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That's great. Especially as a Sorcerer/Evangelist will have a might Cha score and Deific Obedience Iomedae gives +4 to Diplomacy. So you're one of the most charming talkers imaginable but a total idiot with it.
Well, it looks silly, and you might be playing it for laughs, but it's pretty mechanically sound underneath. Yes, you are a level 7 Witch, so you are fine anyway, it's a feat-light 9th level caster. Skill focus - craft painting - this opens up Inscribe Magical Tattoo, v good buffs. Deific Obedience - Shelyn to get that +4 bonus to craft skills - and you'll also get a daily summon of a Lilend Azata. Spirit Talker - Almost completely so that he can learn Crafters Fortune - Spirit Talker isn't restricted to that though, it's Wandering Hex for a Witch. Always useful. Inner Beauty - Largely for the bonus to Craft - meh, it's just a trait. So you'll be a Witch with always useful hexes, lots of slotless buffs and a long-lasting daily healbot. I've seen worse...
Not mechanically the worst, but one of the most pointless and a waste of ink, page space and a feature which should be implicit in the class rather than having to buy it with a feat. Consider the scenarios it might have some use in. - A PC Barbarian is wading through an army of mooks he is one-shotting. TotK means he can murder several more as they politely stand in line to get sliced, but this isn't much of a fight anyway. TotK should be a v minor class feature of the Barbarian, allowing trivial encounters to be treated trivially. Consider it like a point of Gunslinger's Grit if you score a kill. - An NPC enemy Barbarian is somehow at the end of his rage rounds, yet is slaying a PC every round. Uh oh. There are bigger problems than that rubbish feat - the party has messed up and looking at a tpk. I cannot think of an overall build it would be useful in, neither for PC nor enemy nor even RP. If a feat has no value for any of these circumstances and especially if it could be considered a class feature, it is useless and just wasteful rules bloat. Very different to that Pharoah cult suicide bomber feat. That has RP and enemy use, and stylish with it. TotK is not really usable by anyone because when you are in a position to use it, you would never need it.
A well made modern Pathfinder party could make it pretty easy, as a cheeky smirk to Mr Gygax. Assuming you know you are going there... -Archaologist Bard for traps and knowledge. -Master Summoner to send mooks down the trap filled corridors. -Paladin for the rare melee and less rare status buffs. -Cleric (Sarenrae?) to kill all the undead and buff and heal from the silly inescapable traps. No matter how good the party is, it's still best not to put your hand in the demon sculpture's mouth.
Swapping the Cha penalty for Wis makes perfect sense. Goblins are good singers or at least enthusiastic singers and there are goblin Bards in the very first encounter of the very first PF adventure path, Rise of the Runelords. Goblins also feel like the should be good sorcerers and Oracles, not Clerics. Goblins are at the very least interesting, hence no Cha penalty. They are suicidally reckless though and should take a Wis hit.
Elsa is a Winter Witch, both the archetype and the prestige class. Winter Witches can make ice palaces (possibly while singing a catchy song):
They also get stuff like immunity to cold, blizzard sight, wall of ice etc. With Improved Familiar you can get an Ice mephit (if you want to build a snowman)
It's a purposeful mystery and Paizo will never answer it. It's the central puzzle in the same way as we'll never get a canon answer for Earthfall or the mechanics of the Test of the Starstone. Golarion's disappearance is the McGuffin. And I like that nobody knows. Some of the Elves of Castroval must have been alive, but they don't know. The gods won't answer or don't know. It's a mystery and a total lacuna even among the most powerful beings ever to be on Golarion. The immortal heroes of Wrath of the Righteous for instance don't know - either because they jumped planet and forgot or stayed on Golarion and *might be unaware the planet has even gone missing*.
We know there are Humans, Ratfolk, Lashunta and Androids (and Flumphs) Oddly, all have or can have Int bonuses. Still, at a guess... Ratfolk - engineer type. Space technologist/alchemist Android - Technowizard Male Lashunta - Magus type. Chainsword. Flumph - They are all Lawful Good so it must be space Paladin, the Flumph directing his power armour exoskeleton.
