AmberAnarchy's page

I've recently built a lvl4 Aasimar Shaman ([main]Mammoth/[wandering]Battle) with the Scion of Humanity racial trait. As such I'm taking the human Favoured Class bonus. But I'm unsure about what cleric spells are best to take for a primary combat/ secondary support based Shaman.

My Emerald Spire dedicated Archer Vanguard Slayer is seriously kicking ass at level 7... but I guess archer is out of the question?

I'm not totally against that option. If someone was able to sell me on the idea I'm open to it.

I was wondering if trying to build towards a 'Thunder and Fang' build was a viable option. Or is 'Thunder and Fang' more suitable for those classes with more of an abundance of bonus feats.

Yeah. Our party of 8 only has 2 casters. A hedge witch and our ratfolk alchemist. Everyone else is either a melee caster (paladin, druid) or full melee. Flanking Is not a real problem.

I was mainly looking at the Felling Smash or Whirlwind Attack.

I'm down to two possible arrays now
pre racial
STR 18, DEX 17, CON 16, INT 13, CHA 12, WIS 10
OR
STR 18, DEX 17, CON 13, INT 16, CHA 12, WIS 10

Both give me a choice to take some of the combat expertise based feats which is a bonus for what I'm trying to go for. One gives me a higher HP which is useful, but the other does improve my Vanguard's Bond ability is equally helpful.

There would be Orcs and Elves in the group, however they wouldn't be a common sight. In the story within our setting, both those races and their kingdoms are kind of like North Korea, they're enclosed and their leaders have made them rather xenophobic. Usually if you see one outside of their borders its a 'refugee' from their kingdom. Its taken to the extreme of that any of their race who were born in the last 100 years wouldn't even be able to speak common upon leaving their kingdom.

I'm not against a trying a 'sword and board' take on this idea, I'm just more used to playing two handed weapon characters.

As for her party role, I was thinking that she is the antithesis of the Skald, to further showcase their differences. My skald was a switch hitter in that she could play front line and support in equal measure, but mostly she played support making her allies strike harder, and intimiding the enemy. This slayer was going to be more the front line fighter who when she and her allies are positioned right uses her tactician ability to support them.

I'm unsure about the VMC barbarian though cause though it fits the 'viking' theme, it sort of clashes with the 'fight smart' theme.

In the last session, my Skald had her back broken by the the big bad. The DM knowing my enjoyment of character creation and storytelling gave me the option, to continue as my Skald or I could create another lvl 4 character as a replacement for her (with the option of me returning to the Skald at a future point if I so wish)

Wanting to try something different, I chose the latter and whilst I have several ideas for backstory and stuff for this new character I'm not sure about the mechanical side, nor have I played a slayer before so I'm unsure about score assignment. Our DM had us use 2d6+6 for our score arrays. and I ended up with 18,17,16,13,12,10.

The basic premise of the character is she is from a 'viking-esque' land where the most common races are Human, Half Orc, Half-Elf (others are less likely but if I give a good enough reason he will usually accept the idea) where she was a highly repsected and highly ranked soldier in their army, (fighting alongside my previous Skald character as co-captains because of their). Whilst the Skald was a charismatic leader, the Slayer was a tactical one. The Skald could empower her men through sheer force of personality, but the Slayer could think on her feet and change the tide of the battle though tactical superiority and smarts.

The only things I have decided on fully is that depending on race, she will either weild a Greatsword (Human, Half Orc, other), Great Axe (Half Orc) or Elven Curve Blade (Half elf (through ancestral arms racial trait)) so it will be a strength based character.

Hello Customer Service team.

When I registered my account originally I was under the belief I was a male going through a phase of gender identity questioning. However in the past 6 months I have realised that it is not the case and that I am transgender. The problem is that I no longer identify myself as male and in my opinion, my username implies a male user.
Would it be possible for me to get my Avatar name changed to something more fitting?

I think what I'll do is go Skald 6/Dragon Disciple 2/Skald 2/Dragon Disciple 2/Skald 8. It gives ME a +2 STR/+1 AC boost at the same point that I would have the +4 STR/CON/DEX from the raging song (Tiger focus from Totemic Skald). Sure it ofsets some of the Skald abilities, but it does give me the DD bonuses earlier without my aliies suffering around lvl 10 without the +4 for Raging Song

The Dragon disciple option actually works pretty well. I'm only looking for a a 4 level dip at most, and Dragon Disciple will at give me spells known and spells per day of a lvl 19, whilst also giving me a +4 to STR and +2 to AC that would be beneficial to a club wielding skald.

