Bartol91's page

Bartol91 wrote:

Sangalor wrote:

calagnar wrote:

Lastoth wrote:

Party makeup is summoner, bard, inquisitor (melee) rogue (DW). The cleric is stepping into the campaign a bit late and I am looking for good builds to throw at the player for suggestions.

My best suggestion with the party make up. Any thing other then Cleric. You have bard, and inquisitor already. having a dedicated healer will not help the group. That is only advice I can realy add. The group could really use a full melee character. A arcane caster will help but not much as you have the bard and summoner.

And any thing with alot of skill points will help. This AP hase alot of skill chalanges.

Good suggestion :-) Sounds like a Ranger (possibly guide or skirmisher) with the group bond type might be helpful here. Cavalier with the teamwork feats might be cool, too.

Wow, those are some amazing builds! Mind making one for a necromancer cleric (Undead lord archetype), PFS legal and lvl 12? I can revesre engineer him from lvl 12 to a lvl 1 char and a leveler. Mind pointing out some must have spells?

I am not really familiar with the PFS rules and commanding undead stuff. Usually I am focused on destroying them ;-)

But you should be able to use the above builds with some minor changes:

• Replace positive energy with negative energy.
  
• Selective channeling would be even more important if you do not wish to kill your party members. You yourself heal through negative energy as well, so this is quite powerful.
  
• Versatile channeler might be an interesting feat for you, though you'd need to decide if you want those alignment restrictions. Also I am not sure if that is an allowed feat for PFS.
  
• You have this corpse companion and you lose a domain for it. You probably want to keep several undead minions around to maximize usage of your undead commanding abilities.
  
• Undead master looks like a useful bonus feat. Skeleton champion does not seem worth it to me.
  
• Very few things are

...

Thank you!

calagnar wrote:

Lastoth wrote:

Party makeup is summoner, bard, inquisitor (melee) rogue (DW). The cleric is stepping into the campaign a bit late and I am looking for good builds to throw at the player for suggestions.

My best suggestion with the party make up. Any thing other then Cleric. You have bard, and inquisitor already. having a dedicated healer will not help the group. That is only advice I can realy add. The group could really use a full melee character. A arcane caster will help but not much as you have the bard and summoner.

And any thing with alot of skill points will help. This AP hase alot of skill chalanges.

Good suggestion :-) Sounds like a Ranger (possibly guide or skirmisher) with the group bond type might be helpful here. Cavalier with the teamwork feats might be cool, too.

Wow, those are some amazing builds! Mind making one for a necromancer cleric (Undead lord archetype), PFS legal and lvl 12? I can revesre engineer him from lvl 12 to a lvl 1 char and a leveler. Mind pointing out some must have spells?

If you are looking for builds, then you need to give us a level. As for suggestion, I second the Graveborn Witch. I have one as a reaccuring villian in my campaign that has been around since lvl 1.

As another suggestion, I implimented a little house rule when it comes to Channeling. I got tired of the good cleric in the party basically nuking any undead they ran into. So made the rule that a evil cleric [or anyone that can channel negative energy], can 'counter' a positive channel. Basically, the necromancer holds their action until the good cleric goes to channel, then with a Spellcraft roll, they can determine if it was a channel for healing his party or harming her undead. She then can use one of their channels to heal the undead at the same time. We just roll off and subtract the two rolls from each other. If the total was negative, then the undead are healed the remainer, if positive, then they are harmed.

Lets say the build lvl is 12 (PFS cap) I can reverse engineer from there.

Btw I love your channel houserule!

A friend of mine has played a necromancy - focused mystic theurge, which worked very well (with unhallow and traits to increase caster level after some slow advancement in the beginning, he and his army started to raise in power very quickly about levels 8 - 10) . This approach has one flaw - animate dead is a spell that comes pretty late for a MT. It can be countered somehow by adanving to cleric 5 first, and using "lesser animate dead" in your wizard slots (one strong monster is much better than lots of weak minions anyway). Apart from that - pure cleric is one of the easiest ways to make a good necromancer.

On the other hand, a necromancer which does not place much focus on rising undead, but rather on using debuffing spells works well with a wizard - but i think, that necromancy is not a good enough school to focus heavily in it (a wizard would need many spells from other schools to provide staying power in combat and utility magic)

Thanks for the input!

