Post all out-of-character discussion here. This is also the place to post level-up changes and gear purchases. For the moment, dot here with your character concept and any questions you might have. I've listed some preliminary crunch in case you want to start working on your build, but don't feel like you need to rush that part. Since there's so much homebrew involved (and Spheres + Gestalt is already complicated), I want to make sure everyone's as comfortable as possible.
STAT GENERATION
This is a four-step process that will result in all attributes between 8 and 20 (normally 18, but Goblins are special).
1) Since Goblins aren't one of the listed races on my website, use THIS for the first bit. You'll also get a free ability boost that can go anywhere except Dexterity. This can be used to eliminate one of the penalties if desired. All alternate race traits are fair game.
2) Choose one of your starting classes and gain an ability boost in that class's spellcasting or practicioner attribute. Wizards use INT, Bards use CHA, Monks use WIS, etc. This ensures you're capable of using all class features at Level 1 even if you normally have a racial penalty. If you have a selectible attribute (like Fighters do), the ability boost needs to match.
3) Choose a Background and choose one of the ability boosts. You'll also get a free ability boost that can go anywhere except whatever ability you already picked.
4) Boost four stats of your choice.
Traits: Select one trait of your choice. If you're so inclined, you can select an additional trait by taking a DRAWBACK, but it needs to be something that can be roleplayed at least occasionally.
Starting Gear: any class-specific gear (holy symbol, spell component pouch, etc) + one Dagger, Dogslicer, or Horsechopper + 75gp worth of equipment and mundane items. No, you can't sell the weapon for extra starting cash, but you can give it to a party member or elect not to take it. Unused gp is lost, so if you have extra, feel free to give it to party members who are feeling cash-starved. Then roll 4d100, and I'll give you some miscellaneous items of potential use.
That should be enough for everyone to get started. Send me any questions you have: my weekend just started and the wife's visiting their parents, so I'm extremely available for the next two days.
Hi everyone! Oh, I'm so excited. This is going to be a fun weekend, making this character. I can't wait to see what the rest of us are thinking, and to bounce ideas off of each other!
First question @W-a-R: In step 4, do these four boosted stats all have to be different?
I'm starting with the idea of being a Drunken Master monk // Vexing Dodger rogue, Dex- and Wis-focused.
Hey everyone! Thrilled to be here too, and what a legendary intro already, haha.
This name, 'Swaggy' for short, is tentatively a placeholder for the rapper until I can think of a more fitting combination of 'goblin name' and 'unholy algamation of every famous rapper ever'. The avatar was to cook up some rhymes and since he seemed to be the only goblinoid wearing bling.
As discussed in the recruitment thread I am mechanically going to make a support character who can heal and buff and spit out some fire. It will be a bard/oracle combination of some sort. As this is my first gestalt along with my first introduction to the sphere system I'm still looking over things.
Originally, I was going with a Life, Lore, or flame dual cursed oracle for the blackened curse (for fire, and since most good rappers are black) and the covetous curse (for the bling requirement), though the misfortune revelation also seemed to help the bard side land some slick insults/debuffs, and the fortune revelation could later help people land some saves.
I'm now in the process of trying to convert this idea to the sphere system. The issue I'm running into is that I find the bard spells very hard to let go of. I really love their amazing party buffs along with some access to great debuffing, utility and crowd control spells. I couldn't find melodies/intro's and florishes that replaced that to a satisfying degree yet (I love the rest of the Bard rework on the site though). i liked the idea of making unique diss raps for the impactful spells, which I won't have if they're gone.
On the other hand, I also really like the sphere system for at least the life sphere, which makes healing really good for a refreshing change of pace. War as a sphere also seems to be quite potent for extra buffing, teamwork feat to party access and it seems to have some synergy talents with the life sphere. I know that there is a sphere bard archetype as well, though I wonder which additional access to spheres could compensate for the loss of their spell list.
Tentatively, if hybrid sphere/non spheres are indeed allowed as I asked in the thread, I'm now looking at a Life/War/Destruction sphere dual cursed oracle of undecided mystery on one end of the gestalt and a base bard (or reworked bard, if the rework could exchange the melody system for the bard spells) or thundercaller bard on the other end of it.
What would happen in such a case? Do caster levels from the non-sphere bard end still increase the sphere level effectiveness on the sphere end? If not, would such a combination still be recommended by those of you more experienced with this system?
Kind regards!
Oh, 'but what about his weapon', you may ask?
Well...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80DtQD5BQ_A&ab_channel=SeanIzen
;)
That was the greatest and best song IN THE WORLD. A fitting tribute.
If I squint at your profile picture, it kinda looks like the goblin's mind is being blown.
