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For the Sword Saint (Samurai archetype), Iaijutsu Strike is an ability that takes a full-round action:

he may choose to use his iaijutsu strike as a full-round action, making an attack roll with his weapon as normal

Can this be combined with a called shot? Here's the relevant text on called shots:

A called shot is a single attack made as a full-round action, and thus can’t be combined with a charge, feats like Vital Strike, or multiple attacks with a full-attack action.

My guess is no, they can't be combined, but I'm bad at understanding the difference between when you can & can't combine actions.

I'm putting together a Sword Saint Samurai, and I'm aware of the issues with Iaijutsu Strike.

One of the ways to potentially maximize that strike is to make use of the increased crit chance from wielding a katana and getting a crit confirm bonus as part of the archetype.

Bull Rush Strike is something that can be done with a crit, and it seems neat and flavorful. Your confirm roll exceeds the opponent's CMD, and you push them back, with no need to move with them.

That distance somewhat negates one of the weaknesses of the Iaijutsu Strike, the -4 (or -2 at lvl 10) AC penalty in the following round. It could also be handy in certain situations, just like Bull Rush in general.

My main concern is that Bull Rush might become increasingly difficult to pull off at level 9 and above, when this feat is available. I suspect CMDs inflate pretty rapidly - but beyond that, I've got to deal with larger creatures, 4-footed creatures, and so on.

Delaying Critical Focus by a couple of levels is also a bit annoying.

There's also a requirement for Improved Bull Rush, which I could fit in... but now we're talking a 2-feat investment for this one trick.

So, will Bull Rush scale well, or is it kind of a trap?

The Sword Saint is a Samurai archetype that adds an ability called Iaijutsu Strike.

At lvl 5, this strike can make foes shaken, as follows:

"When a sword saint successfully hits with an iaijutsu strike, all foes within 30 feet must succeed at a Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 the sword saint’s class level + the sword saint’s Cha modifier) or become shaken for 1d4+1 rounds."

So, of course the question is, how can we get this to interact with other things to increase that shaken status to frightened?

Intimidate seems like the easiest route, but I'm not sure how it stacks with that ability. There's a line in the d20pfsrd under Intimidate that discusses the demoralize use of the skill:

"You can use this skill to cause an opponent to become shaken for a number of rounds. This shaken condition doesn’t stack with other shaken conditions to make an affected creature frightened."

That second sentence doesn't seem to appear in my actual rulebook, so I'm wondering if it is an errata that has been added, and if anyone can point me to the source? (I've seen some posts suggesting that that sentence was not in fact errata'd, so I want to be sure.)

The second sentence indeed seems to indicate that you can't demoralize (Intimidate) anyone from shaken to frightened, which at first glance seems to contradict with this section on fear (again from the srd):

"Becoming Even More Fearful: Fear effects are cumulative. A shaken character who is made shaken again becomes frightened, and a shaken character who is made frightened becomes panicked instead. A frightened character who is made shaken or frightened becomes panicked instead."

But I guess we could reconcile both statements by considering the above statement as saying that fear effects *from sources other than demoralize* are cumulative.

So how do you play this?

If we go with the more restrictive ruling - that you can't by default Intimidate someone from shaken to frightened - then I guess we'd need to get stuff like Disheartening Display, then follow up an Iaijutsu Strike with some form of Dazzling Display to push shaken up a step to frightened.

Otherwise, the Signature Skill: Intimidate feat could get someone frightened with just a single Intimidate check... but that doesn't synergize with Iaijutsu Strike (which isn't Intimidate based).

Wave Strike:

You present a serene facade until you unsheathe your weapon and strike in one fluid motion.

Prerequisite: Weapon expertise class feature or Quick Draw, Bluff 1 rank.

Benefit: If on your first turn of combat you draw a melee weapon to attack an opponent within your reach, you can spend a swift action to make a Bluff check to feint against that opponent.

