Chaos_Scion's page

I've played in a high level undead themed campaign where one of the players ran a graveknight. The premise that after a breif intro the whole party went through a ritual that ended with them gaining an undead template. When the rest of the party was running vampires and ghosts graveknights were fairly balanced. I would be very careful of allowing it in a normal game though. Very easy to unbalance everything.

1. A transmuter targeting fort saves with disintegrate or flesh to stone would give casters a nasty surprise.
2. I played an archer inquisitor that could one shot pretty much any mage round one if I won initiative but they can be countered with some spells.
3. Dwarven invulnerable rager is as nasty if not more so then the human.

Half Orc with the toothy racial trait. Beast totem at level 2 gives you 3 primary natural attacks. Add 2 lvls of ranger taking the natural attack combat style can give you to more natural claw attacks. That's 5 primary natural attacks at 5th lvl.

My players have been asking me to house rule an acrobatics or similar check to negate the you are flatfooted for the first round after boarding the ship. I'm aware you can use a corvus to achieve this but I was wondering if there is a another rule set to accomplish the same thing. All suggestions are welcome.

Is a knife across the throat when they are asleep out of the question. Be quite about it and you can rinse and repeat as needed. Use some one else dagger and plant it back on them and go back to sleep. Now you have dealt with you biggest problem and framed another one.

To me this depends on your groups character creation dynamics. Some groups follow the I build my character in isolation with no regard for what party roles are covered. Other groups build in close cohesion with other players covering all the roles. Most groups lay some where in between.

By choosing what you feel is the best role at that level consistently, if your group works together to build balanced parties, you are forcing someone else to take a less optimal or interesting role. If your group builds in isolation then I don't see any problem with what your doing.

The group I play in has a few members that only ever play one or two types of char and we tend to only have four players. That means if we want to have all the roles in the party covered and not get murdered one of the other players and I are forced to play the same roles over and over again and that gets frustrating. If I had to guess that's were some of the frustration with how your choosing characters comes from.

As for the gm kicking you out if you leave the campaign that is overly harsh. I've retired several chars because of in or out of game reasons and there shouldn't be a problem unless its critical to the story.

I most campaigns versatility will beat specialization as long as your still pretty good both options. More options in combat, better able to fill combat roles in the party, a switch hitter fits more easily into a party then a dedicated archer, harder to stifle. And the all important for roleplaying purposes my character makes sense if your into that sort of thing.

I once killed a dragon by throwing a feather token tree in its mouth and then activating.
Tree: A token that causes a great oak to spring into being (5-foot-diameter trunk, 60-foot height, 40-foot top diameter). This is an instantaneous effect.

I am a big fan in awarding xp for noncombat ways of overcoming encounters. That said I think they should get xp for overcoming the dragon but not the monsters in the keep. They overcame the dragon by escaping(that should be a lot of xp by the way so maybe they lvl any way). In doing so though the bypassed the chance to earn the xp by encountering the challenges in the keep. I'm a fan of if you don't see the enemy(not that they have to see you of course) you didn't overcome the encounter.

Why do the other PCs have different opinions? Because they do not know what a bugbear is?Maybe they don't have the history?
Perhaps the bugbears aren't being RP's by the GM properly?
I fail to see why a female Bugbear is any less powerful or dangerous than a male, or for that matter WHY a female Bugbear WOULD BE unarmed???

Blood thirsty human eating masochists who don't have a butcher knife for cooking/dismembering?

Crazed little psychopath children without little knives or clubs themselves they use to play war and practice killing random forest fauna pretending they are dwarves?

If trying to mirror human society with bugbears one must look at what humans would have had or been like had you approached their camp.

Too often we think of an unarmed society of the modern era, for the most part our lives are not threatened by wild beasts nor are we forced to hunt or fight something.
But I challenge you to find a modern house hold that isnt LOADED with deadly implements, mainly the kitchen.
Even the pacifist vegetarian has knives to cut up his veggies within reach in his home.

Now turn that into a camp, with no drawers. There are knives and hatchets anywhere and everywhere.

