Search Posts
Thank You, Thanks for your votes and I appreciate the well worded criticisms of my item. When I had a friend look over the item he really latched onto the idea of the speak with dead power and the mechanics also. My intent was for the item to provide the same benefit as the speak with dead spell and clearly I fell a bit short of communicating that which is too bad. Regardless, I am really excited to be a top 32 SS and I'm already working on my second round entry! Thanks guys!
If it's based on magic missile no. The only time it would scale with size is if it was an effect that created a virtual weapon... flame blade or claws come to mind but I can't think of much else. You could even argue that flame bladed doesn't scale with size.
The problem with this is while you maintain caster level you still have 2 levels where your spell advancement is stalled. I would suggest that the 2 levels of advancement lost from taking 2 levels of swashbuckler are not worth the caster level increase. Also, if you go straight wizard on the non-AbChamp/ Gestalt rules then your caster level will be full regardless.However keep in mind, those stalled levels don't mean much; the character's still a fully-functional melee and possibly sneak type until Martial Arcanist rolls around. There's no real need to lean so heavily on magic until then, whereas if you lose the BAB, that's a permanent scar that reduces effectiveness forever. I'd rather be a few levels' casting behind at the start with ample other abilities to fall back on than end up forever two levels behind in casting later, when I want to be able to rely on my spells. Where are you losing caster level? after you finish Abjurant Champion? Regardless, losing spell progression is much worse IMO than losing caster level. Caster level gets you a little extra damage and a slightly better change to bypass spell resistance. You can also make up for lost caster levels with Practiced Spellcaster, you can't ever regain lost spell progression.
Wiz3//Swash3>Swash2/AC5 works. The problem with this is while you maintain caster level you still have 2 levels where your spell advancement is stalled. I would suggest that the 2 levels of advancement lost from taking 2 levels of swashbuckler are not worth the caster level increase. Also, if you go straight wizard on the non-AbChamp/ Gestalt rules then your caster level will be full regardless. I would suggest just take the first 3 gestalt levels then wizard 4 then Abjurant Champion. Your BAB drops by 1 versus your original design but you don't sacrifice any spell advancement. Being able to cast 6th level spells at 11th level is more than worth the drop in BAB. Off the top of my head I'm not sure Swashbuckler gives you the weapon proficiencies you need for Eldritch Knight.
I would think if your players are optimizers this is the worst sort of system. They are most likely to try and game the system for advantage. Why not as a GM just make more challenging encounters for them? Up the CR by one or two until you kill a player or two then back it down half a notch. Give all the creatures max HP.
Rewarding a group for taking damage is basically rewarding poor tactics. Seems a bad idea to me, in particular if the group knows they are getting exp for taking damage.
The goal is for the character to be a member of a party, not for it to be a challenge for the party.
Treat the skeletal champion as CR 1 (skeleton's CR+1) then use the rules to advance a creature using the rules on page 296-297 in the bestiary. Since the skeletal champion is not associated with spellcasting the first 2 levels of caster increase the CR by one. After that additional class levels increase the CR by 1. So a skeletal champion wizard 14 would be CR 14 creature. A 15th level human wizard is considered CR 14 so I would suggest a 14th level skeletal champion would be about equal to a 15th level character. At lower levels the skeletal champion would probably be more powerful than same level characters due to all the undead traits but at that level it's less clear.
Something I disagreed Removed his post while I was disagreeing :)
The caster choses which corner of his square to center the effect on. I would suggest that large creatures would do the same. So a dragon might center it on his head ;) Ultimately, globe of invulnerability just isn't very useful if you don't fit into the globe. The alternative is to house rule it covers the creature plus all squares within 5' of the creature.
I tend to agree with Fatespinner. However I would suggest if you did do something like this you have them pull one card per spell level then let the GM pick the worst effect to apply.
I agree. But people are in love with the idea of some sort of magic metric that measures class effectiveness.The magic metric is the class's names reversed, arranged by alphabetical order. You might be onto something here, this puts Ninja clearly at the top where they belong.
AMiB stated the purposes of this thread very clearly in his first post. Anyone who just skims the first couple of posts and just scrolls through the rest of the thread looking for the biggest numbers needs to slow down and start over. I agree. But people are in love with the idea of some sort of magic metric that measures class effectiveness.
