GM Granta's AP Planning

Game Master Granta

With Skill Unlocks being available, I may need to revisit Phantom Rogue.

With Skill Unlocks being available, I may need to revisit Phantom Rogue.

Keep in mind, the part of phantom thief related to skill unlocks is only for unchained rogues, which we aren't using. That class goes on my list of cheese that is too powerful and never should have been published.

Oh, well, then I just need to weigh the gobs of combat feats against Bardic Knowledge and either Inspire Courage, Satire, or Archaeologist's Luck.

Will probably ultimately depend on if we get a 5th and if the 5th is going to be a physical attacker or a spell caster.

Skill Unlocks only work with the Signature Skill feat, right?

Skill Unlocks only work with the Signature Skill feat, right?

Correct, but let's invent a talent for the chained rogue:

Signature Talent (Ex): A rogue who selects this talent gains the skill unlock powers for a single skill as appropriate for her number of ranks in that skill.

Note: This talent does not actually grant the Signature Skill feat, so you would still be able to take it and unlock a second skill.

For my oracle I'm thinking of going for a very striking female focusing on social skills. If I use the Intrigue mystery (if allowed), have a high CHR, and use the Charming and Rising Star traits, then I have a lot of bonuses on navigating social type encounters.

Is Pavo also still headed in that direction?

Check above for the ruling on Ultimate Intrigue.

For my oracle I'm thinking of going for a very striking female focusing on social skills. If I use the Intrigue mystery (if allowed), have a high CHR, and use the Charming and Rising Star traits, then I have a lot of bonuses on navigating social type encounters.

Is Pavo also still headed in that direction?

Yes.

While I understand that there's going to be a lot of social situations and social combat, there'll be plenty of physical combat we need to survive as well, I believe.

The intrigue mystery helps--sort of--with the former but not at all with the latter.

I'd be concerned if our casters were hyperspecialized on diplomacy and charms when we encounter a band of undead enemies.

I want to be careful to not overwhelm you about asking for permission on things, especially when I'm deciding between two significantly different builds, but we're getting closer to the end of the week.

Feat: Bookish Rogue from the Advanced Class Guide
Summary: Change Minor/Major Magic Rogue Talent's spell by studying a spellbook.
Feat: Talented Magician from the Advanced Class Guide
Summary: Extra use of Minor/Major Magic Rogue Talent's SLAs.

Rogue Talent: Assault Leader from the Advanced Player's Guide.
Summary: One flanker can make an attack as an immediate action if the rogue misses.

...actually, the links for the rogue talents all go to the same place.

Careful Stab from the Adventurer's Guide
Summary: Opt to not kill target by overkill.

Combat Swipe from the Advanced Player's Guide.
Summary: Grants Improved Steal as a bonus feat.

Positioning Attack from the Advanced Player's Guide.
Summary: Move up to 30 ft without triggering AOOs after hitting a target, but must end movement adjacent to that same target.

Those talents and feats are all okay :-)

I'm working on my known spells for the Oracle and am looking for some advice. Is it better to add bless to my known spell list or wait until I can buy a bless wand and use the known-spell-slot for something else?

Also, for those of you using HeroLab, how do I get the WftC campaign traits into HeroLab?

IMO, I'd get bless as a spell, then at level 4 trade it out for something else. I'd grab a wand earlier than that though. It's a great spell to drop every combat!

I just typed up a nice, long response and fed it to the Paizo monster. Grr . . .

Here is the short of it:

• I like condition removal and other rarely needed, but life saving spells for spontaneous casters.
  
• I love the racial favored class bonus of an extra spell known.
  
• Here is the planned spell list for my Reign of Winter oracle.
  
• Bless is only worthwhile as an ambush pre-cast, and even then rarely so. It is actually a horrendous spell.

I use this guide for oracles.

I definitely agree the extra spell FCB is very useful to an oracle.

If it's just me and Gummy in combat, Divine Favor is good. Protection from Evil.

Divine favor is good pre-combat, but there are lots of better choices during combat rounds, i.e. swinging a weapon. Once initiative is rolled, it is very important to consider the opportunity cost of actions.

Regarding the guide that Blake linked: please, please disregard the advice on how often a spell should be useful. The whole point of a spontaneous caster is that you can fill a slot with any spell known. It does not matter how often each spell is useful; it matters how often you have a useful spell.

Consider an oracle and two clerics. Cleric (A) prepares divine favor and remove fear, while the oracle knows those two spells. Cleric (B) prepares divine favor twice. On day one, they each run into two combats, but no fear effects. Cleric (A) has a wasted spell slot, but the oracle and cleric (B) are at full effectiveness. On day two, they each run into two combats, including a fear effect that panics the front liner. Cleric (B) is unable to stop the fighter from running away, but the oracle and cleric (A) do. Basically, there is no variation of circumstances under which the "Tuesday" spells are better for prepared casters than spontaneous ones.

