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bards dont count. They are cheating anyways.

reread the Hit die for skelletons. I was shocked to see that i got it so wrong. The Class HD actually completely disappear.

Ill gladly offer what Wisdom i own.
But first: One of my players is a Agend of the Grave Undead-Lord Cleric. Right now he has 5 lvl5 Zombies with bardiches and a lvl 6 Corpse Companion. Having so much raw meatshield and brawn in the party makes most encounters fairly simpel (if you figure out how to transport them without attracting EVERY paladin in the same hemisphere.)

First: There are two major spells Animate Dead and Create Undead

Animate Dead: Only skelletons and Zombies. The raised follow you automatically. You can controll a number of HD four times your Casterlevel. As a Zombie gains Bonus HD I would rule that those count towards the limit just like size HD do (otherwiseyou could just raise an equal amount of lvl 5 Giants who are far more powerfull instead of lvl 5 humans). With Animate Dead you can create variant Zombies and skelletons like a plague bearer. The Hit die of variant Undead count double towards your limit. So a medium plague bearer Zombie from a lvl 5 humanoid would count as 12 HD towards your limit
Variants for skelletons. and Zombiesare listed at the bottom. Carefull with self replicating undead though those are a b!!*! in the Hands of players.

Create undead: Pretty much any Form of Undead Horror. can be made if your caster level is high enough. The created undead are NOT under your controll. You may however attempt to controll them via the Command undead channeling Feat.

You will need to adjust your encounters though. A standart campain path can be incredibly easy with quickly healed and replenished undead at ones disposal.
As guidelines: Splash damage is your friend. Flying enemies are your friend. Stronger necromancers that just snatch away the undead and steal them are your friend. Antimagic zones are your friend. and there is nothing more scary than a LG Party of Npcs that Hunt the Pcs for their evil ways containing of a Paladin with the Leadership Feat. An Inquisitor with the Leadership feat. Two Clerics with the leadership feat. And a Wizzard who is great with Scrying and Evocations.

Also: Creating undead is ALWAYS evil. There is no "good cause" to it. Make the undead creepy. and Occasionally show minimal signs of willfullness or odd behaviour. This will unsettle your players and make them carefull with the power they wield. A Zombie who without beeing ordered to makes a few steps towards a sleeping PC can be crazy scary.

Another thing you might keep in mind...
The rules state that you cant take two archetypes that substitute the same ability. What if two archetypes substite one same ability at, say lvl10 and you only want to follow the class to lvl 5 anyways?
That is something that seems to have to be houseruled

So you are looking between a cross of melee and Charismatic/Sociable.
Ill provide you gladly with some ideas.

Divine Classes:

Paladin: As far as a Charismatic warrior goes it cant get more charismatic. Also they are fairly effective if pretty set in their ways and inflexible.

Clerics: Clerics make valid Fighters if you choose the right God and are very nice to have with your party. People tend to be open minded towards clerics. A Cleric of Caiden Cilean for example might be great fun.

Cleric into Holy vindicator: Battle Cleric at its best

Oracle: Oracles with the "Battle" Mystery are pretty good charismatic fighters and very good healers. can be great fun.

Arcane Classes:

Bard: There are some very good Archetypes for the bard that can make him a decent support melee character plus his crazy support abilities.

Summoner: You might wonder what this one is doing here. The synthesist archetype is crazy scary and you have very good scores overall. You might look creepy but you DO have high charisma. Plus you can fight like a BEAST

Dragon Disciple: Can be fun. Great for flavor but youll be another caster in the eyes of the party.

Bard Battle Herald: fighting bard at your service.

Non Magical:

Fighter into Shadowdancer: very versatile but not really charismatic. still nice and rich in falvor.

Fighter into Steel Falcon: its a saylor but kinda cool.

Fighter into Chevalier: you get aura of yourage and smite and are a figher-3 lvls. Awesome class for a two weapon fighter.

