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After the successful release of my previous class, Wind Warrior, the very helpful folks over at Fat Goblin Games and I teamed up to release an all new base class - the Time Assassin - with unique and varied mechanics to bring to your next Pathfinder game.

Check it out here!

A time assassin is a master of altering her personal movement through time. With her knowledge and understanding of its flux, she can pull duplicates of herself through time and space to aid her in her endeavors and see into the near future of herself and her opponents. The time assassin is a grand manipulator time and the perception of others; eventually becoming its master, allowing her to ignore the effects others may place on time.

Role: A time assassin is the master of stealth and quick elimination. With the ability to manifest multiple duplicates of herself she can quickly overwhelm her opponents. Additionally, the time assassin has the ability to move objects through time as well as increase or decrease the efficacy of creatures in select areas through the usage of temporal rifts. However, if the time assassin uses her abilities gratuitously she will quickly run herself out of resources and, thusly, her ability to affect time.

Play a Time Assassin and enjoy abilities and powers that allow you to manipulate time itself!

Paradox - The class feature that gives you control of the possible futures in a battle!
Predictive Knowledge - the powerful class feature that gives you a glimpse into the future!
Time Split - pull other versions of yourself into battle, increasing your odds of success!
Archetypes - The mysterious Time Madness and Focuser archetypes allow you to customize your build even more!

Feel free to share your thoughts and ask questions. I'm more than willing to discuss this class with any inquisitive soul.

Lucus Palosaari wrote:

Excellent -- I missed that this was posted!

I acted as the Line Developer on this book with Andrew Campbell, and its a pretty interesting class that he did a lot of playtesting, etc. for.

Its a prime example of that homebrew "thing" being made into a published product.

As a big fan of the Classified lines, I'm curious as to what this class does mechanically. I like the idea of skirmishing, but as a consumer I'd love to hear about some of the unique class features that makes the wind warrior the wind warrior.

Sure thing, the wind-warrior specializes in bending the wind around herself through use of the martial arts to propel her through combat.

The class is Full BAB, two strong saves, Dexterity based martial based around one handed slashing weapons.

The main mechanical component that drives the class is the class feature "Boundless Step (Ex)". Basically, every time the Wind-warrior successfully strikes an opponent as part of a full attack action the Wind-warrior is granted a free 5 ft. step (in addition to the normal free 5 ft. step granted as part of a Full Round Action). This is a specific design choice to include a certain style of mobility currently not present in other PF products.

Additionally, the Wind-warrior is granted several class features that give certain SLAs, such as wind wall.

The Class comes with 3 archetypes: Windwalker, Bladewalker, and Windbender. Each vary the proficiencies from slashing one handed weapons to other styles (Unarmed, TWF, and Two-handed Weapons respectively) each with their own tradeoffs.

It's one thing to say, "I, being rooted in the archetypes of white knights, religious knights, and militant clergymen, can call upon the power of my deity (who I worship) to grant me power" (paladin).

It is another thing to say, "I can bend the wind around myself".

How?

Yes, it's a cool mechanic- but... how? Are they masters of some ancient magic art? Psychics? The defenders of wind elementals who taught them to master their unique power? A latent talent we all have? Science? (etc)
What's the justification there?

(Not trying to pick at you- just trying to get info on the class.)

Thanks for the clarification, to answer your question: it is a martial art style that allows them to bend the wind around themselves. In the movie "Hero" there is a decent visual representation of this in the fight between Flying Snow and Moon during the red tinted telling of the story. The Wind-warrior isn't anywhere near as dramatic (in that sequence Flying Snow bent the wind forcing nearly sending Moon flying repeatedly) but its probably the closest I could come to giving a good visual representation in cinema.

How do you justify the SLAs lore wise? It sounds very martial/mundane.

Also, isn't "hit, 5 foot step" essentially Cleave Through + Great Cleave?

Could you be a bit more specific on justification of SLAs lore wise? I mean, there are examples of martial classes gaining SLA or near enough through "insert thematic reason here." For example, a Paladin gains spell casting and supernatural abilities through being a paragon of his/her belief structure. The Wind-warrior gains SLAs through practiced training of bending the wind around her, allowing her to specifically manipulate the wind.

Also, cleave through + great cleave is a dwarf specific feat line only available at level 11. Additionally, cleave is a standard action.

This class feature is every time you strike an opponent you take a free 5 ft. step when making a full attack action. The action economy is very different, not to mention access to it. There's more to the mechanic than what I'm teasing, but this is the basic premise.

Should it not say "leaving naught but death"?

I'm also bemused by the fact that you have merely re-copied the product text, which in three paragraphs tells us little about the class.

I get that it isn't exactly frontline, and that it seems to be about flanking, movement and maneuverability - beyond that ... nothing.

Can you tell us anything about how it works? Saves? Skills? Proficiencies? Is it full BAB? What are the interesting mechanics? Can you clarify/expand upon the flavor?

Sure thing.

Its a Full BAB, two strong saves (Will and Reflex) Dexterity based martial based around one handed slashing weapons.

The main mechanical component that drives the class is the class feature "Boundless Step (Ex)". Basically, every time the Wind-warrior successfully strikes an opponent as part of a full attack action the Wind-warrior is granted a free 5 ft. step (in addition to the normal free 5 ft. step granted as part of a Full Round Action). This is a specific design choice to include a certain style of mobility currently not present in other PF products.

