Exguardi's page

The Swashbuckler is essentially a 1 level class. You can go farther for style points, or an interesting archetype, or because your GM gives you candy every time you level in Swashbuckler, but at the end of the day you'd have been better served by levels in another class.

Correct, Arabellezz.

It's generally advisable to drop captured creatures once you've reached an uncomfortable height to fall from.

Riding a quadruped eidolon seems like the best bet. Grab lance proficiency and Spirited Charge and you're basically good on damage; bonus, you can negate attacks against your Eidolon with Ride checks which is a neat defensive ability. And pick up Improved Share Spells to efficiently split buffs starting at level 11 (or 10 with retraining).

The intent here is to proactively make use of hit dice increases using abilities such as Toxic. Becoming harder to affect with Blasphemy/Holy Word/random cleric domain powers is nice, but not the point of this thread.

MannyGoblin, to be clear the FCB increased the effective level of a revelation, it did not grant bonus revelations. So for example, if a revelation provided 4 AC + 1 AC per 3 oracle levels, you would get 5 AC at level 3 from selecting +1/2 level twice. At level 6, you'd have 7 AC.

Prior posters covered it well.

In the opposite vein, there are a number of sweet builds (and powerful items) that no longer work. Most of these changes are relatively recent.

Double-barreled guns can no longer be activated except on a single attack (so it does still work with Vital Strike). This renders most gunslinger builds pointless compared to archery.

Sacred Fist warpriest is no longer almost strictly superior to every other warpriest option; you don't get full BAB when flurrying, and you can't wear armor. It is actually now a fairly poor archetype, albeit still superior to being a monk.

Feinting builds (that weren't strong to begin with, but they've printed some decent feinting options recently with a Mesmerist archetype and a prestige class) and lying in general took a huge hit with the Mask of Stony Demeanor's nerf. +10 to lying, +5 to feint, formerly 500 GP increased to 8000 GP, reducing it to a vanity item.

Similarly the Vial of Efficacious Medicine (3/day Cure Light Wounds and double an alchemical item's effect), underpriced at 700 GP, is now 7000 GP; and the Staff of Necromancy (expend charges for free metamagic, incredibly powerful at higher levels) no longer has any useful abilities.

And powerful favored class bonuses such as +1/2 to the level of oracle revelations (reduced to +1/6 level) have been almost universally nerfed.

I'm curious as to what options people are aware of for scaling effects based on the user's hit dice. The bard has a fairly unique ability at level 9 in Pathfinder: Inspire Greatness, a performance that adds two temporary d10 HD to each party member.

Furthermore, the recent Sorrowsoul bard has a fairly high level ability (12) to add +1 HD to Inspire Greatness, at the cost of targeting only himself and double the performance rounds.

An example of an ability that is empowered by bonus hit dice is the Vishkanya's Toxic ability, with DC based on HD. I'm unclear as to whether temporary HD increases affect abilities imparted by Eldritch Heritage and similar effects.

Super simple but interesting "build" is Beast-Bonded Witch 10.

The level 10 Twin Soul ability is at-will Magic Jar either for yourself or your familiar, with the tiny downside that one of you needs to die. You also have the ability to trade feats in exchange for your familiar learning said feats, that makes a wide range of interesting things possible.

Note that if you get an Improved Familiar you will generally be unable to benefit from the Familiar Form ability; said ability is actually quite strong in and of itself if you have a cat familiar, as becoming a Large tiger via Beast Shape II grants pounce, a nice STR boost and a lot of very damaging natural attacks. And I (believe) you can use most hexes in animal form.

Depending on your mental statistics and how many levels of Fighter you have currently, you could multiclass into either wizard or druid. Wizard would get you the ability to cast Monstrous Physique spells at a reasonable level, and you could go into the classic Eldritch Knight prestige class.

There is a new feat that I can't recall the name of that will let you avoid losing the spellcasting level you normally would upon entry to Eldritch Knight; depending on what traits you have, you could also take Additional Traits for Magical Knack and something else useful, to keep a high caster level.

