Drachasor's page

I sort of thing they should have done something like this with Druids:

Nerf Spells that were too powerful, but adjust level as necessary (needed to be done with all casters, but largely was NOT done).

Wildshape: Turn into any small animal of half your hit dice or less. Then later any medium. Then later any Tiny. Then later any small or medium Elemental.

Familiar: Gain a familiar like a Wizard. Perhaps without the intelligence progression.

SNA: No spontaneous casting.

Then you pick Wildshape, Animal Companion, or SNA. Wildshape gives you PF Wildshape, perhaps with some additional stat bonuses as you level. Animal Companion lets your familiar have Animal Companion Stats or Familiar Stats, whichever is better. SNA lets you spontaneously summon.

SNA as a spell didn't really need the nerf it got, though Summon Monster needed the huge buff even less. Probably would have been better to limit the number of summons you can have at once to a single spell.

I'm not saying the PF Druid is weak, btw. I just don't like how they adjusted it.

Converting the Druid to a Spontaneous Caster with a fixed list like the 3.5 Beguiler or Dread Necromancer would have been a good idea too. Like them you'd get to add a spell every 4 levels or so to your list.

The thing you have to remember about 3.5 Wildshape, it wasn't a class feature, it was its own class.

You could take 3.5 wildshape, slap it onto an Expert, and have a character who fought better than a Fighter (likely better than a PF fighter for that matter.)

That has more to do with the Fighter being an awful class than anything else. It's too inflexible and lacks mobility.

Jaunt wrote:

Planar Shepherd says hi. Admittedly, that's the only real standout druid PrC I recall.

Everything Prince of Knives said is correct.

Arcane Hierophant. But that was multi-classed.

An Arcane Hierophant by itself was weaker than a plain Druid (it could get crazy at 20th if you were allowed to use MT with it, I think). Higher level spells are a pretty big deal. The class features helped make it interesting and fun though.

Follow up question:

Can a Cleric spontaneously cast a heal spell using an unprepared slot, or do they need to take 15, prep a spell, and convert it?

You convert a prepared spell, so something needs to be in that slot, unfortunately. And you can't Convert to a Heal spell, since it doesn't have "Cure" in its name. Well, unless you spent on a feat on that.

Nathanael Love wrote:

Also, as mentioned already SM is now much, much better than SNA.

It's also spont.

Way better than spont cure spells.

Spend a couple feats and you get the best of spontaneous summoning on Wizards or Clerics.

Drachasor wrote:

Marthkus wrote:

Drachasor wrote:

Prince of Knives wrote:

As far as healing being delayed, eh. Healing isn't really a party role, and if it was, Summon Nature's Ally gives you nymphs and unicorns to do it for you.

Not anymore. SNA got nerfed really hard. At the same time Summon Monster got a huge buff to the point it is better than 3.5 SNA.

Still a crazy strong ability that synergies WAY too well with animal growth.

It does suffer from beat-stick syndrome. But your a druid that is what you do. You crush your foes with overwhelming force.

Animal Growth got a big nerf too. It only affects one animal now.

0_0

WOW totally missed that.

Oh well that combo was too good in the first place.

Yeah, my problem is the "nerf everything" feel the PF Druid gives off. I'd rather they just eliminate abilities or make you choose one ability out of the 3 than all the nerfing. Or nerf one side of a combo rather than both sides.

They don't seem to pay much attention to the effects. Animal Growth is a very weak spell now for its level.

Drachasor wrote:

Prince of Knives wrote:

As far as healing being delayed, eh. Healing isn't really a party role, and if it was, Summon Nature's Ally gives you nymphs and unicorns to do it for you.

Not anymore. SNA got nerfed really hard. At the same time Summon Monster got a huge buff to the point it is better than 3.5 SNA.

Still a crazy strong ability that synergies WAY too well with animal growth.

It does suffer from beat-stick syndrome. But your a druid that is what you do. You crush your foes with overwhelming force.

Animal Growth got a big nerf too. It only affects one animal now.

As far as healing being delayed, eh. Healing isn't really a party role, and if it was, Summon Nature's Ally gives you nymphs and unicorns to do it for you.

Not anymore. SNA got nerfed really hard. At the same time Summon Monster got a huge buff to the point it is better than 3.5 SNA.

Nathanael Love wrote:

You are correct; in the change from 3.5 to PF they nerfed Wild Shape hard and it is not really worth using now.

Lol?

