Colten McMickens's page

You've got a lot of options and lore here. Looks great.

Spell-like abilities require concentration and can be interrupted like spells. Pretty sure that rules out using them while raging.

Okay, thanks.

Is it possible to use a spell-like ability during a rage? The reason I ask is because Sp's require no verbal, somatic, material, or focus components, and are not lost by arcane spell-failure, but it doesn't explicitly state that they do not require concentration, which is the reason spells can't be cast during a rage. I know in 3.5 there was the rune-scarred berserker, a prestige class that got Sp's and could use them while raging, but there doesn't seem to be anything comparable in Pathfinder. It seems like something that can be done during a rage to me, but I'm looking for any official rulings or in put from DM's who have had it come up before in games that they've run.

For my games:
- The party get free teamwork feats at the 4th level and every 4 levels thereafter. They all have to agree on the feat to take.
- Everything has a save.
- If you roll a natural 20 out of combat on a skill that you are more than likely going to succeed at (goblin rogue rolling stealth for instance) you can "bank" one 20 a night to cash in later. All banked 20's go away after 1 session.
- 1 re-roll per session.
- armor as damage reduction. We use our own variation, not the Paizo published one.

Why not go Eldritch Knight? If you want more BAB in your build, simply take more fighter levels than the suggested one minimum.

I actually prefer the Eldritch knight because it can give a character a BAB of +15 and 9th level spells. I made this variant to make an arcane casting class more comparable to the paladin (heavy melee fighter with a few supplementary spells).

I specifically chose to make it a cavalier archetype because I feel that relying on your mount for a third of your class options is a hassle and have heard players of cavaliers complain when they can't take their horse into a dungeon because it's to big to fit through the door.
Burnt Offerings, the first chapter of Rise of the Rune lords, immediately comes to mind because the dungeon that encompasses that chapter's climax seems to be made with the express intent of making a medium sized character's life miserable. A cavalier couldn't even get their mount into the goblin stronghold unless they were a gnome, halfling, etc.
So, when looking at what I could give the cavalier to replace his mount and class features that go along with the mount, I decided to make a spell casting variant. This is the second cavalier archetype I've posted that doesn't use a mount, the first being the pirate of the inner sea archetype (which you can read here if your interested http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2qrnl?Pirate-of-the-HighInner-Sea-archetype-a#1 ), and I plan on working on an archetype that replaces the mount with some other martial capabilities rather than spell casting (fighter weapon or armor training, maybe defensive stance, we'll see).
I hope this helps clear up my intent with this archetype.

Here's a hint. Remove subjectivity from it.

Good: Cooperatively minded. Believes in the power of working together for a common goal.

Evil: Competitively minded. Believes that in order for one to succeed, another must necessarily fail.

Neutral: Independently minded. Doesn't believe in cooperation with others, but also doesn't value competition; believes both are distractions and independent ability and goals are the only worthwhile pursuits

---
Lawful: Discipline Driven. Believes in doing what needs to be done, even if you don't want to. Conversely, believes in not doing what shouldn't be done, even if you rather would.

Chaotic: Pride Driven. Believes in doing what you want to, even if you don't need to. Conversely, believes in not doing what you don't want to do, even if you really ought to do it.

Neutral: Non-Driven. Not driven by pride nor discipline. May be motivated to fulfill responsibilities, but more for fear of the consequences of not doing so than a sense of discipline. Usually motivated to do what they want, but aren't pridefully motivated to do so at significant risk of consequences. Sometimes represents an active drive for a sense of Harmony and Balance.

Also, don't make it a "give and take" sort of thing. Certain actions are aligned with one of the three spots on the axis and simply tally up all your respective actions. Whichever "stack" has the most points is your alignment. This more closely resembles the actual philosophical concept of Karma and Dharma which isn't a cosmic give-and-take as it is often mistakenly portrayed, but actually a running tally of all your actions in life, the good, the bad, and the ugly. It isn't enough to do 10 good deeds to counter-balance 10 bad deeds; those 10 bad deeds are on your permanent record and nothing can ever "make up" for them.

Thanks for the advice.

Wouldn't spontaneous charisma based be nicer do to challenge? Not that i dont Like this.

I see no problem with that idea, and I'm honestly a bit surprised that a sorcerous variant of the magus doesn't exist. I just went with prepared because of the trend with the magus. Thanks for the feed back.

