I'm thinking of making a dexterity based Swashbuckler 1/Investigator 4 for PFS play with as kind of classic roguelike generalist that dabbles in magic without focusing on it, and am not sure what I should be doing after level 5.
I'm currently thinking that Shadowdancer seems like it could be cool to go into as it has a lot of neat looking tricks with the ability to make illusions/conjurations and a shadow companion definitely seems like fun, but unless I go human, the feat tax seems prohibitively steep given that I'll also need to spend a level 1 feat on Fencing Grace. Additionally, after level 4 would it be worth continuing in or should I keep it at level 4 and go do something else, and if so where should I go from there?
Horizon Walker's spell like abilities from Terrain Dominance seem like neat tricks to be able to do like Dimension Door and Ethereal Jaunt, but the rest of it doesn't seem great. Additionally, since it requires level 6 to meet prerequisites, I'd need to figure out something to do for level 6. The full BAB would help with getting an iterative attack sooner though, and I believe would actually get a third at level 12 (provided that the class taken at level 6 was full BAB too) which is within the scope of PFS play.
Assassin doesn't seem all that fun since they lost their spellcasting in the transition to Pathfinder and didn't get much to compensate.
Rose Warden does seem cool to pick up a bit of sneak attack, some rogue talents and even an advanced rogue talent at level 10 like Knockout Blow, Crippling Strike or a Familiar, and Iron Will is definitely a worthwhile feat even outside of being a prerequisite.
Shadow Dancer and Rogue Warden both seem to have pretty cool themes to them as well.
Of course, there might also be some obvious options that I'm missing. It's just that other than Swashbuckler 1 (Early Fencing Grace access, Oportune Parry and Riposte) and Investigator 4 (Int to a bunch of skills, inspiration, mutagen and Alchemical Allocation), I have no idea what to do. What would be a good path to continue on from there?
Most party face Inquisitors take the Conversion Inquisition, so they can dump their Charisma and have all of their Face skills key off of Wisdom instead. I'd suggest that, if you're wanting to be a party face, you'll have to dump the Domain in place of it. (You don't get their bonus spells anyway, so you aren't technically missing out.)
Oh, that is a good suggestion... I'll probably be aiming for 25 wisdom by level 12, so that would be... +7, and 28 by 16, so Trade Domain wouldn't outscale it until level 20, which I'll probably never get to anyway.
Losing Time Skip and movement speed is a bit disappointing, but dominate person isn't bad either, and I'm not going to be using medium/heavy armour anyway, so my movement speed would still be reasonable. I'll definitely go with that instead.
You say you want to be party face but you have a 10 Cha? Also, with a 10 Str you won't be able to carry much gear or wear medium armor.
If you take the Black Powder Inquisition you would get Gunsmithing and EWP for free, which would then allow for Point Blank and Precise shot.
Finally, your archetypes trade away some pretty decent caster tools: Judgement (Piercing) and Solo Tactics (Allied Spellcaster, Shielded Caster) Also, there are some decent teamwork feats for ranged combat.
How much strength would you recommend I go with, and what should I cut for it?
The main thing with Sanctified Slayer is that while Judgement Piercing is good for spells, I feel as though the DC increase on them from studied target is more important, but that might just be because I've mostly played at low levels where SR is rare. Is the extra spell penetration more valuable than the DC bonus from studied target for offensive casting?
Losing the teamwork feats is something I wasn't sure about either. But I've never played a gun using character before, and assumed that misfires were a fairly major issue, so the ability to reroll attack roll when it comes up as a misfire and save people from getting critted to death seemed fairly worth it.
I'd rather not trade out my domain. 2 bonus feats is okay, but the trade domain power seems pretty important to remaining effective for discussions with only 10 charisma.
I was kind of hoping that the +1/2 level to intimidate from Stern Gaze would be enough for intimidate and the +1/2 level to diplomacy 3+wis modifier times per day, and heroism/honeyed tongue would be enough to do passably at diplomacy, we tend to have few enough rolls that I could use the trade domain power on every diplomacy roll.
So, at mid levels (6-8), it would be like having 16-18 charisma since it's an untyped bonus.
Did you have any thoughts on what I should pick up as my second trait or the level 5+ bonus feats?
I'm considering making an inquisitor character to act as a party face/support/offensive caster with a focus on utility, but still not worthless in combat or a burden on the other players.
I feel like I have the basic chasis ironed out, but I'm not sure what feats I should be picking after level 5, what my second trait should be, or what spells I should be picking.
Pathfinder Society legal material is the only legal material.
Can something that will always happen as the result of a roll (Natural 1 or 20 on an attack or saving throw, firearm misfire etc.) be rerolled by effects that must be activated "...before the results of the roll are revealed." such as the Preacher's Aggression ability or the Dual Cursed Oracle's Misfortune ability?
Spoiler:
Aggression: The preacher may reroll an attack roll that she just made before the results of the roll are revealed. She must take the result of the reroll, even if it’s worse than the original roll.
Spoiler:
Misfortune (Ex): At 1st level, as an immediate action, you can force a creature within 30 feet to reroll any one d20 roll that it has just made before the results of the roll are revealed. The creature must take the result of the reroll, even if it’s worse than the original roll. Once a creature has suffered from your misfortune, it cannot be the target of this revelation again for 1 day.
Is it revealed at the point where it's the inevitable result of the roll, or only after the action that triggered the roll resolves?
Oh wow. Rereading, I made that sound a bit worse than it was. Hitting anything was an exaggeration, typical "trash" type encounters weren't anywhere near as bad, but it was a white dragon, a flying fire breathing goblin barbarian (until she raged), and while maybe not at 20, we were missing the alchemist in the same scenario on 18, and no one rolled a 19, so I'm not entirely sure if he had a 19 or a 20.