If you multiclass druid, you could eventually become a Huge-sized Earth elemental (using Shaping Focus to keep your wildshape level high), and get access to the feat Powerful Shape.

There was a similar thread more recently. I posted a breakdown of the concept's viability that might be helpful here. It is definitely more manageable/powerful the higher level you get.

Dwarves are great for any build involving great resiliency. Bonus to CMD (or CMB), WIS/CON, and a bonus on saves vs. spells-- that can be increased to a whopping +5 with a trait and the feat mentioned above.

There's a fun trick you can do with gnomes for touch attack sneak attacks. The Pyromaniac alternate racial trait grants Produce Flame as an SLA. With a wand of this spell you can always have a touch attack with scaling damage (albeit subject to fire resistance and SR).

Condemning party members to death was the preferred survival tactic for most of my Rappan Athuk players. Nothing worse than a TPK and losing all the valuable intelligence gained about the megadungeon.

I have a Spiritualist with Cry of Mercy. It's not by any means a strong feat but it's very gratifying to capture particularly fearsome or memorable foes alive. And occasionally mission-critical.

I would consider a more martial base. You can still get a similar feel but with a far more effective Shadow companion. The Shadow companion is like a familiar in that it gets half your HP and uses your BAB, so Lore Warden Fighter is excellent (as well as for a few more reasons).

You get d10 HD, full BAB and 4+INT skills a level and all INT-based skills as class skills. You can then pick up traits like Clever Wordplay and Pragmatic Activator to use INT for various CHA-based skills. As these skills are now INT-based, they become class skills which is a nifty bonus. This is a little less good since you're using a Fetchling, due to its ability score bonus.

You also get Combat Expertise on top of your normal fighter bonus feats. You get this even if your INT is too low. So you can have a lower INT and really boost Charisma for your Shadowdancer ability DCs if you'd like.

Having Combat Expertise is particularly good since, if you don't mind worshipping Desna, you can qualify for Butterfly's Sting. Combined with a high critical hit range weapon such as an Agile Kukri with Improved Critical, or a Keen Fauchard if STR-based, you can deal reasonable damage and pass your critical hits to your Shadow for a double dose of STR damage.

At higher levels, UMD will let you use a wand of Haste to grant your Shadow another attack. If you want to, you can use your rogue talent gained from Shadowdancer to pick up Pressure Points to tack on a bit more STR damage when sneak attacking.

I like the idea of a more specialized version of this boon for prestige classes. A "Child of Winter" boon that specifically removes the casting progression loss for a Winter Witch, for example.

Worship Desna (she's all about traveling, vacationing on the Shadow Plane sounds apropos) and take Butterfly's Sting. The requirements aren't that bad, you just need Combat Expertise (and therefore 13 INT).

Now you can "pass" critical hits to your Shadow, resulting in a lot more strength damage. Haste will also provide the shadow an extra attack; finally, something like Greater Trip can give your shadow another "free" attack with an attack of opportunity.

It's useful as an "any-tool" due to the relative cheapness of potions. My 10th level PFS alchemist has a potion of Burrow, Waterbreathing, Gaseous Form, Tongues, Magic Circle Against Evil, and of course Heroism, for example. That's some nice "at will" versatility.

I buy a lot of Preserving Flasks and Boro Beads. You can literally never have too many Alchemical Allocations.

You can use it with elixirs to very potent effect.

The Seishinru Spirit Elixir and Elixir of Spirit Sight are quite potent and PFS-legal; outside of PFS, Shadewalking is a pretty strong lifehack. Really most elixirs are a pretty good deal-- you can really push some skill checks with the +10 bonus from various elixirs, although that's less powerful than CL 20 Greater Magic Fang.

EDIT: Darksight is another cool one. Doubled darkvision range and ability to see through Deeper Darkness for an hour.

