Cheapy's page

We finally got around to running the first playtest module yesterday, and we got halfway through. Rather than try to remember what happened in the first part after we finished it, I wanted to get it here.

Thoughts: (list functionality seems busted :( )

• I didn't have time to fully read the new DC setting guidelines, so I just winged it. Most DCs I came up with were 11 or 15. Some of them were 5.

• The group thought that player character generation took way too long, and wasn't streamlined enough. I suspect this was primarily due to jumping around PDFs constantly to get all info. Jumping around PDFs is apparently much slower than physical books for us. Part of the problem was also probably the lack of suggested starting items, lack of "kits" of items, and few suggestions on what to do. Also, learning a new system as we made them.

• We all really liked baselining silver as the main coinage used.

• Some players felt like you needed to max out your main stat, and that this made boring attribute spreads. It turns out they forgot the 4 free boosts.

• Some players found remembering all the traits to be a really high cognitive load. It is perhaps not as accessible to those with mental disabilities or a lot on their minds due to life. As an example, our rogue said he did not enjoy having to remember under what circumstances his dogslicer (agile, finesse, goblin, backstabber) did special things in, even though it was relatively few situations.

• Personally, I think the mental load of learning all the traits will be fairly high, but once they are known, using them will be much less complex.

• I think everyone generally liked the 3-action system. The only complaint I saw was comparing to 5e's ease of moving in and out, and hitting in the middle of your movement. I just don't think they tried that out, as it seems like it would still work better in PF2.

• Some complaints about things that used to be free now taking up an action. No specifics were actually given on this, but I suspect it was stuff that we had an unknown house rule about. My assumption is that Recall Knowledge is the one in mind. Only getting 1-2 tidbits of information per action, and then increasing DC when you spend the most important resource in the game didn't sit well, even though it's pretty realistic.

• We all noted that it's so much more codified. I commented to them that it felt like many rules were specifically added to prevent forum arguments. I appreciate this, but it does increase cognitive load a bit. "If this was a computer program's source code, it would be beautiful"
  

I'm going to give the rules a twice-over, and am really excited to run the second half of the Last Star. It felt very nostalgic to me, due to being back into Pathfinder again. I'll update this thread once we finish the scenario.

Good morning!

Please cancel my Starfinder subscription, as well as the pending order 4513783.

Thank you!

It is with a heavy heart that I must request that my Pathfinder Core Line subscription be canceled.

Thank you.

Either it was announced at GAMA today or there's some very fast photoshopping by twitter user UnclesGames: Slide announcing the hardcover.

Sure, we're lazy. But it'd help save a lot of time if there was a button next to the Blessed ∅ that marked the post as Spam.

The icon could be some sort of small tin.

Are people planning more? Have some been finished, and they just haven't found the time to type it up yet?

There seems to be a lot of discussion, but very little actual data.

Whenever I refresh a page, a pop up, well, pops up, saying "f" with an OK button.

Then another pops up with 27, a radio box to say "Don't pop up again" essentially, and an OK button. And then another one pops up after I click that one, saying another number.

This is for every page, and another user has seen this happen on theirs too.

Version: 1.14.23352.166.23352 (2015-06-01 11:11)

Hey all,

I'm still getting my feet wet with SoP, but I'm curious if it's possible to convert the character I had in mind to use SoP. It was going to be a Heavens Shaman for the ACG, with rotating other spirit, focusing on divinations and effects related to outer space. One thing I wanted to work on specifically was getting a "meteor" to crash down on command. The other thing I was looking for was ability to be versatile and possibly heal, as our healer is a bit unpredictable in her attendance (and we have a party member who does a lot of damage to himself with vicious weapons).

What class would people use for this? I'm looking at Incanter, with a custom advanced talent that mixes Destruction and Conjuration to call down a created object, and then have it explode. Then obviously grabbing the Divination sphere.

Any ideas?

Hey all,

When I go to the Legendary Games product page, at the top it says:

Browse 159 Products

Beneath the Dungeons & Dragons (2014) group, it says

(3 products)

Beneath the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game group, it says

(165 products)

Beneath the Other Roleplaying Games group, it says

(1 product)

The site version is:

22
1.13.23310.160.23310 (2015-05-18 15:34)

This is obviously a very unimportant issue. I can post a screenshot if need be.

Thanks!

Hey all!