Now have someone break into your home/camp and start killing your loved ones, do you watch in horror as someone puts an axe to the face of your husband? Or pick up his weapon were he fell and fight too? Or grab the hatchet by the pile of wood used to stock...

Response:

The question is how far are you willing to take this? Is it ok to snatch a suckling baby bugbear from its mothers breast and kill it simply because it will most likely become a killer. Should you murder the children to young to walk, speak, or in any way be harmful even if they are as murderous as you believe. That goes well beyond what I think a lot of people are willing to justify even assuming they knew how evil bugbears generally are. There is also the problem of outliers. Bugbears are generally evil like the Drow but one of the most iconic heroes in fantasy is Drizzt because he came from a largely evil race. Anyone who judges by the races is a sloppy role player. Good chars in pathfinder kill based on what they have seen their enemies do or have evidence they have done not because of their inherent characteristics(unless your talking about creatures of pure evil like demons). Under this theory if the dwarf fighter came upon a sleeping Drizzt and killed him in his sleep he would be justified and that's crap. FOr the same reasons we scorn racist in real life we should scorn players who do the same in game as a crutch for actually role playing.

you might get different opinions about killing women and children of evil races but if they weren't actively being evil at the time he killed them is an evil act. He slaughtered a lot of innocents most normal people wouldn't want to be associated with him and that's reasonable. If he wants to stay in the party have him show remorse and offer to redeem himself. If not you should have the player reroll a new char.

Wow this thread has reenforced why defining alignment is futile...to many ideas most of which disagree on at least one major point.

OP all you need to do to play a good pally and have a good time is talk to your gm and between the two of you set the ground rules for what is acceptable pally conduct. Then there are no surprises and you can play the char you want to play without constantly worrying.

There can never be enough well played wizards in a party(unless they start ridiculously copying each other). Need melee support have him play a conjuror. Wizards are very versatile and can be played a lot of different ways so I wouldn't worry about it.

A lot of players do this for role playing purposes and there is nothing per se wrong with it. Assuming he actually knows the system and isn't just ignorant to how it works. I've done it on more then one occasion although I'm never quite that useless. Let him play what he wants and when he gets killed for being useless work with him to build a more useful one but in the end it is his choice.

Something to keep in mind when playing this. Every time he casts it give every monster in the area a chance to hear the scream (it is a freaking scream after all). Now to kill one monster he has alerted a hoard of others that are either coming to hurt the party or are prepping for their approach. Daze monster doesn't make any noise as far as I can tell so it can be a big tactical advantage. Don't just access spells by the RAW think about how they would actually work in game.

Ooga wrote:

I just want to interject and say that this is often a really s&*%ty thing to do to the other player who is a paladin, so you want to be very sure that he is OK with it. The problem is that you are doing something that puts his character in a position to where he basically has to PVP you or leave the party, which may be unfun for that player. What if through your own carelessness, he finds our your a murderous fiend and trying to become...

The heck? Notalich didn't DO anything to anyone elses character. He's modifying his own. As long as he can have the character willing and able to work with the party (for whatever reason) he's not grinding the game to a halt or compromising anything. It's everyone else who makes those decision. All notalich has done is changed his type- it just so happens to represent terrific evil in a party here evil is not tolerated. He's EVEN going out of his way to make sure it's all well and hidden.

Trying to make it sound like notalich is actually DOING something to other party members and is somehow a bad guy (pun intended) is inane. Oh no, I picked a neutral evil rogue in a party with a paladin. Now I'm a jerk because the paladin is going to have my head since I like to STEAL and MURDER and am amoral- even if I am hiding those actions from him. Give me a break.

You want to talk about role playing? Let the group figure it out, in game. I played a lawful evil rogue who stole from the group CONSTANTLY...she'd search for treasure, take a cut, even swap things out- then let the group know what she found and we'd all split from there. It was hilarious. I never stole so much that it hurt anyone and I made her lawful because it worked better with the party. She made sure to give fair due when it was due. She'd steal 100 gp from a chest of 500 and when the party got to split the remaining 400 she'd pretend to be 'honorable ' and 'selfless' and opt to only take 50 or something. Loved it.

But I was role playing a thief. And if the party had found out,...

