FamiliarMask's page

Thanks for your thoughts, gentlemen, well put and well meant as they are. I admit to still be struggling a bit, but the notion of playing up the importance of the temple early on so that the PCs won't hand it over is a good one. Heck, I can see some fun in the PCs and the SH actually getting on fine initially right up until the latter finds out that they drew the temple, whereupon Velriana turns antagonistic. Might deepen the PCs' curiosity about the place.

IMO, Velriana is presented as an arrogant, entitled noblewoman and religious zealot from the moment the PCs meet her, vocally criticizing the Church of Pharasma for not giving her group the site they want, and trying to get other groups to give it to her anyway, despite being officially refused.

The others are more pleasant, but clearly follow her lead. Khelru is even more devout and a true believer that the site should be rightfully theirs. Azaz doesn't care as much, but he loves Khelru and will do what makes him happy. Idorii doesn't really care at all, but she's Velriana's hireling and is paid to protect her and do her bidding.

When Velriana decides to poach the site anyway, she hires thugs to ambush whoever is rightfully assigned the site. Assuming the PCs find this out from their attackers, they should probably not be feeling friendly when they confront the Scorched Hand.

And the thing is, the Hand don't want to just explore the site. They want to claim it and its knowledge and treasures. They've already looted much of the place before the PCs get there. All those scrolls and wands and such in their equipment likely came from the Sanctum.

And Velriana, at least, isn't willing to share. She should turn any encounter into a fight, unless the PCs totally capitulate and just leave.

I just ran through this with my current group, and they took a dislike to Velriana early, discovered she'd set people to ambush them, reported the ambush to the Church of Pharasma, and went in looking to bring the claim-jumpers to justice.

In the end, the PCs dominated the fight, Idorii surrendered rather than dying, and when Khelru went down Azaz surrendered as well to try to save his life. Velriana cursed them all for traitors and fought to the death, and after she was down the PCs accepted the surrender of the others and decided to explore the rest of the place with their aid, before taking their stuff and letting them go.

If your group is the type that would approach the Scorched Hand and offer to trade sites when they get the Sanctum, you could have the Church of Pharasma step in and prevent it.

Alternately, you could let them take the Hand's site, which you would have to invent for yourself, and then you'd have to figure out some way to get your PCs reconnected with the rest of the adventure path. Maybe in book 2 the Hand approach the PCs asking for help and presenting the info needed to connect the undead uprising with the missing Mask from the Sanctum.

Doesn't seem worth the extra work to me, though...

FamiliarMask wrote:

Probably not the kind of build you're looking for, but a Snakebite Striker Brawler 1/Ashiftah Witch 2 with Evil Eye and the Hex Strike (Evil Eye) feat can strike, hex and vanish over and over. Make the character a Sylph with Cloud Gazer, and you can do the mist assassin trick too...

I like this!! now... how would you progress from here? take more brawler lvls? monk lvls? to up the unarmed strikes and get DR bypasses? Or maybe something else? Magus has two archetypes that do unarmed...? Just cause you need to do an unarmed strike to do hex strike.... so it would make sense to do something that advanced your unarmed strike to me.... but how would you build up from there to lvl 9/10?

One outside-the-box option would be to make the character be from Sargava, take the Two-World Magic trait to add Mage Hand to your Witch spell list, take the Accomplished Sneak Attacker feat, and go 2 more levels of Witch and then into Arcane Trickster. ;-)

Probably not the kind of build you're looking for, but a Snakebite Striker Brawler 1/Ashiftah Witch 2 with Evil Eye and the Hex Strike (Evil Eye) feat can strike, hex and vanish over and over. Make the character a Sylph with Cloud Gazer, and you can do the mist assassin trick too...

PC is a U-Rogue 5 with the Trap Spotter talent. I don't have her full build right here in front of me but I know her Perception is +11. I'm running pre-written material for a megadungeon loaded with mechanical and magic traps.

On the mechanical ones... avg Perception DC is a 15-20. SOP for this player is to scout ahead of the party, clearing the way before the group proceeds. Even when I spontaneously add traps to a fight scene this PC is often close enough to the front line that she senses something unless I'm cheating or I roll really poorly on her secret Perception checks.

In short; most of my mechanical traps are no more interesting than a speed bump.

I've been running games in PF1 for 11 years now and this is honestly the first time traps have gotten THIS boring. No one ever plays Rogues in my games and folks with Trapfinding haven't been this religious about scouting ahead.

Do I just have to crank the DCs on all the traps sky high? Turn all the traps to Magic traps? How do I make the environment more engaging with a PC so focused on finding/disarming traps. Please note: this player is one of 4 that are obsessed with RAW, so just homebrewing a new way of running traps will be a non-starter. Also, I'm not looking to be a killer GM here either.