Additionally, the Wind-warrior is granted several class features that give certain SLAs, such as wind wall.

The Class comes with 3 archetypes: Windwalker, Bladewalker, and Windbender. Each vary the proficiencies from slashing one handed weapons to other styles (Unarmed, TWF, and Two-handed Weapons respectively) each with their own tradeoffs.

I recently had my class, the Wind-warrior, published with Fat Goblin Games. Link here.

While many warriors may hold the line with ease, they do little to stop the never ending dance of the wind-warrior. A wind-warrior is a cascade of ceaseless motion and whirling death; moving effortlessly from opponent to opponent dancing among them like leaves on the wind, leaving not behind but death. With effortless grace they caress their opponents with steel, hewing them in twain, while gliding across fallen foes in a captivating, deadly dance.

A wind-warrior excels at harrying foes, setting up flank opportunities, and moving around the enemies front lines to threaten the more vulnerable support.

So come check it out and write some reviews! I'm open to any and all comments and I am more than happy to discuss my product here on this thread.

So I had a quick question about the wording in proficiency with the Shadow Assassin class (3rd party) but this does crop up elsewhere this is just a pertinent example. So:

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: A shadow assassin is proficient in all simple weapons, all light weapons, as well as bolas, net, repeating crossbow (light only), shuriken, spiked chain, and whip. The shadow assassin is proficient with light armor and small shields, but not heavy shields or tower shields.

So I've bolded the pertinent part for discussion. Does this mean all light weapons (indicating all light martial as well as exotic) or all light martial weapons?

That was my thoughts but I wanted to double check before doing something against rules.

So regarding the Magus' Arcane Pool, the Magus has the ability to enhance his weapon: At 1st level, a magus can expend 1 point from his arcane pool as a swift action to grant any weapon he is holding a +1 enhancement bonus for 1 minute. For every four levels beyond 1st, the weapon gains another +1 enhancement bonus, to a maximum of +5 at 17th level. These bonuses can be added to the weapon, stacking with existing weapon enhancement to a maximum of +5. Multiple uses of this ability do not stack with themselves.

At 5th level, these bonuses can be used to add any of the following weapon properties: dancing, flaming, flaming burst, frost, icy burst, keen, shock, shocking burst, speed, or vorpal.

So, the 'spirit" of the text seems to imply that you can add up to +5 with whatever enhancements already exists (up to a maximum of +10 considering by rules no weapon can exceed that).

However, by the text it says you can only reach a maximum of +5 including the weapon enhancement itself (So if I was wielding a +1 weapon I could only add +4 in enhancements).

So basically if we follow text as written even though you can add vorpal you can never actually add vorpal because a weapon has to have a +1 enhancement on it before all other enhancements and you can only add to a maximum of +5. So which is it?

Also don't forget you can get +3 to a mental stat from age. But with Traits that would add a +2 to bring us up to 49, and if we go cross blooded we could hit 51. Any higher?

So I've been curious for a while now about how to completely optimize a spell's DC. Not talking net total for first lowering an opponents saves, just talking increasing your spell's DC to the highest you can possibly pump it. So, given a casting stat of 42 (so net total of +16 you could get to your spell DC) what is the best you can raise your spell DC to?

I personally found that with a Kitsune Sorcerer using their class feature to add DCs to enchantment spells I could hit a DC 47 with:

Base 10
Spell Level 9
Spell perfection plus
Spell Focus +2
Greater Spell Focus +2
Arcane Bloodine +3
Kitsune +5
Stat +16

DC 47 total on Dominate Monster.

Oh and for fairness sakes lets leave out Mythic and 3rd party.

Quick question: I was wondering what are all the ways to increase the critical multiplier.

I have been theorizing a Shadow Assassin build and looking for ways to maximize the critical multiplier using all and any feats available (including fighter feats).

So I am a bit curious what everyones thoughts are on what the best striker is. Quick explanation on Strikers, for anyone who doesn't know, someone really good at dishing out lots of single target (or in some cases AoE damage) and who is generally squishy or an off tank at best. So some ground rules:

1) at what levels
2) using what build
3) and any known weaknesses

You don't need to go into super amounts of detail unless its a super specific build (i.e. Druid 8/Barbarian 6 for the hungry hungry hippo build, thats a super specific build with very specific feats).

Personally, I believe the "best" striker is the Bladebound Magus. Someone posted a while ago about "Nova" and how Magus don't "Nova," and they made a very apt point which is very similar to why I believe Magus' make the best strikers. Magus don't Nova because Nova implies your burning a lot of resources to spike out someone or a group. No matter how you look at it, a Level 1 spell is not a lot of resources.

Now granted, Magus take a bit to get going (they have to hit level 3) but once they do they turn into a really reliable AC tank (this is assuming you went Dex->Dervish but most people do anyway when they play Magus). They burn little recourses to spike out people, couple that with Spell Recall and (when you can afford it) a Ring of Wizardy I and it gets all kinds of nasty.

Granted, Magus hit their cap at around level 11 and don't have a really large increase past that. They also tend to get screwed when they run into something immune to Electric damage, but thats fairly rare so you don't have to worry about it to much, and if that becomes a consistent problem you can always take a 1 level dip into Admixture Wizard and boom, problem solved permanently.

Also, I can't seem to find the calculations for DPR anywhere (I know it exists but I can't find it) if someone could post that so we could have an accurate DPR that'd be great. Once I have that I'd be more than glad to post the DPR for Magus.