Would really like a complete build for the cleric. Anyone have any ideas (apart from the Undead Lord archetype)?

Dont know if you would be interested but I highly recommend the 3rd party product by super genius games The death mage It offers alot of interesting and flavorful options for those who want to play a necromancer. It also offers a sort of best of both worlds (thoug highly focused) spell list that combines arcane and divine necromancy spells.

Thank you! I have to be PFS legal, so no 3rd party, but I am thankful for the input!

Bring
Up
My
Post

Due to so many replies and help.

Could be a witch as well.

So, I am making a Necromancer for Pathfinder. I prefer a Cleric (exclusively rp reasons, not mechanics), but an Oracle could serve the purpose as well.
I am interested in tips on how the character should generally be built (feats, spell choice, ability scores, any advice you can think of). Anyone have any good tips? Thank you in advance!

p.s. Complete builds are as welcome as tips. Probably going to be built for PFS (20 point buy, only PFS legal books).

Plus a few obscure things:

- Weapon enhancement bonus (not price) +3 or higher allows magic weapons to bypass Damage Reduction as if the were made of special materials (see Damage Reduction description in the Glossary)
- The enhancement bonus increases hit points and hardness of the item (in case someone tries to sunder the item).

Thank you!

Bartol91 wrote:

Thank you. I know the rules about stacking, just wanted to confirm that weapons get a +n bonus to attack roll and damage. Armor gets a +n bonus to AC as does the shield. Just one more question, wouldn't an armor remove n from its AC penalty where n is +n enhancement?

The +n enhancement bonus does NOT modify shield's or armor's:

Maximum Dexterity Bonus to AC
Skill penalties

However ALL magic armor and shields are masterwork items too (Improves skill check penalty by 1)

Thank you. In the combination with the replies here and on another (Croatian) forum, I managed to clear it up in my head. It is actually stated in the SRD loud and clear, and for some reason I read right through it.

To close, +n bonus is applied for:
a) weapons, as +n to attack rolls and +n to damage rolls
b) shields, as +n to shield AC & reduce ACP by 1
c) armors, as +n to armor AC & reduce ACP by 1

There, thank you all, finally got that cleared up!

Thank you. I know the rules about stacking, just wanted to confirm that weapons get a +n bonus to attack roll and damage. Armor gets a +n bonus to AC as does the shield. Just one more question, wouldn't an armor remove n from its AC penalty where n is +n enhancement?

So, I couldn't find an official ruling for this.

I wanted to have a clear rule that would say:
a) What bonuses does a weapon get when it gets enhanced to +n?
b) What bonuses does a shield get when it gets enhanced to +n?
c) What bonuses does a armor get when it gets enhanced to +n?

Thank you in advance, please either clarify my question with a official ruling or tell me where in the Pathfinder rulebooks I can find the rules that define this.

depending on how you deal with Natural 1s/fumbles, a Ninja or any othe Poison user could indeed wound themselves and poison themselves. It`s just that the don`t do it as part of APPLYING/preparing the poison.

We use the Critical Fumble deck from Paizo. And we confirm fumbles (after rolling a natural 1, you roll again, agains the DC you got the 1, and have to get the DC or higher to not confirm the fumble).

But you do have a point. I did not look at the idea from that perspective.

But how is the usual fumble not a fail? I don't know... A ninja can not poison it self due to knowing what it is doing when it fiddles around poisons. You can't tell me that a ninja can under no circumstances, let's say, trip and scratch it self? It is just assumed that a ninja is a pro with poisons. Would you not say that a gunslinger is a pro with, erm, guns?

Rootin Tootin is a nice solution (I had something along those lines in mind). Yes, I still think that a gunslinger should be unable to misfire, but can still fumble. Other classes using firearms should be able to misfire. Multiple barrels (manyshot, rapid shot, BAB and 2WF additional attacks need an explanation, and this seems the best one) and we are set.

Bartol91 wrote:

I was not the first one who started talking about how stuff works in real life.

True. Sorry I singled you out there.

No problem. And I must say that you do have a point. It is a fantasy setting, we can hardly use real life as reference for stuff like this.

Bartol91 wrote:

And sorry, but Legolas style of shooting with a bow... Not really all that realistic.