Personally, I say let the player and their party benefit from their focus on dealing with traps. They chose to be good at that over something else.

Countering players' investment in what they want to excel at by raising the difficulty makes them feel like their choices don't matter and they're at the mercy of your whims. I don't think that's a good way to keep the game fun for all involved.

The trap expert will fail to detect or disarm a trap occasionally, and it will be all the more shocking to the party when it happens.

Faq wrote:

Slashing Grace does not allow most shields, but bucklers work because they don’t occupy the hand. Flurry of blows, brawler’s flurry, two-weapon fighting, and spell combat all don’t work with Slashing Grace.

here

Well, that settles that. Officially doesn't work. Noted.

Yes and rangers can't take boon companion, life oracles and paladins can't take feats that require channel energy, etc.

There is such a thing as too much pedanticism. It works almost exactly like flurry of blows, quacks like flurry of blows, and walks like flurry of blows. Pummeling style should work with it, and slashing grace should turn off when used.

Sure, you could treat it like Flurry of Blows, but then you should do so for everything, but prior calls on it don't seem to. You can't add the advancement of Brawler's Flurry and Flurry of Blows together, for example... <shrugs> Make whatever call works for your game...

i think that is why he also took 2-weapon grace

Since the "Two-Weapon Fighting" feat a 2nd level Brawler gets is actually the Brawler's Fury class feature, they can make all their attacks with their unarmed strike (aka the Constructed Limb's Vicious Blades). Since they aren't attacking with 2 weapons or using flurry of blows, they should be able to use Slashing Grace without impediment or the need for Two-Weapon Grace. In fact, I'm pretty sure Two-Weapon Grace does nothing for this build.

Here are the relevant bits of Brawler's Flurry:

"Starting at 2nd level, a brawler can make a brawler’s flurry as a full-attack action. When doing so, a brawler has the Two-Weapon Fighting feat when attacking with any combination of unarmed strikes, weapons from the close fighter weapon group, or weapons with the “monk” special feature. She does not need to use two different weapons to use this ability.

A brawler applies her full Strength modifier to her damage rolls for all attacks made with brawler’s flurry, whether the attacks are made with an off-hand weapon or a weapon wielded in both hands."

Does it seem weird to anyone else that Foxglove Manor is described as perched on a cliff with its stained glass windows overlooking the Varisian Gulf, but the windows face East, which is back towards land?

I guess the spur of land the house sits on must jut East off of Foxglove Bluff back toward the mouth of the river, and thus overlook water that is technically part of the Varisian Gulf, but it seems like it would have made a lot more sense to just point the house West towards the ocean...

The mention of phones at the table reminds me that I wrote a blog post a year or two back that went into my personal pet peeves as a GM, but I did try my best to counter my b---ing with some useful advice for how to be a better, more considerate player at the table.

Most of it boils down to common courtesy: Be aware of how your behavior is perceived by others at the table, invest some time learning the rules your character uses the most, and avoid doing stuff that detracts from the group's fun.

My table is basically defined by the problems you lay out in your blog. Rules experts and focused participants, my players are not... But hey, we still manage to have fun.

Ryze Kuja wrote:

I've heard other people say that having smartphones out is bad table etiquette. Personally, it doesn't bother me. I just pretend that they're looking up something on d20pfsrd :P

I think it depends on the group. In my group, some people actually store their character data that way. The rest of us just have the phone handy in case someone close to us needs to contact us for emergency reasons (and such interruptions do indeed tend to be true emergencies).

I don't mind people using their phones as tools as part of playing the game. I am very irritated by people using their phones *instead* of playing the game, however. Sadly, the person I have to yell at the most for this is my wife...

I am also wondering what you are missing by referencing a "Forest Warden" prestige class, which actually does not exist under that name. My guess is that you got it from d20pfsrd.com and therefore are missing its real name and prerequisites. With the full information from the original sources or the Archives of Nethys, this combination might not make sense even if you could somehow make it work. The biggest issue with your build is that you should not be able to take your 1st level in any prestige class before 6th level -- if you are thinking you can do it, you have either misread the prestige class prerequisites or missed an official clarification somewhere.

Avr -- I would love to see at least one reference from somebody at Paizo to prestige classes not being valid as aligned classes. It would be convenient to have something to cite on that point.

You can enter Arcane Trickster at level 5, but that's the only one I'm aware of.

As for this build, it's certainly not legal in its current form.

The primary error seems to be based on a misunderstanding of what Ranks in a skill are. There is no possible way to have more Ranks in a skill than your character level.

Therefore, you must be level 3 to take Deific Obedience, Level 6 to enter the Evangelist or Chernasardo Warden prestige classes, and level 7 to become a Mortal Usher.

