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Your party will not be as effective psi if no one has the diviner always act ability since its possible to fail perception. So i'd recommend giving your cleric the divine strategist archtype to ensure everyone always acts, you sacrifice channel and a domain.
Archer bard party face with buffs and skills providing ranged damage, normal twf rogue providing skills and sneak attacking(at a higher level i would give this guy keen kukri's and butterfly sting), cavalier shield tank order of the bro with bodyguard also provides survival skill and intimidate for the rogue to shatter once they both have the feat trees then upgrades to a pick/shield combo when the rogue gets butterfly sting(basicly one shot kills after the rogue passes a crit), diviner wizard with a crossblooded sorc dip provides artillery and control effects necromancy and illusion are barred schools also provides massive knowledge skill checks so between wizard and bard party always knows whats going on, dual cursed life oracle providing rerolls and healing/shielding with a reach weapon to attack past the cavalier. Everyone is human and took lookout as a bonus feat. 1. Bard wins diplomacy with spell bonuses and oracle aid another. If we get jumped my entire team act in the surprise round, rerolls from the life oracle makes the sos spells stick and the party can set up in a very strong line. 2. We always act in the surprise round and we got captured by GM fiat, then we have to wander through a long boring maze with no encounters? Sounds time consuming but not challenging. Rogue takes the lead, oracle can still cast as much as it wants, cavalier will pick up the first weapon it sees since it doesn't specialise, bard is a skill/buff monkey, wizard gets boned by the badly written plot unless the GM happens to leave some toys to help the wizard out nearby. 3. Hack and slash with bard buffs and haste. The oracle/rogue/cavalier working in a line to chop through melee. Wizard can blast or control as required. Life oracle has no trouble with emergency healing. 4. Charm from the wizard or bard, diplomacy from the bard or oracle, theivery from the rogue. There are a few ways around it, probably start with diplomacy then steal and use charm as back up. 5. We don't do dying, wizard opens with blast or control, bard buffs and shoots, rogue gets flank with cavalier and the oracle uses its polearms from behind the cavalier. Rerolls from the oracle and free teamwork feats from the cavalier keep everyone alive. 6. A combination of everything above, once i have diplomanced a king, killed an entire tribe of humanoids, bought gear in an unfriendly city, escaped a trap filled prison and cleared a dungeon complex settling a strange land should prove easy enough. The rogue could be replaced with an urban ranger shield fighter and then the cavalier could go for a two handed or dual wield build for extra damage from his challenge ability. Having an extra front liner might work out better than the rogue.
With two high str fighter types you might not need a porter at all, but if your getting a wagon having a driver can help. Just depends how much stuff you want to take with you.
Its probably more like 80% due to the shield basher taking a twf penalty and reducing their accuracy, but shield master can off set some of that in the mid to high levels. Its more expensive money wise to keep two weapons enchanted as well. However the shield user is less likely to die, iterative attacks may miss and they punish power attack usage from npc's. Having two attacks can sometimes be a benefit as well such as against many lower cr opponents to spread damage rather than overkill and easier negation of the 1s always fail issue two handed fighters can sometimes have when their primary attack hits a brute npc on a 2. My personal experience is that 2her fighters are a waste of damage a lot of the time and it rarely matters when they crit, unless you hit for the monsters exact remaining hp you overkilled it and a lot of the 2h fighters i have run for overkill npcs with their minimum damage. They could do the same thing with a 1h weapon and have better defenses, i also find that i often put 2h fighters into negatives if they do not outright kill the npc with their attack since they are not really optimised for the return salvo.
My current barbarian is using a shield as his primary, carries a few other weapons as well but i'm pretty sure the people that he killed in one hit (at level one with only 14 base strength) with two handed charging large shield attacks would say that its a valid choice. Using improved shield bash and a large shield as a two handed weapon was quite funny andnot something i would have done for a whole level unless the game forced me to, but after that first level its my go to tactic until i can get my cestus into play as well. One thing to remember is you can use a shield and not harm your damage too much, most weapon damage is about the +damage not the die you roll anyway and a well built character will often have such a large + that whatever he rolls kill the target. D4+10 and 2D6+10 have a minimum damage of 11 or 12, that kills most first level mooks, once you get into +20 teritory your damage dice are just something its nice to see a high number on to giggle about.
