Commercial Grade Woodpecker's page

Commercial Grade Woodpecker wrote:

Hulk smash - quickened divine favor/ enlarge person. This is for if someone REALLY pisses you off and they’re really dangerous or you’re on low buffs

You're better off going quickened Enlarge Person/Divine Favor (also not all Clerics get access to Enlarge Person, but you can get it from domains).

I've found divine favor to be more universally useful. I've ended up in a lot of locations where enlargement would be inconvenient. Gaining pretty much a full BAB is never inconvenient, and is VERY useful in combats where you need to act fully round one as a fighter, not as a caster (usually when I'm playing "gank the wizard" - a situation where I want to ensure I can hit him to prevent his spell from going off, not a situation where I want to maximize damage). Also I'm limited to the single domain slot cast of Enlarge - and since I like to run the two metamagic cost reduction feats, I actually have reason to prepare (or cast as an oracle) quickened divine favor more than once since it's only a 3rd level spell.

also having divine favor as the quickened means I can cast it and righteous might on the same turn + have haste boot activation as a free action.

if you want to go full-masochist, you could add in the spell Blood Rage (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/b/blood-rage/) to get an attack bonus when you take damage too.

I do love the visual of you getting cut, and then the blood spraying out on them like acid, then hardening on your skin. such dope flavor.

Mikemad wrote:

If you want to measure "tankiness" by the average damage you take per swing of the opponent, then you are correct; there is no difference.

Well, the amount of damage I take per round of the opponent combined with the amount of damage I can take and still stay up is indeed how I measure 'tankiness.' I am not sure how else you would. And the math works out the same here, absent the below 2 and above 19 cases whether it is one swing for 100 or 5 swings for 20 although the real life 5 swing version would make each individual round closer to the prediction.

I'm not sure what your 'twice extra turns means' but I think you are doing the math wrong on that. Reducing the amount of damage you can expect will extend how long you can stay active. How much that is, depends on a) how much damage the opponent can deal out and b) how much you can take, not something you can measure in 'extra turns' without knowing those factors. Reducing the expected damage by 90% doesn't really help you if that last 10% still takes you down after all, no extra turns at all there.

As far as the 'wizards don't want AC' argument, sometimes they are just wrong. People don't always act in a logical manner after all, but often they are up against the outside the bounds problem. If you increase your AC by 3 and they still need a 2 to hit, you indeed haven't helped yourself. There is also the question of how to spend resources, AC isn't the only defense in the world and there are other ways to achieve it.

What.

Anywho,

Hulk smash - quickened divine favor/ enlarge person. This is for if someone REALLY pisses you off and they’re really dangerous or you’re on low buffs

Polymorph: know it all - page bound epiphany/ ancestral communion. Who needs skill ranks anyway?

Free Upgrades: Greater Magic Weapon/ magic vestment / defending bone (+ shield of faith/ironskin/bull’s strength). This combo of spells mean you dont have to buy any of the usual big stuff other than a stat belt and a cloak of resistence (owl’s wisdom/cha spell of course dont give you the spells/day buff so the item is still nice)

If I select Earth as my expanded element at level 7, do I gain the ability to manipulate metal, or is my ability to manipulate metal ONLY applied to the composite blast? I've yet to find any debate on this, which makes me wonder if this has been completely glossed over, or the answer is stupidly obvious. Either way, I don't know it, and would like to!

Besides summoning powerful creatures and buffing like a pro, what else can your PC do?

I mean the build you linked doesn't really do anything beyond "channel," but that's the core of the build, is it not? bit silly to imply that just because a build has a focus means it can't do things, especially when it has access to a 9th level spellbook.