Betwixt's page

I thought this as well the first time I read it, that your familiar only received a single ability but I find it interesting that the text for the reduction species "one less FAMILIAR ability", which to me highlights the intent is to remove the bonus familiar ability a witch's familiar would normally receive.

I think it's also not entirely clear, does a familiar gained from this dedication return when you next prepare spells? Or do you need to spend a week of downtime as per a normal familiar to revive it. If it's the latter, that makes the witch dedication spellcasting exceptionally fragile.

5d6 damage would take a while to take a golem down.

Betwixt wrote:

As the game evolves, grouping "martials" and "casters" becomes a bit less appropriate. Among the casters there is a pretty big difference between a sorcerer and a psychic; one can be shut down by any martial character making a skillcheck.

Yes, damn that Tatooed Sorcerer giving up Eschew Components and falling prey to Sleight of Hand. Or did you mean psychic casters and Intimidate? There's a rod or feat for that, just like there is for Silence/deafness and being tied up.

But if you have to use a rod or a feat to make up for your weaknesses, you're just as bad as a filthy fighter who has to rely on a magic item for things.

As the game evolves, grouping "martials" and "casters" becomes a bit less appropriate. Among the casters there is a pretty big difference between a sorcerer and a psychic; one can be shut down by any martial character making a skillcheck.

Likewise, it's fairly inappropriate to group a barbarian, with a fighter. Hell, it's almost inappropriate to group a melee great sword wielding fighter, with a properly built archer.

The people who are claiming magic invalidates mundane as early as 5th level also are a bit overzealous. Sure, you can cast fly at 5th level, but you're using one of your extremely precious high level slots to do it. The true breakdown begins to happen at around 9th/10th level from my experience and it's partially supported by the way casters lower level spells scale with level; it simply adds to their exponential growth in power.

Martials don't require a place in your campaign, by that token, neither do spellcasters of the full scale 9th variety or any other. Martials are required in the SYSTEM, to uphold the status quo and to give people the option to be, that guy who is good at hitting stuff.

The spell Emotive Block adds an emotion component to all spellcasting/spell-like abilities, but it also happens to be a non-harmless spell with the emotion descriptor; does emotive block trigger its own clause and block spellcasting with an emotional component?

If this is the case the spell seems much better than Cognitive Block, and even better than Mental Block since it doesn't allow any save after the first.

I was more wondering what your experiences with Lawful Evil characters were in parties that weren't completely evil. For example, my wizard would not be loyal to the group, but they are a means to a very desirable end, and keeping them alive and not against him is a very important step to greatness. He feels above torture and senseless murder, and leaves that to any underlings he has at the moment. He isn't chaotic, and doesn't seek global chaos, for chaos cannot be ruled. There's more, but again, I'd prefer the discussion be about different opinions on lawful evil in groups, and stories about the topic, rather than the alignment at its core. Thanks for all the replies so far!

Keep in mind that if he's not loyal to his party, make sure that the friends you are playing with are happy that they could be thrown the wolves if a better offer comes along. Evil characters, at least evil PC's, can have friends, they can have relationships; the recent story arc in the Order of the Stick with Tarquin does an interesting job of portraying LE characters who can function with others.

What you want to discuss to me doesn't really seem like a direct consequence of LE, it seems more like a consequence of a character who is a loner; if this is the case I'd be talking to my friends who I will be playing with and my DM.

Any character of any alignment can be a successful member of an adventuring party, as long as the character is above all, a team player. On the flip side, characters of any alignment are going to have problems if they have diametrically opposed beliefs; a NG druid who believes nature should remain unspoiled is unlikely to get along well with a LG cleric of Abadar who believes that civilization and cities provide safety to the weak and vulnerable.

Paladins simply highlight this to an extreme, and often a single paladin being present is assumed to flag everyone to be "paladin friendly", would a paladin sit idly by while you ate a baby for ultimate arcane power? Well, no. But would a paladin journey with you into a forgotten crypt to find a shady magical cult? Probably.

Most problems in parties come from players being disruptive, not from the letters E or G being written in an alignment box.

ps. feel free to search the 10, 000 other alignment threads that pop up every second day.

