Tristram's page

It costs what a weapon or armor with that bonus costs according to the chart. +1 costs a certain amount, +2 costs a certain amount, etc....

If you have a +1 breastplate, then add an ability that 'costs' +1, then GP wise, you have a +2 armor. Add another +1 to the enchantment, or a +1 ability, and you have a +3 armor, with corresponding cost.

I do believe he's talking about the extra cost for things like energy resistance or shadow.

As far as I know these do not add on a percentile to the cost of the item in the same way as other magic items do.

Each Gauntlet needs to be enchanted alone.

Me thinks you missed some sarcasm in the previous post.

That's how the plasma aliens that live on the outer surfaces of the stars travel, on the beams of radiation emitted by the suns they've turned into quasars, beaming their consciousness from star to star, and forming new bodies of burning hydrogen plasma at their destination stars. Every decade or so, a fresh wave of 'colonists' arrive from the galactic core, and all that 'sunspot activity' that interferes with our telecommunications is a wave of vast alien intelligences reduced to pure energy passing through us on the way to the sun.

Sometimes, while washing across the earth, on the way to our sun, bits and pieces of them will get 'tangled up' for a brief time with the electromagnetic fields of people they are passing through, leading to all sorts of unusual events, ranging from simple hallucinations to out of body or extrasensory events to spontaneous human combustion.

This sounds like the premise of a Phillip K. Dick story, but as to which one it is eludes me. Perhaps one of the later ones from right before he died?

<Wanders off to check his books>

I vote for either Blight or Scourge. Both mean roughly the same thing and convey a sense of dread. Alternatively, I believe Pernicies means ruin or bane in latin.

I'm running RotRL right now and there is a gnome cavalier riding a wolf that I get to deal with. In the open shes a wrecking balls and the party makes the choice to try and keep space open for her. She has learned that sometimes she has to dismount or accept that she can't charge, which is something she was warned about.

I recommend what Silent Saturn said, try to open up the map and corridors a bit more and throw the occasional outdoor/open area fight their way. Just remind them that like rangers and paladins, they can't always get to use their nifty class features.

If you want a survivable lore-keeper sort of character, a finesse based Lore Warden is also a decent option (either an Agile weapon or Dervish Dance is your friend here). You could even lead into Duelist off of it.

Wands of Phantom Steed and a few ranks in UMD, playing small-sized characters with mounts who can enter more places, or even having your mount use the squeezing mechanic are all ways around that particular issue. The -4 to AC for squeezing is usually counter-acted by the Mounted Combat feat, and mechanically, there's really not that many places you can't squeeze a combat trained horse into.

Personal opinion here: Not a fan of wand summoned phantom steeds in combat, 18 AC and only 12 HP are not worth the effort to me.

Small sized characters are fun when mounted, that is true. But for all the medium characters they have to deal with squeezing (-4 Atk, -4 AC and doubled movement cost(that phantom steed would have 14 AC, and could move 25 feet a round)), space issues, and the inability to use those nifty charge bonuses because they have to pass through ally's spaces.

Funky Badger wrote:

Mounted combat doesn't give you more full attacks and the other two options are high-level and class specific.

Cleave and great cleave do absolute nothing about granting you more full attacks.

Mounted combat (the combat type, not the feat) absolutely gives you more full attacks. You're using your mounts action to move and can full attack with ranged weapons without any special feats or abilities, and can full attack with melee weapons as soon as you qualify for Mounted Skirmisher. It's one of the reasons the Sohei archetype is so good (can take Mounted Skirmisher at 1st level) and one of the reasons that rangers and cavaliers who focus on ranged combat can be so effective.

Cleave and Great Cleave don't grant you more Full Attacks, but I never claimed they did. I said "cleave and great cleave can be used to generate additional attacks on par with full attacking" which they can under the right circumstances.

But a very important thing about Mounted Combat is this: it requires a mount. Yes mounted combat is often better than Vital Strike, but not indoors/caves/tunnels, in flight, or simply when you because you never bought a horse because it'd die at the sight of what you fight past level eight.