-------------

Weapon expertise is a class feature of the samurai, so this was clearly made with samurai in mind.

But another rather important class feature of the samurai is challenge - which also requires a swift action, meaning you can't challenge on the same turn as you Wave Strike.

And because Wave Strike specifies "your first turn of combat", you can't challenge *prior* (unless you do so outside of combat somehow).

I suppose you could Wave Strike and then challenge on the following turn, but it seems a bit silly.

What's really unfortunate is that this feat seems intended as a kind of Iaijutsu Strike - but it can't be combined with the sword saint's Iaijutsu Strike, due to the aforementioned conflict with swift actions, and the fact that Iaijutsu Strike can only be performed on the target of a challenge. So again, if you wanted to use both, you'd have to Wave Strike on your first turn, sheathe your sword, challenge, and then Iaijutsu Strike.

Regardless of all that, it's unclear to me how a samurai of any archetype would make good use of this feat. If you're feinting on your first turn of combat, the benefit will be that you get to deny the foe his Dex bonus to AC.

But if it's the first turn of combat, isn't there a chance that the foe will be flat-footed anyway? I mean, if you beat their initiative, they're flat-footed.

OK, so it's useful if you lost initiative. But denying Dex to AC seems like more of a rogue move. Apart from a potentially easier chance to hit, can you think of any other way a samurai could make use of Wave Strike, considering its limitations (first turn, swift action)?

The Samurai's Weapon Expertise says that "his samurai levels stack with any fighter levels he possesses for the purposes of meeting the prerequisites for feats that specifically select his chosen weapon, such as Weapon Specialization."

Does this mean that I can take a weapon-oriented feat such as Cut from the Air (a weapon mastery feat) as a samurai, or would I need to take the Martial Focus feat first?

I know this isn't going to ever be the most optimal thing, but I've been planning a Sword Saint Samurai just to see, and here's what I've come up with - going straight Samurai, no multi-classing. Curious about your thoughts.

IMO there seem to be a couple of main routes here, both keying off Intimidate.

The first one goes for stuff like Dazzling Display, Dreadful Display, Violent Display, and eventually Deadly Stroke. It feels like a bit of a one-trick pony though, and comes online late-ish. It's also very much keyed to the one particular weapon you're using for the Iaijutsu Strike (since the "display" feats all require using that), which complicates things since if you already have that weapon drawn you can't easily re-sheathe it to Strike again.

The second option is more versatile, powerful, and I think safer.

1 ?
3 Power Attack
5 Signature Skill: Intimidate
6 Cornugon Smash
7 Hurtful
9 Furious Focus
11 Dreadful Carnage

The sequence here is:

Fight with naginata (or bow), spot a likely target, move up to it, then challenge.

Next round, Iaijutsu Strike with power attack (to allow Cornugon Smash). Hit triggers those d6s and also allows a free Intimidate. Beat the DC by 10+ and the target is frightened; he'll use his turn to run, possibly triggering AoO.

But before then, Hurtful kicks in, giving you a (swift) attack, also a Power Attack.

Drop him at lvl 11, and Dreadful Carnage scares everybody in 30', possibly frightening.

Now, Furious Focus is a prereq for Dreadful Carnage, but I'm wondering if it can actually be used on the Iaijutsu Strike. It requires you using two hands while power attacking.

If this is not possible on the Iaijutsu Strike itself, what about on the following hit from Hurtful?

And any other thoughts on the sequence here that I might be missing?

Say I'm looking at a Samurai build. Order of Vengeance grants Critical Focus as a bonus feat at lvl 8.

Say I stick with that order for a while, eventually taking a feat that is dependent on Critical Focus (Bleeding Critical, Staggering Critical, etc.). But after that point, I switch orders - say to Ronin.

I would lose "all of the benefits from [my] old order", so clearly I'd lose Critical Focus.

But would I also lose Bleeding Critical?