20 Kensai Magus, 18 Admixture Wizard, 12 Gunslinger.

Spellstrike on Disintegrate with a maxed out DC on bullets!

Among other things such as on the fly changing the elemental type of your Shocking Grasp. And you're a Wizard.

Also, 20 Sorcerer, 20 Paladin, 1 Lore Oracle, 9 Dragon Disciple. Charisma to Saves, Charisma in place of Dex to AC, Charisma to Reflex Twice, Smiting, Awesomeness... That is all.

Some good ideas here I like it! Keep it coming.

But to answer repetitive questions which I have already answered:

1) Of course this takes the cooperation of your GM and your GM has the all mighty god hand to keep this from getting out of hand.

2) No, I am not trying to cause imbalance.

This is an exercise effective ways to make money during downtime. There are tricks, we all know them, might as well put them in one place because as previously mentioned threads of "How can I make some extra cash" pops up quite frequently.

In Pathfinder theres only one exploit for making money which, unfortunately due to time constraints, I will be slightly delayed in posting. This isn't 3.5 with the Iron Wall and Fabricate into a million daggers then teleport around the world flooding the market with daggers making yourself 3 million. They fixed that in Pathfinder with some rather illogical ideas, all things considered, but whatever its in the rules. Not complaining because there wasn't an effective way to deter this trick in 3.5 other than to ask the player not to but I would have liked to see the wording, well, better worded for lack of a better phrase.

From a purely min-maxing standpoint I would shift alignment from Lawful Evil to Lawful Neutral. The only reason I bring this up is because you said "min-maxing." There is virtually no upsides to being Evil and a whole lot of downsides, other than RP. But if you want to play a Lawful Evil then go for it!

Other than that I think everything has been mentioned. To be honest monks aren't my strong point with builds.

Gotta agree with blackbloodtroll. If you really want a Gish with 9th level spells you should look into arcane archer. You know, so you can optimize your damage output.

Or, you could replace that 2 level dip in Fighter for a 2 level dip in magus so you can have Spell strike. I'd recommend Kensai archetype considering you won't go deep enough for Spell Recall.

Like I said before, Ultimate Campaign pg 173 covers that by having you use your Craft or Profession skill to show how much money you make in a week. It abstractly covers the price of the items and how good you are at being a salesman, as well as covering how long it takes for one person to sell an expensive item. And you can get bonuses from the buildings and rooms you have. You won't be rolling in the mountains of dosh, but you'll be making decent money.

Yes, and I do agree its the fast and easy version while the method I propose is more accurate and a bit more complicated but tends to involve the entire party and if done right can be a good RPing experience. Perhaps, I wasn't clear. So an example that isn't going to always apply:

You'll need to be a Level 5 Wizard. You can involve your ENTIRE party on this. Say you have all the roles filled out: Tank, Face, and Rogue. So you get investments from all the party on board and in fact you could even get investments from locals (such as nobles, est.) but generally that can get complicated and its best to keep everything with your PCs who generally have your best interest at heart. You make magical items. In the meantime you have your Rogue scout the competition: their wares, prices, and quality. You then get your Face to sell the items while undercutting the competition. Your Tank gets to stand next to the cart, shop, or whatever and watch over his back. Everyone participates, everyone RPs, everyone turns a profit.

Also, if we want to get technical you could sell it to merchant shops. They'll buy the Cloak of Resistance +1 you picked off the bandit for book price but the one you made yourself for half? I think not! How could they possibly know you made it yourself? To my knowledge their is no spell outside of Analyze Dweomer that can tell the origins and creation date of an item, heck even Analyze Dweomer ain't that spectacular.

Most everything can be found on the pfsrd. If you find something on there you like and want more info on you can trace it back to the book it comes from with some google searches and buy the book. That generally what I do.

Is it possible that there are PF players who don't realize that the game's buying/selling rules are governed by an attempt to maintain game blance, and not by real world economics?

I mean seriously... are there?

Its not about balance. I mean seriously, any DM worth his salt can balance that out fairly easily. So your a Wizard who just spent a MAJOR amount of time making all these really nice magical items. Did you take the necessary precautions to protect them? No? Well they all got stolen.

This isn't about realism, this isn't about balance, this is about a system based on logical ideas which, I have to credit Pathfinder, for the most part it DOES that. Now before you go all "Oh magic makes logical sense, pfft" argument on me to an extent it actually does. But making a rule that ONLY applies to PCs for no other reason than to make it apply to PCs is in direct conflict with the logic in the rest of the system is, well, very illogical.

Imagine if I wanted to sell you a magical crunchyroll. You like it, and decide you to make your own. Which you can for half the cost. You make it, and its very tasty. You decide what the hell why not be a baker. You sell it to your party members at less than what you bought it for but still enough to make a profit and they love it. Then you try to sell it to an NPC and suddenly SLAM! You can't RP the price, you can't negotiate with your DM, you can't do jack crap and why? Because the rules state that you can't in direct defiance with everything that would ever make sense and in direct conflict with the goals of the game. I want to RP how much I sell my stuff for, but I can't because there is a rule thats SAYS I can't.

In any case, this is moving into dangerous area of a rules debate so I've said my piece and I won't reply to any further arguments on this. In any case, I've been researching the Blood Price+Masterwork weapons trick and I'll be posting that in a bit, as soon as I find the absolute maximum way to make it work.

Hate to break it to you, but "great rich" schemes in D&D will always require some form of Dm cooperation.