Cavalier or Cavalier Battle Herald: a fighting bard with leadership

Rogue (Sharlatan) into Lion Blade: may be funny. But now what you are looking for i think.

As far as I am aware your soul leaves your body within a few seconds after your death and after a short moment of disorientation you begin to drift away into the great stream of souls that leave the material plane and head into the great beyond to pharasmas Boneyard. On this path the soul may fall prey to Astradaemons or other fiends, or be ressurected and drawn back into his body. This journey takes months in material plane time but for the soul it seems like a journey of only a few minutes.
After you reach pharasmas Boneyard she judges you and designates the resting place of your soul (matching your believe or alignment if you lack faith).

Otherwise: You drop prone and become a corpse. You may take no actions not even mental ones and are encouraged to not distract the other players with your medical condition.

I am still working a lot on this.

How would a group of Neutral Good friendly guys go about to topple Cheliax for example? I am thinking small groups of very well trained and well equipt shock troups that capture the Aristocracy and Leaders and aftrewards begin the spreading of "The Word".

How would an army composed of a big mixture of Creatures and Races look like? Ogres in the front with towershields behind them an army of Asorted ARchers, Cavalry of Minotaurs, Heavy Support and Siege by Giants, air superiority by Sylphs or Harpys?
What about dragons? Currently the Dragons hold a great Meeting of the wyrms to decide how to act on those Good Guys (since i am not yet sure what to do with em.)
What about the Races of the darkland? Neothelids, Illithids, Dark Elves? Possible allies for my party?

As For the Goal of the Good Guys its fairly simple: Unite all People under the First God and raise a huge army. They are currently working on the material plane and have already taken over

Also as of now im am planning to

This seems like a job for the Leadership feat. A bard cohort does wonders for public relations. If your PCs are all antisocial jerks, they could use a good PR guy.

I dont play with the leadership feat. I dont like it all that much and think its a pin for the pcs to find new guys every other fireball they get in their collective faces

@ Angelcow

You get what i was going for. Nice.

Thats just the thing. The major theme is "doubt" those good guys have schown the ability to dominate when pressed (suggestion as per the spell a few times a day (only to make people do nonagressive or "good" things like: dont shoot me! or Listen to me!))

But the Diplomacy thing is the following: EVERYBODY believes them after a while. At least so it seems. people and intelligent creatures just flock around them like sheep and abandon their old ways rather very quickly.

The pcs cant prove that the Good guys are doing something odd but it sure as hell looks a lot like they somehow manipulate the free will of the people just through their voice. And ALL kingdoms that accept those guys eventually make the First God their state religion, declare themselves indeopendend and call themselfes "Sons of the First God" and cast aside the other clerics. Nonviolently and with best wishes but with a definite: "k thx bye you arent needed anymore"

Also my Pcs are an NE Assassin, NE Whispering Way Necromancer Agend of the Grave, NE Magus who is creepy as all hell (my fault, hes a bladebound magus and i gave his sword the agenda to "HElp"people with their pain by killing them.)and a morally ambiguous Ex monk who thinks the Good guys disturb the ballance of things.

Also: the Good Guys are still in

It all kinda is supposed to settle down to that epic showdown between the pcs and their not so "good" allies and the Good Guys with the pcs attacking the first god himself on his island (everybody knows hes there. Kinda fun to have a God walking about and having everyone know where to find him.)

But i dont want to waste too much time with the assembly of mundane Allies and organizations who on the great scale of things can be whiped out by a single Pc Wizzard at level 17. That God Guy will be a b!&&$ to kill and they really need some awesome allies. (They already are on the s%~#list of a lvl 14 Wizzard Bloatmage with quite impressive funds (for kinda raping his female assistant dragon disciple....)). How will they do with the first Lich i thow their way? poop on his phlactery??

Hello out there.
I am working on a little homebrew setting and am looking for some inspiration. It would be appreciated.

