EpicFail's page

My personal admiration goes to all the brave souls who came to a forum to debate, something unread of to this date.

My admiration goes to all who helped me with my build issue. My admiration goes to those who stayed on topic. My admiration cannot be granted to those who ignored what was explicitly stated and clogged up a thread.

My admiration could be extended to those wishing to debate a particular issue on an apt posting. The general topic here is "Advice." That's what I asked for and I'm thankful for those who helped out.

EpicFail wrote:

Dedicated arcane or divine casters are a bonus as our group will probably need me to be one, but suggestions are welcome.

Otherwise one trait, Pathfinder published material ok.

I would definitely recommend an Elf Conjurer or Sloth mage if your GM allows you to be a Thassilonian mage. Elf with Illustrious Urbanite just trades away Keen Senses for Spell Focus Conjuration, Illusion or Transmutation (trade of the century I'd say). I'd recommend a 19 INT at level 1, meaning DC 16 Greases, DC 17 Glitterdusts, and DC 20 Stinking Clouds (because of COURSE you took Greater Spell Focus between level 1 and 5). As a conjurer you also get a minor bump to the duration of summoning spells, so that's another option for you (although Occultist Arcanist is I believe a better summoner, I don't have any experience with them).

1.Great minds think alike! I'm probably going with just that selection. Although the Evangelist Cleric build suggested early on is a close second.

2.I guess I should have been clearer and more emphatic. I'm also thinking of future people searching threads like this one. Please oh please don't tell me how great or how awful a 15 point buy is. Don't tell me how characters are better or worse off with stat arrays EXCEPT how it directly involves picking a class that works well within the parameters set (a 15 buy when one is used to 20 plus as standard).

3. Thanks Evilserran. Kineticist is a class I've never played before so I'll have to look into that.

Sorry to be off topic, but it would be better if we could get past the personal suppositions and focus on the game itself I think.

I'd rather this thread not get locked down because I've read many good points, some of which I even disagree with, that have helped me focus my thoughts on this game.

For clarity, the changes that PF2 has made, the overall ideas behind them, have alienated my group. Not playtesting as such; not working with an incomplete project.

There's a mindset to nerf class abilities and magic in general that take out flavor and fun in the game. I'm sorry if that's not specific enough, and I'm working to make my thoughts clearer. But I look at what they did to the Druid in particular with horror. The same goes for the other spell casting classes that I haven't studied as closely. I just don't see, barring a severe change of heart, without throwing out the guiding principles that led to the changes, how they could be re-worked so that I'd ever want to play PF2.

Hey there all,

Just wanted to drop in and say that if the playtest is not working for your group, that is OK. Playtesting is not for everyone.

Thanks for the input. It's not the playtest as such that's the sticking point for me or my group, though. I thought the adventure was fun, but not enough fun to overcome the rule changes.

... I did want to share this data point though, and would be curious to hear how many others have had similar experiences.

Our gaming group, who have played PF1 adventure paths for over five years, came to pretty much the same conclusion. In fairness, there were some who wanted to give it a little more play, and I think I was the most militant against this adaptation. But it was nearly all thumbs down on a fundamental level. The entire philosophy of the change was judged to be lacking. that was our takeaway.

Reading over the Druid in the new handbook is what turned me off completely to this system. I thought maybe I misread the rules. They couldn't have really meant to do that to wildshape surely! Every benefit of the doubt vanished, and reading the other classes over had me shaking my head.

Options are what made Druids so cool. You didn't have to be a melee mauler, but could relish in utility and spell slinging. The new wildshape in quality(fewer forms, melee oriented) and quantity (ridiculously short duration) is beyond disappointing. I wish they would have just renamed the class itself it's that alienated from what it was.

I just hope they keep publishing material for original Pathfinder.

The o.p.'s list and justifications notwithstanding, to introduce monetization into a group whose very lives depend on adding their skills, powers, spells, etc. is a dreadful idea. As others have noted, it would inspire each individual to want to charge for their particular service.

The Bard going, "Hey! I just helped you with my Lingering Performance. My accountant/lawyer says you me 39.32 gold for that."

