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I see a least a couple threads a week, especially on bitcoin/crypto that are spamming the website.

Could we implement some sort of filter that if someone start a thread and their first point mentions crypto or bit coin that the thread is automatically locked and their account frozen for review by a human?

Maybe also add some sort restriction to new accounts being able to start new threads? I realize that one would kind of hurt, and I'm not strongly advocating for it. I'd just appreciate seeing some measures put in place to stop some of this stupid spam.

I read an article over the weekend about how a distributor (Diamond) is going bankrupt and is trying to sell off the stock of inventory they have (from many publishers) and have petitioned the judge involved to allow them to do so without paying the publishers the inventory came from.

What are the chances the judge agrees to this? Is this especially likely?
Is there a chance the judge says no and the inventory gets sold, but Diamond has to pay the publishers? Can the publishers claim the inventory and take it back?

Assuming all of that is the worst possible outcome (the publishers, including Paizo) are just screwed and lose out on all that material sitting with Diamond, how bad is the impact for Paizo?

So recently my wife and I had gotten my infant son some Grogu pajamas. While staring at him I was inspired by the idea to try to do a take on Grogu, as a Goblin Psychic of course.

As I began attempting to build the character I looked up guides for help. While I was quite skilled at building characters in PF1, I am less adept at PF2.

At first I thought that Distant Grasp would be good and representative of the force powers. But eventually I saw Oscillating Wave and thought about the Goblin feat Burn It!

In the guide I was looking at they happened to recommend pairing with Sorcerer dedication for more spells (if you went charisma based, which seemed the natural choice with a goblin). So in thinking about this, I also found dangerous sorcery.

I realize dangerous sorcery wont apply to cantrips, but could this character really potentially apply the bonuses from Dangerous Sorcery, Burn It!, Oscillating Wave, and Unleash Psyche on a spell cast using psychic spell slots?

I'm considering giving PF2 another go with some recent inspiration I had for a character.

I'm wanting to build an Inventor with a prosthetic hand (saved by clockwork background?), who a happens to brew beer (this is just the craft skill though), has the searing restoration feat (so I can say things like "this wont kill you! but it will have a tiny explosion to help you feel better, so it may sting"). I'm also considering being human with unconventional weapon for gnome flickmace weapon shenanigans because zany weapon innovation feels appropriate (but I'm not set on it). I'm also pretty set on this character having an eastern European kind of accent. I'd also like the weapon innovation to come out of the prosthesis but I'm not sure if that explicitly doable or even worth it to spend feats on.

I'm going for zany crazy inventor/drunk vibe and want to see what I can do to make it mechanically viable. I'm not terribly familiar with the specifics of this class but the imagery I have in my head make me want to build it out.

I was thinking about the pun of Auntie Paladin as a female antipaladin character that pretends to be a nice paladin but is in reality a horrible person who tricks people into accepting her help which helps in the short term but harms in the long run. And that thought made me curious is there were any antipaladin archetypes (including 3rd party) that did something like this.

You know, maybe detects as lawful good instead of whatever evil.

Maybe has lay on hands, but it causes some sort of penalty later. Stuff like that.

Anybody know anything?

I've recently purchased the Pathfinder Kingmaker videogame and I'm enjoying it thoroughly, and while it's a got a lot of similarities to our beloved PnP game, it's not exactly the same.

I've spent some time looking on the internet for builds and advice specific to the video game version but I'm wondering what other may have found.

Not just advice on how to build your main character but on the rest of your party too.

Currently I'm using mods to enhance the game play, with Call of the Wild (which adds lots of classes and feats to the game), the Re-specialization mod which allows you to recreate companions from level 1 (though I know some companions break if you try to change things, like changing Harrim's deity), Crafting mod, and Bag of Tricks for general life enhancements.

So...what builds does anyone have? Or any links to great repositories of builds?

Any suggestion on overall party composition and which characters you use?

So I had an idea for Goblin character who grew up in the sewers/streets of Absalom and ended up becoming a bard. He would scavenge in the streets to survive and eventually took to general buffoonery to try to make money and survive. At this same time he also needed to develop his Deception and Diplomacy skills (along side Performance). Eventually a Cleric of Shelyn found him and encouraged his art. He developed into Puppetry on the streets, becoming a popular children's performer, and eventually became a serious actor.

