want a good Caster that is easy to learn? the Oracle should help fairly well. depending on what mystery and powers you take, an Oracle can be very straightforward. i suggest a blind battle oracle with a polearm.
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anybody can heal hit points out of combat with UMD and a Wand, the real reason to bring a healer, is well, to remove the various conditions that either cripple or remove a character from play, none of which can be accessed by the arcanist, but a huge portion of which can be accessed by a healing patron witch. and well, let me link you to a youtube Video from DBJ a good Video on how you can bypass the need for a cleric, also some good tips in the comments
a Witch can evoke the white mage flavor much better, in fact, i personally recommend witch if you want an arcane healer. while it won't have the key spells as early as a cleric, it can use a special wand that makes it heal with healing hex for cheaper than a 3.5 wand of lesser vigor, and that same wand has a few combat uses too. plus witches have a decent amount of unique debuffs to give them something recreational to do in combat, alongside a nice save or suck. so the best way to look at playing a Witch, is to Think of playing the Arcanist from Etrian Odyssey 4, rather than the Pathfinder Arcanist.
Resolve point system and a focus on mounted archery vs teamwork feats and a focus on mounted charging. this bolded mechanic alone is what differentiates the samurai from the cavalier and serves as plenty of mechanical niche. the focus on mounted combat in place of teamwork feats is also a valid arguement. cavalier has no ability to reduce or even negate mounted archery penalties
i guess a weaker version that didn't allow the wounds to be healed by magical means and didn't allow wish or true resurrection to bring back the character is fine
So, were you actually honestly wondering if something like that existed, or did you just start this thread to create a platform to complain about martial/caster disparity? i actually wanted this ability for a theoretical tabletop character just in case i had to fight another Terrasque, Lich, or Vampire or similar self ressurecting character so i could keep them dead.
any way to get this ability or something just like it? because i like the idea of a mortal slayer being able to murder fully powered gods by planting a knife into them.Ummm... Gonna have to go with no. so again, martial characters are proven to be hated by paizo because there isn't a means for martial characters to actually kill immortal beings and keep them dead, like the terrasque or a lich. i think mystic eyes of death perception would really fit the slayer.
an ability any slayer absolutely requires is the type moon ability called the mystic eyes of death perception, any way for a slayer to get something similar. to explain the mystic eyes of death perception, they care not about your regeneration, your damage reduction or whether or not you are a full on deity such as sarenrae or lamashtu, the eyes just let you actually inflict permanent unhealable damage upon the foe as long as you land a hit with a physical weapon and since the damage from a user their effect cannot be healed in any means, they can technically permanently and irrevocably murder a goddess or the terrasque by just dealing hit point damage or ability damage from a physical source. they also ignore incorporeality and ethereality and the like as if the foe were completely material. any way to get this ability or something just like it? because i like the idea of a mortal slayer being able to murder fully powered gods by planting a knife into them.
the status and deathwatch spells can do that. plus, players share each others hit point totals all the time.
the reason the slayer is dull is because you are expected to fill in the fluff yourself.
I'd say certain Monk builds are stronger than the Slayer, the Sensei, Zen Archer, and Sohei in particular.you forgot monk, which is on par with or weaker than rogue at everything except running away and jumping really high due to being extremely MAD and having to spend more money on magical damage boosters than most other classes because they tried to remove the gauntlet or greave as an option for cheaply enchanting monk unarmed strikes in other words, 3 Archetypes that focus on using weapons, all of which, favor using flurry with a bow because god forbid a monk simply play like the game expects them to and kick people in the face
you forgot monk, which is on par with or weaker than rogue at everything except running away and jumping really high due to being extremely MAD and having to spend more money on magical damage boosters than most other classes because they tried to remove the gauntlet or greave as an option for cheaply enchanting monk unarmed strikes
actually, the impact of fast healing on your funds actually does matter in an AP or module, because most of them give you lots of high powered magic items that aren't quite optimized and leave you very little gold. you aren't very likely to find a simple +2 Falchion because it is highly unlikely to show up in the treasure of most non middle eastern themed adventure paths, but sure, expect to find a +3 keen ghost touch mithril undead bane scythe at 8th level as a hint you are going to eventually be slaying necromancers and need the firepower when not even a metropolis has the funds to give you the full extent on the half price resale on this pharasman relic and well, expect to be forced to retrain your falchion feats to scythe feats because you aren't going to be getting a better falchion any time soon. and teleporting to katapesh to buy anything you want just reeks of cheese. spelling error. had to fix that because i noticed it like a day too late
actually, the impact of fast healing on your funds actually does matter in an AP or module, because most of them give you lots of high powered magic items that aren't quite optimized and leave you very little gold. you are very likely to find a simple +2 Falchion because it is highly unlikely to show up in the treasure of most non middle eastern themed adventure paths, but sure, expect to find a +3 keen ghost touch mithril undead bane scythe at 8th level as a hint you are going to eventually be slaying necromancers and need the firepower when not even a metropolis has the funds to give you the full extent on the half price resale on this pharasman relic and well, expect to be forced to retrain your falchion feats to scythe feats because you aren't going to be getting a better falchion any time soon. and teleporting to katapesh to buy anything you want just reeks of cheese.