By regularly, I mean that there's been 1 or 2 in both modules that I've played as someone that's cared about attack rolls.
For now it's no big deal since I'm not far behind a wizard as just a straight spellcaster, so it's not super urgent but it seems like at mid-levels I should be addressing it since I'll be more combat focused then, and it doesn't seem as though magi scale their AB all that much (it looks like it's basically just +1 per level)
Arcane accuracy definately does look like something that would be worth picking up at third level though, and I'll take the advice and fit weapon focus in at 5.
Is myrmidarch worth it for the +3 AB/Damage once gloves of dueling become affordable?
Having started Pathfinder Society with a magus, I've been having issues when it comes to actually hitting anything.
So far I've come across a fairly large number of enemies that have had AC in the 20+ region in level 1 scenarios.
I've been able to get +0 BAB, +4 dexterity, and +1 from my masterwork weapon, for a total of +3 AB without trading AB for concentration, which if fine for touch attacks, but it feels like far too little when I'm needing a 17 or higher to hit with my weapon.
It's not a huge deal right now since my weapon damage is pretty awful, but I feel as though the AB issue is just going to get worse later on if I don't do something about it seeing as my AB looks like it's only going to be increasing by around +1 per level + the weapon enhancements I can afford.
I've been thinking that perhaps I should pick up myrmidarch for the weapon training + gloves of dueling combo at mid levels, but I'm really reluctant to give up improved spell recall if I don't have to.
Rime Spell + Frostbite was pointed out as a good effective +3 AB for follow up attacks, but until level 11, it's probably a bit expensive to constantly recall.
Are there any easy ways for upping my AB that I'm missing?
I was thinking about Slayer at level 1, but I really don't want to delay Dex to damage. Level 1 is mostly irrelevant since I can use a much higher strength setup there, and I think I can tolerate 3 scenarios on the way to 3, but 6 might be pushing it. 1HP and slightly more flexible skill points overall probably isn't worth the hassle.
I also haven't really decided on traits yet, but if I need a better intimidate score, I recall there being one that let you use your intelligence for the purpose of intimidate. I could switch int to 16 and con to 10, then change from +skill points as my favoured class bonus to +hp and use that trait + an int headband of some sort later on to help boost intimidate a bit. I'm not exactly sure what benchmarks I should be trying to hit though.
Also, power attack is actually the entire reason behind dipping slayer. Ranger combat style feats allow you to ignore their prerequisites, and the two handed style allows power attack as one of its options.
Furious focus is an interesting option though. I'm not sure how I'd fit it in though. Would my will saves be acceptable even if I delayed Iron Will until 11 and picked up Furious Focus in its place?
The equipment weight issue does seem quite significant though. I guess I'll think about increasing strength a bit, but I'm not entirely sure what I'd drop for it, the only thing that makes much sense as an alternative is charisma since I'm pretty MAD as is given that I need Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence and Wisdom.
Evoker wizards blast enemies to death. These are not the most powerful wizards, but they are probably the easiest to play. Pick feats and class features to boost damage, SR, and save DC, or reduce enemy resistance/immunity to your spells, and blast away. A variation of this focuses not on hit point damage, but on directly paralyzing enemies or knocking them out of the fight (hold person, fear, etc.)
Controller wizards focus on "tilting" the battlefield their way (boost friends, cripple enemies, adjust the battlefield conditions so We have an advantage over Them). Most witches end up in this category. You look for no-save no-SR spells (so enemies can't resist their effects), spells to really boost your friends, and sneaky...
There's also the middle ground option.
Evoker Wizard that goes all in on a single hyper specialised metamagic blast spell, but also spends 2 feats on heighten spell and signature spell.
Then fills their memorised slots with situational support and situation shaping spells, and if they end up picking the wrong spells, turn them into their blast of choice.
Having recently returned to PFS from a fairly long break, I decided that I wanted to try out a sylph scout type of character, but having mostly only played arcane casters, I'm not entirely sure if my build attempt at this is going to be good enough at combat in order to actually be useful at higher level combat scenarios, since I heard that rogues in Pathfinder tended to have accuracy issues.
Spoiler:
Sylph(Breeze Kissed, Like the Wind, Whisperwind) :
Rogue (Scout, Thug) 1-3
Slayer 1-2
Rogue 4-10
Favoured Class: Rogue
Favoured Class Bonus: +1 skill point
Combat wise, this is my core build, but I'm simply not sure what else I should be picking, and even to some extent whether the things that I've already thought were important enough to take are actually good choices.
Besides, for every Gandalf that jumps on the chance to obtain Glamdring, there is an Aragorn that will fight with their chosen weapon while broken instead of using a replacement.
Yeah, but that's because you still get better to-hit bonuses with a broken +5 sword than some schmuck's shiny new masterwork greatsword.
Plus, Tolkien was pretty stingy with Aragorn's loot.
When your DM's stingy on loot, resort to item crafting?
They emphasis quite a few times that Clerics are not healers, they recommend against using Healing as one of your domains, etc
Is this true?
I was hoping to make a rogue, that fell through on me, so I thought I might make a cleric who is a healer. From reading this article it seems that is not a wise decision.
Believe it or not I always find Kineticists to be the best healers in the game, mostly because Kinetic Healer has unlimited uses that places a Risk vs Reward system in place on the party instead of having a finite uses per day. You can also do a lot of other cool stuff, like actually fight.
Healing in Pathfinder is more or less considered to be optimal if it is done outside of combat. The only times you should be healing in battle is when someone is knocked unconscious or is dangerously low on HP. The reason for this, if the consensus on the paizo forums is any indicator, is that if you kill the enemy, it is not longer a threat and you can heal outside of combat.
There is a strong vein on the Forums that believe the Kineticist class to be a steaming pile of crap, but it is a class that does what it sets out to do, and really only the things it sets out to do, fairly well. You gain spammable abilities, and while this can be over-focused, it usually isn't as large of a problem as people make it out to be. You should have around 3 other people with you at all times.
