GM Rednal's Planehopping from Bard's Gate (Inactive)

Game Master Rednal

We talked a bit before about making a portable paladin, but there were reservations about making a combat capable companion. I figured with only 2 PCs, that restriction might be relaxed a bit?

After a quick look at the conjuration sphere, I was thinking of something along the lines of:
Lingering Companion, Armored Companion, Battle Creature (1 or 2, probably Spear/Crossbow if 1, longsword/longbow if 2), Shield Bearer, and Magical Companion (for Lay on Hands type abilities)

Exact order of talents are undecided, but the basic idea would be an extra warm body to soak hits, and fill in 'second string' levels of melee combat and healing/support.

Story wise, Anders would be manifesting a reflection of Kovin's spirit more fully than the spirit motes of his other companions that accompany him.

With only 2 PCs, a combat companion is much more reasonable, yes. ^^

Would it be possible to do some retraining when we have some downtime and possibly retrain some feats into Spheres of Might abilities? There's some cool stuff in the Dual Wielding and Equipment spheres that lend themselves well to Sword + Crossbow combat.

For a Conjuration sphere companion, are Spheres of Might available as feats?

1) Yes, you can retrain into Spheres of Might. There's also the Gunfighter Archetype, if you're interested.

2) Companions can take any feat they qualify for, including those in Spheres of Might. There's also the Martial Companion archetype they can take, which gives them Proficient progression and, optionally, Battle Creature (for focusing on weapons instead of natural attacks).

I... had no idea. Those things sound perfect. To your wiki!

1) The gunfighter archetype looks fantastic, and the Bolt Juggler martial tradition seems tailor made for my character concept.

Is there any way we can get the Gunfighter and Bolt Ace archetypes to play nice together? By the book, they conflict in the following locations:

1) As written, they don't stack, and them's the rules. That said, you can get many similar effects with Spheres of Might, so Bolt Ace is, in many ways, a bit unnecessary. ^^ You probably won't lose as much as you might think, and I know at least some of Bolt Ace's deeds don't play well with the Spheres system anyway.

2) They're definitely working on the Hero Lab files - some updates for the handbooks have mentioned it - but they're not done yet.

That's totally fair. There's only a few parts of the Bolt Ace I care about.
1. Recovering grit using crossbows instead of guns.
2. The deed for spending a grit to make a touch attack with a crossbow.
3. Using crossbows with the level 5 ability to get DEX added to crossbow attacks.

I'll do some digging when I get home, but do you know off hand of any ways to accomplish those things (or something close)?

Maybe it would be best if I just scrap gunslinger entirely and try building a crossbow user with a different class.

1) I'd be willing to just handwave that. XD I mean, it's really not gonna break anything.

2) Do you want to make rapid attacks or single, strong attacks?

3) That one I actually want to say no to. You'll probably be picking up Mechanical Savant from the Equipment Sphere, and multiple high bonus damage powers are probably too much. If your average Damage Per Round is still way too low even after Mechanical Savant, I'll reconsider.

2) It's mostly for when I want to use Cryptic Strike to apply a ghost strike from the death sphere and I really don't want to miss, especially if I'm burning a spell point.

3) That sounds fine. I'm sure if I'm not doing enough damage we'll find out. A combat capable companion might be enough anyways.

*Checks*

That particular talent won't play nice with Spheres of Might, since Cryptic Strike is its own type of standard action. Do you feel like that will be a problem for your build? (Some people are okay with this, others would rather avoid the overlap. Neither is wrong, per se, I just want to make sure you don't pick things expecting them to work together when they really don't.)

I'm aware that they don't mix. Ghost strike is a standard action, while most things in Spheres of Might require Attack actions. On a round where I use ghost strike, I would only be getting 1 attack and no special benefits beyond passive things. That said, perhaps the death sphere/ghost strike aspect of the character isn't exactly working out as originally planned, so it might be better to move those talents into the conjuration sphere or a more dedicated spell casting sphere instead. When we started this campaign, spheres of might weren't around, so Cryptic Strike helped fill the gap of making a spirit bound crossbow shooter.

As for the gunslinger side, I spent a bit of time reading up, and it looks like perhaps Armiger, Conscript or Paladin (with Dirt Spattered Angel and Warrior of the Blind Faith archetypes) could be a good fit. Crossbow skills would come entirely from talents.