The most important thing isn't to know exactly what you're going to fight every day, though it does help. The most important thing is to give yourself a few spells of each level you can use in combat, and leave some slots open to solve problems as they come up.

You also need to if possible use spells which do the most for the least number of slots (don't make an elaborate plan that will involve dumping 3 of your highest spells into an average encounter) and make sure you cover all 3 types of saves if possible in your combat spell selection.

Like other posters have also said, scrolls, especially low level scrolls are your friends for utility spells and spells that don't allow saves. There is a lot you can do with a scroll of silent image if you put your mind to it.

I think there comes a point when you have to accept that an awesome and diverse fighter who can deal with unique and novel situations, can't be the same fighter who is the totally mundane guy with no access to supernatural power.

The Tome of Battle in 3.5 was, in my opinion, an amazing book which gave 'martial' characters access to a lot of unique and interesting options. But they weren't fighters.

You could give a fighter all good saves, you could give them improved iron will, and the like as bonus feats. You can also give him access to 4/6 skill points per level. But if you really want them to be able to compete with magic, you have to either make them significantly less mundane and thus, lose some of the 'flavour' of a fighter or you have to stomp magic into the dust. You could limit all spellcasters to being 6th level casters, but they're still going to be better than a fighter at solving problems.

As it stands though, a fighter may as well be an NPC class, when you compare it with every other full BAB class on the market.

I like the general idea of making specialists more specialized, but I think the execution leaves a lot to be desired. (I have no idea why you're getting such horribly negative responses, though.)

You would run into issues with some schools being more powerful than others. Divination, in particular, would probably start to feel pretty useless. (As is, it can be difficult to figure out what Divination spell you want to put in your school slot each day. The requirement that one of your two freebie spells each level must be from your specialty school is similarly painful; there's not a lot to choose from, and a lot of it overlaps heavily.)

Here's a few off the cuff ideas in a similar vein that might give the same sort of feel without being crippling to some schools:

• Pull some number of spells of your specialty school from other spell lists and add them to your own. As an example, a Diviner might want to pull Mind Thrust from the Psychic's list.
  
• Spells outside of your specialty school require two spell slots (like opposed schools do in the core rules). Spells from your opposed school additionally take a +1 level adjustment, like metamagic (so it wouldn't affect the DC or anything, but it would require a higher level spell slot). This could actually make a really good incentive to be a Universalist Wizard... You would be the only kind of Wizard that can cast any spell school using a single slot of the default level.
  
• Go through the spell list for each school, and determine which spells you feel would be reasonably "universal" that even non-specialists would learn it. This would probably include things like Mage Armor, that every Wizard would want to be able to cast, but you'd want to avoid the really powerful things like Greater Teleportation. Have these "universal" spells available to all Wizards, even if they don't match their specialist school. Specialists gain full access to their school's spell list.
  
• Mess with

...

Thanks for the great ideas Raider, I in particular like the one about creating a smaller "universal" list that would have spells that would be useful for all wizards, along with I would add some more school powers to each school and wizards would likely gain spells from other classes that fall within their specialty.

I'm Hiding In Your Closet wrote:

I actually like this idea - split "Wizard" into countless different subsets thereof, each specializing in their own form of magic, and with their own extra quirky class features salient to it. It would be a way I'd consider reasonable to appease those who claim Wizards are too powerful: Give them great power, but only in a comparatively limited school of magic. It also does more to feed the "ever more material" beast that the game runs on.

Thassilonian Specialist already accomplishes that goal without the extreme measures the OP advocates.

It actually doesn't accomplish that goal, at all. Thassilonian specialist gives in some cases MORE power to wizards, for quite a small cost. Greed wizards gain a lot and lose very little really; specialists were the best class in the game in 3.5 so restoring banned schools to those days is a small sacrifice.

Like I said, I was pretty sure certain schools really wouldn't work as written. I stand by the fact that transmutation and conjuration most definitely would, those schools of magic are ridiculously diverse.

I understand how wizards function as a class, I have played a lot of wizards, but I also agree with the negative sentiment overall. Possibly it might be better to simply scrap wizards and work on some form of 6th level caster, who with the weaker offensive schools would have martial abilities to fall back on. That way you also wouldn't have to dilute the concept of divination by giving it too many offensive spells.

