Is there ANY concept that can't be done using existing rules?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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Darkholme wrote:


@Pixie Dust: The bloodrager doesn't really cover it. Rather than make an extra big transforming bruiser, the goal is to make a melee type who transforms and gains magical dragon-like capabilities (breath weapons, or some blasting/elemental abilities, or whatever).

?

Arcane Bloodline gets Form of the Dragon as a free ability at 16. So, you turn into a dragon and gain magical dragon-like capabilities (breath weapons and energy resistance, and your native spellcasting). It's late game, but is probably the best for transforming into a dragon on the fly since it can be done as a Free action.

Dark Archive

Hmm.

Taskshaper looks much closer than the other things mentioned. How often/how long does it get to change shape? Class doesn't specify.

Not sure if 3pp meets the OP's criteria though; However, I would probably allow it.


They have to use a "moment of Change point" (3+CL pool size). When they use teh ability emulates different polymorphing spells as you level and your class level is your caster level (so duration is the same as if you cast the appropriate spell).

While that may seem powerful (Form of the Dragon 3 20 times per day? awesome!), the thing you have to take into account is that a lot of their class abilites require tapping into the pool (and a few require it every round) so they can drain their pool fast.


Taskshaper is pretty busted though. Proficiency with EVERYTHING? Counts as having every spell list simultaneously for the purpose of using wands and scrolls? Can copy any Feat or class ability he's ever seen?

On top of the free Alter Self/Other Polymorph abilities, the various Moments of Change and other talents, etc...

Yeah, it can do what you want, because the Taskshaper can do ANYTHING.

Edit: It seems to have been errata'd, huh. Some stuff comes in later. Still, at a glance it doesn't seem to actually LOSE anything.


They can copy the feat or class ability for 1 round. They have to constantly eat up their Moments of Change to be able to use them with any realy length of time.

Additionally, they don't just "get the feat" they temporarily swap a feat tehy have for another feat. And they still need to meet the pre-reqs (which for higher level feats is damn near impossible). As for the class ability thing, it requires them to have seen it and be usable for a character half their level, and can be completed in a single standard action. So in order to use a level 4 ability, they need to be level 8.

Oh and they are only allowed to spend 1 moment of change per round, until level 10 when they can pick an ability to let them spend 2.

If you read the class closely (I've read it inside and out, I have the PDF) it is actually not nearly bad as it looks. Its kinda like Psionics, if you don't read the rules closely its busted, but if you actually follow the rules as it says, they are actually fairly tame.


Yeah...most of those things are changes from the original version.


I'm not sure since I just got the PDF from the store here.

Granted teh whole "beint proficient in everything and can use wands/scrolls from everyboyd" is strong, its not to back breaking for the most part.


It was pretty buff when it was active from 1st level.


Darkholme wrote:

Hmm.

Breath of Fire:
@Boring7: I would consider most of the Fantasy JRPG Videogames to be very close in genre to D&D/Pathfinder; the main difference being that Pathfinder goes to an even Higher Power Level. I was thinking more BoF 4 than 3; Because as you mention, 3 works okay with Synthesist Summoner (other than how difficult it is to change in combat, and the requirement of blood magic to make regularly changing forms be a viable option; and the inability to choose the form you want to take mid-combat and then take that form.

Strongly disagree. JRPG videogames have magic items and spells that blow up planets, Pathfinder gets really impressive if it blows up half a city. Hell, you want to be a middling-sized DRAGON, a critter that starts around effective character power-level of 20, and then start stacking on class levels. JRPG that's no big deal, Pathfinder that's crazy epic level stuff.

Darkholme wrote:
none of those options really fit the "Martial who turns into a variety of kinds of dragons" schtick. Some of them cover martials turning into big brutes without dragon-like abilities of any kind (but not multiple kinds) and some of them cover other parts of the concept but are casters instead of martials.

Caster vs. Martial is largely how you play it. Just, you know, don't cast much besides your buff spells and your after-action heal spells. Different types of dragons are easy with different evolution-buffs to an eidolon or different transformations with your Oracle (if you CAN transform as an oracle? I wasn't clear on that one). As for "can't do it 'till later levels," well that brings us back to the point of power creep and JRPGs. Even in BoF, getting reliable draconic transformations was mid- to late-game material.

Rynjin wrote:
It was pretty buff when it was active from 1st level.

From the sound of things, it's largely depend on on what gear you get. Stack of wands (or staves, for higher levels), each with 5 charges (so they're cheap)? You can solo a +10 level dungeon crawl. Basic gear for a fighter? You're an underpowered fighter.

Paizo Glitterati Robot

Removed a couple posts. Let's not derail this with an unrelated debate.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

To answer this question.. sure while you can make ANYTHING with the Pathfinder set, a lot of it simply will not either work well, or fail to preserve the flavor of the original.

Pathfinder's roots are in a minatures wargame that had roleplaying bolted on to it. Granted, a lot's been done to expand on those themes, but every class built in that chassi was built a military model and on a precise quantification of wargaming rules, where the basis of gameplay is trading back and forth maneuvers of force.

Where the system doesn't work well is on character concepts that are heavily story driven. You can build Superman and most versions of Batman with the ruleset, but utterly fail when it comes to characters like Gandalf, Sherlock, and The Doctor and his Companions, without tossing away most of the atmosphere and the flavor of the original work.

You simply can not take that operational set out of the D20 system any more than you could take war out of wargames.


You can't play with the possibility of losing and always win.

Dark Archive

boring7 wrote:
Strongly disagree. JRPG videogames have magic items and spells that blow up planets, Pathfinder gets really impressive if it blows up half a city. Hell, you want to be a middling-sized DRAGON, a critter that starts around effective character power-level of 20, and then start stacking on class levels. JRPG that's no big deal, Pathfinder that's crazy epic level stuff.

World Destroying magics are not PC Acessible in JRPGs. Hell, I don't think I've ever even seen PC Accessible City Destroying Magics. They're like World Destroying Magics in D&D; IE: A Plot Device/Railroady way give your PCs reason to work together and follow the main plot. What Fantasy JRPGs don't have is offensive Polymorph Effects that last forever, Characters creating their own demiplanes and manipulating reality and time there, summoning demons or angels to aid them on quests for long periods of time, players raising platoons of demons or undead (using class abilities, not GM plot), or "City Nuke" shenanigans. Even routine access to personal flight is usually quite limited (you see hover effects fairly often). From the player's capabilities in a JRPG, other than the numbers (which allow RPG characters to eventually take on creatures that in D&D are up to CR20); they don't get effects beyond 4th level wizard spells, and don't even get full access to spells up to 4th.

An Actual Large-Size Green Dragon is only CR 8; which is a far cry from CR 20; though actual dragon stats are not particularly relevant. What I'm Describing isn't "Dragon Statblock + Martial Stuff". What I'm describing is Martial Character + "Miscellaneous Variety of Short-Term Dragon-Themed Metamorphosis Buff Effects (Immunities, Fear Aura, DR, Claws, Wings, Breath Weapons/Elemental Attacks)" + Also Counting as a Dragon for Activating Magic Items or being the target of spells. Rage (with a variety of different dragon shapes to choose from when you rage) would be a good custom basis for it; but the buffs from raging/bloodraging are not even close to the concept out of the box.

Darkholme wrote:
None of those options really fit the "Martial who turns into a variety of kinds of dragons" schtick...
boring7 wrote:
Caster vs. Martial is largely how you play it. Just, you know, don't cast much besides your buff spells and your after-action heal spells. Different types of dragons are easy with different evolution-buffs to an eidolon or different transformations with your Oracle (if you CAN transform as an oracle? I wasn't clear on that one). As for "can't do it 'till later levels," well that brings us back to the point of power creep and JRPGs. Even in BoF, getting reliable draconic transformations was mid- to late-game material.

