Swashtigator is still glorious. 1 level of inspired blade, investigator the rest..
1: rapier finesse, wpn focus, fencing grace, int+1 panache and party..
2: skills, inspiration, extracts
3: wpn versatility
4: mutagen
5: single weapon trick, studied target
6: quick study
7: dirty fighting
8: sickening offensive
9: imp dirty trick
10: talent?
11: grtr dirty trick
Bonus: power attack
The damage isn't great, but being able to hit and sicken and greater trick in a round isn't terrible.. if you can't justify doing your tricks with your rapier then agile maneuvers may be required.. empiricist plus student of philosophy trait really helps the social skills..
Viking and rap cultures have a lot of similarities. Wearable wealth, extemporizing poetry with a penchant for self promotion, venerate related women but objectify others, and more.. so, go viking Skald, be an extra-original gangster.. trait for sleight of hand if necessary..
For more ways to weaponize words, the blistering invective spell, the wit bard, or soundstriker bard.
Human with ye olde Racial Heritage to pick up those sylph feats..
I think a Metamorph alchemist could be spending most of the day as a gargoyle by 5th level. More of a monstrous Pan than a Peter though..
If 3rd party is allowed, Elocator is online at 6th.
What about military strategist requires a martial class? That seems pretty independent from most class abilities.
If you like witch stuff just go straight witch, unless you want martial ability.
If you want a combatant powered by a mysterious patron, battle oracle could be another way to go. Otherwise hexcrafter magus sounds better to me than dipping out of witch. You could also be a bloodrager with a bloodline sage familiar.
Unlike the previous thread, this sounds fun/cool to me.
I'd play it through, keep do-gooding until you find a solution or the curse takes you out, start taking care of a bucket list and planning your last night.. definitely help the shaman first..
also, should probably ask a party member to keep an eye on you while sleeping in case the curse takes over when you're not conscious..
if you start needing will saves to resist the urge, only then fall on your sword, unless you can make that a thing for your last night (maybe a vigil so you can go out by the sword at dawn while the curse tries to finish you)..
GM wishes to pervert wish attempts. They do so, with great wit and cleverness and PC tears. However, this triggers a legalese grammar arms race with the PCs, until every wish is multiple pages that take hours, in and out of game, trying to close or abuse loopholes.
On topic, the Poison Elves price of the third sin, any wish is granted via theft of objects or energies from entities that the wisher really didn't want to upset..
Or, the Game of Tenses, any slightly vague indication of time is abused, allowing unacceptable delay of service or shortened duration or time travelling shenanigans..
Or, the Homonym-con, any potential homonym or commonly misunderstood words are taken as inappropriately as possible...
Greater good arguments always tend towards evil. When I think about it, any such argument fails based on the limit of projected consequences, based on the available data and processing power.
Kill 10 to save 1000, but what if saving 1000 provokes the death of 100000, which saves 10000000, which provokes....
A flying blade Advanced Class Guide swashbuckler that uses the Weapon Master Handbook startoss style feat chain will be able to hit multiple targets with one dagger throw.
And in addition to 5 levels of Swash you could take 4 levels of Weapon Master fighter to pick up the Richochet Toss advanced weapon training feat so your favorite friendly dagger returns to your hand after.
It might be more complicated or less magical then you're looking for, but it came to mind.
Otherwise, magus will eventually get AoE.. . A Myrmidarch magus could also do similar dagger hijinks without multiclassing..
Savage Technologist Barbarian is designed for this, if allowed in PFS. 5 of that might be better for you then gunslinger, just replace Sword&Pistol with Amateur Gunslinger?
It's like a clouded vision oracle, but starts off better. Playing one of those, I tasked a party member to relay out-of-range descriptions to me, and eventually picked up a familiar to take care of that.
Urban barbarian 1 for dex rage, the new WMH falcata swashbuckler 1 would make it finessable and give prof, & un-rogue 3 for dex damage that works 2hand or 2weapon unlike slashing grace, then either back to Barb or anything more fun for the rest?
If ok taking h-elf trait to get prof, any swash would give you dex to hit. If not going dex, then I'd avoid the rogue and go for static damage and skills elsewhere..
Preservationist alchemist, into master chemyst..
Mutate would give you the don't piss off the little guy thing, he could constantly be bottling samples from creatures' brains, chortling about trapping their souls as he does so since he figured out where it lives..