Something I have always disliked about wizards, in spite of the fact I love wizards, is the fact that specialist wizards really don't feel like they are all that devoted to any school of magic.

So with this in mind, I have always wondered how wizards would fair if:
A) They had to specialise in a school of magic.
B) They could ONLY cast spells from their specialty school.

My gut feeling is that for some schools of magic the class would essentially still function "out of the box", conjuration and transmutation I feel would both function fine if they could take nothing from any other school. But others I feel may struggle, for instance abjuration and divination I feel would find themselves kind of wondering what to do.

With this in mind, do people feel a similar way? Would a way to balance this be to revamp school powers and potentially give more active ones to the struggling schools? I feel like it would be difficult to manage simply because I'd want to flat out give LESS powers to certain schools, but that would ruin the symmetry of progression.

My DM usual runs 20 point buy, however we have our stats limited to a maximum of 17 and minimum of 8 AFTER racial modifiers.

We really like this restriction as higher point buy in general is intended to help more MAD classes feel less crippled and it also means that players who may want to play an elven sorcerer can do so without feeling like their race has had a massive impact on their ability scores, though it does still give some benefit.

I'm not sure if you actually qualify for the feat Arcane Strike, since you can't cast arcane spells. Plus I feel like mesmerists already have their swift actions moderately spoken for by shifting their stare around anyway.

The feat Ready for Battle, which gives allies a +2 moral bonus to initiative seems fairly powerful in my opinion, depending on how liberal you are in activating your tricks.

It's called click-bait.

But the Ley-Lines archetype does seem really, really awesome.

Regarding frost bomb, while constructs are not immune to staggered they are immune to any effect that requires a fortitude save unless it affects objects; so they are immune to this discovery.

For your next feat I would definitely take precise shot, that way at least of you don't need to worry about applying the penalty you keep forgetting and you won't feel bad about it afterwards.

The conjuration spell list from what I can tell actually looks fairly average at best, 1st level, 3rd level and 4th level are particularly bad. Though I guess the granted summoning ability is pretty useful over the course of your career and doesn't really fall behind until later levels.

Transmutation as has already been mentioned many times seems really solid. It's an easy way to create another gish class.

Necromancy I think is also a pretty solid, though maybe not enough to commit to the Necroccultist archetype. Evocation as well I think has the potential to make a fairly adequate blaster, though I haven't played around with the numbers all that much.

That's actually a good point, I didn't read it like that until you mentioned it. It quite possibly does.

Though does that mean that before a fight an occultist would be advised to spend a few minutes hacking down their own servants to create a mini army? Which is the main reason I assumed it was not the case, that kind of thing seems a bit ridiculous in practice.

Necromantic Servant

As bold in the above, the maximum number of servants you can have in existence is equal to 1/2 your Occultist level, which at level 1, is 0. Does this mean that essentially while you can acquire this power at level 1, it essentially does nothing until you hit level 2?

I was going with the old North American trope.

Hey OP, do vampires glitter in your game, or burst into horrible painful fiery death? :D

Hopefully they explode in a painful inferno.

Umm... Samsarans have clear blood, so maybe that could have a psychological preconception that it'd taste different because it looks different, therefore subconsciously convincing that it does taste different? I think there's also a feat or something that gives it healing properties.

I actually forgot Samsarans had clear blood; probably one of the more different races taste wise, perhaps flavoured with the essence of 100 past lives...

I had never considered goblins could be particularly tasty, though as many have said they might be like a particularly spicy curry.

I also never considered the diet of the creature in question, I guess if a vampire wanted to keep the most deliciously pure creature possible a virgin humanoid fed only pineapples or something similar might be a culinary delight. Or maybe they were fed a variety of things each day as some form a seasoning, to keep the flavour always that subtle bit different...

I'm looking for help coming up with the most delicious blooded character I can. Basically, what race/feat/traits would make a humanoid 's blood as tasty as possible for a vampire?

I was thinking that an elf or a half-elf would be probably quite tasty, or maybe a human with some traits/feats with fey ancestry. But I'm curious to hear what others think would make mortal blood as delectable as possible!?