A Synthesist could do some of it. The non Synthesized Summoner is not even close to a competent martial combatant. Medium BAB, Crappy Weapon Proficiencies, Class Features that don't work if you put on the armor required to be a martial. The summoner spell list helps make up for the medium BAB, but Armor gets in the way of actually using them. To actually work, the synthesist is going to end up being a dragon all the time (Summon Eidolon as a spell just isn't reliable). It also can't really be a martial unless it accepts that it has spells, but will be unable to cast them due to the armor it's going to have to wear to not die.

I Suppose Evolution Surge could be used to acquire some of the various special qualities; Summon eidolon could be used to change for short times (though most of the time you will *JUST* be a dragon anyways) and the Synthesist could make regular use of Blood Money+Transmogrify so they can have actually different forms (at the expense of an hour between forms - so you can't take on the dragon shape you want at any given time, and with the unnecessary capacity to change EVERYTHING each time).

LazarX wrote:
To answer this question.. sure while you can make ANYTHING with the Pathfinder set, a lot of it simply will not either work well, or fail to preserve the flavor of the original.

Sure. Though as people have pointed out, there's no reason why a simple concept such as the Grey Mouser should continuously be mechanically awful in Pathfinder; it's a very good fit thematically; but for some arbitrary reason it isn't supported in Pathfinder. Once you give him the strength score and abilities required for him to actually be the effective swordsman he is supposed to be, he's no longer the nimble rogue-y type you were aiming for.


Darkholme wrote:
What Fantasy JRPGs don't have is offensive Polymorph Effects that last forever, Characters creating their own demiplanes and manipulating reality and time there, summoning demons or angels to aid them on quests for long periods of time, players raising platoons of demons or undead (using class abilities, not GM plot), or "City Nuke" shenanigans. Even routine access to personal flight is usually quite limited (you see hover effects fairly often). From the player's capabilities in a JRPG, other than the numbers (which allow RPG characters to eventually take on creatures that in D&D are up to CR20); they don't get effects beyond 4th level wizard spells, and don't even get full access to spells up to 4th.

Yes they are, yes they do, yes they do, etc. Airships, demiplanes, summoned angels, all that kind of stuff shows up in the PCs hands. Further, they fight robots and giant plant monsters and enormous dinosaur-demon things by the first third of the game, things which register as CR 10 or better when you face a version in Pathfinder. Power-wise, it's a completely different animal with the JRPG being higher. The only things they don't have are effects that operate off-the-rails or outside the box. JRPG character with her demiplane uses it to heal folks, and one time lets 'em hide out in it when the city gets nuked or whatever. This isn't "higher power" when a PF character does it, it's just another function of PF having more options (because it isn't basically a novel) and letting you use lateral thinking to get around problems you would otherwise have to plow through.

And once again, you're talking A DRAGON, the critter that's supposed to be the end boss (traditionally speaking). JRPGs do that stuff all the time, D&D that's like taking ECL +18 (remember, it's different than CR for PCs, for good reason) and stacking on 10 levels of fighter.

Darkholme wrote:
An Actual Large-Size Green Dragon is only CR 8; which is a far cry from CR 20; though actual dragon stats are not particularly relevant.

They are very relevant. Giving the fighter natural reach and stackable natural armor is a big deal. It's why CR 1 critters were listed as ECL +3 (give or take) back when they still did ECL.

Darkholme wrote:
What I'm Describing isn't "Dragon Statblock + Martial Stuff". What I'm describing is Martial Character + "Miscellaneous Variety of Short-Term Dragon-Themed Metamorphosis Buff Effects...

That's very different from what you first described AND what you were dismissing previous builds over. I mean, what abilities do you want? And how much are you willing to sacrifice to get them? Ryu usually was one of the weaker fighters of his little gang, he just had the trump card superpower he could whip out.

Start as a half-dragon, run some Mutation Warrior, fake the other abilities with a few sorceror spells.

Or go Beastmorph alchemist, rolling into Master Chymist (which straight-up has a "dragon morph" mutagen) for a total +17 BAB at level 20. You are "Dragon" subtype, (because half-dragon) and you get most of the abilities. You may not have a fear aura, though there are ways to fake that too if you hunt around for 'em.

"It's not perfect!" you say? Well you're asking for a cross-genre bit of power creep with a very specific focus and very specific magical abilities. We fake it. What you REALLY want is a custom class of fighter that trades a bunch of fighter abilities for a very specific spell-like ability. Nothing wrong with such a homebrewing, but in lieu of that bit of hard-to-balance creativity, the above gets pretty close. It still won't be BoF dragons, since the dragons are just plain different in Pathfinder, and how much variety you get in your transformations depends on how much "martial" you want to sacrifice (and if memory serves Ryu often didn't get a lot of variety in his draconic abilities).

And you can be Grey Mouser just fine, the problem is Grey Mouser had the glorious magic of "author fiat" making his d20 rolls for him. Same issue as Sherlock Holmes, really.

Dark Archive

Your first claim missed my point:
Airships ≠ Personal Flight.
Sure it's flight, but it is not routine access to personal flight; given that it's a big chunk of equipment that an individual character can't bust out whenever they need it, wherever they are, at a moment's notice. You are either on the airship (which is the size of a building, so you're not taking it into a dungeon or castle, or (usually) even landing it in a forest) or you don't get to fly.

The next few; I can't think of any examples of from any games *I* Played growing up where those are true; so if they happened, it would be news to me.

As for what kinds of monsters they fight, sure, you can fight a Robot or a Giant T-Rex early on in some JRPGs. That Robot or Giant T-Rex often also has stats comparable to a typical guard around the same point in the game. JRPGs are just typically very fuzzy on the concept of having the scarier monsters only around at the higher levels.

Once again, I am not talking about a dragon's physical abilities stacked with a martial character. I am talking about buff effects stacked with a martial character. A variety of buff effects already exist, and there are some martial classes (Barbarian) built around a buff effect.

Mutation Warrior: How is this Mutation Warrior getting the sorcerer spells required to fake the other abilities? I'm pretty sure it would take significantly more than a dip to cover the magical abilities, you'd have access to them while not transformed, I'm not so sure you'd manage to be much of a martial by the time you were done either.

Beastmorph + Master Chymist: could sort-of do it for the dragon shaping, but I'm not sure how well it would work as a Martial - I don't think it would cover all the bases, but it might.

As for Cross-Genre Power-Creep; Well, a non-spellcasting themed shapeshifter (perhaps a Panwere) is hardly a cross-genre idea in a high-magic fantasy game; and as others have pointed out, we've already got several martial characters with buffing options (bloodrager, barbarian, mutation warrior, some varieties of monk, etc) - having a few with a variety of dragon-themed buffs even at the lower levels would hardly be power creep.

It's far from perfect, in that most of the proposed approaches either don't actually cover the "dragon shapeshifting" (access to several single action activated abilities that gives you a collection of monster-themed buffs/abilities for a short period of time), or don't cover the martial character concept. As for how one would homebrew such a thing, yeah that might do it. But my point was that the concept isn't actually doable by RAW - (I would have to look closer at the master Chymist - it may allow you to play the concept so long as you start the game at a sufficiently highlevel - but short of that; which *MIGHT* do it, maybe, sortof), it fills the OP's request of "Concept you wanted to build that can't be built under existing rules."

I'm not so sure I follow your logic regarding the Grey Mouser as a concept requiring author fiat, nor do I see a connection between any difficulty representing IT in pathfinder and representing Sherlock Holmes. If RuneQuest, AD&D, and D&D5 can support this type of character, I don't see why it needs to be unplayable in pathfinder.

So far as I see it you could be saying one of four things.

1. If you're claiming any kind of effectiveness requires author fiat; many kinds of effectiveness don't *require* author fiat, or always rolling 20s. Particularly combat effectiveness, which Pathfinder has a great deal of mechanics regarding. Wizards can be effective in combat without author fiat, and there are literary examples of wizards as well. Fighters can be effective in combat, and there are fictional examples of them as well.

