Alton Nimblewit's page

I've got an elf rogue with an emphasis on mobility who has gone in way too many directions, and I'm looking at using retraining from Ultimate Campagin to get her back under control.

Before we get into the "best defense is a good offense" debate, let's make something clear: the character is in a steampunk horror campaign where some things can't be defeated with enough hit point damage. Survivability is key, and keeping a high degree of mobility is crucial.

Let's start with her feats (she's a 7th level rogue/2nd level bard):

Second, let's look at her rogue talents:

Here's what I have in mind:

• Get rid of the bard levels and go straight up rogue.
  
• Add a SA-based talent like Bleeding Attack
  

However, I'm drawing a blank on what else I could do. Rogue Eidolon focused on 4 builds that don't suit this character's modus operandi, so I'm willing to solicit some input on this.

If a dying creature has an amount of negative hit points equal to its Constitution score, it dies.

According to RAW, is this the dying creature's normal Constitution score, or it's adjusted Constitution score?

I.e., if a creature has their CON damaged, does this affect the negative hit point total needed to die?

My 10th level bard died last night in a Ravenloft-like setting. He was Neutral Good and an Innocent, and wouldn't want to be raised from the dead because of the corruption associated with it. Because he died in some evil sinkhole, it's likely he'd be raised without a soul.

It seems odd, but I found myself going through the 5 stages of grief after the session ended. Probably because I invested so much time and energy into character development (the most I ever did), and because he got dealt a really bad hand over time that he never got to resolve.

Has anyone else ever gone through grief after a permadeath?

Is there any reason bestowing a curse is not considered evil? Numerous third party supplements talk about the nature of curses, channeled by spite with the intention of maiming or crippling the target.

What comes to mind is the Book of Vile Darkness and the Ravenloft Player's Guide. The former talks about other unique curses, greater curses, bloodline curses, etc.; the latter mentions death curses, and the act of cursing someone causes a powers check.

Is it fair to say that curses have a proclivity to be a tool of evil, but are not inherently evil themselves?

Hello,

Our GM has houseruled that all death effects are subject to Ravenloft-style corruption checks, which means that the bard's capstone ability could cause my Neutral Good bard to devolve into a slavering shell of a soul husk.

I've talked to the GM about this, and he wants me to suggest alternatives to Deadly Performance, so long as it fits the ability and power.

FYI, I'm already level 10, and the character has already developed as a standard bard with no archetypes, and changing that would require costly retraining, so archetypes are out.

I see some alternatives based on the other capstone abilities for other classes:

* paralysis for 2d6 rounds (Rogue's Master Strike)
* sleep for 1d4 hours (Rogue's Master Strike)
* nonlethal damage equal to the creature's current hit points (Ranger's Master Hunter)

In order for the replacement of deadly performance to be viable, it must fall under the following criteria:

1) It must be of comparable power to a save or die effect.
2) It must target a single creature.
3) It must make sense in the context of a mind affecting effect.
4) It must make sense in the context of a visual/audio performance.

Sleep definitely would meet this requirement, but I'm looking for something a bit more creative.

Thoughts?

I have a couple of questions regarding some bard abilities that I'm not getting much utility out of, and was wondering what should be done.

1) Versatile Performance: I've taken Keyboard, Sing, and Dance, covering Acrobatics, Bluff, Diplomacy, Fly, Intimidate, and Sense Motive (which is awesome, because WIS is my dump stat). In 2 levels, I'll get another skill to choose from, which means I can take Percussion/Wind for Handle Animal or Act for Disguise, neither of which I need nor use. What alternatives, if any, possess additional utility?
2) Fascinate/Suggestion: I've only been able to use this once, outside of combat. Only possible thing I can think of coming up in the future is that he's going to face a trial, but I can't think of much more where it would be useful.
3) Deadly Performance: We're 10 levels away from it, but the GM has ruled that all death effects are subject to corruption checks (some ravenloft convention), which is anathema to the character. I've seen 4 archetypes that replace it, but all of them basically require a complete character rewrite.

I'm looking for some interesting ideas on character development for what is perhaps my second or third favorite character I've ever played.

Currently, I'm playing a Halfling Bard named Alton Nimblewit in a post-apocalyptic steampunk campaign. Think "Big O" without the mechs. There's two competing religions in the world: there's 'the flame', which is an amalgamation of most good and neutral religions; and 'the lawgiver', which is somewhere between Bane and Asmodeus...