Maybe I'm just not looking closely enough at the class but for the amount of utility the fire lacks, it really doesn't have all THAT much offense as it is claimed to.

Sure, blue fire is a touch attack, while all other composite blasts are not. But until 16th level it still has to contend with SR, it will still have to contend with the most common type of energy resistance and assuming you're not running up against something with crazy DR your actual hits really don't do all that much more damage than any other composite blast...

In the meantime, you lose out on a great deal of the utility that say water brings (I feel water will be by far the most commonly chosen element) for some super awesome gains at level 16+? When a wizard is about 2 steps away from stopping time, gating in devils and jumping on the wish train?

A part of me honestly expected fire to use d8's for its damage dice, and was surprised when it didn't. I feel that giving it a "physical" damage side is a poor solution and very unflavourful though. I also think giving earth acid damage would be equally distasteful.

I really feel like fire needs a few more talents to drive home the FIRESTORM! aspect of the element (which maybe the expanded book will do) and possibly a way to produce fire so hot it partially penetrates energy resistance.

Alternatively, give Fire the ability to exhaust/fatigue/drain people due to heatstroke and the like, maybe sicken due to burns/pain?

Like a lot of other people have said as well, the class is in desperate need of a little more to do outside of combat, at least from my PoV. It has a lot of fun tricks in combat but in between it does look quite lacking. If the fighter has taught us anything it's that it's all well and good to throw damage at faces, but maybe some skills, a few more thematic utility abilities or some such may go a ways to filling out this void.

To steal a fun concept from, as everyone has compared it to, Avatar: The Last Airbender, giving a tremorsensing geokineticist a sense motive bonus would be fun and explainable. Likewise, giving aerokinesis the ability to manipulate sounds, perhaps enhancing stealth? A milder silence effect?

Oh and of course, I really hope that hydrokinesis will have some way of "bloodbending". :)

Overall, I gosh darn LOVE! this class, it more so than any other really fills a niche that I think needed to be filled. I just think it feels very barebones at the moment. But from reading the forums, I see a lot of the classes do, possibly the playtest showing through.

Hopefully I can convince my GM to let me change my witch in Kingmaker to a kineticist, and I'll be able to get some actual playtesting done. Looking forward to perfecting this wonderful little gem with you all!

The arcanist casts less spells per day than a wizard, will often be a whole spell level behind be a level behind in spellcasting so casts even FEWER spells per day AND only gets to make up for these shortcomings through access to Quick Study and Dimensional Slide really. Not to mention being "unprepared" as a wizard is slowly becoming more and more difficult with every release; see Flexible Wizardry. I'd say the wizard is still the king of arcane magic; the 3 arcane full casters actually seem relatively close, with arcanist falling somewhere between wizard and sorcerer, with human sorcerers possibly edging it out.

Counterspelling as an immediate action is rather interesting, and something that really should appear more considering how lackluster counterspelling is compared to simply shooting the wizard in the face. Keep in mind you still have to succeed in a caster level check AND have a spell of a level higher (equal at level 11), which considering a solo spellcaster is likely to be a few levels higher than the party, I really don't see this being too much of an issue.

Otherwise I pretty much agree with all your assessments. The skald is deeply uninspiring, divine protection is in fact ridiculous for oracles and makes them possibly the most SAD class to ever exist but I do also think the hunter will prove quite a bit better than most people think with a bit of tinkering, it's not exactly the most obvious class.

AP #80: Empty Graves has what I would consider a fairly "sexy" pose; along with his full (well muscled) chest exposed for our viewing pleasure.

I think the cover in question gives a greater sense of being regal/disdainful than "come and get me"; though I guess the most sexualised aspect of the image would be the way he outfit actually falls against her body.

Opinions will be opinions; I like sexy heroes and villains - as long as it doesn't detract from their character and they aren't TOO prolific (both of any one gender/sex and also in general)

Considering that currently Valerio is about as stealthy as a 5 year old after a bottle of red cordial, he might be around to hold your hand Khel. Haha.

This incarnation of his is actually a LOT more buff than he was originally. He's actually probably going to go into Mystic Theurge, so his final incarnation will have significantly more int.

If we really do want to try and avoid combat as much as possible though, he could revert to his significantly more knowledgeable incarnation depending.