if we really needed a "Trapfinder". i would play a slayer or Dip 2 levels as one. then play the class i really wanted to play. the only thing the rogue has going for it is a faster sneak attack progression for going arcane trickster.
actually, Race Points are a poor way to judge a homebrewed races power. you are better off eyeballing things and seeing if the race looks right to you, because you can make a 15 point race that is outright better than a poorly built 30 point race. even without that, abilities within the standard menu aren't entirely balanced against other abilities from the standard menu. +2 to a single skill costs twice as much as a passive +2 to will save or is equal in price to a +1 natural armor bonus, when the skill bonus is nowhere near as good as both of them.
actually, Race Points are a poor way to judge a homebrewed races power. you are better off eyeballing things and seeing if the race looks right to you, because you can make a 15 point race that is outright better than a poorly built 30 point race.
physical appearance, as in what you look like, shouldn't really be determined by an attribute number because it consists both of your natural physical features, and how well you maintain those features i agree. and health is just as important to attractiveness
Slayer is a Good Archer due to being Full Bab, getting access to combat style, and being able to double as a trap monkey and scout. and even though the slayer's studied target is half the bonus of the rangers favored enemy, they can get it on everything they fight.
physical appearance, as in what you look like, shouldn't really be determined by an attribute number because it consists both of your natural physical features, and how well you maintain those features, which i beleive would be a matter of constitution more than charisma, healthier people are generally more attactive, and healthier slaves often sold for more. so this has pretty good historical precedent as far back as the Romans. a Roman Centurion would never take the loss on selling a sickly prisoner they know they can get more money in the long run from nursing back to health before they sold. because physical health has value, whether you are working a forced predetermined profession against your will such as a slave or you were a wife to court with the intent of producing and raising functional children. in fact, physical features or even lineage are irrelevant compared to physical condition. sure, you can hire a sickly individual to work as a scribe in a church basement if they are already literate but manual laborers and engineers tend to be more important when constructing and retaining a civilization, and both of those require a working level of passable physical health. Edit; Labororers and Engineers are more important than scribes, and some of the most important laborers were those who worked such fields as construction, carpentry or agriculture because you need a dedicated group of builders or dedicated groups of crop growers. in fact, the majority of professions important to retaining a humanoid civilization all have some degree of heavy physical component. because a farmhand with tuberculosis is a useless body who can't tend your fields, not that a desperate society who has the resources can't hire diabetic city guards, but that is because diabetes back then, was easier to maintain than tuberculosis. don't cough up blood on the crops, but sure, we can have a domestic guard or few who needs extra bread rations to function.
there are multiple definitions of appearance. in fact, confidence is far more important to your appearance than what your biological features are. there isn't a charisma requirement to possess certain features. because appearance, isn't a matter of what features you have, it is a matter of how you carry yourself. you can have 2 twin sisters who have the exact same cosmetic features and both could even dress the same, but both carry themselves differently and thus have different presences. presence is the most important part of appearance. a low charisma doesn't mean you don't have attractive cosmetic features, it means that despite your features, you seem plain to the others.
