AmosTrask32's page

With the crazy amount of quarantining going on... I want to say thank you so much for doing this work! It will allow me to move 5 different in person games into remote play very easily.

I ran session 1 last night, and the circus was... well... chaotic, panicky, and full of calamity. A bit of a circus really...

We had an animal handler threaten to feed a magician to his raptors, a bad case of clown lung leaving a lone gnome to try and manage the fumbles on her own, an Iruxi Monk spinkicking audience members in the stands, and of course, lots of people stepping carefully over the old ringmaster.

But by the close of the big finale, we totaled up the points, and with all the critical failures and a couple critical successes, the Circus of Wayward Wonders got a CRITICAL success to their first show! 17 Anticipation, 17 Excitement!

Prestige 5 at level 1, 34 GP to go towards improvements, and some VERY happy players.

Well done, Paizo...

Hello,

I need to cancel all of my Starfinder subscriptions. This includes the Adventure Paths, the Accessories, and the Roleplaying Game.

Thank you.

I actually think that after reading and thinking on this, I will be changing "armor" in my SF games. Here's a world I think works better without changing too many mechanics:

1) Only giant capital ships have plating substantial enough to be called "armor" (this is the damage reduction mechanic). Against all other ships without DR, there is no substance that can stop starship weapons.

2) Shields work as normal and are a bubble around the ship a la normal sci-fi rules.

3) The system currently referred to as armor will be re-skinned as "defensive countermeasures" and represent active interference with enemy targeting systems used by your pilot to make it harder for enemies to hit.

4) the TL armor class will be "active projectile defense" systems and represent debris/lasers/flak being fires at incoming projectile tracking weapons, similar to Point Defense weapons, with actual Point weapons acting as a final desperate defense.

Cure spells.

Incorporeal doesn't have anything to do with it. Undead are healed by negative energy, constructs are healed with repair magic, everything else (without class features or curses) is healed by positive energy. Outsider is not undead or Construct, so you're good to go.

In my games, I rule that this feature of magic is due to positive energy flowing through the body. Different aspects of your lifeforce are acted upon by magic differently in different places of your body.

When a character puts on too many items in 1 slot, they cause turbulence in their life force, too much energy acting upon their innate positive energy. Depending on the magic, I have caused nausea, dizziness, or even physical damage or cancers.

That said, I like dangerous, powerful magic as opposed to ubiquitous, safe, commercial magic.

All of the AP material should be usable with just the resources on the PRD, so you don't need to buy the additional books unless you want them!

I preface this with the comment that I've been running RPGs for 15 years and have access to any number of adventure paths or modules I could ever want to run... If you don't have that luxury, this may sound like a bad suggestion.

If you would like to let them TPK, I recommend ending the game at that point. Give them a little epilogue about Sandpoint burning in a goblin attack, and then shortly thereafter, an invasion from the Storval Plateau from an army of giants and a risen Runelord.

Then ask what they would like to do next! If you like printed adventures, run them another Adventure Path and set it in a world with no Sandpoint, and an alliance of nations (Lastwall, Ustalav, Korvosa and Magnimar, maybe even Belkzen!) against the rising power of a reborn Karzoug.

My players are sad when they TPK, but they understand that there is no coming back from it, and they tend to enjoy the thought that their failures and successes have a long term effect on the world they play in.

Also, would this not be possible at 14th level, when you can get the Blood Crow strike power? (assuming you had already taken the Quicken SLA at a previous level to e.g. quicken said bark skin ki power)?

I think you'd have to be level 16.

First of all, because when you take the feat, you choose one SLA to quicken,

"Choose one of the creature's spell-like abilities, subject to the restrictions described in this feat."

there is no text covering "switching" the SLA to quicken.

Secondly, the feat gives minimum Caster Level to based on the spell level of the SLA. In this case, the spell level is 4 for Blood Crow Strike, so the minimum CL is 16.

I am trying to create a better model for morality in Pathfinder. I believe my fundamental distaste is with Good and Evil being treated as equal and opposite ends of a spectrum. The idea that they are somehow 'the same, but opposite.' I would like to throw out this idea. Here's the rough draft of my new paradigm. I would like to invite your comments, advice, and criticisms!

Evil is like gravity. Evil is a powerful force pulling all things towards it. Evil does not require maintenance or care, it draws on all people and all things at varying levels.

Good is not a force, it is a code. Good is an artificial structure created by beings (humanoids, gods, others?) to benefit each other and inspire them to make the worlds better places. It requires thought, action, and effort to seek Good.

What does this mean for the rules of the game?