Probably some kind of divine spellcaster, it's always quite a safe assumption with me. Actually, maybe even a shaman could be a fun and novel change!

I'll definitely have a character done by the end of today, since today is my "procrastinate but pretend I'm doing my pharmacokinetics assignment for 12 hours day." :)

I am receptive to your bugging! I just am not sure exactly which or what way to go with a character yet! My love of arcane magic is already well represented though, that I have taken note of. Haha!

I'll put a character together tomorrow or the next day, a good distraction from pharmaceutical chemistry. :)

Hi everyone btw!

Thank you both! I knew you couldn't counter spell them, I just wasn't sure of the action to reactivate them.

Can you dispel the effects of 'constant' spell-like abilities?

If so what type of action would it be to resume the effects? Free or standard? Or would they stay suppressed similar to a magic item?

The Abjuration school!

Counterspelling people's spells, denying people their advantages from spells and magic items! My favourite part of the Abjuration school is the reactive methods of making other people's awesome just not work.

What ethnicity are the natives of Nidal? I know they predate the Age of Darkness but wasn't sure what ethnic group they fell under, since they don't seem to have their own.

To sum up my post above with an actual reply to the thread's topic.

I choose to play wizards every time because they are better than Sorcerers in almost every way. From spell level access, to spells known, to the use of Metamagic, to flexible spell selection and beyond. The sole advantage of a Sorcerer is spontaneous casting, which is as much of a help as it is a hurt.

For that very reason, in my own campaigns I make several houserules to bring the sorcerer and wizard to par with one another, including putting them on the same spell level access track.

Delayed spellcasting significantly hurts most chances of me opting to play a sorcerer over a wizard and likewise, an oracle over a cleric. It's an unnecessary hindrance. The rest is manageable or at least a trade off.

Scavion wrote:

Betwixt wrote:

Scavion wrote:

Betwixt wrote:

Spellcasting Available

It's basically just this re-iterated.

Buying a Spellbook is easier than finding a spellcaster.

I was just saying there are 'core' rules for the level of spellcasting you can find in each settlement.

The Gamemastery guide is in the Core rules line.

But is not required for play.

Only the CRB is required.

And the rules for what level of spells spellcasters you can hire have access to is detailed on page 163 of the core rulebook...

Betwixt wrote:

Spellcasting Available

It's basically just this re-iterated.

Buying a Spellbook is easier than finding a spellcaster.

I was just saying there are 'core' rules for the level of spellcasting you can find in each settlement.

Spellcasting Available

It's basically just this re-iterated.

Yeah, that's a great guideline you just posted.

Comes straight from the Core Guideline Book?

Does any GM who excessively limits a wizard's ability to buy new spells also limit a fighter's ability to buy new weapons? I mean, letting them go beyond what is on their chart could get out of hand... Better play a monk so you don't have to worry.

Collecting spells, is to me, the defining trait of the wizard. It's what makes a wizard fun and unique.

Most of the others have covered the maaaany benefits of a wizard very well.

As a matter of opinion though; wizards are by far and away the "best" arcane casting class, closely followed by sorcerers, then closely (possibly) followed by arcanists. Being able to leave spell slots open to prepare that, "What if." spell is a huge advantage for an arcane caster, who is essentially meant to play the role of a toolbox.

Betwixt wrote:

Are there any deities other than say Nethys or Abraxas you would suggest for a character who was essentially an anti-spellcaster, focused on undoing magic?

Abraxas seemed the most thematic choice, but being a CE Demon Lord being a member of his faithful is slightly preclusive. While focusing on anti-magic seems counter intuitive to Nethys' faith. Same with Nethys. A person who hates spellcasting and wants to undo magic wouldn't want to worship a god of magic.

On the topic of worshipping demon lords, you mentioned not many would suit PC's. Which demon lords would you view as the most CN PC friendly? If any?

Abraxas is actually all about magic, and he isn't a very good choice for an anti-spellcaster at all.

Groetus might work, since he's a god of empty places and the void. Gorum would be a good choice too since he's all about martial supremacy.

Honestly? I'd say Nocticula is the only demon lord who's CN PC friendly, and even then that's a rare case.