I'm working on a Half-Orc Samurai who will focus on Intimidate for a family game and was surprised to see that there are several different directions for making an intimidating character. Not looking for super optimization, but some fun options - and I'm curious how the feats work out in practice. Here are the character's stats at lvl 1:

STR 18
DEX 16
CON 15
INT 9
WIS 13
CHA 12

I plotted out a couple of different feat progressions:

1 Intimidating Prowess
3 Weapon Focus (katana)
5 Dazzling Display
6 Shatter Defenses (Samurai bonus feat)
7 Power Attack
9 Furious Focus
11 Dreadful Carnage

This gets me Shatter Defenses and Dreadful Carnage as soon as those become available. Shatter Defenses seems like the best way to make use of Intimidate, and Dreadful Carnage seems thematic and awesome.

But *is* Shatter Defenses that good? The wording seems to say that anyone I've successfully demoralized (or who is otherwise frightened or panicked) is flat-footed to my attacks until the end of my next turn after I hit them. But what if, after the end of my next turn, there are still enemies who are demoralized? Does Shatter Defenses still apply to them, and once I hit them they're flat-footed until the end of my *subsequent* turn as well?

The picture in my head is that, at lvl 6 with the above setup, I spend a full round on Dazzling Display at the start of combat, make a bunch of enemies shaken, and then go to town on them with Shatter Defenses, hoping that I exceeded the DC by enough to make the Shaken effect last.

One problem with the above is that Dreadful Carnage seems to supersede Dazzling Display. (Dazzling Display requires that I burn a full-round action to demoralize everyone in 30'; Dreadful Carnage only requires that I drop a foe. Granted, that's likely to happen later in the battle, but I don't see myself doing Dazzling Display once I can do Dreadful Carnage; they seem somewhat redundant.)

So is there a way to improve the action economy? *Kind* of, but I'm not sure if it is actually an improvement: Cornugon Smash.

Cornugon Smash only requires Power Attack and 6 ranks of Intimidate. At that point I'll have a second attack, so I could hit with the first, demoralize the foe, and hit with the second. Action economy works better than Dazzling Display - except that Cornugon Smash only works on a single target, and it requires that I hit (while power attacking).

Let's see how I would fit Cornugon Smash in here. I want to keep Dreadful Carnage roughly where it is:

1 Intimidating Prowess
3 Power Attack
5 Furious Focus
6 Cornugon Smash (Samurai bonus feat)
7 ?
9 ?
11 Dreadful Carnage

Furious Focus is a prereq for Dreadful Carnage, and I figure it's good to fit it in soon (so Cornugon Smash has a better chance of hitting).

At lvl 7 or 9, I was wondering about the feat Hurtful. It looks like the reverse of Cornugon Smash: instead of getting a free Intimidate on a successful hit, you get a free (swift) hit on a successful Intimidate.

However, the wording of the feat - "When you successfully demoralize an opponent within your melee reach with an Intimidate check" - has me wondering if you can just loop Hurtful and Cornugon Smash back to back. In other words, can you do the following:

-power attack, hit, use a free action to demoralize (Cornugon Smash)
-if demoralize is successful, make a single attack as a swift action (Hurtful)

within a single round? Or does Hurtful require that I make a standard-action Intimidate check?

Regardless of that, the Cornugon Smash route gives *more* chances to attempt Intimidate against individual targets doing stuff that I'd do anyway (i.e., hit them), but I don't benefit from the potential "AoE burst" Intimidate of Dazzling Display, and don't get the benefit of Shatter Defenses (unless I grab Weapon Focus/Dazzling Display/Shatter Defenses later on in the build).

After level 11, I figured I'd get into the critical feats, to make use of the katana's good crit range, something like the following:

12 Improved Critical (Samurai bonus feat)
13 Critical Focus
15 Bleeding Critical
17 Staggering Critical
18 Stunning Critical (Samurai bonus feat)
19 Critical Mastery

That said, if I really wanted to I could drop some of those crit feats to fit in Shatter Defenses as well as Cornugon Smash, Dreadful Carnage, and the rest of it...