I shudder to think what bills the Cleric would draw up- particularly if drafted under duress.

It would be in the enlightened self-interest of the item creator to want to have the toughest, well-equipped gang surround him.

A nation of shopkeepers is unappealing enough, but an adventuring party of shopkeepers?

Background: Monster Tactician trades the judgment ability in for being able to summon monsters as a standard action. See here for details.

Combine that with all the Inquisitor's goodies, and that's pretty powerful. But what are some ways to make the character even more effective?

One general idea is to focus on a high Wisdom and just summon like crazy and throw spells. SAD is the opposite of sad. However, when in an environment where magic doesn't work or the extreme ends of lots of encounters per day it runs into trouble- though that seems pretty rare/ situational.

Another path could be a Reach Cleric approach where combat reflexes and a reach weapons has you behind friends, which could be your summons of course, whacking the bad guys with Power Attack. Now we're adding Strength to the mix and flirting with MAD. We could go further and make a front line fighter, but now we're really into MAD territory and we've lost our Judgment ability.

It seems almost mandatory that the feats Spell Focus Conjuration and Augment Summoning are taken. From there it's hard to pass up Evolved Summon Monster and Superior Summons. We can even possibly add Summon Alignment Monster.

Given the demand for feats for an archer, it looks like a challenge to make that idea work. We're down, presumably, at least two feats for S.F. Conjuration and Aug. Summoning.

So I'm seeking your ideas on general strategy, feats, even traits for this archetype.

Just for clarification, Zen Archer Monk is not only pretty easy to build, easy to play, and hard to screw up, it also can do some serious damage. That is, it has a high optimization floor.

I'm surprised no one mentioned Zen Archer Monk. They have built-in feats and look pretty hard to screw up. Tactically it's point and shoot. Plus they have great saves and decent skills.

The better question might be why doesn't Call Lightning work more similarly to Lightning Bolt so that metamagic can more suitably affect it, instead of being a fairly terrible spell.

Once cast as a metamagic spell, Call Lightening would continue to be augmented with the effect of said metamagic. For example, cast a Dazing metamagic Lightening Bolt and it hits once with a dazing effect on the victims. The advantage Call Lightening has if cast as metamagic Dazing is that each bolt called would have the dazing effect since it lasts several rounds.

I hope that's clear enough, and if I'm in error I'd like to know.

What I learned in school today from these posts so far is have a good relationship and reason for being with your party, and the alignment can work just fine.

1)Get a quest from the GM, or maybe sandbox one yourselves. These usually involve helping some unfortunate people who are being taken advantage of.

2)Investigate, problem solve, chase in order to kill (the bad) people and take their stuff.Enjoy the story and hanging out with friends.

3)Consume, barter, trade said stuff so that you can be prepared for the next adventure.

I'm just left feeling cold after reading the guide and most of the posts. Maybe my roleplaying group and our expectations are different? It seems that people resent players not having a back story and the typical(?) adventure formula is criticized. Meh.

As someone who has handled lead backed sheetrock in real life, it's REALLY heavy. It added 4 pounds per sq. foot because it was 1/16th of an inch thick. Picture a sheet as big as one piece of standard sheetrock or plywood,i.e. 32 sq. feet, and that's 128 pounds extra. I'll let the tailors out there tell us how much we'd need for a suit of armor.

The thickness 1/16th was for x-ray deflection and looks pretty thin to me. YMMV as to what thin means in Pathfinder terms.

EpicFail page two I said I will go with a flicker...that was me owning up and moving on. Now I am just posting because despite it being stupid I feel the need to defend myself, even though I doubt any of you are better or worse than me....different I am sure. The player as he gave up the character said he would do this one day.

This has NOTHING to do with the scenario...but I had to rush this out since the paladin was intend on changing characters as he didn't like playing LG in a CG/LN type party. So I jammed it into the game as I was running out of time to throw it into RP with the paladin. That said I thought I might have been harsh with the paladin, so I came here to get opinions from people more used to dm'ing LG.