2. If you were saying you think it's unrealistic for a swordsman to use traits besides raw strength to be effective, I don't agree with your reasoning. Even in real life, a swordsman can be good for reasons of precision, speed, agility, rather than just more and more brute strength.

3 & 4. If instead, you meant that emulating any character concept found in a medium other than a game requires author fiat, or that anyone who wants to use a character concept from a book or film expects to never fail, well, then I think you're just being deliberately obtuse for the sake of trying to annoy people.

And there are several games where Sherlock Holmes could be an effective character concept (games where the character can influence the events and plot to be what the character wants them to be, rather than having to deal with the situation as is, through the character). Pathfinder just doesn't happen to be one of those games - what with it not being a narrativist mystery game.


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Since t-rexes were brought up, that's a pretty reasonable challenge for a party of 5th level characters


WHat makes you think you could get dragon shaping at low leve anyway?

The Form of the Dragon spells are all top level spells... and dragons are well known for being some of the most powerful creatures in the game...


PIXIE DUST wrote:

WHat makes you think you could get dragon shaping at low leve anyway?

The Form of the Dragon spells are all top level spells... and dragons are well known for being some of the most powerful creatures in the game...

The lowest level you can be to cast form of the dragon, off the top of my head, is a level 9 wizard using a hero point to cast a spell higher than their max by 1.


That or level 10 as an oracle I think (if youa re a race to ramp up your revelation) if you are not using hero points

Dark Archive

PIXIE DUST wrote:

WHat makes you think you could get dragon shaping at low level anyway?

The Form of the Dragon spells are all top level spells... and dragons are well known for being some of the most powerful creatures in the game...

Sauce987654321 wrote:
The lowest level you can be to cast form of the dragon, off the top of my head, is a level 9 wizard using a hero point to cast a spell higher than their max by 1.
PIXIE DUST wrote:
That or level 10 as an oracle I think (if you are a race to ramp up your revelation) if you are not using hero points

That's the earliest I can see getting the dragonshape spells/abilities, too. And that is not on a martial character. (I'll have to look into that Master Chymist build suggested, but at best that would give a melee build which only covers the concept when you're outside the range of levels (16, it looks like) I have ever seen people actually play in.) and the others are clearly caster classes, not martial.

My point was only that it is a character concept that you cannot really build in Pathfinder. Not because it would be broken - Barbarian and Bloodrager and the Mutation Warrior things all show that you can do a Melee type who has a variety of combat buffs without breaking the game. But there just isn't currently an option like that that has dragon-themed buffs. That shapeshifter class you pointed out I think comes the losest, but its much more shape-shifter-y.


On flight, I posit you are vastly over-valuing a specific ability and indeed, [c]cherry-picking[/i] specific abilities in order to create a perception bias. The anime/jrpg sword-wizard can cut through a steel wall in one swing with the power of narrative and his mighty warrior's heart at the midpoint of the power-growth/campaign arc. A PF character is unlikely to do that even at level 20 reliably. There are a LOT of examples of the power levels of anime-style characters being bananas overpowered. That's part of the genre's charm. And it's in MOST Final Fantasy games, basically every one since FF3 (Japanese) had summons out the wazoo and booms spells of ultra-destruction.

The powers also only showed up in combat, or very specific railroad-plot-driven scenes, because it was a railroad plot from the beginning.

The FIRST point of all this meandering, of course, is that turning into a dragon that can burn the world for a few combat rounds is no big deal in JRPGs because that's the kind of power level they roll. It makes sense in context, and being a dragon isn't necessarily going to make you that much more powerful than a little green guy carrying a big knife and a lantern.

The SECOND point, is that if it's a different Genre, you have to accept certain shifts and changes when you translate your idea. Magic Macgyver isn't going to be facing the kind of contrived situations 80s Macgyver did, PF Batman won't be flying the magitech Batwing through space until epic levels, and PF Tenchi will be mythic tier 7 (?) before he can travel through space at the speed of light through the magic of his alien superpowers.

Darkholme wrote:
Once again, I am not talking about a dragon's physical abilities stacked with a martial character. I am talking about buff effects stacked with a martial character. A variety of buff effects already exist, and there are some martial classes (Barbarian) built around a buff effect.

In my defense, the physical and game-mechanics abilities are the only thing you have listed as "stuff I want for my hypothetical character" that you keep dismissing as "not good enough." But if all you want is a boosting martial then dude, just BE A BARBARIAN. Throw in some flavor text (re-wording the flavor text was explicitly part of the thread) about changing shape and getting more monstrous, if you really need a game mechanic backup to that there are some archetypes of various classes that do "transforms into something more beastial" and "fights stuff hard like a fighter." The Dragon Shaman Druid actually gets Form of the Dragon as their wildshape, it's 3/4 attack progression but sacrifices get made for combat.

Darkholme wrote:
Mutation Warrior: How is this Mutation Warrior getting the sorcerer spells required to fake the other abilities? I'm pretty sure it would take significantly more than a dip to cover the magical abilities, you'd have access to them while not transformed, I'm not so sure you'd manage to be much of a martial by the time you were done either.

What physical abilities that you said you don't want require more than Burning hands, maybe energy substituted (so 4 levels)?

Darkholme wrote:
Beastmorph + Master Chymist: could sort-of do it for the dragon shaping, but I'm not sure how well it would work as a Martial - I don't think it would cover all the bases, but it might.
Darkholme wrote:
Grey Mouser...

You can make a dex fighter. He'll be "any kind of effectiveness." When you say or imply "but he's not as good as (insert build here)" brings us back to the "I don't care about abilities"/"I am a munchkin who wants MORE POWER" dichotomy. Grey Mouser's superior training, skill, and continued success could be reflected by better starting stats, being higher level, a railroad plot that make his "alternative" style more effective than everyone else, or simply being really lucky with the dice. But none of these things are necessarily going to be offered to you in comparison to other PCs however, because this is not a narrative.

I mean if you want your build to be perfect you can no-true-scotsman all day. I'm here for the entertaining challenge of coming up with an approximation of an interesting character within the rules because I find that mental exercise interesting. If you REALLY WANT to say "x can't be done" then yes, you win, it can't be done. All our efforts are in vain and woe betide anyone who tries. But I find that discussion kind of boring, and more importantly that discussion is already over.

So...which discussion are we having?


Darkholme wrote:

Conan:

Conan is in a lower powered genre - he is badass within that genre, but he can't compete with D&D characters. That was my point there. People keep asking to be able to do Conan "A Fighter who can keep up without regular use of magic" with Pathfinder, but it just doesn't do low-magic fantasy (Sword and Sorcery, Dark Fantasy, Pulp Fantasy, etc). If that is the genre you want to play, you're in the wrong game, and should be looking at something designed to do that instead - Pathfinder is designed around abundant and high powered magic, gear-focused adventure fantasy - it's a good fit for itself/D&D3/4 settings, as well as Warcraft, High Magic Fantasy JRPGs, Forgotten Realms, and the like. 4e is equally high magic, but also miniatues gaming focused.

Conan works very well in a 4e game with inherent bonuses.

Translating any 4e martial from an inherent bonus game into Pathfinder generally has problems for their effectiveness.

Pathfinder also has some issues for doing Dark Sun where armor, weapons, and magic are not so common. If you want to play a classic D&D gladiator who uses a variety of weird but crappy weapons with terrible armor and still be an effective bad ass it is tough to pull off.


Large dragon transformation battler is a little tough.

Barbarian with dragon totem gets you draconic transformation while raging with a little descriptive license, actual bite, claws, and at 10th you get wings with flight, I believe. UMD skill with a wand of enlarge person turns that dragon large.

Not sure off the top of my head about possible breath weapons.

Dark Archive

boring7 wrote:
On flight, I posit you are vastly over-valuing a specific ability and indeed, [c]cherry-picking[/i] specific abilities in order to create a perception bias. The anime/jrpg sword-wizard can cut through a steel wall in one swing with the power of narrative and his mighty warrior's heart at the midpoint of the power-growth/campaign arc.