I probably should have been specific in that by "anti-spellcaster" I was also referring to a character who is a spellcaster himself, who believes only he is worthy of/can be trusted to wield arcane magic so is very focused around counterspelling/dispelling. Looking back it probably seemed extremely weird to mention the two magic gods.

Groetus is a really cool choice I did not think of, thanks! I only mentioned Abraxas because of his association with "The Final Incantation" and greater boon being "The Penultimate Incantation" and so he seemed more content with unmaking magic than Nethys.

Does, the final incantation, literally unmake all magic? As in, magic is gone from the world. Or is it simply an incantation which can disperse/dispel any spell or magical effect? I always assumed the former.

Are there any deities other than say Nethys or Abraxas you would suggest for a character who was essentially an anti-spellcaster, focused on undoing magic?

Abraxas seemed the most thematic choice, but being a CE Demon Lord being a member of his faithful is slightly preclusive. While focusing on anti-magic seems counter intuitive to Nethys' faith.

On the topic of worshipping demon lords, you mentioned not many would suit PC's. Which demon lords would you view as the most CN PC friendly? If any?

Hi everyone,

I have an abjurer who will be playing through Wrath of the Righteous and am looking for advice on how to best build/price a particularly mythic staff for him.

He will be taking the Legendary Item path ability 3 times to make it a major artifact, but it is also his arcane bond and so will be hopefully enchanted quite heavily.

I was thinking of eventually building up towards something like this, but am utterly stumped with how to accurately price it, and would rather have a bit of a more sound idea before I put it to my GM:

Staff of the Abjurant Lord

+10 competence bonus on spellcraft checks (10000) (Increased by 50% to 15000?)
functions as ring of counterspells (4000gp) (Increased by 50% to 6000?)
3/day as a free action when countering a spell may reflect it on the caster, as spell turning. (Price???)
+4 bonus on caster level checks (Price???) or possibly a bonus to caster level for abjuration spells alone?

Greater Dispel Magic: 400 x 6 x 11 = 26400/2 = 13200
Resist Energy: 300 x 2 x 11 = 6600
Shield: 200 x 1 x 11 = 2200

Any advice on pricing or even simply interesting ideas for novel, not necessarily powerful, abjuration themed effects would be very much appreciated!

Is there any reason wizards can't arcane bond to a rod? It seems like a logical choice which has been excluded.

2) We've released a LOT of info on Krune via numerous PFS scenarios. Belimarius is indeed still pretty obscure for now. We'll reveal more about her and the others as the stories we tell make sense to do so.

Oh! I did not know this as I have not read many PFS scenarios, thanks for the direction! :)

Hi James! A few small questions.

1. I've read that the Runelords of Envy were often the weakest of the runelords, was there ever a Runelord of Envy who could have come close to rivaling Sorshen or Xhanderghul? And was this weakness possibly because they spent too much time trying to undo their enemies achievements rather than bettering themselves?

2. I feel that Krune and Belimarius have the least information available about them, do you feel the same way, or do you feel that outside of Karzoug most of the runelords remain relatively mysterious?

3. Why is Belimarius your least favourite runelord? She, along with the magic of envy are my favourites closely followed by Xhanderghul.

4. Conjuration and ESPECIALLY transmutation are particularly huge schools of magic, while enchantment and abjuration are extremely small. Is any thought given to the size of each school when releasing new spells, or are spells simply thought up and placed into the appropriate school after the fact?

5. If I was to make custom abjuration spells to expand upon the school, could you provide any pointers as to what bounds I should work within, or ideas for more proactive spells? Rather than just a bunch more 1/round per level defensive buffs?

I wasn't making a point yet, I was seeking out information to understand your position.

See, when I'm playing a wizard or a sorcerer and I use magic to solve encounters my average number of spells cast per issue is...one.

Just one...

...If you burn through spells faster of course you're going to see Arcanist as weaker, but from my end of things Arcanist is insane. Added bonus: since they're Int-reliant no one gets to complain that using my resources intelligently is out of character.