I made this variant for two reasons.
- First of all, I like the cavalier, but I'm not too keen on a class that relies on a mount because such creatures make low-level dungeons very tedious to go through. You can't stay mounted all the time, and that takes a lot away from the class.
- Secondly, divine casters have their full caster (cleric), medium caster (inquisitor), and lesser caster (paladin). The wizard is the arcane counterpart to the cleric as the full caster (or sorcerer/oracle for spontaneous casters) The bard fills, essentially, the same role as the inquisitor, meaning he has a d8 HD, medium BAB, and medium spell progression, and a good bit of utility, giving him the ability to do casting and combat equally well, and the magus is a prepared caster that gives up some utility to be a better combatant. Arcane casters have no lesser caster equivalent, and with the magus and bard, there's not really a need to make a separate class to fill this role, but I feel that making an archetype to fill such a role is an acceptable alternative.
So here's the Arc-knight, a mount-less, arcane spellcasting cavalier.

Arc-knight
Arc-knights are infantry specialized in arcane spell casting. They are most common amongst races with a strong magic and martial tradition, such as elves, and they are quite numerous in countries where arcane magic is common amongst the aristocracy, such as Nex. They often join the Order of the Staff or the Order of the Tome
- Skills
o An arc-knight gains only 2+ his int mod in skill points, but he adds knowledge (arcane) and spell-craft to his list of class skills.
- Saves
o An arc-knight has good base will save in addition to his good fortitude save.
- Arcane pool
o Replaces mount
 This functions exactly as the magus ability of the same name.
- Spell-casting
o Replaces expert trainer/cavalier’s charge
 Beginning at the 4th level an arc-knight casts arcane spells drawn from the magus spell list. An arc-knight must choose and prepare his spells ahead of time.
 To learn, prepare, or cast a spell, the arc-knight must have an intelligence score equal to at least 10 + the spell level. The DC for a saving throw against a magus’s spell is 10 + the spell level + the magus’s int modifier.
 An arc-knight can cast only a certain number of spells of each spell level per day. His base daily spell allotment is given below.
Spells per day
Level 1st 2nd 3rd 4th
1 - - - -
2 - - - -
3 - - - -
4 0 - - -
5 1 - - -
6 1 - - -
7 1 0 - -
8 1 1 - -
9 2 1 - -
10 2 1 0 -
11 2 1 1 -
12 2 2 1 -
13 3 2 1 1
14 3 2 1 1
15 3 2 2 1
16 3 3 2 1
17 4 3 2 2
18 4 3 2 2
19 4 3 3 2
20 4 4 3 2

 In addition, he receives bonus spells per day if he has a high Intelligence score.
 When the above table indicates that the arc-knight gets 0 spells per day of a given spell level, he gains only the bonus spells she would be entitled to based on his int score for that spell level.
 An arc-knight may know any number of spells. He must choose and prepare his spells ahead of time by getting 8 hours of sleep and spending 1 hour studying his spellbook. While studying, the arc-knight decides which spells to prepare.
 Spellbooks: An arc-knight must study his spellbook each day to prepare his spells. He cannot prepare any spell not recorded in his spellbook except for read magic, which all arc-knights can prepare from memory. An arc-knight begins play with a spellbook containing three 1st-level magus spells of his choice. The arc-knight also selects a number of additional 1st-level magus spells equal to his intelligence modifier to add to his spellbook. At each new arc-knight level, he gains two new magus spells of any spell level or levels that he can cast (based on his new arc-knight level) for his spellbook. At any time, an arc-knight can also add spells found in other spellbooks to his own.

 An arc-knight can learn spells from a wizard’s spellbook, just as a wizard can from a magus’s and arc-knight’s spellbook. The spells learned must be on the magus spell list, as normal. An alchemist can learn formulae from a arc-knight’s spellbook, if the spells are also on the alchemist spell list. An arc-knight cannot learn spells from an alchemist.
 Through 3rd level, an arc-knight has no caster level. At 4th level and higher, his caster level is equal to his arc-knight level – 3.
- Armored Caster
o Replaces expert trainer/cavalier’s charge
 At level 4, when an arc-knight gains arcane spell casting, the arc-knight also learns to minimize arcane spell failure penalties for wearing armor. The penalty for wearing armor and casting is decreased by 20%. This ability stacks with feats such as Arcane Armor Training. As an example, an arc-knight with this ability suffers only a 15% arcane spell-failure chance, and he can use Arcane Armor Training to decrease it to 5% or Arcane Armor Mastery to decrease it to 0%.
- Armored Caster, Greater
o Replaces mighty charge
 At level 11, the arc-knight decreases the arcane spell failure chance by 35% rather than 20%. As with Armored caster, this ability stacks with Arcane Armor Training and Arcane Armor Mastery
- Spell critical
o Replaces supreme charge
 At 20th level, an arc-knight gains the Spell-critical as per the eldritch knight class feature.