I would agree with you about anime. I see JRPGs (particularly the older ones) as being very different from what routinely shows up in anime. There are not many (if any) examples of things like that in any of the classic JRPGs I recall playing, and I would have found such "power of narrative" effects jarring and an annoying sign of crappy writing and game design (unless they make a thing out of it where I am able to spot weak spots in walls and knock them down with an ability, or something).

You seem to be taking Classic JRPG Concept = Anime Concept, and I consider the two to be quite different - particularly in power level - largely because Anime Power levels don't work well in a game; and I would continue to argue with you that the character power level in (most) classic JRPGs caps out significantly lower than it does in Pathfinder. Breath of fire goes Epic (or Level 20+Mythic, if you prefer), but that happens after the game ends, in narrative (and basically the entire game takes place at a much lower power level than that). I've seen some 3.5 campaigns end with PCs taking spots in pantheons as gods,

boring7 wrote:
A PF character is unlikely to do that even at level 20 reliably. There are a LOT of examples of the power levels of anime-style characters being bananas overpowered. That's part of the genre's charm.

It's also a different genre than I am interested in drawing concepts from for pathfinder, or for that matter, playing a tabletop (and in most cases even video) game based on.

boring7 wrote:
And it's in MOST Final Fantasy games, basically every one since FF3 (Japanese) had summons out the wazoo and booms spells of ultra-destruction.

I'd argue the most potent of those destruction spells is about equivalent to a meteor storm, not world destroying magic. As for JRPG summons, those are just MP heavy, effective, large-templated AOE Spells. Sure, you're conjuring some aspect of Bahamut. But does he stick around and help you fight the army of baddies? No. You get a single attack. Or in the case of some of the New FF Games, you and your party are all transformed into Bahamut, and you either have access to Bahamut or your party, but never both.

boring7 wrote:
The powers also only showed up in combat, or very specific railroad-plot-driven scenes, because it was a railroad plot from the beginning.

Sometimes they had powers that worked outside combat, but they are largely in-combat, and the JRPGs tend to be railroad plots with lots of exploration.

boring7 wrote:
The FIRST point of all this meandering, of course, is that turning into a dragon that can burn the world for a few combat rounds is no big deal in JRPGs because that's the kind of power level they roll. It makes sense in context, and being a dragon isn't necessarily going to make you that much more powerful than a little green guy carrying a big knife and a lantern.

Turning into a dragon that can burn the world is a powerful epic level ability. Turning into a dragon that just has iconic dragon abilities (at level appropriate numerical values) is very different, and not of the power level you keep describing.

boring7 wrote:
The SECOND point, is that if it's a different Genre, you have to accept certain shifts and changes when you translate your idea. Magic Macgyver isn't going to be facing the kind of contrived situations 80s Macgyver did, PF Batman won't be flying the magitech Batwing through space until epic levels, and PF Tenchi will be mythic tier 7 (?) before he can travel through space at the speed of light through the magic of his alien superpowers.

The disconnect I see here is that you're placing classic JRPGs in the same genre as ridiculous over-the-top DBZ style anime, and, and that premise is one I fundamentally disagree with. If you look at the things player characters (and most NPCS) are capable of in a game like Secret/Legend of Mana, Tales of Phantasia, Breath of Fire, or Even Final Fantasy 6 - (other than that JRPGs don't have falling damage) they aren't all that different in power from what characters are capable of in Pathfinder (with the exception of the tech in FF6, but there are 3PP Pathfinder settings with comparable tech), and even D&D2e had Spelljammer (and in a spelljammer game, such equipment is easy enough to come by at the beginning of the campaign), which is much better equipment than an Airship.

boring7 wrote:
In my defense, the physical and game-mechanics abilities are the only thing you have listed as "stuff I want for my hypothetical character" that you keep dismissing as "not good enough."

Ah. You keep moving your claims around here. You made claims of stacking a CR20 worth of abilities onto Martial Class Abilities, and I said that was not at all what I was describing, and that I was not trying to have various complete Bestiary Dragon stat blocks stacks on top of a martial. The things I have been mentioning as not being covered, are the dragon-themed abilities. Breath Weapons, DR, Dragon Immunities, Flight, Fear Aura, and SR. And I have been saying what you would need (to pull off the concept) are a variety of short-term buff effects that would give you various collections of those things (or things similar to them). You kept making assertions of power creep, which didn't describe what I was calling out as being part of the concept at all, and you kept describing "Stacking High CR Monsters on Top of Character Levels from level 1", which was also not at all what I was suggesting, so I kept trying to respond to those claims and make it clear that was not what I was describing at all. As of this most recent post you seem to finally understand the premise of the concept, though you now seem to think that the original concept is what I was saying I am not trying to match.

"Martial Character Who Transforms into a Variety of Dragon-Like Creatures at Larger Sizes and Gains Various Pre-Compiled Sets of Iconic Dragon Abilities For Short Periods of Time" is the character concept, and has been, from the beginning. Is it Specific? Sure. Is it a unique snowflake concept that only exists in a single place? Not really; I've also seen fiction with Panwere characters (Characters who are not useless on their own, and have the ability to take on several hybrid animal-human forms). Some kind of Not-Spellcasting Themed Wildshaper would be almost the same niche.

I would disagree about such a concept necessarily being more powerful than the existing character classes, however. It actually sounds LESS powerful than your typical Synthesist Summoner or Wildshaping Druid, or Wizard. And (depending on how it was done) could be equivalent in power to a Mutation Warrior, Barbarian, Ranger, or Paladin - which (from my understanding) would make it NOT Power Creep (new options of a higher power level than the existing options in the game).

boring7 wrote:
The Dragon Shaman Druid actually gets Form of the Dragon as their wildshape, it's 3/4 attack progression but sacrifices get made for combat.

Dragon Shaman gets limited access to some dragon abilities when not wildshaped, and has the ability to wildshape into a lizard. It doesn't even cover it as a Caster instead of a Martial.

boring7 wrote:
You can make a dex fighter. He'll be "any kind of effectiveness." When you say or imply "but he's not as good as (insert build here)" brings us back to the "I don't care about abilities"/"I am a munchkin who wants MORE POWER" dichotomy. Grey Mouser's superior training, skill, and continued success could be reflected by better starting stats, being higher level, a railroad plot that make his "alternative" style more effective than everyone else, or simply being really lucky with the dice. But none of these things are necessarily going to be offered to you in comparison to other PCs however, because this is not a narrative.

You're dancing around my (and other people's) point here. In Pathfinder, a Dex-Based Melee-Martial is nowhere near as effective as a Strength one, regardless of build. Pathfinder just kindof hates on Dex-Fighters. That's not a reflection on reality (Dexterity and Agility are arguably *MORE* important than just Strength in most forms of melee combat, particularly for weapons like staves, one-handed-swords, knives, etc); and it's basically a problem unique to 3.X. You can build it and be effective in 4e & 5e, there are effective builds of it in 2e. I don't think it should be something that REQUIRES crazy lucky rolls (and I don't think the character is ever described as "mostly just lucky") or narrative tweaks; I think it should be a pretty viable concept. It's rather common in fiction, and it's not even a massive departure from reality.

