Devils Advocate's page

Ok thanks for clearing that up guys. I thought that seemed like WAY too good of a benefit to be a Trait, so I figured I was reading it wrong and wanted to make certain.

Benefit: Pick a class when you gain this trait—your caster level in that class gains a +2 trait bonus as long as this bonus doesn’t raise your caster level above your current Hit Dice.

So I am confused as to how exactly this works. Because to me it seems to say that even if you aren't a spell caster....you are now (but only up to level 2). Does this give a non-caster the ability to cast spells?

For instance if you take. Stonelord Paladin who normally wouldn't be able to cast spells, does he now get to cast 1st level spells if he takes this trait?

It sucks to hear this news, I have been loving the Pathfinder Tales - they are actually the reason I wanted to get into the RPG. A lot of people are saying they want to go back to smaller format on the books, but I very much prefer the Trade a Paperback format. I would choose trade over mass market every single time if they were side by side options (even if trade was more expensive). Just my two coppers.

The solution, of course, is to never throw a single monster against the party. Sure, they could use it on the BBEG, but they can't ready for him to reappear because they have to run around dealing with the minions that are harassing them. And if the PCs say "These minions are a joke" and just ready their attacks anyway, the minions can all ready to do something to interfere when the PCs take their readied actions. Maybe including standing in the spot that the BBEG would reappear in, causing him to be diverted.

As a player I would have some serious questions about this tactic being used. Unless these minions are spell casters (who both succeeded a check to know what spell was cast AND have sufficient knowledge of that specific spell to know its parameters) how do they know what this effect is and to position themselves to block it? From the point of view of the minions it should appear their boss either teleported away or was mysteriously dispatched by the group - either of which arguably would cause them to flee (scenario dependant of course).

Void Bite (Ex)

Akatas hold hundreds of invisibly small larval young within their mouths, spreading these parasitic creatures to hosts through their bite. Only humanoids make suitable hosts for akata young—all other creature types are immune to this parasitic infection. The disease itself is known as void death.

Disease (Ex)

Void Death: Bite—injury; save Fort DC 12; onset 1 hour; frequency 1/day; effect 1d2 Dex and 1d2 Con damage.

An infected creature who dies rises as a void zombie 2d4 hours later; cure 2 consecutive saves.

So a question about this creature. It is available to be summoned using Monster Summoning II, and only stays for 1 min per level. What about its bite? Could summoning this and it biting someone cause an outbreak where you summoned it? The parasites that are left behind are technically a disease so I can't think that would go away because the spell ends, just like poison doesn't cure itself if the monster you summoned goes away (does it?).

I was thinking this could be used as an interesting adventure hook for PCs where they inadvertently cause a swarm of these to spread around them.

So I am a new player to PF and am having to fight my natural inclination, when starting onto something new, to buy everything all at once. I will likely be both a PC and from time to time a DM.

So my question is: What books should I be buying? What are the Must haves, the very helpful, useful but not necessary, and the can be skipped? Are the handbooks (like the Weaponmasters Handbook) worth picking up?

So far I have Core Rules, Advanced Player Guide, Advanced Races Guide, Inner Sea World Guide.

If you are doing this as a pantheon then you must include The Face of Boe. To leave him out would just be wrong. As an added bonus you could include a schism within his worshipers with one group fervently believing that Boe was Jack Harkness before his ascension, and the other group who believe this to be heresy.

So let's do it using the weapon master handbook (which has some information on creating your own weapon)

So let see:

-3 DP for the weapon to become 2d4
-3 DP for the weapon to have a critical range of 19-20/x2
-Weapon feature Reach (1 DP)
-Weapon feature (Lodging) (3 DP)
-Weapon feature (replacing spear point) (4 DP)

That is 14 DP.

Normally exotic weapon are limited to 6 DP but you can get three additional DP on exotic weapon by increasing the price of the weapon (+45 GP) [this weapon is technically way past that]

so your weapon is an exotic weapon, costing:

59 GP.

Now up to you if you really think that's worth it.

Oh thank you for pointing me toward that. I'm reading the PDFs now and this should be very useful in this.

So I got into Pathfinder from reading the books, and there is a weapon mentioned in one of them that I haven't seen stats for but would love to build and add into games. I think it was in The Worldwound Gambit.