Depends on what kind of oracle you're going for: debuffer, controller, or fighter. If he's tanking STR and doesn't plan to swing a sword, making the sword-swingers hit more often is better than him swinging a club at -2 to hit for 1d4-2 damage.

Not much is better than Summoning, but there's not much point to taking it before 2nd level.

Depends on what kind of oracle you're going for: debuffer, controller, or fighter. If he's tanking STR and doesn't plan to swing a sword, making the sword-swingers hit more often is better than him swinging a club at -2 to hit for 1d4-2 damage.

Tanking strength also devalues divine favor :-p

Oh, yeah... been a couple years since my oracle (he was cool). I forgot DF was personal.

Nevermind, don't take that unless you're building a self-sufficient melee Oracle (which is what I had).

I also had a lot of non-Core spells.

The oracle that I linked to earlier is also a self-sufficient melee oracle, but even then I rarely cast divine favor in initiative.

Coordinate with the arcane caster(s), but here are some suggestions/requests:

Cantrips:

Stabilize (keep me from bleeding out), Read Magic (to use found scrolls), Mending (to fix thing we might accidentally break), and Guidance (for your lock-picker/trap disarmer)

1st:

Magic Weapon or Bless (to trade out later) and Shield of Faith (to maybe trade out later) unless we're going the Blind-Fighting/Waves mystery route, in which case Shield of Faith and Obscuring Mist.

What do you guys think about a balanced stat array for my character? If he had no sneak attack?

14, 15, 14, 14, 10, 12

The first stat-up would go into the 15.

I can't judge stats without seeing the full build.

Or at least the general purpose, since you were considering two paths last I heard!

EDIT: Just a heads up, I will be out of the country from this Saturday to next Saturday. I should have internet access, but there is always the chance that I won't.

And keep in mind, tomorrow is just a rough draft, so that we can start coordinating in more detail. Nothing is set in stone yet.

That particular array is for the Phantom Thief rogue (no sneak attack, lots of combat feats and skills).

For the self-buffing bard, swap Int and Cha.

If I did a rogue with sneak attack, I would consider:

12, 16, 14, 13, 10 14
Or even... 10, 16, 14, 13, 12, 14

My only concern would be hitting things tbh. Maybe not at low levels, where everything really comes down to the dice, but at mid/higher levels (for the phantom thief).

Imo it looks great for a non-combatant! The second one for a sneak attack rogue looks like something I'd do too.

That (hitting things) is my concern with most of my rogue builds.

Now, I am supposed to be flanking things and theoretically feinting.

Here is a comparison of my sketches.

The bard hits really well, but it doesn't do much raw damage.

I think my bard build (or the Phantom Thief with it's True Strike) could be more useful with Improved Dirty Trick from the APG, as I could be applying Debuffs with that CMB. I would have to trade out Weapon Focus for Agile Maneuvers though.

EDIT: Corrected typo: Improved Dirty Trick

I only like true strike for ambushes or ranged spells that really need to hit. A 3/4 BAB build should be able to hit 50% of the time without true strike, so the action economy falls apart during initiative.

Whew! This week is Spring Break for my kids so I took the week off for a family fun vacation called "clean the garage"! We ordered an 8 cubic yard (6.1 cubic meters for you non-US peoples) dumpster and filled it to 90% full of junk. Not counting the 5 trips of a loaded Expedition to Goodwill for donating stuff.

But now, the garage is much much cleaner. Just in time for me to setup a large gaming table for my biweekly Ironfang game!

Also, now that this is behind me, I hope to have more time to flesh out my oracle.

I'm coming back around to the waves mystery. It is looking pretty good.

For combat I see my role as (in order):
1) buffing the group (this is why I like bless, an area effect that helps everyone and stacks with everything)
2) debuffing enemies
3) healing, as needed
4) ranged attacks with a ranged weapon

Should I consider damage producing spells or should I leave that to the wizard?

If you do go with the blind fight strategy, I would bump (4) to (2). You'll be constantly going against flat-footed AC, which will make your weapons more useful and allow the saving of magical resources for post- and non-combat usage.

Why will I be going against flat-footed AC? Does concealment give you the flat-footed condition?

With the Waves mystery's mist sight, you can shoot at targets who can't see you. You are flat-footed against attackers you can't see.

Sorry about not being active on the chat, I have been reading stuff and thinking about the arcane caster type. I have Katrin, a cold-based control sorcerer who could work nicely with blind fight strategies. Also, more general wizard would be Lady Delena, who is an enchantress and so could handle intrigue better.

Katrin has some questions:
Rime spell is from UM, it would help but is not necessary.
Bloodline is rime or boreal, rime is wildblooded and thus archetype from UM which were legal, but boreal in itself wasn't.
There are no usable cold spells in core from levels 1 & 2, so I had some suggestions:
1: Snowball is from Ultimate Wilderness. A stronger version is also in a softcover, but I'm not trying to get that.
2: Frigid touch is from UM and Frost fall from UC.

Neither one planned to do much damage. Katrin was the first idea but might not work as well with crafting and intrigue, and she also has some ruling problems. I'm happy with either, so would like a comment or two, and also ruling on the frost stuff.