A few years ago, I asked the following question, and after some FAQ clickage, it was marked as answered in the FAQ. Except, I don't see it in the FAQ. The question was born from questions about the tentacle discovery of the alchemist, and there is this FAQ, but it doesn't answer the main question I had, and one that comes up often enough. So, I am reposting the question and asking that others click the FAQ button. The main question is posted below, with some edits to make it less reliant on temporal context.

How do natural attacks an unarmed attacks interact for purposes of number of attacks per round?

We see Sean here trying to explain how this works.

And yes, the rules say that if you're using a manufactured weapon or unarmed strikes, you CAN use them in conjunction with natural attacks, "so long as a different limb is used for each attack."

The intent of that was to allow you wield a 1H weapon and make a secondary claw attack with your other hand, or to let you wield a 1H weapon and make a secondary bite attack with your mouth, or to let you wield a 2H weapon and make a secondary bite attack with your mouth.

The intent was to prevent you from making a full attack sequence with your natural attacks and a bunch of unarmed strikes by specifically defining your undefined unarmed strikes as conveniently different limbs than your natural attacks. Which is exactly what you're trying to do.

(Emphasis his)

There are more posts in there going over it, but that's the main one.

The questions I have boil down to:

Does using natural attacks use up potential unarmed strikes? Can you make full attack with natural attacks and then use unarmed strikes in the same round? If so, under what circumstances? (Is it fine if you use tail whips as your natural attacks, but not fine if you use claw attacks?)

I think this would be a fine candidate for a new FAQ entry, as it seems to rely on an understanding most of us don't have, similar to the THF / TWF issue that came up in the past.

So, most wonderful and level-headed of people, please hit the FAQ button here so that perhaps we can finally lay this one to rest.

Cheers!

Please cancel this order, as I am getting it at the FLGS instead.

Thanks!

Specifically, my subscriptions.

And super specifically, the player companion, campaign setting, and adventure path subscriptions.

Thanks!

I would like to give my appreciation for the continued support of Ranger Traps. It seems like every other companion has new traps to use, or new archetypes to make use of them, and as someone who really likes the idea of using traps, this is awesome. It makes me look forward to each player companion to see what's available.

I think this would be a great opportunity for a Player Companion book as well: Trapper's Toolbox. It could contain all the ranger traps released so far, as well as references for what other books contain trap using archetypes.

The Ranged Tactics Toolbox had a good amount of advice on avoiding common issues related to ranged combat, and I think there is ample space to give the same sort of advice for trap using. For example, how do you deal with the need to prepare the battlefield before hand? Ideas on scouting, trap placement, ways to hide them further, how not to bog down every combat by spending 20 minutes alone time with the GM on scouting and trap placement, etc.

I'm also curious if we'll see any Ranger Skirmisher Tricks, as there are now three core classes/archetypes that make use of them, and they're in a similar vein to the traps!

These are my notes for a playtest of the five characters listed above.

Our party was built to be reasonably average, and not minmaxed. I was not aware of the details of each class when I came up with each encounter, so they were general encounters to test a wide variety.

We had:

Mox, the Dwarven Geokineticist
Maggie, the Dwarven Pyrokineticist
Viv, the Medium of Bear, Big Sky, and Cricket
Sylvia, the Mesmerist. Tower of Blood, the mirror image one, a few others that I'm forgetting.
Gabriel Silence, the Occultist of Abjuration, Transmutation, Divination, Conjuration, and Necromancation--y. He focused on skills and spells, as well as Minions.

The first encounter was one that was CR 13. A CR equal encounter. It took place in one of the 'stomachs' of a quarter mile wide undead abomination, and the stomach housed:

• Pyrohydra
  
• Rift Drake
  
• Cyrohydra
  
• Giant Lake Octopus that was hiding until the second turn, when it tried to pull the Occultist into the acid.
  

The party started out refreshed from fighting their way into the Abomination's body, due to GM Handwavium. The goal was to hit 4 encounters.