Oh...should've seen that. Thank you! I'm incredibly stoked.I was incredibly bummed to realize I could no go to Gen Con this year (I've never gone) because I'd be in the Seattle, WA area for an internship. Looking here PaizoCon is in Bellevue (supposedly where my office will be!) and I want to know, since I'll be in the area and will not need a hotel room, do I still just call the number provided on the Con page and purchase a ticket? If there are still tickets to the banquet available make sure you get banquet tickets. It's an extra $25 but well worth it.
Before I do any math, I want to make clear up front that this is not intended as a tier list, a how-to-play guide, or a value judgement on the utility of each of these classes (as most of them do other things than damage). It's just to get a good baseline on how much damage a character of this level will typically do, so "a lot of damage" can be something other than a gut call.this post is basically what i'm thinking of i guess. how typical is full attack melee damage really? the TWF rogue looks decent the way the post is written up, but how often can he actually get a full attack action with sneak? especially since he has absolutely no way to stop an enemy from just stepping away? It varies from group to group. That's why these numbers can't really be taken in isolation. The numbers are exactly what they claim to be, damage per round on a full round attack. It tells you which class would be most effective toe to toe with the enemy. How you get there or how effective the class is the rest of the time is another story.
I think a lot of people will be confused about what the significance of this thread is. That isn't because the thread itself is confusing but because people think the effectiveness of a class can be boiled down to one stat.
I think the inquisitor is better suited to ranged combat. If you are building him for melee I would seriously think about two weapon fighting. The reason I suggest this is because much of his damage is based on his bane weapons and judgments and the more attacks per round you have the faster your damage scales.
I just turned adblock off for your site. kinda strange. Looking through F&F.
The SRD stuff from unearthed arcana used "variant character classes" not sure what the actual book wording was.
Went to your site and couldn't figure out how to subscribe. There is something in the menubar that says "Subscribe to Quid Novi?" but it's not a link. A little helps?
Cure light wounds being on the staff is pointless, you have to have the highest level spell in the staff to use it. To recharge your heroism staff you need to burn a heroism spell for the day. Ultimately it's a wash. You can't use a staff to trade 1st level spells for 3rd level spells.Well if you are saying that a party is not going to have daily access to cure light wounds that is a bit too far, don't you think? I see now how you are explaining away the cure light wounds use by preparing it in a higher level slot... It seems to me a lot of GMs would frown on that.
I do not believe this is correct, as far as I know "Enlarge Person" and "Reduce Person" are limited to normal humanoids and not monstrous ones. Although this could be another thing that changed from 3.5 to 3.P. Giants are Humanoid (Giant) now. I'm not sure where trolls are, too lazy to look it up.
Have you ever tried to sell a used handgun? Go buy a used handgun from a gunshop and try to sell it to another gunshop, if you are lucky you will get $.50 on the $1. Shops are in business to make money not as a personal favor to you.
Well if you are saying that a party is not going to have daily access to cure light wounds that is a bit too far, don't you think? Cure light wounds being on the staff is pointless, you have to have the highest level spell in the staff to use it. To recharge your heroism staff you need to burn a heroism spell for the day. Ultimately it's a wash. You can't use a staff to trade 1st level spells for 3rd level spells.
My gaming group currently has a level 15 Gnome Bard, who frequently complains that she is useless outside of buffing. As a small character (without precision damage) she is a low-damage dealer in combat, but her spells aren't helping out much. If she doesn't want to be a buffer then why choose bard? That's what they are good at. It is also quite possible to make bards effective archers or even decent in melee.
*starts chanting "PALADIN OF FREEDOM!"* I had heard there will be "Templars", variant paladins for each alignment. It's not clear whether their class abilities will reflect their alignment or if there will be one set of "templar" class abilities which all the variants use.
Battle Sorcerer... I know the unearthed arcana version works quite well but it would be cool to see some additional changes to battle sorcerer on top of that due to the bloodlines. Some bard or ranger variants that allow the classes to cover some of the rogues traditional territory (mostly trap finding).
Have you ever done business with a used CD shop or perhaps a pawn shop? It's pretty typical that you bring in 2 CDs and get store credit to buy one. For a business there is a very real cost of carrying inventory, staffing a the shop, insurance, advertising, security, rent, profit, taxes... paying 50% cash or exchange for used items is quite reasonable in real world economics (actually quite generous), for high risk, high market value items it would probably be much less than 50% in the real world. If the players happen to stumble across another person who wants a short sword then perhaps that person would buy the item at more than a 50% but he would likely expect a bargain versus the cost of buying it at a storefront because he knows the PCs couldn't sell it for full price either. There is also some risks (fraud, defective items, etc) associated with buying an item from an individual versus buying from a storefront with a reputation. None of the real world economics really matters though because the rule is a game mechanic designed to encourage specific in-game behaviors. The idea is that found treasure is more valuable than bought treasure. It also encourages players to hang onto more diverse treasure.