Re-al-is-tic? What is that? Bear in mind this is a fantasy game. The rules are essentially there so that you don't have players spontaneously manifesting pet goats that climb on ceilings and talk Viking just for the sake of burning down an inn (which, btw, did actually happen in a game I GMed).

I was not the first one who started talking about how stuff works in real life.

And about the record, I can't remember right now, since it was something I read back in high school. I just remember that it was very damn impressive. Will try to get a reference posted.

Maybe its just me, but I *like* that guns reload slowly. Can you really envision your character shooting and reloading as fast as a trained bow user?

I think people should stop thinking of gunslingers as shooters, and instead as fighters that use guns and cool tricks. It's enough that you shoot occasionally, and also use melee weapons or thrown weapons in between.

That said, my suggestion for gunslingers and reloading is to give new options to the action economy:

Opportunistic Reload
You are able to coordinate your motions in a way that enables you to fight and reload your gun.
Benefit: As a standard action you make make a melee attack against an adjacent foe. As part of this action you may reload a one-handed firearm.

Check with the Guiness Book of Records on the fastest loaded pistol. I think you will be amazed. And sorry, but Legolas style of shooting with a bow... Not really all that realistic. I shoot with a bow (sport), and it's nothing to sneeze at. Thou loading a musket would take considerabely more time and space.

Personally, Id loose the "regain grit" part of things and let the +2 grit here and there plus the option to get additional grit from a feat or two... that should be enough, especially when reloading fast ( a necessity) doesnt cost grit.

Once again I agree with your idea. So it leaves us with non light pistols and misfire. If those two were added, I would say that the concept is complete and total. The final step would be adding deeds, and with deeds you could balance the class if there are any rough edges.

Ok, i just had a thought.

So the Devs want to keep the blackpowder/steam punk thing going, which means not cartridges.

But.... right before the advent of the cartridge (in the 1850s-60s)
soldiers had a dirty little trick to speed up reloading (it just dawned on me)
They had these little pouches which were preloaded with ball and powder, about the size of a tabacco chew pouch, the pouch its self was sufficient to serve as the patch.
So when they reloaded, instead of pour in powder, dropping in a patch and a ball, they bit off a corner of the preloaded pouch and dumped the entire thing down the barrel in one shot and chased it with the ram rod, tap tap.

this dirty little trick would make a nice addition to the deeds, a dirty little deed.

In fact it really good just be lightening reload, except lightening cost 1 grit, it's too rare, and wouldnt keep the gun fighter in the fight long enough, he'd run out of grit.

take a feat/deed tree that moves the reloading for move, to swift to free.
Maybe lightening for 1 grit could be an immediate action?
But there should be a way to get reloads faster without burning per day uses.
Following the preload ammo pouch idea (which should be gunslinger exclusive) would take the reloading into where it needs to be, and keep guns in the hands of everyone else, ho hum and a novelty (which is where it should be). It also allows me to think about the fast reloading (at least in my mind) as plausible.

Maybe it could follow a similar mechanic to bombs (but more plentiful)
Ie "the gunsligner can make X number of premade pouch loads per level per day with this deed and it works like.... (as described above) that way he doesnt necessary run out of ammo, just quick ammo. He can still reload by other means.

something like 10 quick pouches per level.... would seem nice, allowing a swift to reload, and a free in conjunction with lightening (no grit cost) and this free action would be per weapon (using as many charges of pouches as capacity was available) so for double...

Instead of 10 per lvl, make it 10 + x times your Gunslinger lvl. Seems more balanced out. x can be 1, 2 or any number that makes it balanced

And the problem of the off-hand weapon not being light, since pistols are not light. :S

i think reloading should be worked out in the deeds.

True I guess, there has to be a class balance. That has to outweigh flavor (I keep forgeting that). No AoO on the reload too. And Grit regain should work another way I believe. I'm not suggesting anything, mind you, I'm just tossing ideas, if something is good, someone will agree, and there might be some use of it.

Ok here we go, gunslinger gets ranger base saves (easy enough)

kick out brave and tough altogether.
1st level: Deed, firearm, grit
2nd: combat style (im throwing out brave and tough altogether)

combat style could be shootist (two gun fighting), musketeer (for pirates and other melee weapon in one hand pistol in the other types), and marksman (for long rifle types).

