Dustyboy's page

Hey guys, I'm new, broke, and just moved to a new city so I have no friends in person right now.

In the move i lost my books, along with like... basically everything else except for my s+&~ty laptop

So questions questions questions

I've seen that you need books, But my first question is whether or not OGL content is allowed for us broke folks, playing something real simple like a Human ranger or whatnot

Second is how would I go about getting those chronicle sheets? for extra races? are they just awarded by GMs or are they something special for events?

Third is... and final portion is, What kind of players am I going to(Generally) run into at the tables? Is there anything I should know in advance? Gaming culture has a large diversity from stoners in basements (Im in Mass right now so due to the legal status of such things that might be a thing), to IBM geeks, to metal heads, to kinda mean people and of course somewhat simpler oldschool types.

Sooo, what should I be prepared for.

Also I've noticed politics is altering the face of the 40k games, so I'm worried that I'm going to run into overly politcal types, are these frequent in the pfs games? or are people more laid back?

Is there anything I should NEVER DO, or any type of character I should heavily avoid?

should I stick or archetypal fantasy?

And i'm assuming my favorite race isn't allowed, but that's fine (Gnolls).

of course i'm willing to make concessions, I just want to cover all of my bases before i try to hop into a group and make a butt outta myself/look like a jerk. For example I don't want to make an edgedark mary sue stealth thief if it's a lawful good type standard always.

I'm trying to K.I.S.S (Keep it simple stupid),

is there an SRD for the PFS stuff?

So, YEAH. Friend of mine challenged me. I need to build a level 20 rogue that can go toe-to-toe with a wizard, after slogging through his tower, and give him a few new orifices. Orifii?

Feat suggestions, Rogue trick advice, prewritten guides, gear, PrCs, you name it, would all be appreciated.

Three major rules:
1) Everything must be 100% Pathfinder. No 3.5 manuals.
2) No "Gish" (gestalt)
3) No cheese balling. RAW, yes, but no intentional abuse of the rules (such as a thousand shrunken Kobold archers with Swarming and special made projectile weapons through the Creating New Weapons rules allowing for a 890 foot range as a simple weapon).

Beyond that, anything anyone can give as advice would be phenomenal. I have a base plan, but I'm wildly open to anything.

Step one stealth

step two stealth

step three stealth

step four sneak attack one hit combo

Just wondering if anyone can point me to a good list/guide of all sources of companions/familiars/ect and feats that affect them

I'd like to appeal to sensability, if anybody can simply raise a wolf or hyena as a pet, then why do dogs exist? Why have horses when bears are as easy to tame?

A commoner in pf is as potent as a commoner in real life. And quite frankly bears are a hard fight for three or less people

Why in a world where the gods channel power into mortals, and mortals with study can wield nearly the power of the gods, and horrors beyond mention roam the wilds, would a well behaved bear upset the guards?

Because the guards are usually human warrior 1-5

Bears are f+&*ed up

Not familiar with the urban.bunter

And in the rules it explicitly states that an animal companion is a dms responsibility but the ranger or druid can issue it commands.

You can train a dog to surround yoir foe, but you can't train it to do a lot of things you see happen in campaigns, it's why the dm should control the animals and familiars

Yep I said it.

In the dnd world, most people understand social issues with playing an orc, but the issue of having a bear or lion as an animal companion is rarely brought up.

So I want to explain to you the main issue here

Animal companions are autonomous, you can command them but the dm plays them. This means that they are npcs

Now a tamed bear is still a bear , and there is definitely a big problem with walking into town having one.

First off its not gonna realistically be allowed in the Tavern or inn, the stable isn't outfitted for a bear, and letting it roam in a town is out of the question .

There's also the logistics of caging it, especially if you're a ranger or a druid who tends to value freedom

If you have a dog it can likely come into some businesses with you, even the most unruly dog is better received than the most obedient lion when off leash.

A horse can be hitched up to a post without worry that the town guard will shoves Spears into it in a panic.

Arguments for wolves are potentially viable but again I wouldn't leave it alone anywhere, there's definitely a farmer or hunter in town that knows what it is

Basically wolves and big cats are great stat wise, but they should hinder you in role play heavily.

Hell can you even get past a gate keeper with a bear?

There are numerous familiars that also follow this, but as they are small and intelligent they can be more easily concealed or "contained".. chances are your imp knows to stay in rat form and not cause massive havoc

Anumal companion or familiar for me, just something about the role play value of having a creature that you're attached to which us likely also a huge liability ...