"Hey McFLY! Hey what are you lookin' at, butthead? Say hi to your mom for me, McFly."
I don't see any mechanical problem with combining a sphere oracle and a bard with basic Pathfinder spells. They would each have separate caster levels, but since they would be exactly the same value it wouldn't matter. :) The bard would have arcane spells and would have a chance of spell failure when casting in anything but light armor. But I'm guessing that doesn't bother you. :)
One of the best things I can envision with you using the spheres system at least for the oracle side would be the Skilled Casting drawback. That means that to affect anything with your sphere powers, you'd have to make a Perform check, and how powerful the effect is depends on how good your performance is. Talk about thematic! The strength of the burn varies directly on the strength of the rhymes!
And, if the bard side is an arcane caster with verbal and somatic components, there's no reason you couldn't take the same drawbacks on the oracle side, which would give you a few more spell points. Unless you specifically wanted to be able to cast sphere talents when you can't cast bard spells, of course.
It might be a fun challenge, though, to build the bard as a spheres bard and try to duplicate the spells you think of as bard spells with sphere talents. It would be slightly more consistent, and would probably give you a few more talents (and even more versatility!) by blending them.
Hello all!
Haven't made myself a profile yet as I'm still working on the name. As I'm giving my character the Over-Sized Ears alternate racial trait the name will include things along the line of Ears or Bat.
This name, 'Swaggy' for short, is tentatively a placeholder for the rapper until I can think of a more fitting combination of 'goblin name' and 'unholy algamation of every famous rapper ever'. The avatar was to cook up some rhymes and since he seemed to be the only goblinoid wearing bling.
I rather like your current name. Means my character could call you to "Put sock in!" when you make too much noise.
I'm still looking at the hoarder idea, it's just that my character will now hoard 'pets' as well. After all, you need help with carrying all your loot.
As such I'm looking at the Beastmaster Spheres Hunter archetype for one side, representing his raw animal magnetism *cough*. Thematically I'm looking more at the creatures really liking him for some unknown reason rather than him being their master, despite what he thinks.
For the other end I'm still looking at what would be the best fit for the material part of hoarding. I could pick up the Barroom Sphere on the Hunter side as I need very little from that (I'll leave all the drinking to Chambawamba) but that leaves me with the collecting and hoarding.
I've been looking at the Occultist, which also has an archetype all about Improvised Weapons and implements but I also love the Warp Sphere for this. Warp helps create a place to stash my collection and can steal unattended objects. It helps to have all the things.
Having a bunch of animals only makes Warp more fun as well as I could my animal friends all over the place. Oh, and doing magic tricks by pulling things out of his ears.
I already have visions of some large pet consuming an opponent whole and my character crying out he wanted it's things while pounding the creature's flank. The creature doesn't care.
Hey there Cuan!
You could take two feats, Basic Magic Training and Advanced Magic Training, to make your character a Low caster, and then take a few Extra Magical Talent feats, which should be enough to grab the stuff you want from Warp, since you don’t need very much. That way you could take the Occultist archetype you like?
Seems to me you’d only need the base Warp sphere with the Bender drawback to give you Extradimensional Storage. I think you could even keep animals in it if you got the Carry Companion Legendary Beastmastery talent! Of course it might be worth taking a couple of other magical talents with your remaining feats, but that’s pretty good for not much investment!
I’m guessing Wisdom will be your primary stat?
I'd actually be looking at a mix of Charisma and Intelligence, assuming I'm going Occultist. The Beastmaster Hunter archetype changes their main stat from Wis to Cha and Occultist craves Int.
As for just grabbing a few Warp abilities sounds good, but I somehow also envision him as getting the hang of the whole warp thing at some point. It is fun to play with after all.
I am looking through the Spheres classes to see if there is some way to also get the attachments to objects but haven't found it yet. Not among the Spheres of Power at least.
As an aside, I so need the Lions & Wardrobes legendary Beastmaster talent. I don't think it's very useful in RotR but the image of my animal allies 'making polite conversation' is just very funny/silly to me. It conjures images of a velociraptor with a tophat, monocle and fake moustache drinking tea.
@Chambawamba: Yes, that's correct. If you're familiar with PF2e character creation, it's basically identical.
@Swag: eriktd has the right of it regarding combining Spheres with non-Spheres classes. If you'd like to swap the Composition system for traditional Vancian spells, that's fine. It's modular that way. XD The same goes for swapping for the Sphere Bard archetype. You'd be a mid-caster.