But I'm most concerned with the play experience around levels 5-7. Is it better at that point to have Shatter Defenses, or Cornugon Smash? Which is more *fun*?

How do you do it?

I GM in a couple different campaigns, one a published adventure with a group of friends, another a homebrew campaign with just me and my wife.

In both, I often find combat dragging on as dice are rolled and initiative and other conditions are kept track of, hit points deducted... I dunno, it seems like the bookkeeping easily overwhelms the sense of excitement that is supposed to accompany combat.

I admit I'm not the most flashy presenter, and I do have a difficult time getting into the descriptions of actions, especially when I'm also trying to keep a handle on NPC tactics and abilities and all the numbers that that involves.

I mean, you look at the art in the PF books - PCs are doing crazy stunts, monsters are getting all pissed off - it looks like a blast! So how do you get that feeling in your games, beyond "he stabs you for 4 hp"?

My wife is playing a fighter who wants to go axe-and-board, and I suggested she think about the shield bash line of feats. She's really interested in them, but the problem is that they're all dependent upon two-weapon fighting, and her Dex is 12.

It's just the 2 of us playing (I'm GMing), so when she wondered if we could make up a feat to allow it, I thought about it. Here's what I've come up with:

Stonearm
You use brute strength rather than agility to bash foes with your shield.
Prerequisites: Str 15, base attack bonus +1
Benefit: You are treated as having the Two-Weapon Fighting feat, but only when fighting with a shield in one hand. In addition, you may use your Strength instead of your Dexterity to qualify for Improved Two-Weapon Fighting and Greater Two-Weapon Fighting, but these feats only apply when you fight with a shield in one hand.

I wonder if I should change that second sentence to allow all two-weapon fighting feats to be keyed to Str instead of Dex ... but it might not be necessary, since all of those (such as TW Rend, etc.) already have Imp. TWF etc. as prerequisites?

Anyway, what do you think of this? I'm not worried about this being overpowered, but I want to make sure there aren't any unforseen consequences out there, or other things I should consider.

Looks nice on paper, kinda like the 3.5 spiked chain. d10 damage is fine, a 20/x2 crit is OK I suppose. The real draw is the fact that it can be used with or without reach. I had visions of taking this and working up to Whirlwind Attack to smack everyone within 10'.

Problem is, it's a move action to adjust the length. That's not a big deal at low levels before you get iterative attacks, but I'd guess that at higher levels it becomes annoying. In other words, no smacking everyone within range unless they're all exactly 10' or exactly 5' from you.

So, does this weapon really offer anything another polearm with reach doesn't? I mean, if a foe moves adjacent to you and you're wielding a glaive, you can always (usually) just take a 5' step and continue attacking at reach. You can even do that and go ahead and full attack if you get iteratives. Taking a move action to adjust the chain length of the dorn dergar would be a waste - you may as well 5' step just like the glaive wielder, and then what's the difference?

I keep looking at this and wondering if it's better to just go straight Fighter.

The real draw for the archetype is the level 9 ability, Doublestrike. It's a standard action to attack once with each weapon.

Sounds nice, but as a standard action you'll probably only use this while you're moving during the round. Plus, since you're by definition not full attacking while you use this ability, you don't get the benefit of Defensive Flurry (AC bonuses) or Twin Blades (your substitute for Weapon Training, basically - bonuses to attack & damage). Seems like it's not especially worth it, but maybe I'm wrong?

Thinking Fighter, and thinking about Two-weapon fighting... but I'm not sold on anything yet, and I wanted to see if anyone would warn me away from any options. I seem to recall that TWFing is 'suboptimal', given that it's harder to overcome DR than using a 2-handed weapon, and you're largely limited to full-attacking.

Another route might be a longspear or polearm of some sort... that has a certain appeal.