And In all honesty if your dm is letting you have a companion in town that isn't a horse or a dog without complaints from locals or the issues of independent feral animals and townsfolk then he's being too open minded

The widest range I can find for that feat is the swashbuckler fighter archetype which has light blades, heavy blades, and crossbows allowing you to essentially sword/board dagger fight or shoot

I'm still on team "bring them to a temple and leave the priest to that judgment"

It'd be a pretty good back story to be a town member in a village that couldn't prevent all the eggs from being smashed but saved one and had to leave in exile to protect it.

Definitely fitting for a half orc

With kobold in particular it is definitely evil

They're not an inherently evil race.

Most of the playable races seem to be evil in the culturally adversarial sense..

It is shown in lore on most of the races that they can be raised in human society and turn out good... or at the least lawful.

This means to me that you should not slaughter their young ... it's definitely advisable to leave them with a temple for good karma

Holly Lisle's Secret Texts trilogy+prequel has a world where magic is powered by sacrifice and causes pollution; the nastier the sacrifice, the more power and the more pollution. Magicians use victims not only to sacrifice but to funnel the power through so that the pollution affects the victim and not the magician. Fun! If you want to read a book but don't want to read four, read the prequel, Vincalis the Agitator, in which the world is pseudo-industrial.

Definitely interested in giving those and dark sun a read

What would the repurcussions of this realization do to a fantasy world?

There are various anti-magic archetypes in pf, though most of them are divine casters.

I'm almost tempted to make some sort of archetype set, with themes of spirit magicians, weapon masters, engineers, and psionic casters who wish to repel outside influence and magic from both divine and extraplanar sources

I could edit the europa typo but I like the idea that Europe is a state of planar apocalypse

Been thinking a lot about this...

In many of the prominent dnd style fantasy role playing games... we see little to no major repurcussions for magic, and when we do they generally tend to be specific spells and affecting specific populations, the caster, or his targeted area.

But what is magic in these worlds?

Generally in the mythos of prominent systems we see that arcane casters pull their power from other realms/planes, and that divine casters are granted their powers by deities, whom also send them from other planes.

In the definition of "divine" I am not including druidic/ranger magics, but rather that akin to paladins, inquisitors, clerics, and avengers.

The other divine casters I put into a third definition which is terrestrial-primal, magic pulled from the plane that the creature is on.

Druids and Rangers for example often get their powers from nature itself, though sometimes they too are empowered by foreign realms such as the feywild. Barbarians, monks, and shaman generally pull their powers from raw powerful mamofestations of emotion, either from within or from lingering spirits... though again they sometimes gain them from outside sources.

So back on point:

Pulling power from other planes in small amounts is generally harmless to all involved planes, but does in fact weaken the walls between dimensions.

This could function as a global ring type effect, elemental planes seeping in to the fabric of the terrestrial world, imagine the havoc of surging flames from the plane of fire, or massive waves from the plane of water.

To imagine a world plagued by planar rift collapsing, I have a semi functional concept by relating planes to planets.

Earth-Venus, where acid pours down from the sky
Air-Jupiter where massive storms rage for centuries and rushing winds turn solid objects into dust

Water pluto/Europe where massive sheets of ice cover flooded land masses

Fire- the sun... arguably the worst

It's just funny and seems as if the race doesn't even thematically match the template

The concept of being a were boat orc without the orc barbarian feats available for example, or a werewolf human without the canine handling feats seems to e an oversight, also where did the claw attacks come from on witch wolf?

I mean rules wise, how does it work, standard skinwalker is human but they can feasibly be of any humanoid race, do try gain anything from this other than size? As in how are they affected by favored enemy? What about subtype in general? How does an orcish skinwalkers stats vary so massively from his kin, And as such how does he interact with his own kind when he has a bonus to wisdom and intelligence, but a detriment to strength?

Edit: I mean comparatively to his kin

Dustyboy wrote:

But this adds to the question: how do you make an army with little to no magic able to handle sorcerers?

