Borthos Brewhammer's page

Magical bullets (caster rounds)

There's another thread on the boards about shellguns not being useful. This could be a cool use for it, caster shells like in Outlaw Star. They'd have to be fairly expensive or rarely in-stock to deter people from loading up scatterguns with them and just firing off spell after spell after spell. Like a spell amp but anyone can use it, it's just dumb expensive.

I'm not sure that healing is the way to go but I was a little disappointed with the few generic options we had. What about instead of healing you could give temp HP?

I happen to be friends with one of the dev's cousins here in Louisville and it doesn't seem like they're doing much with it right now. Their website points back to DTRPG and no posts on their social media account for almost a year. It's a good game in need of an errata for sure. I just stopped a campaign recently that didn't gain much traction, I guess the setting just doesn't jive with a lot of people. Is love for him to keep working on it but it looks like its done for now.

In my current campaign magic is waning and since there is less magical energy to go around, the high magicians (high level sorcs, wizards, clerics, etc) are getting sick and dying. Gods are quiet though their followers can still access some spells. The monstrous races (orcs, goblins, etc) have realized this and are encroaching on civilization since the magic is no longer as threatening.

But something also triggered the rise of psychic magic (DSP Psionics/Occult magics), though the rule remain the same; psions who get too powerful end up sick and eventually dead since their bodies try to pull too much magic from the world that cannot give enough. No one knows why psychics are only emerging now.

Because of this, specialized schools have started up training the eager guards and adventurers how to protect themselves via non-magic means (Basically fighter colleges, using DSP Path of War) and they help push back the onslaught of the monsters.

Dragons are sleeping

This is post Star Stone so Aroden is still around, but it doesn't affect the game since he's off on different sides of the world doing shit. Enough generations have passed that the Azlanti have become myths and legends to most people.

I also use Arcadia as the Azlanti testing ground, techno-magic bunkers and gene splicing galore. Introduced the Mind Flayers as "Project M1ND" last game :D they were not happy, lol.

In game, this justifies my no-9 level casting classes house rule for the adventure and the party will eventually find some way to fix what's happening and release the full power of magic into the world once again

you have the makings of a really cool prestige class though. I've always liked the flavor of Geomancers. give it some +! to existing spellcasting class and condense Throw Rock and Mold Earth and Stone into Geomancy

I'm running into a problem with this item. First of all, aside from giving length and weight, the description for a maul of the titans does not give its size. So, is it a Medium weapon, usable by Medium characters without penalty? Which means Small characters can't use it (as it's a 2-handed Medium weapon.)

Like most weapons, I am assuming this one can be created at different sizes. (My halfling wields a Small longsword, why not a Small maul of the titans?)

So in this adventure, there's an ogre wielding the maul. He's not taking an attack penalty for using a wrongly-sized weapon, so I assume it's Large. Meaning that if the party gets it off of him, no one can use it, as its a 2-handed Large weapon.

In Bestiary 2, the Elysian Titan wields this bad-boy, and again takes no attack penalty for a wrongly-sized weapon, meaning it's Colossal.

But this "weapon" is a wondrous item. Does it simply resize to the wielder's size?

I'd really like to get this sorted out before my party actually acquires this item. :(

===
Taffer

Seems pretty straight to me as a medium weapon but worn wondrous items do change size to fit you, so if you wanted to you could rule it that way for a halfling melee combatant for example

Is third party ok? You could always play a Soulknife with Psion dip from DSP Psionics unleashed

Chess Pwn wrote:

I know one major issue is How does your GM rule what interacting means? If you cast a spell to create a dragon, does everyone who sees it get a chance to disbelieve or do you have to hit it or target it to get a chance?

This is an area where Ultimate Intrigue really pays off. It has an extensive section about what counts as "interaction" and how illusions work.

Have to make sure the GM's on-board with UI's interpretation, of course, but it's nice to actually have Paizo-published rules for it at last.

Welp, I guess I'll have to get UI after all. Wasn't planning on it, but the PDF is cheap enough.

I was running a group through the 3rd level 3.0 module , I think it was called the Forge of Fury, or something like that. There was an encounter with a group of daegar and one of them was an illusionist. He rocked their world and he was a lower level one, IIRC.

Do you remember what he did though? How he affected the encounter?

So you're an epic illusionist. Cool. What are you doing in combat?

If you yourself are asking that question then I'm sorry as I don't actually know what you'd do.