Finally, is throwing viable? Seems 3rd edition had more support for thrower builds than PF, but maybe I'm missing something.

Any advice welcome, really, just getting some very vague ideas together.

I thought this was simple, but after looking it up in the CRB I made myself more confused.

Say you have a skeleton, which has DR 5/bludgeoning. That means, if I shoot at it with a crossbow (which does piercing damage), I ignore 5 points of damage dealt by the crossbow. If I hit it with a mace (bludgeoning), the mace does full damage.

But what if the crossbow is magical - either a +1 crossbow, or a crossbow that has been affected by the magic weapon spell? Does that crossbow ignore the DR of the skeleton?

The CRB makes it sound like it does... but if that's true, it seems like a lot of the balance of weapon and damage types would just get tossed out the window as soon as PCs get their hands on magical gear.

What is the DC for a Perception check to notice caltrops?

*Is* there a Perception check allowed?

I've never sprung caltrops on PCs before - always thought of them as a tool for PCs to use against monsters, I guess. So I never rolled Perception checks for the NPCs to spot them; just did the attack rolls.

I think PCs would be annoyed if they didn't get the chance to even determine if there were caltrops in a given square, though. But I can't find any suggested DC in the caltrops section or the Perception section of the CRB.

Is there any DC out there that I just missed? If I had to guess, I might go with something like a DC 15 as the baseline, then adjust it from there with favorable/unfavorable modifiers. Caltrops must be pretty big in order to do what they do, but still it wouldn't be an automatic thing to spot.

I can shoot a bow or crossbow while wearing a buckler without penalty on the attack roll. That's clear.

But do I lose the AC bonus while doing so?

SRD says:

You can also use your shield arm to wield a weapon (whether you are using an off-hand weapon or using your off hand to help wield a two-handed weapon), but you take a –1 penalty on attack rolls while doing so. ... In any case, if you use a weapon in your off hand, you lose the buckler's Armor Class bonus until your next turn.

My first instinct was to say yes, no AC bonus from a buckler while shooting.

But does using a bow or crossbow count as 'using a weapon in your off hand'?

I've never played a full caster for very long I admit, but every time I plan out a build for one I can't seem to justify grabbing metamagic feats (except for a wizard, who gets the bonus feats and doesn't have much else to do with his feats).

The increase in spell level for an altered spell is just kind of off-putting, I guess... I look at it like the altered lower-level spell is taking up space that could otherwise be occupied by a 'better' higher-level spell - *especially* when it comes to metamagic feats that increase the effective spell level by 2 or more.

Are metamagic feats 'necessary' for, say, a cleric (which I'm currently building)? Or can you get by without?

Wondering what my options are here. Playing as a cleric who wants to carry around a crossbow, but I'm not seeing a lot of ways to optimize it, specifically in terms of damage output. All I'm seeing are options like Focused Shot / Vital Strike, which take standard actions (though as a medium-BAB class, I guess I shouldn't necessarily shy away from that, since I'll only have one shot per round for awhile anyway).

I know a better option is to get longbow/shortbow proficiency, but that's not what I want to do.

Am I just out of luck? Or will my buffing spells make up for the lackluster crossbow performance?

Hi all,

I've been wanting to play a cleric lately, and my wife has decided she'd like to play an inquisitor in a little 2-player campaign.

Cleric and inquisitor seem like a decent pair, but I'm wondering how to design my cleric, given that the inquisitor will likely be a powerful character in her own right.

I don't know yet the details - whether she'll be focusing on melee or ranged - but it's certain that we'll both be getting into melee at some point, so I know I can't just sit back and rely on spells most of the time. But, since there is some overlap with spells and skills, how would you go about playing a cleric paired with an inquisitor? Any archetypes spring to mind? Races? Skill foci? Any spells that would be particularly handy in this situation?

Don't know a lot about the campaign yet, either, though likely we'll be sort of religious bounty hunters, tracking down demons, undead, general baddies, etc. And we'll be starting at level 1.

