Search Posts
As my Wizard in a long-running play-by-post game once said: "Is it really cheating to use a Charm Person spell to ace an Enchantment exam?" I think the key thing is that you have to make sure the Wizard being tested doesn't know the security measures being used against them. Because especially once you get to the mid levels, Wizards have too many tools to guard against.
Plenty of people are still playing. It's no longer actively developed, but there's such a huge wealth of content for what is essentially a complete game that it still works great. And yes, I'm still playing. I'll be GM'ing a session in 45 minutes.
This is very much a "talk to your GM" situation. Alignment as a game mechanic and narrative mechanic only holds together as a coherent concept if everyone agrees not to go poking at it. If you start doing something like "non-evil necromancer" and challenge the conventional notions of alignment, it can easily fall apart for the thinly-veiled narrative conceit it is. The alignment system is arbitrary BS written from a specific cultural perspective at a specific time and place in our real-world, and it exists to facilitate simple stories of good vs evil. If you expect more than that from it then it's going to fall apart. If you are in a campaign where the story and narrative presumes that necromancy and undead are evil, and moral nuance is kept to a minimum, then your necromancer concept will be disruptive at best and immersion-breaking at worst. If you are in a campaign where those premises are not necessary then the GM can simply let you play a non-evil necromancer.
Mh, well then my character creation app made a mistake with the archetypes being compatible. Definitely an issue with your character creator. Possibly due to Scroll Scholar being a little bit unusual in that it only modifies part of the Arcane School class feature rather than the entire feature. I'd go with only poleiheira adherent then, as I really like the flavor of the binded infinite spell-/notebook, the mount and the (I admit pretty niche, but very favorable) ability to control a ship on my own. Yeah, it is a very flavorful archetype. Just such a shame it trades off so much for what is essentially flavor. In the original post, I already included the racial gnome bonuses (-2 Str, +2 Dex, +2 Cha), as mentioned. Those are the Halfling racial bonuses. Gnome is -2 Str, +2 Con, +2 Cha And would you consider allowing poleiheira adherent and scroll scholar to work together (as a home rule, after counseling with the DM) to strong? I'd allow it, Poleiheira is mostly flavor and shouldn't have to trade away nearly as much as it does. Trading off the Arcane Bond is enough, having to give up Arcane School as well is just incredible overkill.
The goal ist not the optimized Min/Max build, but rather a thematically fitting and we'll working one. That's fair enough. I would still recommend raising that Intelligence score if you can afford it. 16 is a little iffy for a Wizard, especially since Poleiheira loses the arcane school class feature and gets fewer spells per day. You really need all the bonus spells you can get. Wizard (poleiheira adherent, scroll scholar) These archetypes are incompatible. The Scroll Scholar requires you to have either the Diviner or Universalist school feature. The Poleiheira Adherent loses the Arcane School class feature in its entirety, and therefor cannot take either Universalist or Diviner. Therefor they are incompatible. You must choose one or the other, you cannot have both. (as an aside, Poleiheira Adherent trades away way too much for what it gives you. This creates compatibility issues with other archetypes that it really shouldn't have, but losing arcane school really cuts your options for mixing in other archetypes)
This seems to be a 19 point buy. That's a little weird, did you forget a point somewhere?
Given how low your Strength score is and the penalty for being small-sized and being a 1/2 BAB class, Knowledge is Power probably isn't doing enough for you to be worth taking. Your CMD is still going to be terrible, and this Discovery just makes it slightly less terrible. If you're going to fail anyways, you may as well pick something else. Knowledge is Power is something I generally only see used well on Eldritch Knight builds that are using it to boost a CMB/CMD that is already decent. Careful Reader is really specific and the kind of thing that may never come up in a campaign. Taking feats for flavor is all well and good, but if it literally never comes up then you may as well have not had it at all. For spells I'd like some suggestions of the "non-standard" variety, which would fit the theme (for example Create Treasure Map. I suggest Mad Monkeys. As a wise gnome once said, when you have that many monkeys anything is possible.
The greater caster's shield ability, on the other hand, is probably underpriced. Honestly, these items are hard to price. There's a lot of practicality issue with respect to the downtime and feat requirements of scribing scrolls. Wizards do get scribe scroll for free, but they don't really want to be using shields. Divine casters like Clerics, Druids, or Oracles can use shields just fine but rarely if ever take Scribe Scroll and the item is of questionable value if you don't have that feat. And even if the shield does work for you and you do have the crafting feat you may have better uses of your downtime than scribing scrolls. Further complicating this, the Blessed Book does give precedence that magical items that give cost savings can give enormous savings over your adventuring career. Overall, this item's value is just completely subjective and it's really tough to pinpoint what it should be.
I strongly suspect that the text was submitted by a freelancer and ruthlessly cut by Paizo staff in order to fit everything in the book. That's a problem with a fair number of the softcovers. I'm definitely not blaming any individuals here. There were clear problems of quality control with the Player Companion product pipeline that go beyond any one person and were more structural as to how the product was produced. The Player Companion line produced some of the best content in Pathfinder, but also some of the worst, and I think the way it was produced contributed to both the good and the bad. I don't think the HHH Pact Wizard is even that hard to fix. Make it give up the Arcane School class feature, remove a couple of the more excessive abilities (it doesn't need a free Fast Study at 1st level, and the 20th level ability is dysfunctional as already mentioned), and reduce the uses per day of its 10th level ability. That would almost certainly bring it into balance. It'd still be a great archetype, but no longer a free buffet of class features with no opportunity cost.
d20pfsrd.com lists it as available under Create Undead, and Animate Dead clearly has it noted as a possible combination. However, d20pfsrd.com isn't exactly clear on which source added it (likely an adventure path at some point). I'm just trying to figure out the correct CL required. Yeah, it is unfortunate that D20PFSRD doesn't correctly source this stuff. I'm actually very curious as to what the sources are for some of those things. There are some I'm aware of, like the Huecava's description in Bestiary 3 says you can create it with Create Undead. But I don't know where the Skeleton Champion and Juju Zombie options come from. Which is a shame, because I think they are really positive additions from a world-building perspective by explicitly specifying how a necromancer might create these kinds of creatures. As to the question at hand, though, there is no way to create a Bloody Skeleton Champion. It's GM fiat as to whether such a combination is even possible.