I cant believe I overlooked Summoner, thought it was an Int based caster. Hmm, well Eidelons can benefit from Raging song, so thats a bonus even if I dont get many evolution points for it.

I'm just about to hit lvl 5 in my current game and so far I've been having a lot of fun with my Suli Totemic War Drummer Skald. I know that I plan on mutliclassing with this character as all the options above lvl 17 seem rather weak (the only loss in my eyes is the extra +1 to damage from Deadly Rhythm as its unlikely I'm ever to reach the capstone 'Master Skald' ability. But I cant decide on an Multiclass option I'm happy with.

Sorcerer and Bloodrager give me bloodline powers that all seem to have a lot of fun options. The drawbacks being that Sorcerer only gives me a d6 HD, but access to spells earlier, whereas Bloodrager only grants me spells on my 4th level.

Oracle gives me a load of options and works within the flavour of my character, the drawback is the oracles curse hurts other parts of the character.

Cavalier is a decent option, but a lot of the Paizo designed orders seem to go against what I'm going for (My character is the daughter of the head of a viking tribe and basically has been a raid leader for years prior to the current story)

Anyone got any recommendations for either one of these options or even a non caster (Low Wis/Low Int scores) option?

I am running a Suli Totemic Skald in my current game, but as a precaution I always have a character in reserve so that I dont waste too much time rolling up a new character mid session. Our DM has added the Occult Adventures book to the 'legal books' list and I have been quite eager to try out this archtype. My problem is that I have two ideas. The first is the obvious strength based BFS wielding badass. But I have been thinking about trying out a dual wielder whose Panoply Bond is that of a scimitar (or similar weapon) that was part of a pair, the one is lost to the sands of time, but the bonded one remains. Now I know that the Panoply bond is only for a single weapon but I was curious as to the viability of this build.

Any recommendations for feats? powers? knacks?

Anyone?

Hi. I've been wondering if anyone has tried this archetype combination before. I have seen people talk about the pro's and con's of both of them on various boards but I've never seen any instance of someone taking both. I know that 'Fated Champion is usually the archtype of choice, but given my game's current setting I feel a more primal and savage skald build is needed, which gives me the option of going Totemic, War Drummer, or because of no clashing abilities both.
I was also wondering what Animal Focus you guys would recommend for a build like this. I'm currently thinking that Tiger is one of the best because it negates the AC loss, but Bull, Bear and Stag also have their merits. Bull especially as it gives my Skald fast healing 4.

What's the deal with the Mammoth spirit?

Skald. Definitely skald.

I was wondering what most of you would think a good array for a Human/Half-elf/Half-Orc Bloodrager with a 15 point buy limitation would be.

I am currently playing a level 5 Winter Oracle in my current game. I have seen a few examples around online where an Oracle takes 1 level of Sorcerer for the Arcana. I was wondering if it was really worth it or whether it was a wasted dip.

Thanks

Anyone?

I knwo that the Spirit Animal follows the rules of the Wizards familiar. However, I am uncertain about how much of the rules it follows.

Does the Spirit Animal give the Shaman the Alertness feat when close by?

I've been going through the Shaman class to try and decide which Spirit to take as primary spirit. They all seem to have something interesting, in their powers. None of them really stand out at me, but when I look at the Lore Spirit I see the first Hex it offers 'Arcane Enlightenment' and begin to think 'Except with dice rolled ability scores, is it even possible to make this hex function well'

Arcane Enlightenment (Su): The shaman’s native intelligence

grants her the ability to tap into arcane lore. The shaman
can add a number of spells from the sorcerer/wizard spell
list equal to her Charisma modifier (minimum 1) to the
list of shaman spells she can prepare. To cast these spells
she must have an Intelligence score equal to at least 10 +
the spell’s level, but the saving throw DCs of these spells
are based on her Wisdom rather than Intelligence. When
she casts these spells, they are treated as divine rather than
arcane. Each time the shaman gains a level after taking
this hex, she can choose to replace one of these spells for
a new spell on the wizard/sorcerer spell list.

Firstly the Hex requires you to have a decent CHA score to gain more than 1 spell from the Wizard/Sorcerer list, then it requires decent INT score to cast the spell level of the spells you want, then as a Shaman your primary casting stat is WIS. So its asking for 3 mental stats to be decent enough. And I find it rare that any class uses DEX or CON as a dump or low stat, So that is 4-5 ability scores needing a decent score to make this Hex worthwhile.