GREETINGS BATTLE-BROTHERS I AM CAPTAIN GLUTEUS MAXIMUS, RIGHTEOUS PALADIN OF OUR GOD-EMPEROR AND HIS BELOVED SISTER IOMEDAE OF THE PURGING FIRE. CHECK OUT MY MAD SWAG. I HAVE A NICE PLASMA FALCHION AND A SWEET SUIT OF CELESTIAL POWER ARMOUR. I LOOK TERRIFIC I HAVE MANY HOBBIES, CITIZEN. THEY INCLUDE SUCH DIVERSE INTERESTS AS SMITING XENO SCUM, SMITING DEMONS AND SMITING BORG WHICH PROBABLY COUNT AS UNDEAD FOR THE EMPEROR!
Third Mind has great ideas. - The Wanderer. Native American style Hunter with a Coyote (wolf) or Auroch (Buffalo) and a bow and handaxe. There are some Shoanti warpaints and magical tribal tattoos which might help. - Old Bill Hearst. Grizzled Prospector. Dwarf Alchemist, always looking for that gold, flavour his bombs as mineshaft detonators. Spits tobacco. - Big Albert, the prizefighter. An itinerant boxer (Brawler) who comes to town with the circus. Handlebar moustache, possibly Irish or German. - Calamity Jane (Doris Day version, not Deadwood). whip using Bard, singing to Inspire. Hot dang!
I made a pirate Oracle. He had the Lame curse and the Peg Leg trait. I gave him a talking parrot familiar through Arcane Eldritch Heritage as he obviously had the Cha and the Wind Mystery so he could help navigate a ship. He looks the part, and does not really lose power as Wind Mystery lets him fly so movement speed matters less, +1 Fort is all good and Oracles can happily use the full chain of Arcane Eldritch Heritage. Plus Oracle, which is an excellent class anyway. He was Long John Silver, but with 9th level spells.
True, kids will go for something which they think sounds tough and dark but is just a bit lame like NightSlayer or DarkShadow. However, then you end up with a name that needs a level of detachment to appreciate, plus it sounds silly so maybe not. All superhero names are pretty silly anyway so maybe it doesn't matter. Doktor Pandemonium
Higher level monsters assume PCs have items to deal with them. DR is a major thing. They'll throw spells with a +20 Will DC, the PCs need resistance bonuses. These are built into the game, open a random page of a bestiary and look at the assumptions of what damages and resistances the PCs need. Lowering the power levels is an answer and as GM if you are willing to adjust every encounter and CR, go ahead. ABP and scaling items mean you can use monsters as written for the most part (except of course for having a bunch of useless but lucrative magic junk in their treasure hoards)
Another vote for ABP here. The ubiquity of having to have the same stuff just to survive is dull. Merlin the Wizard 10 and Conan the Barbarian 10 both have to wear identical Cloaks of Resistance +2. An individual party can give a reason for these uniform accessories, but isn't it more interesting to have these bonuses baked in, opening the slot for something interesting or nothing at all? Conan can now wear something like an Eagle Cape which is much more exciting in game, it allows him to transform into an eagle once per day. Without ABP he can't wear it, not if he wants to live long enough to see the benefits, it's beyond even being a roleplaying choice. Getting rid of so many of the standard items (and/or having scalable items, also in Unchained) also means we can mostly eliminate one of the oddest elements of a fantasy city - ye olde magic item shoppe. I know everyone hand waves it as an abstract because the logistics of such a thing are very odd but this allows the town item rules to be used more sensibly. ABP, scaling and fewer but more interesting items keep the PC on the same power but gives the more options. Friend Conan here doesn't have to cart literal tons of magical vendor trash back to Absolom every few days. He cherishes things like his Eagle Cape, his Helm of the Mammoth Lord and his (scaling) greataxe, the same heirloom weapon his father gave him as he came of age etc. etc.
Most of book 3 of Mummy's Mask, "Shifting Sands" is a big library adventure with research rules. The rules are reprinted in Ultimate Intrigue but this version comes with a whole adventure to frame them. Being an adventure, the library has some monsters. But it also features Golarion's least helpful and most annoyingly obstructionist librarian!
