Akin DT's page

Typo:Angel-Blooded Aasamar don't get glitterdust, they get alter self. For castigator, that's a +2 to strength (not to mention the other things you could use it for out of combat).

EWP (fauchard or nodachi)

Nodachi is martial. if you don't care about reach, you can pick up something else at that level instead.

That doesn't really work. If you are threatening/attacking with your nodachi you are no longer wielding the buckler.

Of course you're wielding the buckler. You're just not getting the bonus AC from it until your next turn. By your logic, bucklers with Energy Resistance or Determination magical properties won't work if you use the buckler's arm for attacking. Nothing in the description of buckler indicates you "aren't wielding" the buckler. In fact, if you weren't wielding it, you wouldn't have to worry about the -1 to attack roles!

I always assumed Deadshot was simply using one bullet to maximum efficiency, its main purpose was to be able to keep up with attack rate/damage at higher levels with slow-reloading firearms in general? That's how I'd rule it anyway.

This. The only problem is, heavy weapons probably aren't "firearms" unless you use a Heavy Weapon Harness or have the Heavy Weapon Deeds deed.

Don't forget not all used tech is "timeworn". Also, that it costs half price to buy one.
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Would this help before level 11?

A heavy weapon harness provides its wearer with additional stability and support, allowing the user to wield heavy weapons as if they were regular firearms, using the Exotic Weapon (firearms) feat for proficiency rather than Exotic Weapon (heavy weaponry). A character with Exotic Weapon (heavy weaponry) who wears an H-belt finds the use of heavy weapons even easier, and gains a +1 circumstance bonus on all attack rolls made with harnessed heavy weapons.

Regarding cost, buy an expended timeworn version (for 1% of the normal cost) of the gun and at level 11 just recharge it as needed.

Charge Recycling (Ex) At 11th level, by spending 1 grit point, a techslinger can grant 1 temporary charge to a technological firearm, even if the firearm normally can no longer be recharged. This charge must be used within 1 hour or it fades. The techslinger can grant temporary charges to multiple firearms as long as she has enough grit, but temporary charges do not stack with themselves in the same firearm. At 15th level, the techslinger can grant 2 temporary charges when she uses this deed, and at 19th level, she can grant 3 temporary charges. This deed replaces expert loading.

Even if the harness won't work with the above, Heavy Weapons Deeds should.

Can you make a +1 lucky timeworn rocket launcher?

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Also, the level 7 spell Memory of Function for Clerics, sorcerers, and wizards can fully fix and recharge any timeworn tech... for 10K gold worth of skymetal dust. If you have such a caster in your party, make sure to only buy the depleted timeworn versions of all high-tech items worth more than 10K gp. ... unless you have a feature that makes you not make negative glitches, like Techslinger does for firearms(Technic Training).

Orthos: I wasn't trying to start an alignment debate. I saw mention of discarding old assumptions and conventions and the possibility of chaotic good paladins or lawful evil anti-paladins is certainly one of those areas for Paizo. The product title mentions "fresh optional takes" after all.

On another page mods said: "Talking about what you want to see in the book is fine, but talking about other people's opinions of what they want to see in the book" (was bad)
I was doing the former.

I'm interested in the possibilities for this book, not shooting down anyone else's ideas.

I'm looking forward to a book that does at least some of what the description promises.

If you sat down at my table I wouldn't let that fly. Phalanx solider says nothing about making all polearms counting as one handed weapons. It just says that you can use one in your primary hand as a one handed...

(bolding mine)

At 3rd level, when a phalanx soldier wields a shield, he can use any polearm or spear of his size as a one-handed weapon.

This ability replaces Armor Training 1.

It doesn't prevent you from using a polearm or spear in same arm as your buckler, nor does it limit you from only using it on your "main hand".

Though I think a neater use of this would be to use the fauchard in the unshielded hand, and a nodachi in the buckler hand. Make AoO and normal attacks with your fauchard, and use the nodachi when they close ranks. Don't bother with dual wielding penalties.

Needed (besides the fixes to rogue): Paladins of freedom and anti-paladins of tyranny. Come on, Chaotic Good is the most fun alignment to play, and Lawful Evil makes the most compelling villains.

If the decide to make Pally and Ranger full CL like they did bloodrager, that would be good too.

Sohei can.
I assume you are not one of the monks that lose Ki, or else you would be playing Brawler, correct?

In many historical societies anyone who didn't own land were slaves. The peasant social class in European medieval period had less rights and more oppression than most slaves of the classical period of history. It was far better to be a Roman, Greek or Celtic slave than a 'free' peasant.

