Felidaeus01's page

That let' them do sneak attack with the SPLASH. They can do sneak attack with anything requiring an attack roll.

"The rogue's attack deals extra damage anytime her target would be denied a Dexterity bonus to AC (whether the target actually has a Dexterity bonus or not), or when the rogue flanks her target. This extra damage is 1d6 at 1st level, and increases by 1d6 every two rogue levels thereafter. Should the rogue score a critical hit with a sneak attack, this extra damage is not multiplied. Ranged attacks can count as sneak attacks only if the target is within 30 feet."

You can sneak attack any person you HIT, just not the splash. It works, and is the whole reason that quick draw says no alchemical items. It doesn't really matter since most of your damage will come from INT + spell. Essentially you can switch hit. Use debutf spells + hexes + alchemical items to debuff while STILL dealing your int and sneak attack on each hit, Or use damage spells + damage alchemical items + sneak attack + sneak attack and some hexes to debut while doing damage. With the alchemical items + your int you do about as much damage as a crit fisher magus, but from a distance AND you debuff.

One level in vivisectionist alchemist followed by a bunch of levels of hex crafter eldritch archer magus would give you INT damage to achemical items that you can spellstrike and sneak attack with, along with a magic weapon you can enchant at 1/2 cost. Oh, and if you make your sling staff conductive you can swift action some evil eye or slumber into them too. So you can cast a spell that fatigues, deals your INT damage on splash + sneak attack, hit with a sickening+entangling alchemical time, and then cast a hex, all against touch at 30 ft. Talk about action economy.

If you can get ahold of grab, can you attack, hit, grapple, then use your free maneuver flurry to make a grapple check to pin?

Just checking in to let everyone know that the Mystic Theurge guide is still going strong. It got set to the wayside for a couple of months due to a very hectic move, but I'm making progress once again. It's rapidly approaching 60 pages, while covering only the CRB, APG, ARG, UM, and UC so far. Once I finish the Familiars section and the Feats analysis, I'm going to account for options in every campaign setting or companion book that I own or that I can get someone to loan me. Sadly, I'd imagine that this will take another solid month or so to completely wrap up. Hopefully it's comprehensive enough that people find it useful.

As an aside, given the massive amount of options and text to sort through, do you guys believe it would be useful to include sample builds? I've been considering including sample statblocks, followed by a build breakdown into how and why it works. I was especially considering aiming for a CRB PFS legal theurge so that people can try one out in pfs without having to buy anything extra. Does that sound like a good idea?

If you could include the best early entry options that would probably make most people happiest. Especially since the primary way to do it, aasimar racial options are going to be gone in a month.

A master chymist guide may become a better idea when investigator comes out (if possible). Investigator actually fits master chymist significantly better than alchemist.

I've been playing a character like this for PFS and it has been working out EXTREMELY well.
I have a similar character:
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2qjwu?Splinter-the-Super-Squirrel-Familiar-help #1

The familiar is optional, but helps with action economy.

One thing that makes all the difference though: get bodyguard and the helpful trait. You will love it, your allies will love it, and it practically DEFINES a tank.

This character is PAINFUL to play for exactly one level. First level. If you have combat reflexes and bodyguard, you start with a 50/50 chance to succeed on the aid another check. After that? It doesn't matter what you do. Giving your allies a +4 to AC as an opportunity attack, with a +1 to attack and damage for sensei, and a +4 to attacks as your standard means that you could sit on your thumbs for the rest of the turn and they wouldn't care, because you just guaranteed that the barbarian got a hit in AND took no damage.

People will look at this and say: you are pretty useless without a party, and you kind of are, but who cares? A character like this is multiplicative, which is strictly better than additive once you have 3 other people. Besides, DnD is ABOUT the party, which can be easy to forget.

Felidaeus01 wrote:

Couple questions: First, can I take earth harm channel with worship of abadar,

Felidaeus01 wrote:

and am I correct in believing that with varisian pilgrim and earth channel I can make a 60/60 zone of difficult terrain I can make my allies immune to as a free action?

Umm, no. Channelling is not a Domain Granted power. Great idea for an exploit, though!

I meant that if you have the travel domain power, you can give your allies immunity to difficult terrain as a free action with varisian pilgrim :)

Still doesn't fix the problem of getting earth and travel though.

On that note, would you prefer touch of law or the 1 round immunity to difficult terrain?