Or if it uses an action that you're not planning to use for something else.
i.e. Paladin swift action lay on hands when they touch themselves, a warpriest might be willing to use fervor to heal themselves if they're in the front line, a life oracle of high level may activate energy body before starting a fight and use their move actions to heal people and their standard actions to cast spells, etc.
If I recall correctly, paladins taking a one level dip in oracle for lifelink, allowing them to take the damage that other people received onto themselves, then using their swift action lay on hands to heal themselves was a fairly decent healer.
First off, don't dump your Str down to 7. You'll need to carry your curve blade and your armor at minimum. A 10 is sufficient, but don't go lower.
A 7 can be okay - but only if you take the Muscle of the Society trait. (makes it count as +2 for encumbrance)
Also - I'm not sure how much you get out of PA as rogues tend to have accuracy issues, and rangers aren't amazing on that front either except against their favored enemy.
I'm not against the idea of taking that trait if carrying capacity is an issue. Also, is the accuracy really that bad? One of the ranger archetypes I'm taking replaces favoured enemy with hunter animal focus, which would let me get +2 to dex temporarily for the really important fights.
I was told that I should be aiming for an AB of 1.5*level +4
I was told that I could expect to get a +1 to my weapon every 4 levels, and I assumed that I could pick up a +2 dex increasing belt at level 6
1: 5 dex 5 vs 5.5
2: 5 dex, 1 BAB, +1 WF 7 vs 7
3: 5 dex, 2 BAB, +1 WF 8 vs 8.5
4: 5 dex, 3 BAB, 1 enhancement, +1 WF 10 vs 10 (+1 weapon)
5: 7 dex, 4 BAB, 1 enhancement, +1 WF 13 vs 11.5 (Animal Focus)
6: 7 dex, 5 BAB, 1 enhancement, +1 WF -2 power attack 12 vs 13 (+2 dex belt)
7: 7 dex, 6 BAB, 1 enhancement, +1 WF -2 power attack 13 vs 14.5
8: 8 dex, 7 BAB, 2 Enhancement, +1 WF -2 power attack 16 vs 16 (+2 weapon, Dex increase)
9: 8 dex, 8 BAB, 2 Enhancement, +1 WF -3 power attack 16 vs 17.5
10: 8 dex, 9 BAB, 2 Enhancement, +1 WF -3 power attack 17 vs 19
Accuracy seems like it should be okay, even while power attacking, it only lags 1 point behind up until level 10, where it's 2 points behind, but also the level where I could pick up furious focus from improved combat style, which can be compensated for via flanking, haste, bless, or several other commonplace buffs.
Also, does the animal companion count for anything? I know that it's a bird, but it is counting my effective druid level as my character level
Alternatively, would replacing ranger with slayer be an option?
With my magus reaching a level at which she's too high for some of the local game dates, I'm thinking of starting my second PFS character. I'm thinking of trying an unchained rogue, but I'm not entirely sure how to build them, I've never played a rogue before, let alone an unchained one.
Currently I have planned out this, but I'm not sure whether or not it's actually any good for PFS play.
Good trick for PFS though where RAW is the rule of the land. Yet another amazing job by the ACG! As a matter of fact, I may make one of these guys just to troll GM's.
Doesn't PFS stop at 10? Getting to level 11 could be an issue
It's always given me heartburn that such random numbers are given to armor in regards to DEX bonuses. I've beaten people in normal clothes while wearing body armor in speed and agility (of course, I also went to state in track in high school, so maybe that has something to do with it, but then, my DEX bonus shouldn't do anything for me in heavy armor, and less in medium armor, except make me slower then they are with no armor on).
One of the houserules we play with is to do away with the silly dex limitations with armor.
Interestingly enough, if you use the beginner box rules, I think you don't have to use those silly DEX limitation rules anyways.
Does it give warriors a boost...sure...but then...I don't think many are arguing that they should be nerfed compared to the casters anyways.
Well... isn't the normal array for the average person stated to be something like 13/12/11/10/9/8?
In which case, the average person wouldn't even feel the max dex bonus for full plate, and the penalty for say, a chain shirt would only be felt by the most agile of people. (18+2 racial)
2. this only extends to rapiers in particular: they actually shouldn't be finessable. Rapiers are almost as heavy as bastard swords and have a one-handed grip, they actually should require strength. But of course im speaking historically and not awesome-fantasy terms.
Historically, they didn't need much strength, though a little more than longsword/bastard swords due to more or less only being used one handed. If you ask, most practitioners of historical European martial arts will tell you that strength actually doesn't matter anywhere nearly as much as things like edge alignment and practice.
Historically damage sources with swords should be ranked BAB>Base Damage>Dexterity>Strength and stopped more effectively by armour. But in no way is strength being the most important thing true in a historical sense.
So far I have issue with some of the quirks. Some of them seem really odd like Conspiracy Theorist giving you a penalty to sense motive. If you generally mistrust people that should make it harder for people to lie to you not easier I feel.
So far looks cool though. I loved reading the Wheel of Time.
Minor typo on Unbound Knowledge, change "Staring" to "Starting"
I fixed the typo.
As for conspiracy theorist giving you a penalty to sense motive, it's not that it makes it easier for people to lie to you, it makes it harder for you to tell when people are lying or not. Try convincing a conspiracy theorist of something they don't already believe in/understand - it's not easy. This is what the penalty is trying to emulate, and it will (obviously) be up to the DM to roleplay that out.
What about giving them a bonus to sense motive, and force a bluff check to convince someone that something is true.
In the old days (AD&D), magic users required more experience points to level up. (2500 for level 2, compared to 2000 for a fighter. Level 3 needed 5000 and 4000). On the other hand, thieves only needed 1250 for level 2, and headed up to level 3 at the same XP point that the magic user finally made level 2).
