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I loved the Beguiler of 3.5 and your take is quite something. I had some questions about the spell list. Grease fits with the controller aspect and ties thematically with Web and Pyrotechnics. Heroism and Good Hope are the opposite side of the offensive enchantment line. Thoughts?
Ah, I was hasty in my inquiry. The class has a second ability to rectify this, though still in melee. Huh.
Topic. Though I plan on playing a Beguiler conversion, the ability remains the same. A feint by definition is "a deceptive or pretended blow, thrust, or other movement". Now Sandman has no range limitation but the Beguiler conversion has one of 30ft. Though as a DM I would reward bonus range for a clever feint, I think a 60ft range isn't unreasonable. Note, per RAW, nothing I found suggests a range limit. I'm looking at practical limits consistent with Pathfinder rules. EDIT: There's now a feat called Ranged Feint from Ultimate Intrigue. How does Sneakspell and Feint interact now? Do I have to feint and then cast in melee? Should Sandman's ability be changed to say how it interacts?
He twists and turns, bends and crawls, jumps and weaves through the maze unharmed! Mog does a cartwheel upon exiting the cruel maze and grins.
As topic says. I just get directed to a ZML document.
Kekekeeeee! Me make boom-boom! Is there a Goblin God of Gunpowder?
Alchemist please?
Note: Premature submitted post, trouble with edit function. I think even Loyalist would admit that a savvy rogue would know that to be a smart investment. Hell, a really smart rogue would go out of his way to look altruistic about giving the money to the Fighter to obtain his good will, only to later manipulate it to get a bigger score later. If the group decides to go their separate ways, the thief can still make off with his severance package before they split. A short-sighted rogue with a high dexterity is putting his own neck on the chopping block. If the difference is in magic items, you should either hang the limitless Detect Magickers or the DM for not mentioning that the rogue started lighting up all of sudden. A basic spellcraft check and intelligence would allow you to put together a ballpark number for wealth. If he notices that it increases a good deal more than everyone else, then there are few explanations assuming that no extended downtime is permitted due to the adventure at hand. Once suspicion is on, then the skimming will likely decrease and/or stop for the near future. A couple of brusiers and a Circle of Truth can go a long way. Cheers!
Between Loyalist and Heaven, I've been on both sides. One was with the rogue holding (no joke) about 85% of the wealth in a level 6 game with eight players. But he was an experienced player and other half of us were playing in our first campaign. In the next game, he went so far as to be on an opposing faction's payroll as assassin and saboteur. This time, however, players were more aware of the "Looking out for #1" nature of humanity that should be recognized. Most people in the game world know to be wary of certain things. Mechanically speaking, only a druid has an even chance of catching a thief on a flat opposed skill check if I remember correctly (at higher levels). As a rogue, I used a rule of thumb like... I shouldn't have more than ~10% of the rest of the party. A smart thief knows when he has a sweet gig (healer? check. meatshield? check.) Taking too much runs the risk of the previously mentioned not having a resource that reduces the group's cash flow. In Heaven's example, his problem could have been remedied by the cleric keeping a few Magic Weapon spells handy for the nasty looking ones. "Priest, could the Powers That Be that grant your blessings spare one or two for the bigger of the nasties? The troll we fought a fortnight ago had worse bug bites than sword slashes by the end if things." With that example in mind, the cleric will have a smaller reserve of spells available. By comparison though, there were plenty of other options available to Heaven. Buying a handful of scrolls (3-4) would cost you 75-100g until you could otherwise afford your sword. Some DMs will allow wands with fewer than 50 charges. If a group of adventurers are together for some amount of time and one of them can't keep up for certain reasons (DR/Magic), then who would begrudge giving up part of their share on the next haul to make sure the party meatshield is still around? I think
While a bludgeoning version of the Waraxe would give some advantages with damage reduction, you can not "keen" a bludgeoning weapon - something I would regard as a significant drawback. A fair point. While not in Pathfinder (yet?), there was a weapon quality "Impact" in Forgotten Realms which increased critical range just the same for bludgeoning weapons. It doesn't diminish your point, but all the same something I'd like to keep in mind if presented to the DM. I checked the Magical Weapon Qualities to double check for other things and remembered that Disruption is bludgeoning only, even if it is a weak and costly weapon ability. I found these weapon qualities to help fix the whole Keen/Vorpal on other weapon types. Thank you for that. My initial thoughts were largely Pathfinder only, but I don't have that resource and it is compatible.
If you were pretending to be attacking or something of the sort, I'd probably force the player to make a Concentration check. Otherwise, I'd probably bring up circumstances. A half-hearted attack against an experienced fighter is asking to get whacked with an attack of opportunity. If there's a distraction, such as the target being flanked by a threat, an explosion, or something of the sort and you're not already in combat - then you could argue casting in a surprise round.
Playing a Dwarf Fighter in an upcoming campaign and wanted to ask the DM for some items that would fit an image I have for the character. Before I ask, I wanted to weigh the Pros/Cons so I'm not asking too much. The DM is experienced with D&D 3.5e, is familiar with power balance between classes, and encourages min-maxing so she can challenge her players. Basically, a bludgeoning version of the Dwarven Waraxe is what I'm hoping for. I did a Google search to see if anyone had an article on comprehensive comparisons between weapon types but came up with nothing. I'd thought about a similar request on the Throwing Axe, but the damage increase seems fairly piddly compared to the reduced range increment. From a conversation I had with a friend in the past, he mentioned Vorpal being an advantage for Slashing weapons (one I privately dismissed). As far as I know, the advantages would be specific to monsters or environments.