The alignment system is unrealistic for three main reasons. First, it assumes that a person's morality and ethics can be boiled down to 2 words, and second, that any character can be put into one of 9 alignments. Lastly, it's an abstract depiction of a person that can be hard to keep track of.

Unfortunately, we can't do anything about the This home brew rules set attempts to "fix" the alignment system by implementing a numerical system to track a person's morality and ethics.

Rather than viewing alignment as 9 boxes that do not allow for overlap, this system uses an X-Y plot to track a person's alignment.

X represents morality where -100 to -34 represent evil, -33 to 33 represent neutrality, and 34-100 represent good.

Y represents ethics where -100 to -34 represent chaotic, -33 to 33 represent neutrality, and 34-100 represent lawful.

At level 1, a character chooses which alignment to start as. This gives him 10 points in the direction of his alignment choice. A paladin then would start with an alignment of 44, 44 (44 good/evil, 44 lawful/chaos).

Neutral character instead start at 0. Chaotic Neutral would be 0,-44 (0 good/evil, and -44 lawful/chaos)

Characters gain or lose points toward their alignment based on their acts.

1. simple acts- Simple acts contribute 2 points to the axis to which they are aligned. Simple acts are everyday little things that one can do. Good simple acts might include donating to charity or helping a neighbor with yard work without expecting reward. Simple evil acts may include battery or theft. A simple lawful action could include reporting a crime you saw that didn't happen to you, while a simple chaotic act may include leaving work early or ignoring the speed limit.

2. minor acts- Minor acts contribute 5 points to the axis to which they are aligned. Minor acts mean that the character goes out of their way to do them. Good minor acts might include doing volunteer work (like at a soup kitchen) or non-compulsory community service. Minor...

Honestly, for the examples listed, I was just trying to fill in some gaps for some of them. Murder and rape should be major acts of evil, but I was thinking in terms of Vampire the Masquerade when I was thinking about this, and in that game, they split murder up into varying degrees of evil (including accidental/incidental, premeditated, and just because) based on a "do unto others" 1-10 scale called a humanity rating. So I'm sorry if I offended anybody with the listed examples. That was not my intent.

I made a thread similar to this, citing the Alignment related material from Ucamp, and expanding on it. Mine didn't really take off either.

It's something that I think everyone has their own ideas about, which is something that I didn't take into account before I posted this thread. This method clearly doesn't please most people, but it did what we needed it to for our specific situation.

I love how, according to the OP, rape and murder are only 'minor' evil acts. How many people do I need to rape and murder before I am 'evil'??? Opps you laid it out. I can work in a soup kitchen 7 days a week and that gives 35 'good' points. So that's 4 rapes and 3 murders per week for ever and ever and I'm still neutral. 3 rapes and 3 murders per week and I'd end up good. Sounds fine to me... can't wait to start...working in a soup kitchen where every night I can kill or rape one person (ba humbug, can't do both) but it works out even in the end.

Smells like a rancid turd to me.

Thank you for pointing out the numerical exploit of the system, and, to be fair, that is how some people interpret true neutral. I did say that these examples were only suggestions and should be tailored to fit the table. I don't think there's enough support for this method of tracking alignment so I'm probably not going to try to make some edits to try and negate some of the moral economics that comes with it. If you have some ideas for editing it, I'd love to get that feedback as well.

Like I said, we came up with the idea to add tangibility and a way to track a character's actions to the alignment system, because we had a player that just didn't get it. That being said, there's no since in others using it if its used in practice like the way you demonstrated. Thanks you for your feed back.

I don't think this was necessarily a bad idea, especially given your situation. To be honest I have seen very few people play the alignment on their sheet correctly. Especially Lawful Good. Which, let's face it, can be a hard alignment to play.