Elixirs shouldn't require Craft Wondrous Items in the first place, they should be under Brew Potion. It's not so much that the Alchemist was explicitly barred from crafting Elixirs, it's more that Elixirs were misclassified. I think the reason this doesn't get talked about much is two-fold. First, most Elixirs just duplicate effects you can already get with Extracts for free anyways. And secondly, it's one of the things a GM would just agree to handwave. If a player pointed out that Elixirs cannot be crafted by an Alchemist, I wouldn't have any problems waiving that rule and just letting him craft them.
I use the PFS rules in general so that archetype is out of scope. Yeah, that's because this is one of the most poorly-designed archetypes in all of Pathfinder and a prime example of the poor editorial oversight of the Player Companion product line. It should have never been published in this state. There are so many problems with this archetype: 1. There was already a published archetype called the Pact Wizard.
Overall, this is a poorly written and blatantly broken archetype, and it's no surprise it was summarily banned in PFS. People can do what they want in their home games, of course, but this is right up there with Leadership in terms of stuff that is going to be banned at a lot of tables. It's a shame because it is a very flavorful archetype, and if the author had just toned things back a little this could very well be a great option. But as it stands it's just not going to be allowed at many tables.
For instance, PS: Sailor when climbing into the rigging? In cases like that, I would allow the Profession: Sailor to be used instead of a Climb check.
In general you are better off being an actual spellcaster and taking just Dimensional Agility and then using Spell Perfection (Dimension Door) to quicken the spell for free. It requires fewer feats, it has no range restrictions, and most builds cannot get Dimensional Savant any earlier than 15th anyways due to how long the feat chain is. I've run Dimension Door builds before, and the gish builds that use the spell proper always work best. If you really want to be a martial, then your best option is Flickering Step plus Teleportation Mastery which together give you a decent number of uses per day. However, if you're doing anything other than single-class Fighter you're going to be pretty feat-starved. Horizon Walker is a possibility, but it delays your class feature progression in your main class and can cause problems in other respects. Dipping Fighter can just compound that problem. If you're giving up 5 levels of progression in your main class, you may as well just go single-class Fighter at that point.
Using consumables for your defense only works when you can accurately predict when combat will occur. Which isn't too hard when dealing with a 1 hour duration. About to enter the villain's fortress? Opening up the sealed entrance to a long forgotten ruin? Found monster tracks and fresh blood nearby? Pass a perception check and notice enemies waiting in ambush on the road up ahead? I see players use 10 minutes/level prebuffs all the time and have them in effect in the vast majority of combat encounters. If I'm not actively trying to catch them by surprise, they will likely have those long-duration prebuffs active. Also when you are attacked without warning you don’t get your DEX bonus so that means you are even more vulnerable. In the case of a monk they do get their WIS bonus so are a little better off, but other classes do not have that advantage. Definitely, surprise rounds are deadly. And as you correctly note, Monks are better off than most in this respect. They also have very high perception (class skill plus Wisdom-based) so they are less likely to suffer a surprise round. And if we're looking at this holistically, there is a third major category of AC beyond your total and flat-footed: touch. And Monks are unrivaled for touch AC. Mage Armor doesn't help there, but it isn't needed either. Most of the campaigns I have been in have always had a fair amount of unexpected combat. Fights break out even in social situations, the party gets attacked when resting or otherwise not expecting it. If the comparison is when resting, then the Monk who needs to take a full round action to pull out a potion and quaff it to get Mage Armor is way better off than the guy in plate mail who needs 4 minutes with someone else helping him to get his armor on. Nobody takes the Endurance feat, it's a bad feat, because the risk of being ambushed while asleep is not worth taking a full feat to guard against. Which kinda backs up my point; yeah, occasionally you will be caught unprepared but it's an acceptable risk.
Unless your campaign only last about 2 weeks a single wand is not going to last anywhere near the entire campaign. Even if you only adventure for 8 hours a day, that works out to 12.5 days of protection. If you are actively adventuring - as in seeking out and combating antagonists - then 8 hours of adventuring per day is a ludicrous exaggerations. If presume one encounter every 30 minutes on average, which is extremely conservative, then 8 hours per day over 12.5 days is 200 encounters. That's two or three campaigns! Nobody is going to be using a consumable prebuff during a downtime day, or while traveling overland, or while attending a social encounter where combat is not expected. Sometimes that means you will be ambushed and will have to choose between spending a turn buffing or not having the buff. That is a downside, there will be cases you don't have your +4 Armor bonus. I've played low-level Wizards before, getting caught without Mage Armor active is a real thing and a legitimate downside. But it's very doable to have a 1 hour prebuff proactively active in most combat encounters. Now, maybe in a wilderness exploration campaign this would be a problem. If you're spending 8 hours a day in dangerous wilderness where a combat encounter could happen at any time, but are often separated by hours, then this might be impractical. But in a typical campaign you're not spending 8 hours a day in situations where a challenging combat encounter could happen without notice.
