Arnvior's page

Sadly, its rather difficult to get a group of 13+ level characters together much less get them to 20. The route is currently so bottlenecked its sad. Its one of my few bad rants about Paizo. The rules for every class in most rule books go to level 20 but there is only really one way to get there. I have heard a lot of excuses of: well its only for GMs to make characters to throw at the players, or Paizo does not really have the resources or time to make another high level module, and finally: most people don't really play that high of level and combat takes soooo long. In reality combat really isnt that long. The fights are no different from any PFS scenario.

After running both Academy of Secrets and Tomb of the Iron Medusa, Paizo just needs to realize that not every room has to have an encounter in it. Given that most of the modules are now over five years old, you would think that Paizo would give us some new material. (Eric Mona or Jason Bulmhan if you are listing!!)

Now having said that let me bring back the positive: The modules that Paizo has made that are PFS legal are simply outstanding. They are fun to play, and run. I would just like to see more of them.

My opinion, you screwed the pooch. You should have laid down the guidelines right from the start. You are now in damage recovery. You might very well lose one or more players over this. Given the composition of what you have in the party, it looks like you threw care to the wind and let your PC walk all over you and do what they want. You make the classic mistake of "bring what you want".

"I don't want to punish the dragon player, since really he isn't really overpowered in comparison to what he could do with any other class anyway. But at the same time, I don't want the other players to feel left out or overshadowed. Peoples thoughts?"

Only one of two times I have ever said this: Scrap your campaign and start over.

I recently ran this for a few friends of mine. Here is what I learned and really helped me:

1) Slow down. If you have the actual adventure path books like I did, or even better, the electronic PDF's separate them and just focus of each one, one at a time. If you have the "epic" spell book looking Rise of the Runelords book, it can be very intimidating.

2) All you have to do is read through it. Get a tablet, the paper thing, not the thing you use your finger to scroll through the icons, and make notes. In other words: Go "Old School". Nothing says you cant have: Round 1 bad guys do this..Round 2 bad guys do this, and by the way have big letters of: DON'T FORGET THIS HAPPENS WHICH HAMPERS THE PLAYERS ABILITY TO DO THIS...

3) Just read the part you are on. Remember there is A LOT of fluff, pictures, background, and extra stuff. Once you have all of that hopefully you are not overwhelmed. So what do you have left?.. A lot of text that explains the encounters. Bite the adventure path off in small chunks. Read part 1 (Burnt Offerings) in a few days and then move to part 2 (Skin Saw Murders), read it through, and then go back and make your notes. Repeat for all six chapters. Once you have notes for each part, read the whole thing through (lock yourself in a room away form everyone else) and then put all of the pieces together, then go back and correct your notes. Trust me on this last step.

4) Finally, tell the story and have fun doing it. Rise of the Runelords is probably one of the richest storylines in the amount of depth of information that a gaming company has given in one set (or path) of adventures. Before Paizo created the adventure paths, I want to say the only thing close was maybe the Dragonlance original modules which took the PC's through the War of the Lance. Paizo has done an amazing job with the amount of detail of how some of the NPC's react with the party, and there is alot of stuff that goes on in the background.

Remember you arent or hopefully not doing this all at once. Rise of the Runelords takes along time, its meant to be fun, not a mad dash one shot weekend binge. Rise of the Runelords if run properly can take months or even years to finish depending how often your group gets together. Rise of the Runelords is something you want to look back on and say you had a boat load of fun, not: OMFG I would much rather had a root canal.

Soldier = Soldier either full plate on a warhorse or slinging fireballs evoker/admixture style

To bring this back to the original post:

Zelda,

Bottom line up front: if its in the rules and its allowed, they can do it, and you can not stop them.

I have had to change my mindset of: this doesn't make make any sense.. to: its in the rules, and its legal.

As much as I want to try reason why would the Pathfinder Society ever bring in a priest or inquisitor of Asmodeus, Shax, or Norgorber into the Society, I don't have leg to stand on. The justification; priests can be one step off the deity's alignment... That means the player is CNNNNNNNNNN or LNNNNNNNNNN repeating(chaotic/lawful neutral). Bottom line the Pathfinder Society's alignment is; Neutral.