It's called a Devilshead Spear. It doesn't have a fixed spear point, instead it is designed so that points can be attached to the end but will break off if plunged into flesh - allowing a new point to then be attached. The points resemble drill bits with two razored edges spiraling the length. Every inch or so the inside of the spiral is notched and bent inward functioning like fishhook barbs, making them lethal to just yank out. When lodged in muscles the notches will drive the point further in with each time the muscle contracts. It is particularly useful against large or huge creatures like Ogers and Daemons.

My thought on stats:
2d4 19-20/x2 Reach (receives a -2 penalty on CMD checks to sunder)
If lodged in a large or huge creature causes 1d6-1 damage per action taken until removed (requires surgery). If lodged in the flesh of a small or medium sized creature may be removed as a swift action but will cause 1d4-1 damage as the point is too large to properly be embedded in the muscles.

And either:
Exotic Weapon: attaching a new spear point can be accomplished as a swift action
OR
Martial Weapon: attaching a new spear point can be accomplished as a move action

I'd love thoughts,advice, ideas, criticisms, whatever.

I'm getting the idea that the variant channel thing will end up being a judgment call for the DM. Im good with that, its pretty minor and doesnt look like it will effect the build very much (although I am assuming that creating difficult terrain would be of benefit to a reach based AoO build).

More importantly, Antagonize vs Call Out.

It's a tradeoff, actually. Call Out locks you into a duel with the target - this has the advantage of the target being forced to attack you, and potentially lasting multiple rounds, but also comes with a few disadvantages, one of which is fairly major, especially to an AoO build like it sounds like you're proposing; you can only attack the target in turn. This means no healing your allies, no AoO's for when facing multiple foes.

Hm ok so Duels mean neither of you can attack anyone else, that should have been pretty obvious but I didnt think about it. Then yea I think Antagonize would be a far better choice for this build. Is it important enough to spend a feat on (since it looks like this will be feat poor) or can it be safely skipped?

Trip and Sunder are combat maneuvers - both can be made with any type of melee weapons, including reach weapons, no worries.

Trip is way better than sunder. Both of them usually only work on humanoids - beasts have high CMDs and no weaponry.

Does the Stonelords ability to make his weapon Adamantine and ignore hardness of less than 20 on sunder checks change the calculation of Trip being better than Sunder?

Am I reading Greater Trip correctly? It seems like you would be able to attack and cause a trip, then attack again immediately with an AoA because they fell (plus possibly other people getting an attack here also). Then either attacking them on the ground next turn, or they have to spend time standing up. Seems pretty useful.

Darting Viper is Mostly a Trap and not really needed. Just draw a Different Weapon and drop is after its done(Wield the Don in the offhand) or just Buy Spiked Gauntlets.

Combat Patrol isn't really good because of the Feat requirements (and you don't have many).
Lunge is Top Priority!

A lot of people suggest the Dwarven Boulder Helm for this. I might rethink Darting Viper, but it seems like that is giving up on one of the benefits of the weapon (in which case why not just take a Guisarme or a Glaive).

I'd ditch Shield of Swings in favor of using an actual shield, and take Pushing Assault instead. Use call out to make an enemy attack you, and then push them to the edge of your reach to make them provoke when they move in to attack next round.

I'd also advise getting access to Enlarge Person as often as possible to increase reach. Potions are the best single class way, though an allied caster with a wand or the stonelord taking a few levels of the thematically appropriate living monolith prestige class are also decent options.

So I hadn't seen that feat yet, but is it useable in this situation? the dorn derger is a 2handed weapon, can you use it and a shield at the same time? I am a bit bummed out that this feat requires you push them into a safe space, otherwise I could see much fun from pushing people off cliffs or into pits.

I plan on playing a Hobgolbin Alchemist so I should reliably be able to create Potions of Enlarge Person, or use my Extracts on her if I take Infusion.

CyderGnome wrote:

Also, since a Stonelord's channeling is changed to Elemental Channel it is worth considering variant-channeling:

Varient Channeling Earth wrote:

Earth: Heal—Creatures gain a DR 1/adamantine until the end of your next turn. This DR improves by 1 at 5th level and every 5 levels thereafter. This does not allow recipients to overcome DR/adamantine with their own attacks. Harm—All squares in the area are treated as difficult terrain for 1 minute.

The ability to summon up a huge swath (30' radius) of difficult terrain out of nowhere can be very handy when you need to lock down your opponents.

Paladins only channel positive energy, so co could not choose the harm option

Oh I hadn't seen that ability, that is very intriguing. Question: Is this a feat that adds to your ability, or is it more like an Archtype where you choose to have that ability work differently?