If you find yourself moving a lot and don't have a build that allows for pounce, mounts, or "skirmisher shenanigans" then Vital Strike, while not great, isn't a terrible choice.

Out of curiosity, is there a specific build that you are going for here? Something like Monk 1/<Class without relevant bonus feats> X or just asking for curiosity's sake?

Sadly you can't get the best of both worlds here. FoB abilities only trigger when using FoB as it is its own special action, TWF can't be tied in to or play off of it.

Edit: Misread something in your response, so I removed my response to that.

Nope. FoB says "as if using two-weapon fighting", what you really want/need is the feat to be granted to you.

How do you mean "avoiding having to take double slice"? I assume you are considering the full strength bonus to offhand FoB attacks. If you flurry with both weapons, you get full Str on both attacks. TWF however, will require the feat investment. You're pretty much stuck either going all the way with monk or going the full feat route if you want all the extra attacks.

Our in-house, not-for-public-use Excel spreadsheet that handles most of the math and layout of building a stat block.

I see what you did there.

As someone who is looking at finally typing up one or more of his homebrew ideas in modules and/or settings this sort of clarification is fantastically useful.

Are you looking to post more on designer related subjects in the future?

Edit: Or should it be "designer-related"?

Considering Clouded explicitly limits your vision, I imagine it's a pretty hard one to circumvent. I would say limiting everyone else to your circumstances is the best option. Like Scythia said "Wand of Darkness" or grab anything that can negate/avoid those pesky ranged attacks from targets you cannot see. (Is it just me or does sneak attack really destroy Cloudy Vision oracles? (assuming you have one of the class features or magic items that extends SA's range)

Side note: I feel like I've read several posts on the forums saying the cloudy vision curse isn't that bad, but I really can't agree with that opinion. Anyone else's thoughts?

Edit: @Serisan: That's a good one, I forget Deepsight exists sometimes.

My personal opinion with the flaws is that while yes, some are worse than others, this is true with any archetype/class comparison. I do think that some will need clarification/restriction (dependency for example needs a narrowed down list to avoid a certain amount of ridiculousness (limiting "blood dependency" to "blood of others" to eliminate people cutting themselves and drinking in a pinch)).

Item Dependency: Your mythic abilities stem not from within, but from a mystical tie to an object. This may be your father's sword, an heirloom locket, or the bullet pulled from your skull when you were raised from the dead. Whatever it is, its hold on you is absolute. You must keep this object on your person at all times (and not in an extra-dimensional space). If you are ever deprived of the item for more than 1 round, you lose access to all of your mythic abilities. Once chosen, this item cannot change.

If your item is destroyed, you are permanently deprived of your mythic tiers. If the destroyed item is ever restored (a sundered amulet reunited, shards of your broken sword reforged), your powers return.

Mythic Code: Your mythic power is reliant on your ability to uphold a code; be it a personal set of rules and restrictions or the religious code of a deity. Regardless of the origin, your powers are dependent on your ability to adhere to these strictures. You must design a code of conduct with your GM which must have at least four points to uphold. They may not already be tenents that you must uphold to maintain other normal class abilities (such as a paladin's code or a knight's order code), but are restrictions in addition to them (though these codes themselves make for good inspiration.) If you ever violate a point of your code, you lose access to your mythic abilities for one day per mythic tier (or until you receive an atonement.)

I have to say, I really like both of these as options. The first definitely suits something like a bladebound/kensai magus or a swordsaint and the second tailors well to themes present in clerics, paladins and even witches.

Fetchling COULD be acceptable. They're basically humans evolved to live in the plane of shadow. The pic on the pfsrd shows one with a mask.

They are essentially a race of goths (the Sisters of Mercy kind, not the pillage of Rome kind).

This made me laugh way more than I should have.

I second the "genie" races (Sulis) as being doable if you're willing to allow the planar races. Fetchlings aren't too bad to pull off, especially considering that aside from their eyes they look rather like they are sick humans. Some go so far as to dye their hair black or red.