I did this for my spells in my very first D&D 3.5 game. I was playing a Beguiler, which is a "fixed list" caster that gains -every single spell known on their list at that spell level- whenever they achieve a new level of spells. Since the GM was equally unable to keep up with knowing what the heck my giant pile of spells known were/did, the cards were quite helpful to keep my abilities straight in my head and let the GM quickly reference all the details of any given spell I cast.

Already done! I used the basic NPC stat array to reflect my relative non-heroicness. My Human +2 went to Intelligence to make sure I can cast all of my spells into the higher levels; one bonus point from leveling went to Intelligence, the other to Dexterity. Have to hit even numbers to see a benefit!

Looks like I made my Intelligence check. Thanks Mark!

Mark Seifter (Archmage)
Mark Seifter's legendary spirit offers the power of Mark Seifter. Unlike normal archmage spirits, Mark's legendary spirit grants insight into the arcane workings of the Pathfinder ruleset. Mediums channeling Mark's legendary spirit eventually gain the knowledge needed to create a Spirit Dancer.

I am doggedly attempting to create the Spirit Dancer Medium of my dreams, but I am having difficulty parsing some of the mechanics. I have asked several knowledgeable friends, who have made it clear to me they have no idea how to answer my questions and that the only person they know that has spent more time obsessing over the Medium than I is Mark Seifter.

So I put to you forum-goers in general (and Mr. Seifter in particular) two very important questions regarding this archetype's abilities:

1) When exactly do you gain influence for channeling a spirit with this archetype? The base Medium states that channeling a spirit incurs one point of influence; and channeling said spirit is normally done as part of the morning seance. However the Spirit Dancer 'makes choices as if channeling a spirit of each legend' in their morning seance, and actually channels the various spirits when entering Spirit Dance. The archetype also states that all influence incurred 'while Spirit Dancing' is pooled.

Do I gain 1 point of influence in the morning seance, when I contact all 6 of my spirits? Or do I gain 1 point of influence each time I Spirit Dance and channel a spirit? I very much doubt the intent is to gain an additional influence each time you Spirit Dance, considering how painfully restrictive influence gain is.

2) In light of the drastically different seance and channeling rules, how exactly does the new Medium "flex" feat work with the Spirit Dancer? Essentially the feat states that when channeling a spirit at the beginning of the day, you can incur an extra 1 point of influence to gain access to a special feat for that spirit. Would I have to spend 6 points of influence (which is impossible) to gain access to the feats for my various spirits?

Thank you for any insight.

It's a matter of pragmatism most of the time, as prior posters have mentioned. My Silver Crusade diplomat would love to enroll every random cutthroat the party defeats in Sarenrae's 12 Steps program; but he and his very burly and dangerous compatriots were sent to kill an evil wizard, not redeem the countryside, and taking time to set up college funds for henchmen somewhat distracts from that purpose.

Also it is a widely-believed fact that all Andorans are monsters.

I'll chime in with a negative. None of the stories of any of my PFS characters connect. And I've yet to make my Venture Captain's protege...

I do have characters that probably know of each other. My two highest-level characters are both level 14 Silver Crusaders, I imagine there are soirées.

There is no errata. However since it is a natural attack I believe you can take Weapon Finesse to at least base the to-hit off of DEX, which has the side effect of raising your AC and initiative. Which you want as high as possible as a melee witch.

Cunning Caster is a good route even for a wizard. Consider that the wizard, as discussed prior, has a huge amount of tools at its disposal to enhance skill checks; usually, Cunning Caster will result in a -12 penalty to Bluff for a wizard spell.

Let's look at a level 5 half-elf wizard, the Faker. With his first level feat, he takes Deceitful [+2]. He also grabs Skill Focus (Bluff) [+3] using an alternate racial trait. The Faker takes a Viper familiar [+3], and spends a trait to use INT in place of CHA for Bluff checks [+4, assuming 18 INT]; he also spends a trait for Bluff as a class skill, and +1 to Bluff [+4]. He can also grab the Enchanting Smile power from the Enchantment school [+3].