Monks also get to add their Wisdom bonus to AC, and a +5 Wisdom bonus to AC is hardly unreasonable by level 5 (16 + 2 racial + 2 enhancement). At higher levels that Monk might have a +8 Wisdom modifier, which along with Mage Armor would be equivalent to +3 Full Plate.
But a potion has not only a gold cost and a time limit as a balance..... The cost of a suit of full plate is 1,500 gp. The cost of a potion of Mage Armor is 50 gp. So for the price of the plate armor you can get 30 potions that last 1 hour each. In a lot of campaigns, that many potions will last you up until like 8th or 9th level. And that's the expensive way to do it. If you have an arcane caster in the party, buy a wand and have them tag you with it. At a mere 15 gp per charge, you get 100 castings of Mage Armor for the price of non-masterwork full plate, which will almost certainly last you the entire campaign.
Another question. What is the cause of this dex bonus cap? I'm guessing its encumbrance. A medium load has a cap of +3, while heaving is +1. It's based on the misconception that heavy armor was cumbersome and severely limited the wearer's mobility. In reality heavy armor is a relatively minor impediment to mobility and the dex limit isn't really justified by any realistic considerations. From a game balance perspective it might be to keep dexterity under control, as stacking a high dexterity with heavy armor could result in extremely high AC's, but a Monk who quaffs a potion of Mage Armor is basically getting the equivalent of full plate without any impediment to their Dex bonus so it's hardly unprecedented.
Barbarian 1 or 2 does not give you enough rounds or rage or other benefits to make it worthwhile. You can just take the Extra Rage feat, though I admit that is an expense when you already want to be taking two-weapon fighting feats. With that said, I can see the case for Barbarian 8 / Rogue 4, as it does get you plenty of rounds of Rage per day and +11 attack bonus for that extra iterative, but you do lose Skill Unlock, a lot of Sneak Attack dice (doubly important for Knife Master), and the Advanced Rogue Talent at 10th. I think it really comes down to which Barbarian Rage powers you want and how much you care about them. If not, you can just use your Rogue Talents to shore up your feat selection and take Extra Rage.
I think you meant that Paizo moved away from prestige classes -- they kept on making profusions of archetypes, and then converted archetypes into a thing for 2nd Edition. Yes, it's a typo. I think most people would recognize what I meant, but it is irritating that I can't go back to fix because of the 1 hour edit limit on Paizo forums. Mad Magic has awesome potential, which Rage Prophet unfortunately squanders by STILL requiring the Moment of Clarity Rage Power tax I'd agree, even with the support it now has it's still a very shaky choice, but it's at least tenable now with the support it has. In the grand scheme of viability, it's somewhere below the Spellslinger which is my golden benchmark for "it's bad, but you can make it work if you really want to" I wouldn't call Spell Critical a way to reliably throw out Quickened spells every round -- you have to threaten a Critical, and then you have to confirm it. It's nice, but not awesome. Spell Critical on its own isn't consistent, but when paired with Spell Perfection and a few Quickened Spell slots you absolutely can be in a position to use that Swift action cast every round. Any round you don't get the Spell Critical activation, you just use one of the other methods. Even with a conservative +30/+30/+25/+20 attack routine with a 15-20 crit range and critical focus, you've got around a 70% chance to get at least one crit on a full attack against a typical CR 16 monster. So especially with Dimensional Agility and swift action Dimension Door (a great choice for Spell Perfection for a melee gish) to get pseudo-pounce it's not unreasonable to expect Spell Critical to give you a free swift action cast on most turns. And Explosive Weapon sounds potentially very dangerous to your allies . . . . "Area of effect" isn't just spells with a radius, it also includes spells that are cones and lines and those are easily directed away from your party. It's debatable whether this is RAI, and it may well have been intended only for spells with a radius, but as written it's more permissive than that. Witch gets hurt because Eldritch Knight doesn't progress Hexes As mentioned, the big draw here is Strength Patron Divine Power on a gish which is very nice. You probably aren't going to be using most standard action hexes anyways. It's going in a very different direction from a regular witch. This is also true to some extent for Sorcerer and Wizard, but at least those have some options that don't scale with level but are not bad when used as low-level powers at high levels (for instance, the Admixturer Evoker's 1st level power and the Foresight Diviner's 1st level power). The biggest thing the Sorcerer gives up is actually its favored class bonus. The Human Sorcerer FCB is absolutely huge for Sorcerers, and much more impactful than its bloodline powers, and roughly increases your spells known by 30%. But aside from this, Wizard and Sorcerer both have plenty of front-loaded options that don't rely on class level scaling or scale naturally with spell level (for instance Sorcerers can trade away the 1st level bloodline power for Blood Havoc which scales with caster level instead of class level).
I guess I'll ask how many levels of each class would be in a decent build if I reached level 12? Either Barbarian 1 / Rogue 11 or Barbarian 2 / Rogue 10 would be ideal.
Should work just fine. Take 1-2 levels of Barbarian (depending on whether there's a Rage Power you want) and the rest in Rogue. You might need the Extra Rage feat as with only 1-2 levels of Barbarian you won't have very many rounds per day of raging available to you. Take two-weapon fighting, and get in position to flank and sneak attack. When to take your first Barbarian level is a difficult question. Taking it at 1st level is very attractive, as this gives you a maximized d12 hit dice which means you'll have 2 extra hit points (which isn't a small amount at low levels). This also gets you full martial weapon proficiency, which is always nice. However, going for Rogue 4 first to get Finesse Training and Debilitating Strike as quickly as possible is also very attractive and the key to making your Rogue devastating in melee. I don't think there's a right answer, but you definitely want to be Barbarian 1 / Rogue 4 by 5th level.