when charisma mentions "appearance". it doesn't mean "what you physically look like". it means your "presence" or how much of an impression you leave. in the Timid Rinnie Example, she leaves no impression, neither positive or negative. she just appears to be a nervous young novice with a deck of cards and a plain and relatively mundane dress. in fact, she seems to appear to be any other nervous novice dabbling in legerdemain for the first time. she is cute, but not enough to really leave an impression. no real presence is left behind, and she is on the surface, that performer that never got invited into a circus troupe because she "lacks the experience" or "lacks the ambition". i mean, she has ambition and experience, but it doesn't really show very well.
Timid Street Magician with a 7 charisma. she was cute, but she was so timid she had difficulty talking to people when she wasn't doing card tricks for tips and at the same time, she had to work 10-12 hour days to make money by using sleight of hand to perform card tricks. nobody really remembered her. "Whose Lightning Fingers Rinnie?" only to realize "Lightning Fingers Rinnie" was the youthful sylph named Rin who was nervously performing for them the whole time while she fidgeted and shivered. she actually learned to speak with people on a diplomatic level and improve the beleiveability of her lies as well as her human guise.
Or just the actual Skald class. Which does the exact thing described above. And nothing mechanically forces the Bard class to follow the stereotype of "poncy musician in a warzone." I'd give at least one a try before writing off the classes, personally.you want a more Masculine Bard? how about describing your bard as a Skald who recites War Chants to incite blood lust in his or her companions? you don't need the Skald Class to play a Skald. a Bard could do that just fine. in fact, before Skald was a class, people actually statted their "Skalds" as Bards. my favorite bards i played have been puppeteers, actors, skalds, dervishes, and the like
Asure, a level 10 wizard can use a longsword against 1st level mooks in a warfare scene to conserve spells, but that is what allowed gandalf to use his sword, he was fighting level 1 mooks as a 10th level wizard. the reason Gandalf could do it against the Balor was because he was the dungeon master's player character or DMPC and because DMPCs usually are far more overpowered than the rest of the party.
you want a more Masculine Bard? how about describing your bard as a Skald who recites War Chants to incite blood lust in his or her companions?
sure, a level 10 wizard can use a longsword against 1st level mooks in a warfare scene to conserve spells, but that is what allowed gandalf to use his sword, he was fighting level 1 mooks as a 10th level wizard.
"the i bash things" martials are not my first choice, and i tend to play in groups loaded with martial characters, regardless of system, so i generally build the exotic fighter that stands out in the crowd of heavily armored slaughter machines, usually by doubling as both a slaughter machine and a secondary or tertiary function in something else. such as healing wand user or driver, trapsmith, decker, etc.
+2 strength +2 dexterity -2 charisma is much more balanced on a martially inclined ranger or barbarian than +4 intelligence -2 constitution as a wizard. even though constitution is the only stat that a large enough penalty could justify buying a bigger casting stat. in fact, the former ranger array is more balanced tban +2 dexterity +2 intelligence -2 constitution on a wizard
Zombies are assumed to be evil in the rules, but i personally consider them neutral due to the fact they are mindless and due to the fact negative energy is energy. but then, you can have a token evil teammate in any party composition, as long as neither the token evil team mate or their companions are abusive to one another and are willing to work together for a shared cause. even if they have different reasons for sharing that goal
1st Edition wasn't rules light. it was extremely complicated and had formulae that were so inconsistent you couldn't really do much without consulting 5 dozen charts. it was heavy on charts.
but the CR system was balanced around PCs having full hit points every fight. the wand is just as irrelevent as bringing a cleric with the feat, just give everyone fast healing 1/round out of combat or allow full healing with a 15 minute rest.