Aside form focusing on Deception, Diplomacy and Performance and being a Goblin how do I build this little guy?

Looking through the classes, it feels less straightforward to build any of the casting classes compared to the likes of Fighter or Barbarian.

No, this hasn't come up in a game but I just was kind of curious.

Let say you go out of your starship on a EVA. And someone comes along and decides to blow up your starship. Are there any kind of items or class abilities that allow for you to just guide yourself towards the planet and reenter the atmosphere? Normally that sort of thing would result in blacking out and dying from heat without special shielding to help you.

However, humans have done juumps "from space" and survived. And all of our combat armor is basically super tough space suits.

So do we have any armor upgrades or anything that deals with reentering a planet's atmosphere without using a space ship?

I mean I guess with force soles or a jet pack you could just control your movement back into the atmosphere. It might just take you a while to get back on your feet. Since it's like 60 miles from Earth's surface to "space". So you need some sort of system to make a controlled fall, and then gain complete control before you splat.

It's been a while, and I never got a chance to properly review the Armory when it came out, so I'm wondering if there are any significant improvements to my character to be made.

This is what I've got right now.

I've considered selling both of the personal augmentations....but even if I do I can't afford a better weapon really.

Any advice you have for how I might improve my soldier is welcome.

Some of my choices might seem odd, so ask if that's the case, though I may have character driven reasons for having done so.

I was very disappointed by this feat not doing (something similar to) what the Pathfinder version does, which allows you to add Strength with Charisma for intimidate checks.

Personally, I'd like to suggest changing the feat to be:
"In situation where you can physically menace the target of your Coerce or Demoralize attempts, you can replace your Charisma modifier with your Strength modifier and ignore the penalty for not sharing a language."

The reason why I've come upon this is that I've made a Dwarven barbarian who wants to go into intimidation, since the class is set up for it. But the class ability scores don't really support it. Barbarians don't really have cause to invest in Intimidation, and outside of intimidation charisma isn't normally associated with barbarians. I feel you should be able to replace the bonus/penalty you would normally have from charisma with strength.

I know I can invest some of the level ability score increases into charisma, but I shouldn't have to on a barbarian where being charismatic doesn't fit the character. And they should be able to be intimidating without being good at talking to others.

Please! Pretty please! Make this change!

The grappling rules state:

Humanoid creatures without two free hands attempting to grapple a foe take a –4 penalty on the combat maneuver roll.

There is a discussion about whether or not the penalty applies only when you make the combat maneuver roll, or if applies to the entire round. Basically making the question, if you do something like draw a weapon during the round you are grappling should that penalty apply even if you've already made the grapple check?

In the Starfinder CRB it basically says Androids will choose names from whatever.

But I need a little more inspiration or direction than that. So I'm hoping to get a list of Android names together as inspiration - with reasons.

So lets see what you've got.

I was just sitting here thinking about what kind of spaceship modifications everyone would like to see in the future.

I was thinking about a "cloaking" system like the Normandy possessed from Mass Effect, where the ship stores all of it's heat internally, preventing it from being detected easily by sensors, or visually (since you would need to be close to actually see it with the naked eye).

Another that I would like to see is some sort of mine laying system. Perhaps with magnetic mines that attach to the hull before exploding.

It's still early yet, and not everyone has even gotten a chance to look at the rules yet but I am already eager to build a character.

I plan on running a Android Scholar Technomancer from Aballon who worships Triune.

However, most spell casters I have played have been 6th level or 4th level classes from Pathfinder which usually focus on buffing yourself into being good at combat, and usually have class features to help do that even better (Inquisitor is the best example, and my favorite Pathfinder class).

So, having looked over the spell list some and the Magic Hacks that are available I'm having a hard time deciding how to move forward and build the character.

So I'm looking for thoughts and advice, besides someone has to start the first brainstorming thread for build advice.

So I was inspired by another item I saw earlier which was basically a Exoskeleton for armor which reduced armor check penalty, and a thread about a flute that cast cure light wounds.

And it led me to think about other things that would be cool to see.

I've always wanted full-plate to have the option to be closer to sci-fi exoskeleton power armor type stuff. I got to thinking more about it and wanted to design a new type of full plate.