@Cuan: So, you'd basically be a crazy cat lady but with all types of creatures? That sounds utterly ridiculous. XD
I just realized this would probably be helpful. XD
SKILLS
Acrobatics
Appraise
Athletics (climb, jump, run, swim)
Craft
Disable Device
Disguise
Escape Artist
Fly
Handle Animal
Heal
Influence
K: arcane
K: civilization
K: divine
K: dungeoneering
K: engineering
K: history
K: martial
K: nature
K: occult
K: planes
Linguistics
Lore
Perform
Profession
Ride
Sense Motive
Sleight of Hand
Spellcraft
Stealth
Survival
Use Magic Device
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Hey Cuan! Nice to have you here as well.
I don't know much of the occultist but I was with one in a WOTR campaign. He had an archetype that allowed him to collect parts of slain enemies and attach them to himself to gain some of their powers or special abilities later. If you're going for an ultimate collector/hoarder type goblin, that might be a good fit?
@ErikTD, I'm going to deep dive into the sphere system again tonight and will go past all your suggestions for the spheres and the drawbacks or casting traditions and see what I can make with the oracle side. The drawback for the perfroamnce and many others made sense. I was pleasantly surprised by the reference site having a section specifically for gestalts, and assuming the rule is used that the higher caster level of either gestalt half is applied for sphere abilities then there shouldn't be a problem mixing it with a non-sphere class. I'd lose some sphere abilities but not effectiveness of the spheres I would pick, if my understanding of it is correct. And I could probably use feats to get whatever sphere access was missing.
Looking forward to what I can find! :)
Oh, I'm hard at work thinking of diss raps already to go with the abilities and spells. Including a few where Swaggy McFly insults the wounds themselves until they go away.
Edit: ah, just saw our magnificent dictator clarified it right after I posted. Good to know! I'll be building the char up over this weekend.
Yeah, spheres drastically simplifies how magic works, so it's a lot more intuitive. Think of caster level as BAB, and suddenly gestalting makes a lot more sense. XD
EDIT: My Occultist rework actually does the collector thing pretty well, now that I think about it. It reflavors the veilweaving system from Akashic Mysteries (Dreamscarred Press and Lost Spheres Publishing) as unlocking the innate powers of items to unleash various effects. Like the Alchemist, an Occultist isn't technically a mage, but they are a magic-user. Also, with the right selection of implement abilities, you can build Spider-man. XD
I'd actually be looking at a mix of Charisma and Intelligence, assuming I'm going Occultist. The Beastmaster Hunter archetype changes their main stat from Wis to Cha and Occultist craves Int.
There's a kind of obscure note in the Spheres documentation that if two sides of a gestalt have different primary stats, you can change them to use the same stat:
If you have classes with conflicting casting or practitioner ability modifiers, choose one CAM and one PAM to use for those two classes. (For example, if one class requires you to use Charisma and the other requires you to use Wisdom, you can choose to use either Charisma or Wisdom for both of those classes.) This only applies to the classes you gain at first level. Any classes gained later use their normal casting/practitioner ability modifiers.
So that will help a bit, at least you could not worry about increasing Cha!
Not sure that one works for me though as I'd be dealing with a casting modifier (occultist) and a practitioner modifier (beastmaster). The way I read that text it only applies if you have 2 modifiers of the same type (so casting or practitioner), not if you have 1 of each.
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Question: If a sphere power requires a ranged touch attack, I assume that still requires dex? Or does it use the main casting stat to make the attack?
Question 2: Do all base sphere powers always cost 1 spellcasting point unless the base sphere specifically says otherwise? Or do they cost nothing unless otherwise specified?
Ranged destructive blasts, Death ghost strikes, etc use DEX. Unless otherwise stated, of course, like Telekinesis bludgeons.
Base sphere powers are typically at-will abilities that can be augmented by spending spell points. For example, destructive blasts are free, but spending a spell point increases the base damage. The notable exception is Conjuration, which has no free ability.
@YBD, what do you think, regarding whether an Occultist and a Hunter can both use Int as their primary ability score?
This also seems like an ideal situation for the Clever Wordplay (Handle Animal) trait! :)
I'm thinking maybe we should talk about skills, now that Whack-a-Rogue has shared the full list. We want to make sure one of us, possibly two of us, are covering everything that might come up, right?
As a rogue, 'Wamba will have quite a few skill points to spend. Based on my current plan, here's a list of the skills that I think I'll be able to cover with max ranks, ensuring a reasonable probability of success:
Acrobatics, Athletics, Disable Device, Escape Artist, Profession (brewer), Sense Motive, Sleight of Hand, Survival, and Use Magic Device
I should also have at least half ranks in these skills over time, meaning success is possible but not necessarily likely:
Influence, Knowledge (civilization), Knowledge (divine), Knowledge (dungeoneering), Knowledge (history), Knowledge (martial), Perform (dance)
Are there any skills that would be glaringly overlooked by this plan?
