artist. He's also the party rogue, so the ranger 3 helps there (in addition to improved natural attack). He's in good shape but is just waiting for the belt of str and amulet of natural armor! I haven't had a chance to get those.

In running him, I don't think so far that he's been underpowered from a bonus feat standpoint (dodge and deflet arrows so far). I also don't think the missed feat at 8 will be missed much - you get a lot at level 8.

and the 1.5 Str mod to my natural attacks, causing power attack to buff me at a -1/+3 ratio.

This is the only bit you're doing wrong. The dragon style modifier doesn't impact the PA modifier, so you should still be at -1/+2 there.

I don't see why not. But only the initial attack would get the extra damage dice.

I agree that only the initial attack would get the extra dice, just wondering with all the restrictions on vital strike.

Thanks!

Can a vital strike which brings an opponent to zero trigger cleaving finish?

you want this rage power

Yup, body bludgeon for a level 14 titan mauler to act as one size category higher.

Anyone out there have experience with this prestige class? It seems like it might be nice for a 3 level dip for certain melee classes. In those 3 levels you gain d6 sneak, dirty fighting, a lot of class skills, and flag of convenience (good for the +2 bluff checks and no leadership penalties). The dirty fighting is nice - +2 to all combat manuevers, no improvised weapon penalties, and special crit conditions (most of which are pretty good - especially against casters).

I'm thinking it would be nice for a sword & board guy (6th level ranger, 3 level templar), which would give you the sneak on the twf as well as +2 to bull rush. It might also be good for a two weapon fighter with two weapon feint for the +2 bluff and the sneak. If you had a high-crit twf (kukris), the dirty fighting could give you a great chance to keep at least one condition on an opponent for the entire encounter - there's no save. The +2 combat manuevers is nice for several builds.

He also picks up heavy armor and martial weapons, which could be nice depending on original class. The +1 hit, damage, and will saves vs. CE outsides could be nice if you have demons in your campaign.

Mounted combat is a bit of a downside, but other than that qualification isn't difficult.

Anyway, just wondered if someone had tried it out.

James Jacobs wrote:
"Pounce works with all weapons, manufactured or not. You CAN´T take ITERATIVE ATTACKS with a pounce, of course, and in most cases that won't be an option anyway since the vast majority of creatures that have pounce are not manufactured weapon users."

While I get the argument to restrict this to natural weapons, I don't see where the iterative attacks element of this is supported in the rules anywhere. True, most critters with pounce don't have iterative attacks, but to put the "of course" in here is confusing to me. Am I missing something?

It's OK if you're in the right mindset. We had a period where we couldn't decide what we wanted to do next and nobody was itching to DM, so we went through this and swapped DMs every time we hit a new section. Some of the sections were fun, some less so. We didn't finish, but got to maybe 15th level or so.

If you have a group that can have a lot of fun with intra-party interactions you can have fun with it but it doesn't have a plot that will pull you through if you don't enjoy that sort of thing.

Yeah, you guys have hit on both sides of the thought process here and I can see both paths as reasonable. I agree it'll be a GM call until it hits the FAQ. The interest here is that a multiclassed martial artist can benefit from the ability if the second option doesn't require a check, but doesn't get much if it does (depending on levels in another class) since it scales with monk level.

And no, it's not a multiclass with barbarian!

Does the second option of this martial artist ability require the monk to make a wisdom check to be successful?

This part: A martial artist may instead use this ability as a swift action to analyze the movements and expressions of one creature within 30 feet, granting a bonus on Sense Motive checks and Reflex saves and a dodge bonus to AC against that opponent equal to 1/2 his monk level until the start of his next turn.

Huntroll wrote:

I'm planning to take Power Attack and Weapon Mastery at lvl 3, and War Sight and Improved Initiative around lvl 5-7.

Never ever take power attack unless your using it to get combat maneuvers. It is a wasted feet for a 3/4 BAB melee character. The amount of times this is useful for this type of build is very low.

Power attack is a positive dpr for this character.

Fighter (weapon master or maybe mobile fighter) with a 2-3 level dip into maneuver master monk to pick up the flurry of manuevers focused on tripping. Pick up the tripping staff series as well.

There's a feat that requires channel smite, but gives wis to hit with your deity favored weapons. Iori in golarion has unarmed strike as his.

Sense also add wis to hit.

APG halfling racial bonus gives you 1/2 stunning fists.