even if you burn a long time using a reserve feat to heal everyone to full, you still burnt time, meaning buffs will eventually start to wear off, and even if hit points are a per encounter resource, there are better means to heal in combat that consume resources and well, it frees up divine casters to have resources dedicated to things that aren't healing, allowing oracles and clerics to have more fun, and also combating the 15 minute adventure day. all limited healing does, is encourage the 15 minute adventure day. players should be able to heal to full between fights
a low attack bonus is irrelevant when you are making touch attacks that don't allow a saving throw and actually get deadlier from applying the young template
there actually is an RPG that isn't loaded to the Brim with rulebooks, it is called Savage Worlds, you only need one rulebook to run it, unless you want the setting book for the fluff and repricings of gear, or want the companions, which are loaded with nothing but genre specific rules reskins you could have found in the settings or made yourself via substitutions
i suggest banning prepared casters with the exception of classes like the arcanist because it is easier to run a game for spontaneous casters like sorcerers and oracles due to them being more predictable
the only sylph racial feat she had was cloud gazer, because she used smokesticks to set up sneak attacks. besides that, she was pretty much your typical shy street performer specialized in card tricks. she used sleight of hand to perform card tricks for tips, and often did a sneak attack with cards as she waited for her prey to come closer
paladins probably brew potions and craft wands as a means to sell affordable magic to the public in a form the impoverished can easily afford, with the ulterior motive they use the funds from their cheap lesser restorations in preparation for fighting evil.
@Auren Rin Cloudstrider: The sylph do look interesting as rogues (and slayers, by extension, sort of). Have you had success playing sylph characters in the past? i played a sylph slayer as a timid street magician who was trained in dealing with security systems and dual wielding knives, she even threw cards at people with arcane strike. she was a blast to play, not really optimized, but it was fun roleplaying the fidgeting and acting out the shivering and stuttering with the help of a smart phone word processor, the cards were improvised throwing weapons that dealt 1d4 piercing damage with a range increment of 30 feet and a crit range of 18-20x2 and worked alongside her d4 18-20x2 slashing/piercing melee knives
the only thing really cheaper about it is the fact you don't need to worry about the excess charges you don't intend to use on low level buffs intended to improve martial performance.
actually, that 5500 GP per week from a community of untrained commoners isn't literal gold coins, but the income they produce in the form of trade goods per week by taking 10 on untrained profession checks. an untrained teenage housewife and apprentice isn't making a literal 5 gold coins per week in the sense of cash, she is sewing 5 gold coins worth of cheap clothes per week to use for her family or trade among her peers or canning 5 gold coins worth of cheap jelly per week. being trade goods, they are considered to be equivalent to gold coins for the purpose of trade, but in reality, they aren't proper gold coins, but product.
leveling in any Etrian Odyssey game is slow, unless you are high enough level to grind Weaker FOEs to make it easier, issue is, foes eat lots of Prana and Revival Nectars if you don't have the proper party to take them down. but in EO4, Arcanists which are the updated hexers, are a broken subclass for Nightseekers (essentially dual wielding assassins) and a Landschnect built around the elemental links will tear stuff up as long as you guarantee enough attacks to trigger the links
If that's how it works, it would actually be wands of any spell or caster level; wand use just cares about having the spell on your list at all, not about what caster level you are. (At the cost of losing your favored class bonus for the class you *actually* are, which makes the whole thing of rather questionable value, in my opinion.)it simply means Half Elves can use magic items of any arcane casting class as if they had 1 more level, meaning they can use an item that has a requirement of 10th level at 9th level without rolling, or use a 1st level witch wand without witch levels or UMD. because their effective witch level for item use is 1. it doesn't boost items, it increases options for single classed characters. using consumable items with a higher caster level than your own requires a caster level roll of DC 10+caster level. for example, you can use a scroll of a 6th level wizard spell as a 10th level wizard without a DC21 roll. or your 10th level wizard can use CL1st wands from the bard, witch, summoner and magus lists. or any arcane class, really. without a roll.Don't forget the half-elf's racial Arcane Training ability to use spell trigger and completion items for their class at +1 caster level.How does that help? My inderstanding was that wands, unlike staves, can't use the caster level of the user. while wands don't care about your caster level, scrolls however, do care. it would be wands of any spell of 4th level or lower that appear on any arcane spell list. because you can't make wands of 5th level or higher spells. it has a benefit in that you can use like 90 percent of the spells of 4th level or lower if you have the wand. it however falls apart if the wand is of a spell that only appears in divine or psionic form