... and Alton Nimblewit is a faith-revival type minister of the former. He's basically a 3' tall cross between famed/shamed televangelist Peter Popoff, and Convincing John of Fraggle Rock fame. He likes acts that kinetically charge the audience, and the rank-and-file clergy of the rather structured Flame grimace at him. Because he generally dresses in thrift-quality tweed jackets, you could also call him the "used car salesman for your soul."

Adding to this is the fact that he's generally a bit slow on the uptake. When I say 'a bit slow', he was given the nickname "Nimblewit" in college as a joke, and he still wears it with pride, having never got the reference.

I'm looking for some character development ideas on two paths:

First, Alton is known for his 'Altonisms,' which are outright bastardizations of classical idioms. He especially tends to use these when casting confusion, though it's not his intention. I'm trying to collect more to use in everyday context. Some examples are:
- "That sounds like the straw that put the camel before the horse."
- "The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to buy good furniture."
- "We need to walk a line in the sand"
- "Don't judge a book by the jury."

Second, Alton is a bit of an innocent (literally; he has some Ravenloft ability), so I'm having trouble roleplaying him in some of the horror-type elements that seep into the campaign. How does a boisterous, cheery and faith-crazed televangelist roleplay horror without ruining the moment? Just being silent is his current reaction, but it'd be nice to play it a bit better.

Despite our GM's frequent attempts, my cheesy little archer bard has made it to 10th level, and has fulfilled all the requirements to advance into the realm of Arcane Archer. I read Treantmonk's guide, and have some ideas for my next feats, but I'm looking for some order of priority for these feats, and whether Arcane Archer is a good idea.

Here's Alton's stat block:

His current weapon of choice is a +1 merciful Composite Shortbow (Mighty +2), but he can use a +1 keen rapier in a pinch. Right now, his damage output with all bonuses considered is 1d4+13 (+1d6 if doing nonlethal damage).

So I have come up with a short list of the next 4 feats I'd like to choose: Rapid Shot (-> Manyshot), Clustered Shot, and Leadership.

The GM has been pretty good with Cohorts, whenever the NPCs aren't busy getting said cohorts killed. Damage Reduction has been relatively rare, so I'm not sure of the short-term ROI on Clustered Shot. Rapid Shot and Manyshot will boost my damage output, but it potentially doesn't have the same utility as a whole 'nother person on the battlefield.

To recap, the two questions are: what feat should I take next, and how bad is the transition to a full BAB class this late in the game?

Many of the feats that benefit an alchemist seem to be feats that would also benefit many of the ranged classes ( Ranged Ranger, Archer Bard, etc. ).

Is it advisable to take Martial Weapon Proficiency (Longbow) as my human bonus feat in order to have a backup plan? Aside from the Extra Bombs and Extra Discovery feats, here's the path I'm planning at the moment:

- Point Blank Shot
-- Precise Shot
--- Focused Shot
--- Improved Precise Shot
-- Rapid Shot
- Deadly Aim

Can anyone please convince me that Martial Weapon Proficiency is a bad idea? The only other option I see here is Rapid Reload, and for some reason I'm just not a fan of using a light crossbow when a longbow is available for the same price.

By the way, elves aren't allowed in this campaign, so I can't use that instead.

No clue how this is going to work, as I'm only level 2 at the moment (Rog 2).

The campaign setting is a steampunk post-apocalyptic metropolis with a pre-Upton Sinclair mindset. Think Wild, Wild West meets Big O. We are a three-member party with a Tetori Monk, reminiscent of an early 20th century strong man; a "member of a dying breed" holy crusader seeking to manifest order and righteousness in a world where most small-town preachers are fire-and-brimstone frauds; and a freelance carpetbagging muckraker seeking to disrupt the status quo who ghostwrites the exploits of corporate corruption.

So far, the campaign is equal parts intrigue/investigation and combat, so plenty of opportunity to play the lolskillz role.

Here's my build:

Half-Elf Rogue (4d6 drop build; Lucky Rolls; GM Verified)
Str 11
Dex 16
Con 14
Int 18
Wis 13
Cha 15

Core Racial Traits (2 Favored Classes, Skill Focus {Stealth})
1st-level feat: Weapon Finesse
Traits: Magical Knack, Elven Reflexes

2nd Level Rogue Talent: Firearm Training (firearms are common in this campaign)
Potential 4th level Talent: Combat Trick or Bleeding Attack

At the moment, it looks like my end-game is going to be Rogue 4 / Bard 6 / ArT 9. Since bards don't have any spells that would qualify for SA, I'm debating whether that last level is worth it (unless that transfers to wands, in which case sign me up).

My focus (as you've noticed with the INT) is that I'm the lolskillz of the group, so I'm going 6 levels into Bard to take Versatile performance twice.