Yes I was frustrated enough that one of the venture officers had to pull me aside give me a well deserved dose of reality. It just.. is that way. The same holds true for power gamers.

I have seen both fights of the argument, and before someone starts up, let me stop the insanity... Zelda there will always be players that can see the optimization between the lines, some players just have that ability. There are others that read (troll) the optimization forums. Again as much as you might disagree with them... let it go, you will only get frustrated. I ran 5-17 Fate of the Fiend, with two blade bound magus, zen archer, bard and a sorc, all optimized. I wanted to shake my head in disbelief of how fast they went through the fights, it felt wrong, but.. its legal.

Next, there will always be players which will pull the "gotcha". As a (now a three star) GM, players will pull things out of their "fourth point of contact" and completely break a fight or even a scenario, it happens.

The last piece of advice I can give you is this: be very careful auditing or calling players out. This is a bad habit of mine. It will get you in hot water fast with the local venture officers if you do it frequently. While it is in the new rules of organized play (and roleplaying) looking over a players character because you think something is fishy will really invoke some mistrust when you are the GM which may get some nastygrams sent to the local venture officers..not a good thing. Trust me on this.

Hope this helps.

Liz, can you look into your crystal ball and see what maps are going to be released?

I am super interested in this, since trying to find any of the flip mats of the ships is almost impossible.

Whatever you do, wherever they go, make sure to put this in there:

"A huge relief, in the shape of a giant green devil's face, juts from the wall, mouth agape and leading down a pitch black tunnel, seemingly just large enough for a medium creature to enter in and crawl through."

Either your part members will all die when they crawl into the inverted Sphere Of Annihilation in the mouth, or someone will have played Tomb of Horrors and be so pants-sh*ttingly terrified that they will all run the other way.

Oh just wrong, wrong, wrong.. That module should put the fear of Death to anyone who has had the unfortunate experience to go through it. If I remember correctly the poor soul who wrote that module still gets death threats...

Outside effects will hose PC's better than you trying to find the big bad monster that they kill in one round. Emerald spire L1 and L2 come to mind. No dark vision.. hello. Lots of traps, even better. Getting sniped from two different directions in the dark outstanding...

What will I not miss about playing Core PFS? Easy everything from the APG, ACG, UM, UC, and UE to include all of the Archtypes. All that and a happy return to sanity. And the new book coming out bringing back the "Warlock" not a fan of that one either.

No more: I spend a point to...

No more: I cast this spell.. Ok do you have the book or PDF watermarked with your name on it? No... I dont care if you have it on your smartphone, you dont have the book or PDF and you cant find it, you cant cast that spell. (whining ensues)

No more: I have X style which lets me do this and completely negate rules in the Core Rulebook.

No more: I have X feat which lets me do this and completely negate rules in the Core Rulebook.

And on a positive note:

Fighters, Clerics, and Rogues again become playable classes again. I am just wondering if I will still see groups still consisting of no dedicated tank, arcane or divine casters.

I have been running a lot of games over the last year and I have seen a trend with the PC's that came to a head:

I was running Scion of the Sky Key. As I was reading the boxed text and it looked like none of the PC's were paying attention, so I read the boxed text a second time.

At the part where the PC's are supposed to ask the NPC questions, I saw five blank faces. I stared at them, they stared at me, nothing. I then tell them if they want to but any equipment they have the option to do so.. they all look at each other. One PC buys a wand of endure elements then returns to staring at the me... I give a rough overview of the trip to Ft Bandu.. more disinterest.

First encounter with the Aspis Agent. Things really go sour. The PC doing all of the talking is terrible at diplo. As soon as I said make a roll, there were four shouts of "I assist" from PC's who had not said anything. None of the PC's had knowledge nature and proceed to blow all of the diplo rolls.

The Aspis agent at this point is mocking the the Pathfinders and is convincing the Praetor to have the PC's leave Ft Bandu. One of the PC's gets mad, then gets another PC mad, saying this is all BS.

