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Hey there everyone! I'm running the Fangwood Keep Pathfinder Module for 3 friends. I understand that its for 4 4th level players, but they'd rather just keep it to the three of them. How should I buff them to help make it balanced again? should I just give them a 20/25 point buy on their stats instead of the standard 15? Or should I raise each of their levels to 5? Any advice on how best to proceed by people by who have had experience with this would be appreciated.

Hey community! I have a kinda a weird situation I wanted to consult you about...

I have been a GM for a group of guys at my university for awhile, and in the past we've agreed that guns should not exist in our campaigns, because as soon as they become a thing, it signals the change from a swords and sorcery world to a guns and sorcery world. A number of my players really like to play sword/armor heroes, so they dislike how the presence of guns signals the change of time in the world, and their now obsolete defenses. This is largely due to the fact that guns resolve against Touch AC, thus making armor based classes obsolete in light of the new age of gunpowder.

Now, one of my players wants to make a gunslinger, and some of the other guys are not so cool with it. We've come up with an idea to resolve the situation so that both armor and gunslingers can happily inhabit the same world without either having a significant natural advantage over the other, that leaves the world's medieval themes intact and still gives the gunslinger a special place. We're not so bothered by the balance of the gunslinger, but by how it functions thematically. So, after some deliberation and consultation, we made these changes to the gunslinger to make it less thematically destructive to the world's amor and sword barring coolness, while maintaining the gunslingers streak of awesomeness and its balance.

Here are the changes, what do you think?

1- The first change is to make guns unable to naturally resolve against Touch AC.
(Magical amor or natural amor in a magical world is lighter and sturdier than in our own world, so that it can hold up against gunshots, especially old guns. Now guns hold no natural advantage over bows, except that they can be more easily aimed at weak points in armor, resulting in the next rule change.)

2- The second change is gunslingers may still use the Deadeye Deed to resolve their attacks against Touch AC, but that the first expenditure of grit only gives you the natural range of the gun against Touch AC.
(The idea is that we make this ability consumable, and must be used more carefully. Also, since guns are naturally easier to aim with than bows, one can use their natural skill (grit points) to make careful shots against Touch AC.)

3- The third argues gunslingers get good at aiming very fast so they get the PinPoint Targeting feat at the 6th level for free without meeting any prerequisite.
(Keep in mind that this feat only works when you make a single attack, and since the 6th level is when gunslingers start naturally getting multiple attacks, they have to decide when out of grit points whether to use this feat or make more attacks.)

4- The fourth rules that despite all possible deeds, feats, and alchemical cartages one can acquire, a gun can never be reloaded faster then a swift action. So, conceivably, in one turn a player could reload a gun once as a swift action, once as a move action, and once as a standard action, totaling in 3 guns reloaded in one turn, but nothing else done. This does not restrict a player from preparing several shots before combat or ahead of a turn, and firing them all at once in one round, this simply restricts the reload speed.
(old guns are hard to reload)

5- The fifth is that all guns and ammunition cost half their listed official price in the game guides. Plain and simple, but magic enhancement still costs the same as the guides say.
(This is so that we remove the frustrating cost of all ammunition and guns in the game so that gunslingers don't feel so weak in the early game, and never have to constantly worry about how much their attacks are costing them. It lessens this odd mechanic, and helps balance the nerfs mentioned above).

6- Any gun only misfires with a natural 1, even after the first misfire. Upon the second misfire, the gunslinger can pick a square up to a distance equal to the gun's first range increment, and with a successful reflex save, the gunslinger can throw the gun before it explodes into that square and have its explosion act like a slash weapon dealing the guns damage in an area. a failed reflex save causes the gun to explode under the normal rules, except the gunslinger always takes half damage.

7- Finally, only early firearms are available in our campaign. Because firearms have no natural advantage in the world over armor, other then they are still pretty effective, and because gunpowder is rare but available, people haven't developed, and may never develop advanced firearms, except in extraordinary cases.

These are the changes we agreed on, and as of yet we haven't started to test it out.

I'm curious what people think about these changes, especially those who have had more experience playing with this rather unusual class. I was also wondering if anyone knew of other home-brewed gunslingers who've adjusted the rules for similar thematic needs. Any links to such discussions would be welcome. Thanks everyone!

Hey Everyone! I've been on a character building spree as I've been trying to build characters based off certain ideas. This idea however is giving me some trouble, and while I think I've finally come to a good place, I was wondering if anyone had any more advice...