That said, the build is possible if adjusted to fix those errors, and could be entertaining if not powerful or effective...

So I got hooked into Pathfinder pretty quick with some friends, playing Rise of the Rune Lords and are still only 2/3 through, and I have already got ambitious enough to get my kids going in Dragon's Demand and taking on my first GM.

They have all got about 2000 gp and I don't see anything in Belhaim where they can shop for armor or wondrous items, nor do I see the adventure taking them out of Belhaim at any time. Where are they supposed to buy some goodies? Should I just home-brew a shop or two?

The Belhaim appendix doesn't have a ton of info on the town, but it does list some magic items for sale and where they are at the end of the town stat block on pg. 56.

This at least gives you the names of a few places magic items can be bough and sold: House of Abadar, Shrine of the Seven Roses, Sensina Hides, Delbin's Devices and Chance Smithy. The table on page 61 lists a bunch of other locations and a bit about their inhabitants and you could flesh those out for your use as well.

Regarding the "Ranger Combat Styles", I understand that the ranger must choose from the listed feats for his combat style whenever he gains a bonus feat and that at those times he is not required to meet the prerequisites for the feat he takes. I am curious, however, if he is still required to meet feat prerequisites for the listed feats if he takes one of them during his normal progression.

For example, is the following a valid feat progression for a ranger with the archery combat style?

[Level 1] Weapon Focus (Longbow)
[Level 2, bonus feat] Precise Shot
[Level 3] Rapid Shot

My understanding is that Ranger Combat Styles only let you ignore prerequisites for the bonus feats they provide.

I believe you would need to take Point Blank Shot before you could take Rapid Shot as a regular feat.

I'm not seeing the problem. Is it just an issue with the way it was written or the location?

** spoiler omitted **

Well, I didn't really bring it up as a problem, but to inform people of a benefit of low-light vision that many players seem to be unaware of.

Really though, I do think it's a problem that not all descriptions of the effects of low-light vision include the same information, so that depending on where you look, you think it has different benefits.

I realize this is a derail, so I'll leave it at that.

Low light should be a night-vision thing Sysryke, but by the rules it's not really. A house rule could change that but it shouldn't be a surprise that people roll with it.

"Characters with low-light vision can see outdoors on a moonlit night as well as they can during the day." CRB pg. 564

This line is often missed when discussing Low-light Vision, because it's only listed in the Special Abilities appendix, rather than in the race descriptions or the Vision and Light section.

It's also interesting that most descriptions of low-light vision in the book, including the one there, only list it doubling the distance you can see in dim light, while the entry in Vision and Light says "can see objects twice as far away as the given radius. Double the effective radius of bright light, normal light, and dim light for such characters."

The rules are really kind of a mess...

So, in the process of posting on a different thread, I had one of my random thoughts.

In my current game group, everyone is part of a couple. There's my husband and I, the married couple who host, and our other two friends (formerly married, now divorced).

As gamers our community has come a long way, but the old stereotypes do still crop up. The old stereotype of a gamer is the socially awkward, single, young guy, and a female at the table was practically rarer than a unicorn. Obviously, for those of us who've played for years (or decades) we know this cliché is overstated, but we all also knew (or were) some of those guys.

Now, none of my group is super young any more. We're not elderly either, but all in our 30's to 40's. Is this just a symptom of where we are all at in our lives, or is our group odd? I doubt there are any studies out there, so this is mostly looking for anecdotal insights. How common is it to see couples at the gaming table, much less an entire group of couples?

In my experience, once you get older than college-age, couples become fairly common.

My wife and I are in the 30s & 40s range also. We game together, and most of the table top groups we've been in in the last decade or so had at least one other married couple in them.

Other players were mostly single guys, but there has been a single woman or two also.

I'm partial to Darkleaf Cloth Leather Lamellar.

Basically fills the same mechanical space as a Mithral Chain Shirt, but a bit cheaper, Druid-friendly, and allows for a different aesthetic.

Short of building something custom with ARG and race points, are there any rules which let one hybridize the races, or mix and match more than one racial feature?

I'm not super clear on how the heritage feat/trait works. I know changelings can get some pieces through alternate racial traits.

But say I wanted to blend an Undine with Kitsune. Really any potential combo.

Tangent: Are there any rules that allow for variant ability bonuses on any ? Not above houserules, but like to see if there is something published (and theoretically balanced) first.

Bastards of Golarion has a "Distant Heritages" section on pages 30-31 that tells you to use the race builder rules from ARG.

"Characters with diverse racial heritages can be created
by using the race builder rules found on page 214 of the
Pathfinder RPG Advanced Race Guide. Simply begin with 9
Race Points (RP) and purchase racial traits appropriate for
the races that make up your heritage."