You know, I was certain that my post might ruffle a few feathers. The idea, like Pirate said, isn't game-breaking in any regards. One of the complaints I get from other players concerning prestige classes is that if you're starting from first level, most take awhile to get to the point where you can take the class (Dwarven Defender, for example). This simply allows someone to get there faster, nothing more. Hell, the feat in question is otherwise fairly useless.
(I did some forum searching (revolver, stephen king) prior to making this post so as not to post something that's already been discussed) While I haven't played the gunslinger yet, some of the reviews and discussions have a few similar complaints. Not enough damage, revolvers would be necessary/overpowered, other classes abusing firearms, and the like. Having re-read Stephen King's magnum opus of late, one of the things that Roland (the protagonist) does is maintenance on his guns, including the use of gun oils. Now, without wishing to rewrite Golarion to some degree, perhaps that might make things easier. Flintlock pistols are not terribly mechanically difficult to make, nor hard to use. When I was young, I asked why people used guns if bows, by comparison, fired faster and more accurately. One of several reasons, was that firearms were easy to use. To use a bow, one required some measure of practice to build muscle, learn to aim, and so on and so forth. Firearms require minimal training by comparison. He went on to say that even a man injured in the field of battle could use a firearm without too much difficulty. Why do I mention this? I don't believe it would be too much to make flintlock pistols common technology, however expensive by comparison. Making flintlock pistols simple weapons would be my next step, but not exotic by any means since it often refers to some amount of special training required to use with proficiency. If we assume that flintlock pistols are expensive but more commonplace, Revolvers can become the weapon of choice for the gunslinger. Revolvers (or if you prefer, six-shooters) are mechanically more complex. This makes them more expensive but more prone to wear and tear, one of the reason Roland often cleaned his guns. In his world, many had never even seen such a thing. In truth, the technology to make them was lost. Along the same lines of thinking, I think of how the Colt M16 was falsely advertised as self-cleaning and not issued with cleaning kits. A gun enthusiast friend of mine has had opportunities to use M16s from the Vietnam Era, which to this day need to be cleaned quite regularly because they were not cleaned during the course of duty. With that in mind, Paizo can add rules concerning revolvers needing regular maintenance so that they don't jam. Without the PDF in front of me, I can't be certain, but one of the 1st level abilities is called "Firearms". One or two added paragraphs about gun maintenance would likely be enough to describe that a gunslinger is trained to know how to extract oils from certain types of flora that allows a revolver to be cleaned of residue that would eventually lead to a revolver to become unusable. This should allow classes other than the gunslinger to use firearms with a limited rate-of-fire at lower levels. At higher levels, the cost of a revolver would be negligible compared to income, meaning that other classes could use them until they were jammed and have multiple to compensate for the problem, much like the use of a Wand of Scorching Ray. Well, that's my thinking anyways.
I've been wanting to play an Arcane Trickster for sometime and in my browsing through various books, came across the following: Wizard 1 / Rogue 3 / 1 Arcane Trickster Aside from alignment, there are a few prerequisites to Arcane Trickster.
The last requirement is satisfied through a feat from the Complete Arcane on pg181: Precocious Apprentice. Spoiler:
Precocious Apprentice
Prerequisites: Spellcasting Ability (Int or Cha) 15, arcane caster level 1st Benefit: Choose one 2nd-level spell from a school of magic you have access to. You gain an extra 2nd-level spell slot that must be used initially to cast only the chosen spell. Until your level is high enough to allow you to cast 2nd-level spells, you must succeed on a DC 8 caster level check to successfully cast this spell; if you fail, the spell is miscast to no effect. Your caster level with the chosen spell is your normal caster level, even if this level is insufficient to cast the spell under normal circumstances. When you become able to cast 2nd-level spells, you lose the benefit described above but retain the extra 2nd-level spell slot, which you can use to prepare or spontaneously cast a spell of 2nd level or lower as you normally would. Finally, you gain a +2 bonus on all Spellcraft checks. Special: You can take this feat only as a 1st-level character. If there's a "problem" with it, you'll be riding the short bus for a little while if you start at low levels. There are ways to make yourself useful, of course, but you do need to know what you're doing. I'm thinking at second level, I'm going to be sniping with Acid Orb for 1d6+1d3, wooo!
While I don't like the term "theorycraft" caster, I can say this: My favorite Wizard guide aside from Treantmonk was LogicNinja's Guide to Being Batman. If you set aside the benefits and number crunching, you can do what the Big Stupid Fighter and Glass Cannon are doing *as well as* disabling the competition. Your spellbook should be your utility belt, so preparing one or two "nukes" or keeping scrolls around is another gadget on the utility belt. You might not use it all the time, but you'll be glad you have it when the time arises when you really need it. Having played a "theorycraft" caster, I can tell you that it pans out well and ended up being fun for the entire party we had. I used 1-2 spells per encounter and allowed our Fighter to Power Attack to his heart's content, our rogue to get full TWF Sneak Attack full-attack actions without a flanker, and our cleric didn't need to worry about healing as much. Also, if you want to go Blaster Caster, Warlock from Complete Arcane is a better option in most regards. |