I'm thinking of including the properties of mithral as a basic part of the armor (for space aged lightweight metals) and including the exoskeleton feature I mentioned along with the comfort enchant. I'm also interested in including a couple life support kind of features. Like the armor protects you from any sort on inhaled poison or gas effects, and allows you to breath (even in no atmosphere or underwater) for some duration and keeps you comfortable from hot or cold temperatures. I also like the idea of allowing the suit to accept wands of cure spells which are automatically activated once per round when your health is below 75% of it's maximum. This was inspired by the suit of Power Armor which heals you when you are damaged.

It would also be cool if it had an on-board computer AI system which helped the wearer, though I don't know what it would do.

What are your thoughts?

Normally clerics must be within 1 alignment step of their deity. Being a cleric gives you an aura class feature, which basically increases when you detect as that alignment based on who your deity is.

Is it correct that a LG cleric of a NG deity would detect as good (faintly) at level 1, thanks to their class aura? And At level 5 they would detect strongly as good and faintly as lawful?

And so, if somehow the rule restricting alignment steps between cleric and deity didn't exist, you could then have a CG cleric of LG deity which would detect as Lawful and Good at level one, and start detecting as Chaotic at level 5?

I just want to make sure I have a correct understanding of the way the aura class feature granted to clerics interacts with their own actual alignment for the purposes of detection spells.

My group will be starting Gears of Revolution from Zeitgeist.

My understanding is that we will be attached to the local constabulary within the context of the campaign, but I thought it would be cool for my character to actually be a constable and I remembered the cavalier archetype. Right now I've got him set as a lawful good worshiper of Abadar (not actually sure on deities in this setting, haven't read enough of the player guide). I'm leaning towards him being a protector of the people, keeping the peace and so forth.

But I'm not really sure how to build it.

I'm looking at either the Order of the Blue Rose or Scale, but I haven't decided anything. I'm also unsure if I want to capitalize on maneuvers that the constable gets bonuses to, or just kind of ignore that.

Help me decide what to do with the character.

My group will be finished up our current AP soon and were going to be transitioning to Hell's Vengeance. This seems like a perfect chance to play an Antipaladin, but not just any kind. The Tyrant archetype seems perfect to join the tyrannical ranks of House Thrune and revel in the glory of the Dark Prince Asmodeus.

I also want the character to focus on intimidation as a primary tactic, while still maintaining a decent damage output.

We will be using automatic bonus progression and background skill system, though I don't think that's particularly relevant for character development.

The character is going to a human Chelaxian (for obvious reasons) and is going to be a member of a noble house who became a militant practitioner of Asmodeus who serves House Thrune.

STR: 18 (16+2) DEX: 12 CON: 14 INT: 10 WIS: 8 CHA: 14

I'm planning on taking the following cruelties: Sickened, Diseased, Cursed, and Stunned. Since I want to focus on Intimidation I don't want the shaken, frightened ones since I plan on building in a way to do that already.

I plan on taking the diabolic boon for the weapon. The idea of the servant seems cool, but in general I think its weak.

Since Antipaladins can channel energy, is there a good variant channel that would be worth it to take as a worshiper of Asmodeus? Is it worth even bothering with since I plan on using Touch of Corruption with a conductive weapon?

Skill wise I plan to max Knowledge Nobility and Profession Barrister (a soldier and a bureaucratic lawyer of Hell) thanks to background skills. I also plan to max out Bluff, Intimidate, Perception, and Sense Motive (with one rank being placed into knowledge religion).

Feat wise: I'm planning to pickup Power Attack and Hurtful at level 1. Once I qualify I will pick up Cornugon smash. I will pick up Mask of Virtue and Soulless Gaze (Damnation feats). I need at least two Damnation feats because with a 2nd feat Soulless Gaze allows me stack fear conditions. And the second level of Mask of Virtue can let me pretend to be Lawful Neutral, which might come in handy.

I am considering taking Pile On just to make sure the enemy stays Shaken/Frightened/Panicked, but don't know if it's necessary. I'm also considering taking Improved Critical (Nodachi). I'm not set on these last two though, and am open to ideas.

I will be taking one Trait from the player's guide for Hell's Vengeance (not decided) and Magical Knack. The Hell's Vengeance trait is non-negotiable as far as having one of them, but I don't know which yet. Magical Knack is negotiable, but a +2 bonus to caster level to make up for reduced caster level is pretty good to me.