Sorry can't agree. If your playing a char you know the rest of the party is going to conflict with your being selfish and that kills games. The game is a group effort towards a common goal. If everyone else in the party says there going to play some version of good and you come back with a neutral evil rogue your being a jerk. They see the game one way and your playing a char that is incompatible with that. Everyone blames the pally or the good char when there is conflict but some of us don't like playing with sociopaths in the party. If you create a char that the other characters wouldn't work with you (pally in a party of scumbags or evil in a party full of good) have failed the point of this game.

Not A Lich wrote:

he would just fall hard enough to go antipaladin and has already touched on that scenario too.

You should encourage this! If you can facilitate his fall to anti-paladin and then become the lich that he's enslaved, er, beholden to, all the better.

As for the whole innocents thing, try to set up situations where the paladin has to choose between allowing the innocents to live and letting the BBEG get away. At first, the paladin will choose the innocents, of course. But as time goes on, you then plant the seed in the paladin's ear, "This BBEG has killed so many more innocents than those we would have had to kill to get at him that first time. We're responsible for those deaths that BBEG has committed since then because we didn't act." And watch as the next time, the paladin justifies killing the next batch of innocents and his journey to the Dark Side will be complete.

If a dm was trying to make the pally fall everyone would be screaming he was a jerk and this is no better. Don't try to mess with another characters concept to fit you own unless there cool with it. This could end very badly.

Did I make the fight to hard is the question I ask in these situations. If yes I fudge roles. If not the party had more then a fair chance and either bad planning, tactics, or luck lead to there down fall and I let them die(if the BBEG wants them dead). I never make encounters harder because the PC's are doing well. I will on occasion ad an extra wave of late arriving bad guys or ad additional encounters after the to easy one if it feels anticlimactic.

My only problem with the wand is that it would only be a 3 caster lvl if I'm doing the math right...that only gives you 3 rounds of difficult terrain which doesn't suck but isn't going to last through all encounters...

Chaos_Scion wrote:

In the real middle ages the answer is next to nothing. A peasant would pay his lord in kind(goods) and with days of yearly required service. They belonged to the land and had limited opportunity to better their station(unless they had special skills). The duties they owed their lord were generally high. After them they rarely had enough left to do anything but feed their families and barter for other necessaries. The nobles would sell the goods they received at regional markets for money. Not saying you have to follow close to historical practice as this is a fantasy game but its a good place to start.

@Ashiel- lgp while a pittance to an adventure is a hell of a lot of money to a commoner(at least if you want to follow something approaching a real world comparison). I would wager most farmers have never seen a gold piece and never had more then a few silver to their name. If they did it was immediately spent.

Actually for peasants most of their obligations was paid in "kine". A portion of their crops and/or subject to being called to service as peasant conscripts in the lords wars. He couldn't afford to lose too many of such troops in war... with no peasants to work the land, a lord would lose his economic base.

You have to remember that there is a major difference between Adventuring economies and that of the common peasantry.

That's almost exactly what I said.

In the real middle ages the answer is next to nothing. A peasant would pay his lord in kind(goods) and with days of yearly required service. They belonged to the land and had limited opportunity to better their station(unless they had special skills). The duties they owed their lord were generally high. After them they rarely had enough left to do anything but feed their families and barter for other necessaries. The nobles would sell the goods they received at regional markets for money. Not saying you have to follow close to historical practice as this is a fantasy game but its a good place to start.

@Ashiel- lgp while a pittance to an adventure is a hell of a lot of money to a commoner(at least if you want to follow something approaching a real world comparison). I would wager most farmers have never seen a gold piece and never had more then a few silver to their name. If they did it was immediately spent.

Two weapon fighting is a lot more feat intensive...all you need for a two hander is power attack...

In 3.5 sleeping poison was the only poison good chars were allowed to use. I don't think that view transferred to pathfinder but I might make an exception and allow pally's to use it. I wouldn't make a pally fall for using it especially one who focuses on keeping foes alive.

create pit is IMHO one of the best battlefield control spells in the game. Stone call is good but you can really screw up a large group of enemies with a well placed create pit.