As for the dichotomy you describe, I *ABSOLUTELY* Care about abilities that match the concept and being able to keep up with the rest of the party, and I *Don't* want a munchkin build with *MORE* power than all of the other players. I really don't see whee you're getting either of those two ideas from (both are incorrect if you're applying them to me). For a concept to be viable, you need mechanics that can match up with the concept (or at least closely approximate it), while being competitive in power with the other types of builds which will be seeing play in the game. If I want to play a minotaur, and the GM Proposes Half-Orc Stats, that's very clearly not a minotaur, being half the height, 1/4 the size, and 1/8 the weight, and not having horns. I'm not saying a Pathfinder Minotaur build has to have all the exact stats from the bestiary, but it does to have the iconic abilities (Horns, Large Size, Direction Sense). Likewise, Drow need to be resistant to magic and have the ability to create darkness, and Dragons need wings and breath weapons, and some kid of frightful presence, toughness, and magic resistance would sure help.

boring7 wrote:

I mean if you want your build to be perfect you can no-true-scotsman all day. I'm here for the entertaining challenge of coming up with an approximation of an interesting character within the rules because I find that mental exercise interesting. If you REALLY WANT to say "x can't be done" then yes, you win, it can't be done. All our efforts are in vain and woe betide anyone who tries.

But I find that discussion kind of boring, and more importantly that discussion is already over.

So...which discussion are we having?

Well, the OP wanted examples of concepts which we didn't think could be reasonably portrayed under the existing rules (he seemed to be arguing that homebrew served no purpose, and that we don't need more game options than already exist in order to adequately cover all concepts), so I posted a concept I didn't think could be done, to see if anyone else could come up with a way to do it, and/or show the OP a reason why homebrew and new game materials still have a place.

Thus far, there's not been a build mentioned that can actually cover it without playing as a doppelganger (so, not really) or one of a couple types of wizard (and thus not a Martial).

I am interested in seeing new and interesting ways to build concepts, so long as they are actually able to approximate the concept. In this case, there doesn't seem to be one.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Darkholme wrote:
LazarX wrote:


To answer this question.. sure while you can make ANYTHING with the Pathfinder set, a lot of it simply will not either work well, or fail to preserve the flavor of the original.
Sure. Though as people have pointed out, there's no reason why a simple concept such as the Grey Mouser should continuously be mechanically awful in Pathfinder; it's a very good fit thematically; but for some arbitrary reason it isn't supported in Pathfinder. Once you give him the strength score and abilities required for him to actually be the effective swordsman he is supposed to be, he's no longer the nimble rogue-y type you were aiming for.

I'm not sure with the problem is. The Mouser uses a rapier and a dagger, both finessable. he's got skills including just enough ranks in Use Magic Device to be dangerous to himself. He doesn't have to equal a 20th plus level fighter to be the "best", he just has to be better than what he faces. And that could easily include feinting feats to help get the job done.

Even in their original Dieties and Demi-Gods writeups, they were given a minor ability or two not included in the base rules set. A similar minor tweak, perhaps in the form of a custom trait would do the job here as well. These guys are special heroes, they don't need to be totally confined to the rules that bind player characters.


Okay I saw this thread and it piqued my interest. I am not going to devote the time to read all the posts. I read the first 2 pages and I feel that is reasonable.

This has already been stated, but if we are to ask if we can explore any concept, that must be properly defined. Asking if it is possible to do X thing in a system is different than asking to do ONLY X thing within a system. The second thing is much harder, especially in a system like Pathfinder. There are to many variables and add-ons for any path to make that practical. But practically, I take it, is not really part of the discussion...

Anyway, I have a very brief answer to the OP:
In Pathfinder? Maybe. I'm not sure without a definition of the limitations under which we speak. See the last paragraph.
Gurps? Yes. Absolutely.
That is Gurps greatest strength.

Gurps uses a point system. For EVERYTHING. EVERYTHING in the game is done through points. Every perk, every flaw, every ability, stat, concept, power, downside, wealth, item, weakness; everything. Anything can be modified either positively or negatively by points; like a superpower can cost less points than it usually does by a contingency being the typical example. To give a more personal example, I once made a modern setting character who could fly, but only when he was on Acid. Can it be broken? Of course. But that's not the point.

Gurps is great because even the most abstract, absurd, and/or contingent power can be represented by a number. In the incredibly rare case that it can't, the Gurps system has rules for changing the system until it can. If you are looking to do anything and everything in the simplest way possible, go with Gurps. But balancing it is something you have to do on your own. Gurps requires serious player self-power-checking and player-GM communication. That is the downside.

However, if doing anything and everything in the simplest way possible is the primary need or motivation, I personally recommend Gurps.

(If someone already mentioned Gurps in the in-between pages, that's my bad, sorry in advance if that proves to be true.)


IQuarent wrote:
Gurps requires serious player self-power-checking and player-GM communication. That is the downside.

That's kind of a major downside. The only one more serious would be if the system wasn't fun. If the system doesn't do some balancing for you then the GM is better off just making his or her own game.


LazarX wrote:
Darkholme wrote:
LazarX wrote:


To answer this question.. sure while you can make ANYTHING with the Pathfinder set, a lot of it simply will not either work well, or fail to preserve the flavor of the original.
Sure. Though as people have pointed out, there's no reason why a simple concept such as the Grey Mouser should continuously be mechanically awful in Pathfinder; it's a very good fit thematically; but for some arbitrary reason it isn't supported in Pathfinder. Once you give him the strength score and abilities required for him to actually be the effective swordsman he is supposed to be, he's no longer the nimble rogue-y type you were aiming for.

I'm not sure with the problem is. The Mouser uses a rapier and a dagger, both finessable. he's got skills including just enough ranks in Use Magic Device to be dangerous to himself. He doesn't have to equal a 20th plus level fighter to be the "best", he just has to be better than what he faces. And that could easily include feinting feats to help get the job done.

Even in their original Dieties and Demi-Gods writeups, they were given a minor ability or two not included in the base rules set. A similar minor tweak, perhaps in the form of a custom trait would do the job here as well. These guys are special heroes, they don't need to be totally confined to the rules that bind player characters.

The initial topic set a rule of "Paizo only" and assumes player-made characters. Grey Mouser is easy. "Effective Grey Mouser" is a True Scotsman, and there ain't NO system you can make will do that character concept unless you wanted it to.

Also there's a slight issue with the delusion that "dex-based fighters are always better in the real world." This is nonsense, the only way you could believe it is if you mistook training (mechanically levels of experience) for natural agility, but more importantly it is also irrelevant. Fantasy or reality, the issue always remains that "an effective Grey Mouser" has to be a large number of contradictory things at the same time. Things like, "best at everything/not special or unbalanced" or "is very impressive and special in that he keeps up with strength via speed/is perfectly normal and anyone can make a PC just like him."

Which is fine, I guess, True Scotsmen are people too. But it is rather boring to discuss in my opinion. Which is why I'm hoping someone else will pose an interesting dilemma with an interest in developing the character concept instead of another True Scotsman.


boring7 wrote:
LazarX wrote:
Darkholme wrote:
LazarX wrote:


To answer this question.. sure while you can make ANYTHING with the Pathfinder set, a lot of it simply will not either work well, or fail to preserve the flavor of the original.
Sure. Though as people have pointed out, there's no reason why a simple concept such as the Grey Mouser should continuously be mechanically awful in Pathfinder; it's a very good fit thematically; but for some arbitrary reason it isn't supported in Pathfinder. Once you give him the strength score and abilities required for him to actually be the effective swordsman he is supposed to be, he's no longer the nimble rogue-y type you were aiming for.

I'm not sure with the problem is. The Mouser uses a rapier and a dagger, both finessable. he's got skills including just enough ranks in Use Magic Device to be dangerous to himself. He doesn't have to equal a 20th plus level fighter to be the "best", he just has to be better than what he faces. And that could easily include feinting feats to help get the job done.

Even in their original Dieties and Demi-Gods writeups, they were given a minor ability or two not included in the base rules set. A similar minor tweak, perhaps in the form of a custom trait would do the job here as well. These guys are special heroes, they don't need to be totally confined to the rules that bind player characters.

The initial topic set a rule of "Paizo only" and assumes player-made characters. Grey Mouser is easy. "Effective Grey Mouser" is a True Scotsman, and there ain't NO system you can make will do that character concept unless you wanted it to.