Same way ill-equipped armies handled the appearance of machine guns and other battlefield-changing technology: poorly at first, then by adaptive tactics or coming up with their own. Skirmishers and snipers are very effective against armies which focus their power into small areas. For specifics, build up the history of how armed warfare has developed - as each new spell is capitalized by an army, another army will find a way to fight it.

wait... or I could just put more anti-mage snipers in armies... like 2-3 level 11 sniper rogues with a death attack would definitely handle a level 20 wizard if he can't spot them in time right?

as to geurilla warfare, I'm trying to create at least one army of "High tiered" units, for a real horrific enemy. and i don't really want them to have magic... or cavalry.. I want them to be heavily armored switch hitters in general, with specialists on either side of the switch.

of course these forces are the result of the other armies collapsing and merging.

Well, a lot of this is going to depend on how much magic you use. Traditional warfare from medieval time periods tends to fall apart quickly if you throw a few Sorcerors into the mix, much less the high level magic people can eventually get their grubby little hands on. If there's a lot of casters, it's best to look more at relatively modern military tactics.

Also, a good book that at elast partially covers this kind of thing is 3.5's Complete Warrior. The awesomeness of that particular section alone makes the book well worth it, in my opinion.

I'll definitely give that a look!

Yeah the hybrid race i have uses standard infantry that carry repeating crossbows and dual wield when melee comes into play..

But this adds to the question: how do you make an army with little to no magic able to handle sorcerers?

So I'm working on a custom setting, with a high amount of drow, orcs, goblins, a dr'orc (Half drow half orc my lore it's ok) and Gnolls who will be active in military engagements, and i'm looking for places to draw inspiration from on how to build the armies in accordance with their tactics.

What i already know:

Drow: Bats riders, poison, dual weilding, darkness:

Goblins: Bat riders, Fire, Explosions, big guns

Orcs: Medium-heavy armor, Big melee weapons (Such as axes), rage

Gnolls: Seem to be akin to eastern euro/western asian, use of spears, bows, large hyena mounts. Also notable usage of flails and scale mail.

The question is, how do these forces deploy, what would their standard strategies be? For example, historically a french cavalry charge would take place after a large amount of Mercenary crossbowmen have unloaded into the enemy for a few volleys, Romans were noted for use of their turtle-like shielf formations, allowing enemies to surround them and then breaking the shell and having the less-disciplined enemy be overwhelmed in the chaos.

I can see gnolls using ride-by attack tactics to corral and separate their enemies, then dismounting and fighting side by side with their horrifying mounts.

And i can see orcist warg riders attacking while their allies are still hurling javelins.

I could almost imagine goblins with highly mobile siege engines kiting entire enemy armies until they're forced to fight in close quarters

I'm not asking about direct rules, simply numerous examples of how these (And other) armies fight, In pf, dnd, and even warcraft

My favorite companion above all else would have to be the Ape, by RAW you can mount it, and with the right training it can wield weapons, which may seem a bit odd, but consider taking the first feat as a skill focus (Perception or climb?) and then buffing its int to 3, you can have the thing as an Arboreal mount or backup gunner, both if you want to make it some sort of a switch hitter.

you would need to be lightweight (Don't worry because druids, rangers, and hunters are all light armor types), and grab the thing some good mithral armor.

The other thing is that Apes are considered to have a certain aura of intelligence to them, and a totem ape would be fine as you're not worrying about multiattack if your ape has a greatsword or a longbow (Though i'd just give him EWP Double hackbutt)

My ranger at the time was actually a gnoll from a jungle dwelling tribe, citing the social interactions of hyenas being similar to old world apes and a jungle being too dense to cater to the needs of the Hyenadon, so Hyenas are reserved to the baser creatures.. Plus the idea of a tribal gnoll riding on a massive silverback shooting arrows from the treetops is great to me.

There's actually an archetype for inquisitor which grants all teamwork feats to ACs, and an archetype for druid which gives slayer talents (Including "Ranger combat style") as opposed to wild shape.

for your interest here's a list of good classes for Combat Beasts

Hunter: Gaining teamwork feats is brutal, plus having most of the good buffs of a druid is icing on the cake, you're not a switch hitter like a ranger but you have summons and a beefier animal companion, with skirmisher tricks and teamwork feats.

