2nd Hand Man's page

You need to build her as a person first. What does she like? What are the things that annoy her? How did she grow up? What was she exposed to as a child/adolescent? What topics of conversation make her angry? Why is she a little insane? I could go on and on.

The point of the matter is that you need to think of her as a person first, and build around that. If you have a well-written character, it becomes easier to imagine how she would react to the situations that come up, which will make the actual role playing much easier to do.

As for your group, this is something you will run into with groups at some point. The best way to do it is to play the character you want, but keep the lines of communication open. If the group finds your character disruptive, discuss a way to tone it down. If the character isn't disruptive, perhaps they simply don't understand the character herself, and that's something that will fix itself as they grow to know her.

Irnk, Dead-Eye's Prodigal wrote:

Has anyone actually bothered to read the effect of Infernal Healing?

It doesn't heal you. It gives you Fast Healing 1 for ten rounds. Fast Healing that doesn't apply to damage inflicted by either Silver or Good aligned weapons. It has the 'Evil' descriptor & causes you to 'ping' mildly evil for a while afterwards because it is effectively splicing a small shard of Hell to you for the duration, granting you some of the physical qualities of a Devil.

Wait, what? Where in tarnation did you read fast healing doesn't work for damage from silver or good? In the bestiary it doesn't say that for the UMR, only specific creatures do...

In the spell description. It says it very clearly.

Once again, relating this because it was ignored.

Pathfinder is medieval setting. MEDIEVAL SETTINGS IT IS COMPLETELY CANON AND WITHIN THE REALM OF GOOD TO KILL EVIL SIMPLY FOR BEING EVIL.

90% of your paladins from stereotypical fables and such dating back more than 50 years did not fall for murdering the evil person without trying to save them! That is a completely modern squeamishness that we share based on our society. It in no way represents the morality of a classic fantasy setting, literary or otherwise, and to treat it otherwise is squeamish shenanigans on the part of GM's involved.

Killing evil for being evil traditionally is well within the setting and the role of a paladin, no questions asked.

Edit: To enumerate:

We may not consider a lot of historical actions good nowadays, the inquisitions, the witch trials, etc. But guess what? By code of religious conduct at the time, they were good. By code of religious organization, they were good. By rule of law, they were good.

A ton of actions seemed horrifying and barbaric, BUT BY EVERY STANDARD AT THE TIME FROM RELIGIOUS DOWN TO LAW, THEY WERE GOOD.

Eh... no... This is more arguably based on the Arthurian legends than actual historical fact, and even THAT is pushing it. And don't even get me started on the morality of the crusades. You can either believe that it was done with the best of intentions, or you can believe it was a political war (like any other) under the guise of divine mandate.

The Appraise check would apply to the item in question. The Bluff check only applies to the Sense Motive check if you choose to make one. It seems to me that, RAW, the Bluff check only happens when an Appraise check isn't made.

Agreed. With the +1 to AC and +1 to hit, the only reason larger creatures have a mechanical advantage is weapon sizes, and it simply makes no sense to set a small longsword at the same damage as a full-sized one. Child-sized weapons have been made, and the effective difference has been evident.

The only place where I consider the size modification to be blatantly wrong is with a firearm. The only reason why a firearm would become less powerful by scaling the same weapon down, is if you were to change the powder count. With Firearms, this isn't necessary, as all you would need to do in order for a smaller person to use it is to shorten the barrel and/or stock. The resulting shortness of the barrel, however, would definitely amount to a loss of accuracy.

Then again, Pathfinder really hasn't managed to get firearms right yet.

Smaller creatures can lift a greater ratio of their total mass. Consider the Ant that is often cited as being able to lift 20x its body weight. Now, sure, 20x the weight of an ant is still less when compared directly to what a Human can lift, but it demonstrates how the ratio of what you can lift drops as you get larger and larger. Additionally, volume of muscle is inconsequential; it's the cross-section that determines power. Volume may provide more space for myoglobin and mitochondria for longer power, but cross-section determines burst power. As for children vs adults, a children is stronger than an adult, pound for pound. It's only because there are fewer pounds in a child that the adult out-paces them. I've experienced this first-hand when it took three adults (myself plus two nurses) to hold my 3 week old daughter's leg steady enough to take a blood sample. A halfling or gnome should have a strength comparable to that of a chimp.

This is incorrect.

You are attempting to use examples with dramatically different muscle structures in order to make your point. The problem with this is that your argument assumes that the increase in strength for your examples are a result of size, when in reality it is more muscular composition and placement. A gnome or halfling would only be as strong as a chimp if their muscle structure was comparable, which based on the description given to us, is not the case.

