paizo.com Recent Posts by Dioscuripaizo.com Recent Posts by Dioscuri2019-09-21T05:12:22Z2019-09-21T05:12:22ZForums: Advice: Advice on a Pharasmin OracleDioscurihttps://paizo.com/threads/rzs42rzp?Advice-on-a-Pharasmin-Oracle#12019-09-21T05:21:44Z2019-09-21T04:54:42Z<p>Hey guys, so I have this cool problem where I create (what I think are) awesome character concepts for roleplay, but my ignorance of the rules prevents me from making the characters awesome in practice. I'm not worried about min-maxing, but I'm super worried about being somewhat useless and finding my very cool character to be somewhat boring to play.</p>
<p>I am playing in a Ruins of Azlant campaign. It is my first game. I've played fifth edition D&D before. My character is "Dio," a play on a name for Gemini. He is an Oracle of Pharasma who basically was reincarnated by a powerful psychopomp, or perhaps Pharasma herself. He appeared in the catacombs of a church in white burial robes. He doesn't age, and he looks about eight. </p>
<p>He is sort of an outcast in Pharasmin society; he is an Oracle of the Mystery of Time (following Pharasma's dominion over Fate, which is waning since the "death" of Aroden). His mastery over Time as Fate is an important part of his character.</p>
<p>My idea is that this child wandered hapless until eventually he began to have "prophetic visions" about his past life in dreams. He saw his body being burned in a public execution and tried to save his past-self, but his past fate was already sealed. When he awoke, his hands were burned to a near skeletal cinder. Understanding Pharasma's message to him (escaping Her judgment is a fool's errand), he accepted this Curse as a badge of honor and so began his career as a Pharasmin Oracle.</p>
<p>Though it isn't necessary, this Oracle is very much obedient to the ideals of Pharasma. His career has primarily been spent proseltyzing for Pharasmin doctrines. He has wandered for decades now, founding hospitals for the newly born and the soon to die, caretaking for graveyards, and apprenticing for several clerics. His several novitiates into clerical life ended poorly as he focused on the prophetic aspects of Pharasma's portfolio in his beliefs, something that the regional priesthoods where he's tried to integrate have discouraged.</p>
<p>The way he presents himself isn't exactly the most settling thing. He speaks scarcely, often in riddles and poetry. I have began to write his Pharasmin codex complete with riddles and prophecy and poetry and rituals. Needless to say, a hyper-intelligent prophet-child dressed in burial robes is pretty damn terrifying, even if he is as neutral as his deity. </p>
<p>His adventure to Azlant began with prophetic dreams foretelling his fate across the ocean in the skeleton of the seat of power that was buried by the heavens. His closest companion, a musketeer that was raised as an orphan in one of the establishments that he worked with, also began to receive a beckoning across the sea (though, little do they know, it is actually her hag mother calling her to transformation, not a psychopomp).</p>
<p>It is his intent to build a theocratic settlement, using Talamdor's facilities and a nasty Perform: Oratory check to build himself a following in the meantime.</p>
<p>As for his character growth, I have a path down either insanity or greatness narrowed out. As he grows in prophetic power, he will begin to take on an alter ego, loosely based on the character Kindred from League of Legends. Talking to himself, speak in two voices representing two personas (a Lion and a Lamb, representing acceptance of death and its inevitability) more unsettling references to himself as a reaper-esque vehicle of one's fated death. The is already sort of manifesting, kind of. Most of the PCs for whatever reason take his lead, and when it comes to matters of life and death, I have in the past done a secret roll to determine whether it is someone/something's "time" or not. Very wild and arbitrary, but it adds a sort of layer of "divine will" and auspicious signs into the mix. The DM digs my character and is throwing me all kinds of whippoorwills and black roses and other signs of Pharasma's favor. </p>
<p>The character may seem outlandish to many of you, and in a game where my fellow players are mostly aristocratic mercenaries, you might very well be right. But I think it is a cool character, but I'm really worried about the fact that my unfamiliarity of Pathfinder and the ... REALLY vast set of options all interacting may downplay the whole harbinger of the inevitability of death. </p>
