Arundel's page

Each of you has been given orders recently - make haste to Nantambu, in the Mwangi Expanse, and meet up with Aya Allahe in the marketplace outside Sharrowsmith’s Exports. When you arrive, despite the sweltering heat of the midday sun, you find the marketplace bustling with customers. Merchants stand in the shade under colorful awnings behind enticing displays of all manner of goods, from fresh fruits to intricate works of art. In the center of the marketplace, two large, vaguely humanoid statues rise from a fountain. Water pours from their gaping mouths as they stare up at the sun. Sharrowsmith's Exports lies quiet and empty off to the side of the fountain, as it has been since the passing of Venture-Captain Sharrowsmith. A quick glance does not yet reveal the presence of Aya Allahe.

Feel free to dot in and introduce yourselves! The briefing will begin soon.

Discussion now open!

Hi everyone,

I'm looking into making a gnome illusionist, because illusions are fun and I enjoy using them, and Effortless Trickery and Threatening Illusion both sound like a lot of fun. The 20 foot move speed makes me sad though. My understanding is that this will be less of an issue in later levels when flight is more normal, but particularly for now it is a pain. Since gnomes are small, I thought maybe a riding dog was in order.

My understanding of mounted magikery is that as long as my mount is moving only it's normal (40ft) speed, no concentration checks are required and I still get my normal move and standard actions (or full round action). I can have my mount go up to twice it's speed, in which case I need to make a DC10+spell level concentration check.

Is that basic understanding correct? Do I need to invest in Handle Animal or Ride for this build? I would have to make a DC5 ride check if I needed both my hands, and thus wanted to guide my mount with my knees, but since I don't need both hands to cast this isn't required, right? Do I need to make the DC10 Handle Animal check every round to tell my mount to move? Are there any other gotchas I need to be aware of? Any guidance would be appreciated. Thanks!

I currently have a 1st level wizard character who likes to summon things. Not master summoner type summon-spamming, but more like max-once-per-battle summoning. I was toying around with taking the feat Acadamae Graduate. It allows you to summon as a standard action instead of a full-round action, at the cost of requiring a DC-15 fort save to avoid becoming fatigued. Now, fatigued isn't too terrible, but exhausted is, which is what would happen if I failed such a save twice. So, I began looking for ways to cure fatigue between battles.

I started toying with the idea of a 1 level cleric dip at 2nd level, with the Community and Travel domains. I didn't dump Wisdom, so I currently have a +1 wis mod. This one level dip would give me the following:

• The ability to heal fatigue 4 times per day (should be enough to allow for all-day summoning at once-per-battle, even if I fail all the saves)
  
• A 40-foot move speed, with the ability to ignore difficult terrain for 4 rounds per day
  
• Longstrider domain spell for getting 50-foot move speed for one hour a day
  
• 3 extra 0-level spells known off the cleric list
  
• 2 extra 1-level spells known off the cleric list
  
• Ability to use cleric wands, including CLW, without needing UMD
  
• A +2 boost to fort saves
  
• Emergency healing (a 1d6 Channel Energy once a day due to dumped Cha, and spontaneous casting of a couple of CLW)
  

Downsides would be a 1-level slower wizard progression, and losing out of the 11th level of wizard at the end of my career.

Seems to me that this is a valuable dip at low levels, eventually getting less valuable over time. Is that an accurate assessment? Overall, does it seem worth it? I am new to PF, so still trying to figure out all the things. Thanks!

Hi all,

I am starting to do research into GMing a scenario sometime in the next month (The Confirmation) with my home group. I've never GMed, well, anything before, so it is a lot to read up on.

One question I had - I know as a GM I earn the 2 PP for the scenario. I also know that you can spend 2 PP to get one item up to 750GP, but only once per scenario. The question is, am I allowed to spend PP during the scenario I GM, or can I only spend when my character is actually present?

According to the Magic Item Creation Rules:

Creating an item requires 8 hours of work per 1,000 gp in the item's base price (or fraction thereof), with a minimum of at least 8 hours.

Does this minimum increase with various ways to increase the gp per 8 hours? For example, if you accelerate the crafting process, is the minimum for any item still 8 hours even though you craft at a rate of 2,000 per 8 hours, or is the minimum now 4 hours? Likewise, if you have Cooperative Casting and are accelerating, you craft at a rate of 4,000 per 8 hours, but is the minimum now 2 hours?

To give a specific example, if I wanted to craft a level 1 wand, the base price is 750gp, which by default would take 8 hours of crafting (e.g. four days of crafting while adventuring). Would I be able to craft that wand in just two hours (e.g. during a single day of adventuring) if I have a Valet familiar and we accelerate?

I am currently playing around with a Samsaran Wizard character, and contemplating the option of selecting UMD for one of my two Shards of the Past skills, which would make it a class skill for me and give me a +2 racial bonus to it. I could also take Pragmatic Activator trait to use Int for UMD instead of Cha. In total, that would give me a total of +11 to UMD at level 1 (+5 int, +2 racial, +3 class skill, 1 skill point).