How does the mantis style look? Nice bonuses? Reasonable prereqs?

Are the wild-blooded abilities available using eldritch heritage? They are part of an archetype, so I would be interested to see if they are available for that particular feat chain.

Hmmm, don't know actually. I hadn't looked at it that way. It sure doesn't seem unbalancing, but I don't know if it's RAW.

Sorry to pull this thread from the dead, but what about eldritch heritage? Now normally we don't get too excited about a bloodlines' 1st level powers, but what so many folks are discussing here is essentially a filler action where you hope your summoner casts a couple of spells and spends filler actions that do something - hope the bow shot hits even if it doesn't do much damage and the like.

A handfull of the bloodlines can provide a reasonable power to fill that gap. With the summoner's CHA it should provide at least 7 uses per day.

Bedrock/Deep Earth - gives you a 30' range trip ability (decent skill focus and Iron Hide later with Bedrock)

Seaborn gives you a water blast gives you what is essentially another ranged trip ability (swim as skill focus, OK if situational later power)

Protean provides a tanglefoot bag essentially. (Planes as the skill and reality wrinkle later).

Groveborn gives you a 15' trip or disarm (nature is the skill and lush summons is the later power you can grab at 11th to add +2 natural armor to your summons)

Maestro is pretty cool. It gives you a 1 round daze limited by language (you should have a lot) and HD (you're stuck with perform as your skill but perfect voice can be nice later).

Accursed gives you horrific visage (perception! as the skill focus and dread gaze at 11th).

Primal is mildly tempting with a ray, but only because you get to add elementalist summoning at 11th (+d6 to all 5 attacks from your celestial dire tiger probably isn't necessary, but hey, why not)?

Not bad options for a master summoner.

I was trying to suggest that the master summoner, in it's role, was merely on a similar power level to the sorcerer.

I tend to look at the master summoner as a Swiss Army knife. Sure, you may have a better pair of scissors or a screwdriver in your tool drawer, but in a pinch the Swiss Army knife can get the job done. Similarly, the myriad of summons that you can whip out can meet almost any combat challenge, albeit not necessarily as effectively as a PC built to handle said challenge.

Right, this was my point as well. I had not of a summoner, without the Eidilon, as a comparative caster, but think the master summoner competes.

Also, I do agree the player needs to be well prepared to ensure quick & efficient combat with this sort of character.

I’m thinking of a master summoner from UM in the next campaign, and thinking they can be pretty competitive with a sorcerer in the spellcasting department. I did a quick glance at 2 levels – 6th & 10th, because that’s where we normally wind up in our campaigns.

Looking at 6th, both with a 19 CHA, the sorcerer spells per day are 7/6/4 with 4/2/1 known (not including bloodline). At a base the summoner is 5/4 with 4/4 known. However, if you add in the 9 summons the summoner is at 5/4/9 with 4/4/1 known. He actually casts more per day than the sorcerer (18 vs. 17). Sample lineups might look like this:

Sorcerer
1- Color spray, grease, silent image, charm person
2- Glitterdust, mirror image
3- Slow

Summoner
1- Grease, expeditious retreat, enlarge person, prot. from evil
2- Haste, slow, invisibility, gitterdust
3- Summon Monster III

At 10th they both have 20 CHA. The sorcerer now has more spells per day (32) than the summoner (28) including his summons. The sorcerer has 8/7/7/6/4 vs. the summoner’s 7/5/4/2/10. The sorcerer will know 1 more spell if you add in the bloodline. Sample lineups might look like this:

Sorcerer
1- Color spray, grease, silent image, charm person, magic missile
2- Glitterdust, mirror image, alter self, invisibility
3- Slow, summon monster III, fly
4- Dimension door, Black Tentacles
5- Telekinesis

Summoner
1- Grease, exp. retreat, enlarge person, prot. from evil, Identify
2- Haste, slow, invisibility, gitterdust, create pit
3- Black Tentacles, charm monster, fly, heroism
4- Baleful polymorph, wall of stone
5- Summon Monster V

These spell lists aren’t exactly optimized, but they’ll work at a glance. Overall it looks like the summoner can keep up here. That’s not factoring in the eidolon (which can stick around with the master summoner) or the bloodline powers and spells known. You can certainly get a lot more known spells with the human APG power, but in terms of pure summoning / battlefield control the master summoner looks good.