The ARG lists Tengu as a not uncommon species often living in ghettos near/in larger human settlements. My view is that if people can stand to live with anthropomorphic crows, they can stand to live near other non-monstrous humanoids.

Tristram wrote:

As a citizen on Minnesota I was unbelievably cheerful this morning after I awoke to find out that we voted no to both constitutionally banning gay marriage and requiring ID for voters (I have a 91 year old grandmother who would be sorely inconvenienced by a solution to a problem that is largely nonexistent).

Maybe the next step will be to removing the legislature that still bans gay marriage and actually allow those friends of mine who are to vote.

You're not Crimson Jester!

Pardon?

As a citizen on Minnesota I was unbelievably cheerful this morning after I awoke to find out that we voted no to both constitutionally banning gay marriage and requiring ID for voters (I have a 91 year old grandmother who would be sorely inconvenienced by a solution to a problem that is largely nonexistent).

Maybe the next step will be to removing the legislature that still bans gay marriage and actually allow those friends of mine who are to vote.

If we are including all the resources at their disposal then yeah, it does narrow it down quite a bit. But then again, what time period? That does make all the difference considering neither's rule overlapped the other.

Assuming some crazy vortex ripped both them and their holdings into another plane (Ravenloft?!) and they ended up duking it out, I would agree that the odds swing closer towards Karzoug. Yes I know Tar-Baphon had hordes of orcs, but how many is that? Karzoug had armies of enhanced giants at his disposal (and disposal is a very accurate word here).

Then again, being wizards they could probably sidestep the opposing forces and bring things face to face if need be. What's the worse that could happen? The Whispering Tyrant loses and reforms near his phylactery having learned his opponents weaknesses? (Albiet, this does give Karzoug some time to make strategical decisions/locate the phylactery while Tar-Baphon's forces are leaderless)

Tristram wrote:

@Rathendar: Only 24? This disappoints me. Leska weighed in at a hefty CR 28.

To be fair to Paizo, when the product was made Mythic has not been announced and APL+4 is basically the highest encounter block their system 'reasonably' supports. so 20+4 would give the 24. the '+' is the designers saying "well, campaign needs vary, but he should be at the absolute minimum 'this'." If you were to ask James Jacobs this question now,(and he had a solid decision in place) i suspect that number would probably go up by a couple points.

On the flip side, defeating a Herald is a feat that you would ascribe to one at the pinnacle of attainable power. (being a level 20 character fits that criteria.) When you look at the Heralds of the deities in the various AP's they appear in they tend to be CR15+.

In retrospect the "+" in 24+ does account for exceeding the CR max that Pathfinder has, but after you've been awake for 18 hours you tend to miss certain small details like that. It also doesn't help that while Leska is ridiculous BBEG (cleric 3/wizard 3/mystic theurge 10/hierophant 1/archmage 5/loremaster 2/ thaumaturge 4 with regenerate 30), I always imagined Tar-Baphon as being well past her. The not having epic rules still throws me off, even having played Pathfinder for 2 years now.

Tristram wrote:

The Tyrant by far. He died at the hands of a god, then managed to come back as a lich after the fact. Following that he held off numerous crusades until an artifact wrecked him and then he was still so powerful that the best anyone could do was imprison him.

Karzoug on the other hand had more of his power simply from ruling a country and enslaving giants.

I would guess that both are level 20 wizards, but Tar-Baphon is a lich and probably had some mythic powers happening too, whereas Special K sits middle of the pack among Runelords (http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2mcd6?Runelord-Sorshen-Spoilers#7).

Sounds like my forgotten realms half drow wizard20epic10 archmage 4. He slew a Manshoon clone, the zulkir of evocation for the nation of Thay,ensorcelled and impregnated the simbul, backed down Szass Tam and Elminster on seperate occasions and destroyed 2 armies in 2 different wars, one in the silver marches and the other in the skies over the plain of giants. HE WAS EPIC!

The Wiz5/M.Spec10/Arch5 my buddy ran in my WotBS campaign what heading down this sort of path and no doubt would have done something along those lines had the campaign continued past level 20.

As a special treat to my players I will have him in place of the Runelord of Sloth when/if the party makes it to/through my post RotR plans.