That's literally what I'm asking in the first paragraph. Why would this be useful as a player character and how would I optimize it? Early illusion spells could be used as battlefield control or misdirection, but seemingly only as secondary spells. I'm asking for a better understanding of illusionists

I've always though illusionists to be only really useful as enemies or creating disorienting dungeons or the like. Why would I play an illusionist in a party?

And how would I optimize for one? I'm thinking sorc since I can specialize harder but what bloodlines/feats/etc should I look into?

Something going on with shipments from dreamscarred to your warehouse? I put this order in last month and it still hasn't shipped. I ended up just buying the PDF of path of war separately since it was three weeks and nothing had shipped. What is going on?

I feel like Oreads are the ideal race: +2 str/wis -2 Cha, alt racial for +1 AC, other cool nifty features. And you're half elemental. the only slight problem is the slow movement speed, which you can buy boots to get around (I've recently fell in love with boots of skate from DSP psionics).

Borthos Brewhammer wrote:

Letric wrote:

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/equipment---final/armor/shield-tower

You can't per default, unless there is some class, feat, archetype

In all honestly, I can't even see the benefit on using a tower shield, I just don't get it.

Maybe some builds can be built around this, but probably far way too complicated

Yeah, that's the problem. I'd like to build something like Braum from LoL, and he uses this huge-ass vault door as a shield, bashing people with it and protecting his allies. I'm thinking a cleric or oracle that uses this huge shield to tank dudes and intercept spells with it while having a good amount of battlefield control and buffing allies. While not a requirement to bash, I think it'd be thematic.

I guess I could just take a heavy shield for rules but flavor it like a tower shield, but where's the fun in that? ;)

If you go Heavy/Tower you can't cast spells. You need a free hand to do that, and you can't switch your weapon to your off hand (shield one) to make the somatic components.

From my experience Heavy/Tower shields are for martial classes only that do not need to cast, otherwise you're gimping yourself in combat, unless you won't be casting at all during it.

You don't need both hands to cast nor do you need both hands to hold a shield. As long as I have one free hand I can cast any spell I want.

Edit: I guess I wasn't clear; this guy will not have a weapon, only a shield for bashing and protecting his teammates.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/equipment---final/armor/shield-tower

You can't per default, unless there is some class, feat, archetype

In all honestly, I can't even see the benefit on using a tower shield, I just don't get it.

Maybe some builds can be built around this, but probably far way too complicated

Yeah, that's the problem. I'd like to build something like Braum from LoL, and he uses this huge-ass vault door as a shield, bashing people with it and protecting his allies. I'm thinking a cleric or oracle that uses this huge shield to tank dudes and intercept spells with it while having a good amount of battlefield control and buffing allies. While not a requirement to bash, I think it'd be thematic.

I guess I could just take a heavy shield for rules but flavor it like a tower shield, but where's the fun in that? ;)

Is there any way to make a shield bash with a tower shield?

I'm thinking of making a marksman focusing on the sniper path of the marksman. Maybe taking a couple levels of Soul Bolt to make the crossbow and have the feat that lets my total level count as soulbolt level for purposes of enhancement bonus. Also grabbing the feat that lets me refocus for a move action.

Then grabbing boots of Skate and having at it. Any advice? Feat lines to stay away from?

That's a start. I was hoping for a little more. I've got a sorc who's trying to get to the half dragon template, a little modified though. What about adding charisma to hp as well?

We're currently running through the Mummy's Mask campaign and we're about halfway through book two. Every single combat (or thereabouts) the rogue goes down. But he almost never goes negative, he always gets put down to 0. So I was thinking, what if, because he's unconscious so long all the time, I give him a template because of the enormous amount of undead energy flowing over the city? Because he can't consciously resist, it invades his soul and makes him half-dead, like the city itself. Is there a template for that? Either I'm not looking hard enough or there isn't one. I'd like to stick to official material, not 3pp

Maybe see if you can work with your GM to get a pair of gloves that enchant your thrown rocks, but only work with rocks.

I'm curious as to the argument against bards gaining feats

I'm trying to design a dungeon competition in a game and I feel like mephits would fit perfectly for a group of 5 level 3 PCs. Only up to a couple per room should fit perfectly, the players are a diverse enough group. However, I don't want them to have flying. Ignoring the summon ability (I'm only using that for a couple rooms to surprise the players) would there be any change to a Mephit's CR? I'm thinking it would drop it a point, flying is a big deal at low levels.

Borthos Brewhammer wrote:

Speaking of Flame Arc, isn't it odd that it requires a ranged touch attack and a reflex save? Typically it's either-or, that just seems like a nerf.