I plan on using a Conductive Cruel Nodachi, and using greater magic weapon to gain back the enhancement bonus lost by enchanting the weapon with special qualities.

The general plan is to use Cornugon Smash to get a free Intimidate when Power Attacking. Hurtful kicks in if they are Intimidated, and I get a free attack as a swift action. At this point, the cruel weapon kicks in and Sickens the enemy when they are hit. This gives a -4 to attack rolls and saves. That can be done as only a standard and swift action, meaning I can move to the enemy to do it. If I'm able to full attack, on the next hit I use the conductive quality of my weapon to activate one of my Cruelties, because now I've softened up their saves against my abilities.

My goal is to seriously debuff a single enemy in the fight. I'm aware there are a few abilities for AoE intimidate, but my understanding is the prerequisites are harder to fulfill and I don't think it would mesh as well. However I definitely open to hearing arguments for other options.

Please let me know what you think. Thanks.

I don't have all the salient rule pieces because the character in question is not mine.

However, it has come to my groups attention that our kineticist is doing an incredible amount of damage (more single target damage than anyone else in the party if both attacks hit) and we are interested in whether or not we have missed something.

The character is 16th level with his first two elements being aether. He currently uses physical blasts and has two attacks around. 1 blast is quickened maximized and the other is a maximized empowered and he's dealing around 150 points of damage if both blasts hit. If he scores a critical hit around 200 points of damage. he does have to stand still so he can negate the burn penalties (or something like that) in order to pull this off.

Does this seem correct? Is there something we've missed.

I'm not well versed on the rules from Occult Adventures and just want to double check that this is reasonable and we haven't messed up a rule.

I've been working on thrown weapon builds since weapon master's handbook came out. I thought it was only viable with a Fighter since Ricochet Toss and Advanced Weapon Training Trained Throw are locked behind some fighter only doors (or feat taxes).

Then I learned of the existence of the arsenal chaplain, which I had overlooked before.

Arsenal Chaplain is a Warpriest archetype that gets Weapon Training. So when I found it I set about building a starknife throwing warpriest using the archetype in Herolab, only to discover what I believe are some errors in Herolab and wanted to confirm I correctly understand things and that these are legitimate errors.

Firstly, Herolab is actually or acting lab the character has weapon training after 5th level. And I'm unsure whether the archetype's weapon training scales up or not, but I'm assuming Gloves of Dueling should apply.

It's also throwing an error showing that Weapon Specialization isn't a valid selection, but a warpriest should be able to select it with his bonus feats after 4th level correct?

Ricochet Toss should be able to be picked up after 5th level, when the Arsenal Chaplain gets Weapon Training Correct?

Advanced Weapon Training should be able to be selected also a bonus feat at or after 5th level again using the bonus feats, correct? Which would enable the selection of Trained Throw from AWT, correct?

Just want a second set of eyes to make sure I haven't missed anything here.

I've been considering doing a throwing weapons build with either the Unchained Barbarian or the Fighter.

Assume that the character is starting at high enough level to afford the Belt of Hurling, Lesser (which will grant Strength to attack rolls), and that we will be using Automatic Bonus Progression, 20 point buy. Lets shoot for 10-12th level character builds.

I was kind of inspired by the Advanced Weapon Training ability Trained Throw, but I couldn't use the Belt of Hurling with it since it appears to require dex to attack to function.

I've also considered using the Mutation Warrior archetype or perhaps using Weapon Master (perhaps both?).

But then I also noticed the UBarbarian gets bonuses with thrown weapons as well.

Which will make the better weapon thrower and all around character?
Is it better to use the belt of might hurling and not qualify for Trained Throw, or to split points between dex and strength and pick up Trained Throw when available? (Will the Trained Throw version end up with better damage?)

Should I use Startoss Comet or Blinkback Belt? It seems blinkback belt isn't necessary with Startoss Comet and a weapon with the returning quality, but you wont be able to make all attacks against same target and will require multiple targets to be within range of one another.

So give me your thoughts ideas, tips, and tricks.

Thrown weapons used to be non-viable IMO, but I think they may have gotten enough love to be usable now.

With the ability to avoid death via Raise Dead, Resurrection, and True Resurrection death is rarely permanent for members of an adventuring party and comes with little real penalty either.