Also there's a slight issue with the delusion that "dex-based fighters are always better in the real world." This is nonsense, the only way you could believe it is if you mistook training (mechanically levels of experience) for natural agility, but more importantly it is also irrelevant. Fantasy or reality, the issue always remains that "an effective Grey Mouser" has...

<sigh> Grey Mouser can be played within D&D, I know that as I briefly played with Fritz Leiber, who was playing the Grey Mouser. If *HE* thought he could play his own creation effectively, then indeed, it can be played effectively.


DrDeth wrote:
<sigh> Grey Mouser can be played within D&D, I know that as I briefly played with Fritz Leiber, who was playing the Grey Mouser. If *HE* thought he could play his own creation effectively, then indeed, it can be played effectively.

Did he do any dueling in the game?

I recall the Mouser doing both the backstab thing (the signature ability of AD&D thieves) when he meets Fafhrd but also being a master duelist (which I would not expect an AD&D thief to replicate).


Marcus Robert Hosler wrote:
IQuarent wrote:
Gurps requires serious player self-power-checking and player-GM communication. That is the downside.
That's kind of a major downside. The only one more serious would be if the system wasn't fun. If the system doesn't do some balancing for you then the GM is better off just making his or her own game.

That is your opinion, not fact. The system is balanced; things that are useful in different ways at about the same power level cost similar points. The system is used best if adopted and then modified to fit any particular game. It's great for custom settings because the points can be applied however the GM wants, so it's actually best for the GM to make on his own, not worse. The Gurps system is actually very well thought out, it's just that the nature of the system makes it easier to breaker. Every complex RP game has downsides.

Dark Archive

boring7 wrote:
The initial topic set a rule of "Paizo only" and assumes player-made characters. Grey Mouser is easy. "Effective Grey Mouser" is a True Scotsman, and there ain't NO system you can make will do that character concept unless you wanted it to.

Every time I've heard you call something a True Scotsman, I thought what you were referring to was a "Specific Concept" and saying that having any kind of requirement to consider a concept met made it to speific. Therefore this comment confused the hell out of me. So I looked it up. What you're actually referring to is "No True Scotsman", am I correct? as in continually saying: "No True Scotsman would do X, so that must not be a True Scotsman?" That doesn't apply to any of the concepts I've mentioned, any more than saying a Fighter doesn't fit any reasonable criteria for "Playing as a conjuration specialist Wizard". When I present a concept, does it need to meet any specific criteria? Yes. Are those criteria going to involve ever-moving goalposts that can never be satisfied? No. Can they be very clearly defined if necessary? Sure.

boring7 wrote:
Also there's a slight issue with the delusion that "dex-based fighters are always better in the real world." This is nonsense, the only way you could believe it is if you mistook training (mechanically levels of experience) for natural agility, but more importantly it is also irrelevant.

"Uncoordinated (Low Dex) and Musclebound (High Strength)" is not how I would describe a skilled swordsman (Maybe a guy who only uses greatswords - but I would probably not describe suh a guy as a skilled swordsman). That *IS* how I would describe most skilled swordsmen in Pathfinder based on the abilities and stats they have. "Dex Based Fighters" would indeed be better in the real world, in that you would be using said dexterity for more accuracy (as well as being better at avoiding getting hit by the opponent), because being able to hit harder does not make you more accurate in real life - if it did, then being a weightlifter would help you be morer accurate with swordfighting, and after a while, being able to "hit harder" with a sword really isn't that helpful (maybe if you're trying to cut someone in half or something). If you can hit hard enough to go through the armor, the sword is sharp; it will do the rest of the work. "Oh Man You Stabbed That Guy Through and Through Harder Than Steve Stabbed That Other Guy Through And Through" isn't a thing - Stabbing them Harder really doesn't make much of a difference. Either you stabbed them or you didn't. Having more better accuracy (Dexterity) and more speed/maneuverability (Agility) IS a thing, and IS helpful. And yes, obviously, Training is also useful.

boring7 wrote:
Fantasy or reality, the issue always remains that "an effective Grey Mouser" has to be a large number of contradictory things at the same time. Things like, "best at everything/not special or unbalanced" or "is very impressive and special in that he keeps up with strength via speed/is perfectly normal and anyone can make a PC just like him."

The "Agile Fighter" wouldn't have to be any of those contradictory things. You're just putting words in my mouth now - but apparently you've been doing that every time you use the "No True Scotsman" argument in a way that it was not apparent what the in the hells you were talking about with it.

Let me define "effective" for you so it's no longer confusing to you; this is the minimum effectiveness I would consider "reasonable". For "General Character Effectiveness", I would say: "Able to contribute in and out of combat no less than a well-built sword-and-board fighter." For "Effective Martial", I'd expect that to be as effective with Melee Weapons as a Ranger, Barbarian, or Paladin, typically with some situation where that performance is increased (FE, Rage, Buff Spells). The fact is: the Fighter is one of the less effective classes in the game. It has good damage output, but that's about all it can do. It has crap for skills, and has next to nothing in the way of class features outside of the category of "nonmagical combat with chosen weapon". Nobody wants to be the NPC Warrior class; or the NPC Expert.

I thought this was pretty obvious, but so that there is no more confusion, I will spell out the what "Agile and Effective Swordsman" means, in highly specific terms, so that you can't claim confusion or "No True Scotsman" if/when it can't be met. "Agile (Minimum Dex 14) Non-Strength Focused (Maximum Strength 14), Martial (No More than Level 4 Spells by 20, Minimum 3 Attacks by 20, Minimum Unenhanced (Pre-Buffed/Equipped/Power-Attacking) To-Hit-Bonus on attacks of +25/+20/+15 (With Weapon Focus), Average Unenhanced (Pre-Buffed/Magic-Itemed/Power-Attacking) Damage if All Attacks Hit of 35, One-handed-stabbing-blade-wielding(rapier, shortsword, longsword, etc - but not Falchion or other things which you hack at someone with) Character". Ideally, such a character (being less effective at killing stuff than the sword and board fighter [Low to-hit/damage than a fighter, less or equal attacks per round than a fighter]) should have some other kinds of abilities of some kind. A minimum of 4+int/level skills would help, as would some manner of non-stabbing class features. And if we're going for the Grey Mouser specifically, then I'd add some quantity of sneak attack damage to the list, and have him wielding a dagger in his off-hand, and have him using Two-Weapon Fighting (at some penalties). Each thing on that list can be measured, and you can yes/no on whether each one was met. These are not even close to what I would consider "Good" or "Optimized" numbers, but they would be passable.

DrDeth wrote:
<sigh> Grey Mouser can be played within D&D, I know that as I briefly played with Fritz Leiber, who was playing the Grey Mouser. If *HE* thought he could play his own creation effectively, then indeed, it can be played effectively.

Did you play Pathfinder with Fritz Leiber? Because I have already stated that such a concept can be built in other games, but that doing so in Pathfinder while being "any kind of effectiveness" (see above) is another matter.

Voadam wrote:

Did he do any dueling in the game?

I recall the Mouser doing both the backstab thing (the signature ability of AD&D thieves) when he meets Fafhrd but also being a master duelist (which I would not expect an AD&D thief to replicate).

Likely not.


He could have if he had really good stats. And having a character who is naturally just plain better than everyone else is actually kind of normal for a narrative. You can be strong enough to keep up with (but not beat) super-strong body builders and also as fast as the Mantis Shrimp without sacrificing anything if you're a Hero Character in a novel. In an RPG you're basically cheating if you do that.

Or if the Grey Mouser was a total weakling (I don't remember) you could just have extra levels. Nobody says he was the same level of training and skill as everyone else. Maybe he had an extra 4 levels of Duelist stacking up above everyone else. If the primary issue is that he isn't powerful enough, add more power, he was a spanking main character, they get to do that sort of thing. Of course he's going to be special and better than other folk.


Marcus Robert Hosler wrote:
IQuarent wrote:
Gurps requires serious player self-power-checking and player-GM communication. That is the downside.
That's kind of a major downside. The only one more serious would be if the system wasn't fun. If the system doesn't do some balancing for you then the GM is better off just making his or her own game.