Feats I'm looking into for the future include:
Dodge -> Mobility -> Spring Attack
Arcane Strike
Combat Expertise -> Improved Feint | Improved Trip (with a whip) | Improved Disarm (with a whip)
Dazzling Display

Am I going to be the best in combat? Definitely not, considering by the time I'm high enough into ArT to stop sucking, the strong man will have muscles that can flex into the Ethereal plane to grapple ghosts, and the Paladin can brow-beat demons back to the Abyss.

Any ideas on how I can hide my iniquities in combat, or tips on what I can do to improve the build?

I'm not open to the suggestion of not going Arcane Trickster, btw. For one, it fits the story, and two, I'm trying to prove that you can make a viable build for an ArT.

One of the hardest hitting gaming anomalies to me, especially in a story-driven campaign, is the sudden unexpected TPK. I think it affects both the GM and the players equally: the players have suddenly come to an unsatisfying end to the story of characters they have spend months, possibly years, developing; meanwhile, the GM's plot hooks and adventure plans for the future have effectively been quashed.

I submit to you this story that took place recently in a Pathfinder Forgotten Realms campaign, and then ask for advice. This covers the bulk of the last two sessions:

For reference, our party consisted of:
12th level female half-orc barbarian
12th level male human alchemist (died; replaced by 11th level halfling rogue with Pass for Human or whatever it is that makes them appear like a child. We all thought he was a child.)
11th level female human conjuror
9th level male human urban ranger skirmisher (cohort of conjuror)
??th level female aasimar cleric (GMPC, 11th or 12th)

We had recently been clearing out a werewolf den responsible for attacking the Dancing Place. The head, a powerful necromancer of sorts, managed to escape with his life, so our alchemist used up the rest of his bombs for the day to collapse the cave entrance, in an effort to keep the place from posing an immediate threat to the grove. You see, our half-orc barbarian, whom I'll call a "survivor", was trying to find religion with Selune, and needed to visit the Dancing Place to finally put her soul at peace.

On our way back to the village, however, a group of bloated wyverns attacked, infested with some positive energy swarms. Out of bombs, out of healing from our cleric, no rage left, and low on spells, it was a long battle. The wyverns fell, and the swarms with fast healing kept regenerating. Eventually, they killed the alchemist. We did bring the others down, but he was dead. Back at the village, we earned our reward, and made arrangements for the alchemist's funeral.

Fast forward to the next day, a man who we hired to research the type of undead we saw in the werewolf cave has turned up dead, his former apprentice the prime suspect. We catch the rogue scouring through the suspect's house, and with his help find nothing. That night, however, while strolling alone through town after gathering some additional information about the murder, said rogue is attacked by some powerful undead creature. He escapes with his life by pure luck (he had a hide from undead potion in his backpack), but from the retinue of spells used (slay living, flame strike, etc.), it's obvious that said creature wants the rogue dead.

Being the resourceful group we are, we decide to stage an ambush for the undead the following night. We send the cleric into town to buy hide from undead potions, while I, the conjuror, prepare spells designed to combat undead (as well as I can... I've got a focus in necromancy, so fighting undead aren't really my forte).

Night time comes, and our cleric hasn't showed up. Meanwhile, the rogue gets ambushed again by the undead, forcing us to fight. I drop a dimensional anchor on the creature, hoping to keep it from running away. I then attempt to summon a monster, but it flame strikes me (failed save). It then erects a wall of stone to cut myself, the ranger and barbarian from it and the rogue, but being a conjuror, I have the dimensional steps ability to bring us to the other side... into some animated cobblestones that attack us. Come to find out, the undead is actually our cleric, possessed by some powerful ghost variant. The ghost variant has the ability to utilize all of the possessed creature's abilities, much different from the limitations of magic jar. The undead took to the sky, peppering us with powerful spells. I cast fly on the barbarian, who then takes to the sky to go after the airborn enemy. The cleric then fells me, which the rogue counteracts with a wand of CLW.

While I'm out, the cleric dispels the fly effect on the barbarian, meaning she is again out of reach. I try to cast fly defensively on the rogue (I'm prone and have an animated cobblestone next to me), and fail, so we're out of fly spells now.

Eventually, we reduce the cobblestones to rubble, and I've managed to summon some flying creatures to combat the cleric, who still manages to get some spells off to get her back to full health (including a heal spell). After she's surrounded, the ghost then leaves the cleric's body, turning her into a wererat (some kind of power the ghost has), who then casts silence to prevent further spells. The ghost, in the same action, possesses our barbarian, who fails her will save.

The rogue, in an attempt to salvage the situation, uses a wand of obscurring mist to try and obfuscate our position, but the barbarian has scent as a rage power, so it easily finds us.