For those of you who have watched Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood, I'm trying to make a character based off of Fuhrer Bradley. For those of you who have not watched the show, go watch it, and the character is basically this older guy who pretends to be a gentleman, but is in fact a duel sword wielding blur of death.

I basically want to build a character who by the higher levels can move with blinding speed, dual wields swords (preferably long thin swords like rapiers), and focuses on crit. to bleed opponents to death. So basically a kick ass fast sword fighter who just shreds his opponents, and specializes in fighting other humanoids.

Originally I was planning on making Monk, for the bonus speed and flurry of blows. But there aren't really any good archetypes that worked with my idea, and had proficiency in duel wielding blades. Also, Monks are hard to scale well at the higher levels...

Right now, I'm looking at the Dervish Dancer Bard Archetype. While it isn't as good as the Dawn-Dervish at the beginning, I think it scales better and its bonus speed and some of its later level abilities are amazing. The leaf on the wind ability is great for in battle recovery, and the other powers work well with the movement and constant full attacks he should be letting off. He'll start the campaign at a high level (15ish) anyways.

I figure a STR, DEX, and CHA focused build (in that order) should get him into the right place power wise, and If I focus on two weapon fighting, and crit based feats I should have a really good fighter who moves like a blur and gets lots of attacks off. He'll wield a scimitar in his main hand, and a kukri in his other. Any comments?

Hey everyone. Just a quick question. If I make a character who specializes in the Thassilonian school of Greed (transmutation), I understand it restricts me from using spells of the opposing enchantment and illusion schools. But could I still use spells from those schools if I use a wand or staff?
It says, "if using a spell trigger or spell completion item to cast a spell from one of his prohibited schools, he must use the Use Magic Device skill to do so." Does this mean I can use that skill to cast prohibited spells in a wand? I want my guy to be really good at transmutation magic, but I'd also like to at least have access to invisibility spells... What's the consensus on this?

Thematically, I'm trying to build a wizard who is interested in the pursuit of ultimate knowledge and power, so that he can protect the people he loves and build a perfect society like the gods. He's fascinated with Thassilonian history and the rune lords, so he decides to brave their magic to gain greater power at potential risk to himself... I also want him to use a rapier and wear light armor. Any advice on all this stuff? Has anyone tried using this Thassilonian specialization before and found it useful?

This is pretty much just for the sake of trying on a new character. Wouldn't be able to play him anytime soon, but I'm interested in exploring Wizard specializations, and the pursuit of ultimate power within the game... kinda sounds cheesy, but I recently got into the Rise of the Runelords campaign as a GM, and its pretty cool stuff. Just brought up the question of arcane study as the ultimate pursuit of power in mind, and I want to play with the theme for my players.

Thanks.

Hey guys. Just wanted to ask the community this question... I'm mostly a GM and haven't worked with monks from a players perspective before.

I'm trying to build a powerful brawler monk who can get into big fights with a high AC and big damage and just have fun.

I've built the monk with high stats in dexterity, wisdom, and strength, and have classes him as a Flowing Qinggong Monk and Master of Many Styles. The Flowing archetype makes me dangerously evasive up close and capable of redirecting attacks against themselves, and the Qinggong will allow me to pick up helpful ki powers like Bark-Skin and stuff. The styles will allow me to get Snapping Turtle, Panther style, and maybe Tiger later or Snake.

So my evasion will probably be really high, but what do I do about damage? I like being super hard to hit in the middle of a fight, but I also want to be dishing out lots of damage, not just tripping people left and right.

The unarmed strike damage frustrates me because I can't really scale it with magic enhancement. I've never really been able to test how well it scales naturally without any enhancement, and I don't want to use weapons because deadly little hands are totally awesome. Are there ways to boost the damage over time with feats or something?

Thanks.

Hey there. I'm kinda a new GM and I'm really confused about this... combat maneuver? I understand how the numbers work, but it says in the core rule book that to deny the opponent their dexterity bonus to AC on your next attack, you must make an attack in the same round as you performed the Feint... But Feint is a standard action unless you get the improved feint feat. Does this mean that Feinting is useless until you get the feat? Because you obviously can't attack in the same round after performing a standard action Feint.

Is that clear? I'd really like an explanation...

Also, what exactly is a Feint? In the dictionary of sword fighting it means faking the opponent out with a false move of the blade, but everyone on the forums describes it as falling down prone and actually... faking feinting. I'm so confused about all this... Is there anyone who can help me? :)