Thoughts?

We have a new urban-focused campaign coming up and I was thinking about a possible character - Cruise - the Vatican Warlock Assassin. We're starting @ 8th, so I thought maybe an ex-paladin 1 / witch 4 / assassin 3 might be fun (with a cat familiar named Tiger Blood of course). The downside is I can't figure out how to make such a character effective (although he'd always be winning).

He'd really get nothing from the paladin level except +1 bab and nice save. The 2 levels of witch spells are ok. I guess I just can't find a focus beyond amusement.

Any bolts of brilliance out there on how to make this guy in a manner where he'd add a bit of value?

What was your favorite PC ever created? What made your character truly unique.

NG bard who thought he was a paladin, similar to Don Quixote. He was primarily melee with longsword and shield and feats (this was 3.0 I think) centered around combat to make him at least competitive there. Well, at least not terrible.

His spells and actions were all designed to imitate paladin abilities. Cure spells to simulate lay on hands, inspire courage to imitate the paladin aura. He wouldn't do anything a paladin wouldn't do since he truly believed he was a paladin.

Unfortuately he didn't have either the paladin's saves or hit points and was killed by a green dragon.

As a dwarf you can also add the relentless racial ability, giving you a +2 racial bonus to overrun.

I’m exploring the extent to which I can make an effective dwarven bowling ball and ran across something I want to make sure I have right. Using overrun, my dwarf could move into an opponent and attempt to knock him down (or get him to move) and with improved overrun I avoid an attack of opportunity and get a little bonus. This is a standard action itself, although it could be part of a charge, and I do not make an overrun on the way to my charge opponent. This doesn’t really change with greater overrun, although I do get another bonus and my opponent provokes an AoO when I knock him down.

Now I add the charge through feat from the APG. This feat allows me to overrun an opponent on my way to my charge opponent. That’s cool, and makes sense to me. My charge opponent could be the target of a normal attack or of an overrun himself I suppose.

My bowling ball dwarf is also a barbarian and has the overbearing advance and overbearing onslaught rage powers. The first lets him do some damage on each overrun, that’s fine. The second allows me to overrun more than one target per round, with a -2 to my CMB for each overrun after the first. Cool.

So, my primary question is: would this allow the dwarf to charge an opponent 50’ away and hit any number of critters (in a straight line) along the way? Essentially that means I’m combining the charge through feat, which does specify a single opponent, to give me the charge at the end capability and overbearing onslaught, which allows me to hit multiple opponents along the way. To me the answer is a clear yes, but I want to make sure I’m not missing something.

The second question is: since I have greater overrun and all of my opponents provoke attacks of opportunity when they are knocked down, am I eligible to take those in the process of the charge? Again, I think the answer is a clear yes, but I want to make sure I’m not missing anything.

The dwarf barbarian has combat reflexes (really for come and get me) and this could make for some interesting charges.

Have fun sawing off one breast to aid in drawing your bow.

Amazons were hardcore.

As a couple of other folks have noted, there is no histrocial evidence that this was actually the case (no art, figurines, etc..) that supports the one-breast theory. The theory is based not on historical information but on the assumed meaning of the word amazon. Many believe it to mean without breast, but there are about 30 other possible meanings here.

Has anyone seen one?

I'm trying to figure out what happens to creatures that make there saves...where do they go? where can they go?

This isn't listed in the errata, but in the new printing of the APG it says reflex save to jump to the nearest open space. I (unwisely) didn't keep a copy of the original, but I think this is new.

whoops - meant to stick this in advice!

So is this fun, or dumb? I have a ftr3 / rogue4 who just leveled to 8 and I'm thinking about taking a level of wizard at 8, another fighter level, Wiz2 at level 10, and fighter thereafter.

He's a whirlwind and skirmish combatant, we have another melee in the party.

With those 2 levels of wizard I lose 1 bab, a few hp, slow down some fighter progression and fort saves.

I get +3 will, prescience 4/day, +1 initiative, always act in the surprise round, a couple of spells (true strike, vanish, enlarge person, and shield are all handy), and a crow familiar to make fun of my companions all day.

We are using feats and he did take the magical knack feat when I brought him in at 6th (replacing my now dead sorcerer). So he would some reasonable time out of vanish, shield, or enlarge person. He is a light armor wearer, so he would fail from time to time.