I myself have toyed with simply banning the Paladin class from play completely, or otherwise replacing it with a different class. In all honesty the Inquisitor class is how I see most people attempt to play the Paladin (PALADIN SMASH ALL EVIL EVERYWHERE!!!), which may work as a good replacement for people playing Pathfinder. I probably would have banned Paladins too if it hadn't been for the fact that I have seen a couple people truly play the alignment correctly. Let me first start off by saying, 'correctly' is not meant to imply 'perfectly'. Their characters did mess up on occasion, but when they did they roleplayed the resulting grief over their mistake wonderfully. One instance specifically was particularly moving, where the party had encountered a wretch of a vampire. During a brief in character conversation the Paladin learned that the vampire knew it was a wretch, and hated what it had become but could not bring itself to end it's own existence. The Paladin promised to grant him a good death, but apologized and felt remorse for the fact that he had to destroy this other being in order to set things right.

In my understanding of the class, yes a Paladin should seek evil, but should not be smiting the orphan cutpurse trying to get by because he happens to notice him stealing. They should have compassion. They should defend those who are unable to defend themselves, regardless of the victim's alignment, but should in all places endeavor to show restraint even against the misguided attackers. It should boil a Paladin's blood to see a villain go unpunished for a crime it was obvious they committed, but that doesn't mean they should necessarily go vigilante justice on the villain.

I don't see anti-hero being a good character concept for a Paladin. Nor do I see...

As a general rule of thumb, we say a paladin has to put good before lawful, but I feel like allowing the paladin to play any good would be fine. Coincidentally we had an encounter with a succubus. The end result was that the CG barbarian convinced the succubus to attempt an alignment change after the paladin charged in with his "zealot cap" on and hit an innocent bystander with an AoE. It's a really long story and I'll just say that the player is not good at role playing remorse and leave it at that.

Colten McMickens wrote:

I wanted to make a system that was more quantifiable to help peg our character's alignment down. In the case of our paladin, it turned out to be something that affected his class levels, but it was not made for us to say "aha! got you" it was to prove to the player that he was not playing the way a paladin should. And while it's true that I have rigid boundaries in place between alignments, I think it offers a little more flexibility by giving varying degrees of each alignment. There's black and white and 198 shades of grey in between to cover the degrees of good and evil in between. It is over complicated, but I'll be honest, we hadn't noticed it because we were *really* board when we did this. It's not something I would do for every game, but I wanted to share nonetheless. Thanks for your in put!

Ahhh...In that case my first reaction would have been invoking the "don't be a jerk" rule, then, if the player really didn't get how he was being a jerk, I'd have probably done the same thing. Some people respond well to quantifiable stuff - hopefully this will help your player stop being a jerk. :-)

Cross your fingers. We're giving him options to fix his alignment, switch to a non-lawful paladin variant like one form Unearthed Arcanna from 3.5, or just play a cavalier. He's expressed interest in the cavalier before, so we'll see how it goes. Thanks.

the Paladin cast date rape....I wish I was making that up.

The paladin in our party cast unnatural lust (he's a sorcerer too, we're gestalt) to get into an NPC's pants. So...yeah, that happened. Good to see you Showzilla.

Honestly, I feel this is an over complication - but I see how some could find it useful.

First, I don't think that the alignment system as written allows no overlap, rather I see it as a model - and models are always simplified for ease of use. For example: consider this picture. If we cut this into three equal sized boxes from left to right, I think we would all agree that the left most box is mostly red - to the point that if we had to use a single word to describe it, we would call it "red" or at least "reddish". In my example, the "model" only allows three words for the three boxes (one word each), but no reasonable person would look at the box and say that only three hues are represented. The box isn't, in other words, uniformly red. A pixel on the left edge is clearly not the same as a pixel on the right edge, but the box is, overall, "red".

Second, I don't feel that your system actually addresses the problem of overlap. It still has hard lines where you cross over from one alignment to another - and without a way to differentiate between say "just barely lawful" and "lawful", it brings us back to the same place.

Finally, if you (not you specifically, the general "you") want to define alignment as hard transitions from one alignment to another, then I agree that it can never be realistic. You can use a grid, as you've suggested (which still provides no mechanical benefit, but perhaps would help some people role-play) but for a person who sees alignment as a shackle instead of tool, I don't think there is a solution.

