Caleb Foth's page

A one level hit to casting is not enough pain for the benefit being given. Maybe make them lose a level 1, 4 and 7 or 1, 5 and 9? The three levels with the most potent abilities granted, whatever those three may be.

What would you suggest cutting out instead of dropping more caster levels? My thinking is that cutting out the empower/maximized/both radiant channel dice may be enough. I don't want to delay the Heal spell too much (level 12 is fine, level 13 idk) mainly because the healing ability is great for group heals but significantly sub-par for single target. As high level play (12+) tends to soften some with AoE, but has many strong single target options (both melee, ranged and spell).

One thing to remember, that a ton of people forget, is they get detect evil as per the spell at will, except where it specifies differently. This means they have to go through all the verbal and somatic components each time they want to cast it on every object individually. (The paladins detect evil only selects 1 object in their) So from a roleplay perspective a paladin who is constantly detecting evil looks really stupid and can piss off A LOT of NPCs. Walking up to a random NPC and performing the casting of detect evil is a veritable slap in the face. For some reason people tend to think this is an ability that can just be used totally undetected without anybody noticing.

Technically, it's a spell-like ability and spell-like abilities have no verbal component, somatic component, material component or focus unless noted otherwise. Rules lawyery I know. As a DM I always liked using the +5 DC to spellcraft to recognize for each component/focus missing (so instead of DC 16 it would be DC 31). That said, lots of NPCs would take this as a grave insult for sure if they realized what was going on (although some would be of the Mad-Eye Moody group and appreciate it even if it is a bit... hmmmmm... easily defended against).

When I was in college we had a player like this. He'd bring his laptop down to the commons area when gaming (not uncommon when gaming) and use it for everything and anything but tabletop stuff (Baldur's gate, warcraft, starcraft, etc.). He wasn't always the best at personal hygeine to boot.

I'm suggesting you a different alternative. Perhaps, you allow him to come but just to watch/listen/hang out and if he gets disruptive you can ask him to leave. Sometimes RP takes time to grow in people; sometimes it never plants in people. If you want to be the 'good' person and not totally boot him from his 'social gathering;' allowing him to hang but not play may be a reasonable alternative. Plus, at points he may be able to help the party as an extra brain in thing. Is that a possibility?

If not, I'd go with the Dan Savage option and DTMFA.

side note: I had a player at a convetion in a living campaign do similar stuff (always be messing with his phone, late, etc.). I have him XP for the time that he was there (1/2 at best); perhaps that's another passive aggressive alternative.

Initially, I hated SGU. I loved the BSG reboot and SGU looked and felt like it was BSG in the SG universe. That said, I have never really liked the SG universe in general (SG:A is especially terrible like an even worse DS9 without any of the good parts). Once SGU got going and I was bored, I started watching more and I really started liking the characters a whole lot in SGU (despite many of them still being practically ripped from BSG).

Honestly, had they given SGA more time, then SGU wouldn't likely ever had been made. But because it was running concurrently with SGA (which some people liked for some god-forsaken reason) and was so close in time proximity to BSG, I don't think it ever could have done well unless is was somehow better than BSG (which I'm not sure is even possible). But eh, Syfy not being Scifi anymore isn't really news.

A large majority of the posts here I 100% agree with. Major highlights:
1. Figure out your strengths and play to them
2. Figure out what your players want and try to give it to them
3. A majority of the time you will 'lose,' the natural reaction of most people is to get frustrated with this--find ways to deal/mitigate this
4. Know the rules and keep them, fudging on both sides happens--know when to allow a little fudge, know when to allow a lot of fudge, know when to not allow any fudge

A few points of my own:
1. A DM's role is tell the story the players want to participate in (this may mean little story or bunches of story)--character 'rounding' tends to come out when people begin to 'feel' the world and sense their character's place/role/concept/whatever
2. Have a bunch of 'random' encounters set aside--sometimes players take the story in a U-turn and sometimes they don't; having a backup is always nice
3. Teach players that sometimes they don't win but that doesn't mean that not 'winning' isn't good or beneficial--loot doesn't always come from monster/enemy kills, sometimes doing a good deed returns to them later on, sometimes people have friends and connections, sometimes giving it the 'old college try' doesn't work and sometimes things go exactly as planned

I know that a group I was in used to use Rope Trick a bunch. Then a GM sprung some extra-dimensional "random encounters" that forced everyone out. We quickly learned that just because it's a extra-dimensional space doesn't mean it's safe, just that it's safe from most of the normal area encounters.

One of the groups I'm running is short a healer. Since I'm introducing the group to a non-golarion world, it's useful (as a DM) to have a voice in the party able to give them information about areas, local laws, etc. That said, other than that I didn't want to have the character be more than a 'google search' and party bandaid. This campaign will be starting around level 6 and likely taken into high level (15-18 or so). I was remembering Radiant Servant of Pelor and thinking how that could be really cool, then I remembered that Pathfinder completely overhauled the turning/dusting/channeling system in general as well as a general overhaul of the domains (90+% for the better).

The first major issue is how to change the Insta-Dusting from the Sun Domain and Radiant Servant into Pathfinder without making the class too strong of a buffer/healer.

Previous nice specs:
1-Easy (but god specific) Requirements
2-Full martial proficiency
3-3/4 BAB
4-Good Fort/Will saves
5-d6 hit die
6-10/10 casting
7-class levels stack for turning
8-increased healing capabilities at 2/6/10 (empowered, maximized, maximized and empowered)
9-extra domain at 5
10-divine health at 2
11-Extra greater channels at first level

My thoughts on converting and balancing it were:
1-Easy (but god specific) Requirements
2-No added proficiencies
3-1/2 BAB (more relevant due to Divine Power change)
4-Good Fort/Will saves
5-d6 hit die
6-9/10 casting (losing 1 at first level)
7A-class levels stack for channeling
7B-+1d6 [radiant] channel dice at each even level (essentially 1d6 channel dice per level instead of every other level)
8A-at 3rd level [radiant] channel dice are empowered for relevant types (undead if sun domain, healing if healing domain, vs Evil outsider [if w/Channel alignment] if Good domain, etc.)
8B-at 6th level those dice are maximized instead
8C-at 10th level those dice are maximized and empowered
9-No extra domain
10-Divine Heath at 2
11-Extra Channel as a bonus feat at 1

Does this look balanced on paper? Any problems anyone may see? My concern is that Channel dice may end up being WAY to good for 30' burst healing (even without the healing domain), but I was thinking that the hit to casting may be a good balance to it.