Huntmaster Inquisitor: Two Animal companions, what's better? Well see below

So there's also the Ecclesitheurge Cleric... Extra domain right? doesn't sound that great but.. think about a generalist animal god..

saurian domain, animal domain, Monkey Domain....(1 witchanimal/2fighter) Now go ahead and nature oracle... So you're defending the natural world right? Know what's part of that? Fighting those extraplanar bastards!!!! DOWN WITH THEM! You're going to be a knight of nature... that's right, you're a huntmaster cavalier again for four levels (So level 12.. not bad really), you take beast rider as a feat... now you have a triceratops army, but it's +2 instead of +1.. and if you're worrying about scaling, you're in for a delightful suprise... Hellknight allows you to stack those three domains and the mystery, if you wait a bit longer you could argue being of the philosophy of the noble animal, take chivalry

That's right.. I'm of course talking about
Others:

Diabolist: Imp companions are brutal, you can stack this with quite a few good classes.

1 witch (animal patron) and the rest eldrich guardian fighter: Not technically an Animal companion, but allows you to get an improved familiar (I'd say grab a mauler) with rediculous strength and a lot of feats, I'd actually reccommend imp or monkey again for this as they can use tools, and you can make them medium.

Mauler imp actually gets quite a bit of power, medium creature with a bunch of at wills and strength buffs.

depending on level you might want to take a similar approach with shaman, gets you an animal companion kind of

that's the idea, the DM has ordered us to make annoying and op builds for a campaign so I went pure leadership (God hunter/crusader mythic path abilities, Death mage, enlightened(Gestalt) suzerian Were hyena gnoll with a goal of making everyone a were-hyena for world peace... because he said annoying)

That brings the follower amount up from the hundreds to tens of thousands (Or more really), tempted to gimp this somewhere

Well sir, can I suggest a man of uncalcuable cunning?

I've played a PC who went against gods and kingdoms, using a series of frail excuses. He was Lawful Evil and sought the advancement of the reputation of both himself and his family name, in order to do so he actually built schools, houses, roads, making people love him. He freed legions of Gnolls from demon lords, Orcs from brutal Cheiftains, and goblins from hobgoblins, He was of Mixed Decent being Drow, Orcish, Human and Goblin (Just a half elf wih the half drow tree combined with racial heritage goblin and orc bloodline sorcerer)...

Basically he went on to build an empire of Military, Finance and Education with a Limited Monarchy that was given a great name and a hearty pay cut.... and he took it from both evil and good men along with Demon lords and actual gods.. simply by being deceitful yet never lying, and being honorable but not trustworthy.

FInd one of those in your empire, an outcast... someone of natural ambition, someone who was made to lead even if they're not enlightened.

Yes Int and Wisdom are monopolized, but how about the other combinations? What about a man who's more charismatic than these demigods and doesn't play by the rules? Maybe some event happened that he has the credit for stopping, he might be a general, a slave, a priest, a lawyer, or even just a shopkeeper's assistant. Something makes him realize that he deserves more, and his followers might believe this too.

It also makes it so that your players are stuck between two forces that don't quite seem evil, Maybe they don't fully agree of who to back, The enlightened philosophers offer a world free of inequality and strife, but what advancement comes to those who really deserve it? Then there's the new hero of the commonfolk, who preaches a gospel of making your own path, and makes promises of improving certain aspects of the society, allowing people to attempt to attain true wealth and liberty... even if it means some will go hungry and the issues of capitalism will be raised?

Sorry you say communism, so i figure that means no money, and equal wealth between everyone, regardless of ambition or ability, which can be painted as liberty.

Just because people have what they need in abundance, and some of what they want, doesn't mean they aren't willing to go far to attain more, or even further to make attaining more a possibility.

So a leadership score
Of 29 base and 4 from war master is treated as a leadership score of 33?

Or is it 29?

Do these stack? Could you have two rings?

Does crusader stack over it or directly get multiplied?

As in, if you have Leadership score of 10..somehow (Lowest number so easiest to work with) you gain just five followers

So let's go with five followers for a base

Pop on a ring, that's ten followers, scepter is fifteen (The normal amount)

Can you pop on a second ring for a total of twenty followers?

If you take crusader, would you gain another twenty followers, or just Twenty five?

Before you shout broken, we're dealing with leadership... the campaign is intentionally broken.

So the War master has an ability called Born Leader

[spoiler= "Born Leader"]Born Leader (Ex): This talent adds half a war master’s class level to his Leadership score, for purpose of determining the total number of followers he gains from the Leadership feat (but NOT to determine the level of his cohort) . If this bonus causes the war master’s Leadership score to be 26 or higher, the war master gains further followers. To determine how many additional followers above the normal maximum the war master receives, subtract 10 from the war master’s Leadership score, and compare this new number to the Leadership chart to determine additional followers gained. [/url]

So if you decide to put everything you can into your leadership score.. does it cap at 25+1/2 war master level? or does this effectively remove the cap and add a rapidly scaling equation?