Lets talk divine forces first. Good has no inherent power. To receive power from Good deities, they must choose to give you that power, and can choose to deny it as well. Evil IS a power. Evil patrons can certainly reward followers with gifts, but even if a specific patron doesn't wish to give you their powers, you can simply accept more evil into yourself to access those powers. Example:

Barthak the summoner casually worships asmodeus, but does little one could call truly evil. He's your typical selfish adventurer. Asmodeus tolerates this and grants him access to Infernal Healing. Note, this is not a divine spell, but it is (evil). The power to cast this spell comes from Evil itself, and Asmodeus can access these powers easily.
One day, Barthak joins his allies on a raid against an Asmodean monastery to earn some money from the parents of some kidnapped children. The act itself is pretty selfish, but Asmodeus is not pleased. He decides that Barthak no longer deserves his power. Barthak finds his infernal healing incantation less effective, or maybe completely non-functioning. He realizes he doesn't have access to the Evil required to fuel the magic.
If he wants to continue using the incantation, he must be able to fuel it himself, no longer having Asmodus's favor. That means he must accept more Evil into himself. He could engage in murder, arson, or other despicable acts, and when he himself was Evil enough, his (evil) spells would function properly, drawing power from him now.

Essentially, the user's alignment affects access to the powers. The powers don't impact the alignment.

On the flip side, since Good is not a force, all (good) magical effects are granted by the agency of beings. There may need to be some elaboration on how divine beings impact the use of arcane (good) effects, but fundamentally, no creature can access a (good) effect without a patron's permission. Tar Baphon cannot cast Protection from Evil, or summon a Lantern Archon. Such effects are only possible through the hard work of Good beings permitting it.

Similarly, the user's alignment (and the will of the patrons) affects access to the powers

Let's talk about magical items!
I bought a wand of infernal healing, but I'm a good guy! It's not MY spell. What happens? In this case, there's 2 possibilities:

1) I use the wand as a spell trigger item with no check because it is on my spell list for one of my classes. In this case, the wand follows the same rules as the spell itself. In other words, if you don't have access to the Evil needed to fuel it (from a patron or from your own filthy, filthy soul) it fizzles.

2) I use magic device! Still possible, you can essentially try to draw upon the Evil used in creating the device (from the caster who made it, essentially) with UMD. There are already rules for this. Emulate an alignment is DC 30. Yes, this does mean that cheap arcane healing is not an option for goodly wizards at low levels.

Let's talk about non-magical fluff!
As a GM, my plan for implementing this is by adjusting how I narrate temptation and other high-stakes moral encounters. If Evil is to feel like a measurable force, I need to describe it as such. Evil characters "sinking into depravity" "giving in to destruction." The weariness of "struggling against" it for morally ambivalent characters.
In addition, characters who do adopt a code or structure of Goodness are rewarded by feeling "freed" from the corroding pull. Their prayers, meditation, or good acts may have a physical effect of relieving pain or stress, of taking "steps" in the right direction, "rising above" temptation. In other words, building an up - down dichotomy into the lexicon.

That's all I have for now! Thanks for reading.

Hey Tracker,

1. Yes, the location is automatically closed after the Ulkreth encounter. No "On Closing" but yes to "When Permanently Closed." This represents the Ulkreth demons destroying the city of Kenabres, building by building.

2. Correct, this isn't meant to be a "the heroes defeat the invading army" story. It's a "the heroes barely survive running from the invading army" story. I recommend donning your scale mail and not worrying about defeating the megademons, just survive them.

3. We played as Korramzadeh only targeting a random open location. Your interpretation seems much easier :)

I wonder if there is anything useful for running a certain extra-planetary adventure...

Serpent Skull? Sure would be a better story if Smuggler's Shiv was full of aliens instead of Tengu.

To the members of this forum,

I am in preparations to run a Wrath of the Righteous campaign for my group, but was wondering something: is there a short module or adventure I could run to introduce my group into the area around Mendev and the Worldwound? Or would jumping in directly be the best bet?

I ask because about half of my group is new to the Pathfinder system, and I thought fleshing out the area and letting them get to know how to play could be taken out with one stone. So I ask, is there a good prelude adventure to Wrath of the Righteous?

Book 1 of Wrath is a GREAT place to start them actually. Sometimes the scope and scale of tabletop RPGs can intimidate new players with a "what do I do when I can do anything I want?" paralysis. The beginning of Wrath provides you with NPCs to advise and guide them without taking the spotlight in combat, and relatively few options with where to go and what to do.

I would work very hard on your intro speech, weave in some background on the Crusades. Make sure your NPCs are aggressive about asking ad answering eachothers (and the PCs) questions in the first session to make them feel comfortable conversing in character.

Maybe expand the underground bit to include some basic tests (climb, acrobatics, knowledge, diplomacy) and ability checks (STR, CON, WIS) to lift stuff, hold your breathe, tell which way is north so they get used to rolling dice too.

andreww wrote:

Fairly sure you need to distinguish between hit chance and criticals.

So if you are hitting on a 12 with a 19-20 crit range then your chance to hit is 35% and chance to crit is 10%.