Strongly disagree about the medieval period being worse to live in than the classical period. Classical eras had massive cities, and thus slaves in such societies had to work much harder than the free peasantry had to work for their (much smaller in number) hierarchical lords... especially because farming tech improved over this time period.

For those asking for definitions, I'll use a quote from a book I just read: "Slavery is the ultimate form of being ripped from one's context, and thus from all the social relationships that make one a human being."
(of course, in fantasy settings, dwarves and elves are also supposed to be of equal personhood)

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Just a few general facts:
*Revolts concerning relationships of pure hierarchy (slavery and caste systems) are historically less common than ones based on things like debt peonage where people are "supposed" to be equals, but due to shenanigans, aren't. And the big world religions seem much more concerned about debt bondage and usury than caste/slavery. (hence strong restrictions on usury, regular debt cancellations; but often little opposition to unarguably worse forms of subjugation) Presumably this says something about the way relationships of hierarchy are based on precedent, not logic or principle.
*When slave and caste revolts do occur, it is often about their treatment, not the principle in question.
*During times when chattel slavery was common, people viewed it the way most modern people do war "oh, it's terrible, but it's unrealistic to think of a world without it". Ironic, considering there's several times in history where is is abolished.
*IRL, widespread use of precious coin only occurs in eras of mass war and slavery. (in other times, money is based on personal or state credit) I just figured I'd throw that in there because most GMs assume everyone in the world is using gold and silver coins. Adventurers are shady people, who would let them run up a tab? ;P
*one often becomes a slave in situations where one would have otherwise died (for example, one would only be enslaved for not paying a debt if it was OK to kill an insolvent debtor in that culture). eras where mass slavery was common treat someone enslaved as legally dead.
*roman slavery was weird. 1. It wasn't based in any way on bigotry, anyone could be kidnapped, fall into debt that can't be repaid, lose a battle, and become a slave. And yet, once freed, a slave was a free citizen. 2. The master had absolute property rights over the slave. Unlike much of the ancient world, in one's household, you could do /anything/ with one, no matter how vicious. This results in weird things like: people intentionally selling themselves into slavery to become a citizen (with a friend holding the money to buy the freedom back), but during this time their Dominus could cut off fingers or murder them for no reason.
*"war captives" is always seen as the most socially acceptable reason for slavery. So much so, that slave-traders will often claim most of the people they are transporting were captured in war, even if most of them were really: sold by their parents to pay off debt, randomly kidnapped, made slaves as punishment for alleged minor crimes by local authorities, were actually someone else's pawn/servant before they were transported etc. Often times "war captives" becomes this big legal fiction people in Empires tell themselves to make them feel better.

Leaving aside the question of whether a velociraptor or similar dinosaur can reliably grip a stick-shaped object:

Wands wrote:

To activate a wand, a character must hold it in hand (or whatever passes for a hand, for non-humanoid creatures) and point it in the general direction of the target or area.

At a minimum, they have to be able to reliably point the thing at the target.

I just spent five minutes looking at skeletal and reconstructed diagrams of a deinonychus or velociraptor's "hand", and I just can't see them holding a wand, much less reliably pointing it with any degree of precision.

(bolding added)

Basically anything with movable arms that can keep a wand in their grip can do that. If they could keep it wedged between their claws (or between their hands and chest, like ppl who think their arms were more winglike suggest in the Wikipedia article), they could point it in the general direction of something.

(barding)

So 10 gold instead of 5? Seems fair if the arm is different enough... I don't think it's "total cost" (magical properties, etc) though... Does the masterwork property of large humanoids cost more, or just the base item cost?

Durngrun Stonebreaker wrote:

blahpers wrote:

Ha. I'd allow the buckler, but there's no way that it has sufficiently fine manipulators to put it on/off by itself, much less handle a wand. Not a chance.

Should be able to hold a wand, how much manipulation do you need to use it?

If that were true cats would not need us to open cans. The little arms and claws grip by pulling downward with the claws. I've never seen them described as being able to pick things up.

1.cats have very differently designed claws than these bipeds. Cat's claws are retractable, and they walk on four feet. They did not have them "free" to manipulate things. That said, neither do bears when they are moving, yet they can pick things up.

2.Animal archive, inside front cover. Bipedal dinosaurs can at least hold things (though manipulation would varies depending on how their hands are constructed. Presumably, you'd have to put something in the front claws of your Tyrannosaurus for it to reliably hold it.) If the spell is a self or touch spell, it doesn't even need meaningful aim. Deinonychus should has better manipulation than most of the companions in that sub-list (unless the DM thinks the arms should be more wing-like, in which case it would have a harder time). It could probably even retrieve wands or potions stored in easy-to-grab sheaths.