shadows, stirges, leeches and the like require very specialized investments of resources few level appropriate parties are going to have to have the resources to afford in a game that disallows the purchase of partially charged wands or disallows the crafting of cheap low level consumables
Pathfinder, is a widespread and mainstream system with a variety of great adventure paths and an extremely bulky and slow rules system that is hard to learn and quite slow to run encounters Savage Worlds, is a swiftly emerging system growing in popularity that is famous for being easy to learn, easy to GM for, favors improvisation and eschews redundant mechanics for reskinnable trappings i thought of an idea, based on many people i have seen in my local area, because lots of people are "going savage" and because a lot of Paizo's APs have great stories once you trim the fat. what if Paizo made a Deal with Pinnacle Entertainment to write up conversions of their pathfinder Golarion and Adventure Path lines for Savage Worlds? the benefits include, Paizo being able to gain some share of the profit off the savage worlds audience through their Adventure paths, the fact that the conversions are probably cheaper to make because they require nowhere near as much wordcount, a fraction of the page count, and don't really need any new mechanics pinnacle hasn't already provided, the fact that Paizo can trim off a lot of the fat that is primarily designed to pad XP and wealth totals, trim off major magic items that do little more than add static bonuses for the D20 system scaling, and paizo can draw from already existing mechanics for most of their stuff besides the occasional new hindrance or professional edge
i used to love playing a 3.5/pathfinder hybrid, until i realized, that savage worlds has a faster and smoother system and realized, that most Pathfinder APs can be run using a Savage Conversion without the majority of the filler, and get the story and danger across more smoothly in fact, savage worlds, you could build a party of 4 melee characters with a D12 fighting and through different choices of edges and hindrances, make all 4 melee characters feel unique as well, you can take a party of 4 characters with the arcane background edge as well as the bolt, blast and healing powers, and through trappings, choice of backlash and choice of restrictions through hindrances, make all 4 mages feel like very different characters. even though they each have 10 power points and the same 3 powers i still look to pathfinder's community for adventure ideas, campaign conversion seeds or NPCs to propose to my Savage Worlds Storyteller because many of the NPCs or adventures could be applied to savage worlds by trimming the fat down to the important essence pathfinder has great concepts for Adventure Paths, but too many rules and too much crunch to really make the story work, if there was a way to get the pathfinder adventure paths or even golarion, eberron or forgotten realms converted to savage worlds in a way that didn't require me to buy 6 books per adventure path, i would actually play the material. it isn't that converting pathfinder to savage worlds is hard, it is that it is expensive to do due to the price of pathfinder material compared to savage worlds material. if only there was a way for fellow reborn savages like myself to enjoy the wealth of pathfinder storylines without having to abandon our pet system. a form of pre written conversions in a form of mutual contract between pinnacle and paizo i mean, both could benefit from licensed savage conversions of Paizo's APs because both would be getting a cut, and savage worlds is steadily growing in popularity where i live, i wouldn't say it outstrips pathfinder, but where i live, a lot of people have went savage because pathfinder is just too complicated a system and is too slow paced to really tell its own stories due to the sheer amount of rules for it that exist.
monsters using the treasure in their treasure allotment to their advantage isn't even really a problem, as a player, it would motivate me to kill the enemy wizard faster so their familiar doesn't blow through the charges of that shiny wand i intend to loot. plus, it kills immersion when the monsters simply explode into gold coins like swollen Diablo style pinatas.
out of the 4, i personally like the Sylph better than the Undine, Ifrit or Oread. mostly because i like spellcaster types that gain a lot of roguish skills, and because sylphs have that fitting nomad flavor.
makes one wonder why adventurers ever leave towns when they can generate neigh infinite amounts of wealth by simply asking the shop keeper if he has this or that magical trinket on hand. Metagame reasons clearly, Adventures Pillage and Plunder, so they can go to the nearest metropolis and sell the spoils of their victory, so they can buy better equipment that makes them better at pillaging and plundering, and thus the cycle of banditry never ends, and most adventurers have an obsession with outpacing the gear treadmill, and because of this, they continue a life as wandering bandits, years after they have more than enough gold to retire and live lavishly for a plural of centuries.
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