What you are describing with your daughter is something that anybody can do. Our normal strength is hindered by the fact that our muscles can only take so much in a given period, so we have a bit of a cap, which varies depending on ability, pain tolerance, etc. In times of great physical stress, or in cases in which the body cannot tell that it is being damaged, the body is able to output much greater force. This is the same idea behind zombies and their strength compared to humans. It has nothing to do with size.

Simple Physics

KE=mv^2 (with some extra stuff that is generally very small and has little effect).

So with this equation, you can see that, assuming both the Ball-peen and the Sledgehammer are moving at the same velocity (of which, depending on how you swing, is actually in the benefit of the ball-peen since the sledge hammer would probably end up moving faster due to its weight and the force of gravity would actually aid you in your acceleration of the sledgehammer), the extra mass of the sledgehammer would impart a greater amount of KE to the knee.

This. Physics are fun =)

Though even from a martial arts standpoint, weapon sizes cause them to be handled quite differently. Small, lighter weapons are quick and easy to handle, but don't have the same oomph as a larger, heavier weapon. This isn't unique to games, this is reality. To believe otherwise suggests that one has never used any of these objects properly.

It's the same sort of logic that leads people to try and argue that a knife is more effective in a fight than a pistol.

You could always dip a level of Witch and get prehensile hair, and simply use your beard to reload. That would at least handle the lack of limbs issue. Otherwise, I think others have given good advice so far.

This is a good looking build so far, but I do have a few suggestions.

If you can, try to avoid spending ninja tricks on combat feats. This is totally fine on some things (like trying to make a TWF build viable at low-levels) But general rule of thumb regarding Ninja Tricks and Rogue Talents is that a Trick/Talent > Feat

As for your second question, it would depend greatly on what you want to accomplish with this character. IMHO, a pure Ninja build is superior to most combinations of classes that you could do. That said, if there was a PrC that fit the Ninja best, it would be Shadowdancer, though the class has it's own set of problems that make it a good, but imperfect fit with the Ninja.

The thing to remember is that if you plan to be in melee a lot, you will need that sneak attack as often as possible in order to keep up with the meatsticks.

For non throwing weapons balance is a bit of cinematic nonsense. Like saying a pen or saw has good or bad balance. You can get comfortable with anything.

I would have to disagree with you there completely. The balance of a sword is very important to the way a weapon is handled. While it is true that with time, a skilled user can adjust, but the fact is that a poorly balanced blade hinders the efficiency of the swordsman's movements, even if just slightly. It is no myth that many duels were decided by a split-second delay, and that's what a poorly balanced weapon equates to.

To OP: If you plan to have him use his master's Daisho, then there really is no way around the penalties. It isn't an optimal way to go, but it is flavorful. I would consult your group on it if you yourself are alright with said penalties. It will be difficult to overcome the halfling's low damage if you decide to stick with a melee build. I would suggest a heavier focus on range. If you can't bring yourself to do that, perhaps a Naginata?

Another important thing to point out is that this concept will simply not work for a Weapon Finesse build. The first reason is that weapon finesse can only be applied to weapons appropriately sized for you. So, if we assume that the Wakizashi functions as a small Katana and that the Katana functions as a small Nodachi, you run across the second problem. Weapon Finesse can only be applied to a light weapon, or a one handed weapon with the finesse quality. This disqualifies the Katana and anything larger. So unless you're doing a high strength build, I would reconsider.

It will be rough early on when that -2 is a significant difference to your attack score, but so long as you have a decent strength score, the difference in size will be a benefit to you.

I would personally say go for it. Samurai gets full BAB, so this wouldn't be much harm to you in the long run. Consider that you aren't simply increasing the damage by 1d, you're also using the weapon two handed. That changes the Katana from being 1d6+Str to 1d8+1.5*Str. Just watch yourself at low levels and you'll be fine.

In my experiences, many groups do tend to ignore encumbrance rules. However, I feel that they are there for a good reason. They give players the incentive to buy pack animals, and then run the risk of them being stolen while the party is in a dungeon. What it effectively does is forces the players to consider carefully what gear to pick. As for ways around this, there's always the good ol' Bag of Holding to fall back on. Anybody who has ever played an arcane caster or a rogue can tell you that an extra-dimensional pocket is a lifesaver.

The second problem is one that you will have a bit of a trickier time with, I think. This is a problem best solved by attempting to give as thorough a description of the room/area in question. If the players ask for a check, ask them what they are specifically looking for? If they give a vague answer, make the DC for finding something worthwhile even higher. Eventually, they'll catch on that they need to be more creative in how the tackle a problem once they understand that the numbers on their character sheets won't get them through everything.

That said, I've had limited experience with the 2nd problem.

Rogues tend to have terrible CMD. Use that to your advantage, and hitting him won't be a problem anymore.