Prebuffs: Air Walk

Thoughts: Most of these monsters were CR 9 or 10. I wanted an encounter that was CR equal with a good number of monsters, to avoid the action economy issues of on CR equal enemy. The party absolutely used less resources than the oft-toted "25% of party resources per encounter". I think this was partially due to how good at the game the players are, partially due to poor reading on my part with the hydra's placement far back, and partially because the classes just... didn't need to use resources. The only spell cast that was actually necessary was Phantom Steed. The party would've whomped the enemies just fine without Oppressive Boredom, Unadulterated Loathing, and Resist Fire. The damage of the kineticist was surprisingly high to me, and it had no problem hitting. That was most likely due to the AC of CR 9 creatures, but the +5 AC that the average CR 13 creature has wouldn't have caused much of a difference. He still would've hit most of them. I think it was mostly player skill, followed by the classes handily handling the foes, and then poor placement of the hydras. The occultist didn't really do much. This was partially the build, for sure, since it avoided prebuffs etc. But it was interesting to see what a more "scholarly" occultist would look like. He later felt that the minion focus didn't make up for not selfbuffing to bash faces in. A delicate act to balance the two, I imagine, but something we noted. He did make most of the Knowledge checks, I believe, and that was really helpful.

Next encounter will be added in a bit.

Welcome, Rogue Eidolon to the Pathfinder Design Team!!! Can't wait to see what designs you are able to pull out of your imaginative mind!

I'd like someone to take a look at my subscriptions, and see what's up with them. The payment was originally denied, but I've since resolved that issue.

My subscriptions page also says I'm queued up for Occult Mysteries and the Harrow Handbook (I should be getting two comp copies of this, and confirmation on that would be nice too!), which I don't need either of. If you could cancel those two, and reprocess the order, that'd be appreciated!

Thanks!

I'm going to get the PDF + Book combo from the publisher instead (for the same reason I usually order PF stuff from here!)

Hey all,

I needed to figure out the average number of attacks a creature of a given CR would be doing for some design work of mine, and thought I'd share the results. Where the numbers came from:

d20PFSRD's Monster DB. Big page, so don't open it unless you're curious. Attacks came from here.

Table 1-1: Monster Statistics By CR. Damage values (which assume all attacks hit) came from here.

Wrote a program (not going to release it, sorry!) to parse the Monster DB, and get the CR and Melee / Ranged attacks each monster had.

From there, through trial and error I was able to parse the melee and ranged lines to figure out how many attacks each monster got, taking into consideration things like "or" (and in that case, taking whichever had more attacks), commas, iteratives, etc. The heuristics aren't perfect. In fact, to preserve sanity, I just hardcoded all the natural attacks in, and checked to see if the attack was one of those or not. So any non-standard natural attacks may not count right.

Regardless, there are 2843 monsters in the DB, and I'm now fairly confident that my numbers are about right. If they aren't, the number of wrong numbers probably won't influence the averages too much. These numbers are rounded to the nearest whole number. For example, CR 20 is actually 4.93, not 5. But that's a lot closer to 5 than it is 4, so it rounds up.

Any CRs less than 1 were rolled into 0, which isn't displayed here. Any CRs greater than 20 were rolled into 20, since the reason why I needed these only needed to go up to 20.

Much like Table 1-1, this assumes all attacks hit.

CR Base Dmg Avg Attacks Avg Damage Per Attack
CR 01 Base Dmg: 7 Avg Attacks: 1 Avg Damage Per Attack: 7
CR 02 Base Dmg: 10 Avg Attacks: 2 Avg Damage Per Attack: 5
CR 03 Base Dmg: 13 Avg Attacks: 2 Avg Damage Per Attack: 6.5
CR 04 Base Dmg: 16 Avg Attacks: 2 Avg Damage Per Attack: 8
CR 05 Base Dmg: 20 Avg Attacks: 2 Avg Damage Per Attack: 10
CR 06 Base Dmg: 25 Avg Attacks: 2 Avg Damage Per Attack: 12.5
CR 07 Base Dmg: 30 Avg Attacks: 2 Avg Damage Per Attack: 15
CR 08 Base Dmg: 35 Avg Attacks: 3 Avg Damage Per Attack: 11.6666666666667
CR 09 Base Dmg: 40 Avg Attacks: 3 Avg Damage Per Attack: 13.3333333333333
CR 10 Base Dmg: 45 Avg Attacks: 3 Avg Damage Per Attack: 15
CR 11 Base Dmg: 50 Avg Attacks: 3 Avg Damage Per Attack: 16.6666666666667
CR 12 Base Dmg: 55 Avg Attacks: 3 Avg Damage Per Attack: 18.3333333333333
CR 13 Base Dmg: 60 Avg Attacks: 4 Avg Damage Per Attack: 15
CR 14 Base Dmg: 65 Avg Attacks: 4 Avg Damage Per Attack: 16.25
CR 15 Base Dmg: 70 Avg Attacks: 4 Avg Damage Per Attack: 17.5
CR 16 Base Dmg: 80 Avg Attacks: 4 Avg Damage Per Attack: 20
CR 17 Base Dmg: 90 Avg Attacks: 4 Avg Damage Per Attack: 22.5
CR 18 Base Dmg: 100 Avg Attacks: 5 Avg Damage Per Attack: 20
CR 19 Base Dmg: 110 Avg Attacks: 5 Avg Damage Per Attack: 22
CR 20 Base Dmg: 120 Avg Attacks: 5 Avg Damage Per Attack: 24