<p>The DM has given us all newbies until level 5 to change anything about our character that we might not like as if it has been created that way. He has also ruled (if I want to) that I don't •have• to take the negatives for child or even the oracle version of that. Because of how I have it set up now (he's a dual cursed burning hands/child oracle) I am as of right now running the child oracle curse.</p>
<p>The problems I'm running into is that he's essentially useless without his spells. The combats so far have been long and rests have been far and few between. I have a dagger (because I want to take Deific Obedience when I can, mostly because it seems like the thing to do) but I'm just awful at anything to do with melee. By the way, he's a human, and that doesn't really matter to me other than the fact that I could get Extra Revelation for free. That could change, his race isn't an important part of the theme.</p>
<p>TL;DR, I need some tricks on how to make a Pharasmin Oracle of Time a true harbinger of fate and death in the long term without sacrificing my theme too much. I've considered prestige classes, multiclassing, changing my curses, even played with changing classes, and what it all comes down to is I don't know enough about this game to understand what is good or bad, so all of the options overwhelm me. I come basically equipped only with my idea of what makes my idea appealing to me.</p>
<p>My party consists of:
<br />
Human Brawler
<br />
Changeling Musketeer (Gunslinger)
<br />
Half-orc Gunslinger
<br />
Catfolk Bard (no idea what this bard is doing)
<br />
Gillman sea witch</p>
<p>My magic items:
<br />
A +1 chain shirt
<br />
And a brochet top that doubles my movement speed</p>Hey guys, so I have this cool problem where I create (what I think are) awesome character concepts for roleplay, but my ignorance of the rules prevents me from making the characters awesome in practice. I'm not worried about min-maxing, but I'm super worried about being somewhat useless and finding my very cool character to be somewhat boring to play.
I am playing in a Ruins of Azlant campaign. It is my first game. I've played fifth edition D&D before. My character is "Dio," a play on a name...Dioscuri2019-09-21T04:54:42ZRe: Forums: Advice: Cleric - Need help spicing up play - New playerDioscurihttps://paizo.com/threads/rzs2sc9v?Cleric-Need-help-spicing-up-play-New-player#192015-06-10T21:10:27Z2015-06-10T21:10:27Z<p>Demi-god
<br />
Huginn
<br />
The Darksighted
<br />
(Lvl 20 Oracle lvl 20 Rogue)</p>
<p>Domains:
<br />
Air
<br />
Darkness
<br />
Knowledge
<br />
Luck
<br />
Rune
<br />
Travel
<br />
Trickery</p>
<p>Favored Weapons: Longspear and Short Spear</p>
<p>The main antagonist is a demon and his cult including mostly antipaladins, but we have fought a lot of things, including a nerfed wendigo, blood magic constructs, chain golems... it just depends on the dungeon. </p>
<p>Honestly, I'm not sure what I want here - I wanted to go dangerous touch cleric type but because this was my first game, basically my DM made the character for me. Now, I just want to be effective at an active roll something other than keeping everyone else alive and being a flanking buddy. It seems all of my standard actions are healing, else I'm going to let someone (usually the rogue or the sorcerer, sometimes the fighter) die. That leads me to not be able to cast my spells. Should I make them pick better armor or something? I usually pick Bull's Strength (for the fighter), Murderous Command, and everything else is generally situational. What goes into summoning? Just have to pick the spell? I picked it one game and it seemed very lackluster.</p>
<p>To be clear, are most people suggesting that I drop my mace/wand and resistance shield to go longspear, even with my low strength, which I'm pretty sure my DM will not allow me to switch out? Should I just be patient for better spells?</p>Demi-god
Huginn
The Darksighted
(Lvl 20 Oracle lvl 20 Rogue)
Domains:
Air
Darkness
Knowledge
Luck
Rune
Travel
Trickery
Favored Weapons: Longspear and Short Spear
The main antagonist is a demon and his cult including mostly antipaladins, but we have fought a lot of things, including a nerfed wendigo, blood magic constructs, chain golems... it just depends on the dungeon.