Sure raise dead costs 5,000 gold and has two permanent negative levels. If you have access to Raise Dead you also have access to Restoration. Those negative levels are removed by 2 castings of Restoration and 2000 gp (and 8 days). So the price of death is 7000 gold.

But I don't like this system. I want something that makes death a bit more daunting and terrifying than just a gold sink. I also want it to be fair between martials and casters.

I've seen it suggested before that characters take a permanent (not in any way removable) penalty to con, reducing it by 1 for each death. But this penalizes melee characters more than anyone else as they are more likely to die (taking the hits all the time) and by reducing their con you make them even more likely to die.

And then there is a gold sink issue. With just gold you end up with disproportionate wealth between characters. In this game wealth is power, so I don't really care to create a wealth imbalance between characters. I also use Automatic Bonus Progression Rules to eliminate the Big Six, so it's not as bad. However the issue is still present.

What can be done to make a character death more terrifying without unfairly penalizing the characters that are more likely to die (melee).

I've thought about saying that you can only have Raised Dead, Resurrection, and True Resurrection used on you each 1 time. That way there is a hard limit on number of revivals. Though there is an increasing cost for each death that imbalances the wealth. Or possibly you can only be resurrected a number of times equal to your con modifier.

I've also considered maybe a method to encourage people to save others. For a party, having a party member die would impose a -1 penalty on all D20 rolls, all save DCs, and applies to all creatures control by the party (whether animal companions, familiar, summoned creatures, eidolons, phantoms, etc) whenever a PC character dies. The penalty would be removed when the character is revived from death. In the even that the character cannot be revived the penalty is removed upon a suitable period of time as determined by the GM (usually next level up or when a major accomplishment is achieved). This is a sort of 'Grieving Penalty'.

I'm open to ideas and thoughts on the subject.

Alright folks, the Eldritch Scoundrel is still relatively new but I think it makes for an upgrade over the normal Core or Unchained Rogue.

I'm working on converting an existing Unchained Rogue into an Eldritch Scoundrel, but I'm not sure how to build it.

I know I still want to focus on sneak attacking with weapons and not spells (although if an easy sneak attack is available with a spell I will take it, like surprise round Acid Splash).

I still would like to TWF, and my character already had TWF, ITWF, Combat Expertise, Two Weapon Feint and Improved Two Weapon Feint.

I picked up the ninja Vanishing Trick for swift action invisibility and plan to pick up Invisible Blade when available.

How would you build the most effective Eldritch Scoundrel you can. Please include spells that help make the build particularly effective (like Heroism and such) just so I don't overlook it.

My group has recently started a game using automatic bonus progression, so the big six aren't a thing anymore.

No need to buy:
Magical Weapons
Magical Armor
Ring of Protection
Amulet of Natural Armor
Cloak of Resistance
Headbands or Belts to increase stats

So I find myself for the first time ever completely unsure what to funnel my wealth into. We have effectively half wealth by level, and are at level 4. So about 3000 gp total value, and I have about 2500 gp free currently.

I am looking for general recommendations, but it is also worth mentioning that I am an archer inquisitor. So what should I get? Both at this level and in the future.

I know Bane Baldric, and Bracers of Archery, but I can't afford those yet. What are some nifty items I should look into?

In another thread currently ongoing there is rather heated debate about how to run illusion spells.

I was hoping we could get a blog post to elucidate this subject on how to appropriately run illusions spells, though I know it's a bit difficult for the development team to cede to such request. If it does happen though, I would like to say thank you in advance.

Please, lets not debate the answer to questions in this thread. I would like people to either post resources that have good explanations or would like people to join me in requesting some clarification on the subject.

As a few examples of questions I have:

A character uses spellcraft to identify a spell as it's being cast and determines that it's an illusion. What happens?

The illusion spring into place. It's a wall that surround the character. Can the character think, "That wall might not be real, I'm going to try walking through it." What happens? Can the character even have that thought?

The character has failed the save against the illusionary wall. They decide to try breaking the wall with their weapon or climbing it. What happens?

Feel free to add more examples of things you think are might unclear.

Again, please lets not argue about what the correct answers are here. We already have a thread doing that.

Recently I built an Unchained Rogue for a new campaign I will be playing in.

Now, the unchained rogue is definitely an improvement on the old rogue. But it still seems to be lacking relative to a lot of other classes. It might not be on the lowest tier with core monk or core rogue, but it still only graduated up to the next tier.