They all had saves for half damage before. Fire is the only one the kept it. This and the fact there's a lot of fire resistance makes the fire one REALLY awful.

These abilities still are not worth a point to use, generally. Perhaps the cold one for the staggered condition if you can get it off. On the other hand, that depends on Charisma and there's no particular reason to pump charisma high. Hardly anything in the class uses it, so pumping charisma for a minor ability would be silly.

And if you want a decent attack, you can just use the School and Bloodline access.

School attacks and bloodline attacks typically aren't worth it much either. Now, I might spend a point to get a bloodline arcana for increased damage, make my lightning strike for 10d4+10.

I'd like to see an exploit that lets you use the energy exploits a number of times equal to the attacks granted by BAB, so after 11th level, an Arcanist could use Flame Arc twice, at BAB +6/+1. It makes sense, I think.

Speaking of Flame Arc, isn't it odd that it requires a ranged touch attack and a reflex save? Typically it's either-or, that just seems like a nerf.

Wow, you have a lot of time on your hands.

A Brawler with rage powers and no armor!

Switching out rage powers instead of feats?

I'd like a Brawler archetype that's focused on one single powerful punch. Like an ability that doubles damage dice that stacks with the vital strike chain. Better mobility, decent damage, lots of dice. I like the idea; like he's moving from person to person in, I don't know, a bar room brawl, and knocking out each person with one good strike.

I only wonder if it's going to cause any confusion for newer players because of the Brawler archetype. Probably not, but maybe.

The monk will be fine, he's got all his mystic stuff like the qigong monk

If you're having fun, who cares? That's my question.

I got another one!

Quickfire

Prerequisites: BAB +1, Quick Draw

Effect: During the surprise round, if you are able to act and if you draw your sling you may take a free ranged attack with a sling as a swift action.

What do you think?

You guys do know that Ammo Drop and Juggle Load don't require being a halfling right? (I always thought they did) Any serious sling fighter could reload a sling as a free action by second level. I'm just saying. It is still true that many shot is not available. However, instead of just going on and on about the same argument that is getting us nowhere, let's design some feats or sling stones or even our own slinger archetype for use.

I even got one to start us off!

Shattering bullet
Price (incredibly rough ballpark, basically throwing out a number): 50gp per 10
This sling stone is specially crafted to explode into smaller shards once it hits a predetermined velocity. Using an exploding bullet causes 1d4 points of bleed damage to any creature it hits.

I don't think you need double slice, do you? It says "normal penalties for two weapon fighting" but I'm pretty sure that only applies to attack penalties. I could be wrong though.

Also, how are you getting Precise Shot before PBS?

Even dumping cha (after magic items), I am seeing +38 bluff with core only.

20 ranks
3 class
1 cha (7 base +6 item)
1 trait
6 skill focus
4 persuasive
3 circlet of persuasion

Dipping past core, hitting near +50 probably wouldn't be too hard if you had not dumped cha.

4 morale (greater heroism)
2 competence (exchange circles for mulberry pentacle ioun stone)
3 cha (base 12 instead of 7 with +6 item)

+47 right there.

With a +6 HB of Charisma you'd be losing out on the headband of wisdom, though, which is more valuable than charisma to a monk. Also, skill focus isn't all that great for a monk either, so you're basically wasting a feat on it for something that could be useful to you. And why would you go higher on base charisma out of core? You'd have to dump something else to get that

Also, totally thought headbands took up the head slot. Discovered they take a headband slot. I need to stop DMing for a while...

Not a bad idea but I've never like grapplers. Sure he could be part of a party, but I don't want him to win without giving the PCs a glimmer of hope.

So I'm starting a game soon and knowing my players, they'll do something stupid and burn down a town or something. So I'm making a backup bounty hunter, focused on disarming then tripping them and knocking them out. He likes to take bounties alive, it's usually more money. I'm starting them off at 4th level, that's our norm usually, so I'll make the bounty hunter 6th. Thinking of fighter for the feats, and a sling to pick off casters. I'm going to give him the Halfling Stun-Gun (+1 Merciful Shock Sling) and either a +1 weapon and MWK armor or MWK weapon and +1 armor. Any other ideas I should entertain?

I really want to make him a hand-to-hand kinda guy but as far as I know there aren't any hand weapons (brass knuckle stuff) with trip or disarm and you take a -4 on disarming without a weapon (I might not use that, make that a general houserule). What weapons scream "Bounty Hunter" to you guys?