From your end of things, the Arcanist seems extremely weak. If I only had to cast a single spell to solve any problem, I'd FAR prefer to be playing a Wizard where I could have, for example in the level 8 comparison earlier, 4 different problems accounted for at my highest spell level. While in contrast the Arcanist can "solve" the same problem, 3 times. Keeping in mind the Wizard can choose to leave 1 or 2 of these utility "problem solvers" available for when the problem arises, while maintaining 2 combat "problem solvers" at the ready. While the Arcanist lacks this luxury with its single, earth shattering spell prepared.

I really like the new playtest version of the Arcanist, I found when trying to build the older version, on paper my character felt bland. The customizable talent options are a really fun addition.

I feel that paizo were too afraid of the Arcanist spellcasting mechanic and chose to skimp on its depth of class features from this. It feels very bland and blood focus really needs to be more clearly defined as others have said.

To the people afraid of its spellcasting:

1. A sorcerer's spells known aren't really a problem. You can select plenty of spells as a sorcerer to make a functional character in every situation, and in general you're going to be BETTER at your selected spells as you can base your feats and bloodline choice around them. Blood Arcana are very potent, and sorcerer bloodlines I think are more powerful than people give them credit for.

The Arcanist has desperately lacking class features, 9 fewer spells on any given day, for the benefit of being able to hyper specialize? I guess?

2. It's really not appropriate to compare a wizard to an arcanist in terms of versatility. Something important to remember is a wizard's versatility scales with its casting attribute. You get more bonus spells, your get drastically increased options. Need to get through that door? The wizard can take 5 minutes to use ONE out of his 5+ options to cast knock, while an Arcanist is stuck with that same knock from his fewer options all day. Spont. casting does not favor being a swiss army knife, at least in the way the wizards functions as one.

That all being said though, the mechanic IS novel and might be fun in play. It also seems like it's very welcoming for players who might find static preparation or static choices of spells known intimidating! Which is a useful niche to fill.

Even considering the title of that link, it was far more heinous than I ever anticipated. Reading it at first I felt forced to assume it was some kind of sick joke...

Half of that is because I feel like it's because the view is that a guy is demeaning himself by appearing as a woman, while the opposite is not true as a girl. Cue feminist rant here.

I feel almost exactly the same way. While I don't cross-dress, most of the homophobic slurs I receive imply in some way that I'm lessening myself by not clutching to traditionally masculine traits/roles. Even something so minor as me painting my nails has led to people jumping on me for 'unacceptable' behaviour.

Ah OK. I think my main mistake was in misremembering just HOW mad Hialin was in Second Darkness, upon reading it again he is a LOT of corrupt than I gave him credit for.

I was also wondering, is it possible for a drow to transform back into an elf by being extraordinarily good/pure? If so I guess this would be significantly more rare though since I doubt there are as many good/neutral drow as there are evil/neutral elves...

Did it strike anyone else as odd that Ardathanatus was an elf and not a drow? He certainly suits worshipping a nascent demon lord and all, and certain other elves seem to have transformed into drow for less...

What exactly does it take for an elf to fall so far they are warped into a drow?

I think we also have to factor in that a more experienced party might make more sound tactical decisions than we did, and the penalties are just as much of a boon as a bane when you manage to finally deal that damage to the enemy.

Personally, even while doing 1d6-3 damage, I enjoyed the concept that while bleeding out/extremely battle fatigued things weren't quite as easy for a character to pull off.

Betwixt wrote:

TriOmegaZero wrote:

I know in Trailblazer, the highest spell level you can add to your list is the class level, so yes, one level of wizard would only allow you to add 1st level wizard spells to your list.

Am I misunderstanding or would this mean that in spite of a wizard 5/cleric 5 having access to 5th level spell slots, they'd only be able to prepare 3rd level spells of either class?

You're misunderstanding. Spell level 5, class level 5 = good to go.

However, a cleric 4/wizard 5 would have a 5th level spell slot that could only be filled with a wizard spell, not a cleric spell (4 < 5).

However, this rule plays havoc with the intent of the Prestige Paladin; it also royally screws over characters like Seraviel early on (Diviner 1/Fighter (eldritch knight) 4). It will therefore have to be revised.

I think that was one too many levels for my brain to process, but that makes SO much more sense now. Quite a streamlined way to create a MT actually, all the variety without all the spells/day bloat.