So, sounds like a bit of fun to me, or is it too big a hit on his melee capability?

Conan series by Howard. The new(er) Joe Abercrombie series is excellent as well. The Taltos series by Brust is really good. I also like the Fafhard and the Grey Mouser stuff by Leiber.

If the character also wields a weapon (or uses Unarmed Strike), the routine becomes:

Weapon (+6/+1), Bite (+1), Claw (+1) This is assuming one of your claws is busy holding the weapon. Add a second Claw attack (still at +1) if the weapon is held on a different limb or if you're using Unarmed Strike.

With Multiattack, the routine is Weapon (+6/+1), Bite (+4), Claw (+4)

Are you sure? On page 182 it states that all other attacks (not natural) are treated as if two weapon fighting. So you would be:(+2/-3), Bite (+1), Claw (+1)without TWF and (+4/-1), Bite (+1), Claw (+1)with the feat.

PSRD wrote:

Tree: A token that causes a great oak to spring into being (5-foot-diameter trunk, 60-foot height, 40-foot top diameter). This is an instantaneous effect.

So, what happens if you activate one of these at the feet of an enemy?

My dwarf paladin used one of these to take out a pesky flying invisible evil sorcerer one time. Detect evil to narrow down his location then - bam - your ash is mine.

Shatter defenses should work as well. Crank up the intimidate as high as you can muster and you're good to go. BAB +6.

OK. So I am working on a Half-Elf Rogue for a possible upcoming game and was looking at the alternate racial trait Ancestral Arms.

Ancestral Arms: Some half-elves receive training in an unusual weapon. Half-elves with this racial trait receive Exotic Weapon Proficiency or Martial Weapon Proficiency with one weapon as a bonus feat at 1st level. This racial trait replaces the adaptability racial trait.

So I take it if I Take this trait with say Bastard Sword I could use the Bastard Sword one handed with no penalties but if I use it two handed I would take the non proficiency penalty as I would not have the Martial Proficiency Bastard Sword. Does that sound about right? It sound a little weird to me but I believe thats how it would work.

No, you could use it fine. You're really just using a one handed weapon two-handed, which you can do with a longsword for example.

Right, that's exactly it. I like the idea, but I don't want to use it if it doesn't make sense. Considering this guy's stats, he's basically guaranteed to make shaken, and has a good chance to frighten, the entire group. Repeatedly.

Not only that, but he'll be able to keep them sickened with brutal beating - it's about the same effect as shaken, but it'll work on a paladins and other fearless folks. That's a nice ability.

FiddlersGreen wrote:

Whilst we're on the topic, with these pit spells, since they're extradimensional spaces...what happens when a character with a bag of holding falls into one? What was the rule about extradimensional spaces within extra dimensional spaces? XD

Considering the hundreds of players losing their bags of holding in a rope trick, i am pretty shure that there is no problem here.

The Bag of Holding becomes non-functional while in the pit and will work normally once he's out again.

Since you're using fire, have you considered half-orc? You can add +1/2 per level to fire damage to stack on your bloodline power. You can add enough over time to overcome a huge chuck of fire resistance and saves, although you still have a great deal of fire immunity out there.

As far as traits, the one that reduces metamagic by one level to a single spell would be nice to apply to burning hands (intensify spell) to make it pretty scalable through 10th with your bloodline and the half-orc ability. 10d4+15 @ 10th.

The trait that gives you +1 caster level for a single spell wouldn't be bad or fireball in the same way.

Blasters aren't great, and there is a ton of fire resistance/immunity out there, but this one could be fun.

Trample wrote:

Instant enemy, unless you have a great wisdom, is only available once or twice a day from 10th to 14th. Hunter's Howl is OK, but only has a 20' radius and a will save. Most rangers don't have a monster wisdom, making these options good, but not great.

I will note that Wands exist...

Indeed they do. It depends on the campaign. In my current campaign I can't seem to buy one for anything, but in other situations they're readily available.

Yeah, it's pretty cool. If you're in an environment where you're pretty certain you'll get a pile of your favored enemies, then you can augment that with instant enemy. Otherwise I really like the focus option as a very flexible approach that allows the ranger to be ready for the hard fights.

Instant enemy, unless you have a great wisdom, is only available once or twice a day from 10th to 14th. Hunter's Howl is OK, but only has a 20' radius and a will save. Most rangers don't have a monster wisdom, making these options good, but not great.