Sub sect of CG worshippers of Calista dedicating their lives to revenge on the foes of humanity for every wrong ever recorded.
You may need to re read the scout archtype and rethink your plan, i'm not sure how your moving and full attacking at the same time but even if you can the scout movement sneak attack only applies on the first attack anyway. You'd be better off making a crossbowman fighter sniper rogue gestalt and pestering them with massive hits once every 3 rounds or so and using stealth invisibility nondetection to annoy them until they find a way to deal with it.
No bbt, since they say they target the entire corpse (just like animate corpse) they would still work. Its also not a house rule, just the fluff reason i would give for saying no to animating an entire corpse with animate objects.
I'd say its an object but i wouldn't let someone target a corpse with animate object. The reason i would give at the table is that the corpse is a collection of objects and you coukd animate individual bones but to move the whole thing you need necromancy.
Net as already mentioned, sling as well. My new favourite is the cestus, you can throw a net and hold the trailing rope in your cestus hand while still punching with the cestus. Using a net, cestus and heavy shield combo on my twf barbarian at the moment and while i've not had the chance to test it in combat but i look forward to the opportunity to net a wizard and beat him senseless. The humble javlin with ammentum is basicly a reusable shortbow that adds your str bonus to damage. I also love the pilum for pinning shields. The longspear which nearly everyone can use for reach and is cheap as well as effective. Gladius from UC, heavier to carry but can be a slashing weapon so better than a shortsword. I think its better than a longsword as well since it can be piercing if neccessary.
Thats an acrobatics check followed by a bullrush or trip attack with a +2 bonus for attacking from higher ground. I doubt it would be more than difficult for a lightly armoured first level rogue with a decent dex score, probably about dc20 then bbeg's cmd.
We used to use an addative reroll in 3.5, but tbh there are just some things skill checks should not accomplish. I do house rule that concentration and SR checks are auto pass on a 20 though, since they are very similar to attack rolls.
I will definately be able to keep up with our current pace, it will just take me a little time to get my level up etc sorted.
I'll try and level up on sunday and I'll read over the loot list then as well, my partner just gave birth and i'm currently setting up a kingmaker pbp as well so i am a little swamped. I also kind of want to see the other judges weigh in before i level up as with just one judge its a bit of a waste.
I'm not sure on your point, but... I don't mind the big six, i tend to limit them to a certain GP value like the rules recommend for most large cities. I think getting better than a +4 weapon or +6, +4/+4 or +2/+2/+2 stat item etc should require either self crafting, doing something for a powerful crafter or finding/questing for it. If my players head to a huge city i tend to roll up a few really powerful items or even make up some unique items they can buy. I always give my players the big six since they help the game run smoother and since MMO's players like numbers a lot more than flashy effects, but if i throw in a rumour about a cleric who has hermitted himself in a hard to reach location who makes +5 heavy fortification rings of protection then the players might take a detour to chat with him. It helps to make the crafting feats worth while as well, you can magic mart your way up to level 12 but after that you need to find ways to keep your power level up.
The difference between the words "may" and "must" is quite big though. From the same book (UC) there are archtypes such as merciful healer which have the word "must" in their archtype replacement abilities. I never mentioned rage powers so i am not sure where that came from but nm. Controlled Rage doesn't modify or replace the existing rage class feature, the word "may" makes it an option an urban barbarian can utilise rather then entering a normal rage rather than forcing him to use controlled rage. the words "when the urban barbarian rages" have nothing to do with the availability or not of a normal rage since the qualifying word "may" is the important part of the sentance, and the section at the end "this ability otherwise follows the normal rules for rage" also has nothing to do with the availability of the normal rage, it means that the urban barbarian has the same number of rounds usage per day and follows all the normal rules for activating and using rage powers as well as for fatigue when entering and leaving rage, etc. Extrapolating from that your own interpretation is quite easy, however those two parts of the sentance have nothing to do with the word "may" or the fact that normally when an archtype ability replaces or modifies an existing ability it is called out at the end of the ability. If it did modify the Rage class ability then it would have the same tag at the end of it that the Honour Guard archtype ability Sworn Defense has...