The rest of the section provides suggestions for various heritage combinations, but no new mechanics. I think that's about as official as you're gonna get...

Investigators are even better than bards for skills and can also pick up (psychic) spellcasting with psychic detective. They're no slouches in combat either.

They can also get Bard casting with Questioner and Inquisitor casting with Jinyiwei.

Hello all!

I am about to create my first character for a pathfinder campaign and I was hoping for some advice. I have a character idea for a magic-user who is essentially a Librarian who has become bored with reading the adventures of others and so has chosen to go adventure and learn about the world.

My question is; which class would best represent a book nerd seeking knowledge and adventure?

May I suggest the Antiquarian or Questioner Investigator archetypes? They've both got Int-based spellcasting, lots of skills, and reasonable combat ability.

Of course, my comment was mainly about game mechanics. In Golarion and other settings using the Pathfidner rules, crafting a magical non-composite bow would be a bad business tactic. The +25gp is negligible compared to the price of a magic weapon (at least 2375gp), and being able to add adaptive should greatly improve resale value.

While I agree that the additional cost of making a bow composite is fairly negligible for a magic weapon, it isn't quite as negligible as you're thinking. Sure, a composite longbow only costs 25 gp more than a regular longbow, but that's a +0 Strength modifier bow. It also costs 100 gp per +1 Str mod you want the bow to provide.

This makes it both more costly and trickier for crafters to make the "right" choice, because if you make the modifier too high, many customers can't use it effectively, and if you make it too low, stronger customers won't want it. Magic composite bows really need to be custom orders, and it's probably more logical to just make all of them Adaptive.

Meirril wrote:

There is also a caster option in the prestige class.

For Living Monolith? I don't see much in that PrC that could really benefit casters.

You mean other than 9/10 spellcasting progression from the Ib Stone and significantly improved durability, combat ability and senses? Well, there is the immortality bit... ;-)

Is there any representative of the Maori in Pathfinder?

And if there are not and someone wants to put them in golarion where do you think where? Since I don't see small island archipelago in the map

There isn't one, as far as I know.

If I was going to put them somewhere, it would probably be Sarusan and/or the Wandering Isles. They seem to be Golarion's equivalent to Austalia and environs. There's practically no published info about them beyond the paragraph in the Inner Sea World Guide...

I think it works exactly like any other thrown weapon, honestly. The Rope Dart has a 12' ribbon and a 20' range as per its definition... so this ribbon is clearly designed to extend past its original 12' length.

So your dart hits its first target, the ribbon already growing from 12' to 20' to make this first hit possible, then the dart bounces towards its second target, the ribbon extending another 20', leaving this delicate silk ribbon drifting midair betwixt your enemies, as the dart weaves through the crowd dispatching foes like a twisted game of connect-the-dots...

Should it work like this? Absolutely not. But visually it is freaking awesome, so it should definitely be allowed. Plus, it's a rope dart, so who would ever not allow it? Be a Startoss Rope Dart Warpriest, still nobody cares.

Not sure where you're getting anything about a ribbon from. It's described as "a 12-foot rope attached to a 6-inch long, conical metal spike".

It can reach 20 ft the same way a 7-foot glaive has a 10 ft reach. Unexplained by RAW, but likely involving footwork or, you know, just the abstraction of a game system not based on realism. Certainly, neither the rope nor the glaive haft is extendable.

As for how it would work with the Startoss feat chain, I think if you wanted the dart to hit a target more than 20 ft from you, you'd have to let go of the rope and be unable to retrieve the dart.

Hello,

I'm about to embark on my first PF campaign and decided to go with an Aasimar cleric. I'm leaning towards the halo racial trait but I'm wondering what I'm really giving up if I forego darkvision.

I figure the halo would provide me and those close to me with enough light to avoid melee combat and skill check penalties, and if I really needed the light I could cast Daylight.

Any thoughts or advice?

Seems like a terrible trade to me. With Halo, you're giving up your ability to see and move in the dark without drawing attention to yourself for a cantrip you can already cast at-will and a couple circumstantial bonuses. If stealth will ever have any value to you and your party (it will), darkvision is amazingly better than a light spell.

It doesn't specify the hands required. On the one hand (so to speak) it's a thrown weapon which is usually (not always) 1H, on the other it says it's like a meteor hammer which is a 2H weapon.

Maybe someone knows something about the RL weapon it's based on and could say?

In game terms, based on real world use, it should definitely be a two-handed weapon. Realistically, it'd be more accurate to say you use your whole body to control it, as techniques tend to involve wrapping it around your arms, legs and neck to control and redirect the dart.

The rope dart and other similar weapons aren't represented very well mechanically in Pathfinder, IMO. I'm not sure what the RAW is on hands needed, but I wouldn't allow using them for two-weapon fighting in my game.