Of course, now that I posted this, people are going to find all the problems with it, but oh well :)

This is sort of a continuation of this post (optimized CRB only fighter's DPR) and this post (non-optimized CRB only fighter's DPR).

(Thanks to Oladon and Mark Seifter/Rogue Eidolon for the help!)

Hey all,

I'd like to request that the sections in Animal Archive that relates to tricks, Handle Animal, and the magic items that animals can use be posted on the PRD. This is an oft-requested explanation of core mechanics that shouldn't require purchasing of a Player Companion book just to fully understand.

Given the news that the Technology Guide will be posted to the PRD, I think it is now fair game to add other sections of books that help explain mechanics in the Core rules.

Thanks!

I mean, seriously. It could be a lot of fun for the forums.

For those of you not aware (which is probably all of you), Owen K.C. Stephens, the tongue-in-cheekly self-titled "wide girthed god of d20 design", has joined Paizo as the developer for the 64 page module line. And no. This is not the position Sean vacated.

Welcome!

Hey...well, more or less, Patrick. But I'll say all. So, Hey all.

Are there any plans to errata through the Golarion FAQ the thundercaller archetype from Varisia, Birthplace of Legends? Sean seemed to think it could use a quick whack, but I'm curious if that'll ever turn into errata on the FAQ page, since I know those books don't get a second printing.

Thanks!

I was perusing the bestiaries yesterday when a thought occurred to me: if a monster's schtick is to deceive humanoids by looking like a humanoid, it's almost always going to be a beautiful human female. Sometimes they have Elven features as well, but in general it seems to be a human female.

And I got to thinking. What does that mean? Surely monsters that evolved similar tactics on other planets would reflect the indigenous races there. So why are the vast majority of these types of creatures on Golarion masquerading as a beautiful human female?

Is it just because humans are so populous? Because the standard of beauty (or lust, as many of these monster's ply) holds humans to be the epitome?

Are there any implications of this?

I'm curious what others think on this.

Hey all,

Does anyone have experience with the Artisan in play? I'm specifically wondering how the incentive to craft all the time, combined with the very cheap crafting, plays out.

Thanks!

Can I be contacted off-boards about this, before it ships? Thanks!

omgomgomgomgomgomgomgomgomgomgomgomg

Hey all,

While I don't wish to dwell on the circumstances around this, suffice to say, I wish to show some gratitude for the solid products LPJr Design puts out. To that end, let's get a little Mikazemas going, eh? It's still cold out, and that's what really matters about Mikazemas, right?

I will gift the following items to the first person to request them, one per person. Please leave a request in this thread with which book you want.

Thank you Paizo for turning this feat into something reasonable.

Benefit: Once per round, when f ighting defensively

with at least one hand free, you can designate one melee
attack being made against you before the roll is made.
You receive a +4 dodge bonus to AC against that attack.
If you using the total defense action instead, you can
def lect one melee attack that would normally hit you.
An attack so def lected deals no damage and has no other
effect (instead treat it as a miss). You do not expend an
action when using this feat, but you must be aware of the
attack and not f lat-footed.

Hey Paizo and other folks,

I'm currently in the middle of a project to get a good feel for the math behind Pathfinder, using what I believe to be baseline examples of CRB classes and Table 1-1 of the Bestiary. This is primarily for my own benefit for when designing, but other people seem to enjoy the information, so I'm posting it in various threads.

To expand past the fighter, I'm curious if there's any data collating and averaging the encounters of the Paizo APs and modules, and if so, if I can have access to it.

What I'm mostly curious about is the percentage of type/subtype and alignment pairs used in encounters, and maybe if there are classed levels or not. This would all tie to a certain CR, and from this we can get a very rough idea of the usage of certain types of creatures.