Don't fret about the Occultist.
As it stands I'm looking at making my character a Hunter(Beastmaster)|Prodigy. That allows me to make everything use Int as well. I will use the Focus Casting drawback for a little occultist flavor, though it would be only 1 item instead of a selection. If they are allowed I'd also grab the Equipment Trick feat, possibly several times, for some non magical creative item use.
When it comes to skills I'm set on Handle Animal, Knowledge(martial) and knowledge (nature) as well as Use Magic Device. Beyond that I'm still looking.
EDIT: Clever Wordplay (Handle Animal) does look like a decent fit, though it feels weird with that skill.
Heh. The animals are impressed by your vocabulary! Like Dr. Doolittle. :)
That's exciting about Prodigy! I've never played one of those or even seen it in a party. I look forward to watching your character unfold!
@Your Benevolent Dictator: I notice on your houserules page that saves don't include the +2 bonus for a good save the first level you take it. Is that intentional? Are save bonuses lower in your ruleset?
I'm okay with the single ability score thing. It's not DEX, CON, or WIS, so I don't think there'll be any unexpected complications on my end. XD
In regards to saves, you'll notice that I'm using the fractional system, so you'll get +2 to your Good saves at character level 1. The point is to prevent dipping a bunch of classes to gain ridiculous saving throws.
Excellent, thanks!
Another question: if our background gives us a class skill that our class duplicates, can we substitute something else? Or is that designed to make us look for a background that rounds out the character in ways that the class does not? :)
There's no trade-off for duplicate class skills. Backgrounds are intended to help flesh out the character from a flavor standpoint as opposed to a mechanical standpoint. After all, the character has/had a life before the campaign started. XD
No problem, thanks! :)
Can we take a goblin favored class bonus?
Definitely!
I've updated this character's profile with my first pass at her stats and background and all.
I've gone all in on martial spheres and talents, but I will have absolutely no casting spheres. None. For someone who usually loves playing casters (and wrote a bunch of books for a game that is primarily about wizards) this will be an interesting challenge for me. It's probably why I'm so itchy and keep making suggestions for my compatriots. I will have to get my magic fix vicariously! ;)
Damage is always a problem for Dex fighters, and especially for small ones. 'Wamba is no exception; she only does 1d3-1 damage until she gets finesse training at level 3 and enough talents to increase her damage die at level 4. For the first few levels she probably does better damage with her thrown Molthune cocktails, unless she can position for a sneak attack. She's not the type to hang back, though!
Some of her skills are really excellent. She's a boffo climber, and she can do all of the thief-ly things pretty well because of her high Dexterity. She can craft interesting things during downtime, too, and she has at least passing familiarity with civilization and the divine.
What do you folks think? Anything I could improve or should change? Anything look confusing or wrong?
Update on my character: Reading through everything, I have to conclude that the life sphere by itself is quite insane. I think, at level 1, if i read everything and understand drawbacks correctly, that it's possible to make a build that gives everyone fast healing 5 for a minute (or until 50 hp is healed) along with a free attack and a + 2 bonus to attack and damage rolls for a minute. That's seperate from the bard buffs and spells, and this could be done around four times per day.
It also seems to have the affliction sphere which makes people ill from the sickest rhymes, I assume :)
The only downside I see is that the oracle half will be lacking in utility. It will be good at granting extra attacks, healing everyone and debuffing, but it will lack spells like energy resistance and obscuring mist. Though I guess that by itself might already be good enough.
Another drawback is that my saves are projected to be absolutely terrible, haha.
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I dunno, I mean Spheres are great, but maybe they aren't that great? At 1st level you should have three spheres/talents, maybe one or two more with good drawbacks in those spheres. Assuming you're just taking Life, that would mean, say:
• Life sphere
• Slow Recovery (drawback)
• Revitalize* (free from drawback)
• Aggressive Vitality
• Mass Healing
That's only fast healing 1, though, because you don't have any (cure) talents. Maybe you were thinking any Life talents count towards Revitalize? Nevertheless, I won't scoff at fast healing 1, especially if you're backing it up with channels and bard performances!
I guess your versatility comes down to what you do with the bard side. If you stick with traditional Pathfinder bard spells, you'll have plenty of versatility there, even if it's not the typical divine party support spells. If you go with a Sphere Bard, though, you should have a bunch more talents to play with through your career, enough that small dips into four or five other spheres like Fate, Illusion, Protection, Mind, and Time is not only feasible but actually quite effective, especially with focused drawbacks that let you get what you want and only what you want from them.