Now I will admit I have rules lawyer tendencies (Im a lawyer IRL so it comes naturally) so I would argue that a Stonelord could use either the heal or harm version because:

-Base paladin gets channel positive energy ability (so a base paladin could only use the heal option)
-Stonelord gets Earth Channel which *replaces* channel positive energy. This replacement ability doesnt mention a restriction of only channeling positive energy.
-The old restriction wouldn't carry over because its not modifying the ability, it is replacing it with a new one.
-Plus the Eath Channel ability specifically gives you the option of using the negative effect "you can choose to have your ability to channel energy heal or harm outsiders of your chosen elemental subtype".

Is that argument missing something? As I said I'm very new to PF so I could just be ignoring something obvious out of ignorance. Even if I'm ruled against - being able to give the elemental an increasing DR would seem to be useful since everyone says that elemental is squishy anyways right?

So I'm new to Pathfinder but my group is planning on starting into it soon. My wife has asked me to help her build a character. So far out of all of the ideas I've mentioned to her the only one that's really caught her interest has been a Stonelord Paladin (her eyes lit up when I told her she could become a dwarf made out of living rock, she loves dwarves).

I've been looking at giving her a Dorn Durgar and taking Darting Viper so she can have an extended range of battlefield control even if she's using Defensive Stance. She likes the idea of using this in conjunction with Trip or Sunder, but I'm a little bit unsure of exactly how those mechanics work or if they can be used with this weapon so any advice there would be great. Also if there is a way to make/trigger AoO using the reach of the weapon that would be great to know also.

I've come across two skills that appear to be taunts and wondered if they were worth taking or not: Antagonize and Call Out. Of the two Call Out seems more useful (since it locks them into attacking you for multiple rounds instead of just one attack like Antagonize) unless I'm missing something?

Some of the feats I'm looking at are: darting viper, lunge, shield of swings, combat patrol, felling smash (though the 13int requirement might be steep), combat reflexes, call out or antagonize, power attack, and steel soul.

Devils Advocate wrote:

Let me start off by saying that I (and my normal DM) take a slightly nuanced and non-canonical view of alignment than is found in most RPG rulebooks. To me alignment is a persons innate nature and is not something that is easily changeable (if it is even possible to be changed at all). A Good person doesnt become Evil just because they make some bad choices, and conversely an Evil or selfish person doesnt become Good even if they have a lifetime of good deeds.

You do realize that that view is absolutely at odds with every major theologian and ethicist (with the possible exception of John Calvin) since the beginning of written records?

I didn't realize that no, but it doesnt bother me much to be on the wrong side of theologians. Im a Texan of Irish descent, we only get philosophical when we drink otherwise we tend to look at things practically. And in my experience people are who they are, and while yes it is possible for people to change - that is very much the exception rather than the rule. As an example if you are a liar and a cheat, you can try not to do those things but even if you are successful it will be because you *choose* not to do them - which means taking the liar/cheat option was probably your first instinct anyways - so have you really changed your nature or are you only changing your actions?

Okay, salvation-by-works. That's a view that no one actually holds, although Protestants have often accused other people, particularly, the Catholic church, of holding that view. But I could easily see your character believing it, in the same sense that I could see him believing any other false-and-heretical belief.

Which is perfectly fine by me. He doesnt need to be right (especially about things that from his point of view he couldn't know the answers to), the motivation just needs to make sense in character.

I feel like a character having a pretty detailed idea of the nature of good and evil is fine. Having that idea be the 100% correct one is weird and unnatural. Try to maintain a distinction between "what my character thinks is the case" and "the things he has no basis for actually knowing." After all, the reason Pharasma is super, super mysterious is to allow the fiction to go without commenting on the nature of free will vs. determinism.

That is a fair point. Though I think some of this becomes a bit more fluid in these types of settings. In the real world I can make a guess as to my nature (or alignment) but I can't really know it. I think I'm basically a good person but I dont have a problem breaking laws I don't agree with (to make this even more stereotypical I am a criminal defense lawyer), so I would guess that I'm NG or CG but that doesnt mean I'm right. But characters in these types of games have access to all kinds of divination and spells and effects which could tell you definitively what your nature (alignment) is. Maybe he couldn't be 100% certain about the nature of the afterlife, but there has to be enough literature out there written by people who have actually traveled to those planes, so that he can have a pretty decent idea (obviously I would be putting a bunch of ranks into Knowledge Religion to justify this). But I do take your point and it is a good one.