So I was thinking what would help the class out. Eventually it came to me that adding 4th level spell casting progression could really help the rogue out, but I'm unsure mechanically what to do with it.

I'm thinking 4th level spell progression like a bloodrager or ranger, but I'm unsure if I want to have the rogue be spontaneous or prepared. I'm know I want it to have general access to the wizard/sorcerer spell list.

Thoughts and opinions? How would you implement this? What (if anything) would you remove from the class to accommodate this increase in power.

So, I saw someone else mention this as a joke in another thread, and I'm not even familiar with the mechanics, but I would be grateful if someone wanted to build a Grippli Mesmerist.

ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD!

I'm trying to come up with a character.

The original idea was a goblin mouser swashbuckler 1/ slayer(TWF) X. However, I had forgotten that slashing grace will only apply to one-handed slashing weapons not light slashing weapons. I had planned to use dogslicers (or kukris and call them dogslicers) but slashing grace wont work. The only way to make a dex to damage TWF is basically with the Sawtooth Sabres, which eats up another feat. I really wanted to make sneak attack TWF dex based character, but I'm just not seeing how to make it work.

If you have ideas to make that work it would be great. Please don't suggest agile enchant (I don't want to be so dependent on a specific enchant and it would take a while to get access to) or effortless lace.

Then I was considering making a Mouser Swashbuckler 1/Daring Champion Cavalier, But I don't have very good ideas for it. I know between precise strike and challenge you can get a good amount of damage even without sneak attack or Studied Target, though I do worry about to hit bonus.

I realize Goblins are in general a pretty terrible race, but I'm just trying to make the most this idea. I'm working on the RP side of the character separately, and the RP side is why I really want to play him. But I want to make him decently able to contribute to the party. It's no fun playing the incompetent sidekick.

So, all that said...help a brother to optimize this concept.

In the vehicle descriptions for Ultimate Combat it lists both the medium wagon and heavy wagon as requiring only 4 medium or 1 large creature, the same as a light wagon.

In Ultimate Equipment description here states an increasing number of medium and large creatures for medium and large wagons from light wagons (which seems much more reasonable to me).

Can we get this corrected or can someone verify that this is a known conflict?

I was looking through feats on d20pfsrd from the ranged tactics toolbox when I stumbled upon this:

Exceptional Pull (Combat)

You have mastered techniques to get the most out of composite bows.

Prerequisite(s): Dex 13, Deadly Aim, base attack bonus +3.

Benefit(s): When you wield a ranged weapon that you are proficient with and that has a strength rating, add 2 to the weapon's strength rating. You don't take a penalty on attack rolls for having a Strength modifier lower than the strength rating of a weapon, provided you're proficient with that weapon.

So, what exactly is it doing?

Is it effectively giving you an extra 2 damage by allowing you to use a bow with a strength rating two higher than you normally could? That's kind of how it seems, but I'm honestly not sure.

The other interpretation is that you could wield a bow with a higher strength rating than your strength mod without penalty, but you wouldn't get any extra damage. In which case, wouldn't this be virtually worthless when you can pickup the adaptable quality on your composite longbow for 1000 gold?

I'm just trying to understand how this feat is supposed to work. Thoughts?

Yes, you read that right.

Per this thread I was inspired to cheese up a character. It's cheesy as hell to make such a character because of effortless lace in my opinion, but I want to see just how far this can be taken. So I wanted to throw it to everyone and get their opinions.

The basics of the build is a single classed Sacred Fist War Priest who worships Ragethiel. By taking EWP(Bastard Sword), Weapon Focus(Bastard Sword), and Crusader's Flurry you can flurry with your bastard sword.

You also wield a huge bastard sword for 3d8 base damage, which is possible by taking a -2 penalty and wielding as two handed, and using effortless lace to get up to huge. Then by adding enlarge person and impact you get the damage dice up to 6d8.

You also get to take extra advantage of power attack because you are using the bastard sword two handed for bonus damage.

So, how would you all further the build beyond this?

So discussion from this thread got me thinking.

I want to build a warrior who doesn't wear any armor, and ostensibly goes naked into battle painted up in woad blue, but there a very few classes that can work without armor.

The best I can think of is a Kensai Magus, but I want to see what you all are capable of coming up with. Only real guidelines are must wield some sort of weapon effectively (but I don't care if it it's sword and board, two handed, a spear, etc) and can't wear armor.

