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Just spitballing here, but what if your character had the ability to augment his sword with eidolon evolutions? Not quite sure how that would work, but it's an idea.

I appreciate the input!

So far My GM has let him get away with that already though. Letting him flavor his claw attacks and the like as sword swings (they're still mechanically claws, with all the pitfalls and strengths of that)so that he didn't miss out on the mountain of eidilon evolutions built for natural attacking.

We had played around with the idea of making the "sword" an intelligent item and perhaps having it grant evo's/spells (mostly because I joked about giving it the singing property, so it could play cheesy hero songs while he punched the baddies)

Realized it'd probably be a good idea to add the ideas we have brainstormed so far! Just in case anyone has an idea how to modify them instead of suggesting a new idea, or just to cut down on suggestion repeats.

1. Ability to "gift" evo points to allies, like aspect. Allies with evo points can be targets of evolution surge

Issues: Was fun initially, but balancing it felt a bit to hard to figure out. my gm (understandably)didn't want to grant any evolutions that gave or modified attacks, but that boils a great amount of the buffs down to sub par options (why evolution surge for 10ft extra movement speed as a level 2 spell, when a level 1 spell adds 30ft?Especially when he has more important things to do in combat)

2.Ability to grant Electricity damage to an ally for a single combat 1/day.

Issues: The party does enough damage, and I'm not looking to increase my guys damage. while number wise it may have been a strong option, it just didn't seem that fun.

3.Ability to cast heroic fortune 1/day as a spell like ability

Issues: Possible balance issues and issues with the harrow point system already in place. Hero points are not currently used in the campaign.

4. Granting him a custom "domain" IE one spell per spell level that wasn't normally on the summoner spell list, all electricity themed.

Issues: The strongest option we've found so far, it still falls prey to either not being up to snuff with the rest of the parties abilities.

Thank you for your time!

Recently In Curse of the Crimson Throne my GM had the idea of giving a custom made boon to each of the PC's, he's had some great ideas for the other PC's, but he's struggled on mine, and was wanting to work together on it. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated!

The other PC's Boons are as followed

Bard - Received an altered investigator inspiration pool, usable on allies. can be used on saving throws and attack rolls.

Magus, Black blade - Allowing the blade to win an ego check gives him some power boosts for a few rounds, akin to modified barbarian rage

Sorcerer- Extra bloodline arcana and powers, no extra feats/spells known

Life Oracle - Monstrous cohort feat free, NPC controlled by gm as bodygaurd

Finally my character!

I run a synthesist summoner with unchained spell list but regular evo's (with the allowance I can have dimension door at level three). Along with some other house rule nerfs.

The character is built as an over the top hammy hero character, with a strong thunder/electricity theme. He uses a sword fairly religiously, and fights against evil wherever he finds it. I love cheese, we'll even be giving him a sword that sings his hero theme one day (at a -10 to stealth, of course!)

Hopefully that is the right balance of not to little or to much information, thank you for your time and suggestions.

The best crafting that comes from a Wizard is through the Magic Crafting feats and the Spellcraft skill...

I suppose Craft: Alchemy would serve you best. There are a crap load of useful things in the alchemical items and alchemical weapons arena. Your spells will always be more effective but adding pellet grenades and tangleburn bags will surely make you more versatile. Craft Alchemy can also be used to create poisons. Get yourself a blowgun and poison darts, now your opponents must contend with ability damage on failed saves. Poisons are very useful against low fortitude opponents, like other spellcasters. Thunderstones can cause temporary deafness. Create Sunrods(flares), Tindertwigs(matches), Liquid Blade, Impact Gel, Itching Powder, etc... I don't see how being a blacksmith or fletcher will benefit a Wizard. When you're out of spells grenades will hurt more than your cantrips

Ah thankyou!

I've definitley grabbed craft alchemy, being able to match the DC's of pretty much all the items fairly easily has made my life way easier, and tanglefoot bags are a godsend.

Honestly so far the best use of the skill I've had so far has been craft armor and craft weapons surprisingly! the special materials list for weapons has done some great things, especially because the crafting skill lets me grab them at 1/3 their price, being able to get things like common crystaline weapons in the parties hands has been a great boon.