Finally, if you can get your hands on it, I'd suggest looking thru the alignment section of the 1st Ed books. It has a similar idea. Again, good stuff if that's your style -just not the peanut butter I would serve with my chocolate.
YMMV

I wanted to make a system that was more quantifiable to help peg our character's alignment down. In the case of our paladin, it turned out to be something that affected his class levels, but it was not made for us to say "aha! got you" it was to prove to the player that he was not playing the way a paladin should. And while it's true that I have rigid boundaries in place between alignments, I think it offers a little more flexibility by giving varying degrees of each alignment. There's black and white and 198 shades of grey in between to cover the degrees of good and evil in between. It is over complicated, but I'll be honest, we hadn't noticed it because we were *really* board when we did this. It's not something I would do for every game, but I wanted to share nonetheless. Thanks for your in put!

Every time I see someone try to "fix" alignment, I always have to ask 'why?' If you're using alignment correctly* all alignment is is a tool to use for developing your character, and it's largely under the player's control, unless the DM rules that the character's actions justify a switch. Trying to qualify it beyond this is often more trouble than it's worth, and lacks the finesse to understand that alignment isn't simply a arithmetic sum of the character's actions.

Moreover, it's often the issue that such things tend to encourage the players to play their alignment rather than their character, especially if they fear losing class features, if they change alignment. A LN character may perform acts ranging from good, evil, lawful and even chaotic, because the character is three dimensional. Sure, they will tend towards law over all, but by imposing this type of tracking method, the player will tend more towards choosing only the lawful option, even if it's not necessarily in character, simply because they get 'punished' (even if there is no mechanical effect, it's still a psychological impact) if they don't

*PRD wrote:

Alignment is a tool for developing your character's identity—it is not a straitjacket for restricting your character. Each alignment represents a broad range of personality types or personal philosophies, so two characters of the same alignment can still be quite different from each other. In addition, few people are completely consistent.

[...]
Certain character classes in Classes list repercussions for those who don't adhere to a specific alignment, and some spells and magic items have different effects on targets depending on alignment, but beyond that it's generally not necessary to worry too much about whether someone is behaving differently from his stated alignment. In the end, the Game Master is the one who gets to decide if something's in accordance with its indicated alignment, based on the descriptions given previously and his own opinion and

...

I personally find alignment as a silly concept, myself. This house rule came up because the characters we were playing (mine included) weren't actually the alignment that was listed on the sheet. Not a big deal for the barbarian listed as chaotic neutral to turn out be chaotic good, but we had to show the paladin quantifiable proof that his "lawful stupid" take on LG was actually chaotic neutral in execution. So I came up with the idea and the DM and another player fleshed it out. Our situation was probably too specific to share on the forums, but it's helped us see where we all stand. Thank you for your input, btw.

The alignment system is unrealistic for three main reasons. First, it assumes that a person's morality and ethics can be boiled down to 2 words, and second, that any character can be put into one of 9 alignments. Lastly, it's an abstract depiction of a person that can be hard to keep track of.

Unfortunately, we can't do anything about the This home brew rules set attempts to "fix" the alignment system by implementing a numerical system to track a person's morality and ethics.

Rather than viewing alignment as 9 boxes that do not allow for overlap, this system uses an X-Y plot to track a person's alignment.

X represents morality where -100 to -34 represent evil, -33 to 33 represent neutrality, and 34-100 represent good.

Y represents ethics where -100 to -34 represent chaotic, -33 to 33 represent neutrality, and 34-100 represent lawful.

At level 1, a character chooses which alignment to start as. This gives him 10 points in the direction of his alignment choice. A paladin then would start with an alignment of 44, 44 (44 good/evil, 44 lawful/chaos).

Neutral character instead start at 0. Chaotic Neutral would be 0,-44 (0 good/evil, and -44 lawful/chaos)

Characters gain or lose points toward their alignment based on their acts.

1. simple acts- Simple acts contribute 2 points to the axis to which they are aligned. Simple acts are everyday little things that one can do. Good simple acts might include donating to charity or helping a neighbor with yard work without expecting reward. Simple evil acts may include battery or theft. A simple lawful action could include reporting a crime you saw that didn't happen to you, while a simple chaotic act may include leaving work early or ignoring the speed limit.

2. minor acts- Minor acts contribute 5 points to the axis to which they are aligned. Minor acts mean that the character goes out of their way to do them. Good minor acts might include doing volunteer work (like at a soup kitchen) or non-compulsory community service. Minor evil acts may include premeditated murder and rape. A minor lawful act might be working as a civil servant on the weekends or paying your taxes, while a minor chaotic act might be open protesting.