Even assuming a +4 bonus to Str is useless (lemme call up the Barbarian and tell him that right now...), Wild Shape is, barring extreme cheese, the most versatile class ability in the game.

You can get any type of movement speed, defensive ability or special sense in the game, complete ability to be unobtrusive, insane scouting potential, and so on...ALL DAY. It lasts for HOURS.

And that's "not worth using"? Are you on something?

Well, technically spellcasting is the most versatile ability in the game. They really didn't do much of anything to reign in the power of spellcasting. But otherwise, yes.

Though, I am not a big fan of how they nerfed the Druid. I'd rather they kept SNA, Wild Shape, and Animal Companion the same and then you only get one or something like that. Maybe an option to get summoning like a Summoner (and being able to do some animal buffing), Wildshape, and Animal Companion but no spells. That would be more interesting and fun, I think.

I think the hardest part with it would be making dual wielding effective. You definitely can't dual wield longswords in PF effectively (as far as I know they don't have a feat like 3.5 did for it). But beyond that, with the penalties to hit dual wielding it is going to be hard to fully make up for that compared to using a two-handed weapon.

In 3.5 it was easier since its version of Arcane Strike let you sacrifice spell slots to get bonuses to hit and damage for a round.

Sometimes a dungeon offers clues about where the main BBEG is likely to be. Temples tend to have lots of decoration on the walls, and the main room probably has big doors and is connected to the main hallway.

I don't think it is really metagaming to figure the big guy is in the biggest and most important room most of the time. Especially if you are adventuring and 9/10 it is like this. But mixing it up and having monsters respond to invasion wouldn't hurt.

Ok, did some more figuring. If we assume conservation of momentum (again, unclear if it is valid, but conservation of energy is clearly NOT valid so we can't assume that), then we have

M * V(t) = m(t) * v
where
M = mass of object decanter attached to
V(t) = velocity of object
m = total mass of expelled water (changes over time)
v = velocity of expelled water.

m(t) = 30t gal/sec = 41.7t lb/sec (t being seconds of course)
v = 47.6 ft/sec (as shown in my previous post)

That gives V(t) = 1985t/M ft/sec
or acceleration A(t) = 1985/M ft/sec
and distance D(t) = 992.5t^2/M

So if you have a 1000lb boat, then after 6 seconds, you've gone roughly 36 ft.

After 12 seconds: 143ft
After 18 seconds: 322ft
After 24 seconds: 572ft.

But this is completely ignoring drag. I'm going to cheat a little here. We know the Foot-Pounds per second is 1985 from above (that's how much force is being applied per second). That's about 3.61 horsepower.

From what I gather, a good propeller is about 70% efficient (or so). Since we're measuring direct thrust here, we shouldn't have that concern, so our effective horsepower should be more like 5hp. From what I can gather from the internets, this would be 5-15 mile per hour, depending on the size of the boat (up to maybe 16 feet long). More Decanters would not increase this speed additively. In fact, you might see little speed increase since the faster you go the more drag you'll get (but it is complicated).

Anyhow, that's my rough estimate. It would work better in space. But then again, if you are going to travel between planets, two plane shifts is the way to do it.

I am not clear how the players know this information if the characters don't.

Are the players told "behind this door is the bad guy" and "in that tower is the big bad" at some point and instructed their characters don't know that? Is that shown on a map that you'd have to edit so they don't see it? Does the map just show where battles should happen and not other landmarks? What?

When they go into a dungeon do you show them the whole map? My DM covers up the maps and they are uncovered as we explore them (or he puts down the room and has each room cut out).

There's a lot of stuff you can do with Magic Jar. Such as buy a Mammoth, Magic Jar it, and use a Greater Hat of Disguise to turn it into a normal-sized body. You now probably have better physical stats and a hit point pool that isn't really yours, so you are that much harder to kill.

There are tons of ways to sneak your body around so it isn't a problem too.

It wouldn't be level 32 since the experience system back then was different. The relative experience would more like level 20 or 22 give or take.

Again a normal Bard would seem to be fine for this though, maybe with an archetype.

This doesn't help. It also screws over casters that are not a problem (like direct damage dealers).

All simple solutions to casting are the same. They don't fix anything and they screw over non-problematic casters.

You are not going to find a simple solution, because the only real solution is going into the spells and changing them or tossing them out. There are a ton of spells that are perfectly fine. It's the ones that are too powerful that are a problem and there are a ton of those too. These spells exist AT ALL LEVELS OF PLAY.