If there's not already one of these DBs, I'm aware of how silly it would be to ask you guys to suddenly make one, so I'll leave that to Karui Kage :)

If any fans know of such a DB, I'd be grateful!

Let's get some positivity goin', eh?

What aspects of items have you liked, even if you had to vote against them? This is quite different from "What items did you like?", mind you. Remember, no identifying items.

One of my favorites has been an item that dealt with channel energy in a cool way, providing utility for channel energy, but not in a way that's overpowered (well, not too overpowered :))

I've also been pretty impressed with some of the items that have been able to meld cinematic awesomeness with solid rules design. Those have been a real treat.

Hey all,

This is much the same deal as this thread, but for a different build. One that is not optimized and that I made trying to emulate the more average player.

Here's the rough run-down on their build:

The basics are that he's too busy selecting other feats, so he gets his feats later. He's not as aggressive on getting the good magic items, so those get pushed back as well. He puts a few of his HD based points (specifically, 8 and 16) into a non-Str. He still starts out with 15 Str though.

He uses a sword and board, but doesn't want to go for the offensive-shield-use feats, since that's a bit complicated and honestly, doesn't really fit his character.

This guy gets up there, gets some solid hits in, and has a nice AC (abstracted away), allowing his rogue buddy to get in there and tear up the foe with sneak attacks. Then he puts one foot on the head of his vanquished foe, strikes a heroic pose, and then goes to the tavern for some good old fashion ale and wenches.

Due to the nature of the character, I've modified the program to run it both with Power Attack always on and with it never on. I'll post both results.

This version HAS the boots of speed, which I think is sort of pushing it. But it'll be interesting. Next post will have the data without the boots of speed.

Again, I'm not posting these to prove a point (lookin' at you, "Math break down?!" thread :P), but to get data out there for what I believe to be reasonable "most optimized" and "average" fighters in the CRB only.

Level: 1 CR: 1 DPR: 6.7925
Level: 2 CR: 2 DPR: 6.27
Level: 3 CR: 3 DPR: 7.5075
Level: 4 CR: 4 DPR: 10.23
Level: 5 CR: 5 DPR: 13.475
Level: 6 CR: 6 DPR: 22.1375
Level: 7 CR: 7 DPR: 25.4375
Level: 8 CR: 8 DPR: 28.1875
Level: 9 CR: 9 DPR: 33.4125
Level: 10 CR: 10 DPR: 36.45
Level: 11 CR: 11 DPR: 80.37
Level: 12 CR: 12 DPR: 90.63
Level: 13 CR: 13 DPR: 96.17
Level: 14 CR: 14 DPR: 96.17
Level: 15 CR: 15 DPR: 106.75
Level: 16 CR: 16 DPR: 124.285
Level: 17 CR: 17 DPR: 134.55
Level: 18 CR: 18 DPR: 134.55
Level: 19 CR: 19 DPR: 134.55
Level: 20 CR: 20 DPR: 196.875
Level: 20 CR: 21 DPR: 183.75
Level: 20 CR: 22 DPR: 157.5
Level: 20 CR: 23 DPR: 150

Level: 1 CR: 3 DPR: 5.225
Level: 2 CR: 4 DPR: 4.7025
Level: 3 CR: 5 DPR: 5.775
Level: 4 CR: 6 DPR: 8.525
Level: 5 CR: 7 DPR: 11.55
Level: 6 CR: 8 DPR: 18.2875
Level: 7 CR: 9 DPR: 19.3325
Level: 8 CR: 10 DPR: 21.4225
Level: 9 CR: 11 DPR: 28.4625
Level: 10 CR: 12 DPR: 28.35
Level: 11 CR: 13 DPR: 63.45
Level: 12 CR: 14 DPR: 76.95
Level: 13 CR: 15 DPR: 82.01
Level: 14 CR: 16 DPR: 82.01
Level: 15 CR: 17 DPR: 92.11
Level: 16 CR: 18 DPR: 104.6875
Level: 17 CR: 19 DPR: 117.90375
Level: 18 CR: 20 DPR: 107.8125
Level: 19 CR: 21 DPR: 107.8125
Level: 20 CR: 22 DPR: 157.5
Level: 20 CR: 23 DPR: 150
Level: 20 CR: 24 DPR: 131.25
Level: 20 CR: 25 DPR: 120