What's the point in getting permission for the 2nd and 3rd libraries? None of the Nethys cops can go there, even boss cop Deka herself wouldn't last five minutes inside the Dark Depository. Not that they are much fun for Nethys worshippers anyway (hardly any scrolls, let alone spellbooks). The PCs really do have an incentive to rub her face in it after they have the information they need. They are a) trying to do research in a library and willing to pay, yet her dreadful cult doesn't want people to get knowledge from libraries b) they are PCs thus almost all of them will have spellcasting powers which makes them good guys in the eyes of Nethys and the priests compared to mundane people (from Inner Sea Gods: " He teaches that the use of magic for its own sake is the highest calling of mortals... Likewise, those who perceive new avenues of magic and pursue them gain his favor, regardless of the nature or purpose of the magic.") and c) she's awful and pointlessly obstructionist. They are within their rights to brag about the Blue Feather's failure when they win. Or even better, ally with the temple of Thoth to begin with, ignore her stupid rules and side with the temple who actually likes knowledge and magic. I'm not sure about the encounter with the Bee Ladies. As written there seems to be an incentive to slaughter a colony of isolationist and Neutral people. It seems a bit unfair and not great for Good PCs. The fact that they have the only decent weapon treasure up until that part of the adventure (the Swarmbow) makes it worse. The adventure is incredibly low on treasure, right until the last tomb room. However, at that point the PCs should have the Sphinx tomb guardian as an ally, she is meant to be alive to point the party in the right direction for the next adventure. So how can they rob the architect's tomb? Her job is to protect the place, they will be acting as badly as the cultists in her eyes. Of course they can just slaughter her too and take her stuff, but like with the Bee Ladies, it's just encouraging immoral PC behaviour. It's very odd and I can't imagine any party playing it as written (that requires them to play by the rules in getting permission letters then throwing rules to the wind once in the desert and murderhoboing everything), but the bits that do work are great. So yes 99% is great. Research rules are great and they should be brought back into general use. A decent Bard, Wizard or especially Investigator will do great (and this AP really needs at least one such PC). The chariot race is great fun (if very hard to win because who on earth has some of those skills?), the chase rules were good in Crimson Throne and they are now. Muminofra is a hoot. I'm glad she sails off with her sexy new man, she is an excellent NPC for any Osirion game.
I have played to level 18 in a gestalt game and I have seen what works and what doesn't.If your GM is giving you such options he will be throwing everything at you. The thing about gestalt, appropriate CR and casters is that tough monsters can make their saves, especially if you need to split stats. Thus melee types do rather well in high level gestalt, something like a Paladin/Bloodrager is amazing because a super heavy smite doesn't care about gestalt. No animal companions. They will just die. If your GM allows the companion to gestalt too, you may have a chance. There may be some ridiculous Summoner/Spiritualist mix that's doable. If you want to go casting, you need one stat and you need to be able to beat saves and SR which will be higher than in a non-gestalt game. Thus: Sorcerer 20 (whatever you want, but Div is great after level 15)//Oracle 10/ Evangelist of Desna 10. You still need things like an Otherworldy Kimono, but Evangelist of Desna can beat SR. For an all-rounder, Elf Wizard// Slayer/Lantern Bearer.
I dont agree with the whole 'give everyone 4+ skill points per level'.... why not just make everyone have D10 HD too ?!?! Because skills are vital and some classes have too few to be functional at skills even as intended. Take a Paladin. 2+ Int skills, and no Paladin has much Int to spare. Maybe 3 with favorite class, but they are front liners who need HP. With those very few skill points they need a point in Climb, Swim, and Ride to be a mobile and athletic warrior. They are super charismatic and brave warriors so they should be leading armies eventually so a point or two goes into Profession Soldier. High Cha and Diplomacy is a class skill so should probably max it, it's a skill that rewards investment. A point in Know Nobility so the brave knight has any idea about other brave knights. Something in Sense Motive becuase it's a class skill and helps with Diplomacy. Try to get a point or two in Perception so the naive but brave soul isn't totally unaware of what's going on. Enjoy smiting undead? points in Know Religion (class skill) so you know what one is. How is this doable on 2, 3 points per level? It isn't. You end up with Paladins who know nothing about soldiering, and who can't tell the difference between a Skeleton and a Lich. It's even worse with the fighter who is meant to be a professional warrior but has nowhere near enough skills to pull it off. Fighters are ideal for the city watch, except the can't watch as they don't have Perception in class nor the skill points to cover it. To be fair, no GM I have played with gives fighters so few skill points because it is so foolish.