I've borrowed/adapted a house-rule that limits casters by giving their casting a risk of causing them to become fatigued etc, because of the strain that casting puts on their bodies. This should cause them to become somewhat wary of spamming level 9 spells.
This is my version:
* Channelling magical energies put strain on the body of the caster:
* Each time a spell is cast, the caster makes a Fortitude save with the target 1 + (3 x spell level) - caster level
* Failing the Fortitude save causes the caster to receive the Fatigued state (or the Exhausted state if already Fatigued)
* A caster with the Exhausted state failing a Fortitude save takes 1d4 nonlethal damage per spell level
* Casting a spell from a scroll still requires a Fortitude save, but potions and other magical items do not (although creating them does).
* In this case, a natural 1 is NOT an automatic failure. (And a target of 1 or lower shows no chance of becoming fatigued).
I haven't play-tested it yet.
I can see a few fatal flaws with this.
A good spellcaster doesn't need more than a couple of high level spells to break encounters.
1d4 damage per spell level is hardly anything
Fatigue is removable by a second level cleric spell or a paladin mercy, and lame oracles can become immune to it. Arcanists who don't want to rely on others can use a Cord of Stubborn Resolve to instead take a small amount of damage instead of becoming fatigued.
Removing Summoners and 9-level casters seems the simplest way.
This removes resurrection magic above Raise Dead from the game (and makes even Raise Dead exceedingly rare) and otherwise promotes a 'low-magic' feel to some degree...but it's doable and solves the issue.
This actually sounds really cool and would create a really neat new dynamic to the game! Now to pitch it to my players.
Yeah, I stole it from a thread on low-magic games, and had the same thought. Maybe some day...
Some renaming might be in order if you do this (calling Warpriests either 'Priests' or 'Clerics' and Magi 'Wizards' or 'Magicians' seem the obvious ones...). A few other effects of this are interesting, like Vivisectionist Alchemists being the only ones with Regenerate and Paladins with Ultimate Mercy being by far the lowest level people who can raise the dead (you can manage it at 8th level with a bit of investment)...but overall it's pretty cool.
If you leave existing creatures with spellcasting like Dragons and certain Celestials unchanged it makes them notably more frightening and alien, too, since they can access magics humans can't even dream of.
Magician bards are actually pretty impressive in it where they're normally overshadowed. With exclusive access to high level arcane magic by cherry-picking the wizard/witch/summoner lists.
Though, Magi getting longevity out of spell recall and pearls of power does help them out hugely as battle mages.
But if you want to teleport the length of the continent, time to seek out that one extremely high leveled bard, who picked a specific archetype, and who chose it as his specific area of specialisation.
Use the specialist casters from 3.5 (warmage, beguiler, dread necromancer)
Use the martial adepts from DSP's path of war. (Warlord, Stalker, Warder)
Remove basic 9th level casters plus the summoner.
Magi, bards and inquisitors are now the generalist mages, and have an appropriately slowed rate of progression.
Mages who insist on the fast track to high level spells use a specialist class
Martial classes have options beyond hitting things.
Okay, so here is my situation. I have a player who took the Leadership feat. After doing so, he made a cohort, who was a wizard with every single item creation feat. After doing so, they put her to work making them item after item after item for half price.
I believe this to be a broken use of Leadership.
The way I understand Leadership is that your cohort is an ally, who helps you when/if they can, but they are not mindless robots that are slaves to your will. They can willfully refuse to do something if it conflicts with their interests or they simply don't have the time due to personal commitments.
I have a problem with a player taking a single feat and then having access to 6-7 feats ALL THE TIME afterwards. This is wrong to me. She has no other feats then item creation and all her skill points are put into crafting skills.
What do you guys think? Am I wrong or is this clearly an abuse of a feat?
You know rule 1 the GM is always right? But that's trumped by Rule 0 - everyone must have fun.
Rule 2 is ban Leadership.
---
Or the GM designs it. Or the GM designs and controls it.
3.5 material is allowed for the most part, individual cases are subject to being revoked, but if it is an important part of a character, you can rebuild to compensate for it.
Leveling stops at level 6. You gain skill points and feats instead.
Items that require a caster level over 6 to make are rare, and only available on a case by case basis.
Multi-school spell list 9th level casters + summoner are as normal.
Fighters, rogues, healers, Samurai and some other things that I can't recall off the top of my head can be gestalted with each other, or an NPC class.
Everything Else can be gestalted with an NPC class.
Worth considering is that 24 intelligence isn't out of reach of the PCs themselves.
The creature might be ridiculously intelligent, but so is the wizard with a headband of intellect.
By the time you're going up against demon lords, you're presumably extremely high level. At level 16, a human wizard who started with 20 in int could be at 24 naturally, and afford a headband to push her to 30, the cleric could do the same for wisdom.
You can probably give some hints to PCs of similar intellect on what they might have in store as a way to prevent a TPK, and between the two of them, they should be able to outdo the demon lord in terms of raw mental attributes if the wizard shares their knowledge and the cleric their insight.
The best wizard in the game is never going to be as good at social interaction as a Bard, or a Rogue, or a Paladin.
Hi, do you have a citation for this? Taking a trait for a class skill in diplomacy. I mean, my wizard doesn't even try hard and has a +27 to diplomacy. Wizards have a lot of skill points, and diplomacy is a good skill
DrDeth: You aren't actually posting anything of substance.
You are basically just saying "In my game we play it like this", which is fine, but trying to apply that to how the game actually is or the player base at large isn't helping
Don't just take the class skill in diplomacy. Grab the one that lets you use your INT modifier in place of charisma for it.
Elosandi, creating new classes does not achieve "balance" It creates an entirely different phenomenon which is known as "bloat."