Setting: On the isle of terror a new strange god has descended who calls himself the "first God". All over golarion (starting in Good dominated regions) worshippers begin forming cults around him and stray from their former Gods. This "God" seems to be of awesome power and has a vast collection of Clerics in his direct service. All of those clerics are described as some sort of veteran who has class levels. The higher ranking Clerics can use the usual Cleric abilitys. They have some distinct features: They are all NG, the have maxed out diplomacy, they always seem to know where they are needed, they travel great distances fast and unseen if they want to, if you talk to them you get a nice and warm feeling of happyness and an urge to do good, if they "hear the call" and think it is time to join them they talk you into their way of thinking and seemingly convince you to adopt their views and values (Help thy neighbour, dont be a dick, think bevor you act that sort of stuff... good guy- stuff).
Needless to say they scare the s%*# out of my players because (when my players still dared to listen to a single word of what those guys say) they hinted that they would purge all Evil from the worlds (plural) and make it perfect in his image. Or that the old gods wouldnt have a place in this new world they were building.

As it is now: The "Good Guys" have several little countrys under their controll and diplomacy their way though anyone who will listen adding more followers to their ranks and spreading increasingly fast. They dont discriminate and Ogres, Orks, Hobgoblins, Tieflings and other intelligent humanoids seem to be seamlessly absorbed into their society of tollerance and coexistence (all are neutral good and act accordingly. No spells involved). Outside of the good guys territory magic kinda works weird and erratic and the dimensional stability seems to have been weakened (presumably the first signs of aggression from that First God weirdo whose followers usually are pacifists and)

I kinda want my players to gather allies in Order to stop that new god and his NG cronies (which they gladly took up as their personal responsibility on account of the Good guys beeing creepy as f!*& and EVERYWHERE)but they act kinda a lot like the usual players and piss off nearly everyone they meet...
They are now level 7 and are working to establish support from some aristocratic undeads from Geb (who will be their first real ally if they pull it off )

I kinda need ideas of Fractions of People or Allies they can aquire i got some nice quest ideas even reaching into the great beyond but some more would be rather awesome. Plus any ideas or critique regarding my setting will be met with serious consideration.

Cheerio.

I have always used the "either detect him or recognise hes an enemy" a bit different. "detect" means they see the attack coming. So a disguised guy in a crowd still can deathattack you if you didnt notice anything odd.
Detect means Perception. Usually opposed by Stealth but i added disguise (as opposed to beeing invisible)and sleight of Hand (looking unarmed opposed to beeing invisible) to that. This supplements the "Betrayer" Feat
So: Disguise as Guard (players fail the preception roll)-> Study 3x ->surprise attack (players fail the senso motive roll against his hostile intend) -> he can death attack despite haviong been "noticed" since the players were deceived by his disguise.
Or: Assasin has the betrayer Feat-line and has hidden blades only (the players dont know about which they usually dont) they see a guy who is unarmed. Happens. -> study 3x-> Diplomacy(i allow bluff instead) check against party to increase their attitude towards him (if he makes his check and they dont call for a sense motive check which they have to succeed too) he can death attack.
Example of what i did:
GM: "An unarmed man is standing in the corner"
PC: "what is he doing?"
GM: "just standing there and looking at you"
Pc: "hmmm all of us or just one of us specifically?" (smart player)
GM: "He seems to have great interest in you (mage), What do you do?"
Pc: " "i dont think hes legit guys. i think hes up to something" rolls for sense motive (fails)"
GM: rolling for bluff (my guy wins)"He doesnt seem to be up to something sinister and walks over to you waving and calling out to you "Hey guys, lost your way?"" he then uses the betrayer feat and stabbs the mage in the neck who makes the safe (but it was a knifemaster who maxed out his sneak dmg so it didnt matter)

In short: I use following wording for the death attack: "He can use death attack If the assasin isnt recognised for what he is or hostility isnt expected"

i house ruled the most sensible thing. I told them to go get some feahter fall the next opportunity. because the moment they see that falling hurts they would do it anyways and i would have houseruled it for naught. Maybe ill devise something.