@Rathendar: Only 24? This disappoints me. Leska weighed in at a hefty CR 28.

The Tyrant by far. He died at the hands of a god, then managed to come back as a lich after the fact. Following that he held off numerous crusades until an artifact wrecked him and then he was still so powerful that the best anyone could do was imprison him.

Karzoug on the other hand had more of his power simply from ruling a country and enslaving giants.

I would guess that both are level 20 wizards, but Tar-Baphon is a lich and probably had some mythic powers happening too, whereas Special K sits middle of the pack among Runelords (http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2mcd6?Runelord-Sorshen-Spoilers#7).

Edit: I also forgot that the Tyrant killed Arazni, the herald of Aroden.

Phantasm: A phantasm spell creates a mental image that usually only the caster and the subject (or subjects) of the spell can perceive. This impression is totally in the minds of the subjects. It is a personalized mental impression, all in their heads and not a fake picture or something that they actually see. Third parties viewing or studying the scene don’t notice the phantasm. All phantasms are mind-affecting spells.

The fact that True Seeing allows you to see through illusions and that phantasms are entirely within the minds of the target makes me believe that Ughbash is correct.

My play group(s) seem to hover around the 6 round mark for combat ending or being in the wrap-up stage. When the party hits into those optimal situations (no ambushes, clear battlefield, no huge distance) the battles can be over in 2-4 (huzzah for barbarians and cavaliers?). I lean towards the 3 round mark being a good idea to aim for when building a fight and sometimes wonder if developers either only occasionally use that rule of thumb or use it when picking the monsters, but forget about other modifiers (terrain, length of the adventuring day, etc.)

At the same time though, this short fight concept can ignore what an enemy caster can do to the party. A single entangle spell cast in a recent 3.5 session added 13 rounds to the fight.

The longest fight before that involved the party fighting an unholy red dragon wearing a mask woven from 3 litches, with a guard of polearm wielding gargoyle rogues nested atop his clock tower. That took 15 rounds in game and over 6 HOURS of real time and that was with a party of a Conjurer/M.Spec/Archmage, Warmage, Rogue, Archer/OotBI, and a Cleric/Warlock/Eld. Disciple.

Sometimes things never go the PC's way, sometimes your players actually work in unison.

Tristram wrote:

Anyways, I take issue with DA not affecting guns that are within their touch range, but boosting ones past that point.

"I can't hit you in your weakspot when you're within 20 ft of me, but by the gods when I finish backpedaling you will suffer!"

Early Firearms: When firing an early firearm, the attack resolves against the target’s touch AC when the target is within the first range increment of the weapon, but this type of attack is not considered a touch attack for the purposes of feats and abilities such as Deadly Aim. At higher range increments, the attack resolves normally, including taking the normal cumulative –2 penalty for each full range increment. Unlike other projectile weapons, early firearms have a maximum range of five range increments.

I have must have missed that bolded bit god only knows how many times. Now I feel stupid for bringing it up.

wraithstrike wrote:

The 3.5 wraithstrike spell would jack people up. It was a 2nd level spells, and all melee attacks became melee touch, and you could still power attack.

It was pretty nice alongside another low-level spell (the name escapes me at the moment), which allowed you to make all your melee attacks at a 30 ft range :)

In the last 3.5 campaign I was in I ran a Wizard 4/Warblade 6/Jade Phoenix Mage 10. Extended Wraith Strike + Greater Invisibility leading into a next turn Avalanche of Blades and Lightning Recovery to keep it going on that first miss. I took down two different BBEGs by hitting them 11+ times with a greatsword.

I miss that character...

Anyways, I take issue with DA not affecting guns that are within their touch range, but boosting ones past that point.

"I can't hit you in your weakspot when you're within 20 ft of me, but by the gods when I finish backpedaling you will suffer!"

I would think that a Lore Warden would have a decent shot at being a swashbuckler, just a more intelligent one. You're almost certainly playing a LW as a Dex/Int build. You can disarm, trip, and dirty fight to your heart's content while possibly working towards going into Duelist.

