Brennon Osiris's page

4 posts. Alias of Brennon Meadows.


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Mr Jacobs,

I was wanting some clarity on the passion ability for the half-succubus in your Demons Revisited, namely:

1) What kind of action is this? I mean this in two ways, what it literally is (a simple hug, kiss, doin the nasty, etc), and what kind of action in combat this is (standard, full round, etc)

2) What does the half-succubus get out of this, other than bestowing the negative lvl? The full succubus gets to implant a suggestion and make a thrall out of the poor dude she's layin it to, but the half-succubus doesn't seem to get anything, really.

Also thanks for yet another fantastic supplement, really great work.


Well, a build I've been thinking about recently (just to throw in my 2cents), is going 2 lvls of synth summoner, then going all rogue for the rest - I'd actually prefer to go ninja, but that's mostly for flavor reasons.

So, why 2 lvls of synth? First the obvious:
1-really cool badass armor looking thing on you all the time
2-you get 2d10+2 bonus HPs from the eidolon, on top of the 1d8+con from the summoner
3-the munchkin-ish ability to dump some stats (now, this is actually a fairly large problem with this build, but I'll discuss that in a moment)
4-+6 to ac from natural armor (much needed for a rogue/ninja)

Now, the real meat of this build is, of course, the evolutions. You'll have 4, the first two should go to the improved natural armor (taking you from 4to6, mentioned above) and skilled:stealth (+8 to stealth). But what's really fun about this is the "shadow blend" evolution in the ARG (pg111)

Quote:
Shadow Blend (Su): In any condition of illumination other than bright light, the eidolon disappears into the shadows, giving it concealment (20% miss chance). If it has the shadow form evolution, it instead gains total concealment (50% miss chance). The eidolon can suspend or resume this ability as a free action.

important to note here is how piazo defines "bright light" (also, ignore the bit about the shadow form evolution, that's a really bad deal for this build)

Quote:
In an area of bright light, all characters can see clearly. Some creatures, such as those with light sensitivity and light blindness, take penalties while in areas of bright light. A creature can’t use Stealth in an area of bright light unless it is invisible or has cover. Areas of bright light include outside in direct sunshine and inside the area of a daylight spell.

that's from the CR, pg 172.

So what this means is, whenever you're not in direct sunlight, or in the presence of something that acts as sunlight (they go on to say a torch or under some trees are not bright light, just regular old light), you have concealment. Meaning you can make a stealth check. Not to mention your nifty new 20% miss chance. So, what I would do at this point is get all rogue-y and sneak up behind the guy I want to take out, end my turn, then (on my next turn) full atk for SA, then make another stealth check with your ridiculously high mod while taking a 5ft step to his side. All this guy knows is that something just stabbed the crap out of his back, then when he turned around it wasn't there. Then just rinse and repeat. He swings wildly at the space where you just were, you full atk for SA, take another stealthy 5ft step again and again till he's dead. No need for a flanking buddy, you're virtually unhitable, and you can do this almost all the time. As long as you're not in direct sunlight, this works.

Now, this isn't a complete build, just an idea for a starter, to beef up the rogue out of the gate. I might combine this with the knife master archetype for more dmg...IDK, I've never looked extensively at the rogue before. All I'm saying is, with this two lvl dip and those evolutions, you beef your rogue up a lot, and have a method for staying almost always out of danger while dealing out all the dmg you want.

Oh yeah! And you have a couple of spells! And some neat ones to. Reduce person to get an even crazier stealth mod...well, I'm not going to list them all, you can check them out. Just take it from me, there are some nifty first lvl spells (and cantrips!) you can pick up, and they're totally just icing on the cake.

Oh yeah, I also forgot to mention the one (really) bad thing about this build, the cap on DEX. You have to use your eidolon's physical scores, and none of the base forms have astounding dex...or con for that matter

The best way I can see is go serpentine base form for the 16dex. Now, there's some debate over whether you can use your original hands to cast/wield weapons, personally my DM said you could, and I'd allow it if it was my game. So, if I was using this I'd talk to my DM and see about allowing me to use my original hands, and using the ability score bonus I get from lvling to apply to my eidolon. Or maybe just allowing you to use your own ability scores in place of the eidolon's. I mean, if the guy wearing the suit is stronger than the suit, why not?

But that's all stuff for you guys to hash out with your DMs or with each other. I was just throwing what I thought was a pretty neat idea out there. Just be warned there are some serious problems.


MrSin wrote:
The armor you get from the eidolon/synth armor can actually stack with mage armor. You can choose to apply the scaling armor bonus to natural armor or your armor bonus and split it however you'd like. You then apply it to natural armor and it still stacks with enhancement bonuses to natural armor such as barkskin, and you cast mage armor to have a nearly all day +4 bonus. The scaling natural armor won't stack with natural armor you have, but likely you won't have much if any as a PC summoner.

Oh, I didn't see that. Didn't bother to read the description for "armor bonus" in the APG. Thank you.

But, to nit-pick, why would barkskin stack with the existing natural armor? I thought same type ac bonuses didn't stack?

...for that matter, why does the scaling armor bonus from the chart and the natural armor you get from your base form stack?


So, I'm building a synth for a game tomorrow, and I was completely unaware of the level of hate on these boards for the class. I just liked the idea of it, and started building one. I only googled my way to the boards for spell advice - which is when I discovered all the dislike. It seems to revolve (partly, anyways) around their ridiculous ACs, being already high at base, then buffed into oblivion by the mage armor and shield spells - but I'm not sure you guys are right on this.

Firstly, mage armor - the consensus seems to be that it stacks with the eidolons armor bonus, but I don't see why. Same type bonuses don't stack, and the eidolon gets an armor bonus (APG59), that matches the bonus from mage armor by lvl 5, then quickly outpaces it. I'm not sure why mage armor should/can stack with this bonus, as it clearly says "armor bonus" on the chart, and mage armor provides an armor bonus as well. I can see casting it before lvl5, to bump your AB from 2 to 4, but they still wouldn't stack, you'd just take the higher of your two bonuses (mage armor's).

Secondly, shield. The synth gets a shield bonus at lvl 4 from the shielded meld ability (UM80). Again, I don't see why this should stack with the spell "shield". Also again, I could see casting shield on yourself to bump it from a 2 to 4, but (again again), you don't add them, just take the higher of the two bonuses (again again again, the bonus from the spell)...also you'd get the ability to laugh manically as magic missiles bounced off of your quasi-real monster-armor. However, the greater version of this ability matches shield, and that comes at lvl12.

Anyway, I think with this clarification the AC of the synth becomes less of a problem, as at lvl 5 my (not completely optimized) synth has a 23. High for that lvl, but not the ungodly, impossible-to-hit-at-this-lvl high of the mid-30s I've been seeing.

So, any input would be nice, if I'm wrong here I'd like to know, although I don't see right now how I am.