Bloat is what killed 3.5. Obsessive pursuit of balance is what killed 4e. It may be the nature of the pasttime that it is impossible to avoid "bloat" since that is a large part of most successful game companies' marketing plans. But they CAN avoid obsessive pursuit of ""balance."
But, it does allow people to balance on a case by case basis with little collateral damage to peoples concepts.
Playing core only, and one character wants to play an arcane spellcaster who throws fireballs, while the other wants to play a sneaky non-magical type.
The former is going to be forced to play a wizard or sorcerer if they want to play their concept, while the latter is forced into either a ranger who doesn't use their spells, a monk, or a rogue.
With the expanded options that have entered it, it's made much easier for people to play their concepts without necessarily being forced into choosing classes that have hugely differing competence levels.
All they really need now are two more classes (maybe even one if they gave it an archtype and/or customisation options that allow it to fill the other role if they choose), and they'll have achieved it. Not much additional bloat necessary.
So keep on banging that drum. Maybe in a few years Paizo will get as sick of hearing that drum as WotC did and will make their own effort to create a "balanced" game. I wouldn't count on it, and if they do try, I wish them luck, but I suspect that in the end the reality will be accepted that the majority of fantasy RPG players actually like the idea that magic is, well, MAGICAL, and that those characters that manipulate the awesome powers of the universe are...
They actually do seem to be moving towards balance. It's not perfect balance where everything is equal, but more along the lines of the balance that 3.5 had, where there were so many alternatives that a DM could quite happily ban a number of classes without people being completely unable to play their concepts.
Look at what we've ended up with so far. If I wanted to play a wizardly type, but my DM decided that we wouldn't be playing with high end spellcasters, I could make a perfectly good staff magus or bard, and play my concept anyway.
If I wanted to play a healer, there's the warrior of the holy light paladin archtype who trades their spellcasting for additional lay on hands.
Meanwhile, from what I can tell, the warlord seems to be roughly in the same ballpark as the other classes I listed for people who want to play purely martial characters.
In games where your DM wants to play a low powered game, there's the adept to fill the niche of a fighter/monk level spellcaster for both arcane and divine.
Now all we need in order to make it work are skillful/martial options that can compete with the top level of spellcasters, and we'll have a system that is easy for DMs to balance and tailor to their desired level of fantasy without preventing people from playing their desired concepts unless those concepts clash with the fantasy level (i.e. Unrestricted wizards in low fantasy settings)
Ever seen tome of battle: Book of the nine swords? Its a book for 3.5 near the end of its life, had a class called the Warblade. That was his MO, being the badass normal with the ability to ignore DR/hardness, blindsight at moments, and a variety of other things.
No - because everything I've heard about ToB made it sound like Exalted/Wuxia "swordsmanship-as-magic" rather than "superhuman strength/skill with weapons/toughness/endurance".
I think Exalted Melee stuff is cool, but it doesn't fit the same mental box to me as a D&D(pre4e)/PF Fighter. I can totally see a class like that... but not replacing the Fighter (as in 4e).
If that's not an accurate description of ToB, then it sounds interesting.
You're thinking of the swordsage (Who had about half of their manuvers being explicitly supernatural) and to an extent the crusader (They have healing, but they also fill a similar flavour niche to paladins, so, meh).
Supernaturally high jump checks aside (Not really a ToB thing as much as just a "the skill system stops modeling our reality at around level 5" thing), the warblade's disciplines can be concidered to simply be extensions of skill/toughness while still shoring up their weaknesses.
Iron Heart gave them area of effect (Akin to whirlwind attack, but limited by manuvers readied instead of requiring an insane feat chain and the ability to use it round after round), and a limited ability to shrug off semi-disabling effects through sheer force of will.
Diamond Mind lets them make strong, standard action strikes, allowing them to be mobile while still maintaining their damage, as opposed to losing more than half their damage output when they move more than 5ft. It also gave them a limited intuition where they could use their focus to resist spells rather than relying on sheer willpower.
White Raven gives them actual competence in the sort of thing that I feel martial characters should be best at. Commanding other martial characters. It has stances that increase charging damage and flanking damage for their allies, as well as options to make their very presence a boost to their allies morale. Their manuvers often sacrificed their own actions in order to add to their allies. (i.e. A strike which, should it connect, allowed all nearby allies to make a melee attack against the same foe if they were in range.) All of which seems perfectly realistic and extremely thematic for a battlefield commander.
Tiger Claw is a little weird, and probably the only area where it actually hits explicitly supernatural areas with the inclusion of leaping dragon stance and its +10ft to jumps (Horizontal...I'll buy it. Most do have strength scores that are higher than any real life human, but vertical, eh.). Other than that one exception though, it does a good job as the two weapon fighting discipline, with a limited method of pounce, and boosts that grant extra attacks with each weapon. None of which is strictly supernatural so much as just fighting with ferocious speed.
Stone Dragon either just lets them shrug off damage or resist maneuvers or hit things while ignoring DR/Hardness (Mountain hammer line). More or less just an extension of hitting really hard/accurately, or being tough enough to take what's thrown at you.
Oh, and they had Knowledge (history) and Diplomacy as class skills. Which as a much bigger deal in 3.5 for helping with their Out of Combat ability and capability to act as strategists.
MrSin wrote:
Warblades in particular never actually get anything truly amazing. They get something like Mountain Hammer, where you smash someone's face in and do extra damage and ignore Dr and hardness. They can enter a stance to leave themselves open and lower their AC and do more damage, or gain blindsense, or full attack with any weapon while grappled, or to get a 10 foot bonus to any leap they make. No ability given to warblades is anything but extraordinary.
While I agree with your analysis, it's worth noting that the whole "extraordinary" vs "supernatural" in game terms thing is not entirely what people are talking about.
i.e. Mistake or not, the swordsage's shadow jaunt/shadow stride/shadow blink manuvers aren't supernatural. But you're right, the warblade's native manuvers don't reach the level of supernatural.