It also might depend on what your Mystery is. If you're a Life oracle, you might not need as many Life talents, because some of what they do will be duplicated with your revelations. (Powers like Combat Healer or Spirit Boost look really good when they work with the Life sphere!)
It is kind of neat to have the Affliction talent in your arsenal. A great backup if your opponent is immune to fire!
Hopefully your bard powers will help shore up your saves a bit. With a couple of buffs at least your Reflex and Will shouldn't be too bad.
Oh: have you ever looked at the Succor mystery? ("Healing is for succors!") It has a lot of the good stuff from Life, but also has a few cool curses too (since you like Affliction), and a teamwork revelation to boot. I was just thinking the more you can get your revelations to do what you want the character to do, the more room you'll have for other cool sphere effects.
(You might have to change your name to Suckeater, though...) ;)
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@ErikTD Ah, right. Yes, I assumed all talents that enchanced the restore spell counted as cure talents. Whoops! Please disregard that post :) Still, it's probably possible to get fast healing 3 by taking a drawback and expending a feat for an additional talent. The cure talents have good synergy with the affliction talent since they open up new options for it to debuff, too. Though that won't come into play soon. Channel energy is unfortunately locked to life (and perhaps soccor?) as a revaltion so to have that I'd need to take a healing mystery along with the life sphere.
I'll look into succor tonight! By the way, which caster book did you write?
That aside, do we need an additional flanker? There's only three of us, and a hunter pet (I assume). I could build the rapper to go in with a starknife and just shank people when needed. Would cost a feat (or a bard class feature given up at level 2) and require him to worship Desna, but it's an option.
For skills, the current setup on ability scores I have would be 14 dex, 14 con, 20 cha. I'd be great on influence, handle animal, UMD and perform, and decent on some dex skills but mediocre on everything else, unless I took the Lore mystery which adds cha to all knowledge checks. The reworked base bard has a number of options instead of bardic knowledge to assign specific skills as onces I'd grow better at over time, though. So even if my ability scores don't support it starting out, I could grow into whatever skills we miss.
One thing I wanted to ask on the blackened curse: Do rays count as weapons in pathfinder? In PFS play, I've seen it repeatedly ruled that rays get benefits of abilities that add to weapon attacks and damage rolls. The issue I see with the reworked version, is that it grants you a sphere that would be very hard to use since it is a ray, which the curse itself would grant a -4 penalty to hit with, assuming that counts as a weapon.
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Let me introduce you to Batry Big Ears, also known as Batry or Bibi.
He actually is a follower of the Green Faith as opposed to a more standard Goblin faith, though it's more a reverence for nature than a formal faith.
Batry is fairly calm by Goblin standards, preferring to think things through. As such he likely is one of the few in the tribe that has made peaceful contact with longshanks in the past. This happened mostly during his solo forays onto the Storval Plateau and into old Thasillonian ruins and consists of hermits and fellow ruin raiders. The latter were perfectly fine with Batry near as he has a tendency to pick the things they find useless, like a head from a broke statuette or a single coin adorned with a face. The presence of Snookums, his giant skunk companion, also helped deter hostile behaviour.
He also is very un-goblin-like in that he doesn't mind dogs. They are just handicapped wolves after all, can't blame them for being born as runts. Horses though are only good for eating. In fact, horse might just be Batry's favorite food (even though he has never eaten one).
In addition to Snookums, Batry is also accompanied by Wartface, a toad that he carries on his head. He is very protective of the toad as in the past other goblins have stolen him to lick his back for the slightly hallucinogenic toxins in his skin.
EDIT: As far as Blackened and weapons goes, I think it only applies to manufactured and natural weapons. Rays don't fit in either of those.
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I'll look over profiles in detail shortly, but here's a quick comment or two. XD
@Chambawamba: Another option damage-wise is to pick up Finesse Fighting from the Equipment sphere. Due to Elephant in the Room, you'd only need to take it once to get the scaling damage bonus.
@Trevor86: Rays benefit from weapon-based feats and abilities (except Deadly Aim due to being touch attacks) but don't count as weapons for curse purposes. Means you sort of get the best of both worlds. XD
@Cuan/Trevor86: Don't forget to roll for random starting items at some point. XD
@ErikTD Ah, right. Yes, I assumed all talents that enchanced the restore spell counted as cure talents. Whoops! Please disregard that post :) Still, it's probably possible to get fast healing 3 by taking a drawback and expending a feat for an additional talent. The cure talents have good synergy with the affliction talent since they open up new options for it to debuff, too. Though that won't come into play soon. Channel energy is unfortunately locked to life (and perhaps soccor?) as a revaltion so to have that I'd need to take a healing mystery along with the life sphere.