There is nothing about the Skeletal Champion that removes racial modifiers, so yes you retain any racial modifiers. Skeleton Champions don't have a Constitution modifier so any racial modifiers to Constitution would be lost, but that isn't applicable for Goblins.
clearly you were never in PFS where the majority of GMs & coordinators opposed early entry for various PrCs via SLAs and thus the loud complaints got things 'clarified' No, I've always played with my own group. I've had to deal with overpowered PC's in my time, and have "the chat" with players whose characters are clearly causing issues. The early qualification Mystic Theurge is nowhere near the character builds or specific feat or spell choices that caused me to have "the chat". I can understand and fully agree that the early qualifications were janky, weird, and arbitrary, but at least as far as the Mystic Theurge goes it wasn't overpowered. The Theurge is bottlenecked by its action economy, and has to choose between being really MAD (if it goes the Int/Wis route) or losing a lot of class features (if it goes the Cha/Cha route). If we compare Oracle 15 to Oracle 4/Sorcerer1/Mystic Theurge 10, you're losing 1 level of Oracle spellcasting progression, 3 attack bonus, 11 hit points, 11 levels of favored class bonus, 5 Mystery spells, and 3 Revelations in exchange for arcane spellcasting ability as an 11th level Sorcerer and a bloodline arcana. Is it good? Yes, this is definitely a good trade. But it's not so good as to break the game in any material way, nor will it completely outclass a single-classed Oracle.
I don't think I've ever seen a PC with more than three classes. Three is pretty common and I've seen it several times, but builds that use 4 or 5 classes are rather rare. They exist, as evidenced by people bringing them up in this thread, but they are rarely seen and tend to be the creation of a certain kind of player. I almost played a game as a Paladin/Monk/Sorcerer/Dragon Disciple/Eldritch Knight once, but it fell through. Great build, and I used it in the Wrath of the Righteous video game adaptation, but never seen it at the table. Speaking of PrC's, there are a few that require two classes to qualify for them (mystic theurge, eldritch knight, rage prophet, etc.) but I have yet to play any of those myself except as NPCs. Mystic Theurge is a fascinating and iconic prestige class, but the Pathfinder version fixed none of its problems from 3.5, and the Combined Spell class feature that got added is borderline worthless. The Theurge is decent enough at high levels, but getting there is a slog and it's just not fun to play. There was a brief period when there was early qualification cheese that was officially sanctioned in Pathfinder FAQ's, and people were entering Mystic Theurge with combinations like Oracle 4 / Sorcerer 1 and it actually wasn't overpowered at all. The forums were full of people asking advice on how to do it, and not a single GM complaining about the results being overpowered. It really goes to show those high prerequisites weren't necessary. And it seems Paizo took notice, because shortly after they closed these loopholes the Accomplished Sneak Attacker feat appeared. This feat had one immediate and obvious application: early qualification into Arcane Trickster. Now instead of entering as a Rogue 3/Wizard 3, you could enter as a Rogue 1/Wizard 4 which makes entry much more realistic and only costs you a single level of spellcasting progression and a single feat. Overall it's now a very viable option. Rage Prophet was a very underpowered prestige class. It trades off too much, has too high of a prerequisite to enter, and doesn't really commit to either melee combat or offensive spellcasting very well. It's very much a product of "early Pathfinder" where Paizo was still trying to figure out the direction they wanted to go, and also didn't have a strong grasp yet of what made something good, resulting in a lot of stuff that overshot or undershot (case in point: Rage Prophet was published in the same book as the Summoner). In the end, Paizo moved away from archetypes and the Rage Prophet was largely forgotten. But in late Pathfinder a lot of support arrived that incidentally helped the Rage Prophet. The Prestigious Spellcaster feat meant that instead of losing 5 levels of spellcasting progression you were now only losing 2, and the Mad Magic feat gave new options with which to rage and cast simultaneously. While it's still a steep tradeoff, there is enough mitigation of the downsides and support to make the rage+cast approach workable. However, it's still a bit of a one-trick-pony that leans too heavily on its 7th level ability to add Constitution bonus to spell DC's. That's a huge DC boost, and really the only power here that packs enough of a punch to be worth it. Overall it's a janky relic of early Pathfinder that's found a very specific niche due to interactions with other options from late Pathfinder. Now, Eldritch Knight is the most interesting of these prestige classes because it's the only one that never dropped off. Yes, the Magus stole the spotlight, but its niche was in its action economy efficiency. The Eldritch Knight's niche was allowing you to blend full arcane casting with a synergistic martial class. Especially at higher levels once it had Spell Perfection and Spell Critical to reliably throw out quickened spells every round, the Eldritch Knight was a highly competitive alternative to the Magus. But at lower levels it's understandable that most players preferred the smooth action economy of the Magus that just worked out of the box without much optimization. But the Eldritch Knight really got some incredible support as Pathfinder progressed. The Prestigious Spellcaster feat was absolutely huge, as that one extra level put the Eldritch Knight decisively ahead of the Magus for spellcasting progression. It also opened up more multiclass options, as you could realistically do a little more dipping on the martial side without completing giving up the spellcasting side. Mage Cartridges added incredible support for firearm Eldritch Knight builds. And the Arcing Weapon and Explosive Weapon feats basically gave it its own alternative to spellstrike. I think there are a lot of great options for EK out there. The standard Fighter/Wizard entry works well, but you can use Gunslinger to go the firearm route, Witch with Strength Patron can delay entry slightly to wait for Divine Power which is obviously amazing for a gish, Arcanist is a bit iffy since Reservoir doesn't scale with EK levels but there are some really good exploits for a gish, and Sorcerer has amazing options with its synergy with Paladin, Scaled Fist Monk, and Dragon Disciple.