If feats are the only thing you are going to change, then feats should change FOR FIGHTERS.
Feat chains hurt everyone. Not just fighters.
Would you object to fighters being able to change a small number of their feats at the start of each day? Sort of like how the warblade was able to change the weapon that their weapon focus, specialisation, etc. feats applied to.
3.5 was actually extremely well balanced through the sheer variety of classes it ended up having. You could restrict the classes and still have a strong selection of classes to work with.
Warblades could exist quite happily alongside Factotums, Beguilers and Wilders for instance.
It was only when you either went completely unrestricted, player ability varied hugely, or decided to play core only that things became an issue.
Go play 4e and enjoy your boring boring balanced game.
Simulationist games sacrifice balance for theme and internal consistency. In my book that's a good thing.
There are a few ways this can go.
Either you're creating an experience where there are going to be problems with your cast being horribly skewed, which is not enjoyable to be on the lower end of.
Your Wizard not playing their super-genius level intelligence properly, and avoids the first problem by not actually knowing how to solve things.
You lose consistency by relying on judgement calls on what people can do in order to compensate, which results in a highly inconsistent story in which peoples ability varies from day to day with no real rhyme or reason.
All of which result in a far worse overall story. The only real way to create a well balanced and engaging narrative which is /also/ consistent is by balancing things in advance. Worth noting is that, despite popular opinion, balancing things, does not necessarily force a choice between everything being the same and everything being wildly out of balance. You can get close while retaining the same flair that each individual had (so long as that flair isn't "I can do everything almost as well as everyone else, if not better").
3.5 actually did a pretty good job with the Dread Necromancer, Beguiler and Warmage casters. Each had a strong, consistent theme about them that they could do extremely well, while being able to contribute, but not outright solve issues that lay outside of it. Looking back on it, it seems like a good option might be to either limit the number of schools that they can learn spells from (i.e. At character selection, select 2 schools of magic to gain access to, with a class feature that lets them gain limited access to spells from other schools [in case their concept is something that requires a specific combination]), or just axe the wizard/cleric/druid and replace them with similar classes with more limited spell lists.
On that note, I've always wondered why people want to admit to missing all but one part of the story. The simulationism/whatever other categories there are is a false classification designed to try and simplify the concept to be easier to grasp when it's important to look at the story that you make at the end of it all, and the experience that is had by those involved, of which each of these aspects is just one part of the final product.
They 4700 gold was not a lot as compared to what the tower was actually worth. It was worth 9000 gold plus the 1000 gold for the land. So i figured 4700 gold isn't a lot. But it was alot to pay at once for level 4s. So i offered them the 611 gold plan. For a total of 6110 gold ( as long as they dont miss a payment). I even told them that they can talk the problems out with the tax office. I never in game said anything about the forest, that was all outside of game bouncing ideas off of you. After i told them the cost they quit the game. I never said they had to keep the tower. i even said they could sell the 10000 gold deed, which they didnt do.
9,000 gold? If I knew towers were that cheap, I'd hock my +2 sword!. I'm pretty sure you're off by a decimal point.
Assuming pathfinder sticks with 3.5's 50 coins per pound.
9000 gold comes out to approximately 3.5 million US dollars in value.
It's possible to buy castle homes for as low as 1 million dollars (Though admittedly those are some of the cheapest), but we're merely talking about a single tower.
Whether it's overpowered depends on what you mean by overpowered.
More powerful than the most powerful core classes? No
More powerful than the weakest core classes? Yes
So...wizard players have nothing to fear from them, but rogues are probably still going to feel a little invalidated if the psion picks powers that can replace their typical niche.
Maybe give the swashbuckler an ability similar to the 3.5 scout's skirmish ability. It gave +1d6 damage if you moved 10+ feet per round, increasing by 1d6 at levels 5, 9, 13, 17. It also gave a dodge bonus to AC at levels 3, 7, 11, 15, 19 when moving 10+ feet per round.
I played a 3.5 scout back in the day, and it was very swashbuckley, at least in combat. Lots of tactical movement, and the class feature encouraged not just standing there and trading blows.
How did that actually work? From all I've heard about scouts, it was almost always either:
- Ranger/scouts with swift hunter using greater manyshot
- Dips into martial adept for their mobility manuvers or the stance that granted 10ft steps
- People going to the spring attack -> bounding assault -> rapid blitz tree.
Because a single attack against a single target with less bonus damage than sneak attack, with 3/4 BAB and no inherent ways to boost their accuracy was extremely lackluster beyond early levels.
My group was my scout, an aristocrat/bard, his gnome cleric/rogue cohort, a ranger/wizard/truenamer, and eventually, an uber-paladin.
My guy was a switch-hitter: longbow, longspear, or handaxe. I eventually got a magical handaxe that gave a +4 bonus when flanking--that stacked with regular flanking bonuses!!! So that was REALLY helpful in keeping my attack rolls on par with the uber-paladin (super awesome rolls for stats (like 15, 15, 16, 16, 17, 17!!!) + super lucky roller (usually 15+ on d20s!!!).
The party was unusual.
But my scout was pretty standard: PBS, Dodge, Mobility, Shot on the Run, Spring Attack, Power Attack, Track (from a flaw). I think I played him into the low double-digits. The bonus feats of the scout really helped, too. I think I had Bounding Assault eventually which is really fun when you have a speed of 60+.
That does sound good. We need bounding assault/rapid blitz back, as well as more situational magic items like that handaxe. Exceptional (probably likely to be called overpowered) bonuses when in ideal situations, but weaker when outside of them.
I think the problem is that it is now far to easy to buy or make magic items and this makes them less special .
Gone are the days when players got excited when it came to casting detect magic on a pile of loot to see what they had , and even minor items where hard won and players where much more careful about what was used and when.