Level: 1 CR: 1 DPR: 5.775
Level: 2 CR: 2 DPR: 5.3625
Level: 3 CR: 3 DPR: 6.545
Level: 4 CR: 4 DPR: 8.855
Level: 5 CR: 5 DPR: 11.88
Level: 6 CR: 6 DPR: 20.0475
Level: 7 CR: 7 DPR: 23.1275
Level: 8 CR: 8 DPR: 24.7225
Level: 9 CR: 9 DPR: 29.9475
Level: 10 CR: 10 DPR: 32.67
Level: 11 CR: 11 DPR: 68.25
Level: 12 CR: 12 DPR: 79.95
Level: 13 CR: 13 DPR: 84.28
Level: 14 CR: 14 DPR: 84.28
Level: 15 CR: 15 DPR: 91.35
Level: 16 CR: 16 DPR: 109.98
Level: 17 CR: 17 DPR: 117.845
Level: 18 CR: 18 DPR: 117.845
Level: 19 CR: 19 DPR: 117.845
Level: 20 CR: 20 DPR: 155.55
Level: 20 CR: 21 DPR: 153
Level: 20 CR: 22 DPR: 145.35
Level: 20 CR: 23 DPR: 141.525

Level: 1 CR: 3 DPR: 4.5375
Level: 2 CR: 4 DPR: 4.125
Level: 3 CR: 5 DPR: 5.1425
Level: 4 CR: 6 DPR: 7.59
Level: 5 CR: 7 DPR: 10.395
Level: 6 CR: 8 DPR: 17.0775
Level: 7 CR: 9 DPR: 18.3425
Level: 8 CR: 10 DPR: 19.9375
Level: 9 CR: 11 DPR: 26.3175
Level: 10 CR: 12 DPR: 26.73
Level: 11 CR: 13 DPR: 59.85
Level: 12 CR: 14 DPR: 75.03
Level: 13 CR: 15 DPR: 78.26
Level: 14 CR: 16 DPR: 78.26
Level: 15 CR: 17 DPR: 85.05
Level: 16 CR: 18 DPR: 101.05
Level: 17 CR: 19 DPR: 110.25
Level: 18 CR: 20 DPR: 105.35
Level: 19 CR: 21 DPR: 105.35
Level: 20 CR: 22 DPR: 145.35
Level: 20 CR: 23 DPR: 141.525
Level: 20 CR: 24 DPR: 133.875
Level: 20 CR: 25 DPR: 124.95

Highlights:

Hey all,

Recently I was interested in seeing what the DPR is of a baseline CRB only fighter. I wrote a program up to calculate everything for me, and I figured I'd share the results with others, in case they are interested.

Here's the basic build. I didn't fully stat out at every level, and I figure the left over money and feats will go to shoring up defenses or other areas. Elite Array, human fighter only, falchion, abstracted away everything but bonuses to-hit and damage, as they should have enough Whatever to fill in the rest.

But first a few things:
Why CRB only? I wrote this for my own use when designing class options. If a 15 PB character with my options is outdamaging the core fighter, there are problems. Since I believe everything should be balanced around Core so it doesn't cause a powerclimb, I chose CRB only. Yes, that means no Gloves of Dueling. This also provides a benchmark for powerclimb in later books.

Why Elite array? Because I wanted a standard baseline. It was either this or 15 point buy, and in the interest of reducing variability, I just went with the Elite array, putting the 15 into Str. Plus, PF is technically designed around 15 PB, 4d6 drop lowest, or elite array, and elite array seemed like the best choice for this.

Why falchion? Falchion Fred is, from what I recall, the most optimized CRB fighter, so I went with his weapon choice.

Is this using power attack? Yes. All power attack, all the time. Why? Because I'm lazy, and fighters aren't too badly off always using it.

When did he get everything? I roughly guessed when he got all the items, and didn't do a thorough check against WBL. The trends would stay the same, even if the exact numbers change.

But gloves of dueling! Tough. I need to compare the numbers against the CRB. (Although for fun, they seemed to increase DPR by 25% against creatures with CR +2 over the fighter's level)