Well, your chance to threaten a critical hit there would be 10%. Your chance to crit would then be (10%)*(45%)=4.5%, and your chance to do normal damage would be (35%) + (10%)*(55%) = 40.5%. (assuming no bonuses to critical confirmation rolls)

Everyone knows that your chance to score a critical hit is not measured by the probability of rolling a certain number on a die, but rather on the dramatic weight of the encounter.

Modified, of course, by the number of giants you have slain, on whose corpses you build a new Dwarven empire.

If you were an Elf barbarian you could get +1' move speed per level as your alternate favorite class ability. It means you're slower at lvl 1, but by lvl 5 you've capped out your Fleet x3 and the elf starts pulling ahead.

without magic or gear, lvl 20 elf barbarian with fleet x 3 and swift foot rage power x 3 and Sprint rage power could charge 270' once per rage.

The way I rule it in my games is an automatic pinpoint of the SQUARE someone is in. It doesn't negate total concealment from successful stealth or invisibility. So, you can target them with spells, attack the right square easily, but you still suffer from miss chance and flat-footedness to attacks.

No, seriously--spellstrike lets you make a weapon attack instead of a touch attack when you use a touch spell.

Spell combat lets you cast a spell and make all your attacks. Therefore, Spell Combat plus Spellstrike allows you to make all your attacks plus one more that delivers a touch spell.

A typical level 5 Magus, for example, will Attack once normally at -2, then cast Shocking Grasp and make a second melee attack that also delivers a Shocking Grasp.

MPL, you are absolutely correct. The issue is that the poster thinks that spellstrike alone without spell combat gives you 2 weapon attacks.

To the OP:

I don't know who explained spellstrike to you, but they are mistaken.

I'm going to explain slowly, please read for comprehension.

When you normally cast a touch spell, the casting includes a touch attack to deliver the spell as a free action. That free action is important to understanding spellstrike. Remember it.

Spellstrike modifies a touch spell so that instead of a touch attack, you get a single attack with a melee weapon as a free action. This replaces the touch attack you would normally get to deliver the spell.

You seem to be under the impression that Spellstrike adds a second free action to your spell, one to deliver the spell and another just for fun. This is incorrect. An example of the correct usage is below:

GM: Magus, your turn.
Magus: I move 15' up to the orc as a move action. As a standard action I cast shocking grasp. I will be using Spellstrike to deliver this spell through my weapon instead of using a free touch attack to deliver it.
GM: Roll an attack.
Magus: I rolled a 15, plus my attack modifiers is a 20.
GM: You hit, roll damage.
Magus: I do 1d8+2 for my sword and 3d6 for my shocking grasp *rolls* I do 6 physical and 10 lightning damage.
GM: The orc takes 16 damage, next initiative.

Does that clear up spellstrike?
Now for spell combat.

Again, recall that spellstrike modifies a spell. It does NOT modify an attack.

With that in mind, noting that spell combat lets you take all of your attacks in a round and also cast a spell, you should deduce the error in assuming you could cast 2 spells in a round using the two abilities. If the above magus began his turn adjacent to the orc (because spell combat is a full-round action) the following would have been legal:

GM: Magus, your turn.
Magus: I use spell combat. I choose to attack first, then cast my spell. I will also take an additional -1 to my attack rolls for the whole turn for a bonus to concentration checks to cast defensively. I will also cast shocking grasp defensively, and use spellstrike to deliver it using my sword instead of a touch.
GM: Make your first attack roll.
Magus: I got a 15, plus 5 is 20, but with a -3 on my attack rolls that's a 17.
GM: You hit.
Magus: I roll d8+2. I deal 4 damage.
GM: Now roll your concentration check to cast defensively.
Magus: I rolled a 10, plus my concentration bonus is 16, plus 1 for the extra penalty I took on my attacks is a 17.
GM: You cast the spell successfully, now deliver it.
Magus: I roll to attack, I got a 10, plus 5 is 15, but -3 for spell combat makes it a 12.
GM: You miss, but the charge is still held in your blade. You may try to deliver it again as a standard action, but it will dissipate if you cast another spell before delivering it.

note This last bit about holding the charge is an assumption built around some unclear bits of the RAW. Some GMs may rule the spell is lost if a spellstrike misses, others may rule you may only attempt to deliver the held charge as a touch attack, not with your weapon. Still others may say it's not a standard action to deliver it, and it will automatically target the next creature struck by the weapon. Please consult your GM as to what happens when your spellstrike misses.

Thank you for reading carefully!

If you want Style Feats as a feral natural weapon focused Druid,

Feral Combat Training (Combat)
You were taught a style of martial arts that relies on the natural weapons from your racial ability or class feature.
Prerequisites: Improved Unarmed Strike, Weapon Focus with selected natural weapon.
Benefit: Choose one of your natural weapons. While using the selected natural weapon, you can apply the effects of feats that have Improved Unarmed Strike as a prerequisite, as well as effects that augment an unarmed strike.
Special: If you are a monk, you can use the selected natural weapon with your flurry of blows class feature.

From Ultimate Combat.