I've always liked the idea of UMD, but what I don't know is how much it would really help a wizard to have it. In my regular party there will be an inquisitor and a bard, so any long term buff spells from those lists I can just hand a wand to one of them. So what really valuable uses can you think of that a Wizard could do with a high UMD, if any? I am very new to Pathfinder, so I'm not intimately familiar with what is really useful in practice.

Alternatively, are there any really great arcane spells that are not on the wizard list that I would benefit from with the Mystic Past Life alternate racial trait?

For the specialist spell slot you are granted for each spell level, can you fill it with a lower level spell instead? Specifically, if I specialize in divination, none of the 1st level divination spells interest me terribly much; could I use that extra spell slot granted by my school, and fill it with a divination cantrip instead?

So, I am toying around with making a Wizard with a Sage Familiar, who is basically a repository for knowledge checks that I don't care to buff personally as well as a second chance for knowledge which I do possess. The Sage archetype seems like a really good trade-off, as you simply lose a little bit of AC, Alertness, and share skill ranks, but gain a whole bunch of customizable skills and a higher intelligence friend.

I also really like the idea of actually role playing the familiar as a character, rather than just as a bag o' tricks; this becomes difficult when you think about improved familiars and/or the relative killable-ness of familiars.

Given the Sage nature of my familiar, I was toying around with naming him Bob and making him (purely fluff) a Spirit of Intellect that happens to inhabit a living form (in this case a Greensting Scorpion). This is pretty much a direct rip off of the Dresden Files (great books if you haven't read them, by the way), where the main character has a Spirit of Intellect named Bob who inhabits a skull. That being said, it seems like a neat idea for here, as it would allow me a justifiable reason for keeping the same personality for my familiar, even if it dies or changes form. That way I can swap my familiar out for an advanced familiar, but role play it as Bob getting a new ride. Familiar dies? Tis sad, but luckily Bob can't actually die, he just comes back in a new body after a while. Etc etc.

So anyway, my question is, if you were to encounter me in PFS play, would you roll your eyes at the ripping off of another character? I'd really rather not be THAT guy, you know?

So, I was toying around with a Foresight wizard build with the Familiar Adept archetype, and I got really excited when I saw the Valet familiar archetype. I thought, hey, this is awesome, my familiar can always act in the surprise round because of the Divination school lesser power, and Valet lets him have all my teamwork feats, so I can pick up Lookout and let myself always full-round in any surprise round.

Then I was looking at the School Familiar archetype (which is what the Familiar Adept automatically grants to your familiar), and I noticed that it says that a school familiar cannot have any other familiar archetype. This means that Valet is out, even if I go the Familiar Adept route, right?

Other than Valet, is there any other way as a pure Wizard build to give your familiar the Lookout feat that is PFS legal?

So, I was brainstorming ways to allow my ranged inquisitor to gain Improved Precise Shot in PFS, and I got to looking at Sanctified Slayer. At 8th level, I can take a single slayer talent, and one of those options is Ranger Combat Style. I read on another thread somewhere that even though my level would be above 6th when I take the Ranger Combat Style, I couldn't pick Improved Precise Shot because of the wording of the Ranger Combat Style talent:

At 6th level, he may select this talent *again* and add the 6th-level ranger combat feats from his chosen style to the list.

Since this would be the first time I was picking this talent, I wouldn't be able to pick 6th-level ranger combat feats. Sanctified Slayer doesn't get a second talent until 16th level, far too late for PFS.

So I thought about ways to get it with a minimal amount of multiclassing. I don't want to take 6 levels of ranger, so that is out. However, if I take just 2 levels of Slayer I can take a Ranger Combat Style; when I then take Ranger Combat Style as an 8th level Sanctified Slayer, I should be able to take Improved Precise Shot, as I will be above 6th level and will be taking this talent for a second time. Huzzah!

All that which leads to my question: how do the various class features of these two very similar classes interact? If I take 3 levels of Slayer, would the Sneak Attack damage stack from the two sources? How would having Studied Target from both classes stack? Would I have just the single Studied Target feature but add my class levels from both sources, or would I have two different Studied Target features, one with my Slayer level and one with my Sanctified Slayer level?

So, I'm relatively new to PF, and I was wondering about this. I know that perception is very important, but is there a point when your perception is high enough? With a half-elf inquisitor with Skill Focus Perception, I am starting out at level one with something like a 13 or 14 in perception, and the plan had been to put one skill point in it every level. Is that necessary, or at a certain point do more skill points become superfluous? Not sure if it matters, but I am playing PFS exclusively. Thanks!

So, I have just recently gotten into pathfinder, having played a grand total of two games, both of them Pathfinder Society games. I've never really played any real RPG before this, though I have played a lot of video game versions (e.g. Neverwinter Nights / Icewind Dale), so I know the basic mechanics.