Skills are still a bit of an issue, but if you were oh, say, a human with 14 Int and were willing to put your favored class points into skills you would be getting 6/level with an additional 2 for Int based skills.

I find myself making frequent use of phone apps to reference. Even with prep and owning all the hardcovers, there is often just too much going on in most sessions to cover adequately without killing off a small forest for notes and printouts.

Also, keep in mind that your players can't see the stat block. If you do something wrong, they won't know. Focus on making the fight fun instead of perfectly using the monsters.

This should be in big letters inside the cover of every AP, with a footnote stating "*Unless likely to TPK"

Regenerating creatures cannot be killed by while their regeneration is active, someone would need to suppress it with whatever overcomes it (fire, acid, etc.) for the kill to be possible.

For the concentration checks, I've heard this two ways:
A)You make two concentration checks, one for grapple and another for casting defensively.

B) Make one concentration check using all the modifiers added together (so a defensive grappled casting would be 15+twice spell level+grapplers CMB).

I favor A as the casting rules list the concentration situations separately.

As for your grappling situation, it's a perfectly valid tactic. If you don't want to deal with letting the monk feel useful/necessary every fight, toss in some larger opponents, some flying opponents, some opponents who are on fire, etc. I recommend you give them chances to use the tactic, but don't be afraid to make them try for it slightly,

If I remember correctly unless a spell's effects specifically says it doesn't, it will stack, so long as it isn't a "typed" (morale, luck, profane, etc) modifier.

Brotato wrote:

Dust Raven wrote:

Yep, I'd love to see a mage popping out and leaving behind all his clothes and gear while appearing somewhere else naked.

But yeah, you can use teleport spells and similar abilities to teleport out of binds grapples and entanglements. The fact dimension door doesn't have any somatic or material components makes this really really easy too.

It's just as hard to cast DD in a grapple as it is any spell.

Incorrect.

PRD wrote:

Grappling or Pinned: The only spells you can cast while grappling or pinned are those without somatic components and whose material components (if any) you have in hand. Even so, you must make a concentration check (DC 10 + the grappler's CMB + the level of the spell you're casting) or lose the spell.

Only if the spell does not have any somatic components at all and only if you have any material components ACTIVELY HELD IN HAND (not in your spell component pouch) can you even attempt to cast a spell. Since dimension door has neither of these components, it can be cast simply by making the concentration check.

It is possible he was just referring to the increased concentration check that all spells castable in grapple get.

Sneaking an alchemist army into a castle/town/tower/etc. via a bag of holding?

...after I took that arrow to the knee I swore them off. (It had to be said)

...that's what the wizard is here for.

...I forgot to buy more ammunition for it.

Ooph, I can see why one would drop out then. It is a shame that something like a friendly pastime would end up triggering that. But I suppose as long as everything turned out right for him and between you two afterwards, all is well.

Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition is great, the group I am DMing is only into book 3, but are having a grand time. We've had no deaths, but enough close calls and scary situations to keep the PCs alert and interested.

Carrion Crown had a great premise, but in my opinion it starts to fall apart the farther you go through it. If you play the books as individual modules they are interesting and fun, but otherwise it's a lot of "your princess is in another castle/follow the ever distant villain" crap. Also, this can be a rough one for less experienced/optimized groups. We played through the first two books and had six deaths among four players before they finished book 1. The only reason two people survived the final fight was because one ran away and hid for part of it while the other two who were still alive fought on, only for the coward to return in time to let off a single magic missile.

I've heard good things about Jade Regent, but have not read my copies as I passed them to someone else who intends to run it.

As for non-Paizo APs: I've been through War of the Burning Sky twice, once as DM and once as a player. It was quite fun, but occasionally had frustrating moments for the DM and/or player when it came to information the party could/would miss. If you run this, read through the beast of a book once and take lots of notes.

By large range weapons do you mean "Ranged weapons that are large sized? If so, yes. Here is the rules text from d20pfsrd.