Nutshell.....again I don't feel I need to say this as it doesn't change the scenario at all. But if you feel the need to understand...there. it also allowed me to bring his next character a cleric in and have the group indebted to him right away.

I didn't see a post of yours where you owned up to intentional exploitation of non-existent rules to pick on a PC. If your crew likes these kinds of things, and the home rules are clear then by all means enjoy it all of you. As it stands there were underlying issues where the Paladin apparently wanted to change builds. Absolutely nothing wrong with that in itself but this process is sketchy at best and our group would have revolted if the GM pulled something like that.

The worst thing about this particular Paladin falling thread is that it has NOTHING to do with a Paladin one way or another but about people thinking they have to play a certain way that steps on other PC's toes.

-Why does this Wizard feel compelled to do "bestial" or whatever acts? If that's ok with the party and has been all along, then that's one thing. But there's no reason to be a jerk and hide behind the lame excuse "I'm a Bugbear, so I must be annoying now." Along with a host of other reasons, there's nothing in the rules to justify that.

-If the GM is forcing the Wizard PC to act that way, that's even worse and heaven help the crew till they figure out another game to go to.

The way to resolve the issue, if can be at this point, is out of character talk between the involved people. The whole issue of "falling" is an inappropriate use of rules as cover for a horrible interaction between characters facilitated by the GM.

EDIT: I see after I've written this that the Wiz was a PC and now is an NPC. So now the GM is interjecting interparty conflict by role playing the NPC. Bad form just begins to describe that.

We use pizza flyers, those little plastic things with long spindly legs, to raise the miniature and a ten-sided die beside it for altitude where 2 = 20 feet, 4 = 40 feet, etc. The way the character faces is the same, and it's easy to superimpose one figure over another except for really large monsters.

With your current system there'd have to be some changes but maybe that idea will help.

I'm kinda surprised that a lot of people are ignoring the fact that the OP's character warned the other players of a dangerous trap and they ignored that warning.

What I'm trying to say is this. There's being a team player, and then there's throwing reason and logic to the wind and going on an obvious suicide run. This was the latter. The only reason it didn't wind up a TPK was the DM decided against it. Had things taken their natural course, the party would all be dead and the CN character would be all that was left. This situation was created by the DM...

Keep in mind the only view we have is someone whose judgement led them to trapping the party. He thought a series of events would follow, told the party what to do, and when the party chose otherwise he sealed them in with the added bonus of citing "hey, I just met these guys" as part of his reasoning.

That is not a helpful way to resolve P v. P issues, to put it politely.

Running away with the added bonus of damming/damning your group? What possible friction could that lead to? Whatever justification for that act is questionable at best while saying "I just met these guys" is lame- RPG is about team play. Reversed, if the party said this guy we just met tried to kill us, they could have justified killing you. As a poster above noted, the group is presumed to have an interest in the story and their own collective welfare (whatever their alignments)even if it's a hypothetically temporary arrangement. If it's explicitly clear that is not the dynamic the GM and players expect, fine if that's been made clear.

This is not so much an alignment issue but a definition of party issue.

Sadly, game developers have long since clarified that alignment descriptors do ultimately effect the caster's alignment.

That is too bad if that's the case. For example, our hero Pedantic the Paladin cries out to the Druid- "Stop! Don't summon a L.E. Mite to walk into the boiling tar trap. What are you thinking?? Summon a cute little doggie instead to set off that trap."

I like the creativity of the posts trying to crack the mystery of why summoning an evil creature to your bidding carries the evil descriptor. But it's no more complicated then why summoning a fire elemental carries the fire descriptor. Now if you summon an Archon to jack up a town's hospital- that's an evil act.

Tiers exist whether one believes in them or not. The disparity among classes doesn't go away by not wanting to look at in detail nor by wishfully and whimsically transferring that objective power gap in classes to player prowess.

Here are some example low stat basic DC checks...

Based on what reference?

An Int 4 player has a relative disadvantage of 3 points to an average Joe of Int 10 when it comes to Int checks of any stripe. Granted our 4 Int guy would have to work harder and has less skill points after all to begin with. However, that in no way, rules as written, translates as a basket case who has to roll to distinguish his left from right hand or to know to hide a key. Even a polar bear knows to hide his black nose when hunting and stalking so as not to betray his position.