Try some teamwork feats. There's the one that prevents attacks of opportunity for moving in adjacent squares, and another one for making coop reflex saves. Are you wanting full builds? I have a co-op anti caster/anti melee build using a familiar if you want me to post it.

with inner sea gods out, I have some more options for a cleric dip i'll be taking soon with my PFS re-roll monk.

I'm trying to decide between varisian pilgrim with touch of luck and touch of law (worship maghda), or varisian pilgrim with touch of law, travel domain, and earth channel (Worship abadar).

Couple questions: First, can I take earth harm channel with worship of abadar, and am I correct in believing that with varisian pilgrim and earth channel I can make a 60/60 zone of difficult terrain I can make my allies immune to as a free action?

Second: as players, would you prefer getting to reroll all actions 3+wisdom times per day, or for the difficult terrain schenanigans? Which would you like more in your party?

Third: I have thus far been unable to find a way to get Luck, Travel, AND earth variant channeling. Does anyone know a way to make this possible?

Please, every god of battle is evil at heart - follower of shelyn

Merciless Rush to Squash Flat coupled with Spiked Destroyer and the Shield Slam line makes all your attacks a 2 for 1 if you get your CMB high enough. Hit them with your shield, bull rush them, give everyone nearby an AoO for Greater bull rush, hit them with your spiked armor, and then trip them. That's on one attack out of a full attack. Add vicious stomp and greater trip for extra fun if you have reach (you should be enlarged :p).

If you are OK with only dropping down to light armor (and making up the AC with dex) you should check out dervish of the dawn bard archetype.

Thanks a bunch for the thoughts Shaman. I definitely grabbed qinggong, which has had some very very interesting synergies I had not thought of. I am sorry but I simply HAD to get misfortune, it was so thematic. Honestly, misfortune is almost defining for the character after a couple of levels of play, players love it, DM doesn't feel it's overpowered, but between fortune and it, we crit all the time, and monsters NEVER do, and we almost never fail important saves. I switched one of my traits to magical knack and got embrace destiny for 3 CLs as my oracle spell, which has been a life saver when I NEED a high roll on that one skill check. I dumped strength as you said, and put my stats at 7/14/14/12/18/12. I still wonder if maybe I should have grabbed that extra dot of wisdom, but ah well. I'll grab an agile amulet of mighty fists down the line, which will give me only slightly suck damage when I really want to punch something.

I also grabbed a cackling witch blouse, and retrained my extra hex to racial heritage, which gave me the koan at level 5 (ki mystic gives a ki pool at lvl3).

I've gotten to play some at level 6 now, and he has been a BLAST to play. One thing I never noticed when theory crafting is that since splinter is tiny, he can 5ft step into an enemy squares, and then provide bodyguard to me AND the flank buddy since he's adjacent to both! Yes, he gets more defensive scrolls than me :p

You were right about never dealing damage, so I looked at other ways to help. Main thing you mentioned was grapple and I looked into it, and determined grapple was going to be useful on occasion, but suffered from being hard to do on large or huge creatures. I have had several instances of splinter aiding me to grapple a caster and bodyguarding the AoO, so that works. I looked at other combat maneuvers, and focused on dirty trick, which especially fit the theme of a buffer/debuffer.

Then I looked and qinggong and true strike, then I looked again. It's self only, which means I can use it on splinter before I get mystic advice at monk 6. Which means I have SPLINTER give what amounts to a guaranteed dirty trick or trip on his turn.

I've had several combats that consist of: first turn, sensei advice, cackle, bewildering koan some poor sucker with a fortuned bluff check. They use their koan 'dazed' turn to partial charge us, which is met with a readied, fortuned spear from the fighter for X2 damage, and a bodyguard roll from splinter which pretty much guarantees a miss and a ton of damage, if he crits I just misfortune it. My next turn, I 5 ft step to a flanking position, cackle, true strike or aid splinter depending on my estimate of their CMD (take the AoO for true strike, which splinter bodyguards for a +7 to AC, yay benevolent armour, misfortune any crits). Splinter's turn, he 5ft steps into the square and fortune dirty tricks the poor guy blind for the next 5 rounds from the huge check, and no AoO since I took it already. At this point, combat is usually over as everyone uses their fortuned/adviced attacks on the flat footed enemy.

I'm still on the fence for squirrel familiar being the best. I can't seem to find a companion with a higher dex than 19 though, which gives him the highest AC on top of everything else. He also gets two junk feats to replace with extra item slot. I've been giving him kinsight goggles so I can get even better scouting out of him. I'm also looking at a level 7 feat, and honestly there's SO many potential directions to go I'm lost. Give splinter improved dirty trick? Grab lookout or some other teamwork feat (tandem trip or escape route)? Grab scar (the 30ft limitation on cackle has been an occasional annoyance)? Get boon companion for better splinter stas?