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Regarding concerns about bipedal mounts: paladins don't have a restriction on their bonded mount, other than it's

This mount is usually a horse (for a Medium paladin) or a pony (for a Small paladin), although more exotic mounts, such as a boar, camel, or dog are also suitable.

(the d20fsdrd has the old text "heavy horse" in there, and ponies are horrible.)

Cavaliers have much greater restrictions on what they can pick. They need an archetype to pick outside that, just like they need an archetype for ranged weapons to be useful in their challenge feature.

Fact 4: Are you sure? I've never heard that or seen that rule.

Fact 5: You also lose -1 to the attack roll :P
{...}
You could also do some sort of charge/shield bash combo with pounce... though I'm not sure bucklers can. But if you can, get the ramming ability as well. Free bull rush attack can change the battlefield, and is kinda hilarious that your being pushed back by a dinosaur using a buckler O.o

(partly ninjaed on this but for completion sake...)

Nonproficient with Armor Worn: A character who wears armor and/or uses a shield with which he is not proficient takes the armor's (and/or shield's) armor check penalty on attack rolls as well as on all Dex- and Str-based ability and skill checks. The penalty for non-proficiency with armor stacks with the penalty for shields.

Which in the case of mithril bucklers is 0. Or darkwood, depending on if your DM thinks the darkwood buckler is a buckler. *sigh*

-1 is kinda minor here, because the claw is the worst attack it has.

And you can't shield bash with a buckler. Though if you could, you couldn't use that arm for a claw, and it would make all the raptor's attacks secondary natural attacks for that full attack/pounce.

Fact1: Deinonychus/velociraptor is available as an animal companion, and at level 7, would be appropriate for a small sized paladin. It would have at least Intelligence 6
Fact2: Deinonychus is a biped, and thus has arms available for strapping things on.
Fact3: Of the 5 natural weapons (without using any magical items) it can attack with, claw is the worst. It is however, still a primary natural weapon that can be used on a pounce.
Fact4: Mithril bucklers don't require proficiency in shields
Fact5: You only lose your (shield) AC bonus when attacking with an arm that has a buckler strapped to it

Question 1: Could a Deinonychus use a bucker?
Looking at the above facts, this seems to be the case. Unless Paizo's Deinonychus is much more feathery than the one in the Bestiary, I don't see why not.

Question 2: Could it strap on the buckler itself?
While the claws can hold things, (didn't animal archive list it's category as something that can use wands etc?) I don't think they had quite the dexterity to do that, but I'm uncertain.

Question 3: What magical properties would be best for such a buckler? It can't speak command words without an item or spell to allow speech, right?

Anyone have any thoughts?

Akin DT wrote:

The Human Diversion wrote:

I've been enjoying the heck out of my Halfling paladin with the riding dog mount, but then I'm playing him in Society where so many dungeons/adventures don't allow large mounts and dogs can go places rather easily if one has a wand of spider climb.

Are you a lancer or an archer?

Lance. Ride by, spirited charge and all that.

What do you think about the boar? It has higher natural armor, but lower dex.

I've been enjoying the heck out of my Halfling paladin with the riding dog mount, but then I'm playing him in Society where so many dungeons/adventures don't allow large mounts and dogs can go places rather easily if one has a wand of spider climb.

Are you a lancer or an archer?

So apparently the only real choices for a medium sized player from levels 4-6 (other than horse and camel) are Axe Beak and Giant Chameleon.
Of the two, axe beak seems a bit better. It's faster after all, and the autotrip after a charge sounds fun.

Best mount = best animal companion that can also serve as a mount.

Your best bet is looking at animal companion guides. From the looks of it, you've already done this.

Well, I haven't played yet, so I was wondering if anyone had experience with this.

Moose.

If Leadership is available, then Unicorn.

Moose? Was that snark, or are they that great? Several other creatures have powerful charge...

Also, do you mean to say that Leadership is much better than picking the bonded mount? That would suggest that even Lancer paladins should take the "bonded weapon" option at level 5....

So assuming you have a DM who lets you have "non-conventional special mounts" (read: the whole animal companion list), what's the best mount for a paladin?
Assuming you're building a lancer (as that's a popular choice for divine mount paladins) would you want a speed of at least 40?