People forget when "fixing" casters that casters generally have a very low floor on capability, meaning with a bad player they can really suck. They also have a very high ceiling. A "solution" that ignores both of these facts is going to be no good. In fact, it will probably just encourage casters to be min-maxed even more and not really change anything except ruining the fun for other people that play casters.

Also, you seem to ignore any caster that's not a full caster with your "solution." So they all get hosed too.

This is pretty much just a Bard in either 3.5 or PF. Depending on how you wanted to go you might use an archetype.

Though, two-weapon fighting isn't that great for a Bard in 3.5 so I wouldn't keep that -- my opinion. Works better in 3.5 with the right feats.

Healing is best done out of combat with wands of CLW which you'd have no trouble using.

I'm a little unclear if you did all the things described at once or if you are just describing each phase of your dual classing separately. If you want to wear Plate as a Bard you might need to dip into 3.5.

That's how I read it. If they are wearing Light Armor then they'd get a -40% doing that though -- not very useful.

MWP is not powerful at all. The only real use is qualifying for PRCs. A class that doesn't get MWP for free usually doesn't benefit from it in any major way (and if it would, you could get the relevant proficiency you need though other races or just spending a feat).

Aasimar and Tieflings are already pretty strong, I don't think they need another boost -- especially one that really can't be reproduced with feats. You can get ONE MWP with a feat, but if you let RAW stand they get them all. And as you said it is great for some PrC qualifying.

It does buff up non-martial classes a decent bit either via a bit more damage or better critical rates (the latter being a bigger deal).

It's also pretty obviously not intended for what's the worth.

Tieflings and Aasimar should not get martial weapon proficiency, since it is pretty powerful and makes those races too good.

By RAW they do get it.

Sometimes you see the devs give rulings based on how they'd rule at their table or what they want the rules to say. But the rules are pretty explicit here.

That said, you should not let it happen at your table.

PC races don't get any type/subtype proficiency, only the eventual races proficiency specifically named under the races traits.

PC races also get all the benefits of their type. It just so happens that their type specifically says they don't get proficiencies. Except Outsiders do.

This problem is easily fixable with an errata that maintains rules consistencies. Instead the FAQ went with what is essentially "no, ignore the rules, you don't get it."

While we are discussing all things EK: quick question.

Can I just go aasimar for race and enter EK at 2nd level after 1 level of wizard?
It looks like you can get both prereqs met (martial proficiency from being an outsider, the spell req from racial SLA) without needing to dip fighter.

Is this a thing? Just wanted to ask because I see a lot of people throwing around builds that have a level of fighter in them that doesn't seem needed.

I think there's a FAQ that says you don't get those proficiencies -- but really if they want it to work that way they should just move where they list "proficiency with all martial weapons" out of "traits" since by definition you get all traits. If they made it a feature of Outsider hit dice the problem would be solved.

I mean, RAW you are right, they are proficient with all martial weapons. But it is overpowered so you'd have a hard time getting a DM to approve that. I'm currently playing an Aasimar and I didn't even bring it up because it is too good.

Every round spend buffing puts the EK behind the Real martials. I am very curious in seeing a EK build that can measure up to real martials from round 1 or 2 and still cast 9 level spells. If you can keep it to the main books an stay away from things that is campain specific it is best. I have yet to see this in game.

This isn't really difficult since you have Polymorph Any Object. Though that spell is HORRIBLY written in PF so one can't be quite sure what it does.

But let's go at this from another angle with an Int-focused EK. You have a Ring of Telekinesis. You start with Int 18, and are say...15th level. So you have +3 Int from leveling and another +6 from items. So that's a total of 27 (+8 bonus). You got in early to EK so you're a 10th level EK, Fighter 1, Wizard 4. BAB is +13, Heroism gets it to +15. You have the talent that gives Caster Level +2, the Ioun Stone or other item that gives Caster Level +1, and one Prayer Bead of Karma (which you UMD to get +4 Caster Level).

In the morning you cast Greater Magic Weapon on 9 weapons (this is trivial to do and there are lots of ways to do it). Each one is now a +5 weapon. Let's say they are Gargantuan Rapiers (weight 16lbs). They do 3d6+5 damage. Your combat buff is casting the Communal Returning spell. They bypass pretty much all DR and you deal an average of 139 damage a round, and you probably crit on one of those attacks which lets you cast a free spell to increase damage. Your attack roll is +13+8(int)+5(magic)+2(heroism) for +28 to hit. So that hits most things you'll be facing very, very easily. You have your hands free to do hold whatever you want as well. Overall doubling the above damage is pretty trivial.