Help me advice forums, you're my only hope!

I was playing around with my sensei/monk of time character who is all about rerolls, and found the wonderfulness that is cackle/fortune. In addition, I discovered the fascinating thing that is beast bonded. Essentially, the build before used bodyguard to aid others. Now, I can get a familiar to do it for me!

Thus was born Dan Sensei and Splinter, the Super Squirrel.

Why squirrel? Because flavour, that's about it. Strictly speaking it isn't highly optimized, but, squirrel. Can anyone recommend any other good high dex familiars, or good familiar feats?

Sensei Dan was adopted by a family of halflings, and grew up learning martial arts. His family has a long history of adopting squirrels too, and using them as messengers and helpers. He has been training his long time pet Splinter to be an amazing martial artist at his martial arts and calligraphy school.

Essentially, it revolves around getting a valet familiar and passing it feats, while making a character that everyone wants at their pathfinder table. It's dangerous to go alone, take the squirrel. Level progression is such:

I haven't planned much past level 5. Start of a dungeon I have Dan get fortune up on the party, and then cackle it (flavoured as muttered advice :D). I then position him to be within 30 ft of everyone at all times. Splinter sits on a relevant shoulder and grants a +4 to everyone next to him's AC 4 times a round, and a +6 to mine. Start of combat, I bardic performance and cackle. Next round I'll ill omen if the party wizard wants it, or move into flanking position or aid the party fighter to hit, or smash someone with a stunning fist. Misfortune on a big bad that made his save, or allow an ally a reroll on their save with ki mystic. Out of combat, Splinter and I combine to give a +11 to pretty much any skill check, including craft checks (thanks valet). Play test in a home game has shown that a diminutive critter with prestidigitation and a monster stealth can do some amazing things.

So, will I need SCAR? Or should I grab something else (i'm aiming for Bewildering Koan eventually)

I'm not sure if there's more to be done here. Any fun feats to give splinter or me?

Help me make the most awesome squirrel/sensei combo ever!

awww.

Whatever, I have no PFS where I live anyway, just home games. I was hoping others could use it :p

Yes, and the specific ruling for the racial heritage feat from the pathfinder advanced race guide faq is:

The Racial Heritage feat allows you to qualify for archetypes that have the chosen race as a requirement, assuming you still meet all of the other requirements to take levels in the archetype.

Specific beats the general every time :D

Here's the specific ruling zefig:

Racial Heritage: Can a human with this feat take levels in an archetype that requires you to be of a specific race?
Yes, the Racial Heritage feat allows you to qualify for archetypes that have the chosen race as a requirement, assuming you still meet all of the other requirements to take levels in the archetype.

It was ruled that shadow puppeteer shadows last as long as you keep performing.

However, with lingering performance it means you get 4 rounds of summoned monster for a standard action, which is pretty much all you'll ever need anyway.

As far as I can tell, this means you summon, end performance, the summon lasts 3 more rounds, and you can summon again on your next turn for two concurrent summons. Or even better: standard, end performance, move, end performance, swift, end performance. Bam, 3 summon monster spells in 1 turn.

Augment summons I don't think works since its a SLA? I'm not sure though....

Hmmm.... would augment summons affect the shadow summons?

Here's the faq on it :D

http://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fn#v5748eaic9pka

I was looking at the shadow puppeteer, and thought it was REALLY cool, but found that the whole being so many levels behind thing kind of sucked, plus you never get higher than summon monster 6.

THEN I noticed that the wording for puppeteer doesn't actually have a cap! It just says: at level 4, and every 3 bard levels after, you get the next level of summons. Ergo, if you take the aasimar bonus you can get level 2 summons at level 3, and then a new summons every 2 levels thereafter. Suddenly, you get summons as a wizard! Except they're a standard to summon and you eventually get them as a move or a swift action, and can can shadow bard to summon them too!

The route would be: play a human kind aasimar, which makes you count as humanoid (human), and at 1st level take the feat Racial Heritage (wayang). As far as I can tell, this lets you take shadow puppeteer, but also the aasimar level bonus, and still be pfs legal.

Am I reading all of these correctly? If so, what would be some good feats to go with the build?

I was thinking of taking dirge bard to go with it, for extra shadow coolness.