Let me elaborate, if it takes multiple mythic abilities it probably can't (and shouldn't) be done without mythic. Mythic path powers have wildly varying quality. Some are indeed outrageously good, others are just okay, and some are quite bad and would be just fine as non-mythic abilities. I think this is a particularly bad mythic power, so I don't think "it's mythic" is a good argument for it being overpowered. Similarly, there's an argument to be made that the closest non-mythic equivalent ability (Armor Training) is relatively lackluster. Now, I personally think Armor Training is a bit underrated, but it's nowhere near as good as Weapon Training. I think this is probably a case of niche partitioning. If the Fighter didn't exist, Paizo probably would have published a better way of handling max dex bonus, but with Fighter being a core class and Armor Training being one of its premier class features they didn't want to create something objectively better.
Most characters wearing light armor wouldn't be bumping up against the max dex of their armors in the first place. A Dex-based character will be changing their preferred armor over the course of the game with respect to max dex bonus, so I can see the annoyance. Presuming you start with 18 Dexterity at 1st level, that means you're good with a Chain Shirt. By 5th level you should be around 20 Dexterity so you need Mithral Chain shirt. By 10th level you should be round 24 Dexterity so Darkleaf Studded Leather is your ideal. By 15th level you'll be around 26 so Darkleaf Leather is what you want. But once you get to inherent bonuses at the highest levels your Dexterity could be 30+ at which point you're just using a Harimaki or Bracers of Armor. Interestingly, a Dex-based Fighter with Armor training doesn't have the same problem. Until the very end of his career when inherent bonuses become available, Mithral Breastplate is his ideal. It can be done, with the series of 3 Mythic abilities mentioned earlier. Which is not particularly helpful, as most campaigns do not utilize mythic, and that's a huge part of your build devoted to this.
You need to use a standard action to activate the ability, but otherwise once it's activated you have a Fly speed and can fly with a move action. The Fly Skill list Hovering as requiring a DC 15 Fly check. If you can succeed that, then you can hover in place without moving, and therefor can hover in place without taking any actions at all. Because the Fly spell grants Good mobility (+4 to Fly checks) and a bonus to fly checks equal to half your caster level (at least +3) you're already most of the way there. Skill checks to do not automatically fail on a roll of 1, so if you can get to +14 Fly you just automatically succeed
The most popular means of obtaining an armor bonus without a dex limitation remains usage of the Mage Armor spell (perhaps with Ascendant Spell to obtain a +2 AC bonus from its mythic version) or Bracers of Armor, which can provide upwards of a +8 armor bonus without any dex-to-AC cap. There's also the Haramaki. A +5 Harimaki is about half of the cost of +6 Bracers of Armor. The reason it doesn't get mentioned is because it still disables Monk AC bonus, and many unarmored builds dip Monk since it's really the only class that gives good unarmored support. But if you're not taking the Monk dip, Harimaki has no max dex bonus, no arcane spell failure chance, no armor check penalty, and even no penalty for using it without proficiency (since all that does is double the armor check penalty... which as mentioned is zero).
you might review the iconic wizard Ezren or the published NPC wizards... your 'stock wizard' seems highly impractical and mischaracterized. There are a lot of spell lines that are feat hungry. Summoning, blasting, and especially any kind of polymorph requires a lot of build considerations. A lot of the published NPC Wizards like to fill their spell preparations with blasting or summoning spells, but without taking the feats that make those spells good. Ezren is particularly bad, and is mechanically one of the most confused iconics with his spell selection and build just being completely mismatched. But you can absolutely build highly effective Wizards that require zero feat support, and you do it by focusing on spells that are really good without feat support. Stuff like Grease, Create Pit, or Haste are always solid spell selections, and there are more than enough spells to fill a Wizard's spellbook with that don't require feats to be good. I think this is what is being referred to as a "stock" Wizard, that just focuses on using spells that are highly effective and require no feat support to be very good.
Honestly it sounds like less of a power boost than gestalt, and gestalt is a pretty popular and functional ruleset.
There is one item that does what you want, but sadly it's very overpriced and very bad. The Ring of Continuation is an absurdly expensive item, only works on personal target spells, and the effect is automatically replaced if you ever cast another personal target spell. Overall it's just not usable. There is the Eternal Potion alchemist discovery, but that's only for level 16+ Alchemists and is limited to 3rd level spells that are legal choices for potions. So Haste, basically... Most other spell extension effects are limited to doubling the duration and don't stack with other similar effects, which means you aren't going to get 10 minute/level to last all day. If the spell has a continuous magic item that provides its effect or is a legal choice for Permanency, you're probably better off going down those roads.
I did a Rogue 2 Wiz(trans) 9, it was okay. I prefer spellcasting but it worked well for the character concept. Shadow projection with a +1 ghost touch rapier, casting spells (eschew materials), a certain ring of speaking, regen 1/hr, etc. IMO Arcane Trickster isn't worth it. Keep in mind that with the Accomplished Sneak Attacker feat you can enter Arcane Trickster with only a single level of Rogue.
I didn't realize this class was that weak either. I thought the combination of the Rogue's skills and most of his features with a 6-level spellcasting would be strong enough to warrant a slow BAB. maybe not. Keep in mind that a Wizard/Rogue multiclass gets class skill in almost every skill in the game, and since their Intelligence modifier is very large they will likely have more skill ranks than a single-class Rogue. With only 1 level of multiclassing, a Wizard can already get this kind of skill selection, and can then enter Arcane Trickster prestige class afterwards.