If you don't like bombs you can go vivisector, but why since that won't advance with MC and doesn't use your alternate FCB to improve bomb damage and doesn't make things explode.
Daemon-spawn for finesse / Slashing grace with a dagger or agile AoMF with Feral mutagen, or Oni-spawn for str with a longspear and combat reflexes (and/or Feral).. Soul seer alternate would help with a soul obsession, and is thematic with the eyes if you go for the see in darkness feats.. Pass for Human if GM will allow it to work for his gnomish heritage instead, if not that then maw and fiendish sprinter are cool too..
Tumor familiar raven (or improved to imp if GM allows) would give you the devil on your shoulder..
Infusion and bomb discoveries like dispelling and stinking should give most of your party's caster needs.
I would guess that the OP means unarmored or non-casting inspirations are often a product of a world where those things are the norm, or in a conversion sense they'd be non-optimal characters being cool against low CR encounters..
So, when converting them to PF, instead of focusing on that part, emphasize other parts of their inspiration and don't worry about the armor or spells they use to stay viable..
That said, if those are the parts that are inspiring, I say go ahead and either jump through optimization hoops, or work with the GM so your underpowered character still feels cool.
Ethos: On a long enough timescale, everything is equally insignificant, be it gods, kings, peasants, insects or whatever. Therefore nothing is more (or less) important than living your life. Only one shot at it, so figure out what's worth dying for and live for it. (The Cult recommends love, learning, and/or understanding.)
Garb: black tattered cloaks and longcoats over wintery colors.
All you need is the coat, the ciggys, and a bad attitude, with a whiff of magic and a whole lot of cons and manipulations.. Just trick out your bluff and diplomacy, anything else is gravy..
Like most superhero books his nature can change dramatically depending on who's writing him.. I could see him as an oracle, sorcerer, mesmerist, or arcane trickster, depending on the authors.. +1 to Occultist, though, that's the easiest fit...
Fun-loving and trickstery paladin (Camwyna or sometimes Paks from the most excellent Deed of Paksennarion) or monk (Bulletproof Monk).
Disciplined warrior, done via Barbarian, rage flavored as some sort of martial hyperfocus.
A peace-seeking wanderer who uses grappling and unarmed techniques to pacify threats non-lethally. Barbarian/fighter.
A badass general, natural leader of men, master of strategic warfare. Bard, of course, inspire courage is a competence bonus deliverable through oratory of good tactical orders, no music fluff required.
Drug-addled charming scoundrel and musician, knowledgeable jack of all trades. Investigator (probably with student of philosophy trait, empiricist for more cha->int skills or psychic detective for charm spells).
Doctor and scientist, leaving behind their legitamite practice and lab after a tragedy, using their knowledge of anatomy and physics to make viscious debilitating strikes, with pockets full of interesting alchemical or Magical devices. Unchained Rogue.
I once knew an arcane trickster sniper, who added explosive runes to the butt of his bolts, added a high-mag scope to his crossbow, did not make himself immune to triggering the runes, and would read them himself through the scope after they impacted his target. A convoluted and dangerous method in attempt to stay viable.
After creating a minefield of runes against an invading orc horde, thwarted by their widespread illiteracy, he gave the scope to a defender that wasn't made immune to the runes, turning the dud mines into LoS remote bombs.
Philosophy can be done by anybody. It's a roleplay choice independent of race/class.
If you want the PC to be knowledgeable about the teachings of other philosophers, knowledge skills could be useful.
If you have a philosophy in mind that would restrict your character's actions, and want to plan for those restrictions, then please share, as otherwise how does anybody know what you mean by philosopher? Always gotta define ambiguous terms before you can work with them.
Good stats for reach and combat reflexes. Longhammer or bardiche, with a boulder helment for close range. (Dwarven weapons are from the advaced race guide, available on the PRD.)
+1 to steel soul (i believe from advanced players guide).
The student of philosophy trait would help with social skills. (I believe it's from Quests & Campaigns, can find it on d20pfsrd). Gruff and gross, but he payed attention to rhetoric class in pally school.
For a 2hander, any feats after power attack and combat reflexes are gravy, so you could branch out into ranged weapons for switch hitting, or shore up saves and defenses with your feats..
DD requires nothing in off hand, and is flavored as for Saranraens, may allow 2wf with unarmed strikes, some DMs don't allow it with spell combat for some reason, but allows scimitar finesse without a swash dip..