3. major acts- Major acts contribute 10 points to the axis to which they are aligned. Major acts are paragon acts of their alignment. A major act for a good character usually means risking your life for someone else with no promise of reward, while an evil major act would include remorseless or sadistic killing. A major lawful action includes putting your life on the line for the community, while a major chaotic action might be swearing a life on the road.

These examples of acts are just suggestions and should be tailored to suit your table.

Also classes that are alignment dependent, such as paladins, anti-paladin, monks, etc. have 10 points of cushion in the appropriate alignment. So a monk can have a Y rating of 23 before they become neutral. This is to take pressure off the player and give him time to correct his play style before having to atone.

As far as bestiary 5 goes, I'm curious to see more from Arcadia or touch on southern Garund or central Casmaron. I appreciate smaller supplements, such as distant worlds, but I think they've only gone into detail with about 30% of Golarion itself. I feel like the home planet should be detailed before we get into too much extra-planetary or extra-planar exploration.

I think that mythic encounters should be consolidated to mythic bestiaries, and that creatures that are CR 30, such as demon lords, emphyrial lords, archdevils, the 4 horsemen, etc. should be covered in their own supplement similar to Deities and Demigods from 3.5.

Ideally for me (just my opinion), I'd like to see the Dragon Empires guide (similar to Inner Sea World Guide) and a Primer to Arcadia within the next year to a year-and-a-half. There's not much discussed about Casmaron, Souther Garund, or the Crown of the World, so these are places of great interest to me. I'd like to see them get their own books as well, but that is perhaps a bit much to ask; perhaps having them covered in a Beyond the Inner Sea guide?

I digress, my point is I'd like to see more creatures from these other areas. More kami, more oni, more div, more rakshasa, more aberations, more garuda, more peri (I assume there's more than just the base creature since aasimar have those racial variants). Basically, more denizens of the material plane to peak are interest about what Golarion has to offer.

I like this. Not only does it bring in the cavalier to games that may normally exclude knights, but it does so in a way that really fits the theme. Its also great to see an archetype that trades abilities from the base class in a way that even though I'm missing out on certain cavalier abilities, I'm getting something equally awesome.

I do worry that in games where leadership is banned, this archetype may lose some umph. What would you suggest is done instead? I also prefer Pirate's Savvy to scale, but I'm not up to snuff on all the orders so I'm not sure how it compares. Another thing is that sneak attack as 5th level rogue all of the sudden at level eight seems strange. I might swap sneak attack (and have it function as rogue -2 minimum 1) and Pirate's Savvy so as to give Pirate's Savvy more bang and sneak attack feel more natural.
nice job.

In games where leadership is banned, I think this archetype would lose a lot of its purpose as well as some umph. I originally had the 3.5 swashbuckler in mind when I imagined the cavalier as a pirate, but then I thought of the cavalier's leadership abilities and aimed the pirate in the direction of being kind of a captain-turned-privateer-admiral as he levels up. If leadership is not aloud, then I would give the PoHS (pirate of the high seas) rogue talents at the 3rd level and every 3 levels beyond the third, or give him the canny defense ability and have it stack with any levels in duelist for determining how many points of intelligence he may add to his AC.

I see what you mean about sneak attack. Having the pirate advance his sneak attack at the 2nd level and every even numbered level thereafter would make it more consistent.

Generally speaking the first order ability is usually a +2 that applies to specific circumstances, and it doesn't usually scale. I felt that pirates savvy kept with this trend well while giving the player more options. If the pirate doesn't get it until level 8, then I would say that his allies should benefit from it as well, if they would benefit from the pirate's banner, or "Jolly Roger", ability.

The archetype looks interesting and a fun take on including a class that is essentially cut out of pirate style games

KOticneutralFTW wrote:

 Order abilities:
• Pirate’s Savvy: at level 2, a pirate can spend a swift action to gain a +2 competence bonus on all attack and damage rolls, to his AC, to all skill checks, or to all his saves. The pirate chooses which to affect when he uses this ability, and can alter which affects he is under by spending another swift action

This sounds a little too good to me.

At a glance it appears mechanically superior to every other order ability.

You're probably right about its superiority. I wanted to give it a good amount of flexibility because, in playing as this archetype, you have no other choices in your order, so I wanted players to feel like they had options. If you decide to use this in one of your games, I suggest either making it a move action, and then decreasing it to a swift action around 10th level, or make it so that the player has to make the decision that day and stick with it. Thanks for the feedback, btw.

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