I have to agree. Its the classic "rocks fall, everyone dies." The DM could just pull some bull and say "Rogues stole all your stuff." Generally, you don't have to deal with this. Also, you could sell this as "Roleplaying," which it is.

The problem with these suggestions is that they all amount to "have an adventure to earn money"

So...not down time.

Also they all involve DM cooperation and/or the rest of the players sitting around watching you role-play

Yes, but in order to level its a common rule that you need some "Downtime" to contemplate on your adventures, ergo adventuring is not possible during this time. Might as well make some money.

Lastly, and completely off subject but I feel it needs to be stated, for the UC rulebook on selling items at ONLY half price of book price is complete and utter... Well you get the idea. Let me break it down for you:

So your an independent maker, essentially, so you make your own product and thereby can set your own price. There is no overlord determining what you can and cannot sell this for.

If you were, on the other, an enterprising merchant you may be part of a guild that regulates such commerce.

As long as your undercutting the local economy, by the laws of economics, you should be able to sell your product. This isn't abuse, this is economics. The UC ruling completely strips any logic from the situation. Why? Because you can only sell things at half price BECAUSE your not an NPC. Well screw that I'll be an NPC for the day, because clearly they generally have the generous end of the stick (except for poor Jimmy Jenkins RIP).

Alright, so we've all been there where we have a lot of downtime and nothing to do but make lots of money, but how do we go about that?

I have seen multiple threads over a period of time of "How do I make effective use of my time during down time when I want to make money?" Well I thought it'd be really useful to make one thread, this thread, where everyone can contribute their ideas on how to make money effectively. Everything is allowed but lets try to keep 3rd party rulebooks excluded as that is hit or miss for most DMs.

When highlighting your way of making money during downtime please include a few helpful things:

1) Level at which this becomes effective
2) Amount of downtime required for it to be effective
3) Any investment required to make this effective

For example:

At level 5 as a Wizard you can have Craft Wondrous Items Feat. With an investment of a meer 3,000 GP, and given about a week and a half of downtime, You can create 6 Cloak of Resistances (or 6 Boots of the Cat or you can mix-and-match) and sell them at slightly under book price (90%) returning a full 40% profit (about 400 gp). Best part is, generally this will undercut the local merchants meaning people will want to stop by your store first for items.

This works even better if you can get your face to participate. And by the way, the week and a half is most likely the maximum amount of time it will take you to sell those items.

This will require just a few things to be effective: people who want to buy minor magical items and people who have the means. So set up in a city and sell your junk, not some small town.

I agree with your premise, TarkXT, about 90% of the time.

The only time I don't agree is when your playing with min-maxers (which I do on a regular basis) and only in the instance where you are building a party of strikers and you have a Life Oracle.

Basically, as is well stated in other threads and I don't need to repeat it here, the Life Oracle is a gigantic heal bot. When you have a Sorcerer that blasts things, an Alchemist that smacks things, and a Druid Hippo that eats things and they all bring enough utility and damage to the table that all that is needed is a face and something to keep them going during the fight. In this instance, healing becomes FAR more effective than anything else.

Although, at this point I wouldn't so much call the Life Oracle a "healer" so much as a damage mitigator considering they take damage that others would take and then heal themselves to full effectively becoming a gigantic tank.

I guess this would make tanking super effective.

To Guass

How? Only strength and base damage is multiplied. Your equation would multiply unmultipliable number. The core rulebook states this. Magic and precision damage aren't multiplied.
Also, to me, Inner Sea Guide is certainly splat.

If anything this forum adeptly proves is that the Core rule book is not god otherwise there would not be so much errata and editions. Also, what Gauss uses for calculating DPR is the most accurate method for calculating DPR (there is even a thread on this forum for biggest DPR at certain levels and they use this formula).

I can't find anything on it either but you could come up with something fairly easy. It just depends on a few factors:

1) Size of the mansion
2) Size and quality of the Staff
3) Size and quality of the guards
4) Area in which the mansion is located

Thus far nothing official but you could go off of what people normally earn (for instance a commoner earns 3gp/month).

Also, the PCs would have a hand in this as well. There may be a certain "price" demanded by certain staff members, and depending upon the quality of the staff the cost for maintaining the staff could go up but the cost of maintaining the building itself could go down.

Additionally, the size of the mansion will, obviously, be directly proportional to the size of the staff/guards.

Lastly, if the mansion is built in a very rich district then the staff hired would expect a certain level of pay while if it was in a poor district the staff would also expect differently. Of course, the poorer the district the more likely the PCs are to get robbed.

88. As the party is moving through the city at night they find themselves surrounded by twenty men in black cloaks. As the men draw their weapon one of them says: "Charles, I don't think any of them match I don't see the scar." Then one of them bows and says "Terribly sorry," and they meld into the shadows.

89. As the PCs are moving through the city and their is suddenly right in the middle of the party a loud flash and a bang that temporarily blinds and deafens the party. When their sight (and/or hearing) clears up there is a note on the ground in front of them. On it is written "Sorry" in Common.

Hmmm just remembered this wasn't a 25 point buy it was more or less a bit more buffed to help deal with my players (they did comparable damage if you ever get the chance and want to run a campaign for min-maxers I highly recommend it you can come up with the absolute most ridiculous encounters).