What a vile, disgusting power-mad series of posts by someone who resents a character not role-playing the way he thinks the player "should." Thanks for the insight. I now see the logic of those who scream munchkin at whatever perceived offense- it's projection plain and simple and not terribly attractive.

EpicFail wrote:

I really like this kind of approach, because I think it's really boring to just let the dice decide everything that happens, rather than allowing the players some agency in a roleplaying situation. If your Gunslinger has talent, you should have a much better chance at shooting someone with your x to hit A.C. in real life. Our group gets bonus points when the real player takes charge of agency and actually hits one of the other volunteer players with his shot.

I really like this kind of approach, because I think it's really boring to let our arguments stand for themselves, rather than putting up strawmen in a debate situation. If you have no arguing talent, you should have a much better chance of ridiculing someone with your stupid strawman that really doesn't prove anything, but makes your opponent's point seem ridiculous. You should get bonus points when people favorite the strawman you posted because that means it obviously is working as intended.

We don't use strawmen, we use flesh and blood volunteers when we conflate role play/ real life acuity of would-be Gunslingers. Why stop at nebulous skills like Diplomacy when you can have real fun with say an Acrobatics or Escape Artist check backed by actual attempts for role play bonus points. As an added treat, we often laugh ourselves silly while waiting for the ambulance to show up.

Why do those who want to defend Rogues seem compelled to blame the bearers of bad news? I.e., Poster X notes that Rogues have been replaced in their erstwhile monopoly on trap finding while Poster Y points out that their skills are inferior, along with other class features, compared to say a Bard. Our intrepid defenders then shoot those who dare to present facts with the "you aren't playing them right" or "your DM isn't doing their job to make the Rogue shine."

Rogues are subpar because of the dozens of reasons posters before me pointed out upthread. Rogues are subpar because Paizo dropped the ball for whatever reason(s)- blame them and not those pointing these sad facts out.

EpicFail wrote:

insaneogeddon wrote:

Not punish but a game should have cause and effect. Thats what role playing is all about.

What happens to such people in real life?

Their food gets spat in (disease saves), dogs attack/pee them, people strangers bully them, they get over charged,in combat they are preferred targets etc etc

Wrong, on so many levels. First DM's passive aggressive "correction" posted by a frighteningly more than few is a lot of things, but it is not what role playing is all about. The classic example is a character who dumps say Charisma to 7. The difference between that awful cad and the noble fellow who toughed it out is a net 2. If you think a two point difference would lead to your made up litany you are out of line.

If the awful cad above had diplomacy as a class skill and put in one rank, while our noble fellow did not- then the tables would be turned. Advantage Cad, noble fellow -2. According to your logic, now the noble fellow would be overcharged, have problems with food, and he would get bullied.

No I know plenty of people who are severely disliked and suffer the pain, but once they get to talk for 5 mins people like them. The issue is getting that 5 mins and as a traveler/adventurer thats an rp challenge. Its also likely why some really liked people I know hate travel because their fist impression is such they attract trouble.

Strange anecdote is not a good substitute for playing by the rules.

Phoebus Alexandros wrote:

I am not trying to tell anyone how to play this game

But nobody is telling anybody else how to play the game, so can we please stop making that assumption? Saying you believe one way is better than another is not to say that one way is right and the other is wrong...

Saying the rules dictate that you should play character a certain way or you'll be outside said rules is exactly what's going on.

As you say: Destructive. As in: Character that won't bring anything but violence to the game. I have played such, I have GMed such, and not doing either again. What these guys do is they destroy every other character's opportunity to do something OTHER than violence. They are typically played by people who start squirming and yawning and saying "So, uh, is anything going to happen soon or should I be going?" when someone says more than a short order to an NPC. As soon as the GM is done introducing the scene, they attack, leaving the others to help or not.

And of course, they look like supermodels, they're just obnoxious and rude to people.