The Faker can extend a Raiment of Command at the beginning of each day [+2, effectively]. He can also cast Heroism [+2], which lasts for quite some time itself. Furthermore, the Blend spell renders him effectively invisible; this probably doesn't stack with Raiment of Command, but because Bluff is being opposed by Perception in this case, not Sense Motive, that's [+18].

Finally, at level 5 he can easily afford a +2 competence bonus to Bluff from a magical item, and a +2 circumstance bonus to conceal spellcasting with Bluff via a masterwork tool.

With 5 ranks in Bluff and all spell effects active, the Faker has a +38 bonus to Bluff-- after the -12 penalty. That will probably do for any opposed Perception checks, especially considering the -1 penalty the opposing creatures receive per 10 feet of distance, and other obscuring obstacles.

Dazzling Blade is great on action economy, thematic, and a decently powerful debuff (blinding). Also gives bonuses a DEX-based paladin might enjoy, and lasts for some time if not discharged.

Until you hit a scenario where you're suppose to keep your membership in the society a secret, and you pull out a wayfinder every time you cast a spell.

Hey, at least you won't fail any missions because no one has a wayfinder! ;)

Basic wayfinder is the only cheap one. But it would be cool if all of the wayfinders were half price in PFS-- maybe at different tiers of fame?

Irrespective of the arguments regarding Power Attack and AC optimization I agree that this isn't a guide. It is a fairly standard (and possibly underpowered) Unchained Monk build. But as N Jolly said, please learn from this and try again, Cryn! Don't get discouraged by critique, but don't ignore it either.

I like the guide, but I have to say, the thing that made me the happiest was the compatibility list at the bottom. The 'Archetype Combinations' chart I often refer to is starting to show its age. Any and all classes you did that for would be amazing in my book.

If she never makes a damaging attack unless the oracle is threatened, fine-- assuming she is doing something to aid the party. Arguably "tanking" with full defense can be helpful (say, a whip user as mentioned previously in the thread that trips with AoOs), but it sounds like she is setting a false expectation for her character that is detrimental to the safety of the rest of her team.

Furthermore, the characters are first and foremost Pathfinders. I played a pacifist wizard to retirement; he broke his vow at level 11, because a Magic Missile was the only way to save a fellow Pathfinder from being reduced to a fine mist. But I never failed to take a helpful action on any given round of combat prior to that point, even if it was taking an AoO for another player or rendering someone invisible as Katisha noted above.

If a character has such a crippling roleplay restriction that they cannot or will not suspend it in pursuit of cooperation, then it's going to lead to awkward situations.

I have seen a Guided Hand Warpriest archer build. It's pretty good, but rarely was there ever a reason to -want- to fight in melee, especially considering the Air blessing-- which negates AoOs from firing your bow as well as -completely negating ranged penalties-. This lets you make very long-distance attacks with your high Perception and longbow.

If you pick up the Destruction blessing you can get +1/2 your level as a morale bonus to damage on all of your attacks; combined with Fate's Favored and Divine Favor, as well as a decent STR score (and even access to spells like Bull's Strength) you can get very damaging very quickly.

I was excited because I thought you were talking about the Clumsy Slave trait. :( There's actually a number of pretty funny options related to 'accidentally' damaging / betraying your foes that might be stitchable into a similar concept: Betrayer and Betraying Blow, for example.

The Prankster bard archetype may interest you as well.

Secret Wizard, you're discounting just how much benefit you get from said "fiendish" minmaxing.

Let's say in my original statistic distribution, I decided that I want to be pretty good at Perception and Disable Device, so I assign a 16 to WIS and 16 to DEX. I still want 16 INT for Investigator-y things, but as you say, I could spend a trait to get INT to UMD at least and thus continue to ignore CHA.

Now instead I take the Empiricist archetype and start with 20 INT. Now not only am I +2 "better" at Perception and Disable Device, I'm not penalized by lower WIS or DEX. I've also saved a trait and am again +2 "better" at UMD. At this point, I could spend my trait on, say, INT to Bluff and Diplomacy for even more complete coverage.