3rd: deed, favored terrain (different but similar, like urban, desert, etc)
4th: Companion/sidekick (horse, etc or a mechanic for a humanoid companion) or the lone wolf option (which i think should be "Steely Eyed Stare" a gunslinger challenge, if the challengee fails in a test of wills...bascially intimidation, he gets debuff imposed on him.)

5th: gun training, +2 grit pool

6th: combat style, iron will bonus feat

7th: deed

8th: bonus feat, 2nd favored terrain

9th: Evasion, gun training 2

10th: combat style, +2 grit pool

11th: deed

12th: bonus feat

13th: gun training 3, 3rd favored terrain

14th: bonus feat, combat style

15th: Deed, +2 grit pool

16th: Improved Evasion

17th: gun training 4

18th: 4th favored terrain, improved iron will, combat style

19th: deed

20th: bonus feat, capstone (whether true grit stays or gets replaced irrelevant). +2 grit pool

If you want the gunslinger to get access to specialization etc/ make it happen in the combat style section, just make them options on the list, in in the bonus feats write up section. (ie the gunslinger can choose buns feats from the fighter only list, but not his normal feats he gets from levels)

Bring grit/deeds up on par to replace spells (which shouldnt take much doing, ranger spells are that great and grit/deeds arent THAT lacking)

Leave Skill points same (as ranger). leave all the skills the same for gunslinger except add: Perception, stealth , survival.
and a bonus of 1/4 level to craft alchemy (gun powder only) and Craft Gunsmith.

and bingo1 we got 90 % of tis class, just have to smooth out combat styles, deeds and the...

Agree. On all points. As long as there is a faster reload mechanic in his combat style (and potentially remove misfire, damned ninja's can't poison themselves). And I believe the class is set. Someone should really get a dev to read his post.

"really good shooter guy that shoots guys really good" = gunslinger

But you are correct Herbo, it should be a flavor, not the whole meal.

Oh, and for the love of God, base grit on Cha, not Wis.
He is a lucky bastard, not a wise scholar.
And add something in the lines of:
Experienced shooter: You are and expert at using guns, thus your guns can not misfire. (Still have to confirm a fumble if using the critical fumble deck).
This could even be altered further to include the faster reloads.

Dunno, I wouldn't leave him as is, but would give him uber-fast reloading. He should dual wield the pistols, and be able to reload them both as a move or swift action. Then, more barrels on your guns. This it to reflect on you making more attacks in the same turn (due to rapid shot, manyshot, or BAB). Reloading a gun (no matter how many barrels it has) should be swift, or move if you are loading two off them).
Opinions?

p.s. I am not in any way saying that this is the only problem with the gunslinger, I am just saying that it is the BIGGEST problem, IMHO.

p.p.s. About adding barrels. When you get manyshot, rapid shot or higher BAB, 2WF or the like, you have to take an hour of your time, to adjust the gun, and add another barrel to it. Until you do that, you posses the feat, but have no way of using it.

I see this class as a gunslinger. A person who relies on luck and his great ability to use guns. He shoots precisely, shoots bursts of bullets, and does not have much stuff with him. His guns are his most valuable possession. He would be better of without his legs then without his guns.
If I were to see a gunslinger using a musket, I would beat the life out of him. 2 handed firearms are for snipers. When the gunslinger gets into melee he should use dirty tricks to regain distance. He is not a melee fighter, if you want a swashbuckler or a duelist, that should be a separate class.

I posit that the gunslinger is currently less good with guns than a fighter. Its especially bad if the fighter takes Armature Gunslinger feat (mostly just to quick clear).

I think that two things of fix this are more bonus feats. I'd recommend start at 2 and going every 2. Another possibility is to give Rapid Reload as a bonus feat at level 2 and keep the current bonus feats though I don't think that's as good an option.

Also I believe that the Gun Training feature needs to level up and continue to provide increasing bonuses on the first guns picked similar to a fighters Weapon Training.

As a side note Deadly Aim clearly needs to work better with guns but I hope that you guys are already on top of that.

I believe that he reload time should be shortened for a gunslinger, but not for other classes. That might give him the edge over the fighter.

Isn't the reload time on firearms too long? Has anyone play tested it? It hardly seems fair, that he has lose an attack on his turn to ready his weapon. On the other hand, a fighter bursts out a load of damage, while you can effectively attack on every second turn. I might, of course, be missing something here.

My idea is to add something to the gunslinger class (a class feature) so that the reload time is smaller for the class.