What would you guys say threshold for a points buy is to make this worth it? The way I see it 15 pretty much reads as at 1-2 lvl 1 spells. Not exactly a fantastic use of the hex in my opinion. 20 can push that to 2-3 lvl 1 spells or 1-2 lvl 2 spells. So to me making it worth while would only work in a 25 points buy or rolled stats game.

After taking a glance at the Blood of Angel's Player Companion guide I noticed that Aasimar can be born of Catfolk too, so even without taking Agathion Blooded I'd be able to keep her Catfolk appearance.

As this is just fluff, I might just do that, or at least build two versions of this character, one as a pure catfolk, the other as a catfolk born Aasimar.

I suppose using those definitions the best description is anthro. The best example I can give is the Leonin race from Magic the Gathering.

That build doesn't actually look all that bad. Sure its not an optimal build for a character when you compare it to one that is minmaxed for power gaming. But it does have enough merits to be a playable one.

I was looking to build this character under the rules of my current game (15 point buy, Pathfinder RPG core books only, no custom races or classes)

As I said the character design is a bit of fluff, not something I am aiming to play straight away if ever. I was just trying to build her to pass time between games and for a bit of creativity.

The character in the setting was a catfolk, that is the only reason for the racial choice.

As for the reasoning for Warpriest.

In the setting our characters were fighting an undead menace that is threatening to take over the continent. My character is a former Paladin, who lost her powers by turning her back on her god for not helping fight against them, instead she turned to the neutral god of Death, a god known for their hatred of undeath. She forged a new bond with this god, but because a Paladin cannot be anything but Lawful Good, their bond could not be that of a Paladin, instead she became the weapon of her new god, an Avenger (I took the 4E name for the class) who would empower her Maul (her prefered weapon for killing Undead) with her own strength and her divine magic to do so.

When I read all the divine classes before the ACG, none of the classes, really stood out to me as matching this idea of the character, the closest would be the Inquisitor, but when I bought the ACG, the Warpriest seemed to be more of a match for the idea I had.

I thought so at first when I was first thinking about it, but the Sacred Weapon class ability is the one ability that makes me think of the character more than anything else. The other drawback is Inquisitor is also a Wisdom based caster.

As for Oracle I can see some possible choices for building her in that way, but I feel the Battle oracle isn't where this character is in a flavour sense.

The ruleset we used for this character didnt have a class system, it was freeform enough that you could build any class by building the abilities, skills and feats in a certain way. The closest class I have been able to link her to is the Avenger class from 4E DnD.

She is a melee focused divine spellcaster who acts as the weapon of her deity rather than the voice of her deity (like a paladin)

I am trying to build a character from another RPG ruleset into the Pathfinder ruleset as a bit of fluff to pass the time between sessions. However, the class that is closest in design to the character is a Warpriest, a Wisdom based class, but the problem is that the character is a Catfolk, a race that has a -2 to their Wisdom.

I am designing it to the rules of my current game so its a 15 point buy, but it means that the drawback is so much greater. I was wondering what options you guys recommend for overcoming it.

Anyone?

I am currently in the process of building a Shaman as a fallback character in my current game. The main problem I am having is with the Shaman's Spirit Animal ability.

Spirit Animal

At 1st level, a shaman forms a close
bond with a spirit animal tied to her chosen spirit. This animal is her conduit to the spirit world, guiding her along the path to enlightenment. The animal also aids a shaman by granting her a special ability. See the Spirit Animal section on page 47.
A shaman must commune with her spirit animal each day to prepare her spells. While the spirit animal does not store the spells like a witch’s familiar does, the spirit animal serves as her conduit to divine power. If a shaman’s spirit animal is slain, she cannot prepare new spells or use her spirit magic class feature until the spirit animal
is replaced.

In the Spirit Animal section on page 47 there is the following line

The shaman’s spirit animal also grants her special powers. This ability uses the same rules as the wizard’s arcane bond class feature and is treated as a familiar (see pages 78 and 82 of the Core Rulebook),
except as noted below.

The way its worded makes me cautious as I cant tell if this means that the animal is selected from the Familiar list or is just treated like one.

Could someone please clear my confusion up as to whether the animal would need to be from the familiar list.

I was wondering, from those who played the Playtest, what the ideal Ability score distribution would be for a Shaman.

I know that WIS is going to be high because of its requirement for casting, but as with Druid it doesn't necessarily have to be the most important stat. CON is always important for any class, but it appears that several hexes or spirit powers look at INT and CHA scores too. So it appears that STR is likely to be a dump stat for caster based Shaman, but what about the more Melee and combat caster builds.

