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Dakkonn wrote:

I basically want to have someone that isn't evil detect as evil

A simple casting of Infernal Healing could do the trick too, though it won't last long.

Quote:

"If you kill that child I'll stop the portal from opening an killing everyone else"

Please, please, please be careful with that - bad GMs use that trick as a auto-paladin-falling-button. Whatever you have planned for the Paladin PC, make sure the player has fun.

Thank you. I do know its a tricky thing to do correct an often an abused one at that. I don't intend for it to be an auto fall tho. I just want it to be an opportunity for roleplaying. Weather he in fact holds to his beliefs an fights what ever may come or if he decides its "for the greater good" then ends up going on a quest for redemption we will see but at the moment I am just kicking around the idea an how it might work but if it feels like I am giving them to narrow of options (I E forcing them into something) I'll just forget it.

Quote:

I was thinking of having him use Words of Power rather than traditional spell casting for some flavor.

That would work, but:

1. it's more work for you, and
2. the players might never even notice.

Yeah I know. But I like to force myself to do things that I am not 100% comfortable with so I can grow as a GM. An yeah they may not notice but there a so many story lines and little things that most groups either don't notice or burn thru so fast that if I let things like the party not noticing the work I put into something bother me I would never get anything done :)

murdering an unarmed child of any alignment will get a paladin stripped of his powers. you don't need a spell that makes the child detect as evil- you need a spell that makes the paladin's player a drooling moron with no concept of how to be a good guy.

edit: dominate person plus alter self could make a child appear to be an adult and force it to try to attack the paladin, combine that with misdirection to seem evil and you have an encounter that might not get the pally's powers stripped but should leave him with terrible feelings of guilt...

No no :P I wasn't going to force him I was just going to give him a choice of saving many lives vs one. If he was conflicted I was thinking about using a spell to set up something like "If you conflicted would it help if that kid was in fact evil? go ahead cast your holy gaze app on him an you will see for yourself"

Or something like that this is still an extreme rough idea but its something I just want to toy around with an maybe full out. End of the day I am not trying to torment the players but create role playing options weather the player decides to kill the kid an save the many he will then have to go thru a either a redemption quest or heck he might just start down a darker path. Maybe he will spare him an fight the evil to come standing true to his convictions of his Goddess. Either way its nothing but a tool to facilitate role playing options for him and me.

Misdirection

LOL wow I even read that spell before that post. Thank you :)

I need to know if there is a spell that gives off a false alignment for detect spells that can be cast on an unfriendly target. I basically want to have someone that isn't evil detect as evil so I can trick the paladin in the party into killing him :)

So I am at the point in my campaign that I feel my group needs a villain to face. To that end I started writing up a few ideas an I want to create a guy that enjoys causing chaos/pain but in an intelligent way (not just a chaotic berserker but more of a "Joker" type). Meaning he loves making people do things like kill each other/trick them into doing things they would never do normally.

To this end I am thinking of a future encounter where said villain has helped some evil forces construct a portal to darker plains of existence but offers a choice to the Paladin such as "If you kill that child I'll stop the portal from opening an killing everyone else" He would in fact turn on his "allies" an keep his word cause it would be just as fun tormenting the paladin.

This is still a rough draft of this character but the general idea is he would kill his own "allies" if it meant he could have more "fun".

Also I was thinking of having him use Words of Power rather than traditional spell casting for some flavor. However the system is a little confusing to me. Far as I can tell it allows for custom spell creation (to an extent) at the cost of spells of the same level from a normal caster are more powerful at the same level.

(example is a standard fireball is a third level 10d6 20 foot burst at a range of 100+10 per level but a word caster would use burst fire blast it would only be 10d6 10 foot burst at a range of 25+5/2 levels an to make it a 20 foot burst range of 100 feet would turn it into a level 5 spell)

Tangling fur and filth could also be great ways to describe natural armor too. "As you lay into the dire boar, your weapon only manages to peel a thick layer of muddy rubbish off its side as it twists out of the blow. Old animal bones, a stray copper piece and other bits of refuse peer out from the exposed area as its beady eyes contort in rage."

