Chris Spano's page

This is a bit of a necro but I'm looking to play a very similar character. Check out Armored Battlemage from the Armor Master's Handbook.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/magus/archetypes/paizo---magus -archetypes/armored-battlemage-magus-archetype

You start with medium armor along with a +4 to defensive casting. You give up spell combat but keep spellstrike. You lose your third level arcana for a Fighter's armor training(and 18th level arcana but that's so high level who cares). You get Armor Training I at 3, II at 8, III at 13. You get heavy armor at 7. Your other big trade is that your arcane pool buffs your armor instead of your weapon.

With all that you can use a 2h weapon along with spell strike like you want. You do lose out on buffing your weapon, which does hurt some, but buffing your AC won't be terrible. Since you aren't losing -2 to hit from spell combat you won't suffer as much for losing buffing your weapon. The big loss is not being able to grab special weapon abilities. Getting armor training is great.

I'd go human for +2 to two stats like mentioned above. You need high STR, good Int, and decent Con and Dex. At lvl 8 you'd want 16 dex and full plate. Probably 14 Dex with a +2 Str/Dex belt. You're also moving at full speed.

I would focus on arcana that boost offense/to hit like Arcane Accuracy.

The big thing I'm thinking with this archetype is how to maximize the utility of your pool since you can't buff your weapon. The way I see it, focus on getting as many swift action uses of your pool to offset not getting spell combat. You can't buff and attack at the same time. What you can do though is buff your armor with your pool as a swift action. Consider replacing the Shield spell in most fights with that. It's not as big of a boost as Shield but it's a swift action. Let's say you're going to buff round 1 of a fight. Swift action to use your pool to buff your armor. Standard to cast a buff spell, like Bull's Str, Longarm, get Frostbite up and running, whatever. Then move into position. Second round you could throw up Hasted Assault. Then if you need to move, cast a touch spell and go hit someone. If they're already in melee, full attack with haste. You've got good AC from heavier armor and arcane pool buffs so you can conserve some spells in regular fights and focus on the innate power of a STR based 2h power attacker.

I think by losing your 3rd level arcana it might be good to take extra arcana at 7th. Grab something to use those pool points with. Luckily the archetype doesn't give up spell recall, it wouldn't be worth it if it did. This archetype could be a great magic tank. Good AC, defensive spell buffs, plenty of spells/day with spell recall, a solid 2h power attack, and big flashy blast spells. A heavily armored guy 10 feet away from you who can throw fireballs while wielding a greatsword is a target you want to kill quickly, but he's got the AC and Mirror Images to live through it.

Thanks. That does simplify a lot of stuff. So you have 1 actual size increase, like enlarge person, and 1 effective size increase. An effective size increase is anything that increases your weapon's damage die without increasing your size category.

Thanks, could someone link that FAQ? That simplifies a lot of things like this.

I'm sure this has come up before but I haven't seen an errata or FAQ on it.

If you're a level 5 fighter and pick up Advanced Weapon Training to get Focused Weapon on a Heavy Shield would it stack with bashing?

Focused Weapon would make it d8.
Bashing would make it 3d6.

Would those stack or would you use the higher bonus between the two size increased from Bashing or the Warpriest damage die as it scales?

Hi,

I would like to cancel my Adventure Path subscription.

Thanks.

Question: Slayer combat style talents. I searched around and didn't see a definitive answer.

>The slayer selects a ranger combat style (such as archery or two-weapon combat) and gains a combat feat from the first feat list of that style. He can choose feats from his selected combat style, even if he does not have the normal prerequisites. At 6th level, he may select this talent again and add the 6th-level ranger combat feats from his chosen style to the list. At 10th level, he may select this talent again and add the 10th-level ranger combat feats from his chosen style to the list.

I've seen this come up and people arguing both ways. Does a slayer gain a bonus feat each time he takes this talent? Like a ranger? Or does the slayer instead gain a single feat at lvl 2, and then at 6 and 10 could take the talent and add feats to the list of ones he can use without prerequisites? But he would have to take these with is own feats. Either seems plausible. The latter is weaker of course but I kinda think Slayer does too much anyway, they nearly invalidate rogues and are better than rangers in most areas.