Long story short: the five PC's say they don't want to do any role playing and that they just want to roll dice. A four hour scenario was done in 45 minutes.

What was supposed to be fun turned into: shut up and put the monsters on the map, so we can kill them, and give us our chronicle sheet.

This just me or is this more common than I think?

I think this is a smart move that I wholeheartedly agree with for a few different reasons.

It breaths life into the core rule book and the core classes. It also brings (sanity) Pathfinder back to a place in my opinion that it should be at. Pathfinder like any other game has experienced power creep and I will agree with the above threads that class in the last couple of books the: advance class guide or the advanced players guide (advance players class guide or the players guide to advanced classes coming soon??) or the archetypes has made scenarios from seasons 0-5 a walk through if not a snore fest.

I have been delightfully surprised with Season 6 scenario's and the Emerald Spire. Its been quite a rude awaking for many players.

Same story for races. I was overjoyed that Paizo put restricted the Tiefling and Aasimar character races. With all of the bonuses of the Tiefling and Aasimar classes there was virtually none of the base races from the core rulebook with the exception of maybe the Half Orc. There have been times I have ran games with only Tiefling and Aasimar present for races.

Call me a purist but I think that this is a good option for those of us who want play Pathfinder this way. For those who don't good for them they can continue to creep along.

HOOAH!

I love the changes.

The only thing I would like to see is more content after 12+. More short modules/scenario's like the final level of The Emerald Spire.

Hmm wonder if this is where the caravan leader went to...

Things that kill PFS for me:

Any type of archer. Swift action favored enemy, bane, cold iron or adamantium arrows, fast shot-many shot-precise shot whatever shot, being invisible adding my sneak attack damage, allows that class to basically solo any scenario.

Alchemist is one step behind the archer because of the number of bombs per day. However alchemists at mid to high level never miss; adverage touch is 10 and there is no saving throw.

Any combination of those two and scenario's become a snooze fest. PFS might as well hand out free gold, boons, and levels.

Coltron,

Having started running scenarios at the beginning of this year I have seen basically three things:

1. The person with one level of some sort of divine caster gets thrown about 2-3 cure light wands for after the battle. Players in pathfinder are starting to fall into the same trap that is evident in MMO's... if you aren't doing massive dps, you are useless... Which means, if you are healing them, you aren't doing damage and are therefor inefficient, a waste of space and an oxygen thief. However... when the BBG crits for say 50-60 points of damage and actually starts putting the party down, cure light wounds does not cut it.

2. Enter the battle cleric, who is basically a light fighter, ie the reach cleric. It may a bit more efficient, since you use a long spear and AOO's for your main attack while your summoned minions add to your damage, but again... you fall into the same trap, you lose a lot of healing efficiency. Because what normally happens in a scenario? The "Tank" charges into combat, gets beat up and then then its YOUR job to go in and fix him. Or in a better case, the BBG drops a fireball and nukes half of the party... Guess you better channel instead of doing damage right?

3. Everyone is in the damage role. There is basically so much damage being cranked out by the party that basically a scratch or two is insignificant. Because of dodge, improved dodge, uncanny dodge, save for half/none, and the inquisitor/paladin/monk having a 50AC that simply never gets hit...ever, no one in the party is really in any danger. Meanwhile the zen archer, alchemist, and sorc annihilate everything at range. Again, your cure light/mod/serious/critical aren't really needed. Just throw shield of faith and shield other on the tank, and she's a happy camper.

However my current character I am playing while not running games is the walking bandaid-cleric of Sarenrae and just about every party thinks I am the bomb schizzle. Figher at -7: no problem, cure serious, you are up. Wiz at -8, bard -2 and monk -5, no problem, quick channel and throw another cure serious on the tank that's life linked, and I still got HP to spare.

Congratulations Keith!

Part I is a bit more important than I thought it was... I have players chomping at the bit for more storyline on Grandmaster Torch.