I sort of agree and theres another point I forgot to raise: Captains/Lieutenants/Brigade Leaders (est. you get the point). If you're dealing with a swarm like mentality it gives you the benefit of having their Captains able to engage the PCs thereby giving them more directed combat. Since the Captains can move freely through allied units squares they could charge the PCs giving them more of a challenging combat.

Also, I forgot to mention something fairly important when talking about the way I am handling mass combat. In regards to the hordes magnitude it is not PCs deal X amount of damage and the hordes magnitude is reduced by same X amount, its tends to vary.

For example: a horde has a magnintude of 50 and is a fairly tough horde. Each time the PCs deal 20 damage (in a round) the hordes magnitude is reduced by 1. The PCs deal 100 points of damage in a round and the hordes magnitude is reduced by 5. Now, in case of AOE all AOE effects are counted as double damage per every 15x15 affected (so a fireball would deal x4 essentially). So say a fireball dealt 30 damage in a 30' radius, this means it would deal 120 damage to the Horde total and would, by itself, reduce the magnitude by 6. All damage is reset after every, ergo if the PCs dealt 119 damage that 19 wouldn't really matter.

Oops so I forgot Improved Natural Attack and thats a pretty key part. Heres a full build BUT WARNING!!!! This doesn't come into effect until around level 13 but you can do plenty of things as a brawly druid before this. Also, this is for a Level 14 build that I built to fight my min-maxing PCs and I don't feel like truncating it down from the 25 point buy in that it started at.

Also, this only gets better as you take Greater Vital Strike.

Half-Orc
Init+4
Druid 8/ Barbaian 6
_______________________________________________________________________
Defensive_______________________________________________________________

AC – 42 (+14 armor, +1 Dex, +4 deflection, +1 insight, +5 natural, +7 shield); +2 dodge bonus vs. traps
HP – 210 (238 When Raged)
FORT – 24 (26 When Raged); REF – 13; WILL – 17 (19 When Raged); +4 vs. fey/plant magic, +2 vs. traps
Defensive Abilities: improved uncanny dodge, resist nature’s lure, trap sense +2
______________________________________________________________________
Offensive_______________________________________________________________

Speed 20 ft. (4 squares); run ×3

Melee mwk flail +20/+13/+10 (1d8+8) or

mwk heavy shield +20/+13/+10 (1d4+8)

Ranged by weapon +20/+13/+10

Special Attacks pounce (1/day), rage (22 rounds/day), rage powers (greater guarded life 14, moment of clarity), Wild shape 4/day

Druid Spells Prepared (CL 8th; Concentration +10)
4th-level (3/day) – aspect of the stag, strong jaw (2)
3rd-level (4/day) – blood scent, communal resist energy, haste, ward of the season
2nd-level (5/day) – animal messenger, chameleon stride, eagle eye, lesser restoration, tree shape
1st-level (6/day) – ant haul, commune with birds, detect animals or plants, mount, speak with animals, stone shield
0-level (at will) – create water, detect magic, guidance, light
Domain Plains
______________________________________________________________________
Statistics_______________________________________________________________

STR – (23 + 6) 29; DEX – 16; CON – (20 + 6) 26; INT – 14; WIS – 16; CHA – 14
BAB +12/+7/+2; CMB - +21 CMD – 40

Feats – Power Attack, Craft Wondrous Item, Endurance, Furious Finish, Improved Natural Attack (bite), Improved Vital Strike, Natural Spell, Vital Strike, Wild Speech

Climb +27, Knowledge (arcana) +20, Knowledge (nature) +20, Perception +20, Spellcraft +20, Survival +22, Swim +25, Fly +20; Armor Check Penalty –6

SQ - fast movement, migrating herd, nature bond (plains domain), nature sense, sacred tattoo, shaman’s apprentice, skilled, trackless step, weapon familiarity, wild empathy +6, woodland stride

Combat Gear potion sponges of fly (4); Other Gear+5wild dragonhide plate, +5wild heavy dragonhide shield, amulet of natural armor+5, belt of physical perfection+6, boots of the cat, druid’s vestments, dusty rose prism ioun stone, gloves of swimming and climbing, holly and mistletoe, masterwork heavy flail, polymorphic pouch, ring of protection +5, Ring of Force Fang, Cloak of Resistance +5, spell component pouch, tender (570gp)

Behemoth Hippopotamus Form

Init+4
Languages: Common, Druidic, Orc, Fey, Elven, Undercommon
_______________________________________________________________________
Defensive_______________________________________________________________

AC – 50, touch 16, flat-footed 47 (+14 armor, +3 Dex, +4 deflection, +1 insight, +13 natural, +7 shield, –2 size); +2 dodge bonus vs. traps
HP – 210 (238 When Raged)
FORT – 24 (26 When Raged); REF – 13; WILL – 17 (19 When Raged); +4 vs. fey/plant magic, +2 vs. traps
Defensive Abilities: improved uncanny dodge, resist nature’s lure, trap sense +2
______________________________________________________________________
Offensive_______________________________________________________________

Speed 60 ft. (12 squares)

Melee bite +25 (12d8+19 plus grab) with Improved Vital Strike, or
bite +29 (12d8+26 plus grab) with Improved Vital Strike and rage, or
bite +29 (36d8+26 plus grab) with Improved Vital Strike, rage, and strong jaw or
bite +26 (36d8+32 plus grab) with Improved Vital Strike, rage, power attack, and strong jaw
Ranged by weapon +14
Space 15 ft.; Reach 15 ft.
Special Attacks as above plus trample (2d6+16 or 4d6+16 with strong jaw, DC 17)

