cattoy's page

A really good psych-up speech right before a dramatic battle is my weapon of choice.

Words are weapons, sharper than knives.
Makes you wonder how the other half dies.

This ruling is arbitrary and culturally insensitive.

If eating humanoids is evil, then why isn't necromancy automatically evil?

You will have a difficult time convincing me that consuming a dead body's flesh is more evil than enslaving their entire corpse to your will.

Looking into the future, Cauldron is a prereq for several other hexes, so you might want to look at your build and see if any of those other hexes might appeal to you.

+4 to craft: alchemy is nice, if you use that a lot. Depending on your specific game, downtime could become extremely productive.

Healing would be a good fallback. At your level, it would be the equivalent of a 2nd level spell for every party member, animal companion, familiar, NPC and mount. Depending on the size and composition of your party, this could be a godsend. Also, in a pinch, you can zap undead with it.

quick question: are there (m)any items that are designed with witches in mind? I pretty much stay with the core book and APG, and I don't remember there being anything primarily made for witches in the APG... (obviously nothing in the core book)

106: Seven brides for seven samurai.

Trying to build Flex Mentallo?

Until recently I had a character that was running at under 10% of WBL, but picked up some nifty goodies of late. (11th level ~ 6K worth of magic items) Still worked out reasonably well, my PC is a support character so a lack of gear wasn't hurting us much.

The frontline melee types had plenty of high end gear and the primary arcane caster was decked out like a christmas tree, of course.

If you also invest in some Knowledge: Nobility, Local or Religion, you can improve your odds of finding a patron for your skills that has some coin to toss around on 'frivolous' luxury items like elaborately illuminated manuscripts of family histories, biographies, etc.

Now the sneaky thing would be to use this sort of angle to get access to the back story of people in positions of power or influence...

Plus creating forgeries or copies of legal documents, religious texts, scholarly works, yadda yadda yadda.

If you add some ranks in Knowledge: History, Linguistics and perhaps some ranks in alchemy, you might be able to forge historic documents.

Awesome, or useless, depending entirely on context.

PUSH

Set everything on fire. You can't rest for 8 hours here, the fire will obliterate your campsite and you'll be burned to ashes.

Army ants are on the march. You have to keep moving or you'll be eaten alive.

ETC.

or

PULL

You have 24 hours to [accomplish something important].

The ship carrying [something or someone important to them] is leaving soon.

The ritual to [do something they don't want to happen] will start on the next full moon. Get moving.

Ravingdork wrote:

One witch? ONE WITCH!?

Why on earth would an army field a single witch rather than calling in a whole platoon of witches?

Is there anythign that says you can't benefit from multiple healing hexes, provided they come from different witches?

If not, a bunch of low-level witches could heal even serious injuries that their patients might be suffering.

If so, they could still heal more people in less time by dividing the workload.

I can just imagine a guild of goodly witches who provide just such a service.

Yes, actually.

Quote:

Healing (Su): A witch can soothe the wounds of those she touches. This acts as a cure light wounds spell, using the witch's caster level. Once a creature has benefited from the healing hex, it cannot benefit from it again for 24 hours. At 5th level, this hex acts like cure moderate wounds.

You can't benefit from it more than once in 24 hours. This doesn't fall into the "can't be targetted" bucket. You can target the creature again, for sure. It just can't benefit more than once per day.

This has been recently addressed in the FAQ. Multiple witches can heal the same target in one day.

The spell poppet range starts at 20' and increases with level.

One big advantage of the spell poppet is that it doesn't have HP. The biggest drawback to the standard witch is that their spellbooks can get killed and cost a metric buttload to replace.

I would never send a familiar to deliver touch attacks. My witch's familiar would cost more to replace than the witch.

Gaea from Vision of Escaflowne/Tenkuu no Escaflowne.

It's got catgirls and giant robots.

Now Paizo needs to add catnip and/or silvervine to the list of alchemical substances/items.

I always figure the perfect dumpstat for cat-folk is CON. Not because it's mechanically advantageous, but because cats are typically bad at anything involving endurance.

Cats are typically pounce predators, great at sprints, lousy at marathons.

I can totally see catfolk having a DEX bonus, I'm not as sold on them having an INT or WIS bonus, though. CHA seems an interesting possibility. We often speak of cats as domesticating us rather than the other way around...