Looking forward to any tips here!

I'm curious how you might go about building an archer whose goal is one shot, one kill.

Or "one shot, a helluva lotta damage."

I know that single-shot-kills aren't feasible or possible most of the time, and wouldn't be that fun anyway. This is more of an academic exercise. Just trying to load as much damage as possible on one arrow.

The first thing that came to mind for me was getting Sneak Attack somehow. Of course, that's pretty situational.

Paladin has the Smite.

Ranger and Fighter both have ways of adding a lot of damage as well, more consistently.

And then Arcane Archer's Imbue Arrow ability would allow area spell effects to pile on to the damage party.

I know I'm missing something here. Curious to see what folks will come up with.

I see people work Shot on the Run into their archer builds fairly regularly. But I don't really get it. You can move, shoot, and move again as long as you don't exceed your speed.

I admittedly don't have a lot of experience at the gaming table compared to some folks, but I just can't think of situations where that ability would be useful enough to warrant taking up one of your precious feat slots.

The only case I can figure where you would even want to use it would be to dart in and out of certain ranges... you could hang out at the outer limit of your range increment, move in 15 feet to be within range, move back 15 feet... but the outer limit of your range increment is usually so far away that you wouldn't need to worry about avoiding an enemy's counterattack.

Is there something I'm missing?

Lately I've been interested in building an Arcane Archer, so I've been looking at the class and trying to figure how it would work out.

Imbue Arrows, the 2nd level ability, seemed awesome at first, but then I started looking at the spells that would qualify - area spells. There just aren't that many of them, even looking at Ultimate Magic and the APG. There are some nice tricks you can do involving Obscuring Mist and the like, as well as some low-level damage like Burning Hands.

Then there are some very nice area spells like Stone Call - but some of them have pretty decent range anyway, and no save. With Imbue Arrow, I'd need to hit, which just adds another chance that I miss, fail to cast the spell, and I've burned a standard action.

The only real advantage I can see to using Imbue Arrow vs. just casting the spell is 1) in those cases where an area spell is very close range, or centered on the caster, or 2) the fact that you get to do arrow damage at the same time. The latter is nice, but most spells have at least a standard action, and if my arrows are doing awesome damage I'm probably better off full-attacking.

The other abilities of the Arcane Archer are nice & thematic - seeker arrows and phase arrows are cool. But I'm wondering, does the whole package add up to something that is really the ultimate gish archer?

If so, can anyone explain how to best work the class? And if not, what *is* the ultimate gish archer?

When a character uses bolas to make a ranged trip attack, do the bolas do damage (assuming the attack hits)?

Wondering how these work exactly.

They are described in the APG as being essentially smokesticks, but they fill a 5' cube.

When you look up smokesticks in the CRB, you learn that they operate pretty much like the spell fog cloud, with some exceptions mostly having to do with duration and ease of dispersing the smoke.

OK, so if I shoot a smoke arrow at a medium-sized creature, what happens? Will the smoke stick with the creature for the duration, or disperse after the creature moves a certain speed?

My wife and I will be playing a little 2-person campaign soon, and the idea is that the PCs will be experts at acquiring artifacts and treasure from lost ruins. Typical kind of stuff, with some strong possibilities of urban settings as well as dungeons, social encounters as well as combat - and both PCs need to be decent at stealth. We're starting at level 4.

She rolled up a monk. Initially I was going to be a rogue, but after reading some of the bard threads on the boards here it occurred to me that a bard could be just as scoundrelly and out-for-profit as a rogue.