Here's a good video of a guy doing target practice with one that has nice slow motion shots...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UShagbf79J4

Oh, and as for background on the "kineticist OP" judgement:

He's been a DM for a long time. I was throwing 4d6+8 every round, for free, from up to 240ft away (extended + air range doubler). I literally sniped an enemy that was running away because we didn't want to let him escape. If you hit a lot of enemies with one spell your total damage is good, but you expend a spell slot. At this level as a wizard you get a couple 4th level spells, a few 3rd, and 4 to 6 of 2nd on down. You're probably using 2 to 4 spells a fights, mostly lower but maybe a couple Haste every day at least? A 4th level for a bigger bad?

Kineticist doesn't care. Way in the back, 4d6+7 every round before overflow. Channeling some burn into defense, suddenly it's more like 4d6+13 and oh yeah 40% of your arrows just miss me. Coming into melee with me? Up to four rounds of double moves minimum for the average enemy, and you have to get through my allies as well, before I even got the extreme range talent. Oh yeah I'm probably constantly flying too, because wings of air is a 3rd level talent. So no melee unless you can fly (plus a couple movements to catch me as I can fly 60ft and shoot in the same round), and I can burn a little to get half of all ranged attacks to miss. If I have a little burn to spare I can stop rays as well for a round, but I'm mostly targeting the casters with no issues because I'm a freaking sniper.

Unless the DM specifically increased the danger level of the baddies for me, or prepared them a fair bit more (and thus indirectly raised the danger level), the party wouldn't have a fair fight: either I'd be too strong, or they'd be too weak. We nerfed my power together because I basically didn't miss. This was with air blast too, I had electric for the high AC enemies (which means more no missing, or heavy electrical resistance). Yeah it's all or nothing of two greatsword swings, basically, but it's free from a long range sometimes on a touch attack.

Does that all make sense?

All of that does make sense, and the tactics are valid and impressive in the right circumstances, but I just have to ask... Were all your battles in wide-open featureless plains under the open sky? In most Pathfinder encounters I've been in, if you're more than 120 ft from the enemy, you're probably out of line of sight and out of the fight.

gnoams wrote:

A returning net would be kinda terrible. You would throw it, entangle someone, then right before your next turn, the net would come off of them and fly back to you.

Nets are just terrible. Whether they return, or not, is irrelevant to how terrible they are.

Why are nets terrible? I've never tried to use one on a character, but entangled seems like a decent debuff...

What's the best way to encourage players to actually use their disposable items rather than hoarding them?

(Comic for illustrative purposes.)

Encourage the behavior you want by rewarding it.

Have using the disposable items be good solutions to their problems. Given them disposable items that let them do things they can't do with their own abilities, then make those things relevant to the story. Make sure new disposable items come their way more frequently when they make use of them. You can also have both allied and enemy NPCs get effective use out of disposable items, to show their potential.

You can also discourage hoarding in various ways. The best is probably to simply not give out or give access to more disposable items once they've hoarded a certain amount.

Random question time:

How would you pronounce Jeggare?

I've been saying "Jegg-er". But I realize the A is probably meant to be long like "Jegg-air".

But I've kind of been flirting with the idea that it's pronounced like a Spanish word "Yegg-ar-ray"

Just as a note, J pronounced as Y is a Germanic thing, not Spanish. If it were Spanish, it'd be pronounced like an H, so something like "Heh-GAH-ray".

I've played an Evangelist (The Maiden), but not a summoning one. I really enjoyed it, and could see it being an amazing summoner if built for it. But I can also see the merits of the Herald caller. I guess I don't see what the Herald caller offers to compete with Inspire Courage (although if you have a bard in the party obviously Herald Caller would be better).

I realize this has already been addressed in part, but to me, free Augment Summoning and Superior Summons and no need to take the useless Spell Focus (Conjuration), the ability to channel and heal your summons no matter where they are, the ability to spontaneously cast Cure or Summon spells so you never need to prepare either one, the ability to communicate with your summons, and +2 skill points per level more than make up for the lack of Inspire Courage.

With a title like that... anyone want to hazard a guess as to what my question is?

We are looking at building a Kensai Magus. One of the thoughts is to go down the Slashing Grace route. The player in my game wants to use an Elven Thornblade. Since the Thornblade is already P/S (already has the ability to do Piercing damage), does it qualify for this feat?

I am of the belief that a main part of this feat is to allow a weapon that cannot do Piercing damage to be able to do such, AND allows you to apply DEX to damage as a side effect.

Any help?

Please and thank you!

- JW

Nothing in the Slashing Grace feat actually allows you to do Piercing damage with a Slashing weapon. It just lets you count it as one for feats and class abilities that require one.