GURPS is basically "Build your own game, the game", so yeah.

It's like RPG Maker for TRPGs.

RPG Superstar 2009 Top 16, 2012 Top 32

Darkholme wrote:
Barbarian and Bloodrager and the Mutation Warrior things all show that you can do a Melee type who has a variety of combat buffs without breaking the game. But there just isn't currently an option like that that has dragon-themed buffs.

Pathfinder does have a straight martial with dragon-themed buffs.

The draconic bloodrager is literally a martial who (partially or completely) transforms in a dragon for short periods of time. Depending on his level and the spell he chooses to activate upon entering a bloodrage, he gains some combination of a bite, claws, wings, a breath weapon, resistances, DR, fear effects, and/or Large size. If you take the crossblooded rager archetype to mix in the arcane bloodline, you can even turn into multiple different types of dragons at sufficiently high level.

You may not like that implementation of your concept, but you cannot, in good faith say, that the concept itself doesn't exist in Pathfinder.


Rynjin wrote:
Marcus Robert Hosler wrote:
IQuarent wrote:
Gurps requires serious player self-power-checking and player-GM communication. That is the downside.
That's kind of a major downside. The only one more serious would be if the system wasn't fun. If the system doesn't do some balancing for you then the GM is better off just making his or her own game.

GURPS is basically "Build your own game, the game", so yeah.

It's like RPG Maker for TRPGs.

I have nothing against GMs making their own games, but not all GMs can make the effort or are even capable of balancing their own system.


Strong beats fast in the real world. It is why we have weight classes, it is why the little guy is almost always dominated in any MMA fight thing, it is why the legendary "tiny, speedy warrior who's a total badass" is so special and so often underestimated in fiction. Everyone KNOWS strength wins fights, except this one dude is so exceptionally fast he wins anyway. "The real world" is a blind alley you don't want to go down when talking about any fantasy power-build, because reality includes "drowned in a nosebleed after getting drunk" or "was shot with a single arrow and died of sepsis." Also, a good PF fighter doesn't soak dex, they just don't specialize in it, just sayin'.

I'm no fighter optimizer, (and I'm sleepy) so I'll throw out some easy ones.

Just about anything you can do with sword-and-board you can do with TWF, the cap on AC is actually higher for the dex boys because they have a higher/nonexistant max dex bonus. The Agile enchantment is a +1 enchantment that gives you dex-to-damage on everything Mouser used. Trade a -1 compared to the sword'n'shield for equality in strength vs. dex damage bonus. fighter 6, rogue 4, duelist 10 gets you nearly the same (or better) damage, depending on incidentals (do you get sneak attack, are you dual-wielding or not, etc.) because duelist gets to add his level to damage.

With a 10 strength, a (starting) 20 dex, and a 14 int he gets (+4 agile weapon, +8 dex, +1 WF, and +19 BAB) +32/+27/+22/+17 full attack, enough feats to do TWF, does 1d6+8(dex)+4(enhancement)+2(weapon specialization) for an average of 17.5 per hit (your call if they all hit or not). That goes up to 27.5 per hit when just using a rapier because Duelist, but we assume he one-hands and isn't getting sneak attack for whatever reason. (his sneak attack, for reference, adds an average of 7 points of damage).

His AC is 10+8 dex+(let's say 1 cloth?) armor+2 int for 21 + two weapon defense maybe vs. the sword-and-board's 10+9(tincan) armor+2 shield+1 dex for 22 + shield focus maybe. I don't know if he has a better dex bonus or if Mouser-lite has a headband of intellect, and enchanting armor and shield is cheaper than just enchanting armor, so we'll assume sword-and-board probably has 4 or 5 better armor for the price of Mouser's second enchanted weapon. Fair?

His Skill points average to 4.2 (plus int mod) per level

No spells at all.

A lot of this rests on duelist (which is one-handed) and the Agile Enchantment (which is PFS field guide) but everything except that enchantment (and maybe some of the TWF feats because I don't remember) are in the Core Rule Book, no splatbooks needed, let alone non-paizo stuff.

Strip out the agile enchantment (and assume dual-wield, no sneak attack) and his damage is 9.5 per hit (still adds up to >35 assuming all 6 hit), and I'm ignoring a bunch of rogue and duelist specials because I don't remember them or they're not relevant to the numbers you put down.

You can also mix and match how much fighter, rogue, and duelist you wanted, fighter has to be 4 for Weapon spec (though you can sacrifice it too, if you want) and Int-to-AC is capped by duelist level, but this is just the bare-bones noob-build. You also are kind of feat-starved if you drop too many fighter levels, since Duelist and TWF have separate feat-trees they have to climb. I don't think I need to mention the effect on your BAB either...

Is that what you wanted?

Dark Archive

Devil's Advocate wrote:
Darkholme wrote:
Barbarian and Bloodrager and the Mutation Warrior things all show that you can do a Melee type who has a variety of combat buffs without breaking the game. But there just isn't currently an option like that that has dragon-themed buffs.

Pathfinder does have a straight martial with dragon-themed buffs.

The draconic bloodrager is literally a martial who (partially or completely) transforms in a dragon for short periods of time. Depending on his level and the spell he chooses to activate upon entering a bloodrage, he gains some combination of a bite, claws, wings, a breath weapon, resistances, DR, fear effects, and/or Large size. If you take the crossblooded rager archetype to mix in the arcane bloodline, you can even turn into multiple different types of dragons at sufficiently high level.

You may not like that implementation of your concept, but you cannot, in good faith say, that the concept itself doesn't exist in Pathfinder.

Hmm. Okay, I missed the draconic part of the bloodrager. That covers some of the concept better than the other things mentioned; but still doesn't actually cover "Martial Character Who Transforms into a Variety of Dragon-Like Creatures at Larger Sizes and Gains Various Pre-Compiled Sets of Iconic Dragon Abilities For Short Periods of Time".

It covers: Martial Character; Draconic Abilities (most of which are on all the time, not only while bloodraging/transformed; And the ability to turn into a single kind of dragon for short periods of time at high levels.
It does not cover: "Draconic Abilities which are only available once you transform/buff effect"; and it does not cover "Variety of Dragon Shapes".

It covers the concept almost as well as the Synthesist using Evolution Surge spells.

boring7 wrote:
Strong beats fast in the real world. It is why we have weight classes, it is why the little guy is almost always dominated in any MMA fight thing, it is why the legendary "tiny, speedy warrior who's a total badass" is so special and so often underestimated in fiction. Everyone KNOWS strength wins fights, except this one dude is so exceptionally fast he wins anyway. "The real world" is a blind alley you don't want to go down when talking about any fantasy power-build, because reality includes "drowned in a nosebleed after getting drunk" or "was shot with a single arrow and died of sepsis." Also, a good PF fighter doesn't soak dex, they just don't specialize in it, just sayin'.

Strong beats fast in *UNARMED* fighting, sure. I dont think I would agree with you when it comes to swords, knives, guns, or bows. Reach matters (size) but Brute Strength, not so much. In a duel between two guys with one-handed swords (lets say of the same kind, for simplicity), I'd bet on the tall-thin-long-armed-fast guy over the average-height-guy-who-may-be-on-steroids. I'm not suggesting pathfinder does (or should) perfectly emulate real life; I'm saying the argument that "Being Fast Shouldn't Make You Good With Swords Because It Is Unrealistic" is a load of horse-crap.

boring7 wrote:

Duelist Build...

Is that what you wanted?

Wow. Yep, that's the sort of thing I was looking for. Good job. As you mentioned, it's not going to be in the same power category as a well built spellcaster, but that is totally playable, and hits basically all the targets. I do think it largely relies on the Agile weapon property a great deal (which I haven't seen before). Looking at your second set of numbers, I think the damage would come up short without "Agile" weapons (taking 35 as the target damage before you considering weapon enhancements). I am definitely convinced that it's at least "Any Kind of Effective" once you add in Agile Weapons.