In the intro to "The Jackal's Price" James Jacobs has a really discussion of magic items and purchasing magic items. There is a also a great section on the markets of Katapesh both of which I plan on using in my upcoming campaign even though it's not set in Katapesh. Essentially there is a wealth of really flavorful shoppes and merchants laid out and he suggests that rather than just giving the players items they go out and shop for them hitting the various merchants and seeing what they find. Perhaps the players want a +1 frost longsword but the shop they go to (which is described in detail and can be role played with lots of flavor) doesn't have that but it has a +1 giant bane sword he is willing to give the players a bargain on... It's a bit more work than just rolling a % to see if the item in question is in the town but it can be more fun. You can also use it to drop items into the game which will help the players in future encounters (which they don't know to prepare for). "And if you buy this +1 Shocking bow Cutmeownthroat Dibbler will throw in this set of finely crafted silver tipped arrows for use against werewolves which are said to stalk these hills". You can also subtly encourage them away from silly decisions.
Surprised no one has mentioned it but... gnomes are good mounted combatants since they can ride medium sized mounts they can function anywhere. Charge for triple damage through the dungeon corridors. Ride by attack, etc. Add in the CHA bonus and they are even better paladins. If you want to build take advantage of their strengths.
*munches popcorn* (I admit to being very confused when I saw this thread title!) You and the rest of the forum. Worst thread title ever.
(AND: The Pathfinder Novel Line will NOT be delving into vast, world-changing events. It's going to focus on smaller stories. It's probably better to compare what we're going for to the writing of authors like Robert E. Howard or Fritz Leiber, actually, than to the Forgotten Realms novels. There are some huge, epic stories about Conan, but the vast majority of them are pretty small scale that don't reshape the world after every "The End.") Good... I am a little tired of the idea that every story (and adventure path) has to involve the hero saving the world.
That reminds me. I wonder how you'd figure out brachiation in Pathfinder... say I wanted to have a character who could leap/swing from branch to branch like a monkey or squirrel. What kind of skill check would that be (without overcomplicating things) and how fast could one move through the trees in a dense forest/jungle?You do realise that in most cases the full weight of a human much less armor would snap most vines, right? That's why you generally don't see animals much larger than monkeys do this in the wild. There are all those tarzan movies. That stuff was real man. Seriously though.... adventurers do 100 impossible things a day and you want to start nitpicking swinging on vines?
The problem I see with "knight" as a PrC is there are already options to play a 'knight' in the core book (Fighter, Paladin) and even more valid 'knight' base class options slated for the APG (Cavalier, Templars). What unique things would a knight class bring? Without some sort of in campaign hooks a prestige class isn't any different from a base class. A knight of XXX is no more prestigious than a Paladin unless "XXX" has some meaning in the campaign world. You could conceivably build a generic concept but why? "Hell Knight" is a unique prestige classed designed to fill a very specific niche in a campaign...
I agree with Treantmonk but also... I think of dragons like cats. Rather than going head to head with the party have him use hit and run tactics that are low risk for the dragon. This will inflict less damage on the party and possibly give them a chance to escape. 10th level they should have a few bail out options.
I'm playing a character who is working his way to arcane trickster and have been getting very frustrated with this exact thing. Acting in the surprise round and getting initiative are probably the biggest ways other than Improved Invisibility to get off a ranged touch attack. There are some other ways to do this using stealth but I think a lot of GMs frown on stealth in combat. Other options ->
Also, I like the idea of using quicken to get off a second acid splash sneak attack but often it's not really worth it. The damage from scroching ray scales faster than sneak attack. If you wanted to blow a 4th level slot empowered scorching ray does 2-3 6d6 rays plus sneak attack damage on the first. The biggest advantage of using acid splash over scorching ray for sneak attack is it bypasses SR and fire resistance so in those cases it might be more effective. But in those cases consider acid arrow... it's damage is spread out but otherwise scales comparable to sneak attack. The only real advantage to acid arrow beyond the fact that it bypasses SR is the fact that it is an ongoing damage effect which forces casters to make concentration checks every round to cast.