OP, sorry to hear about your health on top of the game nonsense. And yes, murder them before walking away (unless they are genuine out of game friends). But HOW? You are playing Curse of the Crimson throne and you are in book 1 by your posts - introduced to royalty, "selling some jewellery and claiming a reward". so it's already fine if you leave - they will die horribly anyway. The entire AP relies on the PCs being famous in Korsova and an increasing reliance on trust with/against NPCs so they will fail soon enough. Do none of these Emos have a point in Diplomacy? In any case, if I wanted to murder the rest of my party in this AP I would get them to the hospital and [SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS]
I'd personally prefer to see an unchained cleric where the choice of deity more meaningfully impacts how the class plays. Honestly, Deific Obedience should be a compulsory feat for most Clerics. Difficult for players without the books (which are not all in the same place) so the Unchained concept is not an exact parallel. The obedience does make the Cleric behave in accordance with their god which is good for RP. Aelyrinth is right about them - were they designed today they would be a d6 1/2 BAB 4skpt caster. Inquisitors and Warpriests and Sentinels do the fighting for the church.
Still don't see her robbing a tannery. It's a bit infra dig for her, true, not exactly the spiteful little toerag HV part 1 expects one to be, but... ...and during these travels, she witnessed life itself. A grubby, hardscrabble existence, always grasping for more... ... all this, the Thrunes, Cheliax, all this nonsense is just part of life's rich tapestry for her.
She isn't a vampire, she's a Dhampir with the Blood Drinker feat. You know what I mean, I read she's a Dhampir, I know what a Dhampir is. It says so in the HV player's guide what she is. What is interesting is that she was brought up to essentially become a full vampire, a vampire aristocrat at that and yet she is still probably easier to talk to than some of the evil humans, Zelhara and Linxia.
And, in honesty, probably better. Prayer Attack for instance is cool, as are all the RMA abilities, but it doesn't work, the save DC is way too low. On the other hand, A Stygian Slayer / Sentinel of Achaekek has some illusion/assassin style magic and is a full BAB deadly killer with the Sawtooth Sabres.
Take the Mad Magic feat. (Advanced Class Origins, iirc) You can cast spells from other classes while in a bloodrage. You really want to be able to cast in combat as a Paladin, things like Grace is good, Hero's Defiance is a genuine lifesaver and Litany of Righteousness alone is better than some class features.
The stats for Dragonlance are all over the place. Raistlin had 17 Int as you say, but also was so weak he had to be carried yet with an okay 10 Con. The worst is that Tasselhoff has a positive Cha. He certainly does not, vile little klepto.
Put 1 level into Avenger Vigilante and the rest into Abyssal Bloodrager. Then you can rage, grow large with claws, and you don't have to fight the party. Do this. Decent Cha for the Vigilante stuff, and then you get to Hulk out for fun. If you want to play it for laughs, be Lawful Good, brush your hair nicely, and when you rage you are an Aberrant bloodrager with Monstrous Physique II, Eruptive Pustules and Face of the Devourer.
A 7 Charisma is only a -2 on checks and rolls. That's basically a 10% difference. That's practically nothing. I think that perhaps you're making it into more than it is, mountain out of a mole hill as it were. Ravingdork, you have a fluid understanding of how to balance power and mathematics. You are the best I have read about how to make a rule work. But I'm a GM. If you have a 7 Cha, you are socially useless unless you have the ranks or other abilities (like trait switches). People just don't care about you, they don't listen to you. Your party saved the kingdom? It was the Paladin, the Oracle, the Arcanist and ... oh, that guy. Having said that, mechanically you have a point, RavingDork; as you always do : +2 points of Int will almost always compensate over a Cha penalty. It works, it works fine. It works just fine, in a robotic way. It's fine for those who have never used, or for whom Charisma is scary.
Dumping Cha as a viable PC option. Especially for nasty, ugly, clever, wise or brutish PCs. Optimising is fine, and some stats should be weaker than others. On the other hand, Cha is what makes a PC a PC; Cha is not about prettiness but about force of personality, Cha is about how much one affects the world around you. Nobody cares about a low Cha person, even if they think themselves are important. Yes this breaks down a bit because of racial stats - a Dwarf is often interesting but has a racial penalty to be dull - but more often, especially with optimisers (whom I suspect theorise rather more than play the game) it becomes something silly like: - Crazy maniac Barbarian. Maxed Str, dumped Cha. With a couple of feats and the Omen trait he can be scary, but because board-reading players think Cha doesn't matter they dump it. As a GM, that's great - if their half-Orc hulk has less force of personality than a commoner child, they can suck it up. There is a silly thing that says low-Cha Inquisitors can be good at being Inquisitors. Fine, so long as you concentrate on torture and hunting and never on information or actual Inquisition. Even with a class that Cha does not matter at all, dumping Cha is horrible for a PC with a sane GM. Mechanically, a Witch can dump Cha to 7 and it won't make any difference with her other talents, but really? Really? I'm a GM who has to buy that one of Golarion's best enchanters has a 7 Cha? Maybe it works in some situations for the Witch. I apologise for the stereotypes, but imagine a fat and ugly hedge Witch with a pig familiar brewing potions and casting CLW for the rest of the village. That's fine. PC witches sneer at that amateur stuff. They have to break the enemy ASAP then send in the troops once the battle is half-won. As a GM, I'm not having it. The Barbarian, the Inquisitor and the Witch are as different as player Classes can be, all can be 'min-maxed' with 7 Cha and might be an extraordinarily potent 3-person party - (all skills, 9th casting, Max BAB , maxed skills in most areas)... ... Nobody cares. Nobody cares about you at all. BUT I will praise Paizo for making it clear, with feats and abilities, that high level PCs need high Cha. I'll give you a clue Cha dumpers - Deific Obideince only costs 1 feat.