You could cast barkskin on the Treant. Or some other AC/DR spell to help out

A metal construction would allow more strength in the arms, thus a more powerful draw. So it makes sense. I had the same idea but I only went one die step up, 2d6 and 2d8 for light and heavy xbows, respectively. 3d6 might help open the build up for some more combat options with the vital strike chain and synergize well with a 3-level Archer fighter archetype dip for a few extra feats and trickshot. The Crossbowman sucks though. But I'm digging this archetype, I love crossbows and they don't get a whole lot of love. Playtest it and let us know how it goes

I thought about making one a while ago and I figured white wolf would probably be my best bet. It would be easier to figure out powers and for the specialized bending (blood, metal, void, lightning), you'd need to have a certain amount of points in your bending ability and then something else, then be able to specialize. We thought about multiple specializations; healing/blood, metal/lava, lightning/lava, void/we never came up with a second one for airbenders.

Also, Avatar-1 why don't you endorse the show?

Yeah if you go negative energy and an unarmed route, it seems like you definitely need Channel Smite and Selective Channel. Extra channel would help too. Maybe look into what the alternate channels for your domains are?

I'd try and make some spare scrolls for things too.

It means they're dotting the thread and watching the ensuing arguments. Flames, etc.

This is excellent post:

Bounded Accuracy

So instead of just raising the DC for higher level characters, and all the extra work that comes with that, just give a slower more reasonable progression for everyone. What a concept!!! Keep things simpler for the GM and make the game scale and relate better to real life.

It seems what you want is a different game. So why not go play that game? It seems like Pathfinder will never be truly what you want without lots of house rules and at that point, it's a different game. I'm not trying to be a dick. But it seems that what you want is a slower progression and less power overall (or at least slower improvement) over this game. And that's not a bad thing! Not at all. But deep down, it isn't really Pathfinder.

MMCJawa wrote:

But shouldn't a character once they reach a certain level succeed? Why should they struggle throughout the entire game? Whats the point of leveling if you will always suck?

Where's the point in playing if success is already pre-determined? It stops being a game and starts being story hour.

So give them bigger challenges. Even high level characters can be given skill challenges. Or hey, maybe fix the dc to whatever you want it to be? You are the DM after all.

Alexander Augunas wrote:

Can you be more clear with what's going on here? It sounds like you have both Crane Style and Crane Wing, its next tier feat. Crane Wing is a very good feat, but it does come with some downsides. First, you're investing both of your Monk bonus feats into this style, meaning that your damage outlook is pretty poor. Second, it only really helps YOU, and as a 3/4 BAB class taking a –2 penalty on anything hurts. So either you're probably going to miss fighting defensively, or you're not going to be attacking at all. Without doing much else, your monk isn't very threatening and if you aren't doing much to threaten your opponents, there is absolutely no reason they should bother trying to attack you after one, maybe two rounds.

When built to be defensive, the monk is actually very strong, possessing good saves and via Crane Style, a decent armor class. Your GM needs to be prepared for the fact that he's dealing with a character who is designed to be good at not dying, and when you're investing most of your resources into doing that its hardly over powered. Just remind him that its a –4 penalty to flurry while fighting defensively and he might calm down a little bit.

Yes, I have both the Crane Style and Crane Wing feat. I am a Human Monk 2 Master of Many Styles. I used my bonus feat from being human to get Dodge, I used my feat from being level 1 to get Crane Style, and my bonus monk feat to get Crane Wing. At level 2, I used my bonus monk feat to get Crane Riposte. My strength is a 18 so I have a +4 strength bonus with my +1 BAB giving me a +5 on melee attacks. When I'm fighting defensively I have a 18 AC 1+ from Dodge, +3 from Dex, +1, from Wis and +3 for fighting defensively with Crane Style. When our party fought the Drake, I did the most damage to it. That plus the fact that I completely dodged it's breath attack due to Evasion and deflected the one tail swipe that would have hit me. So that's the low down on how we are fighting. I'm also not quite sure how balanced...

You're only attacking at +4 if you're fighting defensively. Or did you roll at +5? That extra +1 can make a difference at low levels.

For a CR 11, that breath weapon seems awfully....useless. And it's AC seems low. The average AC given for a CR 11 monster is 25

SmiloDan wrote:

I would like to see a warlock-like psion, that gets a psionic-flavored spell-like ability that is useable at will (kind of like a witch's hex), a signature ability at 1st level scales with level (like eldritch blast, but with more options, like a telekinetic ranged combat maneuver ability, a pyrokinetist's immolation ability, a mind blast, a nomad's teleporting hop, a way to self-buff, etc. etc.), and then psychic knacks at every even level that can be used to augment powers or apply quasi-metamagic effects to psychic magic power, etc. There would be a pool of ki pools that can be spent to do the really cool stuff.