SG works for your pick of slashing 1Hs, but not light, which means whip or aldori barring swash dip, doesn't require empty off hand.
For straight magus, fencing grace with rapiers might be easier, but inspired blade dip is pretty tempting.
Self buffing is only useful if you can get them in play without giving up your combat rounds. Quickened or quicker spells by fervor, rods, arcane bloodrage, prebuffs, etc.
Unless you've got a reach build, where you just move into position and punish anything that provokes, I guess.
17. Inns. 4+ crazy people walk into an inn. Instead of ordering food they all take turns sucking on and passing around a horn spoon. At least one of them drinks an implausible amount of alcohol and hits on anything with a pulse. One other keeps randomly disappearing right before annoying stuff mysteriously happens. At least one of them gets indignent if anyone reacts with surprise or trepidation to their pet dangerous predator. They request a room barely big enough for 2 and all pile in to sleep back to back, armored and armed. Then they toss around tips worth month or year wages looking for random rumors and tall tales they apparently believe without reservation.
If i'm a stronger optimizer than my group, i'll pick a weaker class/concept to put the breaks on my natural inclinations. Likewise if my group is hardcore gamers, i'll play something strong so i don't hold them back. It's all about the group dynamics.
With the number of feats involved it's a mid-high level tactic, used to spread your damage amongst multiple targets, and it's shut down by enemies recognizing your tactic and no longer making AoOs against you. All in all, it's for clearing mooks less efficiently than a fireball.
Also, the 2nd attack from Snake Fang is an immediate action, so only one of those a round. Similarly, crane wing is only once a round.
This is why it's important to not be a jerk. If playing your character annoys or offends the PCs and NPCs around him, they may be more relieved than sad that he's gone. If so, instead of prolonging the agony, the players should explain to the culprit how he's not getting brought back because of the consequences of how he RP'd, and (if true) that he's welcome to end his one-man strike protest whenever he wants to rejoin the game within the strictures provided.
My kingmaker group has a crossbow vital strike scout that loves using scrolls of arrow eruption. I have a very liberal interpretation of the familiar's Share Spells ability, though, pretty sure it's not RAW to let his mephit UMD the scroll to do this in one round. But if he's willing to spend the gp, i'm willing to allow it as a reward for his style, rp, and the trail of murdered familiars he's left behind him.
We were using dice and tables. One of the core books had dungeon randomizers, so we'd map as we go.
GM: You come to a (roll) long corridor. You see (roll, roll) no threats.
The corridor is (roll) damp and slimy with mildew.
Us: We move carefully down the hallway, checking for traps (roll).
GM: You make it! At the end it (roll) opens into a large natural cavern.
(Roll) *ominous giggling* Make perception checks.
From the (roll) unlit depths of the room, you hear what sounds like the slow sleepy breathing of an incredibly large beast.
Us: Annoying new rogue, scout it out and we'll give you that dagger you've been eyeing.
Rogue: *grumble* Fine.
GM: Any message spells or the like up? No? Rogue, come with me, bring sheet and dice.
Us: *updating the black book and in character nervous chatter*
Gm and rogue coming back with timer and blank record sheet: You hear a cut off scream and a viscous splash, followed by what could be an enormous crocodile chortling.
Us: scatter and run away! whatever happens make sure the book makes it out intact!!!
There is the Rahadoumi anti-theism which I'm just itching to play a character with.
As far as athiesm, you could go with a more psionic outlook. Divine magic is just a special school of magic, unlocking and focusing a person's own talents by the peculiar insanity of faith. Summoned outsiders and other planes are just astral constructs given form by the subconscious, like a summoner's eidolon or an astral pocket.
If they want to run, either give them a reason not too or roll with it and have adventures escaping the country. If it's a warmongering conspiracy, chances are they have agents in other countries, which they can run into to get them on track to unravel the conspiracy again, just from the other end.
If they've missed a solution to clear their name without running, either ask them why they think it won't work, or make it more obvious.
Weapon master 3, Sohei 6 would be decent way to go.
If GM allows custom items, adding the mighty hurling and blinkback to your physical belt would make barbarian hurler pretty amazing.. hurler gets +10 range, pretty huge benefit allowing you to throw with out penalties at 20, and bring maximum range from 50 to 100..
