Hexblade seems about what I would want to play.
It wan't overly used from what I saw. It added its CHA bonus to saving throws against arcane spells and had mettle, which was an ability like evasion only it worked on fortitude and will saves as opposed to reflex. So its magical defenses were solid, however it was limited to light armor, and after needing STR and CON as a warrior, and CHA for all of its special abilities (and INT, I believe, for its spells), there wasn't much room for the DEX needed to have a decent AC. Luckily they got invisibility, blur, and mirror image to help shore of the defenses at midlevels. Most of its abilities were relatively minor. It had an aura of unluck; at mid levels you basically had entropic shield, at high levels blur. It also had a cursed glare which povided the same penalties as sickened to those who failed a save. Unfortunately it was a bit counter intuitive since most of its abilities required a standard action to activate, therefore forgoing your attacks. Around the same time the duskblade came out which also had full bab and spells but could wear heavier armor and channel spells through their melee attacks and get higher level of spells. If it weren't for the shadow companion varient popping up the hexblade would've been completely overshadowed. Still, it was a very cool anti hero kind of class.
I had heard of the dusk blade I think if you mixed to two I would get the class I wanted since I would want to use heavier armor but still debuff enemies.
The only problem with mixing the two is that I believe the debuffs of the Hexblade were class level based, so after splitting you levels up it was unlikely that most enemies would fail their saving throws and they were all or nothing, with the exception of the shadow companion. I think there was a prestige class in the same book, however, which was like the eldritch knight; it was called the spell sword. It got slower spell progression than the EK but had a d10 hd as opposed to the d6, had good fort and will saving throws, and slowly got the ability to ignore spell failure chance from armor. Between mithril, the twilight armor enchancement, and spellsword, you could almost wear full plate without having any spell failure chance at all.
Whenever I finish getting that campaign information up for my 3.5 setting in google.docs, I may end up running a game of it on these forums. Your welcome to play and try out the classes, if you would like.
I broke down and ordered Gnomes of Glorian yesterday. I own relatively few of the PF companions, but I couldn't ignore my favorite race. I got my email saying it shipped today, with any luck I'll get it on my day off on Saturday to enjoy.
Sounds cool Ringtail I will apply for that when that does happen. I would most likely go with the duskblade or the PrC just so I could get heavy armor.
Oh yeah why are gnomes your favorite race? I like elves myself but I like to play melees which elves in D&D do not do so well so I go with the next best thing Half-Elf.
I empathize with gnomes. They're of an alien mindset which is not only not always appreciated but not always understood by the populace as well. I find it easy to play out of the box thinkers. They are also often seen as a useless throwaway race since there is a better race for just about any job mechanically, and I like to make sure the odd little buggers get the attention they deserve. Mechanically they are sound at just about every task, maybe not excelling, but decent. They get a bonus to hit and armor class, as well as getting a bonus to CON and a free exotic proficiency, making them good warriors (especially barbarians, since the rage offsets the average damage loss from a lower STR and smaller damage die size). They get a magical boost, which once was illusions, but now has extended to all sorts of things (see the pyromaniac alternate racial trait), and their size and natural inquisitiveness means they make natural rogues. Over all I think that I just enjoy playing a race that isn't bound by conventional gritty, low fantasy, but is able to mesh with it as long as played well. They find this perfect niche in being outlandish but not completely absurd. Unfortunately, since I rarely play and usually GM, I hardly ever get to play one. And generally I've noticed a lot of people are turned off by the thought of a gnome in their game, so if I want a slot I often have to roll with something more traditional when applying.
EDIT: Oh, and I'm chatty and wordy. Why use one word when a dozen would do?
Wow it is a slow night on the forums. I swear I can hear an echo. Slow night at work too. Where is everybody? Did we miss the rapture or something?
No idea but Gorgoron just rolled two 20s.