...and this is an archtype from the same book which should really be using the same presentation as every other archtype in the book. However getting started on the inconsistencies in presentation of each archtype over the core rule books is not something that needs to be rehashed, so i have hit the FAQ button. I do not disagree that the intention "may" be that the urban barbarian loses access to the normal rage but quoting JJ who has been incorrect before when the FAQ has come out and throwing out bits of random text that do not stay uniform across the same book nevermind the whole product range to try to support your position does not prove it either way. I am not saying that i am right or even that you are wrong, i am just saying the the evidence you have pointed out is not pertinent to the discussion and that this needs to be resolved in an official FAQ rather than by JJ's home rules since, he does occasionally make decisions which are not backed by the eventual FAQ.
The ask JJ thread is kind of his take on things though, i'd like to see a faq since controlled rage does say "...insted of entering a normal rage an urban barbarian may..." which in my eyes makes it a choice. It also does not have the "this ability replaces..." tag which everything that replaces does. Either the wording is badly done or the barbarian gets to choose, it also brings into question weather the UB can access rage feats since he doesn't have rage according to JJ's post.
Hello pbpers, I have been putting some thought into a pbp and have finally decided to try my hand at it after having a great experience playing in one of Lucendars games. Rules, we play as closely to raw as possible, core/apg/um/uc are allowed as are anything from the campaign setting books as long as its on the pfsrd. 15 point buy
I will be recruiting 5, maybe 6, players and tweaking the AP as such. I would like to warn you that the first book and into the second book until your kingdom gets rolling can be a little treasure light, i will be slotting some more stuff in. I'd like a little bit of fluff on your background and the reason you wanted to head to the stolen land, a simple paragraph will do. Recruitment closes at 7pm gmt on Saturday 12th of May, if its a slow response i might extend it. I would like people to commit to 10 posts a week, weekends are understandably quiet but if we are mid combat posting your action to keep the game moving would be appreciated. Also one last bit of fair warning, if you want to play a summoner your math better be prefect because i hate checking sheets for errors and this class drives me crazy, its not an auto no but if there are mistakes in your first draft it will be a no.
Well i'm lurking and waiting, since we are just theory crafting it rather than playing it player tactics will remain the same other than on really tough encounters so my recent gameplay posts were a bit sparse but the oracle is well built and performs pretty well no matter the encounter and the wizard is pretty much support at the moment since we're still only level 3.
I have been trying to get a ranged inquisitor into a game but there are quite a few divine applicants already. I will write up a Magus this evening for the application but if you would like another divine caster i can rewrite my skulls and shackles applicant. If you check my posting history on Menas i can see i post between one and three times a day depending on how fast the game is, i normally check up on posts during my lunch break at work.
While a net is considered a weapon a character using brass knuckles and a weapon such as a longsword could use the net, draw the sword and then two weapon fight while holding the trailing rope in his brass knuckle hand. Makes for really good control since whatever you net is anchored to you.
Just a note on the detect magic issue, if you read the spell and follow the usage via RAW its terrible for detecting anything. 1st round reveals the presence or absence of magic items in a 60ft cone, 2nd round the guy your detecting simply walks out of your cone and you have to begin detecting again, its a terrible spell for catching anything that has half a brain and can move, as are all of the detect spells. The pathfinder field guide has some excellent adventuring kits in it by the way, Pathfinder kit/dungeoneering kit/spelunking kit are all great additions to any characters inventory and the chirurgens bag is invaluable for just 400gp.
My favourite is an image of a prismatic sphere, very few npc's are willing to interact with it to disbelieve and you can walk through it freely since thats how the spell your pretending to cash works anyway.
Just waiting for Abraham to get back so we can decide exactly how we want to proceed tbh ciretose, i don't think heading into the dungeon should be a problem but we might want to go sneaky so we'll have to plan around uGo's shocking stealth ability.
If your going to use esoteric training your better to back load, for standard mt your better to front load to get into it as soon as possible.