Also, Planar Wild Shape is a good one for druids who want a little Energy Resist, SR, and DR.

Actually only 17 STR. He 2-hands it by defaul, they include damage adjustment for when he pulls out his shield.

+3 STR x 1.5 = +4 to dmg, PA adds 3 dmg when 2-handing, so +7 when 2-handing a longsword

So, I really liked the mirror towns, and decided to "guide" my players during character creation towards the end of having two of them actually be secretly from Waldsby. One (a middle aged human witch, failed apprentice) was a young mother of two baby girls when the Jadwiga came for her and took her from her family for retraining. She was found wanting by the winter witches and cast out, her mind shattered by the ordeal, banished.

Meanwhile her husband remarried years later, and the two girls were raised increasingly by an evil stepmother and her spoiled son. When the boy was accused of stealing from a travelling Winter Witch, the stepmother cut one of the daughter's hair and sent her to take his punishment. Luckily the house spirit intervened, giving her a chance to run for the forest. She ran for miles through snow, chased by ravens and was nearly caught by one of the guardian dolls before she was finally found on the edges of the Land of the Linnorm kings and taken as a thrall...

Flash forward many years, the insane failed witch has settled in the edge of the Border wood and her long lost daughter, now a knight of Taldor, has shed her Irriseni heritage and has dreams of becoming a member of the Ulfen Guard. The story begins when the daughter passes through Heldren and feels a strange connection to the small town...

So basically, Nazhena is the stepmother, Radosek is the step brother, Nadya is the daughter that stayed... and two of my PCs don't know they are mother and daughter. I think I may be more excited about this story arc than the actual plot...

Unseen Servant.

The higher your level, the more tools you have: rods, scrolls, wands, staves... but you still only get 1 standard and 1 move action per turn! The best way to take advantage of all those wonderful magical tidbits is simple:

"Geeves, my staff of Necromancy!" *holds out hand as invisible servant spends its turn retrieving the staff and placing it in your waiting grasp.*

Other wonderful uses of the extra actions it can provide:

Picking up your fighter's disarmed weapon and bringing it back to him
Picking up the BOSS's disarmed weapon and shuffling it off a cliff
Opening door/pulling back curtain so you can cast your spell with line of sight... then closing it again for cover/concealment.
PULL THE LEVER!
Feed this potion to that dying druid!

and all of that for an HOUR per caster level. For most sorcerors and wizards I run games for these days, it's "I wake up, cast mage armor, false life, and unseen servant"

Of course if your group is less into cinema and more into rollin dice for big damages hur hur hur just take great cleave and power attack, maybe shield of swings so he can't one-hit you champs and will get a lot harder to hit even in flanking.

if you're worried about adjacency requirements for cleave, make him a dwarf (racial feat Orc Hewer (?) lets you ignore adjacency requirements vs medium enemies)

So, the bad guy wants to escape, doesn't have any of his gear or allies with him... this is easy. He shouldn't fight. Unless he's a mindless orc, his objective is NOT kill the heroes. It's ESCAPE THE PRISON. So... have him bull rush a weaker PC off a ledge or something while he makes a run for it, someone has to save the dangling halfling cleric while the armored fighter tries to chase down the big bad, who is running ahead, jamming doors shut, maybe stopping for a second on the other side to get a cheap shot in on a PC, but spends his move actions fleeing.

A good chase scene can be cinematic. Especially if there is some interesting terrain... a locked door to smash through, an overturned washtub spilling soapy water over a stairwell, a closing drawbridge to leap, maybe they even make it outside and have to quickly mount a horse and spur it (see ride skill) to catch the fleeing villain!

The PCs have 0 chance of dying to this tactic, so you can give him a little extra juice so you don't have to worry about "you lose initiative, you die" if they successfully catch him, hooray they feel great about the win, but if they don't, now they are responsible for freeing a new bad guy, and maybe feel guilty about it, compelling them to track him down while he rebuilds his (evil empire, crime family, gang of bank robbers, death cult) et cetera

I didn't have extreme problems with the poisons when I ran this adventure. Maybe my players were just luckier than yours on saves. Make sure you are using poison rules correctly. The biggest mistake I've seen made is the following:

PC is hit by poison dart, DC 16 fort save or take d2 con dmg/rd.
PC fails save, takes d2 con dmg
PC is hit by a second poisoned dart, same poison.
GM asks for another saving throw, PC fails, GM starts dealing 2d2 con dmg/rd to PC.

The correct mechanism for being exposed to multiple poisons is that each additional dose increases the save DC by 2 and the duration by 2 rounds (or minutes, or hours depending on the unit used in the poison)

This CAN make a poison very hard to fight off if multiple exposures increase the DC to a high level. HOWEVER, it also means that your cleric's Heal check, that emergency antitoxin, and your sorceror's Touch of Destiny all apply to the ONE ROLL needed to fight off the poison. I found most of the PCs focused on helping eachother recover from poison quickly enough that they rarely took ability damage more than twice from one poison.