"Inappropriately Sized Weapons: A creature can't make optimum use of a weapon that isn't properly sized for it. A cumulative –2 penalty applies on attack rolls for each size category of difference between the size of its intended wielder and the size of its actual wielder. If the creature isn't proficient with the weapon, a –4 nonproficiency penalty also applies."

Edit: This also applies though:

"The measure of how much effort it takes to use a weapon (whether the weapon is designated as a light, one-handed, or two-handed weapon for a particular wielder) is altered by one step for each size category of difference between the wielder's size and the size of the creature for which the weapon was designed. For example, a Small creature would wield a Medium one-handed weapon as a two-handed weapon. If a weapon's designation would be changed to something other than light, one-handed, or two-handed by this alteration, the creature can't wield the weapon at all."

I am not 100% sure on this, but it is probably that a +X bonus from a trait is considered a +X trait bonus, which means they would not stack (such as how enhancement bonuses and morale bonuses do not).

Edit: I took so long to hit post that I got ninja's. I also found the rules excerpt:

"Many traits grant a new type of bonus: a “trait” bonus. Trait bonuses do not stack—they’re intended to give player characters a slight edge, not a secret backdoor way to focus all of a character’s traits on one type of bonus and thus gain an unseemly advantage. It’s certainly possible, for example, that somewhere down the line, a “Courageous” trait might be on the list of dwarf race traits, but just because this trait is on both the dwarf race traits list and the basic combat traits list doesn’t mean you’re any more brave if you choose both versions than if you choose only one."

I have to say I find it a shame that the player dropped from the campaign, the most reaction the horror elements drew from my characters has been "Oh my god!" and a hand to the mouth from one of our female players (Ironic in that she still seemed to have some idea that she could seduce back Aldern).

As for the bearer of the Sword, that seems like a grand idea! We had a bard (daredevil archetype) who dropped and I keep trying to incorporate the character back in, but haven't figured out how yet.

You say they are in book 6 pf an AP? So many options then! With a highly caster-centric party relying on mass buffing you have quite a few choices:

A) Thousand Mook Swarm: This basically relies on you throwing a spread out group of lower level enemies to fight the team, with a couple keen-eyed and keen-witted commanders to point out who is the powerhouses among your PC's. Stoneskin can only shunt so much damage at a time, and a couple lower leveled casters mixed in can help screen/buff for the mooks (how many arrows can a hasted level 6 fighter fire off?)

B) As Tonyz showed, Antimagic! (Also known as, enjoy being a commoner mister wizard): This can be a good route for making your party have to react on their feet. A magus with Dimensional Agility and Spell Blending or a scroll can teleport near a wizard and cast Antimagic Field, then trip mister wizard when he tries to flee. Other options include Arcane Archers with Antimagic Field, you can shoot AMFs around the battlefield then. (Be careful with this though, too many Antimagic Fields can have such side-effects as rage quitting, table flipping, or punching-the-dm-in-the-face syndrome.)

C)Golems: Huzzah for magic immunity! Nuff' said

D) Talk to them: I really shouldn't post this last, as it is the first thing you should do. Find out what the sourcerer and bard aren't doing that is putting them behind or what specifically the others are doing that's putting themselves ahead.

You mentioned mass buffing, but how are actual enemies being taken down? Dragons and outsiders tend not to lose to a wizard flexing his well buffed arms (unless they die laughing). If the Wizard and Witch are buffing so much, how many encounters are they going through a day? How many slots are not being eaten up here? Is your Bard getting to inspire a bunch of wizards or are they summoning a horde of creatures for him to lead into battle.

That was one of the ideas my friend I were talking about if we updated the old PrC, but decided we wanted a full class instead.

@Toastwolf: You're right, maybe I should change things away so I don't steal too much of the monk's thunder.

The Halfling favored class bonus increases the number of stunning fists by 1/2, not the DC. As far as I know the mantis style feat and ability focus are the only two.

I would be hesitant before putting forth Carrion Crown for new players, the first book can be fiendishly hard to deal with unless you have a cleric or paladin, not to mention the awfulness that the last fight in book 2 presents.

Now that I'm home I'll add a bit more to this. Bear in mind I'm not really set on any of these yet.