I had thought that the Warlock class would make a great base for an Adept class (As in Mass Effect). Change the Eldritch Blast to Warp, change the Invocations that altered Eldritch Blast to stuff such as Push and Pull (using Combat Maneuvers), and other Invocations for other Mass Effect Power. Sorry for the Tangent.

My opinion is I prefer that Psychic Magic have differences between Vancian (Wizard and Cleric specifically) and Dreamscarred/3.5 SRD System. I would prefer something closer to Sorcerer/Warlock, using most of the magic rules as presented in the Core Rulebook, with SR and Spell Schools and Subschools and all that jazz, but with a twist that differentiates it from the spell casters of the current times.

You ought to write up that class and put in the homebrew section, I would love to play it.

Borthos Brewhammer wrote:

The druid most likely wouldn't help the town out unless they gave back to the forest, replanting trees and such. If they were on friendly enough terms, he would show them where another water source nearby was so they could build a new well.

LOL!!! Pretty much every Druid player I have run across loves gold as much as trees. They can use the gold to buy themselves a whole forest.

So now the druid is a PC? Well that changes things. You never said it was a player character. An NPC druid (at least in my games) would do just that. Players don't give a crap and only want the next level or new shiny thing. Totally different outcome.

The druid most likely wouldn't help the town out unless they gave back to the forest, replanting trees and such. If they were on friendly enough terms, he would show them where another water source nearby was so they could build a new well.

I have an idea. Call me crazy. When WotC made Magic: The Gathering all those years ago, there was a card called Psionic Blast. It dealt 4 damage to a target and 2 damage to you. In most media, even powerful psychics can only do so much before they pass out from exhaustion right? What about a system that lets you cast whatever "spells" you know as much as you want but it each spell deals non-lethal damage to you? So your body only has so much endurance before you can't take any more. I know this opens it up to abuse through healing but we can work through that somehow. Maybe this damage can only be healed through resting or something. It's psychic damage, not physical so it can't be healed with CLW. I don't know. Just a thought.

Dat barbarian. Sweet Jesus.

The point is not to build the best fighter ever, but to build an effective character you'd love to play. I don't believe that monks are better than fighters, but that they are more fun to play. Sure, you have to troll through the various archetypes, races and traits to find a great combo, but then that's half the fun!

When comparing/debating monks and fighters, why not agree to a standard benchmark build? How about level 12 PFS legal with 108,000gp worth of treasure?

My favorite Monk builds are:
1. Oread Zen Archer with Quinggong tweaks.
2. The Halfling trip monkey: Underfoot adept/Martial Artist.
3. Empty handed monk of the sacred mountain with traits to get +3 to hit with improvised weapon.

Here is my Oread Zen Archer build at level 12:

Stats:
Strength 18
Dexterity 14
Constitution 10
Wisdom 21
Intelligence 8
Charisma 5

Kit Abilities:
Flurry of Blows with Bow only, Perfect Strike, Weapon Focus with Long Bow, Use monk level in place of BAB for CMB, Use Wisdom (not dex) for bow to hit,Point Blank Mastery, Ki Pool, Slow Fall, 1 ki to cast barkskin, 1 ki to convert arrow damage to unarmed value, Weapon Specialization with Composite Long Bow, If 1 ki, can deny death, AOO with bow, 3 ki to ignore total concealment and total cover, even firing around corners, spend 2 ki to cast dimension door

Feat Choices:
Toughness, Precise Shot, Point Blank Shot, Deadly Aim, Deep sight, Improved Precise Shot, Mobility, Improved Critical, Pinpoint targeting, Clustered Shots

Equipment choices with 108,000 gp budget: 
+4 Adaptive Composite Long Bow (33.1kgp)
Headband of Wisdom +6 (36kgp)
Belt of Strength +2, dexterity +2 and constitution +2 (16kgp)
Amulet of natural armor +3 (18kgp)

Statistics:

HP = 99 AC = 29 Flurry ABs: +21/+21/+16/+16/+11 d8+17 each Move@60’
15 perfect strikes a day 15 ki points Barkskin is AC5, lasts two hours
30 feet range is +1/+1 on attacks

Can you make a better archer kit? Spec it out to level 12, 108,000 gp and post for comparison. I would...

Don't derail the thread with ranged, we already know ranged fighting is good on both monks and fighters. This is about martial combat.

My players are the same way, they build suboptimal characters because they suck at character building. It has killed them many a time.