2). Immediate action counterspells, effectively at will. I probably sound like a broken record, but that is incredibly strong. Arcanists will effectively dominate any caster vs. caster encounter if this makes it to play. Sometime later when I have time, I will tell the story of how our 18th level playtest went with our Arcanist vs. Karzoug in Rise of the Runelords.

Have been saying this like a broken record also. Even at 10th level this class will effectively shut another caster down. And to boot, the Arcanist can do this, no V/S/M.

First: PFS's particular houserules and idioms are its own problem, not ours.

Wow..that just happened. Nice of you to tell the pathfinder society to go get bent.

Arnvior wrote:

Seriously, explain to me exactly what is so broken about XdY damage every round?

Ok Rynjin I will break it down for you. In PFS you get 2PP per successful scenario. That 2PP can buy you a fully charged wand, a 50 charge wand of magic missiles...

So the Arcanist and the Wizard go adventuring, in a 5-9 scenario. At the beginning of the scenario the Arcanist can siphon off how ever many charges they need. So basically as the Wizard and Sorc have run out of spells the Arcanist keeps using his SU abilities, and can throughout the entire scenario: without ever casting a spell. So lets say the Arcanist gets low on points... slurp, there go 10-20 more charges, and now he's fully or near fully charged. The sorc and wizard.. .no so much.

Your entire point about spell levels and number of spells is irrelevant.

You have still overlooked: The Arcanist powers are all SU, that means they can be cast without either a V/S/M component.

As was stated before the Arcanist is a 1 for 2 action caster. They can counter and cast in the same turn.

However if this class were to be "fixed" it would not have a pool to cast at SU abilities, but would be limited to CHA or INT bonus like the other casters.

Cap. Darling wrote:

Last week folks like Rastlin, and Harry Potter and every other character of fiction with a talent for magic and a Education to match, was wizards. But now it seems they was Arcanists all along.

Ah I get it now. Harry Potter was an Arcanist in a school full of Wizards. No wonder he had such problems fitting in.

That said, CapD, can you give me an example of a pure Wizard, ie someone who does not come from a prestigious magical lineage but does magic only through his in-depth studies of the arcane phenomena ? That would be a Wizard.

Ged, Wizard of Earthsea. Willow might also qualify.

Arnvior wrote:

Oh please no...

The warlock was nothing more than a broken vehicle to that other game 4.0 dumbed down to the point absurdity. No class should ever have an ability to do direct damage infinitely. Doesn't matter if its 1d4 or 10d6. The with the mechanics that pathfinder uses, someone would stack bonuses with it and twist it, augment with a feat, bloodline, tattoo...

Just a really bad idea.

Not to be too negative but I had really bad experiences with the warlock in 3.5.. ad nauseum.

You mean the way a Fighter can by picking up a weapon and bashing the enemy to death? Yeah, those Fighters should totally have a weapon swings/day limitation.

People get their panties in a twist over at-will abilities, but in the end there's very little meaningful difference between an at-will ability and one limited by uses/day, but with enough uses to get you through the day. And no meaningful difference at all for something that just deals damage like eldritch blast.

Craft, you want really want to compare all the different classes? What I was referring to was that the Warlock was broken pure and simple, in situations were combat drug on, priests ran out of spells, wizards and sorcs ran out of spells, melee down on hp, warlocks did the same dam thing every single round... I roll my Xd6 eldritch blast. It was a class a four year old could play.

What I don't want to see is another version of the warlock called the arcanist, that never runs out of points and makes all of the other (INT)casters obsolete. Then then the phrase is said: why would I ever want to play a sorc, wizard, witch, when I can play the arcanist and do so much more, when I want, what I want, and better than any other class. The only downside to the arcainst is that its one (sometimes two) levels in spell progression than the wizard, however the arcanist starts off gaining two spells when they hit a new level instead of one for the new level of spells. Wow big loss there, not.

This class needs a major rewrite.

I do think the Arcanist should have something like a Warlock's Eldritch Blast. But call it something like Arcane Power, and have it equal to their Caster Level divided by 2 (rounded up) -- or it starts at 1 and increases every odd level.

Sort of steals a page...

Oh please no...