It seems to me like you're looking for the Eldritch Scoundrel. It's almost exactly what you just described, except it's Intelligence-based spellbook casting and much, much better. Definitely use the Eldritch Scoundrel as a basis for what a 6-level Rogue/caster hybrid should look like. Eldritch Scoundrel is pretty well-balanced. It's a little underpowered at level 1 and 2 (where it just feels like a weak Wizard) but once you get to 3rd level and get sneak attack and finesse training it's pretty solid. It's a little weak in combat, but makes up for that with the versatility of spellcasting. Your class is just much too weak; either it needs to move to 9-level spellcasting (in which case it should just be a Sorcerer archetype) or it needs to move to 3/4 BAB and gain more class features (in which case it should probably just be a Rogue archetype). The only thing that your Sneakspell does that you wouldn't be able to find elsewhere is the Sneaky Casting ability. There isn't great support in 1st party Pathfinder for this kind of hidden spellcasting. The feats that do exist are bad and many are very unclear about how they work. There is definitely precedent to just homebrew a better and clearer version of these feats, and if you want to homebrew something that's what I'd focus on. My personal ruling (different tables may vary, as Paizo never really clarified this) is that spell manifestations have the same level of concealment as the caster. This means that a successful stealth check plus the Silent spell metamagic is sufficient to hide spellcasting from onlookers.
can he choose which weapon to strike with Yes, he is threatening with both so he can use either. or does it have to be the main hand? Off-hand weapon attack penalties only come into play when making a full attack action to fight with two weapons. Attacks of opportunity are not two weapon fighting, so two weapon fighting penalties do not apply and all attacks are made as if they are your main hand weapon. You can make the attack of opportunity with your short sword, and treat it as if it's your main hand. You can also freely change which hand you treat as your main hand every time you attack. If you end up full-attacking a Zombie the next round, you can treat the short sword as your main hand weapon and the club as your off-hand weapon. And if the AoO is with the shortsword would it still only have 1/2 strength bonus? No, full strength bonus. Since you're not attacking with the club, you can just treat the short sword as your main hand weapon.
Actually, Wyrwoods are Small size. They only get 10 bonus hit points. Sure, at level 1, that is equivalent to a Con score of 30, but at level 5, that is the equivalent of a Con score of only 14. At level 10, that is equivalent to a Con score of only 12. Good catch on the size. In any case, yes flat hit point bonuses are going to be more impactful at low levels. +10 hit points are clearly broken at 1st level, but negligible at 20th. This wouldn't be an issue if this was even a +1 level adjustment race, but at +0 it makes it the race completely unacceptable in low-level player. And the other bonuses are still outrageous. But there is 1 major problem with this: They are dead (destroyed) at 0 hp, due to not having a Con score. This is indeed a huge risk when playing them, and really speaks to the fact that they are not well-suited as a PC race. For an NPC this downside is immaterial.
The Race Point system is a guideline for GM's making a first pass on creating a custom race. It is not particularly accurate, and it is very easy to create races that are significantly stronger or significantly weaker than their RP would suggest. You really can't use it as a hard rule, and every race needs to be analyzed on a case-by-case basis. The Wyrwood is a good example of why you can't rely on the RP system to balance a race. It's "only" RP 20, which is probably why it got published without a CR adjustment, but it achieves this by using a single trait that costs 20 RP. This trait was not intended for CR+0 races, and is blatantly unreasonable in this context. Let's actually break down what the construct trait does: immunity to mind-affecting spells, bleed, disease, death effects, necromancy effects, paralysis, poison, sleep, stun, ablitity damage, ability drain, fatigue, exhaustion, energy drain, non-lethal damage, anything that requires a fortitude save (that doesn't affect objects), don't need to eat/breath/sleep, and 20 bonus hit points. That is very obviously too much for a race without level adjustment. The Wyrwood is a great example why you can't blindly rely on RP, as it can obscure that the suite of traits really isn't appropriate for a CR+0 race. The Svirfneblin is a good example of the opposite. It's 24 RP, and rightly so because it does have some really nice abilities. +2 to saves and AC along with 11+level SR are some really good defensive bonuses, but its ability score bonuses are underwhelming and its other features have no real synergy. We can see why it has its CR+1 adjustment, but it's not really offering enough to make it worth that CR+1 enhancement. Defensive bonuses are nice to have, but in terms of its active abilities it's actually severely undertuned. It has too many strong features for a CR+0 race, but it doesn't have the power of a CR+1 race. This puts it in a bit of a no-man's, where it's just a little too strong for CR+0, but flagrantly too weak for CR+1. TL;DR: races need to be analyzed on a case-by-case basis. The race builder cost is for quick estimates, not final determinations.
The standard in Pathfinder is that each deity has 5 domains and 6 subdomains. If they have an alignment, then they must have the corresponding domain. Demigods (such as empyreal lords, demon lords, or archdevils) have 4 domains and 4 subdomains.
In general, any Martial weapon is fine. I'd avoid Simple or Exotic weapons, but they are justifiable in some circumstances. Just be mindful that some exotic weapons are just better versions of martial weapons (katana is a better longsword)
I wouldn't bother with these. It's very rare they actually come up. If you feel it would help your worldbuilding then there's no harm in it, but you're probably better off focusing your creative energies elsewhere.
Blood Money is one of the most egregious examples, but there are a lot of things in the appendices of adventure paths that are poorly designed and really shouldn't be available to PC's.
