Blast Shadow

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I believe The Entomancer in Thunderscape will provide what you're looking for.


Found it under the Master Chymist prestige class. Shame you've gotta be 16th level though.


Orthos wrote:

The full casting classes don't need the help. The Talented Class line is thus far mainly about boosting up the classes that are lagging. And Druid is anything but - it's easily one of the best classes in the game, up with Cleric and Wizard.

Sorcerer with its delayed casting and extremely limited class abilities seems to be an exception, and Witch by special request.

Yeah I know I'd just love to see what the Geniuses would do with it. I've absolutely loved everything they've done so far. I'd go so far as to say these would adequately replace the core and base classes in any campaign.


Not a single vote for Druid? Whaaaaaaaaat.

I skimmed the thread so if you said "no druid votes" I missed it.


Permanency Prestidigitation, I believe.

A scroll of that would not be expensive. It's a 0th level spell so maybe, what, 20gp? It's purely fluff so I wouldn't think it'd require much.


Ahh, I see what you're saying about that one. Luckily I can still prepare actual arcane polymorph spells and use it that way. In fact I can mix and match using Natural Spell if need be. Wild Shape and then use Polymorph spells if I need to change to something else in the middle of the fight, to conserve both spells and WS uses.


For instance Shapeshifting Mastery, of the Archmage path.

Shapeshifting Mastery wrote:
Your ability to magically adopt other forms is unparalleled, and you can expertly translate your arcane might into brawn. You add half your tier to the caster level of spells or extracts from the polymorph subschool. While under the effects of a spell or extract of the polymorph subschool, you can use your caster level instead of your base attack bonus when making natural attacks that rely on your new form.

It says it affects extracts, which are (Su) abilities of Alchemists. Wild Shape is a (Su) ability of Druids.

Why would it affect one and not the other.


Ahh, just realized that. Luckily hierophant will grant access to wild shape at the proper level, stacking as long as you have at least one druid level. So it'd be more like Druid 3/Wiz 1/Hierophant 10/MT 6. 19th level druid, 17th level wizard, 13th level wild shaping. 17th level wild shape when you take into account Shaping Focus. This will also offset the Quick Wild Shape penalty from swift action wildshaping.

Wild shape itself isn't a spell, but it specifically says it functions as per those spells. That's where the confusion hits me.

Plus it's a mythic path ability, so it'd make sense if it affected wild shape.


The spells emulated by Wild Shape are all of the Polymorph subschool, so why wouldn't they count?

Half Elves have a Drow Magic racial that allows early entry for MT, I'll just go druid 4 to get wild shape. It'll end up something like druid 4/wizard 1/hierophant 10/MT 5.


This campaign isn't for a long while now but I wonder what you guys think and maybe you'll help me make a decision.

As it stands I plan on going Half Elf Druid/Void Wizard/Arcane Hierophant/Mystic Theurge, for the stacking Wild Shape levels and reaching 9th level casting in both classes.

I haven't figured stats yet but I'm pretty sure we're 20 point buy.

I love the Void school because Reveal Weakness is pretty damn nasty with no save and it's keyed off of your caster level.

This will be our final campaign, according to our DM. We're doing a full level 20/mythic tier 10 in a Wrath of the Righteous campaign.

I plan on going Champion/Archmage dual path, focusing on the different polymorph Archmage abiliies (Lose a minute from a polymorph school spell to change into something else? Yeah that's basically at-will Wild Shape. Plus that one path ability that uses your caster level as your BAB when wild shaped)

How effective do you think this character will be? How would you set up the stat block and feats? It could easily go in either direction. I know I'll want Shaping Focus and Natural Spell. I've considered maybe a level of Ranger for Shapeshifting Hunter (definitely taking Evil Outsider as a Favorted Enemy, we will be in the Worldwound after all) as well as a level or two of Talented Monk for the boosted natural attack damage.


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This isn't mine but I love it so much I have it in my favorites.


Not a bad plan, and I agree with Energy Ray if that's the direction he wants to stick with.

My issue with Wilders (even Student ones) is how limited their power list is. To me that, along with the 3/4ths BAB, makes the class more viable as a switch hitter, like a druid, as opposed to a straight caster.