The boreal bloodline is legal. When I said archetypes from various books were okay, I meant to include the variants which aren't technically "archetypes"--things like bloodlines, domains, etc. Poor wording on my part.

Rime Spell, snowball (UW), frigid touch, and frost fall are all okay. Frost fall in particular seems good for use inside a mist, since it doesn't have any targets.

I like Katrin much better.

Katrin has debuffs and control spells that generally affect anything equally (barring defenses specific to a given monster). She is also CHA-based, so she would do well in Social Combat (where you use your Charisma instead of the stat that goes with the skill--an INT-based wizard with Knowledge skills would fair worse than a Sorcerer).

Delena, as an Enchanter, runs the risk of being left out of any battles against undead, vermin, oozes, constructs, or other mindless or mind-affecting immune creatures of which there are many.

EDIT: Consider the Elemental Spell metamagic feat for Katrin, that way if we encounter something resistant to cold damage (or worse, immune), she can change her Direct Damage spells to a different element. Also consider a different element for the damage cantrip. I know cold is thematic, but at least in a clutch, if you can't use cold, you can shoot at something with acid (and avoid spell resistance... if I remember correctly).

I like the wizard! The idea of a social wizard makes me happy and that type of personality sounds like fun. Enchantment feels like it would be useful in this AP, as do knowledge skills.

EDIT: Looking at Blake's post, the only point I disagree with is the social combat. If it is anything like what I've seen in PFS, I've found a wizard to be outright better than a bard due to the knowledge skills. They typically are at a lower DC than diplomacy and borderline ever present in some fashion. Can anyone confirm or deny the PFS social combat stuff compared to the AP?

"Social encounter" does not mean "charisma only". Gummy Bear's edit is spot on.

I do like the Knowledge skills, but we've got to survive the usual sorts of monsters, too. Look at the picture on Book 1: Constructs. Look at the picture on Book 2: Undead. Look at Book 6: Lots more undead.

"Social encounter" does not, I agree and never said that it did. However, Social Combat replaces the stat modifying the skill to only include ranks + Charisma (and none of the extra bonuses one might have).

If you are referring to the social combat mechanic from Ultimate Intrigue: book one only mentions that as an optional method for influencing additional NPCs. Don't worry about it too much.

I didn't not realize there was a distinction between encounter and combat, my bad! Looking at the covers now too. The players guide should have something on the creatures we will face too.

Players will encounter a variety of opponents throughout the course of the War for the Crown Adventure Path as they traipse through urban sprawl, ancient dungeons, fetid waterways, and sweltering plains. The best choice for favored terrain is urban, followed by plains and underground. Throughout the adventure, rival humanoids—especially humans—will be the PCs’ most frequent opponents, backed up by animals, magical beasts, and evil outsiders.

Though that doesn't cover the animated books with fangs, sea ghouls, or death knights on the covers.

Humans will be the bulk of what we run into, but I'm afraid we might run into trouble because we brought 12 different wrenches and then ran into the one thing we needed a hammer for. Like swarms. Alchemist's fire is so expensive...

Although Delena the Wizard has less charisma, the crazy bonuses from various stuff actually makes her bonus equal or even higher for charisma skills than Katrin the Sorceress has, at least for now. Also, knowledges and much higher skill point count also helps.

I'd of course get something to get around the basic immunities, and use general spells like haste when everything else fails. Enchantment would be the main focus.

I specifically chose evocation as an opposition school as I've played a blast cleric to level 15 in PFS, and want something different. Also, they say that damage spells are quite bad use of wizard actions.

I'm not saying I have chosen the wizard yet, just pointing out that the choice is between social wizard and combat sorcerer.

Oh! Oh! Oh! Would you tell me about your experience with an evocation focused character in PFS? I have an arcanist that is evocation focused (still level 1) that I'm really excited about, I've always wanted to do it.

MindXing's character should be coming up soon, so maybe that'll help your decision, Melda.

On the topic of the covers, there is a guy on a horse in the 3rd book! :D I'll probably get to charge something! My build won't change, but getting to hit something for that double damage is still going to be sooooo nice...

Ok. The Oracle is coming along. I'm back to the Waves mystery and I decided on the Athletic Champion campaign trait. I don't have all of the backstory worked up yet but the idea is Thalasou grew up in a coastal town and has become a champion swimmer.

Did a divine shark sent by Gozreh bite his leg, making him lame but also blessing him with powers over the ocean? =)

:-)

My current thinking on the backstory is that while young he encountered a young mermaid, became friends. And of course, when her father heard about it, he prohibited his daughter from being friends with him. As a part of all of this, there was a conflict with the father and he cursed Thalasou with lame feet. The lameness is in his feet and ankles. The pain from walking led Thalasou to spend more time in the water -- swimming wasn't affected by the twisted feet -- thus he became a great swimmer. And the emotional drama of this whole thing awakened the oracle powers.

That first part sounds like a Disney movie...