One way to do this mechanically, however, is to be a Zealot Vigilante. Specifically this would allow you to be NE in your social identity, and TN in their vigilante identity so they could technically worship and receive spells from an NG deity (you just can't cast them as long as your social identity is NE.) Tell the story of a guy who is a jerk, develops a bad reputation, decides to give a damn about his bad reputation, finds religion, and puts on a mask to get away from their bad reputation. Eventually you can become a better person and your alignment can change.

Not an option that I've run across, I'll look into it thank you.

I'll look into both Sarenrae and Shelyn. I have the Inner Sea World Guide ordered through my local game store and I understand it includes a good bit about the major Gods. What I know of the Boneyard comes entirely through the "Deaths Heretic" books by James Sutter, and I just assume that the big picture from it matches the lore from the rulebooks.

@Blashimov - I hadn't considered that no. We tend to run "non-evil" campaigns only so an Evil cleric of and Evil God wouldn't really work.

This idea started as an effort to find an interesting RP way around that, by having an Evil cleric of a Good God who is being good but still for selfish reasons. I understand that this may work better as an idea than in practice, and might work even better as an important campaign related NPC than as a PC.

And thank you all for you input and advice :)

I am new to Pathfinder but a group of my friends is wanting to start playing in it and Im excited about it. I love the book line and the lore of the world. I have a lot of experience with other systems (Longshot, but if anyone remembers Parthos from AOL hit me up I'd love to chat about the old days).

I had just written this thread out and it got lost when I tried to post it, so forgive me if I jump over something when trying to re-create it.

Let me start off by saying that I (and my normal DM) take a slightly nuanced and non-canonical view of alignment than is found in most RPG rulebooks. To me alignment is a persons innate nature and is not something that is easily changeable (if it is even possible to be changed at all). A Good person doesnt become Evil just because they make some bad choices, and conversely an Evil or selfish person doesnt become Good even if they have a lifetime of good deeds.

That being said here is the concept of the character I have been thinking about. It is an evil person who wishes to "buy" their way into a better afterlife.

He is Neutral Evil, selfish and only out for his own gain. He doesnt care who gets hurt in the process, but doesnt take any particulate joy in destruction or causing harm for its own sake. However he has a sense of enlightened self interest and takes a long view of what personal gain means. Additionally he has extensive knowledge of the Gods and knows that souls are sent to the Boneyard and sorted according to their nature and whatever Gods may have a claim to their soul before being sent to the plane of their afterlife.

Because he knows his own nature he knows where he is likely to end up after his eventual demise. He has no desire to end up in Abaddon where, at best, his soul will be hunted down and used as the foodstuff of Daemons only to lead to the eventual destruction of the soul and possibly far worse - all without any hope of redemption, liberation, or reward for worship or service.

In an effort to avoid this he will actively seek out a Good aligned God to worship and become a divine conduit for, in the hopes that this will earn him a better ultimate end. Obviously not all Gods would accept such an acolyte, but I have to think that there are at least some who are flexible enough to see the potential good this person could do by acting against their own nature and accept him.

So my questions are:
1) Which Good aligned Gods would be most likely to accept this type of Cleric? For purpose of this question lets ignore the RAW that a character must be within 1 step of his Gods alignment.

2) How would this effect spells and spell like abilities that deal with alignment?
For instance the Cleric Aura ability, would this reflect the characters alignment or his Gods?
Which spells would he have access to - those that match his alignment or his Gods?
Which version of Channel Energy would he use?

3) What Archtype would best suit this character? I am leaning toward Evangelist as I feel it fits the feel I am going for thematically. I had considered Seperationist, but I kind of think this person wouldn't gamble on anything less than apparent full devotion, he wouldnt want even the hint of heresy to ruin his chances of a better afterlife.

4) Is there anything else I am missing or that I havent considered?

5) What do you think the eventual outcome of this would be? This wouldn't have an effect on that character himself, because he cant know the answer until he dies - but I still find it an interesting question.
Perhaps the God would accept him as a follower but would not intervene on his behalf at death, allowing him to go to Abaddon anyways. Or perhaps the God does intervene but Pharasma decides that his sould belongs in Abaddon anyways. Or perhaps the characters gamble does pay off and he goes to a Good aligned afterlife but how does this "tainted" soul interact there?