There are a lot of issues that are up in the air and have never been resolved, and likely never will be at this point. In my view, this is a case of specific trumps general. The Sorcerer/Wizard spell list is normally shared between Wizard, Sorcerer, and Arcanist but these spells are marked as Wizard-only so they're Wizard-only.
For the people who mocked or were aghast at my GM's decision to not allow material from Unchained, he said that he thought it wasn’t fair that only four classes got revisions By singling out unchained classes in particular, your GM was actually being unfair to the Rogue and Monk. Every class gets nice things in different books, and it just so happened Rogue and Monk got their nice things in Pathfinder Unchained. Banning Pathfinder Unchained because only 4 classes got unchained classes is really no different from banning Weapon Master's Handbook because most of the options in that book was just for Fighters. Every class got their cool stuff in different books, and very few books had something for everyone. The reason these four classes got unchained rework was because they had serious problems with the base class, and Paizo felt the best way to address it was to overhaul the base class. Only two of them were intended to be improvements, the other two were actually changed for unrelated reasons and their unchained classes are worse than the original class. Rogue and Monk essentially had the same problem. They simply had too few class features for a 3/4 BAB class. In fact, they are the only 3/4 BAB classes that didn't have some form of spellcasting. They could easily struggle to find a defined niche. As a result, the Monk was changed to be a full base attack bonus class and became a proper front-liner, while the Rogue got a bunch of new class features and improvements to its existing class features to make it more reliable. The Unchained Rogue is a very well-balanced class. The Barbarian's problem had to do with the way temporary bonuses worked. They were very confusing for beginners. Moreover, there was the issue of "sudden barbarian death syndrome" where if you were at low hit points when your rage ended, you would lose the bonus hit points and it could cause you to literally die on the spot. The Unchained Barbarian was, if anything, a little weaker than the original Barbarian but it was more beginner-friendly. The Unchained Summoner, however, was actually intended to weaken the Summoner. It removed many spells form his spell list, increased the spell level of others, and greatly reduced the number of evolutions he could pick for his eidolon. While it did add some new options, the Summoner lost far more than he gained. I personally feel that it missed the mark, as it didn't really address the most overpowered feature of the original Summoner (his Summon Monster ability). It also didn't address that many of the more thematic evolutions were overpriced, and with the reduction in evolution points they became practically unusable. However, there is little doubt that the Summoner needed to be made weaker and that's why it got the Unchained class rework.
This is an oversight on the part of the author, it should have been specified. I would agree that presuming temporary negative levels would be prudent. With that said, making it permanent should also be fine. The PC's are fairly high level and should have the ability to remove permanent negative levels by this point. I think thematically this works well with the oppressive and corrupting nature of Neruzavin.
Spark states that you can use it on the creature you are grappling. In order to maintain the grappled condition after the first round you must succeed at the grappling roll. If you fail the check to maintain the hold the target no longer has the grappled condition. Since the target is no longer grappled you cannot use spark as a free action against it. Now that you mention it, this ability is unclear. I was presuming the spark triggered before the check to maintain the grapple resolved, which means you were already grappling it. But if it resolves after then yes the grapple would have to succeed otherwise you are no longer grappling.
You are correct about Aballonian. It's a free action that is triggered whenever you make a check to maintain a grapple. You do not need to succeed on the grapple check. If it required you to be successful in the check it would have said so. Pain Binding is different, however. It is activated as a standard action, and it allows you to make a single unarmed strike as part of that standard action. You cannot activate the ability if you make an unarmed strike by any means other than using the Pain Binding ability as a standard action.
ALrighty, after combing through all this information and the books that go along with it, I have a question???? When the spell description says "spell uses up a spell slot ___ levels higher than the spells actual level", what in the world does that mean? My 4th lvl caster trying to cast a 4th lvl spell can't because it's a 7th lvl spell now??? Sorry, but I am confused...... Spellcasters in Pathfinder work by using spell slots. In order to cast a spell, you must expend a spell slot. Your spell slots refresh every day, and can be thought of as how many spells per day you get. As a Sorcerer, you do not need to prepare spells ahead of time, you just expend the spell slots when you want to cast. Every spell has a level associated with it. As examples, Magic Missile is a 1st level spell, Invisibility is a 2nd level spell, and Fireball is a 3rd level spell. In order to cast these spells, you must expend a spell slot of equal or higher level to the spell you wish to cast. So a 3rd level spell slot can be used to cast Fireball, Invisibility, or Magic Missile, but a 1st level spell slot could only cast 1st level spells like Magic Missile. When you use a metamagic such as Empowered Spell, it causes the spell to use a higher level spell slot. In the case of Empowered Spell, it uses up a slot 2 levels higher than the spell's actual level. So Magic Missile ordinarily requires a 1st level spell slot, but if you wish to cast it with the Empowered Spell metamagic you must expend a 3rd level spell slot. The number of spell slots you get is based on your Sorcerer class level and your Charisma modifier. Consult your class progression table and the ability score table to determine how many you get. So for instance, suppose you're a 4th level Sorcerer with 20 Charisma. Reading the class table for 4th level we can see you get 3 2nd level spell slots and 6 1st level spell slot per day. Reading the ability score table, we see that you get +1 2nd level spell slot and +2 1st level spell slots. This means you have a total of 4 2nd level and 8 1st level spell slots per day as a 4th level Sorcerer. You will get access to 3rd level spell slots starting at the 6th Sorcerer level, and 4th level spell slots starting at the 8th Sorcerer level.