If you go dwarf, you could use dwarven wedge axes, giving you both slashing and bludgeoning.. probably still want weapon master 3-4 too, unbeatable when you only have one weapon to care about..
You could go s16, d15, c13+2, i12, w12+2, ch7-2.. also by going hurler, you could take the hurling charge power and similarly named feat to be able to make a non-melee charge with 2 throws....
Given the extreme competence their cohort shows, it makes sense that they should have also warned him of the chance to fail.
But, I've got no patience for anyone that wants to give up on a game because things don't always go perfectly their way. A chance of failure and consequence is one of the things that makes tabletop gaming better than most video games. And I deal with enough entitled self-absorption in real life, don't need it from any alleged friends.
The chance of failure when crafting, along with downtime management, makes it an interesting mini-game instead of just spending a feat for a drastic shopping discount.
I think bringing up the idea to recoup some of their losses by scamming some poor schmuck into buying it is more than generous. Just watch out for them trying to farm dust of choking and sneezing or other excellent cursed items, selling the the successes so they lose nothing but time.
I think the APG traits are the ones from this AP. Black Sheep enforcers for the noble or scavengers for the apothecary would probably work. Favored Sons protected by the sheriff because they saved his kids life from the other goblins at some point.
I love the idea of junkyard goblins. Come to eat the evil dogs, stay for the cool stuff and trash burning and safety from both the townsfolk and corruption of the old tribe..
Sounds like you're talking about a slave market / stable/ training facility more than a prison.
Low security hosteling and market area for the broken, then high security holding pens and training/ torture facilities for the newcomers. Low security area would look like any other market, but more manacles and tethering posts.
Magitech permanent dimensional lock on the whole area, lead-lined walls and antimagic fields applied liberally to the secure areas. Taser collars and slave brandings for the stock. Permanently lit and chilled rooms with random ghost sounds to interrupt sleep, magic mouths for repetitive training messages. Probably separate areas for each type of slave and the appropriate breaking and education specialists. More trainers than actual guards; charm magics and mundane tortures mixed for more efficient results.
Growing around the facility would be the unsecured settlement that is created around any profitable business. Undesirable for security, but unavoidable by human nature.
Pouches can be stolen and lost in a variety of ways. If so, then you're stuck scavenging those weird components until you get another one.
It may be immersion breaking to have all that stuff and be able to sift through all of it to find the component you need as a free action, but it's an improvement over tracking all those things like we had to pre-3e.
Material components is one of the many reasons my next game is going to be Iron Heroes or Psionics only, though.
What's up with not allowing utility flight and hair? I can see not allowing hair at all for flavor, but restricting it to combat only seems weird. I don't understand the flying restriction at all. A standard action for x minutes of fly per day shouldn't need further restrictions.
As far as the all day cackle, just describe it to the party, and surely they'll realize what a bad idea it is and stop it.
+1 to everyone pointing out this is a personal conflict, better to resolve this than get mired deeper in the exploit/punish cycle.
Gandalf is a bard. The only magic he uses (at least in the core 4) could be described as illusion, enchantment, or bardic performance(oratory). Explains the longsword. Staff for sunburst or searinglight.
Illusion means the school of magic, figments and phantasms are subtypes. Why would it say that you see through illusions, when it actually means you can see through figments and patterns but not phantasms?
Illusion per PRD:
Illusion
Illusion spells deceive the senses or minds of others. They cause people to see things that are not there, not see things that are there, hear phantom noises, or remember things that never happened.
Figment: A figment spell creates a false sensation. Those who perceive the figment perceive the same thing, not their own slightly different versions of the figment. It is not a personalized mental impression. Figments cannot make something seem to be something else. A figment that includes audible effects cannot duplicate intelligible speech unless the spell description specifically says it can. If intelligible speech is possible, it must be in a language you can speak. If you try to duplicate a language you cannot speak, the figment produces gibberish. Likewise, you cannot make a visual copy of something unless you know what it looks like (or copy another sense exactly unless you have experienced it#.
Because figments and glamers are unreal, they cannot produce real effects the way that other types of illusions can. Figments and glamers cannot cause damage to objects or creatures, support weight, provide nutrition, or provide protection from the elements. Consequently, these spells are useful for confounding foes, but useless for attacking them directly.
A figment's AC is equal to 10 + its size modifier.
Glamer: A glamer spell changes a subject's sensory qualities, making it look, feel, taste, smell, or sound like something else, or even seem to disappear.