Thanks. I always forget about those. My brain just seems to block those out when reading the guides.

I have spent the morning going over the new Advanced Class Guide and am quite happy with the classes added. I know that the spells listed in the book at the new spells for the classes, but without any point of reference to other spells this leaves the new classes a little sparse on their spell lists.

Eg, Shaman have a spell progression all the way to level 9 spells, but apart from those given by their Spitit are lacking any other spells at several levels, not does it list any Orisions.

So I was wondering if there was any kind of reference in the book to what spells from previous books they also have access too.

He allowed me the Winter Mystery, and he also agreed to me owning at least one chosen magical item (He prefers random loot table generation, than being able to buy exactly what you want) So I picked up a lesser Elemental Spell metamagic Rod.

Our game is currently on a break at the moment because of player work and holiday constraints so I am able to work on this character up until our first game with her in, so I want to gather some feedback before setting anything in contrete.

Stats
15 points buy

STR - 14
DEX - 12
CON - 12
INT - 10
WIS - 9
CHA - 18

Level 4
Oracle 4 (no archtype)
Winter Mystery

Traits
Magical Lineage (Frost Fall)
Eye's and Ears of the City (Our DM uses a different pantheon so the religion traits are a little more flexible as long as an aspect of the equivilent god matches the god in Pathfinder)

Feats
Rime Spell
Extra Revelation

Revelations
Icy Skin
Freezing Spells
Ice Armour

Spells Known
Level 0 - Create Water, Detect Magic, Read Magic, Guidance, Resistance, Detect Poison
Level 1 - Obscuring Mist, Ray of Sickening, Murderous Command, Endure Elements, Inflict Light Wounds
Level 2 - Sound Burst, Frost Fall, Inflict Moderate Wounds

The basic idea is that her blaster status is from channeling Sound Burst and Inflict Wound spells through her Elemental rod to use them for Freezing Spell revelation, then when out of those uses she tries some battlefield manipulation with Frost fall, Obscuring Mist and Murderous Command, and have a decent strength to hold her own in close combat when these have been exhausted.

Our DM has us fighting in rather limited space areas anyway. Its rare that our GM puts in situations that require 100' range of vision. I'd say that most of the time we're topping out at 80. So the 60 limit isnt that much of a problem to us for combat at least. I'll ask my DM about Winter as its one of the Mystery's from a non core book.

I am trying to create a Catfolk Oracle for one of my current Pathfinder groups. I have already decided that I want to play it with Clouded Vision for characterisation means (plus I'm taking the scent racial trait to aid the character) but I am a little new to the class for deciding on the stats for my character, or what sort of Mystery to take.

I aim for my character to be able to be able to be somewhat of a combat caster (able to jump between close combat fighting and spellcasting without being too squishy for the combat, or too ineffective at spellcasting) but I want her to be mainly a Blaster when spellcasting.

Our DM uses a 15 point buy system and he only uses stuff from the core books (No Companion or Adventure Path stuff unfortunately)

The Character will also be at lvl 4 for the character creation.

Thanks in advance.

Fetish Mask (Su): At 1st level, a scarred witch doctor forms a bond with a wooden mask. As she gains power, her connection to this mask causes it to grow ever more hideous and grotesque as it absorbs the weight of the self-induced pain that underlies her magic. Her spells derive from the insights her patron grants her while she's enduring the cuts, burns, and other sorts of mutilations she inflicts upon herself. Her fetish mask acts in all ways like a witch's familiar for the purpose of preparing and gaining spells. Rather than communing with a familiar to prepare spells each day, a scarred witch doctor hangs her mask on a wall, tree branch, or something similar and contemplates the agony it represents.

When wearing her fetish mask, a scarred witch doctor gains a +2 circumstance bonus on Heal and Intimidate checks and gains a +2 bonus on saving throws against effects that specifically cause pain or have the pain descriptor. If the mask is destroyed, the witch doctor can create another fetish mask (which almost immediately adopts the shocking appearance of the original) for the same price and time it takes a witch to replace a dead familiar.

At 5th level, the scarred witch doctor gains the ability to add magical abilities to her mask as if she had the Craft Wondrous Item feat.

I am currently nearing lvl 5 with my Witch, and like the ability to enchance my Mask, but I am unsure about what effects I am able to add to my mask. Is it just those that have 'mask' in the title, or any head slot item. Or is it possible to use other Wonderous item effects on the mask?