Playing PF tomorrow. Two out of 5 PCs are straight fighters.

Kind of depressing how rarely the D&D movies get mentioned...

Blood of Heroes
Rollerball (the original)
Tenkuu no Escaflowne

and a bunch of stuff already listed

These are the ones that got suckered into serving these mortal arcane casters called Summoners - they're predisposed to lower intelligence.

Also, summoners probably don't want eidolons that are smarter than they are...

You have to take the experience level of the player into consideration as much as the PC.

I would add an NPC heal-bot cleric to the roster. Maybe even a non-combatant type who is a level behind the PCs. Definitely not a type who might steal the spotlight from the PCs.

This option lets the PCs focus on the active roles as damage dealers and let the NPC keep them from death's door. This option offers a little extra insurance against some bad rolls resulting in a TPK. Let the players play what they want.

I LOVE gelatinous cubes, but trust me, my feelings are strictly platonic.

You cannot pay me enough to dump INT that hard.

That's Idiocracy territory you're straying into. Not a good idea for a spellcaster. Hell, not a good idea for anybody. Especially not for anyone who fancies themselves a 'face'. You're going to find that, in the long run, high INT makes you a better face than high CHA. (unless for some reason you have spare skill ranks all over the place)

nobody expects them.

also, the dwarven monks are the ones you call for when the rust monsters show up and all the fighters and clerics are running away...

There was a Neverwinter Nights NPC that was a dwarf monk. He was a big fan of tavern brawls and he got pwnd by a monk once and begged them to tell him how to learn their fighting style.

Azten wrote:

Secane, that seems pretty mean, and likely to get a bunch of players angry at you because you are forcing them to have a character of a class no one wanted to play.

Ah... its meant as a joke...

Seriously, its a joke! Its like "suggesting you make all armor found gender specific (of the opposite gender of the party) and insist that if the character want to wear them, they have to to cross dress. Also Make all the armors 1 size smaller and let them feel the pain!"

Get it? Its a JOKE. :P

Be careful about joke post replies to people who probably don't speak english as a native language.

(OP is in japan)

Hit points are an abstract concept, not a 'realistic' one.

You aren't walking around with 30 arrows sticking out and fighting away at full effectiveness, the damage is abstracted to represent close calls, battle fitness, actual small glancing blows and grazes etc.

You aren't always being literally 'hit'.

NEVER do this.

Never describe hits as 'near misses' because if you do, you run the risk of having to make up some BS reason why the "brave" warrior without a scratch on him due to multiple 'near misses' is retreating from a battle in full sight of his soldiers, his lord, or his lady love.

Damage is damage, and as long as you describe it as such, no observer would ever question the courage, honor or character of a wounded warrior, dripping with blood, pierced by many arrows and partially on fire who withdrew from a fight.

I grew my hair long. Cats play with it.

IMO, the best reward for good roleplaying is more opportunities for good roleplaying.

North Korea wont really do much with their nukes apart from ensure South Korea doesn't come visit, nor anyone else for that matter.

I can't think of a North Korean funded terrorist strike anywhere in the World, but please let me know if I'm wrong.

Does their kidnapping of other countries' citizens count?

You could use mending to recycle molotov cocktail bottles, so you could just keep refilling them and use the same bottle over and over. Fuel for molotovs is cheap, but glass bottles are 2gp ea. (and weigh 1 lb.)

CalebTGordan wrote:

Cool, this helps a good deal. I think I will take the advice and NOT use my familiar for touch attacks. Spectral Hand is excellent, I can't believe I forgot about that spell.

Eh, there are better options then Spectral Hand. My recommendation is drop a hex on Prehensile Hair, it's a 15 foot reach that can deliver touch attacks without provoking and gives you a good chance to trip anyone who moves to attack you after bad touching them.

For your original question prior to taking improved familiar you will want the Raven. Flight, Speech for UMD, decent skill bonus and demonstrable tool use.
(A case can be made for the Thrush since it gives a better skill bonus but there is less evidence for tool use so it depends on how flexible your GM is.)

10 foot reach.

I dislike the notion that an adventuring party needs to hunt down and kill everything that lives that dares oppose them.

If you want to be feared by everyone, that's fine.

I believe that there are plenty of reasons to not engage in mass murder every time there is combat. If your group establishes a reputation for being goal oriented and not murder oriented, then opposing forces don't feel the need to fight with everything they have all the time.

