Dreikaiserbund's page

Continuing along, my invocation-slinging wizard's spell list.

Reality Rend: Time Stop
"Time is an illusion, space is a lie. By the Seven Runes of Thassilon and the Eighth Rune Unwritten, I call upon the Worm that gnaws its tail. Coils of infinity, turn!"

The Fimbulwind: Cold Sirocco + Cold Tar Pool
Let the cold wind shatter their eyes, let the night wind steal their breath, let the ice wind harden their blood, let the dark wind blacken their limbs. Hoary Jötnar of bygone ages, unleash the Fimbul-Wind!

Solar Gate: Sunburst
"Solar orb, sightless, sleeping, chained in cloud and night, Awaken!"

Chain of Jupiter: Chain Lightning
"Jupiter rises ascendant, and dwells in the house of the Archer. To your base forms I assign the crown, the blade, the throne, the eagle... and chain them with the thunderbolt!"

Azlant's Doom: Tsunami
"Rime-ringed ocean, fathomless and black, lend me one of your children. I call upon Azlant's Doom!"

Hungering Flames: Disruptive Contagious Flames
"Spell-drinker, Heart-eater, never sated, never quenched. By the Secret Fire I bid thee, feast!"

Let us suppose you are hit by a Tsunami spell (http://www.aonprd.com/SpellDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Tsunami), and are carried away by it.

What exactly happens while you are being carried by the Tsunami? Clearly, you can't move and you take some damage, but can you make attacks (say, ranged attacks) and can you cast spells? (Logically you'd figure that this would be difficult in the extreme, but the spell doesn't quite say)

Thank you!

...I actually really need to sit down and work out some more incantations. The bad guys are higher level, Flame Strike doesn't cut it anymore.

What's a good Death Clutch incantation... hum hum hum...

Pretty much what it says on the tin. The PCs are going to be fighting a rogue-like boss monster in the near future. Since 1 vs. Many fights do not end well, I need some minions -- and so I turn to the forums for advice.

The party is level 13, larger than average (between PCs and cohorts we're looking at about 8 characters), and pretty highly optimized. They've taken on CR 18+ encounters without too much trouble.

Other notes:

• The minions should be capable of actually threatening the PCs or otherwise drawing fire/attention.
  
• The two PC 'pointmen' (PoW martials) have ACs in the high 30s, most everyone else has an AC of 20 or so.
  
• Ideally, the minions should in some fashion synergize with the rogue boss -- he specializes in ranged sneak attacks and poisons, so something that blinds or flat-foots characters, or something that lowers saves would be ideal.
  
• Minions should be compact -- medium sized or smaller ideally.

Past that, anything goes. I'm perfectly willing to repaint outsiders, undead, what have you.

Suggestions?

If I might ask -- is the rest of the Path of War errata still in the pipeline somewhere?

Honestly that's about what I'd expect for what is functionally an 11th level spell slot (9th level spell + Metamagic Rod).

I use Hero Points, and they're quite popular -- gives the PCs a bit of extra influence over things. I do also give them to antagonists, but only big-name recurring foes, as it makes them more recurring. Basically, Hero Points make fudging a more above-board and regulated things.

Traits are standard, Combat maneuvers are also standard.

Hmm hmm hmm. So, options are:

1) Minions/tying up or expending PC resources (will have to ponder this)
2) Spring Attack to keep mobile, possibly combined with Beastmorph/Burrow (normally a good idea, but if this guy isn't full-attacking I suspect his damage falls down to 'the PCs ignore him' threshold. And a beastmorph pounce build wouldn't fit the plot, sadly)
4) Lesser Globe of Invulnerability (most assured, but it's a Wizard spell too high level to grab via Spell Knowledge, so it's scroll time!)

Otherwise, might need to look for other ways of getting ranged sneaking full attacks... Pity. The advantage of Invis is that it only takes extracts, whereas most other methods require feats on a fairly feat-starved build.

Well, thank you for the suggestions!

...trust me, I am *not* worried about accidentally killing all of the PCs. They're in the low-mid teens, pretty damn optimized, and we're using both Path of War and Hero Points, which means that I've had to go Killer GM just to stand a chance (I see pouncing barbarians in my dreams these days, I swear -- bastard has +13 Initiative to boot!).