There is probably such a thing as too much healing :) -- though as I type that I am probably dooming us all! But hyper-specializing will also mean that your character is less effective in other areas and might be less fun to play.
Have you ever heard about the "Forge of Battle" theory of Pathfinder play? Here's a link. It basically says that during combat, there are three roles that are essential for a party to succeed. First, you need a debuffer, what the author calls the Anvil, to stop the enemy from damaging you. Secondly, you need a buffer, the Arm, to make your team able to damage theirs. Finally, you need a Hammer, someone to deal the actual damage. Every character should be designed to effectively cover one of these roles, and well-designed characters will cover more than one role to adapt. Anyway, healing is one of those things that while necessary doesn't really cover any of those roles. It's kind of buffing, but it's just keeping folks in the fight longer, and doesn't really help them hit. Obviously as a bard you have lots of other buffing tools, but I'm saying more healing than "just enough" healing and you might start to feel like you don't have much to do in a fight. :)
I'll look into succor tonight! By the way, which caster book did you write?
I contributed to like 20 books for Ars Magica, a game with a long and fine pedigree in the gaming community for being one of the best magic systems out there. Not a Pathfinder book, but I'm positive both D&D Third Edition and Spheres were influenced by it. In it you play wizards in medieval Europe, and the game sort of focuses on them more than all the other character types. I didn't design it originally but I contributed a lot to its success in this millennium. This is all to say I really, really like casters and especially spontaneous magic systems. ;)
That aside, do we need an additional flanker? There's only three of us, and a hunter pet (I assume). I could build the rapper to go in with a starknife and just shank people when needed. Would cost a feat (or a bard class feature given up at level 2) and require him to worship Desna, but it's an option.
I think you'll definitely want to have things to do in combat besides sing and heal, but I don't know if that requires you take up arms. Direct combat really isn't one of a Blackened oracle's strengths. ;)
For skills, the current setup on ability scores I have would be 14 dex, 14 con, 20 cha. I'd be great on influence, handle animal, UMD and perform, and decent on some dex skills but mediocre on everything else, unless I took the Lore mystery which adds cha to all knowledge checks. The reworked base bard has a number of options instead of bardic knowledge to assign specific skills as onces I'd grow better at over time, though. So even if my ability scores don't support it starting out, I could grow into whatever skills we miss.
I might be reading it wrong, but I don't think it's possible to start with a 20 in Cha-- in step four, you have to put ability boosts into 4 different abilities, so you'll have to have at least a 12 Int or Wis. Bardic Knowledge and its variants mean that it would be good if you can cover as many skills that get its bonuses as you can.
One thing I wanted to ask on the blackened curse: Do rays count as weapons in pathfinder? In PFS play, I've seen it repeatedly ruled that rays get benefits of abilities that add to weapon attacks and damage rolls. The issue I see with the reworked version, is that it grants you a sphere that would be very hard to use since it is a ray, which the curse itself would grant a -4 penalty to hit with, assuming that counts as a weapon.
I agree with Cuan, rays shouldn't be penalized by the curse, since it is supposed to encourage you to fight with magic rather than weapons.
@Chambawamba: Another option damage-wise is to pick up Finesse Fighting from the Equipment sphere. Due to Elephant in the Room, you'd only need to take it once to get the scaling damage bonus.
Doesn't that talent require Str-to-damage rather than Dex-to-damage? Is that different in your system?
Starting stats cap out at 18 (except for DEX due to the higher-than-normal racial bonus), so it's definitely impossible to start with a 20 CHA. In fact, due to racial penalties, Goblins will generally cap out at 16 CHA. Step 1 free boost cancels out racial penalty, +2 from Class, +2 from Background, +2 from Step 4.
I think I mentioned it in the recruitment thread, but Perception equals (Hit Die + WIS + relevant bonuses/penalties). Means you'll essentially get a free rank each level. It's the most used skill in the game, after all. Since you lose the "+3 from class skill" bonus, DCs will be slightly reduced.
Forge of Battle is an excellent article and exactly what I was referring to when talking about party roles back in the recruitment thread. I think in response to something Jereru had posted? I don't mind characters being extremely good at things, but having options is generally a better idea than not. You could be the best pyromancer in the universe, but if you get attacked by water elementals, you'll die quickly if fire's your only trick. XD
EDIT: @eriktd: Ah, I forgot about that pesky line. Please disregard my suggestion.
EDIT: @eriktd: Ah, I forgot about that pesky line. Please disregard my suggestion.
No worries, I still appreciate the advice! :)
@Whack-a-Rogue: I noticed on the Crimson Throne thread that you said you were changing bonuses that conflict with automatic bonus progression. Would you look at the Alchemy sphere's Universal Alcohol talent? Specifically the Revitalizing Rum part of the power, which gives a resistance bonus currently. Would you be willing to change that to an alchemical bonus instead?