If I wanted to be a Mad Alchemist/Scientist who went around making monsters/mutating people into monsters, how would I go about that?


Marcus Robert Hosler wrote:
If I wanted to be a Mad Alchemist/Scientist who went around making monsters/mutating people into monsters, how would I go about that?

Vivisectionist Alchemist with Craft Construct. That's the first thing that came to my mind. Does that work?


Darkholme wrote:
I'd bet on the tall-thin-long-armed-fast guy over the average-height-guy-who-may-be-on-steroids.

Assuming equal levels of training? You would lose the majority of the time. There are swings and strikes you cannot dodge, you HAVE to deflect, and to do that you have to be strong enough to push the blade (or whatever it is) out of its current, "cut you in half" course. If Beefy the Brick is trying to fight like a twinkle-toes duelist, he'll probably lose, but if he just fights like a skilled hammer he'll generally win.

I mean, sometimes you'd get lucky.

Also: Duelist 10 still rolls 13.5 per hit with no magical enhancements at all as long as her off-hand is empty, and Duelist is core-rules, hasn't-been-power-creeped, "underpowered" by most theorycraft standards. Dual-wielding and sneak attacking are a different story, with different associated builds. A -4 to your attack bonus (compared to the other build) would net you +35 per Sneak Attack, but +0 if you couldn't get a flank or a feint. How do you weigh that? You could throw 5 attacks every OTHER round (at some, lower-than-previous bonus) doing an average of 38.5+(whatever) damage as a bog-standard rogue who bluffs (practically guaranteed success at that level) and then full-attacks next round. Is that useless or awesome?

There might even be a nonsensical way to do it every round by stacking improved feint with pounce (there are ways to get pounce, no I'm not well-versed in them) using rules-lawyering on shoddy rules-development, but I'm only guessing here. Like I said, I'm no martial-optimizer, I'm not really an optimizer in general to be honest.

Dark Archive

Fair Enough.

I'm not bad at optimizing, but 4/5 times I play some kind of caster class not directly focused on dealing damage (lots of battlefield control, open-ended utility spells, etc); so knowing what numbers are reasonable for a beatstick isn't my forté.


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For the Dragon: Take whatever Martial character you like and spam a bunch of Permanancied Augmented Forms of the Dragon on him, at whatever size/color combinations you want to have the options of turning into. Requires a Mythic game, a spellcaster buddy, and a GM willing to allow Permanency to affect more than the pittance of spells listed, but it'd work:

-You have the option of Medium, Large, or Huge transformations, depending on the FotD spell used
-You gain the most common dragon abilities, and using different colors lets you mix up your elemental natures (assuming you don't care about being a Medium dragon, this can be covered in about eight castings; four if you're willing to settle just on one size)
-Augmented FotD lets you transform back pretty much at will. That requires some clearing with the GM since Augmented FotD only lets you transform back and forth for a number of times equal to your tier... but if your GM is letting you Permanency Form of the Dragon you could probably work that to "number of times equal to your tier per day".

The only trick is getting FotD onto the martial character, since I'm not aware of, off-hand, a way to broaden the target of Form of the Dragon to somebody else beyond using Greater Polymorph or Polymorph Any Object, which wouldn't let you be Large or Huge since you can only go FotD I. The best-- and most amusing-- solution I can think of is to also Permanency Augmented Transformation onto a caster. That gives some stat bonuses (Enhancement, depressingly, but there's worse than getting a free Belt of Physical Perfection +4), but more importantly jumps BAB up to character level, and Augmented continues to allow spellcasting so long as spell level is not greater than tier level. I'd call full BAB and the ability to turn into a Huge dragon rocking +14 Str, +12 Con, and +9 natural armor 'Martial', even if you started life as Sorcerer.

This may not qualify since you need some GM cooperation on the Permanency end, but it's kind of a hilarious solution.


voideternal wrote:
Marcus Robert Hosler wrote:
If I wanted to be a Mad Alchemist/Scientist who went around making monsters/mutating people into monsters, how would I go about that?
Vivisectionist Alchemist with Craft Construct. That's the first thing that came to my mind. Does that work?

Bog-standard alchemist can turn his extracts into infusions and dose other people with them to interesting (if temporary) effect.

Chirurgeon is a healer (doctor) but can easily go Mad. Not really relevant beyond the name though.

Reanimator specializes in making alchemical zombies (which are at least vaguely Frankenstein's monster).

But yeah, Vivisectionist/craft construct is probably your best bet. It's a shame infuse mutagen doesn't work on other characters...

Dark Archive

kestral287 wrote:
Mythic Permanency Shenanigans...

That's a pretty amusing solution.

Assuming GM Cooperation wrt Permanency, you could always get Form of the Dragon (various) on yourself via scrolls and UMD. 1-dip Pathfinder Savant so you can take 10 on UMD, Skill Focus, Masterwork UMD Tool, Magical Aptitude, Dangerously Curious all make you better at UMD (and DC gives it as a class skill.

If I were GMing and willing to allow it (I would have to look at the numbers - Which I might, if it took what I considered to be a reasonable amount of their WBL), I would allow a PC to go in and get "Treated" with this; but I also allow Monks to have their unarmed attacks turned masterwork via spell after which point they an have it enchanted like any other weapon.

I might even allow discounted prices on the various alternate forms, since the player can only have one active at a time. But I'm a pretty Nice GM.

I could also see something using the custom magic item rules, having a necklace or something which gives you access to various "Form of the Dragon" effects, a limited number of times per day. It would be an expensive item though.

Amulet of Form of the Dragon 1 3/day
SL6xCL11x1800x(3/5)
80,190 Gold
(Basically all your money at level 11)

Amulet of Form of the Dragon 2 3/day
SL7xCL13x1800x(3/5)
110,565 Gold
(A bit more than all your money at L12)

Amulet of Form of the Dragon 3 3/day
SL8xCL15x1800x(3/5)
145,800 Gold
(A bit more than all your money at L13)

lol. Form of the Dragon is a pretty hefty buff spell though.


Darkholme wrote:

DrDeth wrote:

<sigh> Grey Mouser can be played within D&D, I know that as I briefly played with Fritz Leiber, who was playing the Grey Mouser. If *HE* thought he could play his own creation effectively, then indeed, it can be played effectively.
Did you play Pathfinder with Fritz Leiber? Because I have already stated that such a concept can be built in other games, but that doing so in Pathfinder while being "any kind of effectiveness" (see above) is another matter.

No, of course not. Fritz died in 1992.

But "any kind of effectiveness" is the whole point. I mean, I can have HUGE fun in a low op game, with combat, RPing, etc. However, if by "any kind of effectiveness" you mean I have to keep up with super-optimized characters in a game all about DPR, and if I have "only" half the DPR of another character i am not "effective' then, maybe not. But I dont give a rodents rear end about DPR comparos and competing with the other members of my TEAM as to who does the most damage. Nor does anyone I play with.

Do we have fun? if the answer is yes, then I have played with all the "effectiveness' necessary.

Dark Archive

Fair enough. I'm glad that works for you and your group.

In our group, if one player's character is 50% as good as would be competitive for their role, that person usually starts feeling somewhat bummed out about it, and if they are the only one built to fill a certain role and are not doing an adequate job, the rest of the group starts getting frustrated about it.

That said, it's (mostly) not a highly optimized group, so if someone is at 50% effectiveness, they are actually quite bad, and the group will likely be struggling to overcome appropriate encounters because of it. I tend to have fairly optimized characters, and so does my girlfriend (she asks me to help her optimize her character before we start a campaign); but the other 5 players run the gamut in optimization.

And of course, it didn't used to be a group of 7, we started as a group of 4+GM. If someone isn't competitive in a role now, it's less important to the rest of the group, because we've usually got more than one person covering each party role.

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