I'm not 100% sure on either class, though. A rogue has the advantages of:
-sneak attack
-more skills
-potentially more feats, thanks to talents
-more melee effectiveness if we're constantly setting up flanking situations

Whereas a bard has the ability to:
-use spells
-boost effectiveness of all (both) PCs
-fit the 'I know a little about everything' kind of character

Here are the stats I rolled (best six rolls of 4d6 I will ever have in my life!) -

12 14 15 15 16 18

If I play a bard, I'd probably go with dance as the Perform skill, saying it's some kind of martial art form. As for weapons, I'm torn between daggers (thrown & melee) and spear (longspear). Daggers seem pretty feat-intensive (I'd want TWF and Quick Draw, in addition to basic feats like Point Blank Shot, to keep them viable as thrown weapons) but cool. I have no idea how I'd go about selecting feats for a spear bard. Oh, and the third option is to go whip... but I'm not sure how viable that is, since with only 2 PCs I'm going to be in combat like it or not.

If I play a rogue, I was thinking about going the Sap Adept/Sap Master route, but I'm not sure if it would make sense to take TWF for that (and then go Quick Draw, etc., for thrown daggers as well), or just use one sap at a time, and instead build feats toward using a longspear...

Ultimately, though, it comes down to flavor and how I can imagine the classes. So I could use some help here. This will be a sort of gritty campaign, so I really don't want a 'silly' bard. The guy has to be cool. Ditto for a rogue... but on the other hand, just sapping people in the back of the head seems like a somewhat selfish playstyle, if you know what I mean.

In the end, I want a character who is smart and capable, out for gold and the thrill of raiding lost tombs and ruined cities, and able to hold his own in melee or ranged combat, as long as he's prepared.

Sorry for the long post. I know there are a lot of cool ideas floating around these boards, so I'm hoping some of you will help me get inspired one way or the other. Thanks in advance!

I'm rolling up a lvl 4 human rogue, and, no kidding, got the following unmodified scores:

15
15
12
18
16
14

So, one of those scores will get a +2 from being human, and I'll also get to bump up a score by +1 thanks to starting at lvl 4. I could see one of those 15s becoming a 16, and the 18 becoming a 20... or putting the +2 on the base 16 to start off with 2 18s. The question is, which stats should these be going to?

First off, it's important to know we're playing in a very small campaign - just me & my wife, actually. I'll be playing a rogue, she'll be a monk. Since it's just the 2 of us, we can adjust difficulty so it's appropriate for just 2 PCs, so I don't need an uber-optimized character, but I want something that will be fun.

I have a couple ideas about this character, and need some help deciding which way to go.

1) knife-thrower. I know this isn't as effective in PF as it was in 3.5, but this could still be fun, I think. I would want Quick Draw, and probably TWF to throw rapidly, as well as to fight in melee with dual daggers. Just carry around a lot of daggers and a shortbow for those long shots.

2) sap master. There are some great sap-oriented feats from UC that I want to grab - Sap Adept and Sap Mastery. I'm wondering if I could go TWF with saps as well... Of course I'd need ranged capability as well, so maybe I could combine the TWF sap stuff with the knife-throwing idea... or that might be too feat-heavy?

3) spear/longspear. Something about this seems pretty cool. With the stats I rolled, I wouldn't have to dump STR, and I might be able to pull this off. The question is how effective this should be, and which feats I'd need.

4) finally, the typical bow-rogue. But since it's just the 2 of us, I can't plan on always being able to shoot. I'll need to combine any shooting style with one of the other ideas above.

I have already determined that I don't want to dump CHA altogether. That will probably be the 14. But apart from that, I haven't decided on specifics regarding stat allocation or build style.

Interested to hear any ideas.

I've been thinking about alternate casting systems lately, and the idea of spell slots, while nice & simple, can sometimes seem too ... cookie cutter, I guess.

One of the systems I saw in another rpg involved "weariness tests" for spellcasters. Each time a caster cast a spell, he'd need to make something like a Con check, with failure meaning the spell was lost. Each successive spell cast would increase the DC, probably with higher-"level" spells causing a higher increase; the DC would also increase because of fatigue, loss of health, etc. The DC would "reset" to "normal" after resting, I think.