Druid Spells as above
______________________________________________________________________
Statistics_______________________________________________________________

STR – 33; DEX – 16; CON – 26; INT – 14; WIS – 16; CHA – 14
BAB +12/+7/+2; CMB - +21 CMD – 44 (48 vs. overrun and trip)

Feats – Power Attack, Craft Wondrous Item, Endurance, Furious Finish, Improved Natural Attack (bite), Improved Vital Strike, Natural Spell, Vital Strike, Wild Speech

Climb +27, Knowledge (arcana) +20, Knowledge (nature) +20, Perception +20, Spellcraft +20, Survival +22, Swim +25, Fly +20; Armor Check Penalty –6

SQ as above, plusfast movement

Combat Gear potion sponges of fly (4); Other Gear amulet of natural armor+5 (doubles as a +1 furiousamulet of mighty fists), dusty rose prism ioun stone, polymorphic pouch, tender (570gp)
Encumbrance light 12,456 lb., medium 24,912 lb., heavy 37,440 lb.; Weight Carried 1 lb. 2 oz. (excluding tender)

Technically Captain Jack Harkness did die. But I agree that would piss her off immensely and sounds right up this naive alien intelligence's book. Think about it, the PCs were unhappy that he killed the village so if the village can never die then the PCs won't be unhappy.

Also, how the hell would Pharasma even fight something like that? Unlimited Wishes? Sounds like a Tier 1 God already.

Druide 8, Barb 5

Improved Vital Strike, Giant Hippo Form+Strong Jaw = 38d8 +STR a round.

Ok so heres two ideas and basically how I have handled it and how a friend of mine has handled it.

First I will start with my friend because the points being made here appear more relevant to this case.

My friend ran a campaign where their were two countries at war with each other and due to the rules of PF it had turned into WW1. Think about it, a Fireball will flatten a squad, a guy with a Wand of Magic Missile is as good as a machine gunner, archers (as previously mentioned) can focus fire at great distances and turn units into mince meat. Basically, heroes turn into special units that don't necessarily take on entire battalions by themselves but assist in special ways: blowing up walls, est.

Now heres how I am going to handle it and how I believe leans more towards your personal ideas. I am personally going to go with hordes (basically massive units of men/women based on a system of Magnitude). Basically the horde (or battalion) will have X amount of people based on magnitude. I haven't decided whether to make this CR based or just number based. For every 10 magnitude a horde possesses it gains 1 additional attack (or maybe every 5). Base hordes are going to be around 50. Theres two reasons for this:
1) It simplifies die rolling and minimizes time spent rolling dice.
2) It minimizes the odds of players getting stomped by a bunch of CR 1s
I'm sure I could come up with more reasons but I'm sure they'll become readily apparent over time. I have to say I do enjoy the idea of your system but it does seem, while probable, a bit complicated to wrap oneself around and will end up slowing down combat. Hopefully this helps.

What level are you going to? That way I know how to best advise.

Also, as for multiclassing Druid its best to go Barbarian because of Rage, HD, increased Mvmt., BAB... a lot of reasons.

Alright thats some scary rules on Shadow magic holy hell!

Alright if you REALLY want shadow magic but you think that your pumped out DC might kill you there MAY be a way to make it far more reliable.

First off are these shadows weak to sunlight as most shadows are?

Second, you may want to consider a 2 level dip in Paladin. It will curb your power a bit but can turn out well. That will give you a +13 on your Will save, and then don't dump WIS. Also, this is not using the Wildblooded variant on Sorcerers.

This is where I go full personal opinion and bias. I don't build INT based sorcerers because I think its dumb. Charisma is your main stat which makes you an excellent face and lets you do some horrifically broken things with dips (like 2 in Pally or 1 in Life Oracle to get CHA to AC in place of DEX).

Now that thats out of the way, with these rules I would go with a 2 level dip in Paladin and max the f*%& out of that Shadow Conjuration. With shadow spells THAT augmented HOLY HELL! That makes them ridiculously powerful.

Although, double check with your DM and make sure that your illusion spells will work with consistency. Most DMs understand that as a PC you don't want to build a character that is going to be effectively useless.

The problem with using Shadow Conjuration is it is only partially real, and if its versus undead and demons, especially at this level, True Seeing and outright immunity to illusions is going to be common place. I would highly reconsider specializing in something that is going to bite you really hard.

Also, choice of element and making your party members immune to your blasts is really not so advantageous as you may be thinking. I know, you can use it to bypass energy resistance but still not that great and you have a high DC.

If you really want blasts, which I don't think you do judging from your build, you could just go Elemental and pick a race that is advantageous to an element (something other than fire). You can actually get DCs of 31 on level 3 spells fairly easily with the right build at this level (that's an approximation due to variation by 2).

If you really want utility I recommend this: drop illusions because meh (especially if your going up against high level undead and demons), pick up Undeath to Death (wonderful pocket spell to have), and spend your spells battlefield controlling. Its not the most glamorous thing but you will always be appreciated.

Also, if you have a bard get them to pick this up to help out with action economy Drums of Haste. All kinds of yes on this item.

Low wealth is fine, but casual handwaving and casual insults is not. I understand he is a friend and you really want to work things out but he needs to understand that his way is not always the best way and that other peoples opinions matter.

Also, peasants own 100 gp/month? Ummm... They still wouldn't survive. If your needing to pay 1312 just to survive winter and they're making 1200 gp a year how do they live?