If you are core only the weapons still drop next to the creature you hit, so you should be able to repeat this process.

But let's not use TK shenanigans. Let's look at 9th level. You're a Wizard 1/Fighter 1/EK 7 (BAB +8). So you don't have your big guns yet. You go with a strength-based build. Let's say Strength 16 base, with a +4 item, +2 from leveling. So Strength 22. You big buff in Monstrous Physique II. This gives you Strength 28. You turn into a four-armed gargoyle and all of its attacks are primary, so that's six attacks at +19 (with heroism), dealing 1d8+9, 4*1d6+9, and 1d6+9. If you are polymorphing, it is probably a good idea to get an amulet of mighty fists for your natural attacks. A +2 Amulet improves these attacks quite a bit and you have a +21 to hit with them. You'll be dealing an average of 88 damage assuming no crits. You have reach and can fly among other things.

Not the best damage on its own, perhaps, but it is easy enough to add some quickened spells and other magic effects to boost the damage further. And this damage is consistent from round to round.

Of course, high level EKs can Magic Jar into a really strong form and then buff it from there. This lets them get strengths in the 60-70s without too much trouble.

If you want another buff, the EK can toss in some summons easily enough, btw.

Edit: Please note that I was not trying very hard here. So these estimates are on the low end.

How about using it to push a boat? What is the water pressure and how many would be needed to push a rowboat?

The math here isn't too bad to get a rough estimate. It shoots out 30 gallons a round. A gallon of water is about 8.33lbs. So that's a total of ~250lbs.

If we figure "this is magic" so it is always 20 feet, it is probably best to estimate this using conservation of momentum. In which case you have the displacement roughly being Object_Weight / 250 * 20ft per round. We're ignoring friction on both ends though. This is not very fast.

This could change a bit depending on one interprets the fact the spray goes "20 feet". The above works for a rough estimate though. But you could make some more assumptions and calculate the velocity of the exiting water. based on that.

If you wanted to go faster you'd need to do something like use a Wall of Fire and shoot out high-pressure water...but the rules don't cover such things.

Edit: Hmm, actually. It says the stream is 1 foot wide. So if we assume it is a tube of water. That's (.5ft)^2*pi * x ft = 30gal*7.48ft^3/gallon. Or x ~= 285.71ft That's many feet of water goes out each round. So that's a velocity of 47.6 ft/sec. I'll need to get out pen and paper to do some more calculations based on that.

Note all this comes with the implicit assumption that all momentum is transferred to whatever holds the decanter, which is probably NOT a safe assumption.

Yeah, the upgrade rules are poorly written. Just do it like a new and custom items:

Multiple Similar Abilities: For items with multiple similar abilities that don't take up space on a character's body, use the following formula: Calculate the price of the single most costly ability, then add 75% of the value of the next most costly ability, plus 1/2 the value of any other abilities.

Multiple Different Abilities: Abilities such as an attack roll bonus or saving throw bonus and a spell-like function are not similar, and their values are simply added together to determine the cost. For items that take up a space on a character's body, each additional power not only has no discount but instead has a 50% increase in price.

So for Rings, hats, and other items that take up places on the body:

Other items you either get a discount or they cost the same. But I would lean just towards adding the costs together. If you want a Rod of Silent Spell usable 6/day, then it costs twice as much as a 3/day one. If you want it to be usable 9/day, then it costs 3 times as much. But I'd be a bit wary of this sort of thing. On the other hand, it can help avoid the silliness of someone constantly switching what is in their hand (and there are so many ways to game that so it isn't a very big deal).

I think the errata changes to spells shows that the Devs don't have a good grasp on what makes casters so good. The first few posts had the Cold Ice Strike nerf mention. There's NOTHING wrong with cone spell. Casters are not powerful because of blasting. Yet they nerf the blasting.

They buffed up Summon Monster in the move from 3.5 (it's more powerful than the 3.5 Summon Nature's Ally!). This never got nerfed, and summoning is much more powerful than Cold Ice Strike will ever be -- as just one example.

Then look at the Arcanist who gets tons of awesome stuff.

So...yeah.

And so we enter the Wayback Machine...

*Swooshy ripply effect*

Ask a Ninja is always classic.

This reminded that there are no rules for the trunk in D&D!