Not that I'd be able to come up with that phrasing on the spot, but I'm not against coming to game with some descriptions handy either.

I usually just do elaborating on what is happening on the spot. That being said tho the suggestions I have already got have given me some ideas to write down and just keep in mind how I am phrasing things.

So I usually try to phrasing things like instead of saying "you failed the Fortitude check" I go something like "You are overwhelmed by the sickening aura".

Ya know give the game a little flair by choosing how I phrase things to keep things sounding interesting.

Thing is tho I am not 100% sure how to word somethings and would like ideas. Things like...

A Paladin using smite on a non evil target.

I tried something like "You hit but you don't feel the surge of righteous energy in your strike" but that doesn't sound quite right to me.

A missed hit where they have a high Armor but a low dodge.

Tried "You manage to land a blow but your blade can not piece his thick hide" (the player got confused by what I meant, if I meant DR or high AC)

Things like that I guess. Just looking for ideas to either use or inspire some creativity.

You could also use spells with the "evil" descriptor on neutral NPCs to give them an evil aura, as detect evil doesn't tell you the source of the aura, just the strength and number of auras.

You can also use magic aura in the same way, making a weakling register as a BBEG while making said villain look meek (and immune to alignment-based effects) by using the spell imbue with aura cast by a weak good or neutral character.

So wait... Doesn't focusing on a target give them to location of the evil aura?

3rd Round: The power and location of each aura. If an aura is outside your line of sight, then you discern its direction but not its exact location.

Wouldn't that tell them that the NPC is radiating evil but he isn't the source of it? (IE if they are smart they can figure out that smite wouldn't work on him) Granted that would take them a full round (cast detect and then as a move action focus)

Also doesn't Detect evil give you the location of an Invisible target? Something like the Evil Lich went invisible but Paladin is continuing to concentrate giving him the location (IE the square) of the Lich.

I know not to play my villains like chumps :) I usually drive my players insane by doing things like "he has a 15 int meaning anything I can think up he sure as hell can". So when they fought that equal leveled rogue that took two weeks of stalking them but picked them apart one sneak attack by one it didn't go well for them. Nor did fighting that 9th level wizard.

Point I guess in times like that I struggle with what I would call the morale aspect of GMing. I know I am suppose to give them a challenge once in a while (which I do) but when the party is just frustrated cause they can't do anything I get this feeling that I am failing to make the campaign fun for them. Not easy or bone crushingly hard but somewhere in the middle. Which most of the time isn't an issue I can usually balance things just fine I mean I had a campaign go every other day for 4-8 hours over 2 years only stopped cause 2 people had to move away. I just feel like I am failing as a GM when the party is dieing to lets say a ranger that is basically just playing keep away with a party of melee fighters. There are options in that situation but if I limit them cause the ranger is being smart the party is basically getting frustrated and not having fun cause all they are doing is getting shot up with no REAL way to fight back.

As far as "throw more encounters at them to burn their limited smites up" I will try that but it rarely works due to I tend to reward intelligent play and usually punish people when they are being dumb. So my players tend to play more conservatively. Meaning if they are in the middle of a dungeon crawl they usually will secure a room, wall it off and sleep if they are out "things" (smites, lay on hands, spells, ect ect) plus the paladins don't sleep (due to lay on hands mercy fatigue), or they just run away. So getting them "out" is hard to do unless I force the situation on them.

LOL that trick with the neutral cleric Glutton is really cute :) going to have to remember that one.

Did another search and found a few posts already asking this question. That just seems so freaken crazy to me. I love how one of my other friends said "trick them into using smite on neutral targets" But I don't see how that possible with paladins having detect evil at will. I mean almost every fight starts with "I cast detect evil" after the surprise round.