If your group establishes that they will fight and defeat anything that comes between them and their goal and not a man more, then opposition forces can make 'business decisions' on just how much of their blood they feel they need to risk to stop the PCs from destroying that bridge, stealing those scrolls, killing the wizard, or whatever it is the PCs are here to do. NPC soldiers are people too, and not every one of them is a fanatic bag of HP that will die to a man to keep the PCs from winning.

Heck, once soldiers have been on the losing (but surviving) end of the stick, they're more likely to put up a token resistance because they know that their chances of success against the PCs is negligible, and they draw a paycheck whether they win or lose, but definitely not if they die.

I know it isn't a style that gets a lot of support, but I think Hogan's Heroes did a ton of good without a hint of murder.

Life is like a box of cho-kill-its.

no laffer curve?

OP - I don't think you're viewing this in quite the right light.

If your PCs don't fit in with the local culture, if they aren't viewed as functional members of mainstream society and if they stick out like a sore thumb - THAT'S A GOOD THING.

I'm going out on a limb here and thinking you might want to be running a campaign focused on adventure. Color me crazy, but I think that's what Pathfinder is best at.

You don't want the NPCs to view PCs as a good future son-in-law or business partner, promising able hand or good neighbor. They NEED to be seen as outcasts, layabouts, troublemakers or threats. You NEED to let the PCs know that they are discriminated against by the locals, just enough to make them think "someday, I'm gonna prove that they were wrong about me" but not so much that they think "someday, I'm gonna burn this whole wretched place to the ground". (unless you were aiming for THAT sort of campaign...)

You need to give them that one ray of hope for a happy ending. The mayor's daughter, who thinks that a PC is nice, even though her father thinks that the Sheriff's son is a better match. The Wizard's apprentice who has a not-so-secret crush on a PC, even though the wizard wants to marry them off to the GuildMaster's kid for political gain, etc.

The PC has to know that they have a rival with all the establishment advantages of higher class, more money, better gear, political power, etc. They have to think out of the box to get what they want.

They have to answer the call and go to the places that civilized people avoid. They have to do things that townsfolk won't.

They have to go become adventurers.

Cheapy wrote:

The reports of people not seeing bards distresses me.

I must work harder to fix that.

I got banned from playing bards (and sometimes all magic users) which can be explained in 4 words Chaotic Neutral Bard Glitterdust

Killed over half the party.

Did you get their stuff?

So, we know what happens when a spellcaster loses their familiar.

What happens if a familiar survives the death of their spellcaster?

Presumably, they would lose the special abilities linked to spellcaster level (spell resistance, speak with master, etc) but do they retain any of the other features?

Witch familiars lose their accumulated spells in 24 hours, but the book(s) are silent on the other classes familiars and features.

Does a raven familiar retain the ability to speak one language? Does any familiar retain the classification as a magical beast?

Does a former familiar of a powerful spellcaster retain any sort of magical aura? Any knowledge of its previous master?

Would a former familiar of a powerful spellcaster be more or less likely to become a familiar to a new, up and coming spellcaster?

Ravingdork wrote:

Your players will just get rings of sustenance or a decanter of endless water.

What desert-dweller in his right mind would sell those?

sell?

witch + cauldron + cook people = comedy gold. Add a level in swedish chef for extra entertainment value. (oracle/tongues)

Here's a little MMD-Tohou contribution. If it doesn't look professional grade, that's because it's made with freeware.

MMD cup 7 entry

More Tohou 3d duel action.

action starts 2 minutes in

The opening credits for a non ZUN Tohou game.
Includes the two characters from the 2nd link

That is awesome!

Though I've gotta say The tree at Rockefeller Center in NYC (sentimental reasons)

Why? is it trimmed in the shape of King Kong or something?

That would be awesome, because after x-mas, they could fly some biplanes around it and then push it off the top of the Empire State Building...

2011 is going to go down in history as the year the dictators fell like autumn leaves.

I can't think of a year in which so many dictator-for-life types got tossed out on their ear, overthrown or just died.

And I hear Hugo Chavez isn't all that healthy...
and things in Syria are heating up...

only a few more weeks left. C'mon 2011, you can do it.