I expect some level of uproar over Torpin: A paladin lying without immediately losing all class abilities.

Chris Spano wrote:

I haven't thoroughly read it yet, but having an enemy with Regeneration (good weapons and spells) against a party that is likely unable to provide these is kinda mean.

A heresy devil actually has fast healing, not regeneration; so at least it stays down once they do enough damage. If the party loots the cavalry picket and the hippogriff knights, as well as thoroughly (and cautiously) exploring the keep, they should find some items that can help get through the DR, too.

The inevitable fate of Jalila's tattooed skin was one of my favorite parts.

My party ended up tacking her skin on the door of the temple of Asmodeus that was turned into a temple to Torag by the inquisitor.

I like how so far the GR's lawfulness is working against them. It's basically impossible for the party to realistically do the events in this book without suspicion pointing at them. As soon as they arrive bad things start happening. They might not leave witnesses, but it's definitely suspicious. Oh no the docks burned down a week after 4-5 heavily armed strangers with mean dispositions took up residence in the inn on the edge of this small town. After the first couple things happen, or the first important NPC ends up dead, Oppian should have rallied up his A-team(the warden, the legion archon, that nonlethal ram outsider, and 3-4 sergeants) and come to arrest the PCs. Chances are there's some damning evidence(holy symbols of asmodeus, thrune insignias, something)

I haven't thoroughly read it yet, but having an enemy with Regeneration(good weapons and spells) against a party that is likely unable to provide these is kinda mean.

It looks that way. The players go from lawful agents of the govt to terrorists. From that perspective the players will probably also come up with their own acts of sabotage to try to remind the town who they belong to. You probably won't be restricted to just the events in the book. Maybe the players decide to burn down the house/business of an outspoken supporter of the GR. Paint a huge symbol of house Thrune in the town square at night. There might be a lot of impromptu plans that could grant a few despair points depending on what they come up with. My party has a cleric of asmodeus who likes to go out of his way to defile Iomedean shrines(especially after a cleric of iomedae kicked over the shrine to asmodeus he set up in the prison in book 1). I imagine that will happen at least once.

My group just finished Hellfire Compact. It's a really fun book, pretty typical pacing for Paizo's AP starter books. We noticed that power level wise the book went from very easy to very hard, very quickly. My group didn't have too much trouble with the first 2/3 of the book. A couple fights toward the end had some difficulty but were fun. Not much real risk. The very end of the book was brutal though. We had a 6 man party, 2 deaths. Without specific spoilers: A keen weapon doing 2d8+30 on a crit wiped someone first turn. Also having to deal with a swashbuckler parrying and a monster with dr 10/evil for a 3rd level party was rough. They came through it with 2 deaths, not too bad for the end fight of a book really. I don't think we've ever finished the last fights of Paizo APs without a death or two.

In the game I'm running we're just using the base Antipaladin rules with a couple modifications.

LE instead of CE.

Any effect they have that targets lawful creatures targets chaos instead, and vice versa. Ex: Instead of Protection from Law they get Protection from Chaos. Replace Dispel Law with Dispel Chaos, etc.

Use the 3.5 Paladin of Tyranny Code instead of the Antipaladin one.

That's all you really need to have a LE paladin in pathfinder.

Thanks

Hey, I got an email saying that the transaction was declined. I think the issue was that it was using my old billing address. I updated it, could someone take a look at the order please. Thanks

Thanks

What if the subscription was created after the 4th and 5th? Mine was yesterday. Do they still have the same shipping window of the 8th-19th?

Hi, I had a quick question. I started an Adventure Path subscription yesterday starting with Hell's Vengeance 1. It says it should ship within 1-7 business days. I saw some info about the 'street date' of the 1st book of the AP is the 24th. Do subscription books ship out earlier than the normal date(along with access to the PDF whenever it does ship)?

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