I kinda wish the Wilder could rearrange their powers known every morning, like a Vitalist can. I vaguely remember an archetype that gives that ability, if memory serves. But there was something about the archetype that I disliked too.

(Looks it up)

Here we are. The Contemplative.

It's nice but it all but gives up Wild Surge entirely, replacing it with the Overchannel line of feats and losing the Surge Bond completely.


How attached are you to the Student's Surge? Because I've gone through that list and honestly a Raging Wilder can get very scary.

I plan on playing one in an upcoming campaign, using Expanded Knowledge and such to gain the Metamorphosis line of powers.


Tanglefoot Bag to really ruin his day, followed by several SAs due to him being flat-footed.

Even if he makes his save against the bag, his movement is still halved. 10ft is practically walking.

Since he hasn't already attempted to kill you, he's all talk. Take the initiative and kill him.

Then when his next character happens to be a vengeful brother of his old character that happens to kill rogues as a hobby, quit the table.


I went the other route with mine and kept them in a Bag of Holding. It's somewhat expensive but you might be able to afford it by the time you hit Animate Dead spell levels.


Thanks Don! Hopefully someone will answer your question with this bump, as I haven't a clue. I always just figured the rule was under Animate Dead as it is with many spells.


That's what I really liked about the alignment change in the original Juju mystery. A LE intelligent minion is more likely to take orders than a NE minion, with or without forced control. It's got some wiggle room as far as DM fiat and such.


If a Graveknight uses its Undead Mastery ability:

Undead Mastery wrote:
As a standard action, a graveknight can attempt to bend any undead creature within 50 feet to its will. The targeted undead must succeed at a Will save or fall under the graveknight's control. This control is permanent for unintelligent undead; an undead with an Intelligence score is allowed an additional save every day to break free from the graveknight's control. A creature that successfully saves cannot be affected again by the same graveknight's undead mastery for 24 hours. A graveknight can control 5 Hit Dice of undead creatures for every Hit Die it has. If the graveknight exceeds this number, the excess from earlier uses of the ability becomes uncontrolled, as per animate dead.

Does it create a separate pool of controlled undead as opposed to the regular pool a caster would have? I assume the answer would be no, but the Undead Mastery ability is a (Su) ability and not a (Sp) ability which kinda flummoxes (wow when do you ever get to say that word in a sentence) my entire line of thinking.


Both zombies and skeletons become weak before you're able to create the stronger undead. Practice using them a little differently. One skeleton grappling with five other skeletons gets a +10 bonus. To keep things simple and not having to bug my DM every time we kill something, I just use the skeleton example listed on the PFSRD. Also invest in Bloody Skeletons and Fast Zombies. They're the best for the early levels. Eventually I'll slap Burning onto the Bloody and maybe Plague with the Fast, although the latter will be more flavorful than anything else. Zombie Rot doesn't work so well against stuff you don't plan on letting live for the 1d4 hour onset. Once you hit Create Greater though, with Juju, your undead minions will KEEP THEIR CLASS LEVELS. This will be a total game changer. You just have to watch it because your control cap will be hit that much faster. Thankfully the Juju mystery raises that cap by 2hd per class level, totaling 60hd of undead controlled at level 10.


This is my homebrew mystery that I'm using. It got some flak on the forums but so far I'm not overly powerful as the party buffer and indirect healer and crowd controller and flanking buddy. My next goal is to load up zombies with potions to pour on people to take advantage of my action economy while letting the wounded use theirs.

But it can be abused, so consult your DM if you think my Death mystery is right for you.


Damn it appears the Spirit Vessels revelation has been revised to no longer change the alignment of created undead. But you can talk to your DM to put it back in since what made them change it was the removal of the Evil descriptor and you're gonna be evil anyway.


Resentment wrote:
Xein wrote:

Playing one myself in the same campaign, may I suggest getting a Bag of Holding as soon as you can. It's a pain to have your minions taking up all the room on the board and above the board.

I actually worked out a deal with my DM so I can only take out so many zombies and skellies at once but it negates the ability to turn the bag inside out and having an overwhelming horde all at once.

What kind of necromancer are you playing?

I'm playing an Oracle with a homebrew Mystery that fit my character concept better than Bones or Juju did. I'd suggest Juju though if you're going that route. Knowing who you'll be working for, it's in your best interest to have LE undead. The rest of the mystery just didn't fit my concept.