Witches do not cast divine spells, they cast arcane versions of spells which are normally divine. Like bards.
the 5 fame version gives you one level early entry into MT thats true. i would probably go sorc 1 with crossblooded, level in oracle (probably fire blasting) up to 3, get the extra caster level in oracle to make up for the lost level as part of sorc then keep playing straight oracle until i could get the better version of esoteric training to bump my sorc level up to 4, i'd probably end up with something like sorc 1/oracle 7/mt x with full casting in oracle and 3 levels behind in sorc. If i were going for a blaster i could easily get full progression casting on the oracle and still qualify for mystic theurge so i could use the extra spells from crossblooded sorc to up my defenses, illusions are one of the things that the divine spell list really misses out on so picking those up with the extra spells you get from sorcerer mystic theurge would be handy. You could also use the theurgy feat to negate your energy resist/immunity worries. No doubt you could go for something entirely different but that would all be based off one casting stat, if your going to mystic theurge though you could really take advantage by going summoner/cleric, wouldn't be amazingly overpowered but summoner has a really good spell list.
35 fame with the white grotto in absalom using the guild rules from inner sea magic would qualify you for advanced esoteric training which gives you 3 fake levels in one spellcasting class, including spells know and spells per day and one level in another spellcasting class, including spells known and spells per day up the a maximum of your overall character level. So with this a sorc 1/clr 2 could be a sorc 4/clr3 for casting purposes and qualify for the prestige class as they would be able to have 3 ranks in the necessary skills and be able to cast 2nd level arcane and divine spells. Getting to 35 fame before level 7 is unlikely though.
Thats bad news Abraham, obviously you should take as long as you need. Wish your family well from all of us.
If you check out the prolific number of blaster optimisation threads and the infathomable number spontaneous vs prepared threads there is more than enough discussion on blasting and sorcerers in general. I'd like to avoid derailing the thread so i'll just quickly mention that without the crossblooded dip static damage boost blasting is considered inefficient due to the fact that it does not keep up with monster hit points, this is the main reason for TM's dislike of blasting in his guide. As the guide the OP has writen discusses crossblooded is a terrible archtype for pure sorcerers and works best as a dip for a wizard to blast with, in the interests of not derailing the thread any more if you would like to discusz this further i would recommend making yet another blaster or spont vs prep thread.
I've sent a message to Syl in the hopes he will return as we had been discussing some things via message anyway. If you want to give him until the weekend thats fine with me. Moving back over the bridge to rest then coming back was my suggestion i think so i'm happy with it, if people want to stay in the fort iGo is a bit low on spells but uGo can probably duo whatever comes at us overnight with Boghu considering the resources she has left over if people really want to stay there. If you want to put some monsters upstairs ciretose then that does seem like a reasonable npc reaction to discovering their fort has been cleared by adventurers.
Your quotes are good, i think my original point about the spirit of the rules still stands. A faq on the sbject would be handy but our group will continue to disallow a lesser rod to be used on an already metamagic'd spell if the metamagic brings the spell level above 3rd. I'd be surprised if many gms allowed it though if i'm honest.
I think i was torn between power attack and heavy armour prof then decided at the last minuite that i since i had enough cash for full plate i'd take heavy armour prof. I actually went over that last post twice because i thought i had mentioned power attack in it and i could not find it when i went back to edit, now i see its in the second to last paragraph and i must have glossed over it. I'll edit the character sheet and fix it. Good judging Tark, accurate and pretty much what i expected. One correction though, iGo cannot memorise invisibility over detect thoughts as it is his speciality slot and invisibility is not a divination spell. While invisibility would have been useful Salis can cast vanish repeatedly so if there is a point that we really need a +20 stealth check (like on the oracle) Salis can cast it in a shadow to last 4 rounds which is more than enough for an invisibile dash.
I've checked the faq's and i cannot find any reference to metamagic rods working that way. If you could provide a link when you get time that would be awesome, smartphones are indeed a pain for finding and linking. If metamagic rods can indeed be used in such a way then they are a lot better than i thought, however as i mentioned i do not think my group will be happy with the ruling.