Level: 1 CR: 1 DPR: 8.97
Level: 2 CR: 2 DPR: 8.28
Level: 3 CR: 3 DPR: 9.7175
Level: 4 CR: 4 DPR: 15.6975
Level: 5 CR: 5 DPR: 17.71
Level: 6 CR: 6 DPR: 33.0625
Level: 7 CR: 7 DPR: 34.615
Level: 8 CR: 8 DPR: 44.145
Level: 9 CR: 9 DPR: 52.95
Level: 10 CR: 10 DPR: 52.95
Level: 11 CR: 11 DPR: 115.475
Level: 12 CR: 12 DPR: 128.205
Level: 13 CR: 13 DPR: 141.55
Level: 14 CR: 14 DPR: 172.405
Level: 15 CR: 15 DPR: 172.405
Level: 16 CR: 16 DPR: 207
Level: 17 CR: 17 DPR: 221.95
Level: 18 CR: 18 DPR: 221.95
Level: 19 CR: 19 DPR: 253.085
Level: 20 CR: 20 DPR: 356.2
Level: 20 CR: 21 DPR: 348.4
Level: 20 CR: 22 DPR: 332.8
Level: 20 CR: 23 DPR: 325

Level: 1 CR: 3 DPR: 6.9
Level: 2 CR: 4 DPR: 6.21
Level: 3 CR: 5 DPR: 7.475
Level: 4 CR: 6 DPR: 13.2825
Level: 5 CR: 7 DPR: 15.18
Level: 6 CR: 8 DPR: 27.7725
Level: 7 CR: 9 DPR: 25.645
Level: 8 CR: 10 DPR: 33.615
Level: 9 CR: 11 DPR: 45.15
Level: 10 CR: 12 DPR: 41.25
Level: 11 CR: 13 DPR: 91.295
Level: 12 CR: 14 DPR: 108.965
Level: 13 CR: 15 DPR: 121.79
Level: 14 CR: 16 DPR: 159.285
Level: 15 CR: 17 DPR: 159.285
Level: 16 CR: 18 DPR: 186.75
Level: 17 CR: 19 DPR: 201.25
Level: 18 CR: 20 DPR: 190.9
Level: 19 CR: 21 DPR: 225.4
Level: 20 CR: 22 DPR: 332.8
Level: 20 CR: 23 DPR: 325
Level: 20 CR: 24 DPR: 299
Level: 20 CR: 25 DPR: 286

A few highlights:

The, rather amusing, thought occurred to me today that a contestant could stand out by using the word filigree, as everyone else is going to avoid it like the plague.

I'm not sure how I feel about that.

Thank you!

Hey all,

Here's my playtest report for the Confirmation. This was my first PFS game and first PbP, and you can find it here if you want to see how it went down.

Spoilers below.

My character was an Elven Investigator. His stats were

Str: 14

Dex: 14
Con: 12
Int: 16
Wis: 12
Cha: 11

I went for the Envoy alternative racial trait, and using that, I picked up Arcane Strike. This was in response to the reports of investigator's not having all that great combat at low levels. I used Arcane Strike on all of my attacks, and while the ability to overcome DR didn't come up, I'm sure I would've been very grateful if it had.

The first encounter was with a pair of spider swarms, but we dropped them really fast with a burning hands and an alchemical fire.

Our second encounter was with the Minotaur. The rest of my party elected to fight it, drawing its attention from Janira. We made use of the difficult terrain, and while we blew most of our resources (arcanist used grease twice, I used 2 points for Inspiration on a key attack roll), we did eventually take it down. We lost the Hunter's badger animal companion in the process though. RIP Badgah.

The hunter was fairly optimized from what I could tell. He made use of Tribal Scars to start out with 16 HP, so he was sort of our tank. I don't know which option he used for that feat. He also had Rime Spell and Magical Lineage (snowball), allowing him to augment that wonderful spell snowball so it could cause a foe to be staggered and entangled for a round. He used it on the minotaur and hit, but the mino saved against the staggered. He was still entangled for a round tho, which really helped the characters in melee to pull out.

My character ran for the backpack after throwing a sling at the minotaur, and picked up a tanglefoot bag from it. After that, he spent hte next round moving closer to the minotaur, and finally throwing it. I rolled a 3 on the attack roll, but had said I was spending Inspiration on it, so I got a total of 9. Had I read the class more carefully, I would've known that you choose to add inspiration only AFTER the roll. I wouldn't have added it in this case had I known that. HOWEVER! 9 hit him, keeping him entangled, and more or less forcing him to attack the badger, rather than us.

Poor badger died at this point.

With regard to this fight, I felt that I was able to contribute, but this was in many ways due to not having anything else to contribute with, making it so checking out that backpack was my best option. Kind of counter intuitive.