As a long-time GM, I've seen hundreds upon thousands of magic items pass through my stories, some into the hands of adventurers and some left undiscovered in hidden rooms. To me, a SUPERSTAR item is one that the heroes would never buy from a shop like an extra pint of lantern oil, nor one that would be looted and sold for scrap. It should be an item that will be used time and again when the story most demands it, a dramatic tool in the storyteller's kit. When I read an entry, I imagine how I would narrate the effects to the heroes as either the targets of its power or as its controllers. I vote up the trinkets that I think would make for a story worth re-telling, and for items that would become a part of a character, not just part of an inventory.

Happy Merry!

Merry Christmas! I saw my item twice and it makes me happy. Thank you Paizo for making us all a part of the game we love!

Undead Lord Cleric is the only surefire way to start play at lvl 1 with an undead minion.

However, a necromancer wizard with a solid CHA or an Oracle of Bones, or ANY evil cleric with Command undead can get one in fairly short order using the Command Undead feat. As you level here are some tips:

As a non-evil necromancer, stick to mindless undead. Creating ghouls that actively want to feed on the living will not be easy for you to roleplay.

Command Undead (The spell not the feat) is an extremely long duration spell, and mindless undead get no save to resist it.

The size of a corpse and its hit dice are the most important things to consider when allocating the HD limit of your undead army. one skeletal dragon with 10 HD can be much more effective than 10 little 4 hp skeletons with d4 claws.

Undead are great against archers, but archers are great against necromancers. Invest in protection against ranged attacks and let the hordes shamble forth.

Liberating Command is a good low level spell for freeing yourself from grapples, but doesn't help you against being Re-Grappled

Freedom of Movement is a 10 min/lvl duration, lvl 4 cleric spell.

If you know your GM is just grappling you and it's ruining your fun, prepare it every day, cast it before you're going into hairy situations. 80 min is a long time in game.

You seem concerned with equity for players, and I respect that, so I feel instead of trying to clarify my beliefs, I can give an example:

The party rools poorly on some perception checks and is ambushed, a surprise round arrow happens to crit the healer (oracle of life) unconscious. I immediately see that this could be a very sad waste of a cool group if I don't do something. So, instead of taking their next turn to execute the healer, the ambushers burst from hiding, one grabs her and pulls a knife (using all his actions that round to do so, move to grab knife while getting to unconscious healer, standard to "grapple" or pick her up in one arm)

(and so far, all rules followed, have turned it into a hostage situation instead of a murder. I just want to start with this showing I always prefer to use rules first rather than breaking them...)

Now, unfortunately, my players are a bit too timid, and when they are commanded to drop all weapons and lie face down on the ground or the girl "gets it," none of them spring into action to save her THAT round when he couldn't have anything readied yet. Two of them comply and lie face down, yelling at the rogue to do the same. Now, the rogue is named Vi, and this is her first character ever. They are around level 7 at this point, and she is really worried her character will die... and to my great pleasure, decides to NOT give in to the ambushers' demands. She asks me if she can pull out a dagger without him noticing while she drops her rapier and then throw it into his throat.

According to the rules, this never would have worked.

a) she had never said she was concealing any daggers, so the rules state they are not concealed.
b) It's a standard to retrieve the dagger from concealment, and a standard to throw it.
c) It was evening, and it had been established verbally before the encounter that they all had concealment (which was how the ambush happened in the first place) which means no sneak attack.

However... in that moment, I could not think of a COOLER way for this encounter to unfold for this group. So it happened. She rolled very well, knocked him to staggered in a single sneak attack, and the fight commenced, all very epic and fun times were had.

Does that mean that from then on I should allow sneak attacks in concealment or let this rogue walk around pulling and throwing concealed daggers in a single round at shadowy figures for sneak attack?

No. I still rely on the rules, I still go by the book, but in that moment the players trusted me as a GM to give them a good game, and it was my responsibility to understand exactly when my friends' enjoyment is more important then 100% RAW.

My favoritest elf ever is a handsome bastard by the name of Dashel or "dash."

ELF BARBARIAN!

15 point buy (because it was for an AP, not PFS)
and I came in to the adventure late, so we were level 3

STR 13
DEX 16
CON 13
INT 12
WIS 8
CHA 12

FEATS!
Fleet x2

SKILLS!
Acrobatics +9
Climb +7
Swim +11
Perception +7
Intimidate +7

RAGE!
9 rounds of rage/day
Swift Foot rage power

Spirit of the Waves racial trait
and alternate favored class feature for +3 move speed (no effect until lvl 5)

Sooo... you can see where I'm going with this.
55' move speed while raging :)

He was very fun.

The key concept in your complaint is the idea of random changes. If a change was really random without intent, then correcting it once for your GM should straighten things out. Sometimes, however, the story's continuity demands the GM exercise creative license. If you cannot stand house rules or GM discretion, then you need to play in a VERY specific kind of game and let your GM's know beforehand that you do not recognize their authority over the books'

I love GM license, I think that it allows tabletop RPGs to exceed the limitations of video games that are bound by the RAW.