No mention of intensify spell, if your building a blaster it should be sky blue and the first metamagic feat you pick up, probably at level 5 if you've built your caster level correctly. Agree on crossblooded, its a dip archtype not a full progression one. I didn't read all of your bloodline analysis but there are quite obviously good or bad options depending on what you want your sorcerer to do, its more of a fluff choice unless your heavily optimising. If in doubt arcane is best and you have that rated blue so good stuff. I'm not sure on the spirit of the rules when using a lesser quicken rod on a empowered maximised fireball cast from an 8th level slot, if thats how you play fair enough but that wouldn't fly with my group. One thing to mention is that other than quicken all rods increase casting time to a full round action for sorcerers. Also surprised you mentioned spell perfection and not spontaneous metafocus, if your using one spell a lot using its standard casting time is worth a feat. Your spell section is strong, theres a lot to be said for the shadow spells if you can use feats from inner sea magic, even if you cannot use that book persistant shadow conjuration/evocation with illusion focus and greater can make excellent multi purpose spells. Obviously any spell that covers many bases is ideal for a sorcerer and you get that across well. Your item selection is great, nice idea with the duelling weapon.
Part of the trick is building a strong foundation, my character in our current group just took over and no one argued. I made everyone agree to a party charter on loot splitting, party interaction (no stealing, no pvp) and expenses (getting arrested for fighting in the street is not an expense, unless it was preplanned). I'm playing a LE wizard and i get my party to do things via the illusion of freedom of choice, enlightened self interest or just plain cash. I wouldn't have bothered with the party contract other than there being a few chaotic party members who are leaning toward evil. The main trick is that people can't argue with success, keep them busy adventuring and get the treasure rolling in then they won't have time to ask annoying questions about weather it was really neccessary to summon a soul eater or why they shouldn't go in your room.
I'd have to agree, going first and going automatically in the surprise round is nice, but, conjuration has better spells and swift action movement is boss. Out of the two i think conjuration wins just because it can use its speciality slots effectively every day. I'd also like to mention how easy it is to boost perception and initiative to high modifiers on a wizard anyway, as well as the lookout feat letting you act in the surprise round if an ally can act. Lookout does give a huge benefit to a diviner and his party though. Overall i'd lean towards conjurer but as the game gets to really high levels and more rocket taggy diviner might win just because of the initiative bonus.
Recruiting a few more judges would not be a bad plan, since its quite heavily opinion based i can't help but think more opinions would be better to get an overall picture. That said i've just read AU's post in the gameplay thread and i think he is spot on with his judgement, as strong as the oracle is her weaknesses (mobility and stealth) are highlighted in this fight and thanks to the wizards performance her strengths are probably not required. I'm actually surprised that the AP still has you fighting standard goblins at level 3 but then again you have to have easy fights as well as hard ones and it does kind of play into the point i was trying to make all those weeks ago that a good caster probably won't even be casting every fight.
If your looking towards monk quiggong is a very good option to give up some chafe abilities and pick up some decent spells. Barkskin is great. I'm of the opinion that any archtype which replaces stunning fist is a trap option since stunning fist interacts so well with medusa's wrath. But if your not going for maximum optimisation and want to make a hungry ghost monk for character purposes its not terrible by any means.
you don't seem to have factored your racial modifiers into your stats as a large creature with only 18 str in a 35 point buy game is probably wrong. Don't take weapon focus, your -1 to hit should be offset buy your str bonus for your size. Do not dump your wisdom stat in a 35 point buy build, its not clever. Consider using a scimitar insted of a flachion so you can go either 2h or shield, or drop the falchion and get a reach weapon as it will play off your already extended reach. Pick up combat expertise early on. If you go reach weapon do not bother with the step up line, if you go scimitar it may be worth while but if your next to your target it cannot escape without withdrawing due to your reach. Extra LoH is a great feat for OoV paladin since its an extra smite, don't take it to many times, once is more than enough as at higher levels when you have loads of LoH available you will be saddened you took it at all.. Consider picking up eldritch heritage, there are a huge number of excellent bloodline abilities which compliment paladins as a whole and 2her builds are not particularly feat intensive anyway.
Honestly, I'm kind of sorry I brought it up. That's way too much effort for a silly "Gotcha!" gag encounter. The fact that a lich has to be a decent level of spellcaster means that even a silly "Gotcha!" gag encounter has the potention to kill the entire PC party if they do not take steps to deal with the lich in the first turn or so of the fight. Any way you swing the NPC build to make the Gotcha! encounter actually work will make it a very challenging fight, but then this is a thread about death dealing so...