Pattern: Like a figment, a pattern spell creates an image that others can see, but a pattern also affects the minds of those who see it or are caught in it. All patterns are mind-affecting spells.
Phantasm: A phantasm spell creates a mental image that usually only the caster and the subject #or subjects# of the spell can perceive. This impression is totally in the minds of the subjects. It is a personalized mental impression, all in their heads and not a fake picture or something that they actually see. Third parties viewing or studying the scene don't notice the phantasm. All phantasms are mind-affecting spells.
Shadow: A shadow spell creates something that is partially real from extradimensional energy. Such illusions can have real effects. Damage dealt by a shadow illusion is real.
Saving Throws and Illusions #Disbelief): Creatures encountering an illusion usually do not receive saving throws to recognize it as illusory until they study it carefully or interact with it in some fashion.
A successful saving throw against an illusion reveals it to be false, but a figment or phantasm remains as a translucent outline.
A failed saving throw indicates that a character fails to notice something is amiss. A character faced with proof that an illusion isn't real needs no saving throw. If any viewer successfully disbelieves an illusion and communicates this fact to others, each such viewer gains a saving throw with a +4 bonus.
Shadowdancer, get a permaflanking shadow buddy. 1d6 from him and 2 per hit from you.
Chill Touch, either by major magic talent or UMD.
(As long as they're vulnerable to negative energy, attack against touch AC and give them saves vs an extra str damage. Even better with a high level Chill Touch and TWF.)
Intelligent defensive actions are common sense to the people they protect, and cowardice to the people they don't.
Intelligent offensive actions are ruthless evil to the people they destroy, and common sense to the people they protect.
If you were fully a member of the group, then defending yourself would probably not raise any hurt feelings. However, it looks like you're already an outsider to them, so anything you do that only directly helps you instead of the party, even if it's strategically better for the party as a whole (debatable if they're all being wiped out), will look like cowardice to them and further cement your outsider status.
Pinned denies dex bonus. Helpless is dex 0. -5 is not 0, so pinned is not helpless. Either the rules text of pinned is wrong, or the flavor text of helpless is wrong (or a person could be so tightly bound that they count as helpless instead of pinned, no rules for that so by GM fiat only).
It'll be a memorable character if you can stay alive. Melee's a bad idea unless you're trying to blaze of glory out. Given how disasterous a lucky hit can be, no statted defense will serve as well as being out of reach. So, you need great perception and related powers, the ability to get out of enemy range while keeping them within yours, and raise con/fort/hp for when you fail to be unreachable. Love cleric? Zen archer? Wizard conjurer? Casting bard?
Every time some Tolkien fan gushes about it to me, I pick up one of the four, and I'm always shocked that anybody can enjoy it.
I've read plenty of slow paced books and enjoyed them, I've read plenty of textbooks and enjoyed them. I don't enjoy the way he writes descriptions, I hate the way the characters are voiced in thought and dialog, I don't feel any of the mythic resonance that I can get from other authors riffing on his source material. At no point does the story hook my emotions in any way, except for relief when I force myself to stop reading, and nostalgia for the time in my life I read it first.
The movies are better for me, its visuals are more entertaining than his descriptions, but the story and characters still bore me. I find it hard to believe that any fans of the books have actually experienced other fantasy authors, or aren't just blissing out on nostalgia, but I guess I'll take their word for it.
I feel a little offended that not liking Tolkien apparantly makes me some sort of poseur, and wonder why folks who don't enjoy the work should be expected to waste further hours analyzing and rereading it, when there's works I do enjoy or haven't tried yet I could be reading instead. And I'm upset with myself for wasting yet another hour giving it another shot because I payed attention to another fan. Same thing happens to me with the Bible, I never learn.
If your party likes to split up or if you're taking the clouded vision curse, Status is great spell. Otherwise, it all depends on what sort of oracle you're building.
As a battle oracle, my charisma wasn't awesome, and I never like to depend on having rounds to buff, so I planned the bulk of my spells around out of combat utility. Any spells I might need to hit the whole party with or are dependant on caster level were on my list, and I avoided anything with a DC.
As a flames oracle, maxxed charisma and DCs and grabbed a variety of offense control and party buffs, as I didn't even carry a weapon so never wanted to run out of combat effective spells. Being the face/entertainment out of combat was more than enough to feel useful there.