Fungi do not conduct photosynthesis. While that does mean that you don't need sunlight, it also means that their metabolic processes consume oxygen and release CO2. You'd need very good ventilation to bring in fresh oxygen from the surface to avoid deadly CO2 build-up. Given the availability of effects like Daylight, it might actually be easier to setup an underground farm for plants than for fungi. I would rule that plants require bright light conduct photosynthesis, and most forms of magical lighting only exude regular light levels. You'd need a Daylight spell or equivalent for your underground farm.
Off the top of my head: * Wizard has Faith Magic that lets them learn one Cleric domain spell * Pact Wizard (Haunted Heroes) can add patron spells from a Witch patron and from Oracle curses (though mind you this archetype is blatantly overpowered) * Razmiran Priest Sorcerer can cast spells from any divine caster list, just by owning a copy of the scroll * Magus has Spell Blending that lets them learn from the Wizard list * Psychic has Rebirth discipline which lets them pick one spell from another class (and change the spell choice every day)
This is a tricky one to balance. In most circumstances the spells that offer large skill bonuses are already enough to get you into automatic or near-automatic success anyways. However, on the other hand there are some effects that have very high DC's or have extremely powerful benefit for exceeding the DC's, and this metamagic could be overpowering in a handful of very narrow applications (Intimidate shenanigans immediately comes to mind). For the vast majority of spells, I think a +1 spell level adjustment is fine. The mere investment of a feat is good enough. But I worry that there are combos that are insidiously powerful... I suspect that's exactly why a metamagic like this was never created. I would say that you should not allow metamagic rods for this. This strongly feels like something that should require feat investment. As for magic items, most of them could just the magical item cost formula. The cost of a +5 skill item is 2,500 gp, and the cost of a +10 skill item is 10,000 gp. For any item that is just giving an unconditional competence bonus you just stick to the formula. Hat of Disguise, however, isn't an unconditional competence bonus. It's explicitly illusory and subject to a Will saving throw. I'd say handle these on a case-by-case basis.
If I dip for only 1 level of Spellslinger Wizard, and then go full Eldritch Archer Magus, would I still have access to higher level spells from the Wizard list later on? No, you will still be a 1st level Wizard and will only have access to the spell slots allowed for a 1st level Wizard. I'm trying to go Spellslinger/Eldritch Archer multi-class, but I noticed "Named Bullet" is not on the Magus list, which is a damn shame. It would be nice to write it into my spell book at some point. Take the Spell Blending Magus Arcana. 1. Do I now have access to both lists? Technically yes, but only Wizard spells can be prepared in Wizard spell slots and only Magus spells can be prepared in Magus spell slots. 2. Could I write a 4th level wizard spell into my spellbook, and cast it through my 4th level spell slot gained through Magus class levels? You can write a 4th level Wizard spell in your spellbook, but you cannot prepare it with a 4th level Magus spell slot. You will need a 4th level Wizard spell slot. 3. Somewhat related: Magical Knack states you add +2 to one of your caster class levels *when you gain the trait* but people rave about it for multi-classing..? Is this only workable with "additional traits" feat, since selecting this trait at level 1 would put CL past your HD total? You are misunderstanding, it would work at any level. So if I decide to take 2 levels of Paladin when playing as a Sorcerer, this trait allows me to treat me Sorcerer caster level as if it is my full character level. It does not matter when I took the trait or when I took the Paladin class levels. Importantly, this only affects caster level. It does not affect your spell slot progression. So it's not very helpful in your situation. You are almost certainly better off taking Magical Lineage (which is a very good trait for a Magus)
War for the Crown is quite nice, and one of my favorite Paizo AP's. While it can be played as a complex web of political intrigue, those aspects can be easily removed and kept simple with a quest-giver/objective structure where the players have a concrete list of goals that they have to fulfill. You can make it as complex or as simple as you want. There are a handful of monsters that are too adult-themed for kids (nightmare fuel or sexual themes) but they can be easily replaced as they aren't central to the plot. Also one of the few campaigns where you can resolve most of the main conflicts peacefully without killing anyone.
Arcane casters are quite vulnerable in a conventional sense. You can't use armor, Mage Armor doesn't have any scaling mechanism so it falls behind the curve really badly, you can't justify spending heavily on ring of protection and amulet of natural armor (since your AC will be mediocre even with them, and you really don't want to be getting attacked in the first place), and your CMD is going to be terrible. Intelligence and Charisma are also the only ability scores in the game that don't boost your defenses in any way; every other ability score boosts at least one of your AC, saves, or CMD. So most of your point buy is going to an ability score that does nothing for your defenses. And on top of that you have d6 hit dice. On the other hand, you do get a lot of really powerful defensive spells like Mirror Image or Emergency Force Sphere that can really help with your defenses. And enemies can't exactly reach you easily; you should be in the back of the party and you can take cover between turns so you're hard to hit with ranged attacks. Most spells have at least decent range (by 10th level, a "close range" spell is 50 ft range, which for most indoors combat is basically the whole battlefield). At higher levels there are powerful magical items that can really help with your defenses. Ring of Freedom of Movement is expensive, but it costs less than a Ring of Protection +5 and gives total immunity to being grappled. If you are really concerned and want a good AC, then one option is to multiclass 1 level in Unchained Monk with the Scaled Fist archetype. This allows you to add your Charisma bonus to AC and CMD. However, this is typically used more for melee front-liner Sorcerer builds that will be entering the Dragon Disciple prestige class, which is not what you're going for here. I'd recommend just accepting that defenses are going to be your weak spot. When your spells incapacitate or kill enemies if they fail their saving throws, "hit them before they hit me" is a very valid combat strategy.
|