In the case that turin put up i would have no problem with my undead expert not noticing the lich. But then again why is he not just mindblankgreaterinvisibileoverlandflyingprojectimaging himself into the middle of the mummy/skeletons? it seems a lot of effort for a very powerful spellcaster to go through when he is just going to reveal himself the first time he casts a spell. Any party with an AOE ability will relish the opportunity to use it on a bunch of minions for giggles in my experience, knowing that medium skeletons of any type (not skeletal champions which are a distinct form of undead and would not suit your plan unless they also had monk or spell caster levels) have very few HD since not many medium base creatures have more than 1 racial HD anyway using a simple fireball or channel energy is the most efficient way of dealing with them most medium humanoid skeletons die from the average roll of a 3rd level clerics channel even if they pass the save so by the time your hitting lich territory the ~5d6 channel is going to end the fight, your group may just like slogging through skeletons however. Also in my experience my players ALWAYS roll knowledge skill checks if they have them even on simple monsters incase i changed something to freak them out. I'd definately write in some kind of skill check if you want your lich to blend in just so your players do not feel cheated by the simple nature of the disguise as even a master of disguise lich has a chance to make a mistake and walk or move different to a mindless undead. Another option would be a lich wizard conjurer teleportation sub school of a certain level lets say 15 and his apprentices who are skeleton champion wizard conjurer teleportation sub school lets say level 7. Now at the end of their turn (using telepathic bond and syncing their initiative, or even the lich using battlemind link) they all teleport as a swift action, they are all wearing matching robes, rings and headbands, carrying matching wands (of an annoying spell, acid arrow or something similar) and they all move at once to deliver a touch spell or cast a spell from their current square, they all have overland flight (cast by the lich) the all have mage armour, non detection, resist energy etc (self cast), they all have a vanish or invisiility in memory as well as some aoe spells and some melee touch spells. The area they are in is a series of eight (like a cube so three dimensional) 20ft square rooms seperated by 1 foot thick walls with no doors in them and each seperate room has a reseting mass inflict critical wounds trap targetting everything in the room 1 full round after the magical sensor (invisible in the exact centre of the room) detects any form of movement, the entire area is covered by a covered by a dimensional anchor spell effecting everyone but the lich and his apprentices, oh and the entire area has permanent deeper darkness spells cast throughout. If an apprentice gets too damaged they teleport through a wall and the lich can repair his minions with his touch attack while the party try to work out where they went, the lich has two dimension doors in memory so he can teleport himself and all of his minions 200 feet straight down into their actual lair and back again once they have healed up, he saves his dimensional steps school ability to escape if the fight goes horribly wrong. I would probably open with a black tenticles or something similar and pound the room with acid spells from the lich (caustic erruption?) then let the apprentices use acid arrow or some such to wear down the PC's and distrupt spell casting, strip the parties defenses with dispel magic and hammer them with negative levels and ability damage/drain as well as all of the normal annoying conjuration control spells while the acid does its work, perhaps make the lich cast a dazing acid fog spell before he leaves the room to heal his minions? If you want to be really horrible you could have them placed in this horrible situation via a teleport trap when they are attempting to break into what they think is the liches lair via some form of teleportation magic and the lich has his mental alarm go off so he and his minions can spend 10 rounds or so buffing up and scrying the location before they greater teleport in and open up with the spells. That would be if i wanted to make a killer confusing lich encounter.
looks a good build, decent damage at lower levels and good control/denial at higher levels. I'd look at your other spell options as well for when your not fireballing though!
The problem with the lich surrounded by skeles is that unless your using mega skeles then any party for which a lich is an appropriate challenge will destroy all the skeles with an aoe or a channel or by looking at the mean. The only good way to do it is either with a monsterous lich and monsterous skeles, giants or trolls or ogres. Another option would be a bandage wrapped lich and some mummy monks, a truely horrible combination. Templated skeles would work but if i were playing a character who rolled 30+ on knowledge religion i'd be pretty annoyed i thought a lich was a skelton when i am clearly an expert on the subject, would probably require the lich have bluff vs sense motive to see if he gets away with it.