The double entendre: "Down to earth game" in context to falling damage was hilarious btw. Very much apreciated ^^

My God this is it! Thats what i was looking for! Finally the Elders have spoken and released me from my Geas. I can rest now brave traveler, thank you. take what you want from my treasuries i shant have need of them again where I am going.

Groetus, my liege, have you heard? I am coming home! Now this World can finally end!

One thing keeps me from doing just that. If there is some reason (and i think the idea of noone wanting to roll more often is a reasonable assumption)
I am not in posession of all facts and my descision would be biased. I dislike beeing biased in that matter more than the actual rule.
Also i dont want to be a t*@~ to my players (despite the fact that they made me livid with the argument that they werent regular humans and gravity doesnt apply to them) and kill them outright without taking the miniscule chance to survuive into account. And just throwing a no save-kill at them is the wrong thing to do in any circumstance.

Right now i redesign my dungeon the kill them starvation, thirst, madness and old age to show em i dont give a crap about them supposedly beeing better than regular humans.

not the point. Not even a little. Let it be a mile up if you like.

The point is: Sometime ago someone decided to make it 20d6. It was said thus it was core. Why 20? maximum damage of 120 to minimum damage of 20 -some for circumstance, Expected dmg is 70. 120 is something a lvl 12 warrior has and he will most likely make the dc 15 save with ease.

Do the 20d6 have some meaning? Are they ballanced to something? was it to make the bullrush less powerfull? was it just random? Are there no ancient scriptures that tell the tale of why the gods decided that a lvl 15 Human Warrior basically CANT die from hitting the ground at terminal velocity? Especially since safety measures are so cheap at hand.

i am aware of this rule and use it at the moment. My characters have so ridiculous saves through magic, Chevalier Banner, Blessings, items and what not that the lvl 9 sorceror would have a +10 not to mention the tank who autosucceeds it unless he fumbles it.

And as it is right now there is the ludicrous possibility of only taking 18 dmg from orbital reentry (a statistical impossibility but i studied statistics a bit and know that it cant be relied upon, ever.)so hitting the ground head first for the dmg of a lucky dagger stab of a level 1 rogue. I dont like that.

Why the 20d's?

to illustrate the scale i had in mind here are 2 examples of how i would probably house rule it.to increase the danger to level i see as ballanced.
1: add +1 dmg to every d6 rolled up to 100ft and +2 for every 10ft thereafter until terminal velocity is reached at 200ft.average of 100 if i am not mistaken and you can still avoid some of it. the fluctuation is still big but its an undeniable risk to even attempt to take that fall witout precaution. Massive damage rules apply normally.

2: rolling d6 untill 200ft is reached and d3s until 400ft is reached 110 dmg. Awesome heros still survive it most of the times other should be carefull when f*@~ing with dragons or, say a Roc.

to clarify: i mean the exreme example of sky high, orbital reentry cloud castle dropped ba a dragon not the 200ft that are in the CRB. I am thinking everything beyond 500ft is worst case scenario (which is the time it needs to cast a standart action and save yourself)

I think its all ok that a npc random Joe can theoretically survive the fall from that high If ye lands on a yielding surface -d6 and somewhat lands lucky (acrobatics plus low throw)-d6 so he looks at 18 dmg if he is lucky he can survive a bit more than that and thats good too. But a Pc isnt made of metal or anything its just some dude who is mor awesome than most. I think his survivable rate should be bigger than that of a peasant to be sure but even if he is as lucky as one gets and tough as a nail his survival chance should not increase to over 50% when worst case conditions are in place and maybe 90% if he lands in water with a good dive and took the jump deliberately (if he takes the fall).

Every of my pcs should purchase some featherfall or fly item and take good care of it. Even lvl 18 monsters who can bend reality around them should fear it. Especially since there are so many easy ways to be safe against it.

But the actual question is still: where do the 20d6 come from? why not 30 or 10 or 25 or 15? Doesn anyone know that?