Realistically, Alchy is a fairly big-name villain in the campaign, so I'm angling for him to survive a few rounds and make an impression (if he makes it three rounds I'll be thrilled). If he can kill a PC or at least put the fear of god into them, all the better (by this point in the campaign, a Raise Dead or two is mostly a slap on the wrist since the party has a dedicated Resurrection fund).

Anyway, sounds like the best idea is to invest in vanishing minions to soak up resources, and to try not to be where the wizard is tossing glitterdust. Easier said than done, I suppose, but worth a shot.

Question: Is there any way to keep Glitterdust from revealing your location if you are invisible?

Background: I'm a GM, and I'm planning to put my PCs up against a fairly high-level sneak-attacker (Vivisectionist Alchemist that uses throwing knives). To that end, I am looking for ways to let them get sneak attacks, and a Delayed Consumption + Greater Invis seemed like the best solution. I've got Nondetection to make See Invisibility and True Seeing tricky, and Spell Immunity can shut down Invisibility Purge... but what do I do about a no-SR 2nd level spell?

The other source of complexity is that psychic casting is generally unprecedented in the rules before. Like, a magus and an inquisitor may have their own rules, but their spells still generally work like wizard or cleric spells (they have some unique spells but really not many).

Meanwhile, psychic casting has a much higher portion of new spells, and has some new mechanics (undercasting, thought/emotion components).

Is this enough to justify 'hate'? Eeeeeh... but I can see a GM not wanting to deal with it (honestly, given that Pathfinder has something like 40 base classes by now, I can totally see a GM just saying 'sticking to Corebook + APG classes for the sake of my sanity'). Gods Above know I've been tempted to do that.

I'm really looking forward to seeing how the cleric changes his spell list this time.

...I wonder if the cleric can gain levels from defeating PCs.

I think it's fair to say that the occult classes generally skew complex, though how complex depends on the class - Psychic is fairly straightforward, Mesmerist and Spiritualist a bit trickier, Occultist and Medium fairly complicated, and Kineticist is the only class I've seen that has a guide for GMs to understand it.

Inspired Chemist! Perfect, I cannot believe I missed that.

You, madam, are a gentlelady and a scholar. Thank you!

What it says on the tin. Is there any way to get an Investigator Talent without getting 3 levels of Investigator?

Dreikaiserbund wrote:

I am reading! I'm honestly kind of underwhelmed by the boons, but that's not your fault. At least illusionists get an impressive boost, most of the rest seems... 'eh'.

Most of it seems to suffer from the fear of giving PCs stuff that's TOO GOOD that pervades a lot of Paizo's design philosophy IMO. That said, a couple of hair-raising items did slip through -- stuff that's either powerful on its own terms, or abusable if you're that sort of player. Not a lot, but a few.

Doug M.

Leading to us having thousands of feats and magic items, which all get ignored in favor of Power Attack and Toughness... but I digress.

Your work is genuinely useful! It saves me going through all of the Diabolic Boons looking for the few hidden gems, and for this I thank you.

I am reading! I'm honestly kind of underwhelmed by the boons, but that's not your fault. At least illusionists get an impressive boost, most of the rest seems... 'eh'.

so back to the original post. i know eidolon can have his ac be nat ac or normal armor (most pick nat ac so they can add normal armor).

why not just take a medium eidolon.and all nat ac with humanoid body (as much as possible). and after summoning the eidolon wear a normal armor on it? nothing stops a summoned eidolon from picking an armor that fit and wearing it.

Even if that was possible rules-wise, I'm sort of locked into a specific quadruped form by story/plot reasons.

Pretty sure the old White Wolf forums could be worse. Though really, gamers are grumpy.

Anyway, thank you for the Bracers of Armor. Even if I feel a bit silly overlooking them now.

So, I am making a Synthesist Summoner to be the bodyguard of my regrettably squishy Evil High Priest BBEG. To that end, I am toying with using Combat Reflexes + Bodyguard feat to help the BBEG's AC against my worrisomely deadly PCs.

The problem is that the best way to improve Bodyguard/Aid Another is via the Benevolent Armor Enchantment, while Synthesist explicitly calls out armor as not going onto your merged form.