Last time I rolled 2 20s in a row I actually ended up with 4 20s in a row. Which would have been awesome, but I was playing 2e, and in 2e you wanted to roll low, beneath your ability score on a d20 when doing a proficiency (skill) check, so a 20 was bad. On healing, you hurt someone a 1d4 if you rolled a 20. I ended up killing 3 dying party members and nearly a 4th due to the phrase "surely it can't happen again." I retired that paladin shortly after...
I got UM mostly for magus and the new archetypes which is fine for me. A lot of the feats in there are nice to but it seems some people comb over stuff and complain about every little thing.
Ya, but for the most part it's worth complaining about. The magus and most of the archetypes are good, but most of the feats are so situational that 95% will never see the light of day. I got the impression that they were trying so hard to avoid duplicating 3.5 feats that they forgot to make the feats useful. The APG was great, so I'm really hoping UC will do better.
... I'm about 90% sure it is broken - but no health insurence so I'm going to wing the recovery myself. At least it isn't anything serious.
Sometimes I forget what you Yanks have to deal with; no health insurance? That sucks ass.
With all of the archtypes and base classes (which there are plenty of at this point) most prestige classes are falling away. I think it would be cool if all prestige classes represented affiliations (nightsong, red mantis, pathfinder, etc), and mechanical mixings were left to base classes and archtypes.
I think Paizo is diliberately trying to kill the Prestige class. I for one find that a shame. Paizo's insistence on core class purity has killed a lot of great multi-class combos. I think it has limited variety in a huge way. True, archetypes expand it in a different way, but now you can just play a million shades of a colour, instead of being able to play with the whole palette.
...there was a way to play with 3 "generic classes": the warrior, the expert, and the spellcaster...
This sounds awesome! I've been looking for a way to make the classes more customizable in my games, and I'd forgotten about this option.
The only problem with mixing the two is that I believe the debuffs of the Hexblade were class level based, so after splitting you levels up...
Which is why you need prestige classes!
No idea but Gorgoron just rolled two 20s.
Ya, that Gorgoron rocks.
That was a pretty good summary of our conversation. Awesome job catching up.
Sometimes I forget what you Yanks have to deal with...
My fiance lives in Plymouth in the UK and periodically visits. So I hear the above phrase quite a lot actually. :)
Your fiance lives in the UK? That must suck for you guys.
Yeah, plane tickets aren't cheap, and there is still the inevitable argument of who has to permanently move once his internship is over.
What's the internship in?
Make him move but I am bias I do not want my GM to get stuck in GMT.
Social work counseling abused children. They actually have been jumping him around to one job site per month for the last 7 months or so to get him experience in all different fields with all different age groups. I guess he had started with teenagers and has been steadily working with younger groups. Right now he with 7 to 10 years olds at a church rescue. Basically he helps set up activities and promotes positive interaction with the younger children, educating the older ones. Appearently about once a month he goes on what he calls the condom bus which is where they drive around in a big bus to educate teens about sex and hand out condoms.
The UK is all about safe sex not "NO SEX" which seems to be working well for them.
Make him move but I am bias I do not want my GM to get stuck in GMT.
Working on it. It's bad, but I don't want to take the very long, boring plane ride. But alas, no gay marriage means no free immigration to the US, so it looks like I'll start putting u's where they don't belong this time next year. Colour...now that just looks funny.
Sounds like fun. I used to do similar work. I worked as an outreach addiction and mental health counsellor, so I'd drive around to schools and drop in centres, meeting up with kids and doing drug education.
I'm reading through your favourites (or favorites for the American/Intellectually Impaired) and found the Night at the Opera encounter. I guess that was not part of the original script? You should have put Alyoma in a donkey suit...
Well the military is alright with gays now I do not think that the country will be so uptight as it use to be. He can just spend the long time to become a citizen? Do not go and eat the fish and chips it is a trap.