This guy wants gritty realism, fine. Then use "realism." The problem I am having with this whole "tax" system is that it is not realistic even in the slightest. Try to convince him to take a lot more time, consideration, and research into the matter before implementation. I have absolutely no doubt with sub-optimized party members that this will destroy the game.

You should just pull some stupid cheese economy breaking crap as soon as humanly possible. Set up Ponzie schemes, run a rogues den, set up a protection bracket, horde valuable items so that you can sell them at ridiculous rates. If he really wants to set up the economic hell that does not conform to the system whatsoever nor make any sense at all then you should turn around and break his economic system right over his head.

Also, how does the local economy sustain itself when their is such a huge cost for everything and such low wages? I mean, if your wealthy adventurers by Pathfinder system rules, compared to aristocrats, how does everyone not just starve? I mean seriously? Commoners make one to five gold a week and their supposed to pay the equivalent of what your paying? Excuse my french but bull and s!*% my friend.

If he wants "realism" then he should realize that "realism" means a balanced system that actually makes sense not GM tax which only applies to the PCs but not the locals because "reasons."

I can't really agree with using shadow evocation to mimic lower level spells and add dazing, its not a very good idea.

The only reason I say this is because you seem to be going a utility caster, which is fine, and burning high level slots for an effect that can be easily, and better gained, using lower level spells would just be better.

The reason a lot of people go with dazing fireball or dazing lightning ball is because you can pick up a Ring of Wizardy III (or IV) and double the amount of spells per day.

Also, I would sub out Ray of Exhaustion for Fireball. At this point this DC 23 for Exhaustion won't affect anything worthwhile and you'll get more mileage out of fireball. A lot of people underestimate a well placed Fireball when dealing with mobs. Also, the fact that (I assume) you have by level wealth so picking up a Rod of Maximization, Lesser shouldn't be a problem.

Also, if you REALLY want shadow and you REALLY want illusion you should consider shadow bloodline. You can have permanent darkness on yourself and you'd be surprised how often you can slip between shadows.

I have to agree with the swarm like mentality, but this does raise some interesting points.

For absolute mass combat vs heros of ages (4 level 15s vs 1000 men LETS DO IT!) it would probably be best to pull from external material, I personally recommend Deathwatch. The reason being is in Deathwatch your PCs are continuously thrown against swarms of an indiscriminate number and this might give you some ideas.

I personally have been toying with the idea myself because I am running an open world campaign and the PCs may very well become involved in a civil war that is about to start.

Also, somethings to consider:

1) How often are you going to throw your PCs vs 100+ men?
2) Morale

The second needs a bit more explanation. Ever read Romance of the Three Kingdoms or played Dynasty Warriors? There was this legendary warrior Lu Bu who literally mowed down soldiers that tried to fight him and because of that the average joe soldier wouldn't go anywhere near him and instead would just run in absolute fear. If your PCs are level 15s and they go into battle vs 1000 level 1s how many men have to be completely destroyed before the unit just breaks and runs? I don't know about you, but if I saw my compatriots getting absolutely slaughtered I would hightail it out of there. Hell, a well placed series of fireballs would be enough to cause ranks to break.

Also, historically most armies retreat after sustaining 20% casualties just because they're not used to seeing so many dead bodies. Most battles where units sustained heavy casualties were due either mostly to well placed ambushes or the occasional unwillingness to retreat (i.e. Antietam and Gettysburg).

Thank you very much I will have to look through some things but this helps a great deal.

So I am need of some advice on how to go about creating an engagement (my own term for a series of encounters leading to a BBEG).

If you are in my campaign, and I know only one of you actually peruse these forums, stop now!

Basically the party has decided to hunt a ganglord down from a bounty board. Through a series of events, involving one of the party almost dying in a pit fight to gain information, they gain an ally (a Level 8 Paladin with a grudge against BBEG) and information on where hes staying. The Paladin proposes a raid in three days time. The building is in the Warehouse district.

So, basically I was thinking some kind of engagement outside (where the party can sneak in, talk their way in, or just kill their way in), then on into the interior for one or two encounters (maximum of two because the last will be the BBEG).

I wanted something more from the vanilla: Oh look BBEG kick his ***. Basically, I already set up the Paladin to fight the BBEG (they're both level 8), and for the party to deal with the flunkies (of which their will be many). But I wanted an interesting way to go about this.

Multi-leveled area for archers raining death from above? Traps? Ideas?

Also, build advice on BBEG would be appreciated.

Hmm... I can see your issue but you could just talk to your players.

Something like this: "Hey, I would like to run this campaign not awarding experience but doing more along the lines of leveling you as appropriate. Now this doesn't mean you don't get experience from RPing, in fact I will level you even faster if you RP more."

But perhaps thats just me. I personally have had bad experiences with EXP gain and I think the "reward" of EXP for RPing is a little artificial.

But hey, I grew up on the EXP gain system and I understand the benefits and perhaps maybe I have been on bad side, experiencing it wise (no pun intended), a bit few to many times. Its really up to you in the end and it REALLY depends on the kind of campaign your running.

Half-Orc mostly for Darkvision? Can I introduce you to my friend the Tiefling which has +2 to DEX and CHA which are your (or in my humble opinion should be) primary stats, and who has darkvision?

I have built quite a few ninjas for quite a wide variety of issues and the only person I had trouble hitting in all instances were the big bads and I always went two-weapon fighting.