I always thought it looked like Magus and EK went together. havent' tried though. Anyone ever tried to start as Magus and Prestige into EK?

There's some argument for taking level 17-20 as EK with a Magus -- not worth it with a Hexcrafter ever. But it doesn't do all that much. The problem with EK is that the Magus loses progression in all of his special magic abilities and doesn't get much of anything out of it.

PF never fixed the problem with magic prestige classes. If you go into one with a 2/3s caster, then +1 Spellcaster Level is a lot weaker than if you go into it with a full caster. Paladins and Rangers are even worse off. If they had a system roughly like BAB for casting this would work better. The Magus would still be giving up a lot, since almost none of his casting related special abilities get better.

I dont think that EK was ever as powerfull as a straigth wizard. And it will Fall behind the real melee guys as well but it allows more different things than the magus. I like both.

It doesn't fall behind real melee guys. An EK uses magic to boost their combat ability. They can safely aim for an Int of 19 or 20 AFTER stat boosting items if they want to go heavy melee in PF. That means a starting int of 14 is more than sufficient. This lets them get good physical skills and Polymorph spells boost that a lot.

It is weaker than a pure wizard, because it is pretty easy to see that Spell Focus Conjuration + Augment Summoning (other feats optional) gives you better melee ability than you'll ever need and you can still cast spells every round.

Things to consider:

Carry Companion spell is good.

Feats and Skill points spent on Stealth.

Elephant needs Cloak of Arachnida (14k), this gives unlimited Spider Climb. Slippers of Spider Climbing are a more limited and low cost alternative.

A Greater Hat of Disguise allows the Elephant to appear as halfing or other humanoid whenever it wants.

Ring of Invisibility is the ultimate in stealth. You'll need to alter it a bit so an elephant can use it.

Anthropomorphic Animal can be made permanent and would allow the Ring of Invisibility. Too bad it doesn't work with Animal Growth.

It would be even better if PF didn't limit the size of animal companions.

The latest creature you Awaken "serves you in specific tasks or endeavors if you communicate your desires to it." A Mammoth is just CR 9, but it has 14 hit dice. Awaken gives it 2 more, so it can grab a feat. Get a permament Anthropomorphic Animal on it first. Then use a Maximized Awaken and have it pick up some skills like Stealth. With its new feat it should take a weapon proficiency, and it can wear armor without penalty if you reduce the ACP down to 0. It will be a pretty awesome Huge Ninja to go with the companion.

You'll need a Rod of Maximize Spell to do the maximized awaken, btw (this gives it 18 Int and +3 Charisma). The only real problem is that if the Anthropomorphic Animal is dispelled, then you can't cast it again since it is no longer a valid target. Maybe a nice DM would let you research one that works on Magical Beasts or allow Anthropomorphic Animal to still work on Awakened Animals (which are technically magical beasts).

EK-based builds are good because of magic, even if they are totally bland. Polymorphing is a good way to go. At level 10 in the PrC you can do polymorphing OR you can get a ring of TK and use it to pretty much get a crit every round with the right weapons (probably need to cast Magic Weapon on them at the beginning of the day, and give them the returning property with the right spell).

The EK also has an advantage in that Spell Critical doesn't depend on being a melee attack. Gives them some flexibility beyond all of their spell flexibility.

It's a really cool idea. It IS inferior to the gold standard Magus, because Paizo loves making Gishes all about crits for some reason. But I find the idea nice.

You do need the DM to house rule on some things though.

1. 10' reach on the hair makes how it works with size changes unclear. I'd request the DM to treat it as a reach weapon that can also attack adjacent targets (like 3.5 Spiked Chain). A DM should bear in mind Paizo writes a LOT of stuff assuming anyone using the ability/item is small or medium.

2. I personally think Natural Spell Arcana is rather stupid. As a DM I'd let a natural weapon like Tail Slap or hair be used instead of a weapon in one hand with Spell Combat. It's not like it is unbalancing. See if your DM agrees or disagrees. You could always say the hair is from the back of your hand -- which is stupid but possible, and just emphasizes how stupid the hand-rule is (it has nothing to do with balance).

3. If you are using your hair as a main weapon, the single biggest issue is the fact it isn't adamantine, you can't enchant it, and magic items to make it better are overly expensive (a common monk problem). See if your DM will let you enchant it normally, or get an item that enchants it at the same price as a normal weapon. And/or let you replace the Magic Weapon and similar spells with Magic Fang and related spells.