If I am I understanding things correctly would the best choices be:
(for small PCs)
(at level 5)small cat or boar
(at level 7)Deinonychus (Velociraptor)
The last one would be especially nice at level 11, when the celestial template gives it smite evil, as it has the best charisma of any animal companion.

I'm not sure what's best for medium sized PCs, as there seems to be way more options, but Big Cat looks good at level 7...

So am I missing something?

Akin DT,

Thank you for your input! I will definitely look over Shining Knight again. Do you have any specific recommendations or input regarding the Shining Knight that you can share?

[...]

Regarding the wings... I don't think you're crazy for wanting wing attacks for your angelkin. Flight plus attacks are nice, but two feats to get them both? Hrmmm... They're not going to be as great as any of your potential weapon choices are, and I'm not quite sure whether it's worth the penalties. I'd have to think about it. It's not something I'd tell you "Don't ever do this!", but I am not confident that it's optimal.

Thanks for the input and I'm hopeful to hear your reply. Happy gaming!

Oh boy, this is the fifth time I've typed this post. If I lose it one more time I SWEAR, I'll turn into the incredible hulk.

Warning: I haven't played Pathfinder yet, but I've been running other, more 10 sided, games for years, and I've spent the last 3-4 months reading up on the character that I will be able to play whenever my GM decides to actually start it.

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So the shining knight trades in disease resistance for mounts that are less likely to be effected by annoying effects, such as petrification and instagib vs reflex attacks. Sounds like a good trade, considering how much people warn about dieing mounts on message boards etc.

The level 11 ability is a good trade if you don't use use the Aura of Justice much (because it eats up 2 smites perhaps?) It's also good if you don't have ride-by-attack (no AoO on you & mount when charging). The chance to PANIC the smitten enemy for 5+ rounds every time you successfully charge them sounds nice.

So if you like mounts that die less, and want the chance to panic the enemy, it is a good deal.

(not so much if you like being immune to mummy rot and letting your allies shout "JUST WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK WE ARE")

:3

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Oh, yes, Mounts. Unless it's hidden in some guide on some board I haven't found, I can't find any good guides (or any guides at all really) on mounts. And even advice on which to pick is scarce. So you should probably mention them.
The best I can pick up, cheetah and raptor are the go-to mounts for small lancers. The stats look right for both of them, but you would want the raptor by level 11 because the high charisma would be advantageous to the once/day smite evil ability your mount would get then. Also pounce.

Didn't look much at the Large mounts, but Lion/Tiger (liger?) looks like it could pretty much be someone's favorite mount, and T-rex should in theory do x2 Power attack damage.

No matter the creature, however, lunge looks like a requirement so the mount can hit at the same space as you hit.

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As for the wing attack it's four feats:
*Angelic Blood, a circumstantial benefit feat that serves as a prerequisite for all others below,
*Angelic Flesh, gives you one of four benefits. The Silver and Steel are the only options a paladin should consider. Both of them make all of your natural attacks and unarmed strikes silver and cold iron, respectively. Silver gives you bonuses to things you aren't immune to, and Steel gives you +1 natural armor. Who hates natural armor, I mean really? So pick Steel if you have to pick up this feat, unless you constantly live in fear of being petrified or something.
*Angel Wings (level 10, in theory), give you a slow fly speed, but it means you get fly as a class skill. and you can deal with an anti magic field while high in the air.
*Metallic Wings (requires all of the above, level 11 in theory) lets your wings do 1d4 slashing each. Think about it.

I (a castigator) was going to get the wings anyways, even if it wasn't advantageous, but when I looked at Metallic Wings' 1d4 damage I laughed and said it was a waste of two feats... until I remembered that smite evil doesn't care if you're hitting with a weapon that does 1 damage, because you still add str, power attack damage, and smite damage.

But I worried about the negatives to the main 2h attack (I picked a nodachi). Then I read the Bestiary rules for natural attacks during a normal attack.

Unlike secondary manufactured weapons, secondary natural weapons don't hurt the main attack's chances of hitting. So instead of hitting with a nodachi at +13, then +8, then +3, I'd be hitting at +13 with the nodachi, then +8 and +8 for the wing attacks, then +8 and +3 for the Nodachi again. Other than the opportunity cost of whatever else you could do with those two feats, there's no penalties. I ran some calculations vs the AC of a demon with a CR a few levels higher, and it's quite favorable *free damage*. Like 25 average /wing, assuming I'm making the right assumptions as to what gear would be available at that point, and ample time to prepare exists.