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/3rd-party-classes/super-genius-games/war-ma ster

I'm not sure I follow the reasoning behind using this.

Spend two arcane pool points for the ability to deal up to a whopping 12 damage and regain a point?

why not just dip hungry ghost monk or drunken monk in conjunction with the ki arcana? It'd happen at the same level.

Joe loves Rules wrote:

LazarX wrote:

Dustyboy wrote:

so a two weapon warrior with two of those swords would make six attacks?

it's one of those things that doesn't stack... like the Improved Critical Feat, and a Keen-enchanted weapon.

Dusty, six?

Lazarx, why wouldn't they stack?

From the wording of the enchantment.

d20pfsrd wrote:

This special ability can be placed only on melee weapons. A fortuitous weapon grants the wielder more attacks of opportunity. Once per round, when the wielder of a fortuitous weapon hits with an attack of opportunity, he can make a second attack of opportunity with this weapon against that foe at a –5 penalty.

I'm guessing he's talking about the line that says "can make a second attack of opportunity with this weapon". If you've already made a second AoO with your other weapon, then this is no longer a second but a third.

Well I meant the fighter gains the ability to strike with his offhand during an aoo, so his fits aoo while dual wielding these weapons would hit with both, grabting two more aoos, meaning he'd be hitting with his off hand each time as well, granting six attacks

And thus we enter the dreaded realm of real hands vs. metaphorical hands.

If I have two vestigial arms with flurry of blows, does it automatically become multi weapon fighting?

Does the feat grant the attack?

Can I make all of those attacks with one hand during FOB?

Sorry just trolling you a bit :p

Thank you, that's what I was looking for

Why is anyone saying it can't be done? It obviously CAN be done. Giving the wolf Diefic obedience wouldn't work, but IUAS should be fine

WAIT YOU'RE ALL STUPID IT OBVIOUSLY GIVES +4 TO POISON!!

*Actually on the RAW side it might be legal, but it's definitely not RAI

but you'd have to use a monk weapon

I feel like the logic of allowing it would be terribly flawed.

Let's put this in dynasty warriors terms

Ok so two weapon fighting is a technique, a combo attack type, we'll call it X,y

Improved TWF would be X,X,y, and greater would be X,X,X,Y

Now we have FoB which has the same amount of punches as two weapon fighting.

finally we have spell combat, which is the same amount of attacks, catch my drift?

It's the same amount of effort to use each action, and they're all similar, trying to do more doesn't seem thematic, just power-gamey

so a two weapon warrior with two of those swords would make six attacks?

He is trying to do this--> "20th level familiar, a 20th level animal companion, and a 20th level imp companion"

However since animal companions can not be familiars it already fails. As soon as it achieves one designation then it can not have the other.

What about the true spirit of a Shaman of the nature spirit? Is that not an animal companion and a familiar?

And why does imp companion bar familiar? Show me rules on that or explain in depth.

I'm not trying to argue with y'all i just need understanding. I want this comprehensively shut down in all angles

What about two of these as klats with a trip/shield bash build?

Can't you just take abhorrent familiar?

I mean an arcane/aberrant sorcerer can have three familiars, giving up first power from aberrant bloodline for a familiar, taking the aberrant familiar feat, and taking your second power as the arcane's first...

Animals,

Specifically beasts whom are a threat to others, but are good to their own kind such as intelligent wolves and hyenas....

A focus on balance,Between civilization and nature, the living and spirits? Possibly they still hunt, maybe they hunt humanoids and defend nature?

OH GOD

NEUTRAL F~~%ING GNOLL SOCIETY BABY

just take out the torture fluff and you got youself something interesting.

Dustyboy wrote:

sunbeam wrote:

Oh snap, I could still use my idea (lost caster level and all) by taking the Burnt curse.

Kind of weird to have that with a water themed character that wants to take advantage of cold damage.

Hmmm actually you could have two different kinds of ice walls that way: Wall of Ice, and Wall of Fire changed to Ice.

sounds like you're gonna find yourself glimpsing at winter witch, both the prc and the ACF

I'd advise you to consider them.