So having the feat would, for example, let you use Swashbuckler's Grace with a longsword, but wouldn't actually let the longsword do Piercing damage. It would also let you add your Dex instead of Str to the longsword's damage.

The Thornblade is a one-handed Slashing weapon, so it qualifies to be chosen for Slashing Grace. The fact that the Thornblade is also already a one-handed Piercing weapon doesn't really enter into it. You can take Slashing Grace for it and get Dex to damage.

Hey guys,

So I have a group of 5 friends who want to start playing Pathfinder.

Around 6 months ago I purchased the Beginners Box, Core Rulebook and Rise of the Runelords.

We played through the Beginners Box and had a great time, even tho we had no idea what we were doing.

I'm just starting my preparation to start the Runelords campaign but I am wondering - we are all brand new to roleplaying games - should I be starting with PF1 or PF2?

Cheers

I'd start with PF1, because you already own the book, and Rise of the Runelords is written for PF1 (assuming the Anniversary Edition). It would take a fair bit of work to adapt RotRL for PF2, which I wouldn't recommend trying as a new DM. Personally, I prefer the PF1 system to PF2 or D&D5 anyway, but that's a matter of opinion...

Improved Unarmed Strike is another one.

Everyone should be able to make unarmed strikes without a feat just fine. It's something you can do naked. It's something children can do.

Not sure I agree on this one. Anyone already can make unarmed strikes without the feat. They just do nonlethal damage and provoke attacks of opportunity.

What the feat does is allow you to make unarmed attacks against armed opponents without leaving yourself open to getting stabbed and have those attacks do deadly damage.

That is definitely not something that children can do. Fighting unarmed against an armed enemy is difficult for even highly-skilled real world martial artists.

1. Ashifta - Ghost Walk & Fog of War are both amazing. Delivering touch spells at range with scraps of veil is cool, if slow. Of course, you're probably invisible while doing it... Veil vs. Familiar has advantages & disadvantages and feels like an even trade.

2. Herb Witch - Herb Lore is excellent for removing conditions, poisons & disease. Combine with Hedge Witch, Healing patron and even Hex Channeler for the ultimate healer-witch...

3. Cartomancer - Mystic fortune teller vibe, Spell Deck, Deadly Dealer, throwing cards at people to deliver touch spells...

FamiliarMask wrote:

In my games, if someone wants to invest in getting two Vestigial Arms, I'm happy to let them swing around their pair of greatswords or whatever.

Those discoveries have inbuilt limitations that have been reiterated in the FAQs, you are removing the limitations, making them more powerful.

Consider that you are adding arms to a creature with a nervous system born for managing 2 arms.

Yep, that's exactly what I'm doing. Or rather, I'm removing a limitation added to them by a FAQ that I disagree with.

As for the nervous system thing, I'm not inclined to worry about that kind of "realism" where fantasy magic is concerned. I imagine the magic that created the arms took care of that problem too.

Let's make a different example, just to see if you guys wanting to get extra attacks from having more arms would like it:

"I am a spellcaster with several spells that have somatic components only if I get 4 arms I can cast two of them at the same time? After all, the spellweaver can do that!"
That is exactly what you want.

Good job knocking down that Straw Man...

The Kasatha shouldn't have been a playable race as it allows to play a race that naturally has 4 arms. Or it should have had an appropriate cost for that ability. Game balance wise it is a bad thing.

I tend to agree the Kasatha shouldn't be a playable race in Pathfinder, but more because I don't like space aliens in my fantasy than for anything about their mechanics.

Hail! I am an aspiring necromancer traveling through Varisia. We have made somewhat of a name for ourselves in Sandpoint as arcane researchers and problem solvers, specializing in matters of the undead. I would prefer to practice my craft openly to show the townsfolk that neromancy can be used to aid the living, but wish not to violate local law. Any and all undead in my thrall are animated from slain monsters, summoned from my Robe of Bones, or temporarily summoned via spells. Any dangerous undead captured in the field are destroyed before they can slip control. Is it possible to keep a few undead pets in my retinue (perhaps with a special writ from the mayoy/governor) or is this actually against local law?

You might want to look at how things are done in Kaer Maga as a local-ish example of a place where undead are used in public. Even there, it's primarily confined to one neighborhood and still not very well received. Sandpoint isn't likely to be nearly so accommodating.

Melkiador wrote:

The hands of effort only applies to two weapon fighting. If you aren’t two weapon fighting, they don’t matter. If you have 4 fully functional arms you can attack with all of them as written under multiweapon fighting.

There are ways to get extra arms. Polymorphing is the most obvious.

As far as I know, even if you have 4 fully functional, natural arms... you still can't TWF with 2H weapons, even with Multiweapon Fighting... even though you have the "handedness" fully covered...