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Of course! That's exactly the type of thing that I need to do ... but haven't got around to doing so due to the time-consuming aspect of going through everything. XD
For the time-being, assume the automatic bonus progression stuff is either an innate or deflection bonus.
Hey everyone! I found this interesting option on the Spheres site: Spheres Standard Races. They are alternate goblin starting stat arrays for different goblin clans from the Guide to Skyborne supplement. Whack-a-rogue, what do you think of these? It won't change 'Wamba's stats, but if you like them one of these choices might work well for Batry or Sockeater?
Not a huge fan of them, honestly, with the possible exception of the Craftsman subtype.
Yeah, I'm not familiar with the supplement or setting that they're associated with. I'm guessing the Merchant clan is based on the stories about "goblin markets" associated with the boundary between human lands and fairy lands, where the goblins try to trick you into giving up things like your name or the color of your eyes and so on-- not really Pathfinder goblins, those. :)
What kind of goblin is Jareth? He seems particularly... charismatic. ;)
Still fidgeting a bit with stats.
Reason being that while gestalting Prodigy allows me to make Int my general practitioner stat, the Beastmaster archetype actually uses Charisma for a reasonable selection of other class abilities.
The downside is I'd need to bring my Cha to 14 to get any effect out of this (except for a save on a lvl 14 ability) and that would mean dropping my Int to 14 and my Wis to 10. Not sure if that's worth it.
Oh, and my random object.
@Cuan: When they revised all of the spheres for Ultimate Spheres, they modified them all so that everywhere they referred to an ability modifier they instead used the character's Casting Ability Modifier as defined by their casting tradition. I wouldn't be surprised if when they finish Ultimate Spheres of Might they do the same thing there, too. I'm not sure what the reasoning is for locking the character into Charisma except that Handle Animal uses it by default.
That said, there's no reason that Batry can't be Charisma-based, just like Sockeater, if that feels better for your idea of the character. Goblins are traditionally bad at Cha stuff, but we're unusual goblins, right? :) I admit I am kind of charmed by the idea, though, that each of us focuses on a different mental stat. Like, Batsy is the smart one, Socker the talky one, and 'Wamba the deep one.
Uh-oh, Deep Ones have been invoked. ;)
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@eriktd: Whatever Jareth the Goblin King is, he isn't a Golarion Goblin, that's for sure. XD I'd honestly label him more as a fey lord. I don't know much about the Skybourne campaign setting, but I know it involves airships, a planet-spanning forest filled with ruins, and lots of dinosaurs.
@Erik 20 books? Wow. I'm happy to have contributed to just one!
@Everyone I apologize for getting some things wrong in the character creation thusfar. In addition to trying to wrap my head around the sphere system, I'm not that familiar with pathfinder 2 rules. On the background, I've also been ferrying my wife back and forth to the hospital daily since she requires a lot of treatments. It's a bit of a stressful situation that eats into my allotment of time to study the new rules and might cause me miss certain things due to lessened concentration.
That said, the 16 cha max thing is a bit of a bummer for a dual caster relying on it to land debuffs, however, on the plus side it had me re-evaluate the concept and I think I've found a concept I like even better! I'm going to drop oracle and cha bard and instead take the chronicler of worlds Int bard archetype along with a lifesphere Witch gestalt.
Essentially, each of his hexes will be a diss-based rhyme tailored to his targets to screw them in some unique way. Stone-cold rhymes burying people in an inescapable Ice Tomb, and such. Might take the buising intellect trait if it's still around to use intelligence for influence and then I think it's about all set to go. I'm not entirely sure how to flavor Chronicler of Worlds yet but it will probably be something like travelling the world, searching for worthy verbal opponents and noting down their duels for his (hopefully) eventual album: "If Golarion was a rap dungeon", by Swaggy McFly.
Bard will bring the party buffs, their unique spelllist, the good ref save, D8 hp, 3/4 bab (for rays) and extra skills. Life sphere witch will bring the healing, some extra buffing/debuffing and the repeatable hexes.
Would any of you have any advice for the witch half? I think base Witch might be a better fit for the concept since it could freely pick between the various save or suck hexes availabe?
Edit: Oh, before I forget, thanks for the feedback so far, everyone! Getting some really good vibes from the prep for this adventure thusfar. Seems a lot more active and engaged than most other PBP's.