Regardless of errata I don't see many GMs letting this slide. Whether you call it house ruling or not is irrelevant if GMs don't allow you to use your loophole technicality. Arguing with a GM about the rules minutia to get a power which you admit is against the spirit of the rules is a good way to annoy your GM. I don't care how you play, I just don't think it's a great idea to recommend it to other people.
Every post was talking of adding new spells, more, more, more. Spells need editing, not getting more of them. Wiz/Sors, clerics and druids are most powerful classes since 2.0 and remained that in 3.0 , 3.5 and now in pathf. Yes divination needs more spells maybe, but comments like more evocation, more conjuration and more transmutation spells are big FAIL! Primery caster classes, already counted above are all around characters already, school spec is no longer prohibiting spells so mage armour ( that should remain conj ) is not prob if that is only reason why u don't play abj spec. Mass spells are good thing, but are too strong thing, with summons or big party they make things too easy, like spell compedium mass fire shield with druid summonings or now even with summoner making mobs of monsters as move action. Evocation could use a change in spells but instead of d6 getting d8 is not going to make it more fun to use, it will only take more time since u'll have less of those dices, and on big ( epic ) lvls thigs already get too slow. I like personally almost all suggestions on divination spells, but think on buffs u get if u choose divination as ur spec school, with wiz getting boost on init is big thing, if u play first u can decide combat in first round. Ranger should get some archery boosts for sure but i think it's bad to search those things in magic, better make it class bonus. Maybe you didn't read every post? Because the sentiment of bumping these things is far from universal on this thread. I know it's difficult if English is a second language for you so I apologize if this is the case. Otherwise, consider using paragraphs, spelling, and punctuation they are really helpful if you want people to actually comprehend what you type.
Prestige class to me is something like the Hell Knights, or to Harrower where your class is tied to something going on in the campaign world.
The new base classes are essentially 'prestige' classes in that they are classes that fill a for more specific niche in the game. I LIKE that there are more specific options for base classes and that you can run a character based on these options for 12 full levels.
You mean level 7, earliest you can enter trickster is rogue 3/ wizard 3.
If pricing on a custom magic seems out of whack then don't allow it. Custom magic items are 60% house rule and 40% pricing guidelines.
As far as wizards go, I would love to see the weaker spell schools fleshed out and please don't water down evocation by giving blasty spells to all the other schools of magic. In general... there are plenty of ways to roll fists full of d6s, new spells that involve different flavor text and "this spell does Xd6 damage" are just pretty lame. (We'll call it the snowball effect).
I agree with Mauril and Father Dale. SLAs are not spells. That said... Arcane Trickster is pretty weak by the time you get there. As a GM I would just change the prereqs to 5 ranks of spellcraft, 1st level arcane spellcaster, and 2d6 sneak attack which would allow a player to enter this class at 5th level with at least 4 levels of rogue and 1 level of sorcerer or 3 levels of rogue and 2 levels of sorcerer. You might need to re-jigger some of the class abilities, I have to look back at them to see if they are level appropriate for 6th level but I don't recall anything crazy. Obviously that's a total house rule...
More spells for rangers that help them in combat and with stealth... swift spells would be nice for combat. If they do a bunch of ray/ orb spells please keep them in the appropriate schools of magic. It would be nice to see the evokers remain the best blasters.
I know Paizo has never really been about optimizing(treantmonk you are great at this though, but it becomes imprtant in a world were you play with people who are great at math vs. someone who is a roleplayer(aka me). I want to build a Summoner who fights right along side his eidolon. can you help me build it, or at least help with some direction. I am playing in a PFS game tomorrow, and it is with new people so i don't wantto bring a shmoe to the table. You might check out Treantmonks Bard guide, the summoner has a lot in common with the bard and a lot of the same issues. A few ideas:
Can you give me a copy? mtbogre - gmail
We have, since the New Deal, spent enough on "the war on poverty" to give every freaking poor person in America Millions of dollars EACH. Poverty still exists. Your way doesn't work. Come up with a better system or zip it. Depends on what you mean by "works". It is very effective at keeping certain politicians in office which is ultimately the goal of the welfare system. Create a class of voters who rely on your ability to provide for them and they have to vote for you. It's gotten so bad now that there is an entire culture around the welfare system and there are people who know no other way of surviving outside the system.
The art is great, a bit of a deviation... but in a good way. I love seeing different artists take on the iconics. |