Is there any way around the problem? I don't care about AC or anything else, I'm just trying to see if I can the Benevolent enchantment (I know there are other ways of upping Aid Another, but none so cost-effective).

So far, the voting stands at...

Fitch = 5 votes (she's hilarious)
Ziggy = 3 votes (they're adorable)
Historia-7 = 1 vote (she's hot and has amusing interactions with Ziggy?)
Radaszam = .5 Votes (...no one likes the lizardman)

I will observe that the Vivisectionist Alchemist (which is in Ultimate Magic and is thus hardly an obscure feature) gets sneak attack just like a rogue, has skill ranks comparable to a rogue's (due to having likely better intelligence), and also has Extracts which allow for such useful things as Greater Invisibility letting you independently set up sneak attacks. And Discoveries are, I think, generally better than Rogue Talents (you can pick up cold immunity, wings, etc).

Other classes are generally better than the Core Rogue but different, but the Vivisectionist is as close to a flat out, apples-to-apples comparison as possible. And it blows the rogue out of the water.

Pipefox. Definitely Pipefox.

Well, I suppose it's nice to know I'm not the only one confused here. :B

I was particularly curious about this because I have a high-level campaign boss who 1) has a +2 CR template and 2) has PC-wealth. So at his level, the difference between the two calculations is something on the order of 100,000 gp. Not a small sum, or unimportant in CR calculations!

Hm. How do NPCs in published APs handle this, I wonder. I'll have to poke around.

Pretty much what it says on the tin. Let us suppose that the PCs are fighting a 12th level wizard with the Lich Template (+2 CR). Does our Lich have wealth as a 12th level NPC (21,000) or as a 14th level NPC (34,800)?

Slightly odd question - when an animal has hoof attacks (like, say, a horse or an elk), are these front hooves or hind hooves?

The reason I ask is because if a shapeshifter like an animal lord becomes a half-man, half-elk, and is using a weapon, then I want to know whether or not the shapeshifter still gets hoof attacks (yes, because they become kicks, or no, because they become claw-like attacks and he's using those limbs to hold his weapon)

So, I am looking at the Tempest Gale Discipline and trying to wrap my head around something. Some of your stances increases your CMB for ranged combat maneuvers. Except basically every Strike that actually is a ranged combat maneuver substitutes Sleight of Hand for it instead.

So... how are these supposed to work? Do your stances simply not work with your strikes, or...?

A slightly technical question around the Rod of the Thriceborn - How would this work if the person you target has reroll abilities?

Example: BBEG is an Enchantress with high DCs and a Rod of the Thriceborn. She uses it to cast Dominate Person on the Inquisitor (Spellbreaker), who always rolls twice and takes the higher against Mind Affecting things.

Do the two powers just cancel out? Or what happens?

(Loving the companion, by the way - so very much stuff I am still processing).

An extremely useful and interesting guide. A small question - where is the Banner of the Scarlet Rose from?

Consider looking at Aroden's Spellbane for extra defense. I have used with level 17+ wizards multiple times with great effect.

Considering it. Though the mage only has four 9th level spells, one of which has to be a Conjuration spell, and the other three are probably going to be Time Stop, Disjunction, and Mass Icy Prison.

For various reasons I'm not too worried about Dispel/Greater Dispel, and the PCs and I have a gentleman's agreement not to cast Maze.

If I was any good at links I would post ol varsivius (order of the stick) fight with the black dragon.

I have looked at that, yes... sadly everything of interest is either a pre-cast or no longer in Pathfinder (oh Energy Immunity, if only).

You dont always have to justify how an opponent has a specific spell or ability - it could have been a gift from the gods or through some powerful unearthed spell or one-off magic item they researched and crafted...

True. Well, the mage does have a very powerful cleric as an ally, so getting access to the spell is not an issue. It's more that I dislike wandering into rules-tangles or 'it works because the GM says so' if I can help it.

Still, something to consider.

Huh. I entirely and utterly forgot about adepts. So, overall, seems like Contingency/Heal is a bit iffy but not necessarily beyond the pale. I will consider it.

The other Contingency alternative I'm looking at is stealing Karzoug's "If prevented from taking an action by a spell, hit that spell with a Dispel Magic" Opinions?