Yeah, it doesn't add much when you power attack without smite evil against said demon (because you will mostly miss, thanks to lack of power attack), but if you have an amulet of annoying expenditure... er mighty fists, you could do some interesting things each time you hit (you would also want permanency on your greater magic fanged wings). In crazy la-la land where you can afford such things at level 13, you could even have your amulet have the vorpal property on it. A random chance to lop off somepony's head sounds nice.

Oh, right, and there's a spell called Strong Jaw you'll want a wand of if you know you'll be in a fight with a evil boss. And if you take Sion of Humanity you can have yourself Enlarge Personed (or have a GM that lets Enlarge Monster exist as a level 3 spell). Or there's that armor property that can make you larger. There's another spell I can't remember that helps with natural attacks as well. Regardless, we're actually talking about nice base damage now, ESPECIALLY during a smite.

.... I wish I could find a way to get another natural attack though, preferably a unicorn horn gore. Then I could get multi-attack at level 15, making the wings 20 perce-- er I mean 15% cooler (more likely to hit). Oh, right, and more free smite evil damage.

(Yeah, I could get that one trait that gives you a 1d4 bite attack, but you'd need to get it via Adopted because it's a half-orc trait, and your GM is likely to kill you IRL for that.)

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Maybe I didn't look hard enough but I don't see the feat fey foundling mentioned anywhere. It's probably one of the best feats for paladins.

Oh, wow. I haven't heard of that.

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P.S. Yes, I did put a lot of references in this post.

Thank you for the updates to the guide. That said:

Shining Knight would appear to be an obvious choice for a lancer. (binary logic warning:) Either this is a good choice for lancers, or this is a trap that new players would not notice. Either way, it should be mentioned in your guide.

Dhampir now have a magical item that allows them to use positive energy like temporary hit points. Lay on hands is positive energy. http://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fm#v5748eaic9p08 Is this enough to change the classification for archer pallys?

****Surprise Follow-Through doesn't require you to be half-orc/orc**** despite being in that section.

You seemed to dislike Eldritch Heritage. Obviously temporary claws aren't going to be the best bet for someone with a big sword, but if you already picked half-elf, or one of the human racial traits that gives you skill focus, are all of the bloodlines still a bad choices? The Samurai guide seemed to like a few, and getting a full BAB assistant (Arcane Bloodline) for one feat (if you already have skill focus) doesn't sound that bad...

I look forward to expansion regarding Aasimar. Am a crazy for wanting the wing attacks for my Angelkin?

Any interesting traits, or do I have to wait till wednesday for that?

I was thinking about this myself. As long as you have the right feature (claws, tail bash, prehensile tail), I don't see why you shouldn't be able to use the attachments. The claw attachment in particular would be good with a natural weapon type with multiattack at higher levels I assume.

Shifty wrote:

So is there much for Aasimar and Tielfings in this book?

With BoF and BoA, I was wondering whether they still gave these two races much space in this guide.

6 pages for each, so quite a bit. Though tieflings get nothing about being a specific type of fiend here.

Thank you very much. i can infer that the 6 alternative statblocks for Aasimar aren't in here and I'll have to wait for Blood of Angels for it.

Did tier 2 races get support concerning alternative advancement for favored class or whatever?

BREAKING NEWS: Archetype that's about peace and serenity replaces an extremely violent class ability. More details after the talking bag.

... which I have no problem with, it's just the feat it's based off of didn't look impressive at that job. But of course, I haven't read the text for this archetype yet so I wouldn't know how good it is at it's intended purpose.

Replaces Smite Evil? Unless that works out very different than it does in my head, screw that! =P

Edit: Thanks for the info.
Any word on the alternate bloodlines that were found in Blood of Fiends and will be found in Blood of Angels? That repeated here?

Akin DT wrote:

I'm going to make an Aasamir Paladin in a few weeks for my first pathfinder game. Any details on the archetype they have for that?

Also, were the tiefling and aasemir bloodlines from Blood of Fiends/Angels in here?

You're not going to be impressed. It's a Paladin that's centered around Touch of Serenity and converting confirmed critical hits to non-lethal damage as a free action. If you want to take captives, it's great. If you want to kill the evil king, no so much.

Everyone who replied, thank you.

What is replaced? I assume somehow the archetype is incompatible with Oath of Vengeance? ;P

Also doing nonlethal damage? Isn't their a weapon property called "merciful" for that? I may possibly be the only full BAB in the group (2 different monks, a synthesizer or w/e, and 2-3 more players) so I dont know...

I'm going to make an Aasamir Paladin in a few weeks for my first pathfinder game. Any details on the archetype they have for that?

Also, were the tiefling and aasemir bloodlines from Blood of Fiends/Angels in here?