Each time I increase my INT, I automatically benefit in all of these skills; previously I benefitted only partially from particular statistic increases.

Let's also not discount the fact that the Investigator is (more-or-less) a spellcaster. The higher their primary statistic, the more extract slots they acquire, which means more Alchemical Allocations for all sorts of powerful stuff (including +10 to various skill checks and even more useful things).

Not to mention the fact that you don't actually lose your ability to craft alchemical items... stock up on +5 vs. poison-resist tonics if the possibility is that concerning.

I mean... I don't know if this is -actually- true, but it's probably close enough. I'd just take 4 wizards-- assuming that I had certain assurances. That is to say, the ability to choose the character's point buy and the knowledge of what character build options might be banned by the GM.

I think that's about all you'd need, ever, for anything, excepting maybe an incredible amount of patience to research spell choices and archetype combinations.

I like to carry a bunch of scrolls of 'Fixing Me' on any martial character with deadly DPR to hand out to spellcasters in the party; have divine and arcane solutions, and more often than not -someone- can make use of them.

Just don't get angry when you get paralyzed or something not deadly to the caster and the caster doesn't waste their turn fixing it if they've got Black Tentacles to drop or what have you!

My post on this thread may interest you.

I've recently built a tower shield specialist so I feel qualified to weigh in with powerful options I found.

Pick up an ability to grant teamwork feats to your allies (such as the Cavalier ability or the Battle Song of the People's Revolt).

Next you want to get as big as you can. Enlarge Person, or even something to get your PC (or companion capable of wielding tower shields) to Huge size.

Finally, snag the Shield Wall teamwork feat.You can buff AC a bit, but more importantly this lets you provide Total Cover for your entire party as a standard action.

You can combine this with Contigent Action to do some cool stuff, like automatically shield you and your companions from an archer ambush.

The feat Covering Shield can grant a pretty impressive bonus to your Reflex saves if you're really good with tower shields.

Yes. There is an issue that the ability is overpowered and leaving it in is problematic.

How is it overpowered? No one has posited anything beyond 'it saves you some gold'. In fact...

Your build still works, it just needs to pay more money. Your build doesn't fall apart or fail to fire because you're missing a rod or two.

That's actually kind of the point when it comes to the necromancer or the Raise Dead character-- it DOES fall apart without access to Blood Money. Unlike Stoneskin or Heart of the Metal, which my Magus could (painfully) afford, the restrictions on raising the (un)dead in Pathfinder Society means that drastic measures need to be taken for the character to stay viable (in terms of 'being able to afford the base items the game assumes you have') while regularly exercising their primary mechanic.

But leaving that aside, I don't understand what 'your build isn't completely worthless without it' has to do with the argument against banning Blood Money. It wasn't banned previously, and it is now. Several people in the thread are asserting that this is an erroneous decision due to it not being powerful enough to necessitate a ban.

Various reasons have been suggested as to why it is too powerful, but none other than 'I don't like that it saves you money' seem to have any tracking. It can't be used efficiently from a wand, it takes incredible character-building acrobatics to try to negate the ability score damage aspect (and tons of spell slots), and the average cost savings barring past-end-of-play shenanigans seem comparable to the savings an alchemist gets with his 1/3rd price alchemical items over his career at best.

Several have been mentioned thus far, BigNorseWolf. A "team player" character built around the ability to Raise Dead using Blood Money, as opposed to Ultimate Mercy. Literally any necromancer desiring to regularly raise the dead. I will personally note that Heart of the Metal and Blood Money were a key component of my natural attacking Witch/Magus in PFS; now he has no way to reliably bypass damage reduction, without spending money desperately needed for Pearls of Power, rods, armor, you name it.