Methinks PossibleCabbage has hit the nail on the head. On the one hand, this is kind of a hit to combat maneuver builds. On the other hand... I look around my players, and I think that one out of every two non-casters dips into Lore Warden for a couple of levels. So I am not shocked that it got reworked.

A much cheaper option would be a scroll and a UMD check. DC 31 wouldn't be a given even with the ranks maxed out but it is reasonable enough.

I had been under the impression, based on searching the forums, that you couldn't do a Scroll-based Contingency (well, Contingent Scroll, but that thing annoyingly caps out at 5).

Ravingdork's Crazy Character Emporium

Let me rephrase. Any idea which of the nearly two hundred characters? :p

I note that this would result in most spellcasters becoming effectively bodybuilders -- since every SAD caster typically makes Constitution his second highest ability score.

Heal is a sixth level spell. How are you getting it a ring of spell storing?

There is, I suppose, the Major Ring of Spell-Storing, but that thing costs 200,000 gp -- so I would need to give up both the Greater Quicken Rod and the Orange Prism Ioun Stone to afford it. Contingencied Heal is nice but not that nice.

I would definitely give him some planar bound minions to play with. Astradaemons are my go to for greater planar binding. Powerful angels/archons are also nice if you want to throw in a moral quandary

A bodyguard golem is another great minion option. Effectively adds a ton of hp to a caster(which I find is the main disadvantage of using arcane caster bosses)

*waves hand* Minions I've got covered. There are senior henchman (a cleric and a fighter), along with a veritable army of demonic mooks.

Ravingdork once made a character that was based on long duration buffs. It acts as a great spell list for buffs with a good duration

Oh? Any idea where/who?

Do you need items or is he already equipped?

Any particular theme or play style you want?

I think I am good on items - Major Quicken Rod, Orange Prism Ioun Stone, plus the various stat boosters and I'm solid.

Theme/Style... Extraplanar Archmage, though in general I'm pretty good at making even mundane spells seem dramatic. I do try to keep the combat fun, so I avoid some options (Greater Invis + Mind Blank, say).

The classics are a greater teleport or a heal for contingency, and time stop works brilliantly with things like wall or force, forcecage or delayed blast fireball. I am sure there are more things available now, when I played a lvl 21 wizard in 3.5, maw of chaos each round of the time stop was obscene.

How does one get a Heal on a Contingency? That would probably be ideal, but I'm not really seeing how she would cast it.

Walls of Force/Forcecage. Hum hum.

As an 18th level wizard there's little he shouldn't be using astral projection to fight the PCs from a safe location. Preferably his own private demiplane. They probably also have clones set up in the potential event of their death.

Hum. Duly noted on the Astral Projection/Clone bit.

Is the NPC bound by the same rule about no summoning? If they're not, then the best thing to do is have gated in some other outsiders already and have them fight the PCs in his place. The reason wizards win is getting someone else to do the dirty work for them.

Well. I'm the GM, so the rules are what they say they are. That said, I tend to be pretty scrupulous about players and NPCs working by the same set of restrictions.

Time Stop is great for offensive spells that take more than one round to reach peak effectiveness (e.g. Cloudkill and summoning), and dropping multiple battlefield control spells at once to neutralize opponents and occupy the spellcasters (e.g., prismatic sphere around the martial neutralizes the martial and probably also the caster for at least one round).

I don't know that I've a spare slot for Primsatic Sphere, though I will have to see about at least the Wall version. *jots down Empowered Cloudkill*

I think I may be a defective GM. My players will be facing a CR 20 / 18th level wizard BBEG, and for the first time in my GMing career I have a bad guy high enough level to use both Contingency and Time Stop. Unfortunately, I don't really have any idea what to do with them.

Now, I know the basics - buffing, summoning, etc - and you'd think I could do something with a pair of spells that effectively tip the action economy. But I've got nothing, and so I turn to the wisdom of the forums.

Couple of points:

• Opposition schools are Enchantment and Illusion
  
• I disallow summoning in this game (I have a huge party, so I banned it for 'keeping the GM sane and the combats manageable' reasons)
  
• BBEG will generally know when the PCs are in the area and will have hour/level and 10 minute/level buffs already, most notably the Resist Energy/Protection from Energy line.
  