Give the potions of clw to the arcane casters just incase, it helps if they have one for stabilisation incase someone goes down. You might as well keep the cmw pots as you have the most use for them. The warhorse might be handy for keeping uGo's pace up depending on the next parts of the adventure, if we are travelling its definately worth keeping for her. sell the wand of produce flame as its no one can use it, i'd also sell everything else as well other than the cloak of resistance. Not sure who will get the most use out of the cloak but i would suspect that it would be a better investment on uGo as if either of the casters go down to a spell uGo can try to fix it, if uGo goes down i think the party is boned.
No one has posted for a while, whats up with that?
Just to chime in on the multiple people rolling sense motive on one bluffer issue. Have you considered having one of your players as the primary interacter (does not need to be the same PC every time) who rolls his skill and then all the other PCs are actually rolling aid another? Diplomats use aid another for social interaction all the time, as do teams of lawyers in court and many other people who perform complex social interaction tasks in teams. Now they normally have the "best" social interacter leading their discussion but many of the best solo interacters (sales people) when approaching a group of people will target the weakest members of the group as their skill specialisation(b&%!$#$*) beats the poor rubes non class skill sense motive. In this way using the skill system can mimic real life and allow you a slightly greater freedom with lying NPCs and force your high skill social interaction PCs to actually step up and roleplay their skills be becoming the primary interacter so their skill comes to the fore.
i just roll for them, if they ask me for a sense motive i give them a +2 bonus for paying careful attention during the conversation if there is something fish going on. Rolling sense motive is relatively simple and is in itself quite metagamey but if someone is being especially paranoid or vigilant then they should be rewarded for it. I also make perception tests for my players when they would interact with something that they do not know is there, then if they later actively hunt for it i let them reroll, for example walking into a room with an invisibile creature then twigging something is wrong and actively trying to find the creature. I have been known to make the odd save for my PC's as well, normally only willpower and only for mind control or illusion effects which they would not know about if they failed, one of my favourite lines is "something just assaulted your mind" to a player who passed an unknown willpower save.
The wizard actually had defenses as good as the monk who was our front line fighter for the first 3 levels so needing to support him through encounters with lesser creatures is just untrue. By providing a simple buff like enlarge person for a fight (which lasts for a minute) the wizard can provide far far more utility and damage than say a rogue sneak attacking every turn even if his only action in the entire fight is to cast that spell and avoid being a drain on healing. I do not think that i will always know when we will have an encounter with a BBEG but i do know that i do not need to use spells on standard goblins even if there are 8 or more of them as they are simply not a threat that any class should be using resources on. This is something that is probably down to the player as much as the character, i did mention in my posts that this may be the reason some people think that the god wizard is not as powerful as others. One thing to bear in mind is when we harken back to TM's guide is that the god wizard is not ment to be the parties top performer, he is ment to make the encounters easier for everyone else to deal with and give them their time in the lime light while sitting there knowing that he is the major factor contributing to their success. If you think i'm a waste of space when it comes to fighting 4 goblins with pointy twigs or some dogs that have already been convinently tied up then i think that i may be wasting my breath(keyboard?). I think the crux of the debate was not what can a sorcerer do in combat that a wizard cannot, it is what can a wizard do out of combat that the sorcerer has any way of replicating? At the end of the day a sorcerer "may" be able to cast colour spray 3 more times and stop the extremely dangerous pointy stick tribe of goblins from missing your fighter with their weak attacks for another round of so before he cleaves them all into oblivion but why does it matter when the encounters that you can perform so much better than the wizard in are so unimportant? Many people, and this seems to include you Ciretose, seem to think that characters that are taking actions are inherently more powerful than characters that are not. But if my character is so powerful that with one action i can achieve something that another character may take 5 actions to achieve (ie effectively end the encounter), weather it is with a buff such as enlarge person on the longspear wielding monk or glitterdusting a bunch of archers so they are no longer a threat, which is more powerful? It comes down to the principle of the god wizard which you do not seem to understand, when i have taken my action and my minions (party members) are in place to achieve victory should go over the top and steal their thunder or should i just step back and let them have their fun?
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