The warlock was nothing more than a broken vehicle to that other game 4.0 dumbed down to the point absurdity. No class should ever have an ability to do direct damage infinitely. Doesn't matter if its 1d4 or 10d6. The with the mechanics that pathfinder uses, someone would stack bonuses with it and twist it, augment with a feat, bloodline, tattoo...

Just a really bad idea.

Not to be too negative but I had really bad experiences with the warlock in 3.5.. ad nauseum.

"Your lack of imagination doesn't mean the class doesn't have conceptual space. It just means you can't see the myriad conceptual options for such a character."

Wow that's about the third time you lashed out at someone... Maybe you might want to take a step back from this thread.

Rynjun,

I am not didnt mean to go into pvp. I was merely stating that Wizards do not compare in damage to other classes, its a one sided battle we lose badly.

However the "niche" you are referring to is becoming smaller. If the wizard class is going to be reduced to a summer/buff bot, bus driver then why have any options?

And in PFS contingency and permanency aren't allowed. So unless this thread is purely about campaigns and you are excluding a large number of players please reiterate in what capacity we are evaluating this class: PFS, weekly non PFS group, modules or home brew, Pvp aside of course.

Robert A Matthews wrote:

You would also be giving that Ninja Evasion at a level that he shouldn't be able to get it. It is a level 10 Ninja Trick that you would be allowing him to get as early as level 2. That is one major reason it shouldn't be allowed. And the Rogue wouldn't have to spend rogue talents to gain a ki pool. He would get it for free.

I see you're also someone who disallows the dreaded, super powerful, Monk/Ninja multiclass.

JRutterbush wrote:

Yes, full casters are powerful. But that doesn't mean they're broken.

JRutterbush wrote:

I can build a character of any class that'll rival a full caster for power, and greatly exceed it in certain places (namely, whatever that class's niche is).

Doubtful, unless it's another full caster or the "niche" you're referring to is pure damage output.

JRutterbush wrote:

Yes, in a single one-off encounter, full casters with all of their resources win (usually, though I have played characters - including one very fun pure Fighter - that could easily take out any spellcaster you could throw at them). But unless you're playing an arena game, that's not how this game works. If all you ever face are single one-off encounters with full rests in between, your GM needs some serious game-building advice.

"I can build a Fighter that can kill a Wizard" sidesteps the whole issue. This game is not based on PvP. Any arguments based on PvP are null.

Rynjun,

This is one of the few times I will agree with Rutterbrush, the paladin and ranger in my group make my damage look sad. Both players can easily crank out 100+ damage a around. I play an Evoker/Addmixture wizard and I am faced with spell resistance, monsters with high saving throws, dodge, and uncanny dodge, the list can go on. I absolutely refuse to fall into the conjuration/summoner-buff bot.

Either a ranger or a fighter (especially with a bow) can turn most wizards into swiss cheese in one round. A barbarian or monk can just about do the same, a monk will most likely incapacate me and finish me off next turn. I absolutely loath Witches who more SU powers than I can shake a stick at(again no verbal component)at and more spells to thwart a Wizard than I think should be allowed. Alchemists: I hit your touch AC: roll new character.

But I will disagree with everyone on this thread, just because I have access to every spell in every book, doesn't mean jack if it never goes into effect.

I love the idea of a caster that requires more than one attribute for spellcasting.

This is much more interesting than the original version, but I have to agree with some of the posters above: It's very powerful. It makes me wonder why anyone would play a sorcerer or wizard if they had access to an arcanist instead.

Headfirst that is my thought exactly.

To me this isn't a mesh of a Wizard/Sorc, this is class is an abomination.

I would have like to see something more like a mystic thurge opposed to: I have a spell book like a wizard, I can spontaneously cast spells like a sorcerer, AND I have this nifty spell pool I can do other stuff with too!

This isn't a class about versatility, this that says in the description: Breaks the rules. Spell pools are a bad idea if you do not make them available for the rest of the core classes.

If this class dropped the counterspell SU I would be fine with it but I am just thinking this class is going to have spell casters locked down. This class is going bring "magic the gathering" to pathfinder, I cast a spell, I interrupt, I counterspell...