Class Skill: Acrobatics

Bonus Spells: Expeditious Retreat(3rd), Bull's Strength (5th), Haste (7th), Dim. Door (9th), <I'm not sure here> (11th), Heroism, Greater (13th), <I'm not sure here> (15th), Iron Body (17th), Fiery Body (19th)

Bonus Feats: Combat Reflexes, Deflect Arrows, Dodge, Mobility, Skill Focus (Acrobatics), Snatch Arrows, Sorcerous Bloodstrike, Toughness.

Arcana: Cha to AC, but no more than sourcerer level. Uses usual monk AC limitations. IUS as bonus feat too.

1st: 3+Cha/day: FoB using sourcerer proficiencies and level in place of Monk proficiencies and level.

3rd: Unarmed damage equal to his monk level-4 (minimum 1st) and counts as a monk of 4 levels lower for qualifying for feats.

9th: Purity of Body

15th: Quivering Palm (with the DC using Cha)

20th: Perfect Self

---

For an archetype I've run into a conundrum: Why use a sourcerer archetype when a magus archetype would fit better? I can't help but feel that a monk/caster should be able to use spells during FoB, which then basically becomes Spell Combat. And Arcane Pool definitely fits as a Ki Pool replacement. I figure I'll start with a Kensai chassis and modify it from there.

I was discussing updating one of the old monk/arcane PrCs with a friend and came to the decision that it would be interesting to have it simply for a 1-20 sourcerer.

My problem is that I'm not sure how I would approach it, I could have it as a bloodline (humans have one for being descendant from kings and emperors, so why not?), as an archetype, or as both (having the archetype play off of the bloodline and strengthen it in exchange for lessened spellcasting).

I have a vague idea for the bloodline so far in, but does anyone have any thoughts regarding what should or should be used?

Current bloodline concept:

Arcana: Cha to AC, but no more than sourcerer level. Uses usual monk AC limitations. IUS as bonus feat too.

1st: 3+Cha/day: FoB using sourcerer proficiencies and level in place of Monk level.

3rd: Unarmed damage equal to monk level-3 (minimum 1st)

Aaaaand that's all I've got so far in. I'll probably have the bonus feats for monks as part of the bloodline feats.

I endured DMing with a player playing a VoP Warmage from levels 4-20 in War of the Burning Sky. It got to the point where I allowed him to take the metamagics from the book for his character as he had run out of bonus feat choices. He managed to end the campaign with the most total HP and a Cha in the 30's.

The original Exile games by Spiderweb Software. You even had to type in questions for the NPC and I took to jotting down notes about what to ask certain people when I finally got around to the town they were in. Of course, this meant that the PC's personalities exists only in your mind, but it's an old game so it doesn't really bother me.

The game was also about as open sandbox as you could get, you quite seriously start the game having arrived in a cavern world as an exile from the surface and are told to wander off, fending for yourself.

That depends on your DM/playing group. VoP isn't just VoP, it's also all those bonus feats that it grants. It could be decent in 3.5 with the right class, but could also be horribly weak or powerful (wildshape was a fantastic pairing). And needing to have items, but never being able to use them can really be problematic at times (work this out with your GM first!)

Tristram wrote:

My gf and I have been all over this game the last couple days. As sad as I am to see the new siren lose phasewalk and give it to the assassin, phaselock is just sooooooooo good (and now I have team healing abilities too, so I can't really complain).

I was a little tired of all the times I got killed when my friend used phasewalk, in B1. Looking forward to returning the favour in B2. ;)

It's amazing how the Siren went from a very isolated alpha striker sort of class in BL1 to having a strong set of team support abilities in BL2.

That would be some very classy looking armor. I can imagine bards everywhere would want a set.

It would be rather entertaining to see a stegosaurus covered in piercing, tattoos, and mystic scars. Even without the racial ability, I would consider doing that with my wildshape.

Having read this I can't help but imagine tiny creatures wearing fairy dragon armor. That or someone harvesting enough fairy dragon scales to make armor for a small or medium character. (Fairy dragon farming?)