I know its not 100% usefull compared to the magical item creation feats when it just comes to my character, but being able to suit my party up in things like adamantine and mithral faster seems like it would be a great boon at low levels, especially with it having such a low skill point tax?

Thanks for the help! I totally missed those pellet gernades and items the first glance through, much appreciated!

My GM for curse of the crimson throne tends to be incredibly generous when it comes to downtime for our characters. With the ability to get a great craft bonus already at level 2, I've been looking into the craft skill and I'm trying to get help with putting it to use!

A bit of background:
-My gm has allowed

-My character managed to get an 18 for a roll which he put directly into intelligence, on top of his racial +2 int. They are a level 2 wizard

-My GM uses the alternate crafting rules

-My group managed to get a cracked magnetta stone (which can give +2 to any one skill, the skill of which can be changed daily)

-Effectively (if my math is correct!), my crafter can get +18 on any crafting check during downtime with only spending one skill point. (+1 skill point +3 class skill +5 crafters fortune (luck bonus) +2 travelers anytool (circumstance bonus) +2 (magenta prism) +5(intelligence)

Main things I'm confused about:

- Is there a list of all of the different craft skills? I'm currently aware of craft armor, weapons, bows, alchemy and traps, and of the large variety of special materials you can make things out of, however I've also heard that crafting siege engines is another possibility, and I'm still just largely unsure of all of the options.

- What are the best ways I could put this skill to use?

- Is there anything I'm missing?

Thankyou for your time!

Be an Empyreal-blooded wildblooded Sorcerer instead of a Wizard. It'll save you some heartache in terms of stats, even if you lose out on the still spell thing. Unless you're planning on going all the way (20 levels) with your armored wizard, you might be better off with a Magus. Magus gets to be an armored caster, even if it isn't a heavy armor wizard. Consider that a Wizard 5/Fighter 1/Eldritch Knight 1 has BAB 4 and is CL 5 with two spell levels and heavy armor. A Magus 7 is CL 7 and has three spell levels, with spellstrike, spell combat, medium armor, and BAB 5. If you're going the distance, Wizard/Fighter/Eldritch Knight will eventually pay out, but you'll need a lot of levels to do so. If you're doing this only for the AC and ability to cast in armor, why not play a Psychic?

Magical Knack only increases your caster level. You still need 5 levels in Wizard to get 3rd level spells.

Ah you're probably right. I might roll with that instead, it definatley gives me a tough wyvaaran caster, thanks!

I've seen it shot down alot for obvious reasons on here in the past, but I think I recently I finally stumbled on a way to reliably make a full armored wizard! My DM has OK'd the concept, and and I'm looking for advice/recommendations on what to do with him in later levels, as I'm still relatively new at the game. Any advice would be appreciated!

Quick Information

-My DM allows pretty much any pathfinder material, core rulebook/advanced player guide/etc.

- My DM allows third party material as long as it is present on the d20pfrsd wiki, which is the main reason I found a way for this to work.

How I get the wizard into armor:

Wyvaarans Favored Class bonus for wizard: "The wizard can reduce the number of level increase required to use a metamagic feat by 1/4 (to a minimum of +0). You must select this ability 4 times to reduce the level increase required by 1."

My plan for this is to grab the still spell meta-magic feat, and use the favored class bonus to reduce the level increase to +0 by level 4. As a result, I'll simply have my wizard prepare every single spell of his with the still spell meta-magic without increasing the spells level. With no somatic components, his spells would no longer be subject to Arcane failure chance.

The Cons (That I know of):

-2 int for wyvaarans. I know that taking an int hit is something that hurts a ton, and sets the wyvaaran 4 int points behind races like elves when it comes to casting. It means less spells and lower dc's, and just a bad time.

- higher AC or no, the wizard still has low health, which makes them nice and squishy like a rogue, plus they're a wizard, so no matter what they're a big target. Not putting the favored bonus towards HP gain means lost health as well, and I know wizards really can't spare health.