Did I mention she also has blind-fight and great cleave?

Three attack rolls and 6 concealment checks later, we were all dead, save for one possessed barbarian who just wanted to set her soul at peace. She's killed what she thought was a child, a conjuror she didn't care much for, and a ranger who she had some respect for. Even worse, she's likely infected with lycanthropy, and will turn into a wererat, assuming the ghost ever gives her back her body.

So that's the story.

We don't know where it all went wrong. We were undergeared - we have been carrying around roughly 55k in gear from various dungeons that we've been unable to sell - but that never stopped us before. The GM said it was a CR 14 encounter - according to the rules, our APL was 10 (average is 11, but three party members, so subtract 1), so it was above "epic" encounter level for us.

Dejected, we decided to start a new campaign, but the investment I make in creating a new character is pretty involved. I generally like to write up a 'bio' for my characters, containing about 3 pages of information regarding personality quirks, likes, dislikes, an story. Possibly even an advancement plan.

After an abrupt end like the one above, I don't have as much motivation.

My question to you is what do you do to bounce back from a TPK to try and enjoy the new campaign?

We have an evil PC in our campaign pursuing the Agent of the Grave PrC from the Broken Moon adventure path, and wanted clarification on the Secrets of Death feature.

Here's the ability for reference:

The question is that, if a spell has multiple levels, which level would a character use for determining if they can cast the spell.

As an example, a wizard who gains this feature can select Inflict Critical Wounds, Mass for her spell list. However, the spell is listed as Cleric 8 / Witch 9, so would the character treat this spell as an 8th or 9th level spell?

According to the search query, there are about 21k entries for the word 'horse' in the forums.

This question simply revolves around increasing the survival rate of horses in combat.

Here's the setup: We have a party of 3 PCs, a GMPC, a PC's cohort and 2 hirelings. To carry around all our stuff (trying to stay realistic to some degree), we have a wagon that has our goods and other stuff. After all, it doesn't make sense to have thousands of gold on our persons, right? The wagon, itself, is drawn by two light, combat-trained horses.

So what does the enemy do whenever they ambush us on the road?

This is little more than an annoyance and slight drain on the cleric's resources for now, but when the horses start dying because of the massive damage the increasingly difficult monsters inflict, it's going to leave us stranded for periods of time whenever one of these neigh-sayers fall.

I've thought of a couple of ways around it:

• Barding
  
• Investing in heavy horses
  
• Preparing animate dead
  

However, it seems that none of these would be a long-term solution. Barding is not very useful at 10th level, since a horse in breastplate has an AC of 17; if you can't hit an AC 17 at 10th level, go back to your bad guy lair and get laughed at by your kobold underlings until you die of shame. A heavy horse is a similar bandaid, only slightly extending the time until they can be one-shotted beyond repair. Finally, the whole 'having undead horses pulling our cart' is a bit unsavory for the rest of the party on moral grounds; personally, my character has appearances to keep up, so animating horses seems like a big loser all around.

We're looking for ideas of how to transport so many people and gear from town to town, despite the fact that the areas are particularly dangerous of late.

I'm willing to examine any and all available ideas, but I'd like to rely on magic as little as possible.

We've been playing through a Pathfinder campaign for some time in the Forgotten Realms setting. Our group consists of a glass cannon Alchemist, a half-orc barbarian, a cleric NPC, myself (conjuror), and my cohort (an urban ranger).

My stats are as follows:
Str 6
Dex 16
Con 14
Int 20 (22)
Wis 14
Cha 12

My opposition schools are divination and enchantment, and my arcane bond is a cat familiar.

I've taken the traits Ease of Faith and Fast Talker to give a boost to Diplomacy and Bluff skills, but our party is still lacking in the fop of the group, as it were. Because I'm the only one with high ranks in Diplomacy, I've more or less taken on that role for us, but I could be better at it.

I'm about to hit 10th level, and wanted to weigh the benefits and drawbacks of dipping a level or two into Rogue for the skills. The problem is, I don't care about sneak attacks; if the barbarian does her job right, I'm never close enough to deal them. To be honest, I don't care about trapfinding, either. My urban ranger takes care of traps just fine.

There are no builds of rogue that forgo the sneak attacks for some other ability, but trapfinding replacements are in abundance.

Near as I can tell, there are a couple drawbacks to this: For one, I won't reach my capstone ability in Conjuror, and I'll forgo a wizard feat at 20th level. Also, I would be giving up spellcasting prowess (both caster level and spells) at a time when our party might need it in combat.