Be more tactical when you use limited resources. Save your spells for big threats. Focus on spells that give you more band for your buck(last longer have multiple effects, control the field)You do have a light crossbow right? Shoot all the things once your out of spells. Don't rage round one of every combat if you think its either going to be easy enough that you don't need it or long enough that you will run out of steam mid battle.

Nothing wrong with resting to regain spells and abilities but make sure you make the area as safe as possible. The average gm loves to attack sleeping parties. I find that resting for 10 hours works best. One caster takes first watch then sleeps for 8 hours another take last watch after sleeping 8 and your non magic chars take the middle watches because they don't need uninterrupted sleep. Relying on sleeping is very dm dependent though. A lot of them will keep attacking you to make things harder and disrupt your casters sleep.

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I fully realize that as undead I probably smell like dead flesh, but there is nothing in the bestiary that says zombies, juju zombies or other undead suffer any stealth penalties for their stench. Thus I don't see any need for gentle repose. Zombies don't slowly turn into skeletons so I'm not worried about my flesh falling off.

My thought with this were to hide that you were in fact undead. If thats not a priority then don't worry about it. I'm going to be playing a vampire in a roleplaying heavy campaign were we do have to hide in plain sight so that was my thought process.

You're right that being undead provides plenty of advantages, especially in this pirate campaign. Right now the DM is imposing a one level penalty to make sure I don't become overpowered.

Doesn't seem fair especially with how bad the disparagey between your hp and others in the party. The max hp really puts you be hing the eight ball because of that cha.

Trying to use disguise and bluff are not going to work because my charisma is so low.

Still recommend you talk to the dm about getting some relief from that low score.

In the long run I think bumping HP will give you better returns then pumping AC unless your prepared to go all out on AC(things are still going to hit you and if he's giving you more hp to take a greater pounding I doubt a high AC will save you.

Cha boosting items become critical especially if gm won't allow you to switch con and cha. Your going to need ways to hide in plain sight. Non detection, undetectable alignment(maybe not for skull and shackles), hat of disguise, gentle repose, ranks in disguise and bluff might help. Or your going to need to hide constantly. With low con your going to need to either hang back in melee or stay to the fringes and keep mobile.

To me its not a question of whether in an isolated situation a pally might use a dirty trick. The question should be is it a big enough part of the pally's repertoire that he's taking feats for it. Most iconic pally builds would not work well with this concept(the honorable, chivalric warrior). How ever there is nothing in the pally class that says you couldn't. I just think you need to come up with a good back story/role playing reason for why you went down an unusual route.

Umbranus wrote:

Among the worst thing is planning a fight that can't be won to capture the players only to have them rescued by some lowly NPC after the BBEG mocked them.

This is super specific. Is it a common mistake many GMs make? If so, why is it that so many GMs think it's a good idea, and that so many players despite it?

I'd say its a common flaw of railroad heavy campaigns. I'll even admit to being guilty of it a time or two. One example was I began a campaign by press ganging the party and making them sailors(sounds like skull and shackles but I'd never read that). I thought it would be a cool way to start the campaign but it didn't go as well as I'd hoped. The party wasn't happy about it and It made for an awkward beginning to the campaign. They were the pawns an NPC and his men used to help commit a mutiny and they took it badly when I had the captain explaining they where no essentially slaves for a period of months. Should have just told them they were starting as impressed sailors in character creation to keep from leaving a sour taste in their mouths.

1. Give the information in short hand code that requires a linguistics check to decipher.
2. Immediately before and after the info is given your teleported in a random direction as per greater teleport. (well you know were all the ships are on the other side of the world).
3. Have the demon or what ever is granting the wish have to actually do the scouting of the ships himself. That way he is fallible and may not know all of the things on the ship. Hidden items, the strength of the crew and other defenses, ect. Also he gets really tired of doing this after only a few days and there after tries to break the wish to escape the servitude.
4. If you do go with the one where you give the locations of sunken ships list their cargo. The fact that there rotted and useless doesn't mean there not there. Make it harder for you to know what ships are wrecks. Give there headings too (its facing due north so thats its heading).