Ah. Easy mistake.

I have been contemplating it, but the only way I can see it working is by dumping STR down to 7 and eating into my DEX and/or INT. All of which I am reluctant to do as I prefer to not put more than one stat as low as 7 and rarely put more than one stat below a 0 (7 and 9 are usually my limits if I go for two negative stats) The other is that my AC is poor and Int is still used for spells per day so I'd prefer to keep those stats quite high.

I'm not looking to min/max this character to ungodly extremes, just make a decent character given the limitations.

the CON is 18 when including the half orc racial bonus.

I am currently in the process of creating a Scarred Witch Doctor as a reserve character for if/when my current Druid would shed his mortal coil. However I cant find any kind of guide to aid me in creating this character.

I aim to be going full Scarred Witch Doctor with the build, however as far as I can see I am too squishy to be a front line fighter, but can make a decent full caster, at least on a 15 point buy.

My current idea is to go
Half Orc
STR 9
DEX 14
CON 16 + 2 Racial
INT 14
WIS 10
CHA 7

But I'm not sure what caster options are out there for the archtype and the class in general. Eg, Blaster, Controler, Buffer/Debuffer. It would also help for some recommendations for spells, Hex's and patrons.

I am currently designing a character for a game in my DM's homebrew universe that uses the 4E DnD Pantheon as its deities. At the moment I have already decided on an Oracle who is Chaotic Neutral, (havent decided on the character revelation yet). I know that Druids, Inquisitors and Clerics have alignment issues when it comes to spells (Chaotic Good Clerics cant cast Lawful or Evil), but Oracles do not seem to have this issue with them. So I want to just confirm my few rules questions about this.

1. Can a Chaotic Neutral character cast spells with the Lawful keyword, where a Druid or Cleric couldnt?
2. Can a Chaotic Neutral character cast spells with the Evil or Good Keyword? And would casting spells with these alignments theoretically alter the casters alignment

My GM recently used this as a trap against our level 2 party.

Here's how it played out.

GM: Roll Perception.
Me: 25
GM: You notice that the floor of the room seems to be covered in a mold of some description.
Me: My druid uses Knowledge Nature to see if he is familiar with the mold.
GM: Roll it.
Me: 23
GM: Your druid recognises it as brown mold, he knows that its grows from being exposed to fire and that it is destroyed by cold.
Me: I cast Frost Touch and touch the mold
GM: Mold deals 18 points of nonlethal damage.
Me: I deal 8 points of non lethal cold damage to the mold.
GM: the Brown Mold is destroyed by the attack.

Was very lucky though. My druid is the only member of the party with any cold based damage spells so he was the only one who could stop it. If I hadnt rolled so well on the Perception and Nature Rolls it could have been a different story.

I have seen several guides on the forms that can be assumed in Bestiaries 1-3 and their combat effectiveness, and they have all been very useful in helping me design and build my druid. However, I have yet to see any information for Bestiary 4.

I was wondering if anyone has a guide for the forms obtainable in Bestiary 4 and any and all reviews of their effectiveness.

Our DM doesnt have any expectaions of power levels.

As for the dropping of stats. I'm not against it, my only limitations is I'd prefer to not have a stat drop lower than 7 (after racials) and only one stat drop below a 9

Also as I stated earlier our DM's restrictions is only the core books. No feats or archtypes from outside of the PRD guide. Which includes the Dervish Dance feat.

I am currently having issues with three character designs that I aim to use at some point in the future.

I love the whole character building (like history and personality and stuff like that. However as I'm still on a learning curve about setting ability scores and things for an ideal character I usually end up with a character that is usually a total glass cannon or just relatively useless for what I am aiming for.

This is also hampered by our GM having us use a 15 point buy where 20 seems to be the most common one used in guides online. A lot of them also include a lot of adventure path and 3rd party feats, racial modifiers and stuff that makes these guides even less useful as we're only allowed the 'core' guides (Core,APG,ARG,UM,UComb,UE,UCamp,BI,etc)

The one other restriction I have is that these point buys are meant for characters who wouldnt be multiclassing. So their ability scores dont need to be better suited for taking other classes

1) Half-Orc Scarred Witch Doctor

I am looking to go for the whole Prehensile Hair for grapples and touch attacks style build for this character. Of course I'd be looking to build the character my own way, I just wanted an ideal 15 point buy ability score for this kind of build.

2) Tiefling Hexcrafter Magus

I know this is similar to the Witch in many cases, but I aim to take it a different route.

3) Catfolk Wind Oracle