That might be more optimized but I was really wanting to go nautical as a theme. That revelation is really interesting and I was just trying to find some way to make it useful.

Nautical, I once had a dirty fisherman in full plate who lobbed rope-harpoons and had a thing for barely legal elf boys... though he kept talking about the ladies.

Have you considered the various cold/aquatic themed cleric domains?

The question is, why crossbow? Every single build that you can do with a crossbow, barring bolt ace, can be done with a longbow. The only place the crossbow outshines the longbow is vital strike or sneak attack with a scope....

But even there you might as well use a firearm, it takes less effort to use a firearm for the same purpose.

it's not about being optimal, its about not overly nerfing yourself. Again I've seen some good fringe builds, but they require a lot of feats to get started and generally aren't PFS legal.

On a side note, a dwarf can take the cleave feat line and snapshot line to make all of his secondary attacks against targets within 15 feat of his crossbow.

It's only good with a launching crossbow though.... And a dwarf with the orc bloodline can use surprise followthrough to make them all flatfooted.

That's a lot of feats though...
Power attack
cleave
great cleave
Goblin Cleaver
Orc Hewer
Surprise followthrough
improved surprise follow through

Rapid shot
Point blank shot
rapid reload
EWP Launching xbow

Even with the following build
Gendarm cavalier 1 (Power attack)
Corsair fighter 2 (EWP xbow, Cleave)
far shot monk 2 (Rapid shot, quick draw, Point blank shot)
then your three feats from CL 5 would be Rapid reload, Goblin Cleaver, Orc Hewer.

You still need Snapshot, weapon focus, Great Cleave, Improved Snapshot, Surprise followthrough, and Improved surprise followthrough.

You can get both surprise followthrough as a rogue (Skulking slayer), which stacks with the underground chemist... you can grab at leas one of these feats through combat trick, maybe weapon focus is a rogue talent too?

It'd still be a lot, but if you crank up alchemy and use splash weapons you'll deal a lot of damage

As a guy who owns three large dogs, which is anatomically similar to a wolf if you ask me, I've witnessed them use not only chest bumps but also paw swipes when playing, they are anatomically capable of doing this.

The damage doesn't upgrade the bite, it gets normal UAS damage

Oh snap, I could still use my idea (lost caster level and all) by taking the Burnt curse.

Kind of weird to have that with a water themed character that wants to take advantage of cold damage.

Hmmm actually you could have two different kinds of ice walls that way: Wall of Ice, and Wall of Fire changed to Ice.

sounds like you're gonna find yourself glimpsing at winter witch, both the prc and the ACF

I'd advise you to consider them.

So as an Imp companion and witch familiar the creature gains

Familiar:
Strength increase from size
Strength increase from Eye for talent
Strength increase in place of int increase for Mauler
Strength increase from Mammoth mystery
DR/5 Magic from Mauler
Natural Armor increase from Animal Mystery
Combat feats from player through eldrich scion
------
Imp Companion:
Bonus spelllikes
8 Bonus feats
Str/con bonuses
Natural Armor bonus
d10 hit dice
------
Animal true spirit ability (Assuming boon companion)
8 bonus feats
Loses base animal spirit physical stats in exchange for an animal companion's stats
Does this take away the bonuses from the mauler archetype? or from the imp companion's progression? Or just from the base stats and 4th level advancement?

----

Level progression

2 eldrich guardian/mutation warrior (Most reward)
1 witch,
1 diabolist
16 shaman, animal spirit, wandering mammoth spirit.

Whoa. Didnt know Id actually get any response to this. Well here are a few choice responses.

1st, yes I did not indeed write this in the form of a question. Guess I should have added, would you do the same at the bottom of my post or something.

2nd, Really, I posted this because I was mad at this terrible decision to screw over prcs even harder then they already are so that people will continue to play the same limited sprue of builds by penalizing the desire to actually use the prcs or multiclass by making it as bad or as painful as they can.

3rd, No obviously I am not talking about society play. Personally society is much too stuffy for me. Also online play isnt really my thing and I know that's how id be doing it if I did play society. If you play society, then you play by their rules. There are no exceptions.

4th, yes I realize that this is a game where in all reality, unless you are playing society, the only true rule is that the GM is God, and what he/she says goes. So as far as ignoring ruling like this, that is completely within the scope of the GMs power.