How about something more challenging like incorporeal undead, do ghost touch weapons actually cleave off limbs?

A large slash leaking inky shadow appears across the wraiths chest. The shadow recoils in pain as your blade plunges into its torso. As your mace slams into the ghost it seems to waiver in and out of existence for a moment before its form stabilizes a little less vibrant then it was a moment before. I avoid cleaving limbs when describing damage except for outright kills because losing a limb has mechanical effects.

Another point is if you take armor proficiency light you can later take armor proficiency medium and possibly heavy. I just imagine a rhino in full plate barding while dealing insane damage and It makes me smile.

Why on earth would you corrupt such a wish?

For the lulz.

But seriously many people grew up on corrupting the wish in fantasy and role playing(especially older forms of dnd). Some people don't like it but do we need another thread on whether or not its a good idea. If he wants to corrupt it I'm assuming he's playing in a group were that is the expectation.

I don't think there is any broad class restrictions here. Most Pally's probably would look down on throwing dirt in an opponents eyes or something of the like but I could think of some goods who wouldn't mind. Might work well for a redeemed pally who grew up on the streets and learned to fight how ever they could. As for monks there is a ton of variation between flavors of monk. Ones that place a high value on honor or one particular fighting style might shun this but most would be indifferent or ok with it. Do you think a drunken master is going to refuse to use dirty tricks?

Chaos_Scion wrote:

Have the briefing appear as a painful tattoo or brand every day on the chars skin(have it clear before a new report comes the next day also painful). Then every day he will be dreading the arrival of his much needed intelligence. You get everything you asked for it just is in a form you never would have agreed to if you thought it threw. Also creates a role-playing opportunity. How long can the char stand it? How can he remove this "curse"?

He did say no crew member could be tramatized by it so I do not think that this would work. BUT if he was ever no longer a crew member of the ship he would still be getting reports and this would become an option =)

I read crew member and I think a demon would to as anyone but the player. So no crew member would be traumatized but the captain would. You could argue that seeing the captain after the effect with the tattoo could traumatize a crew member but I think its a little harder to shock the average pirate then that.

Your sword cleaves off a piece of ooze the size of a loaf of bread...Your mace blow causes pieces of ooze to splatter in all directions...After the fireball the ooze gives off a terrible scorched smell and seems to have problems retaining its former size and cohesion. Just think about what the thing their doing would look like and describe it.

Have the briefing appear as a painful tattoo or brand every day on the chars skin(have it clear before a new report comes the next day also painful). Then every day he will be dreading the arrival of his much needed intelligence. You get everything you asked for it just is in a form you never would have agreed to if you thought it threw. Also creates a role-playing opportunity. How long can the char stand it? How can he remove this "curse"?

I guess my point is your party is going to trust or like this char anyway. Would you? No caster is going to deal with you at all. So if you can find a way to play a char that is some what likeable he's a bit delusional. He doesn't have to be chewing the scenery crazy. He fundamentally misunderstands one part of reality. The others trying to convince your char their wrong could be a lot of fun. If you play it in a funny way you can make good cooperative role playing rather then the stand offish char your likely going to end up with. Just my two cents.

@bacon's analysis is spot on for buy the book values.

On the other hand if the players where aware of a person who through role playing reasons might pay more I'd let them. Lets say a dragon collector or someone like a dragon disciple with a special connection to dragons might pay more then market value...A whole corpse also for some purposes might be worth more then its parts(I want a stuffed dragon for the mantel). Just a thought.

This character reminds me of a character from the Gathering Dark(Magic the Gathering Book). She was a priestess(in a world where priest don't in theory have magic) who hated magic but had magic. She was convinced that these where miracles sent to her to destroy all magic users. She crusaded about trying to smite down all the casters she could until she ran into a school of ones that new how to use their powers a hell of a lot better then she did. You still use magic but you are delusional about where it comes from. Might not work because even divine magic pisses you off but you could find some other justification for the slightly demented mind(its not really magic its your mind, lucky things happen for no reason, your opponents have mishaps, ect). Not only will all casters hate you but you get the added bonus of making them want to face palm out of frustration of your hypocritical ignorance while your doing it)

Don't leave your Pc's unsatisfied at the end of the adventure. They put alot of time into there chars and if you resolve the story in a way that makes them angry you've failed. Its supposed to be fun. To illustrate I have a gm who like the dark no one really wins type endings. You do everything right but some how you've been tricked the whole time and released the big bad from Ravenloft or all ends lead to badness. This is not what you want when you have spent 6 months playing a char. If you can figure out why your players play and make that pay off at the end your a good gm.