Playing one myself in the same campaign, may I suggest getting a Bag of Holding as soon as you can. It's a pain to have your minions taking up all the room on the board and above the board.

I actually worked out a deal with my DM so I can only take out so many zombies and skellies at once but it negates the ability to turn the bag inside out and having an overwhelming horde all at once.


Might I also suggest taking a look at the Quickwood. 10ft. speed and a reach of 60ft., making speed much less important.


If you can choose 3rd party classes, I'd suggest the Mighty Godling.


Another fun druid strategy for later levels is to wildshape into an air elemental, then Whirlwind and move your full 100ft in the same round, making the whole area do one or two reflex saves or be effectively useless if they can't fly. Then the next round cast a standard action spell and still move through everyone again. While still rolling for summons and animal companion.


I'd suggest a druid honestly. You're more than able to provide support with spontaneous summons and your animal companion, both of which provide indirect healing (every hit they take are hits that the party doesn't need healed) as well as flanking support.

Plus you're entangling the field and holding mobs in place for the sorcerer to blast as well as other crowd control.

Also wildshaping into some rat or small animal can provide some much needed scouting.


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mplindustries wrote:
Juju Oracle is the way to go--their undead match their alignment.

Be careful with this. My DM just showed me some book where they completely removed all undead aspects of the Juju mystery and replaced them with Summon Nature's Ally stuff. I'm not sure if it's forthcoming errata or what.

As for justifying undead, it's up to your DM. If they can let you flavor it by saying your raised undead are purely magical entities and not the raised deceased loved ones of the neighboring village then I don't see why not.

Another possibility is ONLY raising evil-aligned targets as penance for their deeds while they were alive, that may work.


A Gravewalker Witch comes to mind. My first thought was Juju Oracle but that prolly wouldn't work.


Oh and Samsaran for the awesome racial and favored class bonus.


It depends on your character concept. I'm also playing a Graveknight Oracle necromancer in the vein of The Lich King.

I had to homebrew my own mystery but that was just me. Winter Juju and Bones are all decent.


I haven't seen any reason that you couldn't make a spell-gorged zombie with Animate Dead.

They're mindless so that covers that. They get to technically keep class hit die (but not abilities and the die switch to d8s) so they're definitely a goto for a low level minion maker that just finished off an enemy caster and wants more than just a bloody burning skeleton with low HP.


Yeah I love the curse addition. Curse of Magic Negation is meannnnnnnn.

Have you guys played a Wilder at all?


Does the extra pool not make it worth it?


Thoughts? I was going to be a Wilder in an upcoming campaign but I read that guide on the Hexcrafter and it really started to change my mind.

Unfortunately I haven't really seen either in action, so I was hoping that maybe someone from here would be able to provide feedback on the two different classes.

Thanks!


And the shadow spells greatly compliment an undead master because they're immune. You can throw a shadow fireball into a crowd of undead and they'd laugh.


Where this all started is that I looked at Bones and I looked at Life and realized there's a massive gap there.

Life is a positive energy monster.

Bones is a neutered necromancer.

These are both my opinion but I felt that negative energy and undead both deserved better.


Thanks for your input.


Pupsocket wrote:


Intimidate is obvious, but I don't see the case for Ride or Perception.

I wasn't quite sure where to go with it, since skill selection for different mysteries seems almost at random. Some would have four while others six and so on. So, Intimidate since this is obviously all evil and stuff. Ride to compliment Life's Handle Animal. Perception because it's the best skill ever.

Pupsocket wrote:
More "shadow" than "death" here.

The two go hand-in-hand in my head.

Pupsocket wrote:


Hahaha, F%$& no. Channel energy 1+Cha times per day and have the OPTION of taking Command Undead, and no on the swift action too. Compare with Oracle of Life.

I agree with the 1+ instead of the 3+, however, this was meant to be analogous to the Combat Healing that Life gets. You encounter undead all the time and have to take into account if you'd rather heal yourself or have some minions. I see what you're saying though. The swift action self-channel plus the Beacon heals together might be a little much.

Pupsocket wrote:


Noooooo.

Noooooo what? Gaining your cha instead of con but also gaining a vulnerability to positive energy seems pretty fair. A standard cleric would destroy you. Maybe to add insult to injury I'd add a -2 to channel resistance.