After dropping the Minotaur, we built a cairn for Badgah and said our prayers. We then went spelunking. Inspiration didn't help much with the first few parts of the cave, but I was able to use Linguistics and the free inspiration to learn about the pictographs on the wall. It was fun to be able to get that extra 1d6, despite how simple it is.

After crossing the pit, I was able to decipher parts of the old Azlant paintings depicting sections of Aroden's holy book, again using Inspiration. This was fun too. Yay!

We met the Gillman, and after waffling on what to do, we went to greet him. I walked up to him, and said "Hello, friend" in Abolethese (which I had because I wanted to take advantage of the free Linguistics Inspiration, so I needed the rank). Turns out he couldn't hear me, but we were able to handle this event peacefully. I believe I spent my last point of Inspiration here too, on a Perception check to notice his cloak. We ended up trading the cloak we got with his wand of shield of faith, which proved key for later on, when the AC bonus saved our warpriest from a nasty hit by a critter.

Following this, we went to one of the caves, and faced off against some skeletons. At this point, our arcanist was left with just using a whip to try and trip enemies. Kind of clever, come to think of it. He didn't have any offensive cantrips, so that's about all he could do.

I mostly used my sling against the skeletons we faced, and got unlucky and then very lucky with rolls. Nothing specific to report about the investigator here, other than that taking Arcane Strike to make up for the lack of offensive capabilities proved helpful.

We then found the second passageway out. Fast forward to the next cave path...I used my extract of blend to be able to scout ahead. This was very, very helpful, and let me see which creatures we were going to face before facing them. There was a communication breakdown with the GM, and he thought we were closer to them than we all thought, so it ended up being that the mites heard us discussing our plan of attack. Ah well, element of surprise lost.

During the battle, I didn't much use investigator abilities, but did use Comprehend Languages from the Envoy racial trait to understand what the mites were saying. Again, I got that trait primarily for Arcane Strike, but those 4 spells it grants (comprehend languages, detect magic, read magic, and detect poison) fit the Investigator very well, and I wanted to be able to cast them despite not having cantrips. I could just use my own extracts for comprehend languages.

As other comments:

Hey all,

I just upgraded to Android 4.3, and now the forums aren't quite working. With the recent change to loading the forums with the spinny thing, the spinning wheel won't stop spinning, and the message boards won't load. I can go to individual posts if they are in the Recent Messages RSS box, or if I click on a specific thread.

Yes, I tried turning it on and off again. Twice.

Screenshots available at request, but something isn't finishing its loop. Just like corgiloop

Hey guys,

Here are my notes for the game I just ran.

It was a made up encounter. Originally, it was going to be a troll, a battle mage, daring bravo, and a traitorous brigand, but the loss of 2 players right before the playtest meant the troll got ixnayed.

The rules were pretty simple: 15 point buy (the way god intended!), core races only.

All were 5th level.

Characters:

The encounter setup:

Hey all,

Much like my brawler/monk thread, this thread is to hopefully contain the majority of discussion on the rogue and it’s place in the game following the introduction of the ACG.

This one is going to get even more heated than the brawler/monk one.

Stay level-headed. There are many perspectives for balance. The one you have isn’t the only. :)

Hey all,

In an attempt to lower the noise to signal ratio, I’ve created this thread to hopefully contain the majority of the discussion on the effects of the introduction of the brawler class on the monk.

So, what are your thoughts on the Brawler versus the Monk? Does the brawler obsolete the monk? Will the people who enjoy the smack-yo-face aspects of the monk migrate to the brawler, leaving the fans of the monk’s mysticism behind?

Stay civil. We're all trying to make the game better.

Woooooo!

Hey guys,

This topic comes up fairly often, so I figured I'd spread the word on this new tidbit that I hadn't seen elsewhere. Since this isn't about Dreamscarred Press' material primarily, I didn't post it in the Compatible Products forum.

Psionics has been well covered by third-party publishers like Dreamscarred Press. Is that a subject that you can see Paizo tackling at some point?

Personally, I like what Dreamscarred has done with psionics, and I wouldn’t want to come in and do the exact same thing. I think if Paizo ever decides to look into psionics, we’ll go in a different direction. It’s not currently in our plans, but I wouldn’t rule it out in the future.

Often times, people wonder if they'd just use DSP's work, and this lends more support to the idea, often espoused by Mr. James Jacobs, that Paizo would go its own way, rather than using Dreamscarred Press' material.

But in other news, the lead designer likes Psionics Unleashed, so there's that :)

From this interview at ENWorld.