So, while I memorize rules with the best of them, and respect the effort that goes into balancing and fine-tuning this game, When dice hit the table, the GM has to always be the final say. Tabletop is not a democracy, and if the game you like to play is about arguing, then it's not the tabletop I recognize and play.

It's hard to comment on another gamer's group, because each one is its own tiny culture with its own expectations.

I've been running games for years and years, and I have a few simple rules that keep my sessions free of as much lawyering as possible (right or wrong, the behavior is disrespectful)

1) On any ruling, you may correct the GM one time. He or She will be gracious and listen to your challenge.

2) If the GM chooses to ignore your correction or changes their mind later, you may not challenge again. It has become a house rule.

I don't want my players to feel unheard, but they need to trust that the rulings I make are for the betterment of everyone involved. Sometimes I need a magical fireball to start mundane fires, and sometimes I need it not to, I will take care of the players if they have faith in the story, and if you have a positive, trusting relationship with your players, you should be able to get them to behave on the same grounds.

When my crossbowman wanted this same functionality I made the following rules:

It's a move action to switch your hold on the crossbow to butt-smash in melee (and threaten in melee)

Catch Off Guard negates the -4 attack penalty for improvised

Crossbow Master makes it a swift action to switch between ranged and melee and allows Weapon Focus/Spec to work for smashes

(Since crossbow master usually lets them basically reload in melee anyway, it sort of negates any need for the butt-smash, so I added some glitz to it so he may still have fun smashing in skeleton skulls once in a while, it's not terribly powerful even with the bonuses it allows)

Weapon Mastery (close) affects improvised crossbow bludgeoning.

Word to the wise, there is nothing so terrifying to an alchemist as a Monk... you never know when one won't just have deflect arrows, but SNATCH arrows as well. Which allows them to return fire with an alchemist's own bomb.

A bomb which doesn't lose its potency until a round AFTER it leaves his/her hand.

boom.

Constitution has several obscure niches. One was alluded to in that "swallow whole" monsters benefit from high Con. Con is also the modifying stat for Poison DCs. This is why Purple Worm or Wyvern poison are so devastating, both have exceptional CON scores.

CON also modifies the DC to avoid breath weapons, so bear's endurance on a dragon is quite scary.

In Ultimate Combat, a tree of feats for half-orcs and orcs (The Deathless tree) is designed for use between 0 hp and DEAD. Within that window, such a character becomes extremely dangerous, with extra attack and damage bonuses. Such a character would really strongly benefit from a CON above 20, since the wider the range between 0 and DEAD, the more often, and more safely they can enter their Deathless state.

Also, I have observed a strange phenomenon... CON is how I see one of my grapplers kill people. Bear with me here... a very high con character (barb) has taken all of the grappling feats she could. Now, she knows that she almost always has as many or more HP than most enemies she faces, and takes great pleasure in grappling specifically to throw herself and the enemy into horrible environmental hazards. Off cliffs, into smashing block traps, boiling lava... trusting her party members to save her while the evil enemies would never do the same for eachother. They are middling to high level, so she does have greater rage, and her base con was a 17 at lvl 1, so I believe these days she's at 26 while raging, and that means nearly 180 hp or so. I would argue this counts as an "offensive" use of CON.

You are being extraordinarily generous.

The Improvised Weapon Mastery feat is just a must have for this little guy. I think it's what... +7 or +8 BAB required?

Also! If your big boss man will let you Weapon Focus into Improvised weapons, look into Shatter Defenses/Deadly Strike

That's the one that dous double damage and Con bleed when you hit someone flat-footed, right?

Because the Improvised weapon feat (Catch Off Guard) includes one AWESOME caveat: If you hit someone with an improvised weapon and they are unarmed, they count as flat-footed.

So basically, if you hit the evil wizard with a bench, he's gonna be a little surprised.

Improvised weapon fightering is fantastic. Just ask your GM if he could count "Catch Off-Guard" as the proficiency requirement for weapon focus and specialization and you'll be able to do just fine on damage.

If you're worried about bad guys with DR, just use your magic weapons as improvised ones for the flavor. Yes, hitting someone with a longsword by bonking them with the hilt and holding the pointy end will probably do 1d6 instead of 1d8 (club damage) but it lets you be creative with what type of damage (slash, bludg, pierc) and it's just very gobliny.

Make sure you check with your GM to see if using a magic weapon as an improvised one would still count as magic. Likewise... an adamantine fork? maybe d2 + STR, but it hurts golems!!!

Someone mentioned the need for Reach spell metamagic AND spectral hand. Spectral Hand turns your touch spells into Medium range. There is rarely a need for a Necromancer to ever use a Reach metamagic effect with Spectral Hand up.

Also, note that SPectral Hand adds +2 to touch attacks, so your Necromancer will have a higher chance to land that infestation.