5th, One big reason I will not be using this terrible ruling is because we are just about to finish building progressions for a campaign meant to go on for years where all but one of the characters were using SLAs gained from custom races to qualify for early entry into PRCs like Cerebremancer, and Mystic Theurge.

6th, Nice to see that some people other than me were upset about this. Although I had no idea that apparently there was a sh**storm about it when they released the decision a few weeks ago. They really should have left this one alone. Some of us dont like playing bland ol single class characters. Some of us like trying to create unique characters from classes that are typically considered to be subpar because of the way that they are built. The previous ruling on this allowed us that and now they want to take that away. Well, I refuse. I have always been one to say that I would rather have a ruling on something one...

they always nerf the things that don't need nerfing and leave alone glitches like Racial heritage half orc followed by half-blood extraction

Important things to note:

"Although a shaman's spirit animal uses the statistics of a specific animal, it is treated as an outsider with the native subtype for the purposes of spells and abilities that affect it."

and

"Levels of different classes that are entitled to familiars stack with shaman levels for the purpose of determining any spirit animal abilities that depend on the shaman's level. If a shaman possesses such levels in other classes, her spirit animal always uses the shaman rules for spirit animals, not those used by familiars of other classes (such as witches, wizards, or sorcerers with the arcane bloodline)."

The diabolist's imp, while similar to a Druid's Animal Companion, is not an animal companion NOR a familiar.

True Spirit Ability

A shaman who chooses the nature spirit as her spirit or wandering spirit gains the following ability upon having access to the true version of that spirit.

Companion Animal (Su): The shaman's spirit animal takes the form of an animal companion of her choice, using her shaman level as her effective druid level. The animal retains all the special abilities and the Intelligence score of the spirit animal, but also has the statistics and abilities of an animal companion. If the animal is dismissed, is lost, or dies, it can be replaced in the same way as a normal spirit animal.

The ammmoth shaman ability doesn't work, the animal shaman takes the form of an animal companion.

and with improved familiar the shaman can, afaik, actually make his imp companion into a familiar as the rules do not prohibit the imp companion from becoming a familiar, to the contrary flavor text supports the concept.

Imp Consular

One in every thousand imps possesses the ability to communicate telepathically with creatures within 50 feet and the power to change its form into that of any Small or Tiny animal, as per the spell beast shape II. These imp consulars are highly prized by powerful devils, who send them to serve their favored minions or to corrupt mortals with great destinies. An imp consular can be summoned via the Improved Familiar feat by a spellcaster of 8th level or higher. Diabolists tell of other breeds of imps with similarly specialized abilities, but if such creatures truly exist they are an especially rare lot.

So is this the progression?

level 1: Human Mammoth Shaman
Level 2: Fighter (Eldrich Guardian)
Levels 3-5: Shaman
Level 6: Diabolist
Level 7: Animal Patron Witch
Level 8-20 Shaman

At Level 7 you take the feat Improved Familiar as you get your level of witch, so that the Imp gains Speak with animals of its kind, which it promptly gives up in order to gain the Mauler Archetype.

You won't get your spirit manifestation or your true wandering spirit. You will have all 9 levels of spells as a Shaman - but you will be short 2 9th level spells and 1 8th level spell compared to a straight shaman.

however you will have a medium sized, full BAB, (20)d10 Hit die, bonded Imp companion/familiar that can deliver spells, hexes, and use any and all combat feats you take in addition to all feats it takes at odd hit die

Or do you take 3 more levels of diabolist after the witch, so that you get the 4th level imp advancement that comes with sticking with diabolist, before going back to shaman... you lose no spells, you actually only lose a single hex compared to the first path....

Well AFAIK the imp companion will stack with your caster levels in classes that don't grant animal companions.. so it'd gain it's full imp progression...

A creature can't be both a familiar and an animal companion.

Except that the imp companion is not an animal companion, and the shaman's animal spirit makes your familiar take the form of an animal companion.

Dustyboy wrote:

It still counts for caster level though right? so arcane strike still works.

Prereq for Arcane Strike is "ability to cast arcane spells," which mundanes with SLAs no longer count for. This is different from having a specific spell as a prereq, such as with Dimensional Agility. There, having an SLA of Dimension Door qualifies.

Yes but does the caster level of the SLA still count? If you have a single spell for example, and then a scaling SLA such as drow's darkness. will the caster level count?

Oh there's the third way too with a splash weapon launching crossbow rogue... but that's really expensive