So, I am playing an undine ranger in Skull and Shackles and we have just gotten to the fleet battles portion of the AP. In theory this sounded like awesome fun...but so far it's...less fulfilling than I'd hoped. Mostly because my character isn't even fit to be much of a commodore, and there not particularly active in the fleet battles.

I have a charisma of 8. Which means my maximum squadron size is 2. Is there any way to increase this? I'm fairly certain the answer is no, but I'm hoping that someone might know of something I don't.

It sucks that my character who has worked his way up to a 24 profession sailor (at level 12) is abysmmal at leading a squadron based on the fleet battle rules because I can only have two ships which will at best give me 8 hits. When minimum damage is 1d6+1, and you increase damage by 1 for every ship in a squad, my squadron (if I had one) could easily be eliminated by a single broadside with little hope of survival.

This makes me a sad panda. So is there any way I can add a couple ships to this and have a decent squadron of my own? Am I basically stuck with my ship (that I captain) just being a member of someone else's squad because my charisma is a terrible hiddrance?

I can't come up with particularly great or interesting ideas. A +1 inherent to dex would provide a slight bonus, but it just doesn't seem like getting good mileage out of a wish. So help me come up with something good or inventive for this.

I'm playing an Undine Archer Ranger in a Skull and Shackles Campaign.

One idea I've had is wishing for a permanent weaponwand effect on my bow. It wouldn't normally be available permanently, but this is a wish. And I was also possibly considering including a wand of Instant Enemy as part of this Wish as well (which is worth ~16,000), but honestly if I had to buy it that wouldn't bother me either.

Thoughts?

So it has come to my attention that variant channeling has a lot of problems and I'm wondering how we should properly handle these issues.

One of the issues that crops up is that the variant channel seems to be specific to a deity's portfolios (not domains) that they have access to.

However, this leads to two interesting problems that have no clear answer (in my opinion).

Firstly, does a cleric who does not choose a deity but chooses two general domains have any access to variant channeling? How is it decided what they should have access to if they do? They do not have a deity, and therefore can have no access to any portfolios through such a non-existent deity.

Secondly, what of Oracles? Oracles do not have a specific deity by virtue of their class (at least so far as receiving their powers is concerned). Do they have access at all?

A character who has the channel energy ability from a class other than cleric may use these variant channeling rules if the class's abilities are tied to serving a deity. For example, paladins can select alternative channeling abilities if they serve a deity, as can oracles with the Life mystery (as they serve many deities), but necromancer wizards cannot.

These texts seems to indicate they do, but it still clashes with the earlier text of the Variant Channel ability. (Also, can someone confirm or refute whether this portion of the text is a recent addition? I do not recall it being there previously the last time I looked at the Variant Channel rules.) It clashes because they do not have a specific deity to gain access to a portfolio from. Do they get access to any deities portfolio that is associated with their mystery?

Please also see this thread and thread for some discussion as well.

Thank you.

I was working on a two weapon fighting slayer build using Hero Lab (I'm well aware Hero Lab is not a rules authority) and something weird occurred that I hadn't notice or thought about before.

When I selected the two weapon fighting combat style as the ranger combat style using the Slayer's Talents it was indicated that it was invalid because I had insufficient dex to pick up two weapon fighting. I had thought that selecting the Ranger Combat Style ability it would function exactly like the ranger's ability, allowing me to ignore prerequisites for the feats in the same manner rangers do.

But upon reviewing the wording of the slayer's abilities I'm not sure that is the case. Thoughts?

Prerequisite: 3 ranks in Knowledge (planes), must worship a demon lord.

Benefit: Each demon lord requires a different obedience, but all obediences take only an hour to perform. Once the obedience has been performed, you gain the benefit of a resistance to some element or attack associated with your demon lord, as indicated in the “Obedience” entry for the demon lord.

If you have at least 12 Hit Dice, you also gain the first boon granted by your demon lord upon undertaking your obedience. If you have at least 16 Hit Dice, you also gain the demon lord’s second boon. If you have 20 Hit Dice or more, you also gain the demon lord’s third and final boon. Unless a specific duration or number of uses per day is listed, a boon’s effects are constant.