-I need the strength to even carry the armor, and his movement speed will be hurting

-Losing a feat for the tactic to work

-Since I want to go eldritch knight, according to everything I've read about magical Knack as much as it helps me cast spells at the right power level, I'm still going to miss out on 9th level spells and will be behind a level in spellcasting.

The Pros (That I know of):

- The armor, obviously

- Dragon immunities, meaning I have a wizard toting paralysis/sleep immunities.

- +2 dex and wis makes dumping wisdom a bit less painful?

- My wizard doesn't need attack rolls, so I can strap on full plate and a tower shield without worrying about proficiency if I want. He wont be a great swimmer for sure though.

The solution I have so far:

A dip into fighter means he can become an eldritch knight by level 6 (thanks to magical Knack). This gives me a few big benefits from what I can see.

- d10 health die eventually

- Proficiency in all armor, shields, While I don't think he needed these for the fact he wasn't making attack swings anyway, it makes skill checks a bit easier?

- grabbing the trait magical knack offsets the caster level loss, and I've even thought of grabbing the "extra traits" feat so I can get "defender of the society" for +1 dodge ac and whatever other trait picks my fancy.

- An extra combat feat from fighter, probably either Shield focus or dodge for an additional +1 AC, later when I get free combat feats I might as well grab the alternate as well.

Since he's going to be joining into a campaign late, he'll be starting off at level 5, here's what I have so far, as stated, any advice for future additions to him/recommendations would be greatly appreciated!

The main thing I'm still wondering, is even with the hp buff, if going into eldritch knight is even worth it, as the benefits of going into it do not seem to outweigh the costs of being behind two levels of spell progression? My DM recommended it, but I'm still unsure!

Thankyou in advance for any help!

Also, just to tally up the AC I've been able to figure out for him at level 5 with his first level in fighter

10(base)+9(armor)+4(tower shield)+1(familiar nat bump)+1(amulet of nat armor w/craft wondrous item)+1(ring of protection w/craft wondrous item)+1(dodge feat)+1(fighter trait thanks to extra traits feat)

Which I believe tallies up to an awesome 29!

2wf does not apply to natural attacks. Normally, you get 1 attack, with each natural weapon during a full attack, ie. what makes natural attackers king in low levels as they will have 2-3 attacks vs most people's 1.

I am actually not familiar with Covert Operater's tentacle plan, so I can not comment on if it is legal. However, if it is legal, it is an exception to the rule, not the rule itself.

Vivisectionist is a strong choice for alchemist, not so much for flank as it is for the greater invisibility (and regular invisibility to a much lesser extent). You also have mutagen and other extracts to buff with. I still prefer vanilla alchemist in the long run, but tastes can vary widely and vivisectionist is far from a bad choice.

Double check that you are humanoid before counting on enlarge person. Being a dragon, while it has it's own list of benefits, does make you immune to spells that target humanoids (aasimars have to deal with that daily)

While you can sub trip, disarm and sunder for normal attacks (including natural attacks) the rest require a feat, that has a pre req, that in turn has a pre req. In other words, 3 feats to do a dirty trick to someone during your dance of a thousand claws. Not terrible, but far from a good option in my book (unless you are a fighter). That said, you will want feat B anyway with a dirty trick build, and feat C is required to get A and B. Additional luck, your INT comes in just high enough to qualify for feat C.

If you wanna stay ranger, have you looked at "Better Rogue" or Slayer as it is officially titled? Studied combat, which you can get in for free when you sneak attack, ranger combat style and some other fun tricks to boot.

Oh dang, thanks! I hadn't actually seen that class before, and it seems to satisfy what I was looking for quite a bit more too. Thanks alot!

Honestly you are pretty much set with what you have. Having 5 nat attacks from the get go is pretty strong and you will be doing some strong damage.