I begin by saying I fully recognize and respect caution. It has a role to play in all things. However, in my experience, many more battles are lost and many opportunities squandered by meekness more than boldness. so...

There is no saving throw against confidence.

(In less quotable terms, this means that players should use declarative sentences instead of asking questions of the GM. If you have an awesome idea that requires a 30' wide chasm with a fallen tree across it, do not ask, "What do I see around me?" say "Esteban spins around, catching sight of an old oak leaning precariously over a muddy ravine. He runs up the sloping trunk, and his weight tears the last of its roots free, knocking it down over the chasm as he leaps and rolls to his feet on the far side. He turns as he draws his elven curveblade, smirking and beckoning the armored hellknights to follow.")

Your character cannot do anything you think it can't.

(never say what you can't do. The second you throw your hands in the air and say "I don't have any spells that will effect this demon!" or "I don't know how to use wands" you limit your character.)

Take control of the enemy's actions.

(You don't need dominate person to control an enemy. You just need to know what you want and what they want. Do you want them to walk through a door? Open a box? Call for the guards? Step onto a trap? Some basic creativity can turn bluff checks, minor illusions, ghost sounds, or just good battlefield positioning into a huge advantage. Every round you make the enemy do your job for you is a round in the right direction)

Know thine ally.

(Watch your friends. Pay attention on THEIR turns, not just yours. If you know their habits and strategies, you can choose your action with much greater care. If you know your druid is fond of fogging up the fights, then you know where to stand to either take advantage of or avoid the mist. If you know your rogue likes to use hes hat of disguise to impersonate enemies that split off from the group, lure one around a corner or through a door for her. Does your wizard like using summon spells? Give him some cover so he doesn't get hit while casting for a round. Barbarian with Great Cleave? Dimension Door her into a pack of enemies and watch a tear come to her eye.)

Terrain Mastery. It's not just for Horizon Walkers anymore.

(DR doesn't protect you from drowning. Spell resistance doesn't reduce falling damage. Even golems take a penalty for squeezing. Zombies can't use doorknobs. It can be hard at times, but try to remember that the world isn't actually made of blank 5' square grids. It's made of loose floorboards, chandeliers, fireplaces, steep hills, patches of poison ivy, loose boulders, apple carts, and the clouds of biting flies. Use the terrain to your advantage and to hinder your enemies at every juncture. stand on the bar to take high ground advantage while kicking a pewter stein into some mook's face. Move to the favorable places, force enemies into the bad ones. In conjuction with confidence, teamwork, and creativity, every fight can be epic.)

Thank you!

My favorite tool for extending those fights that I felt needed more drama was in the World of Warcraft tabletop RPG rules. The template for "Elite" in that system was like a modification of "Advanced." Instead of a +4 on all stats and a +2 to natural armor, it modified as follows:

Quadruple HP
add Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, Great Fortitude.

I still sometimes do this for fights I find exciting. It doesn't increase offensive potecy at all, which I find useful. When you just increase ALL of a monster's stats, you run the risk of actually SHORTENING fights by making every round a HUGE damage fest.

To explain:

In one game where I got to be a PC, the GM had allowed 25 point buy and gave everyone an EXTRA 20,000 gp on top of starting wealth by level... everyone was out of control powerful. To compensate, the GM just started giving monsters extra class levels. By increasing firepower on both sides, we came to a mutually assured destruction scenario in almost every fight. The barbarian had such amazing weaponry and strength that he could probably 2-hit kill a boss, but he was only lvl 5, so the CR 9 boss could easily 2 hit kill him as well.

My character died in that game at lvl 5 because the cleric in a group of 6 evil kobolds happened to be lvl 9 with access to flamestrike.

SO I guess, in the end, mechanically I support the idea of a template that DOESN'T increase offense, and instead heavily increases defense. That way, your party is still encountering level-appropriate spells, save DCs, and attack/damage rolls, but you get a chance to use all your monster's cool abilities, strategies, and of course, BANTER!

Pathfinder RPG has really raised the floor of Save or Die mechanics. I think completely removing them from a game takes a key fantasy element out of play. The ultimate goal of mastery over life and death becomes surreal instead of attainable.

I have never actually had a player fail a save or die roll in any game of mine. (They have always been few and far between, and usually the players have some sense of the impending danger and have prepared.) But I have included them in the stories I make because the existence of life-stealing magics and the feeling of danger keep high level adventurers interested in the game. When HP damage is the only way to die, groups grow complacent.

Oh, and a Halfling cohort could take Lucky Halfling as a feat, and reroll one of your saves for you once a day!

Lvl 1: Combat Reflexes
Lvl 3: Bodyguard (for free) and In Harm's Way
Lvl 5: Lucky Halfling

Stack that and the Samurai's Order of the Warrior and you've got a fairly nifty bodyguard (who isn't as dependent on his horse as most cavaliers).