Where as now they only get excited if they find a major magical item and the minor stuff is just tossed into the bag of holding to be sold in the next town
But to get back on topic i think the belts are less powerful over all but players in general are more powerful from the start i don't think I've played in a ny pathfinder game where the characters didn't have at least 16 in there primary stat
This is actually an interesting point, but I do believe it to be flawed. I feel that it's not necessarily a matter of it being too easy to craft and buy them, but more a matter of generational shifts.
People have moved beyond the knee jerk reaction of "cool stuff" and as they've gotten older have begun to appreciate the actual experience itself more than the imaginary things they get as rewards for it. Getting a set of gauntlets is great, but really, it's hardly an amazing story in and of itself, and it doesn't change the way that the game is played, it merely makes you better at doing the same thing that you always have.
Looking back on things, you don't think of the loot you got, but of the battles you fought getting there, and the ingenuity you exercised in order to reach it.
In one of the games I've played in, our DM basically gave us unique things that we couldn't buy anywhere else. In one area, I didn't even care about the fact that the DM hadn't placed any loot in an area. The sheer fact that we managed to defeat the avatar of a god (minor though it may have been) that had been intended to deter us from being mean to the NPCs was the greatest part of the game in and of itself.
Maybe give the swashbuckler an ability similar to the 3.5 scout's skirmish ability. It gave +1d6 damage if you moved 10+ feet per round, increasing by 1d6 at levels 5, 9, 13, 17. It also gave a dodge bonus to AC at levels 3, 7, 11, 15, 19 when moving 10+ feet per round.
I played a 3.5 scout back in the day, and it was very swashbuckley, at least in combat. Lots of tactical movement, and the class feature encouraged not just standing there and trading blows.
How did that actually work? From all I've heard about scouts, it was almost always either:
- Ranger/scouts with swift hunter using greater manyshot
- Dips into martial adept for their mobility manuvers or the stance that granted 10ft steps
- People going to the spring attack -> bounding assault -> rapid blitz tree.
Because a single attack against a single target with less bonus damage than sneak attack, with 3/4 BAB and no inherent ways to boost their accuracy was extremely lackluster beyond early levels.
I took the Ranger for the reasons I enunciated already. That the class doesn't have Acrobatics isn't really relevant, since it has a terrain focus. Only that the Ranger works with the terrain he has and I see the Swashbuckler working more around the terrain he finds himself in. What I wanted to say with the lack of focus on Acrobatics with the Magus is that the class is movement/terrain neutral and has no natural inclination towards interacting with its environment.
A magi using this spell from their class list gets disproportionately greater gains from interacting with their environment than a ranger does without having someone else to use it for them.
If you're looking for some ideas for introducing things though:
Replace AC with attack roll for a single attack
Jump as a swift action
Make an attack, you may make an intimidate check against enemies within Xft.
Attack with a weapon in each hand as a standard action
Swift action: Nearby allies gain a 5ft step.
Make a turn during a charge
Whirlwind attack that replaces its regular attacks with disarm or trip attempts as a standard action
Move 10ft. Make a melee attack. Each successful attack allows the user to move another 10ft and attack (up to their maximum number of attacks)
When an attack misses, make a sunder attempt against the opponent's weapon as an immediate action. Ignore attacks of opportunity.
As a standard action, make a single attack that deals double damage. Add a message that this explicitly also doubles falling object damage when used as part of an attack from above.
As a standard action make a trip attempt against an opponent that allows you to move the opponent a number of squares if it succeeds to simulate a throw.
As an immediate action in response to suffering an attack of opportunity, make an attack that resolved before the attack of opportunity. If you incapacitate the foe, they don't strike and you may use this effect against another enemy. (Though it still consumes your immediate action and the use of the ability).
Reduce struck opponent's movement speed
Swift action activation. Each enemy struck this round cannot make attacks of opportunity for X rounds
Immediate action: When an adjacent opponent moves, match their movement as closely as possible, up to a maximum of double your movement speed.
When designing my Swashbuckler class, the first thing I decided was to which class I wanted it to compare. I regard the Fighter as being on the low spectrum of desirability, since the only thing the class is built to do well is to deal damage effectively and to give ultimate flexibility in choosing your feats. Otherwise it lacks in every regard. It is bland, it has few skill points, it only has one good save, it simply lacks a "direction".
In the end, I settled on the Ranger as the class to compare my Swashbuckler to. The Ranger has not very high flexibility in its class abilities and the fixed ones he has give him a lot of his direction as a woodsperson. Although the class is comparable to the Fighter in many regards, it still is allowed to have six skillpoints per level and two good saves.
Doesn't the magus make more sense as a class to compare it to? It fits all the criteria that have been brought up in the thread so far and makes for quite an effective swords and sorcery style swashbuckler.
Not really. The magus is a 3/4 BAB class, due to its combination of ability to cast lots of offense spells and its martial prowess. The Swashbuckler would clearly fall, IMO, under the "pure martial" rule, which includes all the full BAB classes. Yes, some of them have spellcasting, but mostly support spellcasting and only to 4 levels of spells. As envisioned (by me at least), the Swashbuckler has only his martial skills, acrobatics and extraordinary luck to fall back on.
Not to mention that I don't see much "swashbuckling" in the core Magus. I can't really envision Errol Flynn with a scimitar in one hand and throwing a fireball with the other. Also, no acrobatics support for the Magus, either.
I'm not sure if you've noticed, but the ranger that you chose doesn't have acrobatics either.
In either case though, it's easily remedied by a trait.