Honestly, I'm not sure what I want here - I wanted to go dangerous touch cleric type but because this was my first game,...Dioscuri2015-06-10T21:10:27ZRe: Forums: Advice: Cleric - Need help spicing up play - New playerDioscurihttps://paizo.com/threads/rzs2sc9v?Cleric-Need-help-spicing-up-play-New-player#42015-06-09T03:03:40Z2015-06-09T03:03:40Z<p>Good point. The DM sort heavily suggested that the CHA be high when we were making the character. Should I drop my shield and heavy mace/wand for a spear, my deity's favoured weapon? DM suggested a bow. Also, should I retrain one of my feats for Combat Reflexes or just wait until the next available feat?</p>Good point. The DM sort heavily suggested that the CHA be high when we were making the character. Should I drop my shield and heavy mace/wand for a spear, my deity's favoured weapon? DM suggested a bow. Also, should I retrain one of my feats for Combat Reflexes or just wait until the next available feat?Dioscuri2015-06-09T03:03:40ZForums: Advice: Cleric - Need help spicing up play - New playerDioscurihttps://paizo.com/threads/rzs2sc9v?Cleric-Need-help-spicing-up-play-New-player#12015-06-09T02:35:53Z2015-06-09T02:35:53Z<p>Hey, this is my first Pathfinder campaign. I'm just looking tricks and strategies to spice up my play style to give it an extra flare, especially in combat. My DM is giving us 14 days in-character downtime to run errands, retrain, et cetera. I feel like a healer battery, and while I don't mind healing, that wasn't what I wanted this character to be.</p>
<p>It is a homebrew campaign in which I am the cleric of a trickster god (true neutral) on a race of avian people. My domains are Travel and Luck. The party is level 4.
<br />
My two feats, at the advice of my GM, allow me to cast both positive and negative energy and exclude enemy/allies situationally.</p>
<p>My party composition is thus:</p>
<p>Goblin Two-handed Fighter (Chaotic Neutral)
<br />
Goblin Rogue (CN)
<br />
Avian Bard (CN)
<br />
Human Sorceror (CN)</p>
<p>My stats are as thus: STR 10 DEX 14 CON 14 INT 16 WIS 21 CHA 18. AC is 21. </p>
<p>My items look something like this: A heavy mace (1d8) that doubles as CLW wand. Cassock of the Clergy. A replenishing surgeon's kit. A shield with 10 frost resist. Bag of Holding 2.</p>
<p>I have ~4,000 gold which will end up being closer to 5,000 when vendoring is all said and done.</p>
<p>So, what should I do here? Sky's the limit. Should I retrain domains? Pick certain spells? Think about dipping into something else like fighter, or maybe prestige classing, retrain feats? Any special items or tactics? I have no clue where to go with this, just that I love the game, just don't like being harmless as a wet noodle. I was originally drawn to cleric for how versatile everyone said it was, but I'm not feeling versatile right now. Is it just the low levels? Even when I get high levels, where is the real beef at? I really enjoy the RP of my character, just can't adjust to the speed of it.</p>Hey, this is my first Pathfinder campaign. I'm just looking tricks and strategies to spice up my play style to give it an extra flare, especially in combat. My DM is giving us 14 days in-character downtime to run errands, retrain, et cetera. I feel like a healer battery, and while I don't mind healing, that wasn't what I wanted this character to be.
It is a homebrew campaign in which I am the cleric of a trickster god (true neutral) on a race of avian people. My domains are Travel and Luck....Dioscuri2015-06-09T02:35:53Z