I have a character build planned, and I think it could be fun, but it requires a few different classes and I want to make sure I am not mechanically nerfing myself in trying to pull this off.

Basic story is that my character is a human named Henric who was raised in a family of magic users. He was trained in the arcane from a young age, and so starts out at level 1 as a diviner wizard with the Magical Knack trait. On transitioning to level 2, the story will go that he encountered a representative of Cayden Cailean during his travels, and had a bit of a religious awakening. In particular, the tenants of being free to choose your own path in life spoke to him, who was set down the path of a wizard sort of by default by his family. This gave him the courage to leave off the wizarding profession in favor of being an Inquisitor for Cayden Cailean, fully exploring his love of archery and adventure.

Mechanically, I have him starting as a diviner wizard, then at level 2 switching to a Sacred Huntsmaster Inquisitor. His animal companion is an ape with the Bodyguard archetype. One of the things I liked about this setup is the ability at level 4 to *always* have a full round action in any surprise round ever, since as a diviner he always acts in the surprise round, and his ape as a bodyguard always acts in the surprise round, and as a sacred huntsmaster he shares his teamwork feats with his animal companion. Take Lookout, and as long as they always walk side-by-side, they both always take a full round action in any surprise round.

One of the drawbacks of a one-level wizard dip in a medium progression ranged inquisitor build is that BAB is nerfed pretty bad, and he also doesn't have a lot of feats to go around. So I thought about dipping two levels into fighter (at levels 7 and 8) to get the bonus feats without sacrificing BAB.

End result is that at level 11 (without taking any equipped items into consideration), I have a BAB of just +8, saves of 9/6/11, an AC of 14, and three attacks at +8/+8/+3 for 1d8+7 damage (when having a composite longbow with a +1 strength rating, non-magical, Deadly Aim enabled, Rapid Shot enabled). I didn't add any high level equipment, because I'm not sure what is normal.

My ape is Large, so has reach, has a +6 BAB, Bite of +12 for 1d6+13, and 2 Claws of +12 for 1d6+13, 22 natural AC with the option of Light armor (none equipped yet) and 58 HP (I took Boon Companion so he wouldn't suffer from my three non-Inquisitor levels)

I also have fun things to do outside of combat, with the Conversion Inquisition, so I end up more than capable as the party face, with a +17 to Bluff / Diplomacy, a +21 to Intimidate / Perception, and a +25 to Sense Motive. I don't know how high those generally need to be, though I have heard that those sorts of skills do come up somewhat frequently in PFS play.

Any general feedback here? Does this character sound at least functional at 11th level, even if he won't dominate?

I had a question about whether or not a particular combo works like I think it does. I am working on an Inquisitor with a one level dip into a Foresight wizard - basically a fairly standard ranged Inquisitor with a magical knack and a fondness for arcane items. From this one level dip, I get the following two things:

1) A familiar, for which I want to select a Greensting Scorpion with the School Familiar archetype from Familiar Folio (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/wizard/familiar/familiar-arch etypes/school-familiar-familiar-archetype). This book does appear in the additional resources list, so this should be fine. This gives my familiar Ever Ready, which among other things allows him to always act in the surprise round.

2) Forewarned, which allows me to always act in the surprise round.

At Inquisitor level 3, I gain Solo Tactics and a free teamwork feat. Solo Tactics reads:
"all of the inquisitor’s allies are treated as if they possessed the same teamwork feats as the inquisitor for the purpose of determining whether the inquisitor receives a bonus from her teamwork feats"

I take Lookout as my teamwork feat:
"Whenever you are adjacent to an ally who also has this feat, you may act in the surprise round as long as your ally would normally be able to act in the surprise round. . . If both you and your ally would be able to act in the surprise round without the aid of this feat, you may take both a standard and a move action (or a full-round action) during the surprise round."

Now, as I understand this, both myself and my familiar are always able to act in the surprise round. Solo Tactics allows me to treat any allies as if they had my teamwork feats, so I can treat my familiar as if it had Lookout. Since we can both act in the surprise round, and (from my perspective) we both have Lookout, I can take a standard and a move action in the surprise round (my familiar cannot, as he doesn't actually have Lookout). Is this correct?

The second feature of Lore Seeker reads as follows:

If you cast arcane spells, pick three spells on your spell list. You are particularly adept at casting these spells, so they function at +1 caster level when you cast them, and their save DCs (if any) gain a +1 bonus.

My question is in regards to spells with different levels, such as Summon Monster. For this trait, would you be able to be adept at Summon Monster, and thus get the extra caster level on any level of Summon Monster, or would you have to pick specifically, say, Summon Monster I to be adept at? Thematically, it seems to make more sense that if you are adept at Summon Monster you'd be adept at it at all levels, but not sure if the rules would match up with that.