It felt mean, plus, she was a good performer. I had 2 players in my RL game tryout. One had the lead (sorcerer oddly enough, so same casting problems as your party's), the other got the second best role, the best friend of the lead who happened to be a Satyr, which was horribly accurate for the PC since he had been to the brothel 3 times in 2 days in game. I fleshed out the encounter a bit more with my own table for roles based on performance, including gear for each. A performance of less than 5 got the back end of the donkey suit. A bit higher was an extra, higher yet was the hero/heroine's squire, then the satyr (whose suit counted as leather), and then the hero, of course. I like to borrow a bit for here and there, with some personal tweaks.
Well the military is alright with gays now I do not think that the country will be so uptight as it use to be. He can just spend the long time to become a citizen? Do not go and eat the fish and chips it is a trap.
Well, immigration is hard. To get entrance to the country to go to school here he needs to have enough money in his bank account to cover classes and living expenses for the duration of the time he plans to go to a university. To get in with a job he needs to have a paying offer already on the table; it is illegal to look for a job while in the country on vaction. To just immigrate with no job offer nor expecatation of immediate education he needs to win the immigration lottery (basically out of everyone from every country that wants to immigrate under those conditions, only so many are allowed in per year, and it isn't a lot).
On the other hand, I believe I was told that a civil union is binding between an immigrant and a citizen of the UK as long as both parties are 21 years old, have a record of being in regular visitations and contact for at least two years consecutively, and have a legally binding ceremony paid for. There was a bit of read tape involved in that too.
Anyway, end of night paperwork time started 6 minutes ago, so I better start on that. I'll check back in about an hour when I'm finished.
So you got UM, eh? Personally, I really like the magus - I feel like it's got its own flavor to it without pinning you down too much thematically (like the hexblade did, even though they too, were cool). I feel you on the obsolescence of the Eldritch Knight though. (Speaking of UM, I went back to portents with my patron. Don't let me change it again! I've decided to stick with Dherisan, but the moon thing felt kind of forced, and I can absolutely see him as a sort of "seer" witch. Darkness hadn't been prepped or cast yet, for the record).
I, for one, would encourage you to move to the UK, but of course that's because it places you closer to my own GMT+8.
Woo! UK! One step closer to Ireland!
I missed a load of chat there, but I just want to throw my opinion behind the magus, having played and GMed for/with one, their a really solid class!
@ Dehrisan: Okay. I'm sure he'll find his place as he grows in levels and gets a few more patron spells. We're still only at level 2 out of upper teens to 20, so there is still a lot of wiggle room for character development.
@ Tardek: I ran for someone using the playtest and it seemed to go well, but I have yet to see the final version in action.
Random venting: *Sigh* This isn't a very good week. Apparently my apartment management has decided to shut off the buildings water without letting anyone know why and they aren't answering the pone whenever anyone tries to find out when it is coming back on.
I would go bang on the door until they answered me but that is me.
You should go down to the nearest convenience store and buy a couple of those big bottles (the tap water in China is too dirty for most purposes, so it's common practice here). It's a short-term thing, yeah, but it's better than having no water at all.
I buy bulk packs of those 17 oz water bottles from walmart, so I generally have a couple dozen on hand, but I haven't had a ride to the store lately so I used the last of what I had when I went to work last night. If it doesn't come back on soon, I'll probably take a trip to the gas station convenience store to grab a couple to do dishes and cook with. At least I don't have to work today since it looks like no shower or shave for me.
Last month I had to contact the management's corporate office since I was without AC for over a week and they were not pleasant about it. I can't wait for my lease to end at the start of November.
Anyone heard from Flitter recently? Tardek, if we don't hear from him in a few hours, would you grab his character for this combat until he returns?
Harsh buzz on the water, are they allowed to do that, without warning?
Flitter should be online today. He was away and got back yesterday, he must have been too tired to post then.
Harsh buzz on the water, are they allowed to do that, without warning?
Flitter should be online today. He was away and got back yesterday, he must have been too tired to post then.