You want Combat Reflexes. You have reach and can attack adjacent creatures. So you can get quite a few attacks of opportunity.

And point out how you are trading off getting frequent crits with Shocking Grasp for this.

Well, constructs have a number of problems and can unbalance a game.

What I am trying to get my DM to accept is this:

Craft Construct: You can make Constructs. Any construct you make must have a CR equal to or less than your Character Level - 2. The price of a construct is 500*CR^2 gp, and the cost to create it is half that. This does not include the cost for the body, which depends on the material (5% of price for cloth, 10% for wood or stone, 15% for iron or other metal, 20% for mithril or adamantine).

Personal Construct Template: A Personal Construct can be repaired if destroyed. This takes 8 hours of work and a Make Whole spell and restores the construct to 1 hp. It does not cost any money. You can also upgrade a personal construct. The cost is the difference between its current cost to create and the cost to create a construct of the final CR. Anyone who can make Constructs can make one Personal Construct for free, all others increase the effective CR by 1 both for cost to build and for the CR limit.

This makes constructs not be overwhelmingly powerful or overpriced. It also alleviates the big reason to make them overwhelmingly powerful; they can get destroyed and then you lose all that money. And it avoids the weirdness of selling your Construct and making a new one repeatedly.

I'm working on rules for upgrading Animated Objects, since the default ones are awful.

Just my two cents.

There ARE feats that overcome fire immunity. Which is hilarious, because you can take a feat that overcomes a magical innate ability, since you can't buy fire immunity with a feat.

And this whole discussion is about feat parity. Everyone is complaining about the nerfing of Crane Wing, but nobody is complaining about how it utterly stomps on Vital Strike, and all Standard action attacks, or all monsters with only one attack.

And they are repeatedly ignoring the fact that 'full attack monsters and PC's' are controllable by the party and the player, with good tactics, feats, condition infliction, or spells.

'Ooooo, the Vital Strike guy can just try to get his full attack off, like everyone else who gets shut down.' I was thinking more along the lines of "Crane WIng automatically reduces the damage multiplier for Vital Strike by one step, but does not otherwise deflect the attack."

==Aelryinth

Funny, I didn't see a PF feat that overcomes fire immunity. The only 3.5 one that did came at a significant cost in the effectiveness of the fire spell -- it would be better to just use a cold spell (anything Fire Immune is vulnerable to cold afterall).

And no one is complaining about the other stuff because the number of people with just 1 MELEE attack, no allies, and no flexibility essentially don't exist outside of PFS.

But yeah, I'm sure your fix is great. Make special rules for every single case for Crane Wing against enemies who have zero flexibility and only a single melee attack. Because it isn't like being a one trick pony doesn't screw you over in lots of places...right?

You could use Triangular Numbers. Basically, you add the level of the spell to the previous cost to determine the new cost.

1st level: 1 point
2nd level: 3 points
3rd level: 6 points
4th level: 10 points
5th level: 15 points
6th level: 21 points
7th level: 28 points
8th level: 36 points
9th level: 45 points

This would limit higher level spells the most. Low level spells don't really matter.

One thing you forgot to mention about the Psion is that they don't get much free power boost simply from gaining levels. They have to pay extra points to pump up their spells. Energy Burst does 5d6 damage for 5PP, if you are 10th level and want it to do more, you need to pay more PP.

Withdrawal symptoms are not an inherent part of addiction.

If you can't stop the craving of your own free will, that's also addiction.
That said, the magical craving suggestion seems superfluous to the OP's tactic.
It would work better (more detect magic-proof) if every item wasn't Suggestion-ified,
and he just relied on a high quality product from ingredients and skill to sell the product.
The OP's general description doesn't sound like he's going for anything more than something akin to magical MSG.

Point is, there's a game mechanic for addiction, and his pastries don't use it. Basic charm magic isn't evil to use and if you use it to get someone to do something they otherwise wouldn't (like eat a perfectly safe pastry).

It is true that it is possible he's just using Prestidigitation to make them extra tasty too. He wasn't clear. It is certainly true that it seems like social skills would work just fine here along with quality ingredients (and perhaps some Prestidigitation).

Overall though, mental manipulation isn't inherently evil. Nor is information trafficking. He was even clear he uses it for a good purpose (the profits anyhow). Depending on how the trafficking is done it might be evil or just neutral.

Anyhow, the OP will have to clarify the situation. Overall though it isn't clear what alignment these actions are, but I am leaning towards neutral.