Concerning hexes that state that another creature can't be targetted again without 24 hours/1 day by that hex, does is "this hex" determined on an individual basis (meaning multiple Witches can only use it once per day on a particular creature) or a hex basis (meaning only a singular Witch can target a creature with the hex once per day regardless of the number of Witches that creature encounters in a day)?

Examples:

Quote:

Misfortune (Su): The witch can cause a creature within 30 feet to suffer grave misfortune for 1 round. Anytime the creature makes an ability check, attack roll, saving throw, or skill check, it must roll twice and take the worse result. A Will save negates this hex. At 8th level and 16th level, the duration of this hex is extended by 1 round. This hex affects all rolls the target must make while it lasts. Whether or not the save is successful, a creature cannot be the target of this hex again for 1 day.

Slumber (Su): A witch can cause a creature within 30 feet to fall into a deep, magical sleep, as per the spell sleep. The creature receives a Will save to negate the effect. If the save fails, the creature falls asleep for a number of rounds equal to the witch's level. This hex can affect a creature of any HD. The creature will not wake due to noise or light, but others can rouse it with a standard action. This hex ends immediately if the creature takes damage. Whether or not the save is successful, a creature cannot be the target of this hex again for 1 day.

FAQ resolves this by saying that Witch A's Healing hex and Witch B's Healing hex are distinct, so each witch can heal the same target within the same 24 hour period.

It is a reasonable conclusion to say that the same behavior would dictate that two witches could use slumber on the same target within 24 hours as well.

This affirms my hoped-for interpretation, which means that witches do work very well in groups.

It eliminates the non-intuitive result that any witch can 'innoculate' friendlies vs slumber, misfortune and other hexes every day without spending any limited resources (except a small amount of time)

One of the things you have to recognize is that some classes start hot and cool off, others start cold and heat up. What looks overpowered right now might be less impressive late in the game.

I think the perception is flavored by the fact that (most) hexes don't run out of uses, they run out of (valid) targets. Witches are absolutely the top of the heap when it comes to utility. Rather lower down the totem pole when it comes to raw power/versatility.

I have a witch with the healing hex. With a team of 5PCs, 3 NPCs and a few familiars, and a population of thousands of refugees to escort, that healing hex is going to turn into the equivalent of somewhere between dozens or hundreds (or even thousands) of 2nd level spell slots. Overpowered? Well, probably not. Useful? Oh, hell yes.

I don't have personal experience, but I strongly suspect that at the higher levels, the best wizards are going to outshine the best witches. I do have personal experience in how well low level witches do compared with low level wizards...

Consider that a 1st level human witch can heal every PC, animal companion, familiar, mount and friendly NPC, attempt to curse every hostile NPC or monster once/day and brew a potion without blowing a single spell (except for making the potion) is pretty nice.

But overpowered? Not really.

sure, I have a witch with a bunch of heal ranks. It's extremely important in her line of work because she works for a mercenary company.

Besides the expected healing of battle wounds, you have to keep an eye out for people getting sick, because disease can wipe out a fighting force quicker than anything. I only have a small number of cure disease spells per day, so a heal check is crucial in determining who is really in need of a 3rd level spell and who just needs a hot bowl of soup and a night in a warm bed.

just roll 3dN and take the middle one.

Some classes just peak at different points, and if you have a group that synergises at all this will compound things. I dont think you have a problem that wont resolve it self with some lvls and time, until then you can just stack some extra hitpoints on mobs you want to be a little more challenging.

Increasing enemy HP is just going to make things worse.

OP has already pointed out that the Barbarian is doing way more damage than the other PCs, if you increase the enemys HP, then the other PCs are just going to look that much more impotent compared to the Barbarian.

The opposite approach will level the playing field somewhat because large numbers of opponents with tiny HP totals will limit the number that the Barbarian can kill (he only gets one swing/turn) and allow the other PCs to drop opponents fairly easily as well.

Kolokotroni wrote:

If you are going to use straight 4d6 drop the lowest you should lower the point buy. 4d6 I believe averages around 18points but also you have to consider that those rolling are taking a risk where as point buy isnt. I am actually offered something similar in my new campaign, where players could choose between 15 point buy, or 4d6 drop the lowest, or 2d6+6. Each had its positivies and negatives and the players were able to choose which they prefered.

2d6+6? that's the equivalent of a 55 point buy. I think I'd prefer that one.

Brain fart. I totally misread that.