All you'd need is to cut the obviously unrealistic spells from the list while retaining the ones that can be reflavoured as martial maneuvers mirror image becomes a series of confusing movements that makes it hard to predict where they will be, bladed dash is well...a dash with an attack, which combined with spell combat makes them the only class that can move and full attack without resorting to blink shirts. Hasted assault just becomes a burst of speed, gust of wind gets a shorter range and just becomes a single sweep that knocks down weaker foes, etc. The loss of versatility from removing encounter trivialising spells like fly and wind wall from their list should more than balance out the fact that their remaining personal buffs aren't subject to dispel magic anymore.
Their 3/4 BAB is made up for by their ability to increase their attack rolls with arcane accuracy, their arcane pool, and in the case of the myrmidarch, weapon training, while getting an extra attack by combining spell combat with spellstrike or bladed dash.
Due to having a high value for intelligence, the measured words trait can let them function well as a face person, and they do have the skill points to support it.
The "decide what you want to do in addition to attacking" spell effects (i.e. Full Attack + Hydrolic Push = Flurry of blows that drives back the opponent), combined with their ability to move while fighting (Bladed dash + full attack) and designate whether to focus on protecting themselves or all out attacking (Full attack + Shocking Grasp vs Full attack + mirror image) seems much more swashbucklery than the fighter or ranger's stand in place full attacking with little thought beyond who the most important target is, and whether or not you can stand in between your enemies and party members and lose more than half your damage if you move more than 5 feet.
When designing my Swashbuckler class, the first thing I decided was to which class I wanted it to compare. I regard the Fighter as being on the low spectrum of desirability, since the only thing the class is built to do well is to deal damage effectively and to give ultimate flexibility in choosing your feats. Otherwise it lacks in every regard. It is bland, it has few skill points, it only has one good save, it simply lacks a "direction".
In the end, I settled on the Ranger as the class to compare my Swashbuckler to. The Ranger has not very high flexibility in its class abilities and the fixed ones he has give him a lot of his direction as a woodsperson. Although the class is comparable to the Fighter in many regards, it still is allowed to have six skillpoints per level and two good saves.
Doesn't the magus make more sense as a class to compare it to? It fits all the criteria that have been brought up in the thread so far and makes for quite an effective swords and sorcery style swashbuckler.
It's a completely realistic reaction. A tower is really not much good to them unless they plan on staying there. If they leave stuff in it at fourth level, without the funds to pay for protection, or access to high level defensive spells, they'll be playing a dangerous game with their valuables, and given that they appear to be having reservations about losing money, and are only level 4...
An immobile tower stuck down somewhere is probably not going to something they feel to be worth that cost, especially since you've given them the impression that by keeping it they'll also be subjecting themselves to ongoing costs.
Contrary to popular belief, the majority of pathfinder players tend not to be in it for the opportunity to play the real estate market and file taxes.
I gleefully point out that we know have another "blasters are underpowered" thread to compliment the many "blaster are overpowered and outshine fighters" threads, thus proving my long standing opinion that the game is actually quite well balanced unless you are playing:
A wizard, in which case you think the game is imbalanced against spellcasters;
or
A fighter, in which case you think the game is imbalanced towards spellcasters.
Nothing like a little confirmation bias to get our weekend started!
I love Magi. Does that mean that my opinion is unbiased?
The game is designed so that bows are the only decent option for ranged combat. Every other ranged weapons sucks.
Well, almost... Firearms are pretty good if you're a Gunslinger or Trench Fighter (but they suck even more than crossbows for everyone else).
Crossbows? Sorry, they suck. Firearms... Are you a Gunslinger? No? Sorry, they suck. Slings... Sorry they suck. Thrown weapon... Hah! They make crossbows look good!
I'm beginning to realize how limited are the options for martial characters. It's either 2-Handed , Archery, TWF (with 2 light weapons) or Sword & Board. With great effort, you can push "Combat Maneuvers" here too, but only at low/mid levels and against humanoids.
All other options are either illegal or so ineffective that they might as well be illegal...
Why? I have no idea, but I'm guessing it's because otherwise, it'd not fit "standard" fantasy.
/rant
I've found that double-barreled firearms are good opener for rogues when attacking on either the surprise round or from concealment/invisibility.
Being able to hit touch AC twice before you have a full action to set up flanking with is pretty nice. The lack of damage from attributes is made up for by the attacking twice and sneak attack.
Pistol Myrmidarch magi are pretty nice too. You can use your ranged spellstrike with say a snowball without losing the touch based nature of the spell, and you can now also apply deadly aim if you have it.
If she's intelligent as you say she is, I'd suggest a druid.
Other than the animal companion or domain choice, druids don't have any class features that are permanently locked in. Their customisation comes from their spell selection, and as she has access to the entire druid list, she'll be able to retailor her spell selection until she finds a style of play that she enjoys for no permanent cost.
As long as you don't end up with wisdom so low that you can't cast spells, just about any druid build is going to be at least somewhat useful.
It's a lot more forgiving than making a fighter and investing your feats/weapon training poorly, or playing a ranger and choosing rare favoured enemies, or playing a sorcerer and picking bad spells.
1095 Pope Urban II incited Europeans to begin the Crusades. ... 1130 The Church banned bows and crossbows as immoral weapons not to be used against Christians. Knights considered the weapons beneath them
He also banned jousting:
14. We entirely forbid, moreover, those abominable jousts and tournaments in which knights come together by agreement and rashly engage in showing off their physical prowess and daring, and which often result in human deaths and danger to souls. If any of them dies on these occasions, although penance and viaticum are not to be denied him when he requests them, he is to be deprived of a church burial.
Super Necro post.
Well, since it's come up again...
Repaying a wrong on your family in a vendetta was considered to be honorable regardless of the methods that were used.
It's not middle ages english honor, but it was honor nevertheless.
So...I'm just going to say that honor is defined by the code written into the setting. Which in this case has nothing to say about archery, and given that the class was specifically changed so that their main class features work with ranged weapons, and that the example paladin uses one...
I think it's safe to say that using bows isn't against the paladin's code.