Your main hand has two hands on a 2H weapon, and your off-hand has two hands on a 2H weapon... TWF, here we come!

But no, you apparently still don't have enough "hands' worth of whatever" to actually swing both swords using your four arms...

It's stupid.

Whoever published a 4-armed playable race without accounting for this is quite feasibly blind and or illiterate... otherwise the glaringly obvious pattern involving playable characters and the number of arms would have presented itself long before the attempt was made to publish the Kasatha.

How it got past the editing staff, I don't know.

Just want to throw two points out there:

1. Paizo published a Kasatha NPC in the Iron Gods AP that uses two weapon fighting with a pair of two-handed chainsaws.

2. Unless you're playing PFS, you can completely ignore this ruling and run things however your table likes.

In my games, if someone wants to invest in getting two Vestigial Arms, I'm happy to let them swing around their pair of greatswords or whatever.

Hello, all. I was hoping I could get one or two opinions on this Warpriest build I've been tinkering with. I've just begun playing in a game beginning at 16th level, with a single mythic rank. This will be the highest level character I've ever gotten to play, as well as the first mythic character, and so I set out to put together a Mythic Vital Strike build, for the novelty of it being useful. Along the way, however, I've stumbled into something of an interesting concept that works fairly well as a playable-from-level-one build, with no mythic requirements. The build requires you to be a Human with a deity that favors the whip, so Calistria is a good option. If your DM isn't fussy about which favored weapon you get, like mine, then I recommend Kurgess for flavor. Without further ado, here are the feats.

Human: Racial Heritage (Dwarf)
1st: Whip Mastery
Focus Weapon: Whip

There's a problem with your build, which is most significant if you're looking for good functionality from Level 1.

The Whip Mastery feat requires a Base Attack Bonus of +2. Your Warpriest won't qualify for it until 3rd level.

So recently I've awakened an animal and taken it as my character's cohort for the leadership feat.

It's stats are simply amazing, but it has 2 'levels' of animal and 2 'levels' of magical beast. And can't replace a feat it started with (skill focus: perception)

I have 1 class level, and 2 feats to choose for my new buddy and I'm not sure exactly how I want to work this one.

I'm thinking of taking the wizard archetype sword binder and binding him with a +3 benevolent elven curved blade we randomly rolled up, since nobody in our area is rich enough to actually buy that. But I would need to take eschew materials (I'm assuming it would be very hard for a dog to mess with material components while casting a spell) and point blank shot (for Hand of the apprentice)

For character reasons, even with these heavy restrictions, choosing a different companion is out of the question.

Stats:
** spoiler omitted **

For anyone who cares about the character reasons for why replacing it is not an option.
** spoiler omitted **

So, thoughts?

If you want to make your dog an INT-based caster, have you considered a Psychic? No Verbal or Somatic components, and only expensive Material components...

There's also the Psychic Detective Investigator archetype, which gets Int-based psychic casting instead of alchemy. Might be a better choice for a character that's never going to be up to par as a pure caster...

BITING WORDS

It occurs to me that since Biting Words is a spell with "you" as the target, you can cast it on your familiar and let them attack with it while you use your bow or cast other spells.

Does anyone have the players and/or DM do something to denote when they are talking out of character (as opposed to having their character say whatever it is)? Sometimes it's obivious but not in all cases. I'm wondering if everyone should be given a piece of paper labeled "OOC" which they can turn writing side up to denote they are saying something out of character?

People in my games tend to cross their fingers when speaking OOC, purely out of habit, since we're also LARPers, and that's the common symbol for "not speaking as my character" in the LARPS we play.

I was looking at taking a level of totem spiritualist on a hunter in order to make the animal companion more portable and give it some additional utility. I was hoping for a ghost rider without the spookiness, but the archetype seems pretty messy. Now I'm not sure totem spiritualist does anything of the sort.

The TS archetype replaces the phantom with a phantom animal that has the base stats and abilities of an animal companion, and progresses as an animal companion, but gains special abilities as a phantom. Their spiritualist levels also stack with druid levels for determining the power of the phantom, but not for determining the power of an animal companion. Would taking a level of TS on a hunter give you a single phantom animal, or would it give you a phantom animal as well as the animal companion? Would it give you a phantom that only manifested when your animal was gone?

I thought that the line "A phantom animal functions like an animal companion except as noted in the descriptions below." would indicate a replacement, but the line "A phantom animal is otherwise considered a phantom for the purposes of all feats and abilities." Appears later in the paragraph. Nothing in the paragraph indicates a replacement, but I doubt it's intended that a single level dip would give you a fully leveled phantom.

I'm also uncertain whether or not the phantom manifests as a normal animal, or as an ectoplasmic or incorporeal animal.