I am aware that Npcs dont survive that sort of fall and that makes perfekt sense. You can break your neck with as much as 5ft falling on a hard surface. Heros are bigger than live but are they really bigger than gravity?

The rogue example is just to illustrate a point i wanted to make.

Since Hp are an abstract value that consist off (physical toughness+ ability to turn dangerous wound into less dangerous one(ill call it combat prowess))

How does combat prowess factor into the impact on a flat granite surface? I wouldnt know how to explain a character why he survived falling from a cloudcastle without feeling like a jackass.

20d6 -Acrobatics -yielding surface isnt all that much at all. A lvl 8 rogue with only halv decent daggers can easily deal more in a single round. A 55m/s impact should be more dangerous than a lvl8 Rogue, right?

I did quite some calculations about terminal Velocity and i dont complain THAT it caps. I am talking perspective of threat perception. worst case scenario is average 70 dmg. thats not that much. 40d6 at 400ft or something around those lines feels right for me.

So why was the damage set to exactly 20d6? was it: "meh just go with 20d6 noone falls deeper anyways without feather fall." or is there some real smart thing i dont see?

Hello everybody.
I am aware that falling damage is a topic of a lot of debate and many MANY gms houserule it severly.

The question that keeps me from doing this too is:
1) why 20d6 at 200ft? it seems too low.

Is there any real reason besides some arbitrary standart?

so timeless body is a gimmick. Ok. But ballance wise. how does it feel to you guys? is it overpowered or underpowered?

well i looked over the Time Thief class and have to say that i think its quike funny that i had the basic same idea about it.

Ill put my project on hold until I playtested the time thief.

point taken with word. Ill pdf it in later uploads should i do them.

Aging does have a significant effect on characters. They get weaker physically and stronger mentally. Thats the reason the Monk ges the timeless body class feature. So he can be a fighter till high age and still get the increases in wisdom and intelligence.

granted fights dont last that long. Ill change that.

And while appreciated i wasnt looking for formulation pointers.

Also i jsut learned of a time based class and might consider my work on a homebrew class redundant once i get a look on the TimeThief class.

I am brainstorming about an idea of a core ability this class i lacking at the moment. For the MAgus its spell combat for the paladin its smite. So far this class has some gimmicks but no true unique ability.
If im going to implement something like this then im going to throw out some other stuff of course.

Heres my ideas so far:
-whenever hitting an enemy it gets slowed a little. I am thinking decerased movement speed, dodge bonus -1, bab -1 per hit and casting is a full round action for casters hit by my class. This debuff increases as the level of the tb increases. The Enemy needs to be designated like with smite. No two enemys can be designated at once. It has limited uses per day.
-Personalized version of Haste available at level 1 and increasing with level. It would start fairly weak but would eventually evolve into something close to timestop. I would take out the spell like abilitys of slow and timestop.

Im tinkering a little on my 2.5 Version and will post a link to version 2.6 soon.

Hello all you good people. Recently i have beem tinkering on a homebrew class for pathfinder. Not to actually play it but for the joy of creating something and working myself through rules, gaining a better understanding of balance in general.
Naturally my first attempt was as broken as it gets.
My seccond attemot was much better but still pretty high powered.
i Made some drastic reductions on it and am now at 2.5 of my Class.

What might my class be you ask? Well here comes the fancy part. Its a Timemanipulation based semicaster who uses his abilites to gains combat bonuses.
Here is what i set out to do: A Class with great initiative, high speed, the ability to power itself up and deliver punishing attacks in melee and eventually limited controll over time.
I based it on the playtest version of the magus since the melee caster setup fits this class well i think. Here a Link to the recent version.
http://www.mediafire.com/?bvgxlujcsix0low

Here is what i would ask from you: What abilities should i tweak at which levels does he need a increase /decrease in power? Where might I put the "forewarned" class feature of a divination Wizzard in there? Any Ideas for Tempora i could implement?

Thanks in advance. I am looking forward to your feedback.