Random Items
Chambawamba
- A handful of spent tindertwigs
- A small ceramic figurine that's been crudely repainted so many times it's now more paint than clay
- A withered hunk of metal soaked in something sticky that's trapped a few flies
- A glass elf eye
Swaggy
- A small piece of reflective glass broken from a larger mirror
- The finely-wrought iron hilt of a dagger
- Half an orange that has had the majority of its juices squeezed out
- A loose thread with a variety of multi-colored buttons on it sorted from largest to smallest
Batry
- A 3in-long dingy grey feather stuck into a rotten plum
- The shards of a Sarenrite holy symbol, collected in a filthy rag
- An open jar of some kind of grease or rendered fat
- An assortment of nuts and bolts, none of which match
I'm thinking of going for an archery focus for Batry, using a heavy crossbow.
The fun thing is, I can get Crossbow Mastery at 1st level via the associated feats of the Barrage Sphere (Rapid Shot) and Expert Reloading from the Equipment Sphere (Rapid Reload). I'm not sure how useful it would be to take it at 1st level instead of Precise Shot but it would work.
That does mean that flanking buddies are limited to 'Wamba, Snookums and any tames I might have around. Then again, it's not like Batry would do any damage in melee.
An option to do damage in melee would be grabbing the Nature Sphere, select Fire and grabbing the Nature's Weapon talent so I can wreath my hands in fire and punch for 1d6 fire damage.
Issue there is that it feels like I'll be infringing on Wamba's territory (punching) and on Swaggy's territory (sick burns).
EDIT: Never mind, this wouldn't work at the start since my Caster Level is 0 and it needs to be at least 1 to do damage.
EDIT2: A great part of it though would be that my prodigy becomes a firestarter.
EDIT the third: Eventually I can also flank with my crossbow should I go that route, but it will take a few levels.
@Erik 20 books? Wow. I'm happy to have contributed to just one!
Ooo, tell! Tell! I'm curious?
@Everyone I apologize for getting some things wrong in the character creation thusfar. In addition to trying to wrap my head around the sphere system, I'm not that familiar with pathfinder 2 rules. On the background, I've also been ferrying my wife back and forth to the hospital daily since she requires a lot of treatments. It's a bit of a stressful situation that eats into my allotment of time to study the new rules and might cause me miss certain things due to lessened concentration.
Oof, much sympathy for you and your wife! :( :(
Would any of you have any advice for the witch half? I think base Witch might be a better fit for the concept since it could freely pick between the various save or suck hexes availabe?
Sure, but my first thought when I read you were going down this road was actually to suggest the Spheres' Hedgewitch instead of the Pathfinder witch. It's a versatile class made for the Spheres system and integrates better, I think.
Hedgewitches get only mid-level spherecasting, but to make up for it they get two "paths" that they follow, which are kind of like witch patrons or the oracle's mysteries. They have base powers and get "secrets" based on their chosen paths that are like hexes or revelations and scale really nicely. This takes the place of the standard witch's familiar and patron spells, neither of which you really need for your concept.
I'd further suggest you look at Black Magic and Spiritualism for your paths.
Black Magic gives you a curse ability that is better than anything the witch has, and it also lets you take witch (OR SHAMAN!) hexes as secrets. No witch in core Pathfinder is anywhere near as versatile. These scale and at 10th level you can take Grand Hexes, too. And on top of all that, it gives you an oracle curse, so you could still take Blackened to help fill out your Destruction talents.
Spiritualism would let you honor the great goblin rappers of the past who influence your rhymes, and gives you what is basically the brawler's Martial Flexibility, but for spheres. This is also super-good, basically letting you spend points from a pool every day to give you access to a talent you don't already have. Basically, biting another goblin's style to improve your own. ;) This is really good for both the Life sphere and the Destruction sphere, because it can give you exactly the right damage type when you need it, and likewise it means you don't have to take talents for healing rare conditions like blindness or death, since you can just flex into them when necessary.
Your caster level would suffer a bit from regular witch, but there's ways to increase it if you really need to do so (the Magical Knack trait?). But if your sphere talents are mostly buffing and healing effects from Life and War and you use your hedgewitch secrets to do the bulk of the debuffing, it shouldn't hinder you much.
Edit: Oh, before I forget, thanks for the feedback so far, everyone! Getting some really good vibes from the prep...
Me too. I'm really excited about getting to play with all of you!
I'm thinking of going for an archery focus for Batry, using a heavy crossbow. The fun thing is, I can get Crossbow Mastery at 1st level via the associated feats of the Barrage Sphere (Rapid Shot) and Expert Reloading from the Equipment Sphere (Rapid Reload). I'm not sure how useful it would be to take it at 1st level instead of Precise Shot but it would work.
A ranged combatant would complement our team nicely, I think! Especially if you also have tough animals who mix it up in melee and keep enemies off of you and Swaggy. 'Wamba can provide them flanks and get flanks from them in turn.