Demoniacs gain access to these boons at lower levels as a benefit of their prestige class. If you ever fail to perform a daily obedience, you lose all access to resistances and boons granted by this feat until you next perform the obedience.

Obedience: Perform a series of cuts upon the flesh while periodically auto-asphyxiating. Gain a +4 profane bonus on all effects linked to slashing damage.

What benefit exactly does this provide? I have a player who is arguing that taking the Demonic Obedience feat for the Nightripper adds +4 to damage with slashing. However, by my reading (of the Demonic Obedience feat) here the benefit is that it gives you a resistance to either an element or an attack type associated with that demon lord. Which means you would get a +4 bonus to resist something delivered by a slashing weapon. I'm not sure what those would be, but the other option seems far more ridiculous, considering you will also get the boons when you reach the appropriate hit dice amount.

Interpreting it as providing a +4 damage to slashing weapons makes it equal to having both Weapon Specialization and Greater Weapon Specialization, but in all slashing weapons. And only takes one feat. And Greater Weapon Spec is normally restricted only to fighters.

So what is it? What is it actually supposed to do?

Not sure if this is the most appropriate spot or not. While looking up the Spiked Destoryer feat on d20pfsrd I noticed that they directly referenced Gorum as the specific deity provider of the feat. Has something changed with licensing situation to once again allow d20pfsrd to use the names of Golarion specific deities?

I know when they started selling products on their website they were required to remove references to proprietary intellectual property and I am wondering if something has changed since then.

We all know you can't take 10 in combat because you're in immediate danger and distracted.

But, the recent thread about negative levels got me thinking about disease and negative levels and making the saves. If after being infected or otherwise afflcited with a negative level or etc you decided that you were going to go climb in bed and rest for the next couple days can you legal take 10 on your save against the affliction?

I think yes, but I'm interested in other peoples thoughts.

It may hinge on whether you think the disease or negative level is "immediate danger".

So, I'm trying to create a list of rules of changes to the game that will help to balance the game for all people playing. To me this mostly means trying to bring casters back in line to an extent so that they don't over shadow everyone else so much. I've created a list of rules that I'm going to use for the next campaign I run, but I wanted to hear people's ideas and opinions on my rules and any additional rules that may also be usefult to add. I don't want to completely revamp the system, but bridge that teribble gap so that even at high levels everyone enjoys playing the game, all the PCs and the GM as well.

My Home Brew Rules

Allow me to preface this with an apology that I did not sort this out by level, I built this character a while back and decided I would ask for advice to see if anyone has improvements for me. The character built is a 17th level Barbarian.

Race: Human - Favored class bonus - +1/3 to Superstition

Weapon: Though not really part of the build, he will use a +5 Adamantine Nodachi with the Furious, Courageous, Impact, and Dueling weapon enhancements. Please note this is the Dueling enchant from the Pathfinder SOciety Guide which provides a bonus to Combat Maneuvers the weapon is used in equal to double the enhancement bonus.

Feats:
Combat Reflexes
Critical Focus
Extra Rage Power
Improved Critical (Nodachi)
Improved Sunder
Power Attack
Raging Brutality
Raging Vitality
Staggering Critical
Stunning Critical

Rage Powers:
Beast Totem; Lesser, Normal, & Greater
Come and Get Me
Eater of Magic
Reckless Abandon
Spell Sunder
Superstition
Witch Hunter

Yes, this build is very dependent on rage cycling and doesn't really work until you reach 17. Yes you could also do a dip into Oracle and Rage Prophet with the Lame curse, but this campaign is high level to start with so no need.

Please let me know what you think and if you believe that I have overlooked something that would add, or is subtracting, significantly from the character. Thanks.

I've been dreaming up playing a monk character that rides a flying cloud, the Nimbus a la Goku and Dragon Ball Z. I want it to function pretty much like the broom of flying reskinned except I want it to be intelligent, capable of communicating telepathically and moving on its own. Can anyone help me build this and price it? I would be appreciative.

Does powerful build from half giants grant a size increase to unarmed damage? There is a build that I have seen that is designed to use half giant with enlarge person and strong jaw on a Monk character to increase damage to insane levels. Does this actually work? I lean towards the side that by RAW powerful build shouldn't increase unarmed damage. I have looked and haven't found any official rulings. It just seems too powerful for a monk to increase damage by 4 size categories. Anyone have a definitive ruling?