• BBEG is a freaky outsider, and so very few Polymorph spells are better than her inherent abilities.
  
• She's got Getaway for making rapid exits.

For the record: Dispel Magic
A typical Communal Spell: Resist Energy, Communal

Very simple. Dispel Magic mostly says that you are targeting a spellcaster, creature, or object, but under the Targeted Dispel it also adds that a 'spell' can be a target.

So, suppose that I am a BBEG, and I am facing a party of players who, knowing I like acid spells, has put up Communal Resist Energy (Acid). Can I use a single Dispel Magic to try and unravel the acid resistance for the entire party by targeting their Communal Resist Energy, or no?

I have, over the last few days, read this thread from top to bottom. You, sir, have my deepest admiration, and your silly players as well.

Fiery Shuriken! That's perfect. Thank you, you are the best.

And yes, the point is to clear the way for martials/other spells with attack rolls (Empowered Intensified Battering Blast, Disintegrate, etc).

What is sounds like. What is the lowest level Wizard spell that has the most attack rolls involved -- I need something that I can use to bust through Mirror Image quickly.

Thank you!

Might I propose...

Nick of Time for Haste.

Right now is the nick of time
if you're gonna get it better get with the getting
Right now is the nick of time
let tomorrow worry bout the things that your sweatin'
grab it quick or the nick of time will be gone

Slightly fuzzy. The spell says in the first line that you're attacking a 'single target' as a 'ranged touch attack', so one might reasonably say that it works just like a ray, which Worm-that-Walks explicitly ignore (Disintegrate is specifically called out as a spell that doesn't affect them).

I don't believe it can.

Generally speaking, spells assume that you have a sort of semi-humanoid body in order to cast the usual spells -- at the very least, you can make sounds, have appendages to wave around, and you need access to the material components. This can get a bit sticky for certain spellcasting monsters, but I expect most GMs would rightfully question how a bunch of worms is making noises or the requisite gestures.

Now, druids can pick up the Natural Spell feat to let them cast spells in non-humanoid forms. And a generous GM might let a Worm that Walks pick up a similar feat on the grounds that they'd have practiced worm-casting, if it was possible.

But RAW, I do not believe a Worm that Walks in swarm form can use spells with verbal/somatic/material components.

Something that uses non-defensive illusions -- SLAs like Major Image or Phantasmal Killer, say. The Phasmadaemon would be perfect if it was about six CR lower.

I'm looking for a fairly specific sort of creature, but my knowledge of the Bestiaries is far from extensive -- does anyone know of a monster in the CR 9-11 range that uses illusions heavily? Ideally an Outsider of some manner.

Worst case scenario I'll grab a Vrock or something and stick a Sorcerer template on it with some illusion spells, but I'm hoping for something a bit more interesting than that.

I've a mid-level Evangelist Cleric with a fairly effective buff routine:

Blessing of Fervor (standard) + Inspire Courage (move) + Quickened Bless or Quickened Prayer (swift)

I had a suspicion this would be the case. Pity. Well, thanks everyone!

Bards are one of the most versatile classes in the system -- a Bard is one part rogue (all the skills), one part spellcaster (6th level spells), one part martial (3/4ths BAB and an attack boost), plus a weird AoE buff series. There are archetypes for all of these as well.

When building a bard, you generally want to try and specialize a bit -- at the very least, decide whether you want to lean more towards martial combat or more towards spellcasting.

If you want to make a martial bard, say, your basic strategy is that you pick up Arcane Strike and use Inspire Courage, and you become a fairly decent damage dealer/frontliner -- not as potent as the barbarian or fighter, but you buff others and have some nice utility spells. Arcane Duelist is usually the go-to Bard Combat archetype.

Simple enough. I have a cleric who follows a god of thievery and other shenanigans, and I've been looking for ways to bump my sneaky skills. I notice that the Trickery Variant Channeling can grant a bonus to my key rogue skills.

So, question. How visible is it when you channel energy, either normally or Variant Channel? Can my cleric do a discreet Channel before telling a vital lie or sneaking past a sleeping guard, or is it accompanied by shouted hosannas?

I know what makes *sense*, but I wanted to check if there's anything official on this.