Non-spellcasting shapechanger. Barbarian/Druid/Lycanthrope? hybrid. The game has a way to make almost any concept or trope work so far: S Holmes (Investigator, Master Spy), Captain America (Brawler Sheld dude), Achilles (Destined Bloodrager) etc. for example. But there is no way to make a non-casting full BAB shapechanger. Archetypes can spread the difference between: - A pure monstrous Hulk type ( with no Alchemy). Maybe what the Sythesist Summoner should have been? - A Cha-based Mystique type, maybe some Bardic/Mesmerist skills. - A nature animal wearer. Druid and Ranger skills. - A standard but competent werething fighter. Like a Brawler but more restricted. - An Occult adventures nightmare changer thing. I don't want to see a Paizo-made artificer. As a GM I hate crafting magic items already, I would give those PCs zero downtime out of spite.
Use Unchained rules, things like background skills. Otherwise you get PCs who are useless at anything other than slaughter, and not always great at that. Examples: Paladin with 2 SP/level. Needs a point in Climb, Swim, Know (Nobility and Religion) in order to even function as a holy warrior. Prof: Soldier and Ride are needed too, and this is assuming he is the most naive champion ever and doesn't have a point in Perception. This means a decently statted holy knight probably knows nothing about Prof: Soldier even though he is the most charismatic and zealous commander of his army.
What can work with the Ib Stone version? It gets 9/10 spellcasting, but loads of abilities which are otherwise very odd for a full caster. It might be good for an Oread (Wis bonus, made of stone) or Dwarf (Wis bonus, likes stone things) Cleric as it keeps you essentially a full Cleric, but with the power of Rock.
Lantern Bearer needs a full caster on the other side of the gestalt because of one nasty trick:
It's how to get a 30 caster level against SR. And you are an Elf anyway, so that's 32.
Bureaucracy is the problem. For instance, our Wizard can Teleport to Syria and Islamic State can't really touch him. They can't see him or hurt him and given time he can kill anyone. So what then? He is in Europe, and wants political power. Illusions will get him the ID he needs, Enchantments will open doors. But can it get voters? At this point he doesn't want to display Ultimate Arcane Power as it is a vote loser and might worry some people. Imagine what the media would do to such a magic user? He might try making money, going the Bill Gates route. but how does he account for his inventions? Warren Buffett style is easier - Divination can help him rule the financial world.
What can I do to make my enchantments work? I plan on having some of my spells be enchantments. I know that I might want possession spells and some buffing spells. Should I take the color spray spell and change it later? For Color Spray - yes, probably. Put it this way - many, many Sorcerers do this because it works. It works, and it is one of very few early offensive spells. The only problem is that it's still mind-affecting, so won't really help when your enchantments won't work. Grease is good as Aretuma says. Grease will work on anything when your mind stuff fails. Good for several levels too. If you feel that is too practical, also get Unnatural Lust, one of the funniest effects in the game and you can get it at a lower level than anyone else.
Hmm, can you just get accomplished sneak attacker at 7 with the rogue VMC and enter the PrC directly off that? Yes you can. However, I wanted a way to avoid Rogue VMC because it is a lot of feats - I'd rather the 1 non-Wizard level. The other reason is that playing from first level starting as a Rogue is a lot more survivable than a Wizard. You will have a decent Dex anyway, tons of skills in class , Weapon Finesse and Trapfinding. With that extra Sneak Attack feat you will be okay for a few levels just hiding, using your vast amount of skills, casting Vanish etc. and stabbing dudes.
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