Honestly, the whole things a bit confusing. Has there ever been a clarification of intent on this thing?

"A totem spiritualist treats any druid levels she has as effective spiritualist levels to determine the abilities of her phantom animals, but does not treat her spiritualist levels as effective druid levels to determine the abilities of animal companions."

It looks to me that, as written, Totem Spiritualist won't advance your Hunter's Animal Companion and since you're a Hunter, not a Druid, your Hunter levels won't advance the Phantom Animal either. So by RAW, they don't seem to combine in any useful way.

If you were a Druid, by RAW it looks like your Druid levels would advance both your Druid Animal Companion and your Totem Spiritualist Phantom Animal, so you'd have a Phantom Animal at your full character level and an Animal Companion at just your Druid levels.

Personally, I'd probably allow your Hunter Level to act as an effective Druid level to enhance your Phantom Animal, but I'd be concerned about allowing you to have 1 full power and 1 nearly full power companion from a 1 level dip.

I'd maybe combine the companions and let you have a Phantom Animal at your full level that gains your Hunter Animal Focus benefits, and it would manifest as an ectoplasmic or incorporeal animal...

I guess it's also worth noting that Iomedae and Caylen were both heroes before their ascension. Iomedae at least would have been pretty well known (I don't know Cayden's pre-goodhood story as well), so the test of the Starstone would have just been the jext chapter in an existing legend.

Once again Norgorber really doesn't fit this. A god of secrets should be really good at not being found out, but apparently isn't ...

Presumably, Norgorber wants to be worshiped and have minions to use in pursuing his goals. He likely recruited followers to grow his cult out of thieves' guilds and other shady organizations. He's erased his mortal past from even the minds of the gods, so what the world knows of him is how he wants to be known.

I've to build a supportive PC. Race is kitsune, who shall remain in fox form as much as possible.

Lvl: 6.

The only casters compatible with fox form, that i am aware of, are the psychic casters and a sorcerer with psychic bloodline.

Are there ways to make other casters switch to psychic casting?

Thanks in advance.

An Arcanist with the Blood Arcanist archetype and the Psychic bloodline is a 9-level Int-based Psychic prepared caster...

Because both archetypes modify your class skills you technically can't take both Strangler and constructed pugilist on brawler.

Anyone else notice Constructed Pugilist "modifies" your class skills to add Craft (weapons), but the Brawler class already had Craft as a class skill, so it's actually adding nothing?

Because it takes levels for that to come into fruition and they where level 1 just because you manage to get good stats in the right places doesn't mean that you can actually function as a front liner when you have 3/4 bab and a d8 hit die.

At 1st level, I can't imagine the +1 to hit and +2 HP really make the fighter that much better a frontliner, or that the 1 extra feat is more effective than the cleric's spells...

It's a base rule at my table in normal games that Paladins get priority over evil PC's or PC's that would make a paladin unplayable.

My usual guideline is that no one gets to play characters that heavily limit the RP options of other players, unless everyone is on board with that style of play. That generally means no Paladins in my games, as they're the biggest offenders at trying to control other people's behavior and concepts.

People should roleplay their PCs, in and out of combat, but they should also work with the rest of the players and the GM to make PCs that can get along and work together.

My kids have been bugging me to play D&D for several years and I just started running Skulls and Shackles for 6 PCs:

my wife
my friend
my 5th grade boy
my 3rd grade girl
my friend's 6th grade girl
my friend's 3rd grade girl.

My 3rd grade daughter wanted to make a pixie (of course) and I'm trying to make a fair one. I want most to hang onto flight, as it is not much of a pixie without flight.

Fey
Small size
+4 DEX, +2 CHA, -2 STR
Slow speed
Fly 40' (poor manuverability)
SR 5 + character level
SLA at will: Dancing Lights, Shield
Languages: Common and Sylvan.

What do others think? It still looks a bit too good to my eye but I want other's thoughts. I made the flight a bit worse and did not want to go any worse. Shield at will and a +4 DEX looks a bit too good after the flight is in there.

Have you considered using the Gathlain? Seems similar to what you're going for, being a small flying fey, and it's already a playable race. You could always just call it a pixie if the name is important...

So I always loved the idea of the reach cleric, but when I tried it I really missed skills. I've tried making a reach shaman, but it kept coming up short (too many eggs in the basket.) With family it's been hard to keep up and I'm lucky to play once a month (if lucky 2x) Anyone have any caster reach build that worked out well? Would like 4+ int min.

Have you considered the Herald Caller or Roaming Exorcist cleric archetypes? They both have 4+Int skills. Both lose 1 Domain and Medium Armor and Shield proficiency, but gain abilities that seem worth the loss to me.