Now, the worry for nat attack build later in the game is creatures with damage reduction but since you have a ranger you could even swap out one of your secondary stats and put it in cha and take 2 levels of paladin for a bonus to saves and smite evil.
Anyways you can go pretty much anywhere with this build and still be relevant so just have fun with it. =)

Thanks! much appreciated

You can't actually substitute Dirty Tricks for weapon attacks, unless you take Quick Dirty Trick (which is still 1/round)

If you want to transition in to an awesome late-game build, go in to alchemist and get the Tentacle discovery and pour all your buffs on to that. This discovery behaves extremely weirdly compared to all other attacks in the game: you can switch any attack you could make for a tentacle attack. So what you do is get as many weak natural attacks as you can, pick up all the TWF feats and Multiattack, and then switch all your possible attacks into Tentacle attacks. Your attacks block will look something like:

ATTACKS
Blade Boot +32/+27/+22 (1d4+?) and Armor Spikes +32/+27/+22 (1d6+?) and 2 claws +30 (1d4+?) and Bite +30 (1d6+?) and Gore +30 (1d4+?) etc.
Tentacle +32/+32/+27/+27/+22/+22/+30/+30/+30/+30/+30 (1d?+?)

Ah dang thanks! That's a really straightforward way to keep him relevant int he fights!

A few questions though, first of all, I can't see where it says in the tentacle discovery that it can be substituted for my other attacks, how is that possible? and if a feat allows me to substitute one attack for another why not go for my bite? (as dragons get 1+1/2 their strength on damage rolls for bites)

Additionally, after asking a friend about dipping into alchemist he said that going into vivisectionist would be a good idea too, since it would add a huge amount of sneak attack damage for each natural attack when I could get into flanking.

How do I get in attacks for armor spikes, and have it count as an attack for swapping?

Last question for the bunch, does twf feats apply to natural weapons? I'd been told it doesn't before.

Thanks for your time!

Hey guys!
I'm relativley new at pathfinder, though not to new to be unable to navigate the forums and I was
hoping someone would be able to offer me a little bit of help with my ranger!

I wanted to build a natural weapon based ranger, now I've already browsed through the forums on it and I know fullwell ahead of time
that not only are nat weapon rangers unfavorable compared to druids, but that they also tend to drop off in effectivness later in the game.
This guy is the most geared towards getting in combat in our campaign, so that's turning out to be a little scary considering the campaign we're doing
is probably going to last a relativley long time andgo into the late game. It's just a one on one campaign too, so even
though theres npc's in the party to support him, making sure the guy can work to the best of his ability is
incredibly important to me.

As a quick sidenote, and I know this might make a few cringe but we are using a custom race on the low end of CR2. The stats being.
Dungeon dragon, young
medium sized creature
Attacks
1 bite at 1d4
2 claws at 1d3
2 wings at 1d2
Alter self (used to stay in gnoll form more often than not)
Breath weapon, confusion 1d6 dc 15, cone 30ft
Flight 30ft(good)
+2 strength +2 con -2 wisdom
+4 to perception
+2 nat armor
Rolled stats total = st 20 Dex 15 Con 16 int 13, wis 12 cha 10 (I was fairly happy with them yeah)

Now, the solution I had been thinking of going towards was having improved natural attack on his claws
and rending claws, along with an amulet of mighty fists to try and make sure he stays strong in the
early game. However, I thought the best way to try and make sure he could be a strong enough character
in the late game would be to take advantage of the fact that I could swap attacks for combat manuevers. Since
the guy is already getting +5 to his strength by level two basically, I think I could get his CMB high
and combine it with the fact that he has so many chances to get the maneuvers in that he could simply outperform
enemies int he late game, using trips, disarms and dirty tricks to be able to put enemies at a disadvantage and really lay into them

Another big thing I was hoping that our spellcaster could use enlarge person spells and the such on him, since it would have all of those wonderful nat attacks going up in damage, and be a pretty damn good buff for him

I know it's a bit bad, but I'm heavy on flavour, and he really needs to stay a ranger and be focused on nat attacks
if dualclassing to get spells or to get other bonuses from classes would help him, I'd be completley opne to it though

Thanks in advance for your help guys! I appreciate it.

(also, as a quick question, even though he is changing from a medium creature to a medium creature with alter self, does he still get the additional +2 strength from it?)