There was thus no hard-and-fast limit on daily spells, and a spellcaster would need to make tactical choices: Do I try to cast one more spell today, or do I hold back and use a weapon instead to save it for a bigger conflict? (Spellcasters in this system were expected to occasionally mix it up in melee for this reason - it was a Lord of the Rings rpg.)

I really like the idea here, so my question for the boards is, how might such a system look if converted or tweaked for Pathfinder? I don't know how a sorcerer would look vs a wizard in a system like this, for example.

Basically, I want to make magic a little harder, if that makes sense. I'm aware that changing the casting system may require changing the spellcasting classes, or collapsing some of them into a single class, but I'm curious to see how this would play out.

It's one shot, you make it as a full-round action, but you roll as many times as you could attack.

Isn't this just another way of making a full attack... which is something a gunslinger could accomplish with the proper allocation of feats and resources?

I mean, I get that it's harder to misfire, and it's easier to overcome DR, but it doesn't seem to deserve the praise I've seen for it. What am I missing?

For some reason I haven't been able to figure out exactly how this should work... when I'm making an overrun attempt with this feat, exactly how do I calculate my CMB for the attempt? Do I use the horse's CMB, or my own, and with what bonuses?

I know I'm missing something that must be really obvious...

I'm playing in a 3-player campaign; the other two players are running a half-orc fighter focusing on the spiked chain, tripping & grappling, and a rogue (not sure on the details of this one yet). We're starting at level 6.

I'm thinking of going half-orc gunslinger, focusing on the musket. The question is, how effective can this kind of build be in a 3-player party? Since I imagine the rogue will not necessarily be a front-liner, I figured I'd grab a one-handed melee weapon to use (I'll have a buckler, since you can use one with the musket with no penalty) for when enemies get in my face. I guess Quick Draw will be a good thing to take, for a couple of reasons, but especially since I plan to do some switching between weapons.

We're doing a bounty-hunter themed campaign, set in a fantasy-ish old west style setting, so I also wanted this guy to be a decent rider. That will mean taking Mounted Combat and at least Ride-By Attack (arguably Mounted Archery makes more sense, but I'm prioritizing RbA for coolness factor).

I get a fourth feat to pick for level 6, and I'm thinking either Keen Scent (to aid in tracking), Vital Strike (assuming this will help both my melee and musket attacks), or something else.

Looking for any feedback on the build, ideas for gear (though it will be a fairly low-magic campaign), and opinions on playing a musket gunslinger in general.

For fun, I'm creating a 1st-level Alchemist. The concept would be a guy with a bow, eventually shooting poison arrows, who uses bombs, mutagens, extracts, and skills as a sort of problem solver / jack of all trades. Sort of a freedom-fighter for a potentially urban campaign, not the "typical" research-intensive alchemist.

OK, Batman. But with alchemy.

Anyway, I'm trying to decide on stats and race. I'm choosing between Elf, Half-Orc, and Human races.

Here's what I rolled for stats: 17, 17, 14, 13, 13, 9.

If Elf:

Str 13 (or 17)
Dex 19
Con 11
Int 19 (or 16)
Wis 14 (or 13)
Cha 9

The big advantage with Elf is the free Bow proficiency, which is a key part of the concept. Of course the other stuff is nice too: low-light vision, +2 Per, elven magic, etc.

If Human (or Half-Orc):

Str 14 (or 16)
Dex 19 (or 17)
Con 13
Int 17
Wis 13
Cha 9

Human is nice for the skills, but I'd need to spend a feat to get Bow proficiency, putting me on par with the Elf in terms of feats.

Half-Orc has a certain charm, too (mostly the free Falchion proficiency, in which case I'd probably go w/ a 16 Str), but I'd need to spend my lvl 1 feat on Bow proficiency, and I'd be "behind" in terms of feats relative to choosing the Elf or Human. Darkvision is a nice compensation, but I'm not sure if it's enough.

Thoughts?