Your assumptions are stunning. Thanks for your help putting the munchkin label to rest. I welcome its overuse and abuse from those who think someone else's idea of effective means whatever to you as it helps bury the canard. Obnoxious and rude behavior in real life at the boards can come from anyone with any stats, including say a Sorcerer with stunning Charisma.

Ironically, a poster early in this thread proudly wrote how he would role play his low Charisma as grating to the other characters. What a joy that game must be. Perhaps I've been spoiled by gaming groups who gravitate to cooperation and mutual aid in role play and combat.

Doesn't matter. The argument is over. Two groups arguing different things. Some people are ignoring rules and playing how they want vs others accepting rules and playing according to them. The game says falling causes damage. Saying you don't care doesn't negate the damage. Telling people they're wrong when there's written proof doesn't make you right.

Your arrogance is not a substitute for ignorance. The insistence that a minus two penalty equals some kind of social armageddon ignores that having a class skill bonus alone means a three difference. No one is saying having a 7 Charisma makes no difference- there are specific rules and specific skills that it does affect. What I've read are people so upset about others' choices that they invent rules and situations. The rules don't support your made up assumptions.

APs are designed around an average stat array and not around optimization. The devs have said as much. The need for 4 build points to optimize a stat is strictly a player wanting more. Nothing wrong with that, but you shouldn't gain all the pro's and then act like the cons don't exist.

The cons do exist- a minus two to Charisma skills. It's bad form to make up cons that don't exist and/or blow out of proportion the measly -2 that does.

Not punish but a game should have cause and effect. Thats what role playing is all about.

What happens to such people in real life?

Their food gets spat in (disease saves), dogs attack/pee them, people strangers bully them, they get over charged,in combat they are preferred targets etc etc

Wrong, on so many levels. First DM's passive aggressive "correction" posted by a frighteningly more than few is a lot of things, but it is not what role playing is all about. The classic example is a character who dumps say Charisma to 7. The difference between that awful cad and the noble fellow who toughed it out is a net 2. If you think a two point difference would lead to your made up litany you are out of line.

If the awful cad above had diplomacy as a class skill and put in one rank, while our noble fellow did not- then the tables would be turned. Advantage Cad, noble fellow -2. According to your logic, now the noble fellow would be overcharged, have problems with food, and he would get bullied.

Gorbacz wrote:

Liz Courts wrote:

let's not bag.

*shakes fist*

So im gonna repeat something for sure but heres my feeling on it summed up...

the initial scenario of rolling stats and then them rolling a 5 and trying to find a dump stat is understandable, its why my group uses the less exciting but waaaay more fair point buy system.

but i dont like pcs dumping charisma for 2 main reasons, for one it normally lets them feel that they have a license to be utter d-bags to the other players, jerk players dont need more of an excuse, and second the points they save dropping charisma goes toward them min maxing their combat abilities so not only are they jerks but they are show stealing jerks.

my solutions to this is pretty simple. eventually a shadow or other charisma damaging creature will appear and one shot them. 5 charisma is 40% one shot from a regular shadow. the fear of this element generally is all a powergamer needs to know to not super drain their charisma. I also make them roll to assist diplomacy even if they dont want too if they interact with a social scene at all ( if they want to wait outside and not get to roleplay with the story its their loss of fun.) I generally have NPCs overlooks them and talk to other more appealing players and this can bug some players that want the points for a low charisma but still want to roleplay a much higher charisma.

Ultimately I try to be fair in my games and not penalize any low stat too much but when a PC has ANY stat at 7 or less its going to define a lot of my narrating of their events.

You mean you have characters who drop from 10(plus 0) down to 7(-2)! The horror. And how dare they do such a dastardly deed in the name of being more effective. Extermination is too good for them. How utterly restrained to simply make new rules up and also throw in monsters specifically at them. We can't allow people to be jerks or steal the show.

...But if you're going to play a concept with a low stat and behave as though it's actually high, then I have an issue.

Like no matter how many skill ranks you put in bluff and diplomacy, your CHA 7 character is never going to be truly witty, charming, lovable, beautiful, and inspiring. He's mostly just a guy who is skilled at rhetoric and practiced at lying and uses this to overcome his inherent deficiencies...