Love the Cavalier bodyguard, but I was thinking Order of the Dragon... my reasoning is that Bodyguard allows you to use Attacks of Opportunity to "Aid another" to increase your AC, and the Order of the Dragon cavalier's aid another bonus grows as he levels, meaning WHEN you get the bodyguard, his aid another to AC is a +4, and will increase (albeit slowly) as you progress.

Really, this bodyguard would peak at lvl 8 (so when you hit lvl 10) at which point he:

-Grants you a +1 dodge bonus to AC 3/day for basically a whole fight

-Can increase your AC by 5 with an untyped bonus 1+(dex mod) times a round

-Can spend his standard action to either move you out of harms way or increase your AC once per BATTLE

-Gives a +3 bonus to attacks on targets of its challenge whom he threatens (so, anyone in melee with you he challenges and your allies can destroy them)

Mount dependency isn't a terrible thing, either... if you take a Halfling cavalier (+2 dex means more bodyguarding!) then the mount can easily accompany you in narrow corridors, etc. Plus, if you throw a point into its INT (qualifying it for the general feat list) you could give the MOUNT bodyguard and In Harm's Way as well, doubling the meat shielding.

You can also go with a dwarven superstitous barbarian.

+1

Dwarf tankbarian is a fantastic survivor class. Your only problem will be too MANY good feat options. Extra rage power for rolling dodge or "just a flesh wound," or ironhide, or steel soul, or ironguts, or dodge, endurance, diehard...

Your fortitude saves will be unbeatable, the dwarven wisdom plus raging bonuses will make your will save quite impressive, and Reflex saves are usually traps or spells... so Hardiness + Superstition + trap sense means you shouldn't have too much trouble with them.

And lets not all forget the best thing ever about dwarven tankbarians.... 30' move speed in medium armor! (+10 base for fast movement, not slowed by armor for dwarfiness)

Okay, so that's a 20 point array, I can more reasonably see Battle Oracle with a high powered game like that. I hope your first session went well, I really like Jade Regent.

If your GM does let you switch to lame, I should point out that you still go from 20' to 15' in medium/heavy armor until you get to lvl 10. The real reason it's so common for Battle oracles is they get Ride/Handle Animal, and horses aren't too expensive :) At higher levels

I also see it a lot with Rage Prophets (of course, fatigue immune rage omnom) and Oracles of Nature (Because of the intelligent mount revelation)

Best of luck, and don't listen to anything OmegaZ says, he's a witch!!!

hehehe... Haunted fire oracle... hehehe.

Happy to elaborate. I suppose first you should clear with your GM whether or not weapons count as "stored items in your gear." When I GM, I made it clear that they do, and so our haunted battle oracle in Carrion Crown (Hat Hat Johnson)has a nasty habit of finding his sheathed sword on the wrong hip, or his morningstar getting tangled in the 50' of rope hanging from his backpack.

Especially if you plan on going sword and board with a heavy shield of some kind, you will eventually want to be able to drop a weapon to pull a potion/scroll/rope/bag of magic beans from your backpack. That moment is the worst day of your life as a haunted Oracle. I'm sure we've all been at low health and thanked the gods for five-foot step, drop sword, draw potion, drink.

The "your item flies 10 feet in a random direction" is bad enough when it's a wand, scroll, or healing potion. But when it's your +2 adamantine flail of dragonsmiting... and you're on a bridge/ship/treetop/back of a flying dragon... It's a huge risk for not much reward.

Also, don't forget even a huge CMD and careful planning won't guarantee you never drop an item. Stunned, Panicked, and even falling unconscious all make you drop whatever you're carrying.

Haunted is great for caster Oracles. Ones that solve problems with magic usually have time to get what they need out of melee, or, even better, just walk around with that wand in their hand, just in case.

All that said, those are silly rule-based reasons. If you have a cool Haunted backstory, you go for it! Ruleswise, your most comfortable curses as Battle are usually Wasting or Lame. Lame makes that super-heavy armor a breeze, and Wasting helps you wade through those pesky noxious clouds, stench monsters, and can even turn your next rancid garbage chute into a slip 'n slide!

Tongues is neat, but since most GMs suck at enforcing "no talking in Common in combat" at the table, it's usually not really all that roleplayed so it makes me sad to see it used as a "not a curse" curse.

Also, I love Toughness at lvl 1 :) Glad you're taking some physicals as primary stats. I assume you're STR > CON > CHA > DEX > INT > WIS? Who needs a super high CHA as a buffer/basher anyway, right?

Congratulations on the decision. One last mention, playing a melee battle oracle with a 2hander is going to be very squishy at times, be cautious with your poor d8 hit die. If you plan on a high STR for CMBs, a 13 int for imp trip or disarm, and a decent CHA, chances are your CON won't be super high, so try to remember you're a primary caster :) I've seen too many battle oracles die in blazes of glory.

Also, if you haven't picked your curse yet, don't take haunted. I love the curse, but for a melee oracle, it's a death wish.