ladenedge's page

Hey all. Just a quick bump to mention that I've adjusted Zumii's sheet a bit and made the changes available at:

PathfinderFillable-laden-v2.6.pdf

I took Divine Intervention cause didn't really know anything i really wanted and I needed to make a selection. So this time I want to be ready.

Assuming your Con is good (as a front liner), your cleric should already have a decent Fort save. Pushing Assault is okay, but as a war cleric you should already have Imp. Bull Rush/Drag, so there is a bit of redundancy there - might depend on how much time you spend keeping baddies off your allies.

Having mentioned some CMB attacks, you should look over the list of combat feats you currently qualify for via Weapon Master to see if any of those would make good prereqs for a higher Weapon Master feat. For example, you can currently activate Imp. Bull Rush by virtue of having Power Attack. If you take Imp. Bull Rush for your next feat, you'll be able to activate Greater Bull Rush. (That's probably not a very good example for you since your party isn't likely to take advantage of AoOs, but you get the idea.)

Consider Step Up, Strike Back, and Toughness. They're all pretty basic feats that come into play in a lot of combat situations. (Even though the first two are combat feats, it's often difficult to predict when you're going to have to use them. That makes them hard to use via Weapon Master.)

Good luck!

First time with these rules, I haven't even started the game yet and I already have a list of house rules a mile long again...

Paizo is the Blizzard of RPGs: Pathfinder is probably the most carefully balanced game out there right now. That's not to say that it is flawless or that every choice is equally good, but in general if something seems highly imbalanced there's a good chance you're missing a rule somewhere.

Regarding how much writing one can do with an ounce of ink, I can offer some rough calculations. First of all, it's completely variable on writing style and nib size, but one can expect somewhere in the neighborhood of 5-20 pages from a modern ink cartridge. Modern ink cartridges are generally filled with 1 mL of ink, and there are ~30 mL in an ounce. Because old-style fountain pens and jars of ink aren't nearly as efficient as modern ink pens, however, you can probably subtract at least 2-3 mL from a jar's potential. That means you'll get 135-500 pages from an ounce of ink. If it were me, I suppose I would ask the author to roll a d10+4 to determine her average pages/mL (per writing session?), multiply by ~27, then go with that.

For example, suppose your author rolls a 4 on her d10. That means she's getting [(4 + 4) * 27 =] 216 pages per bottle of ink.

Having said all that, as a dedicated author in my own game, I have to say that nearly all of the rules you've quoted seem a bit overly technical. While I don't see any reason they couldn't apply to Pathfinder (except for the Chronicler, who might require some customization), I would tend to agree with Cheapy that Profession (Scribe) might be worth looking at.

In addition to Profession (Scribe) being simpler, I happen to like how its mechanics automatically allow writing to be a royalty-oriented system not unlike what authors actually use today. That is, your character writes a single book, then makes her weekly Scribe rolls to determine her income regardless of whether she's actually written anything recently or not (since the book will presumably still be selling long after its completion).

We've used two methods very successfully (in both the positive and negative sense):

• Invite the candidate to a guest spot for a single session, to play a one-off NPC-sort of character or to take over for an absent regular.
  
• Invite the candidate to a night of RPG-style board gaming with your regular group.

Afterwards, talk it over with the regulars. You should have a pretty good feel for the candidate after spending a full evening with her.

You can never get an effective enhancement greater than +5 (which means no weapon properties like Holy, Bane, or other goodies) And one amulet costs about the same as 2.5 weapons of equal enhancement.

Getting a straight enhancement bonus on an AoMF is a waste, which is precisely why they allow you to skip the mandatory +1 bonus that weapons require before gaining special abilities.

Magic Fang should be giving the monk her enhancement bonus, and the AoMF (which is priced just fine, considering it enhances all of the monk's attacks) should be providing special abilities. If you need to bypass DR, you either a) wait until you're of the appropriate level (how many classes can do that?), or b) buy a special weapon for DR occasions, just like anyone else, and take a hit on your effectiveness.

I usually apply the stunning fist to the second flurry hit. (it has the same bonus as the first, and the enemy usually "dodges" better on the first hit...

If you hit on the first, your second will have an effective +2. Statistically, I can't see any reason to delay the stun.

As to medusa's wrath I believe the blade binder feat and a temple sword to make opponents flat footed may be a better option for reliably getting to use medusa's wrath ..

I don't know what those feats are, but I don't believe flat-footedness is included in the list of conditions that proc MW anymore.

Yes monks are squishy ..

I don't see that at all. Ki points, defensive fighting, combat expertise and a couple magic items and the monk is a straight up tank with the best AC in the party by far. Even in a fully offensive mode, high saves and an average AC/HD belie any squishiness (to me).

Disallowing Stunning Fist as part of a full attack would really diminish its usefulness. Our monk (who has reasonably good ability scores) only gets a successful stun maybe once every other gaming session, so it certainly wouldn't be useful (for her, at least) to forgo Flurry to try a Stun.

Great info, everyone - thanks for all of the prompt responses!

It seems like this has probably been addressed, but I'm afraid I can't find anything on it.

The text seems somewhat contradictory to me. On the one hand, you have: "If the target is .. an undead creature ..", but later on it states: "If the paladin targets a creature that is not evil, the smite is wasted .."

That last bit seems pretty clear, but if it's true, why bother with phrases like, "evil-aligned dragon"?

Supposing some undead are non-evil (our DM stipulates that zombies (eg.) simply mill about looking for food, like dire bears), does Smite Evil work on them?

Just to echo the above, monks certainly have the potential to gain fantastic ACs.

Our level 10 monk is sitting at, iirc, 28 AC with Dodge, a Monk's Robe, a +1 Ring, Mage Armor, Magic Vestment and good (but not great) Wis/Dex. This puts her above everyone else in the party and she has three defensive cards to play if things start going badly for her: ki, Combat Expertise, and/or fighting defensively. She can be practically unhittable, all while looking for lucky Greater Trips that allow the rest of us free attacks!

We have a 9" netbook on our table, and it's entirely unobtrusive imho. We use it to write our adventure log and record income/spending. It's especially handy when one player is absent; just email her the log and she's all caught up!

I play a 10th level dwarven war cleric who's been pretty fun so far.

Deity: Gorum (but the DM lets me use a greataxe instead of a greatsword for historical reasons)
Domains: War/Destruction

I also took a level in barbarian some time around level 5, and it synergizes quite well with the rest of my concept. The rage makes up for the low BAB, and the movement/armor situation fits nicely. My cleric also happens to be something a of crazy SOB, so the flavor is good.

Feat-wise, I went with Selective Channeling (absolutely critical in my view for any cleric who plans on healing), Combat Casting (because I'm in melee a lot) and, iirc, Toughness (my AC is 14 while enraged, heh). Past that, I went the Bull Rush route. Power Attack is excellent, and Greater BR is available via Weapon Master.

In general, I either rock Vital Strike or Greater BR with my Weapon Master ability. It's quite possible to end up with an enraged, empowered, vital destructive smite doing 30+ points per swing. I suck at buffing, but I'm sure you could push it higher.

(I must say it would be nice to heal as a swift action. I'm always jealous of our pally.)

Asking the cleric to use a round merely to activate a combat feat is too much imo. For one, as mentioned, it renders many feats literally useless. More importantly, it assumes that the cleric is going to amortize the activation over a few rounds of use. But clerics don't work that way! I can't just ignore my party's situation because I invested in some style of combat for the next few rounds - if someone needs healing or buffing, then I've got to heal or buff him. For each round something like that occurs, I've effectively spent that many additional rounds activating the feat.