Drachasor wrote:

He specifically said in the OP his pastries aren't addictive.

I read the original post.

Gellos Tharn wrote:

I'm not talking about a drug addiction kind of thing. It's more like they walk down the street and see the bake shop and say "I know the wife wants me to loose a few pounds but their pastries are SO GOOD! Just one won't hurt".

Thesaurus wrote:

2. -- addiction - an abnormally strong craving

He's pretty much defined addiction in his justification it's not addiction.

That's a semantic argument. The food just tastes really good and perhaps has a suggestion or something attached to it. That doesn't make it addictive in game terms (which is defined). It doesn't mean if someone doesn't eat that food then they suffer withdrawal.

Drachasor wrote:

So far there's no solid reason to think the OP's character is evil.

Other than the fact that he's selling produce laced to be addictive and force information out of people to the unsuspecting population for profit via information brokering, you mean.

Spy Rings are not evil. How you use them determines the alignment. So far it sounds neutral.

He specifically said in the OP his pastries aren't addictive.

And yet, you could say the same thing about all the martial feat lines.

Which is not to say Vital Strike couldn't do with some upgrades.

But, you know, for monsters? Vital strike works just fine!

==Aelryinth

Counters aren't bad. Everything doesn't have to be effective against everything else.

Or should we get rid of Fire Immunity because of casters that invest heavily in fire damage? They spent a lot of feats, right?

If you can't do ranged attacks, can't do multiple melee attacks, can't do magic, have no allies, and otherwise can only do ONE THING then you deserve to do badly. It's your own dang fault for making an overly specialized character.

And if PFS has too many enemies like this, then that's their fault and it shouldn't change the rest of the game.

But I could see it changing to adding 4+Character Level to your AC against the first melee attack on you. That makes it very hard to beat, but not unbeatable if you have the right resources.

Well, I'd start by going with the Golem creation method.

Separate Work Done from Material Cost.

A pit trap requires a pit. Buying the pit (however you do it) has a cost associated with it. If you have a pit, then you don't need to worry about it. You can make a pit via crafting or however else you want to go about it.

Then there's adding the trap bit to the Pit Trap. Which would have a far smaller cost. Though there might be materials you can flat-out by or otherwise produce.

Regarding Materials, any way you can get them works and you don't have to buy them. If you need logs and can chop down a tree, then there's no need to go to the store and buy logs or otherwise "craft" them.

That's a starting point, anyhow.

The Beard wrote:

People becoming angry OOC that there's an evil PC afoot seems quite indicative of immaturity, I figure.

You could say it is quite indicative of immaturity to play an evil pc with an evil plot in a party with a paladin.

So far there's no solid reason to think the OP's character is evil. Seems neutral at the moment.

I'm seeing the classes as a hint of what Paizo could have done, if they weren't bearing the burden of heritage.

I've not been very impressed personally. Class balance is still completely out of whack with these new classes. In fact, I've not been impressed with PF's balance compared to 3.5. A lot of the "balance" seems to be done by making a bunch of horrible options, which isn't very fun (and just makes it so new players can make even worse characters).

Overall the new classes didn't indicate to me that they really understand the caster and non-caster divide in power. And last I looked I wasn't impressed by a lot of the abilities non-casters got -- a ton of them were fairly terrible and the playtesting response didn't seem to change that much.

Amusingly, magic traps are ridiculously overpowered if you make them self-resetting.

Magic Item Crafting with Cooperative Crafter can be as quick as you want. Get a few people with that feat and you multiple the speed by 2, 4, 8, etc (since it isn't a dice roll result, you use normal multiplication).

If you have a Valet familiar and can cast Simulacrum, then making a lot of cooperative crafters is pretty easy. Otherwise it is more expensive but still doable.

Imho, the combat system doesn't support this in a very satisfying way. So I wouldn't do it unless my players played at a high level.

For wizards, there's a better trait, pragmatic activator. Dangerously Curious (or Underlying Principles, which does the same) gives you +4 (+1 trait plus class skill). Swaping CHA for INT might be as much as +10 if you dumped Charisma to 7 and have INT 26.

Oh, that is nice. Right now DangCur gives me a +4 bonus, but my int is 20 so that would give me one more. And it will definitely grow in time. Somehow I missed that.

Thanks.