Pros for each:
1. Armiger. This one could fit the theme of mixing in melee and ranged combat really well, potentially switching between a light or heavy crossbow with Barrage, twin hand crossbows with Dual Wielding and Sniper, and a longsword and hand crossbow in melee. Weapon swaps could mean running around firing off attacks all over the place.
2. Conscript. Can't go wrong with the "build your own X" option. Top contenders for options are Sphere Specialization (Dual Wielding) and possibly Evasion, Resolve or just keep some bonus feats.
3. Paladin. The two archetypes help fit the theme of having lost faith, then recovered a new form of connection that fits the story. The loss of smite evil doesn't bother me since it helps separate this character from Vincent, and the loss of spells is not a concern since the other half of gestalt handles that. While this option hits a lot of good story points, mechanically the benefits of paladin (namely lay on hands, channel) overlap a lot with Soul Weaver, so perhaps this is not a great fit for this character.

Sphere/Talent-wise, I'm thinking about picking up a mix of Dual Wielding, Sniper, Equipment and possibly Barrage talents, to fix reloading with no hands, fast loading, then branching out to get cool skills like Mixed Assault (Dual Wielding), Following Strike (Dual Wielding) or Hindering Projectiles (Sniper). It looks like a lot of the standard required ranged combat feats have been rolled into base spheres now too, which is nice.

Any preferences, suggestions or thoughts?

The most important thing is what you want to play. I do think switching into a Paladin would be a major story event and affect how a lot of people see you. Armiger and Conscript are easier - and Conscript, like the Incanter, is especially good for fulfilling almost any character idea. XD

I haven't checked spheres of might yet, is it as good and interesting as spheres of power?

Well, I enjoy it. XD The underlying system is the same - you invest in the base spheres for your starter abilities, then add additional talents to customize what you can do. Each sphere has a different focus - disarm/bleed, feinting, rapid strikes, counterpunches, alchemic items, getting drunk, and so on.

It's focused on helping you build a personal style for combat. For example, if you want to be flexible, you might decide to play an Armiger - they get sets of weapons they can switch between to instantly change their style. Or maybe you've always wanted to be an incredible tank - so you go Sentinel and pick up the Guardian sphere, which has one of the few "aggro" abilities in Pathfinder. (Specifically, it lowers their accuracy against other foes and raises it against you, strongly incentivizing them to make you the focus of their attacks.)

It's all up on the wiki if you want to glance over it.

Yup, I've been really happy with the various Spheres products, though this will be my first attempt building a character with Spheres of Might.

Feel free to ask if you have any questions about it. ^^ The Wiki has a page on building your first practitioner, and that's a good starting reference.

Damn, the website ate my post.

I started prototyping some of the changes last night and ran into a question.

If I have a companion with the Martial Companion archetype, add a second instance of Battle Creature, then trade away the martial proficiencies to gain a Martial Tradition, the companion is still proficient with simple weapons, correct? This is relevant because 2 of the 3 traditions I'm considering don't provide any weapon proficiencies (current front runners are Shield Master, Phalanx Soldier and Knightly Arts).

For changing out Gunslinger, I think I'm leaning to Conscript the most. I haven't worked out exactly how many talents are needed to make it work, but it looks like there could be some cool combinations with the Sniper, Dual Wielding and Fencer spheres, using a pair of hand crossbows, feinting with the offhand and then following it up with a single powerful shot by stacking Deadly Shot, Fatal Thrust and Dual Attack, possibly with Sneak Attack from the Conscript.

If everything works, at level 5 a single shot could be something like:
1d4 + 2d10 (deadly shot) + 1d6 (sneak attack) + 2d6 (fatal thrust), plus applying a (snipe) and (exploit) talent if I have any.

This might end up being too limited though, since it shuts down whenever I can't feint, or if the target is immune to sneak attack. I'll have to keep messing with it for a bit.

Hmm... actually, I think you're in luck here, because you won't need to spend a second talent on Battle Creature. XD

Some classes who do not gain proficiency with all martial weapons but whose class description implies a strong martial background may trade their starting proficiencies for a martial tradition with GM approval.

I think having the Martial Companion is sufficiently "strong martial background-like" to get a martial tradition instead. And you keep proficiencies in simple weapons, light armor, and bucklers if you have them.

Sweet. That will open up the ability to get him some armor. He'll probably end up fighting with a heavy wooden (kite) shield, and either a morningstar, shortspear or longsword, depending on proficiency.

Looks like there might be a mistake on the Sentinel page with the Diamond Soul ability. As written, it doesn't seem to do anything, and my PDF copy calls it Armored Aegis. Was Diamond Aegis the playtest version?

You may have an old copy - the current PDF and the Wiki are correct. Diamond Aegis allows you to spend from the Sentinel's Reserve ability as a free action outside of your turn, rather than the swift action it normally requires, to get 2x your BAB + your Wis Mod in temporary hit points. It's especially helpful for mitigating the effects of failed Reflex Saves, which they're not quite as good at.