Benefits, however, are in abundance: several skills I've pumped ranks into suddenly become class skills, including Sense Motive, Perception, and Stealth, and I gain an additional 5 skill points over what a wizard would gain instead (accounting for the favored class thingy).

tl;dr What would you do if your group had no fop, and you were the only one willing to make a power sacrifice to pick up that role?

For the craft rod feat, must the caster have access to the appropriate metamagic feat to create a metamagic rod?

I'm currently interpreting the rules to say that a wizard can create a rod for a metamagic feat to which he does not have access, but the DC is increased by 5 because he is missing one of the prerequisites. Am I interpreting that correctly?

My group of adventurers (4 5th-level adventurers) have been arrested regarding the death of a small gang. While authorities attempt to sort out the circumstances leading to the death of the gang, our adventurers have been put to a special "Trial By Steel."

I decided to use a random dungeon creator online, and came back with an impressive dungeon that suits my needs perfectly, with a little modification. Inside of this dungeon is five rooms and three encounters.

Interestingly enough, the random dungeon generator suggested a young adult blue dragon (CR 12) for a group of level 5 adventurers. In another room down the hall, a group of 16 orc warriors populate what I've determined to be the room guarding the waystone out of the Trial by Steel. The orcs aren't aware of the dragon's presence, but the dragon may be aware of the orcs.

Naturally, I don't expect the group of level 5 adventurers to take down a CR 12 monster, no matter how generous I've been with gear and loot. However, I'm thinking that it would be possible to lure the orcs away from the spot they're guarding toward the dragon's lair. With a group of 16 unwitting orcs fighting alongside our adventurers, trading blows with a dragon, the adventurers may survive the encounter. Naturally, the orcs will want to take out the adventurers afterwards, and after a battle with a dragon can seriously drain a party's daily resources. The orcs may still be a challenge.

Has anyone else had experience with three-way encounters before? How did they turn out? How did your players react?

So let's say you have a mischevious rogue in your group who decides to dabble a bit in the arcane arts on the path to become an arcane trickster. Said rogue is 2nd level. At 3rd level, rogue becomes Rogue 2 / Transmuter 1. The rules are fairly clear on class features: Scribe Scroll, cantrips, spells per day, saves, (crappy) BAB, etc. RAW does not seem to address, however, two items of note: the arcane bond and the spellbook.

I'll grant you, said roguemuter would have the option to form an arcane bond to either an item or a familiar, but that doesn't necessarily mean that she instantly has a familiar, or must pay the costs for a new familiar ritual.

Of more pressing issue is this: would a multiclass rogue / wizard's spellbook have all cantrips and 3 + INT modifier 1st level spells at no cost? RAW doesn't seem to specify either way...

Clarification or consensus would be appreciated.

As a player, I take issue with items which are prohibitively time-consuming to craft. Craft (Alchemy), as an extreme, shines most in this argument.

Let's look at Tears of death. Craft DC is 22, and the cost is 6,500 gp. Normally, the maximum time to create the item - assuming no failure - would be (65,000 / (22 * 22)) = 134 weeks. Even if you increase the DC by 10 to speed up production, the maximum time is 63 weeks. What player in his right mind will expend 2,167 gp, and 1 year + change for a single-use poison? In all honesty, I can't think of a villain - save perhaps a red dragon with all the time in the world and a vendetta against a player's grandmother - who has two years to burn on making a poison.

As another example, let's look at crafting full plate. At a cost of 1,500 gp, the maximum time to create a set of full plate armor would be 42 weeks, assuming no failure. Want masterwork? Add another 7 weeks, for a total of 49 weeks. Again, most humans don't have a year to waste, which kind of makes the craft skill useless.

I've always taken pride in my characters who craft their own arms and armor. It adds a sort of flavor to the character that they painstakingly etched runes or script or symbols into their perfect, shimmering blades. For a weapon, I can certainly understand the time-consuming process of making one's own masterwork weapon. Even though it would take about 3-7 weeks to make the sword, it was worth it to have a blade I could call my own.

What to do, then, about prohibitively expensive items to craft? Does anyone have suggestions for house rules to increase the usefulness of craft / profession skills at higher level?

We recently converted a 3.5 game over to Pathfinder. One of the characters - a 3.5 pixie using Savage Species 5-level progression without Irresistible Dance- wants to go up for the Arcane Trickster prestige class. One of the prerequisites is the ability to cast an arcane spell of 2nd level or higher. A 3.5 pixie can cast permanent image, dispel magic, and detect thoughts once per day as spell-like abilities. Should these spells fulfill that prerequisite? From a story-based perspective, it seems logical that these would, but the rules are vague on this subject matter.

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.