Oh, okay. And no, I don't believe they can. I think they are supposed to give at least 24 hours notice except in the case of emergencies. But if it was something extreme I think they would have told us or at least posted a sign by now. I hope it isn't that they decided not to pay the water bill for the complex or something lame like that.
... my IC thread keeps inexplicably disappearing from my focus list...
What is this focus list, and how do I set one up? I was trying to find a way to monitor things on this messageboard, but I couldn't find the option to do it. Can someone give me the directions, please?
Any thread that you look at or dot will automatically go on your focus list, which you can reach at the top of the messageboard screen by hitting that blue word on the top right of the main message board directory. When you are in your focus list it will only show the two newest threads and those that you've dotted, along with any thread that you've viewed that has new posts. However, if you are on the boards, lurking alot, it can fill up super fast any you will regularly have to weed your garden by removing things from your focus list.
I think there is a problem with either it, or my cookies or something on my computer, since everyone once in a while things disappear from my focus list without me removing them, and everyonce in a while my focus list will be enormous with dozens of threads I've long since removed from my list.
I would show you how to get there more clearly, but unfortunatly I cannot take screenshots with my work computer.
I'll be going on vacation now, and might be out of communication for a week. I should have at least tomorrow's post.
Ringtail, if I do end up out of communication, would you please run Alyoma for me?
Her plan is to keep back in fights, using Minute Meteors (35' range) and Magic Missile to attack goblins. Since Minute Meteors are a 5' AOE, she won't use that on goblins in combat with her friends.
Sure, I can run her. I'll make sure I familiarize myself pretty well with her bloodline and spells to make sure she's played safely. Just pop in with a message whenever you return that way we know you'll be on your way to catch up.
I am also heading on vacation starting tomorrow. I am just visiting family around western Canada, so I should have internet access whenever I am stopped with someone, but there may be gaps here or there. I am travelling during the day tomorrow, so I will be out of contact until at least the evening.
Ringtail, if it is not too much trouble, I would ask you to control me if any action comes up and I have not posted in the last 12 hours or so. I am pretty sure I will have internet most days, so hopefully it will not come up.
It looks like I have a little contact via internet occasionally, so I'll try to keep tabs and post my moves. But it is vacation, so...
Since I don't get a surprise round and am last in init, I guess it will be a while before I have to post.
Just jumping in real quick to reply to "The UK is about safe sex not no sex!". Not true. The UK has one of the highest rates of Teenage pregnancies in the first world. They are no safer than anywhere else sadly.
Anyone look at the UC previews and the cool archetypes?
Not as of yet, but I hope UC turns out better the UM. I'm afraid my upcoming review of UM will likely rate it at 1 star, possibly 2 if I'm in a good mood when I type it. I've only had to rate 1 other paizo product 1 star to date.
I really do not see what everyone big deal with UM is. Even the good reasons were not even that big of a problem people keep making it.
UM just seems to me like it was released too early. They've got a few cool ideas in it (I like the magus, for example, and words of power are interesting), but it seems like it could have been organized far, far better, and a substantial amount of its content could have afforded to have been cut.
I like words of power.
Cleric: This section includes the crusader, divine strategist, evangelist, and merciful healer.
I'm hoping I can find a good Archetype here for Gorgoron.
Words of Power seem like an interesting idea, but I haven't read through them in detail.
I really do not see what everyone big deal with UM is. Even the good reasons were not even that big of a problem people keep making it.
I think it would've benefitted greatly from another round of editing, revision, and playtesting. As it is, it felt incredibly rushed and not all that well thought through. It was full of great ideas that were often terribly executed. Most of the actual material is mediocre, but the negative things stood out strongly. I'm very critical of my material, however (in my review of the PF Core Rulebook I rated it a 3/5 and I've yet to give a single product a 5/5), so a 2 isn't terrible as far as I'm concerned, just a bit subpar.
Words of power I enjoy; trading power for versitility in casting is perfectly fine, but it seemed needlessly complicated.