Ok, I am going to make several assumptions which may or may not be applicable: 20 Point Buy and by Level Loot.

If you HAVE by level loot, which you should, you should have a +6 Belt of Dexterity. If you switched that 19 to your DEX you would have a +7 to hit from that alone. Don't forget, Two-Weapon Fighting is only a -2 from both weapons. Add that to your BAB (including your one level in fighter) +15 on the initial to hit flat footed (I'll get to that in a minute). And why aren't you using enchanted weapons that add bonuses? Granted you take all that strength and you'll have a higher to hit, by 2 (maybe even by 4), and you deal Strength and a Half (woo?), but all your damage comes from sneak attack die and more attacks=more sneak attack. Also, your AC will be god awful even compared to the sorcerer. And the fact that you HAVE to take negatives to your to hit JUST so you can pump up your AC, vis a vis Combat Expertise, to compensate for your low AC. So in essence, your gaining nothing and losing a whole hell of a lot.

Now SoulGambit I have to disagree with that assertion that Improved Invisibility is a lie. Yes, a lot of things will have something that gives them See Invisibility, but most things won't have it on permanently. Also, never forget the Ninjas best friends, frontliners that know what they're doing. All you have to do is flank properly and axe the bastards, or better yet assassinate the squishy wizard. If the wizard spends his next round casting See Invisibility or True Seeing that means you already winning in the Action Economy.

Also you can be creative to regain Invisibility through various means (smokesticks least among them).

Lastly, if you want to do rogueish things, and you really have a thing for two-weapon fighter then just go Trapper Ranger. You'll do more and not gimp yourself as hard.

Open a cleaning service.

Use Prestidigitation to clean, then walk around town, using Prestidigitation to soil things.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAH Yes that exactly.

You know you could also take craft wonderous items feat and get an initial investment from your party. Then have your face sell the items you create. You'll be able to make them for half the price, then sell them for 90% under book price enabling you to undercut any competition. Be sure to make cheap things though expensive items will be much harder to sell.

I agree with DrDeth, I personally find both as a player and as a DM that giving out EXP doesn't add anything to the experience. Sure it creates that immediate satisfaction of gaining something and gives the players the "goal" towards leveling up but is that really what we want players to focus on?

Not only that, but players that become ahead in experience and, thusly, levels creates an unfair balance of power in the party, and makes planning out encounters slightly more problematic (not by much but does add a extra few minutes).

As of right now, yes I am using EXP but its EXP in the way I deem and its really by plot leveling (shhh don't tell anyone) but that is only because of the fact that two of my players were absent and the campaign is just starting but eventually everyone will just be the same level, period.

I guess that makes me slightly hypocritical but whatever I will do away with the EXP very soon in my campaign.

Greater Teleport as an at will!

I am going to have to agree with people here: Pally Wiz is bad, but you already know that so lets move on.

So min-maxing this... K!

So we have two options: Archer or Dervish Dance. You have way to many stats to fill and not enough points to go around so we need to minimize the amount of points you have to spend where. This will let you focus on DEX, CON, INT, and CHA.

Second, you need to KNOW how far your going to take your wizard levels that way you can know the absolute bare minimum of points you can spend in that class. You're not going to be doing any save or dies, and your blasts won't do jack crap and will be a complete and utter waste of time so I would recommend against it. If you're only going up to fourth level spells you only need and INT of 14.

Third, if you ARE deadset on being a Two-Handed Greatsword wielding paladin then I recommend taking a dip into Lore Oracle. Lore Oracle has a (discovery? revelation? I forget) called Sidestep Secret which lets you use your Charisma modifier in place of your Dexterity modifier in regards to your AC and Reflex save. That will keep you down to 4 attributes that you need as opposed to 5.

Lastly, Focus on Transmutation. Self buffing will make this work, mostly.

P.S. Btw forgot to mention if you do go Archer route it will let you prioritize your CON at the bottom of the four required stats. And, if you really want to blast, being an Archer will give you the best options for that. Might even consider Arcane Archer even though you don't want to prestige class.

Ok I already offered my two cents on this but perhaps I wasn't being clear.

So you have a party of 4 that took leadership right? So now they all have level 5 wizards (or something like that), right? Oh look I just made your encounter CR 10, and thats just the average day encounter if we want BBEG CR 12 lets ROLL!

I agree with Driver 325 Yards:

A truly good GM realizes that he has been elected God. What good is an army of cohorts against God?

The point is you can dick, or not dick, with your players however you choose. You could literraly drop a Torrasque on them at level 1. You may not have players after that but you could do it.

Thanks that actually goes very well with what I had been thinking conceptually but hadn't thought up the entire concept for the encounter with the BBEG and you know what this fits absolutely perfectly! Thank you so much!

The problem most GMs have with leadership, in my opinion, is they don't account for the kind of power it brings or simply don't want to deal with it. So ban it, its fine it is a very strong feat.

How I view leadership? I allow it, and whatever you make a scale your adventure to compensate. Granted I generally run games with more than one min-maxer in the party so my "average" encounter is generally CR+2, so there you go.

Quite frankly both as a player and as a GM min-maxing or "breaking the system" doesn't bother me. In fact, when I am a GM I encourage it because it lets me bring out the big guns during the adventures and throw some really interesting things into the mix.

But I understand why Leadership is a very strong feat. Its not broken, just cost effective. There are plenty of things that are broken in Pathfinder but Leadership is not one of them.