Pupsocket wrote:


Needs a level limit. Probably shouldn't give fast healing.

The normal Life ability has no level limit. The fast healing was also to show how you're practically overflowing with negative energy and if that heals you, it'd make sense to gain slight healing from it.

Pupsocket wrote:


How many revelations does this mystery have now?

Eleven. It says specifically that you cannot take revelations several times unless they say otherwise. That means you can't have both Cold Aura and Freezing Spells.

Pupsocket wrote:


Swift action seems cheesy.

I'd consider changing it to a move action, but it was as a swift action because with RAW on Bags of Holding, there's nothing stopping you from turning the thing inside out on your first turn and having your entire army there in one go.

Pupsocket wrote:


Blindsight is a costly high-level ability. 30' visual range is not much of a drawback. NO.

As it states, you can ONLY see living creatures. The normal Life ability is just straight Blindsense with no drawbacks. This one takes careful consideration. Constructs would be invisible. Undead you don't control would be invisible. That ranger firing at you from beyond your range, his arrow is invisible and he's checking your flat-footed AC to put one between your eyes. If he's within your range I'd say you get a perception check with maybe a bonus to see that he's aiming straight at you. This should probably be pointed out in the revelation description.

I'm glad you liked the others though! I especially did enjoy Shadow of Death.


Dotted.


Shame there's no evil version.


Nevermind I just noticed that the Samsaran has the best favored class bonus with the Oracle netting me more spells, so forget the Words of Power bit. Except for the 3rd level feat for the Undeath word.


Especially in comparison to a Divine Exemplar (cleric/paladin multi class archetype).


How powerful do you think a Samsaran Juju Oracle with the Black-blooded archetype using the Words of Power system with an eventual Graveknight template would be?


Wow I never noticed that. Thanks for the perspective!

Are things looking well so far, Dale? I considered buying it several times on things but thought that'd be cheating.

I honestly think you just made me want to change my Divine Exemplar to a Juju Oracle with the Words of Power system.

I'm really loving that I can switch saves around for Control Undead or whatever, but it's a fine line. Undead get good Will saves, so just use one of the Meta words to switch to Fort and have a better chance.

I'm almost wishing it still went by the old rules where they'd fail their saves automatically if it specifically targeted undead. Permanent control would be excellent.

Or I could be wrong and that was just constructs. I dunno I'm tired.


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So a cleric has to blow a feat while a wizard only has to prepare it?


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Had to get it from the pfsrd store. If you got it from there check your email junk folder.


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Is Undead Command meant to be SorcWiz only? Because then a cleric won't have a word to add on to Create Undead to control them.

God I hate that there's no permanent Control over intelligent undead. It severely cuts into what would be a good idea to raise.

Also, what are your ideas on template support. How would Create Undead work if you wanted your Skeletal Champion to be Bloody.


I take back the Time Stop bit. For some reason I remember not having it.

Also, have you considered opening up word categories for more module-esque wordcasting?

You choose cleric for domains and sorcerers for bloodlines as normal but since Words are based on versatility, it would be staying true to form, I think.


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Heck yes. Count me in on Tuesday! I loved the Words of Power and was always saddened that they basically cancelled them as soon as they were released.

The only thing that keeps me from making a wordcaster now is how underpowered at later levels they seem (Time Stop? Mages Disjunction? Miracle? Silly magictalker you can't do that) as well as how they're almost 100% blaster oriented but don't have the support words that truly makes a blaster terrifying. Force Cage (large with holes)+ Meteor Swarm comes to mind.

Plus the huge shift in power between prepared and spontaneous wordcasters.

When there's only three 9th-level words for a Cleric/Oracle, why would you not be an oracle. Not to mention you can shape your wordspells as needed, while the prepared guys have to hope that the Line-attached Ice Beam will be a better idea than the Cone.

So yes you shall have my money indeed sir. I'm hoping this does well enough to garner further support.

Also since I'm playing a necromancer in our current campaign, I would truly love you if you could keep Undeath without the material cost and the same level. Also hoping that it provides some ability to apply templates (bloody, burning, skeletal champion, etc.) preferably at just a HD requirement. Bloody requires more create HD and so on.

Thanks again!

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