Drachasor wrote:

And of course it lets you use a Wand of CLW. My character is just level 5, but with a +10 bonus (5 + 4 (dangerously curious) + 1), his +12 to use his wand of CLW makes it work most of the time. And a a rare wasted charge isn't that bad. Granted it is best of the Cleric can use it, but in a few more levels that will mostly go away

You don't waste charges on a miss.

Use a Wand, Staff, or Other Spell Trigger Item: Normally, to use a wand, you must have the wand's spell on your class spell list. This use of the skill allows you to use a wand as if you had a particular spell on your class spell list. Failing the roll does not expend a charge. from the PRD

Somehow I thought you did if you rolled a 1. Somehow my brain got mixed up. How embarrassing.

Quote:

Emulate an Alignment: Some magic items have positive or negative effects based on the user's alignment. Use Magic Device lets you use these items as if you were of an alignment of your choice. You can emulate only one alignment at a time.

The "Emulate an Alignment" check allow you to use the robe benefits for 1 hour has if you where of the appropriate alignment, but you will still suffer from the negative levels.

I don't see how you get that. It's pretty clear that if you emulate an alignment the item treats you as though that was your alignment whether or not it really is. No damage, no negative levels. The negative levels require the item to consider you of another alignment, but it doesn't because you emulate the right one.

Remember that the "Roll a 1, unable to use the device for 24 hours" rule only applies if a 1 fails.

If your UMD is +19, you will never fail an activate a wand UMD check, so you will never get locked out of using the wand.

And if you use an item once, then you get a +2 bonus on using it again. So you really just need a +17 native modifier. With Dangerously Curious anyone can have it as a class skill and get a +1 bonus. So you just need another +13 to be able to hit that +17. So level 13 with no charisma mod. With a mod it gets lower, and some items can lower it further.

Anyhow, UMD it is useful to have. It lets you use some Staves and other items you find without issue. If the staff even has ONE spell you can cast, then you can recharge the staff. It's a decent way to get access to some spells that aren't on your list but are very good to have situationally. This is even more true if you can make custom staves.

And of course it lets you use a Wand of CLW. My character is just level 5, but with a +10 bonus (5 + 4 (dangerously curious) + 1), his +12 to use his wand of CLW makes it work most of the time. And a rare wasted charge isn't that bad. Granted it is best of the Cleric can use it, but in a few more levels that will mostly go away.

And there are some other random stuff that's nice to use as well.

If the player was careful about how the acquired information was brokered, I see no reason why a Lawful Good character couldn't run this operation. Even a Paladin might be able to do it depending on how you interpret acting with "honor". However, I think a Paladin can do a lie of omission and use white lies. But it would be borderline behavior.

That said, there's certainly nothing wrong with a Lawful Good character running a spy network like this. He'd just have to be careful about who he brokered information to, since he'd want to make sure the info was used for good purposes.

The Paladin could more easily run this op if it didn't use any magic and just used good baking skills, word of mouth, and his personal charisma to run. This depends on how the magic is used of course -- if it just makes the food taste really good then there's no problem. Or a Paladin with the Leadership feat could certainly have his followers act as eyes and ears throughout a city or nation. Including getting classified info. But he probably wouldn't need to even spend a feat on this if he didn't want to.

Animals no longer get weapon finesse for free.

Note that an Intelligent Magical Item has a base price of 500gp. It can use any of its abilities.

So Intelligent Gauntlets of the Weapon Master can pull out a weapon for you once per round. An Intelligent Handy Haversack can get out an item twice per round -- though probably only once if you want it to give it to you (1k price increase for Mage Hand at will which would let it manipulate items weighing up to 5lbs -- and pepperbox pistols weight 5lbs).

But intelligent Weapon Master Gauntlets do let you use them twice per round (item once, you once) which is probably good enough for a while.

Perception and Fly are both class skills too. So one rank gives it a +4 bonus.

I say it is in perception and they do not have Skill Focus.

That gives +6 and +6 to both skills.

Unless Odin is cheating Ravens only get one Feat.

I'd also change the Familiar bonus from Climb to Stealth as well.

Not sure why the attacks are happening.

It's something they are looking to introduce.

If you personally don't like it, don't use it.

Permanent injuries can have a really detrimental effect on the game. I think people are just concerned that the OP hasn't given the impact enough thought. Sad to say, most times stuff like this are added the overall impact isn't considered. You then end up with players and the DM being frustrated because everyone quickly becomes a cripple (so players constantly are retiring characters and bringing in new ones).

Slicing off arms sounds cool and all, but without careful consideration such a change can easily backfire and make the game less fun.