I now feel sorry for the I-know-and-insist-how-you-should-play-crowd. Your argument is grounded in sheer subjectivity, i.e. you have a group of related assumptions that your brain thinks is The Rule and has virtually no reference to rules. I don't really care about your string of assumptions and least it's creative- it could even be great for you and more power to you. However, crossing the line and having the ghosts in your head dictate what others should or should not being is not only offensive but weak.

A five charisma means -3 to skill checks. The other side of that is a 17 Charisma is +3 to skills. They are not freaks with 5. Let them play their characters. Please.

I'm wondering if there are magic items out there specifically geared (think Druid's Vestment for example) towards an Inquisitor, although a generic item that's particularly useful would be appreciated as well. We can safely forgo things like Rings of Protection and Resistance Cloaks and even Headbands of 'X' which benefit nearly anyone and focus on something more in tune with the role and practice of Inquisitor.

Let's go with any and all found on pfsrd website, but note please if an item is third party.

I'll start by guided weapon property which has wisdom replace strength. DM permitting of course sense it causes some controversy on these boards.

There is a FAQ for that.

Quote:

For spell-like abilities gained from a creature's race or type (including PC races), the same rule should apply: the creature's spell-like abilities are presumed to be the sorcerer/wizard versions. If the spell in question is not a sorcerer/wizard spell, then default to cleric, druid, bard, paladin, and ranger, in that order.

It's divine.

I quoted the FAQ in my question. It flies in the face of Reynold's post, and mentions the case when "Some spell-like abilities duplicate spells that work differently when cast by characters of different classes." Yet the spell Speak with Animals works exactly the same whether cast by Druid or Bard. At the very least the FAQ is not written as explicitly as needed. Why bring up that case at all, then??

... You can play that game with any class.

Barbarians: What are they going to do against flyers?
Wizards: Steal their spell books and the aren't bending much to their wills.
Fighter: How useful are they when you drop him and his heavy armor in water.
etc...

No class has the answer for everything. No matter how self sufficient a class is, sometimes they need help, which is why they are in an adventure party.

...and your assumption that a rogue can't be useful...

You are upside down. The Rogue, among a host of other problems, has trouble setting up its principal damage dealing attack, i.e. sneak attack.

The Barbarian has full BAB, rage powers for defense and offense, and a million hit points to contribute in battle. A Fighter has weapon and armor training and bonus feats to do the same.

If you find the Wizard gimped in Pathfinder, if you feel that the poor things just can't be meaningful time after time, then you have my sympathy.

The Rogue has profound trouble doing what they were designed to do and taking advantage of their strengths perpetually. Other classes fill their niche more effectively. That doesn't even exhaust the problems of the Rogue. Every character can be thwarted situationally, but the everyday, built in problems of the Rogue stand out like no other class in Pathfinder.

Great, the Rogue has been demoted from NPC to Summoned Monster and is still found to be lacking.

I don't see a problem with Skinwalkers as lycanthropes thus qualifying for Aspect of the Beast feat. However, since it doesn't combine with Lesser Beast Totem, it doesn't matter.

Obsidian, I didn't think of TH'ing a melee weapon- nice catch.

I like Commoners 'as is'.

I haven't read a single thing about build-craft, but I can't find the problem with Commoners.

I do however houserule some of the other 'very powerful' (YMMV) classes like Mystic Theurges and player Munchkins who insist on being Kobalds...
A lot depends on the DM and I let all classes and players shine.

So no, they don't suck. Their DPS (or whatever that cr@p is called) is 'low', everything they do some other class does better, but I let them shine in other ways (skills, social, ...) because shining is wonderfully insubstantial and thinking about what a character does is too concrete and difficult.

But that's just me!

They are good skill monkeys. But the fact that the right, or maybe even a half-a$$ed, Bard archer build blows the Rogue out of the water just proves your point.

Indeed I'm looking for a RAW citation that says undead themselves have to be evil. I looked before I posted this thread and could find nothing definitive.

Thanks for the responses.