Wizard(conjuror)every party should have one, Pally, Cleric or Oracle, lvl 1 rogue(trap finding) and either ranger or inquisitor.

1. The spider room isn't an evil act buy any stretch. Killing the innocents was an unintended consequence of reasonable actions(lots of enemies with no obvious friendly's is a perfect time for fireball). If you didn't know they were there you will probably feel horrible about it but that doesn't make you a bad person and the pally should back off.
2. Room with children is an evil act. Kids throwing stones is a pretty weak provocation for AOE death. If you were actually taking damage from the rocks that some how posed a danger maybe but that is still an extreme response(maybe not evil but definitely not good). In this case the Pally is fully justified with giving you a hard time. I would have been turning you in to the local sheriff personally. This probably isn't enough to shift your alignment but if you do this often your eventually going to fall to evil.
3. My biggest issue is that your not role playing your char. Your stats do not fit the character your playing. So why are you doing it? If your char really was that ditsy maybe your not evil/cn but to me it seems like the char is going out of their way to act recklessly and that makes her actions worse. Play your stats thats what they are there for.

Bending the rules is alright but you have to be confident enough to say enough is enough. He demands things from you? I'd let him ask but as soon as he tells you how to run your game that should be the end of it. He's trying to bully you and thats not cool. Classes that have pets don't give them lvls so there is no way you should. If he wants to make it a cohort have him take leadership and at some point you might be able to justify giving it lvls but thats a stretch. Sit down and talk to him and if he isn't going to be reasonable the enemy should start rolling really well against that owl until its dead.

I've been watching a lot of Spartacus of late and I'm intrigued on how best to build a Oenomaus styled character. Assume a 20 point buy. I think he should focus on using the whip to disarm and trip while still having the versatility to use other weapons to deliver the killing blow. I view him as a more mobile fighter but I'm interested to see other interpretations. Since he will need at least 13 int a good con, strength, and dex he's going to be a bit mad so I'm having a hard time figuring out the best set up. I'm not a fan of the gladiator arch type and would see that part of the character filled by role playing. Let me know how you think best to build him.

We are starting at lvl 3...unknown how high we will go(my gm is deployed at the moment so communication is difficult)But judging by previous experience I would say going above 8-10 is unlikely...just played a battle oracle or that probably would have been my choice. Antipaladin is interesting never played one of them before. I haven't played Kensai or any other magus so that could be fun. also really like the elven eldritch knight concept if he says we are going to reach a decent lvl. So many good options. I don't think he'll let me go the synthesist route unfortunately.

Tempting but I usually wait to fill out the party based on what they choose because most of them won't play a character just because it would make sense for the party to have one (I also know the system better then most of them so I can fill wholes others aren't comfortable with) I'm just curious about any casters builds you have in mind especially arcane ones. I know a straight wizard only benefits a little from the extra stats but I could try some sort of Magus or Bard I suppose.

I only know one other players build so far and its a monk so I want to stay away from that(well actually I don't but he called it)...I like the melee builds although I might not end up being able to play a warrior knowing my group.

I would talk to your dm and ask him to house rule daggers into the close weapon group and then take the brawler archetype. Its my favorite fighter archetype and would really work well thematically with the build your describing.

My Gm for reasons that escape me and fill me with no small measure of dread has informed us that our next campaign will be based on a 32 point buy. We have never done more then 20 before so I'm a bit out of my depth. He is a notorious optimizer so what ever I build has to be powerful. The campaign is exclusively dungeon crawl so I don't have to worry about social skill and knowledge is only for monster Id. Any advice on builds to take advantage of this high point buy would be appreciated. Lastly the party is going to be evil so take that into account.