Ah. It's a bit confusing the way it's written since it doesn't specify between Sentinel's Reserve and Second Wind. Or how it interacts with archetypes that allow you to spend points.

Does Diamond Aegis do anything for a Dimensional Defender that does not get the Sentinel's Reserve ability?

Well, technically, you can spend a reserve point on anything the points can normally be spent on. Second Wind is also a viable candidate. Dimensional Defender still gets the pool and Second Wind, so Diamond Aegis works for that.

How is the rebuilding doing? Myself I'm not sure I should tinker a bit with Asem, perhaps try to catch some healing magic just in case...

Haven't had any time for the last few days. We can go check out the vault that may or may not be hiding a gargoyle nest in the mean time, then see about retraining when we get back to the material plane.

Ah, good. ^^ You two fine with resuming as we are, then?

Yup, I'm all good continuing for now.

I'll let you know when I have made adjustments that I like, and post a stat block here so you can take a look, then I'll swap out the character sheet whenever we get to an appropriate place in the game to make it official.

Sure fine for me, still on my phone during weekdays though.

Sounds like 500g, split, 3 (4?) ways for the 2 gargoyle heads we were able to return.

I should be able to pick up a couple tangleshot bolts (20gp a piece, if standard prices hold up here) that might help us ground a few of the gargoyles before we head out.

Yeah, prices here are pretty standard. ^^

Ok nice :)

Can you mark me as inactive in the player's tab?

Let's just mark down 167g for each of us remaining, and Will took the small (166) share to make things easy.

Do I need to do anything special to find a suitable ammunition shop in town? I'd like to pick up 5 tangleshot bolts, and then load one up in my light crossbow since it's easier to reload.

Nah, this isn't a game where shopping needs to be THAT hard. XD ...I might have you look when you're back in town, though, because the city is more fun if you get to know the NPCs.

I agree, I liked the shop earlier.

Updating my character sheet now, then I'm all set to go scout out the place. Asem?

sure

Flickering Step from Planar Adventures is a really cool entry to the Dimensional Agility chain. Comes online pretty late, but for certain characters in games that go high enough, could be really cool.

Figure that book is generally open to you. XD This game is, like, 80% plane-hopping, after all - the rest being city exploration and smaller adventures back home as a break from planar weirdness.

I haven't read planar adventures yet, I'll try to see if I can check it on the weekend after I get back home from work. By the way I agree with you about Wilderness Adventure it was a real disappointment, I had high hopes for a decent shapeshifter and instead we got that inflexible and pretty mediocre mess...

I have fairly high standards for that after Spheres of Power's Shifter class, which is easily capable of fulfilling most versions of that theme. ^^ Alas, the Spheres version is no good for PFS and other official games...

Is there any suitable terrain nearby to hide in, preferably some kind of overhang that would shield us from view from flying gargoyles that we could use to hide and stake out the place?

Naturally, no, but it would be possible to construct a hiding space.

Hmm... we could head back to town and see about getting some oils of rope trick, though there'd still be the rope for a perceptive gargoyle to find, and we'd be gambling on how long before something passes by since they'd only last 3 hours a piece.

I have fairly high standards for that after Spheres of Power's Shifter class, which is easily capable of fulfilling most versions of that theme. ^^ Alas, the Spheres version is no good for PFS and other official games...

Yeah in general I have found spheres of power to be great and spheres of might looks really promising too, it allows for tons of concepts that even pathfinder with years of splatbooks doesn't cover as well.

Back to the action at hand. There is always the chance of just waltz inside. I wonder, would an elemental burrow speed be enough to break through the surface of the sphere though?

Absolutely. Of course, you may want to orient yourself first, or you could end up lost in solid material... or risk getting close to the vault and setting off the security... but burrowing would certainly get you through the lid and reasonably-safely down the shaft if you're careful. ^^

Plan on scouting alone and retreating into the wall if needed? Or can you shapeshift me too?

Asem can only change himself, but maybe he can dig a way in?

Btw I was also thinking, perhaps we could earn more benevolence from the king if we just tell his guards that there is an hatch with gargoyles stationed in directly into one of his vaults... I guess that he would be happier if we clean it out though.

Reporting our finding to the captain of the guard for the vault is probably a good idea, but we should probably verify that it's actually gargoyles coming and going there first.

Would it be possible to buy a local version of a hunter's stand in town that would blend in with the stones instead of mounting in a tree? With the camouflage blind we could have total concealment while we stake out the entrance.