EDIT: To be clear, I still find the fact that it was banned at all mystifying, and would prefer a recant of the ban to grandfathering if possible. No evidence has been produced in this thread that it did anything other than provide people that worked hard for their savings some extra change in their pocket. It doesn't raise the dead, nor the undead, nor provide DR 10-- it just saves money at the cost of a spell slot and ability damage, or multiple spell slots (including cross-class spell access somehow).

Blood Money cast from a wand is as a standard action, is it not? You would need to Quicken your spells to receive a discount in this fashion.

But.. now you can't cast Stoneskin..

Yes I'm being hyperbolic, of course you get it next level. But for reals, delaying spell progression is a hilariously brutal cost just to save some money.

You're glossing over the, say, four spell slots, a scroll, and devotion to the Living God Razmir necessary to accomplish this feat, andreww. Or perhaps the Shaman Spirit choice, hex choice, and INT/CHA/WIS ability score spread. Or the Oracle archetype, race restriction, and spell level increases... etc. etc.

On a sufficiently optimized chassis at a sufficiently high level you might safely say you could ignore the 'costs' of using Blood Money. But as the poster above says, unless you're doing this at such high enough levels that PFS no longer considers you for most campaign decisions what's the point?

Hmm, but this doesn't "give" you free stuff, GM Lamplighter. You are suffering damage and expending magical energy in exchange for synergy with other expenditures of magical energy. As you say, a shortcut to save money. But why is it wrong to disadvantage myself for the adventuring day as opposed to disadvantaging myself for the adventuring year?

This isn't some sort of infinite-money hack. If I aggressively use Blood Money to save costs, then I might have more money than someone who aggressively spent money on Stoneskin. I don't have any more money than someone who cast Greater Invisibility and Color Spray and survived their brush with that STR-draining ghost in the old well by 1 point.

It doesn't matter... you are of course free to do whatever you want, and it's all good. You're even free to belittle people interested in the lore with sarcasm.

That's quite rude of you to assume. I am not belittling anyone. If I gave that impression, I apologize. Quite the opposite, I felt that you were acting dismissive of others' equally valid rationales for supporting Paizo's authorship. I can be uninterested in the setting material in one book, and uninterested in the mechanical material for another. It's not a binary proposition (yes, yes, Stormwind Fallacy blah blah).

Perhaps this would be a candidate to petition for grandfathering? I know that isn't an established goal to strive for with banned options but I think it could be useful in situations like this, where the majority of truly put-out players can live with not including Blood Money going forward but may have a number of extant spellcasters relying on the spell for various purposes.

I guess I'm always boggled by people who buy a book only for a mechanical advantage for a PFS character, when it's something like a single feat or a single spell.

This statement boggled me for a second. Why does it matter why I or anyone else buys a book? I've given my money to Paizo in support of their writing. I just happen to care about the text of some feats and spells in some books more than supplementary material regarding how to comport oneself at ancient Thassilonian dinner parties.

If you are making builds centred around it, you are already taking advantage of the spell, and begging for it to be banned!

*looks at a list of level 1 spells he can build entire characters around off the top of his head* Let's see, in no particular order... Blend, Snowball, Long Arm, Enlarge Person, Obscuring Mist, Moment of Greatness, Shocking Grasp, Color Spray, Silent Image...

That's just the wizard list.

Mild sarcasm intended, but to be clear, there are any number of powerful spells at any given spell level.

On a 5 day journey where you get ambushed twice blood money has saved you 1250 gp. This plays into the "opportunity cost" argument as well. It makes stoneskin something you keep up all the time instead of only casting it when combat starts or you are almost certain it is about to.

I think you may be unintentionally misrepresenting this opportunity cost. While it's true that you save gold, you tangibly reduce your abilities in exchange. You've now expended a spell slot (and potentially a spell known) and taken STR damage for this trick. One less spell slot that could have been a Snowball to Slow the massive golem, or a Magic Missile to snipe the menacing foe that survived the fighter's full attack before it wreaks havoc on the party, etc. etc. One or more STR damage closer to very unpleasant types of death from creatures that damage/drain STR; or more resources expended to heal the STR damage.