Actually JRutterbush I overlooked that the Arcanist gets two spells at 6th level, which more than makes up for not having a 3rd level spell at 5th level.

However to infer that someone doesn't know the rules, is rather conceded.

The fact stands, the counterspell needs to be a standard action not a SU.

Nope wrong again: Arcanist spends one point from a pool, and raises the spell level by 1. They are now dispelling a fireball with a second level spell. If the Arcanist is Fifth level and uses a Fireball to dispel another Fireball, again as a swift action acting out of initiative, they get a +5.

This ability again is Su, and has not been clarified if it has either a V or S component.

Arcane Reservoir (Su): An arcanist has an innate pool of magical energy that she can draw upon to fuel her arcanist exploits and enhance her spells. The arcanist’s arcane reservoir can hold an amount of magical energy equal to three times the arcanist’s level. Each day when preparing spells, the arcanist’s arcane reservoir fills with raw magical energy, gaining a number of points equal to 1 + 1/2 her arcanist level. Any points she had from the previous day are lost. She can also regain these points through the consume spells class feature and some arcanist exploits. The arcane reservoir can never hold more points that the total mentioned above, points gained in excess of this maximum are lost.
Points from the arcanist reservoir are used to fuel many of the arcanist’s powers (see arcane exploits). In addition, the arcanist can expend one point from her arcane reservoir as a free action whenever she casts an arcanist spell. If she does, she can choose to increase the caster level by 1 or increase the DC of the spell by 1. She can expend no more than one point from her reservoir on a given spell in this way.
Counterspell (Su): By expending one point from her arcane reservoir to attempt to counterspell a spell as it is being cast. The arcanist must identify the spell being cast as normal. If the check is successful, the arcanist can then use an immediate action and expend an available arcanist spell slot of a level equal to or higher than the level of the spell being cast. To counterspell the spell, the arcanist must make dispel check as

So a fourth level Arcanist can shut down my sixth level Wizard? And this gets worse… At higher level not only does the Arcanist lock down a “conventional” caster with their immediate actions but they can also recharge their pool with a successful counterspell? The other issue I have with this is, it looks to be that there are no verbal or somatic components to this ability. So even under a silence spell or a lipstitch, this character is still counterspelling casters with no issues.

This was the problem with 3.5 with the Wizard and Sorcerer against the Warlock. Any type of refillable pool or infinitely reusable ability, will beat spell slots any day of the week. Sure I might have more spells, but if I can’t cast them because immediate actions act outside of initiative, what good am I if my spells are instantly countered before any of them take effect. This relegates a wizard to a buff or summoning bot and sitting on the sideline during the combat.

This is why Pathfinder is inadvertently pushing classes to have pets. Why should I risk a saving throw, magic resistance and now being counterspelled when my big bad pet can eat them?

If the devs are going to move to a pool based characters and characters with more supernatural abilities then please spend some time and revamp the original core characters to make them competitive.

Since gems are sold at full price instead of half, you can simply sell the gems and use the money to buy the same value's worth of diamond dust. This transaction is already assumed in the wealth calculations for Pathfinder Society scenarios, though like Dragnmoon, I'm not sure you're talking about a general game or a Pathfinder Society-specific scenario.

Nope this is not a specific senario, this is a general game. However I never thought about using a jewelers tools. I always thought that jewelers tools were used for setting stones into pieces, not for breaking down gems.

Excellent... Thanks for the input everyone!

I am having some issues with spell componets:

My party sucessfully completed a dungon and there were several 1000gp diamonds in the loot. (I thought GREAT! spell components here I come...)

However seeing that diamonds are a very difficult item to destroy I came to a stopping point: How to turn a diamond, much less several, into dust. One can not just jump up and turn it into dust nor can I take it to a mill and put the diamond under the wheel and expect results.

I am very hesitant to use "disintigrate" on a diamond for fear of losing a very expensive item. However the temptation is there seeing that the only thing left of the itme that has been disintigraged is in fact; dust.