Don't get my wrong I'll throw some neutral or good targets that smite won't work on them but it makes that "climatic fight vs some great evil mastermind" a lot harder to do without having to plan how I am going to deal specifically with the paladins (which I hate that mentality)

Ok so let me get this straight. I played 3.5 till pathfinder came out and have used this system since but I am to used to 3.5 in the sense I take for granted a lot of rules that have been changed in pathfinder (things like undead can now be sneak attacked which caught me off guard the first time I read that)

Anyways on to the point, I recently started a new campaign and my friends decided to role up not 1 but 2 paladins. I was like "Ok they are tough as nails to kill but I can still deal with them" Then they encountered their first evil fight and of course smith evil was used. They informed me that they get to keep the Cha + to hit and Level + to damage for the entire encounter vs that target. Which I had to read the rules 3 times cause I was used to 3.5 smith which was a crushing blow but just that ONE hit that really hurt not EVERY single attack doing that.

I mean am I reading this wrong or what? Cause the +5 to hit/bypass DR/bonus AC they are getting is crazy enough but getting their level in damage ON TOP of the (basically guarantee) hit with EVERY attack (meaning if they get more than 1 swing either due to dual welding or just having a high enough + hit they are going to utterly destroy EVERYTHING evil I dare to throw at them with no challenge.

I always thought of Paladins as more of a "tough to kill" class while being good vs evil as a bonus not a "Is it evil? yes? cool I'm going to do more damage than the rest of the party combined"

This is getting long but basically I just want to know if I am reading this right and Smite Evil is now "I choose that guy as my Smite target and now get my Cha to hit and level to damage on every swing till he or I am dead"

Just some general rule/help questions that my local pathfinder group can not come to a clear decision on.

First,

Would detect magic give you an aura of magic I E the location of an invisible character? (I E if you concentrated all 3 rounds)

Second,

Is there a spell that would allow you to see a location so you could then teleport to said location with less of mishap chance?

The back story is the party needs to head far north to collect a magic rune. When looking for spell options I read into scrying to see if I could use my teleport spell to get us there considerably faster than using horses but scrying specifically says a "person" so if no one I know is at said location I can't use it. (if I understand it correct)

Third,

How does a ring of invisibility work exactly? By that I mean we got one then looked it up in the rules to find there was no "lasts X rounds/Y number of charges per day" anywhere to be found in the descriptor. Does that mean it last once activated till you attack? After which time you can simply (as a standard action) reactivate it and be invisible again while sleeping all night/traveling meaning your basically NEVER going to be the first to get attacked.

Thank you in advanced

So the short version is a friend and I rolled two wizards, he will be doing Item creation focus (Counterspell School) While I will be going Universalist School with a focus on Combat and Metamagic feats while assisting in item creation.

Now I have never played a wizard, I have played a Dread Necro and a few other casters but I usually play things that are a little easier to build. Wizard is a very interesting class to build (You can do A LOT with it) So I am looking for general advice / pointers. Keep in mind I am by no means new to Pathfinder or RPGing in general but I would like to hear other ideas/points of view. (The more you know and all that :D )

We are Level 1 so not really much to play with but I want to plan this guy out a little so I am thinking about what feats I want to take 1-10.

ATM I took Eschew materials as my level 1 but I am open to change that. (I figure not having to go back to town to get materials would be nice HOWEVER I understand that the cost on said items is so low that I should most likely pick a better feat (Imp. Int.).

Also ATM the only feat I am committed to taking is Quicken Spell by level 10. (since that will be the first level I can quicken even a level 1 spell)

Other than that I am open to ideas. I have gone over all the MetaMagic feats and made a list of ones I like (also have done a few searches on here but have not come up with another topic close enough that I feel satisfied)

I was thinking things like,
Metamagic Feats - Spell Slot increase
Silent - 1
Still - 1
Extend - 1
Empower - 2
(Wouldn't Intensified spell be better at higher levels that Empower?)
Maximize - 3
Merciful - 0
Echoing - 3 (theoretically I could cast 4 spells)

(Level 10+) Spell Penetration and Greater S P (I'm an elf so that would be 1d20+caster level+6) However with Piercing spell it would -5 spell resist for only 1 feat at the cost of increasing the spell slot by 1.

Also keep in mind I plan to make as many scrolls as possible(To give me versatility)

Anyways this is getting REALLY long so I'll leave it at this for now. Thank you in advance for any advice.