I've always loved Terry Pratchett's discworld books, especially the history monks. Monk happens to be my favorite class in pathfinder as well, so I figured hey, can I actually make a monk that feels "timey". As it turns out yes, yes you can, and you can be awesome at the same time. Unfortunately, I felt the need to take halfling to really get the feel of the theme. Just imagine it as a small asian human and you'll get the same kind of feel as Lu Tze. Always underfoot, secretly awesome, saving the world using other people. I've played with the first 8 levels starting at level 1 so far, and it is completely playable, your allies will love you to bits.

Let me know if you can find better feats or things that fit the theme. The idea is to max out rerolls for allies and enemies, while buffing allies to become awesome killing machines.

You'll need to worship a neutral or chaotic neutral luck/chaos god.

Halfling: Fleet of Foot, Adaptable Luck
Traits: Adopted (Aasimar: Enlightened Warrior), Helpful Halfling
True Neutral
Monk 16 (Qinggong, Ki Mystic, Sense)/Cleric 1 (Devout Pilgrim)/Oracle 1 (Dual Cursed)/Ninja 2

Starting Point Buy (Racial + Old):
Str:13 (8)
Dex: 13 (12)
Con: 13 (10)
Int:8 (10)
Wis: 18 (20)
Cha: 7 (11)

Attributes: 4,8,12,16 go to wisdom, level 20 goes to dex.

Items of importance: Guided Amulet, Monk Robe, Dex Belt, Wisdom Circlet

We are going to get Wisdom to hit, CMD, CMB, AC, and Damage by about level 6 with guided, so don't worry too much.

Feats:
Level 1 Monk Bonus: Combat Reflexes
Level 1 Feat: Bodyguard
Level 3: Blundering Defence
Level 5: Fortunate One
Level 7: Extra Revelation
Level 9: Cautious Fighter
Level 10 Monk Bonus: Dodge
Level 11: Lucky Halfling
Level 13: Crane Style
Level 15: Touch of Serenity
Level 17: Dimensional Assault
Level 19: Quickened Spell Like Ability True Strike

Qinggong Replacements:
True Strike
Barkskin
Restoration
Battlemind Link

I'm going to note important abilities, and how combat plays out per level below.
TL:DR see above.

Level 1: Monk 1 (Sensei, Ki Mystic, Qinggong Monk) - Favoured Class Skills
I'll note here, my DM allows the ki from ki mystic to stack with regular monk. This significantly changes the feel of play if your DM rules otherwise.

Bonus Feat: Combat Reflexes
Level 1 Feat: Bodyguard

Starting at level 1, things are kind of a crapshoot. You have a +0 to hit, and your bodyguard can only be used twice a round, but level 1 is level 1. You DO have a 21 AC if you nab some mage armor, which is great. Plus you give a big fat +4 to AC twice a round if you hit. You allies will love the bardic performance, and a huge pump to your stunning fist DC lets you ruin somebody's day. You level up after first game usually anyway, so who cares. If you feel that you aren't contributing anything, you're doing it wrong. Start with a bardic performance, and move adjacent to the front line. Then just aid another the two handed power attacking barbarian. You give him a +4 to AC like candy, and a +5 to hit. He'll love you, and the DM essentially ignores you while wondering why the hell he can't hit the barb.

Level 2: Monk 2
You have +wis to hit and all knowledge skills as skills now. You'll almost never miss that bodyguard AC 10 again. Feel free to bump your knowledge skills, as your level 3 ki mystic ability will make you the group knowledge monkey.

Level 3: Monk 3
Level 3 Feat: Blundering Defense
Qinggong: Replace high jump with barkskin.

You get a +2 to your knowledge checks that with a ki pool of 12/14 and not much to spend them on won't be dropping anytime soon. Plus that +4 to pretty much any check coupled with adaptive luck makes it pretty hard to fail anything. Add in your new bardic performance and you're a lean mean skill monkey machine. Oh, and with barkskin and a mage armor, your AC is up to 28 if you fight defensively.

Level 4: Monk 4
Qinggong: Replace slow fall with true strike.

You get all the other lovely benefits of the ki pool. Boost your AC by 4, fight defensively, and then go eat all the opportunity attacks.

Level 5: Monk 5
Level 5 Feat: Cautious Fighter

You hand out a +2 AC for people adjacent to you now, which bump up to a +6 if you bodyguard them. This keeps up with the rise in BAB of monsters, so they're still missing like crazy. You also get the ki mystic level 5, and the "monk of time" flavor kicks in. You get an immediate action reroll for any allied save or attack roll. With a wisdom belt, we now have a neat 18 ki pool, so you won't run out TOO fast.

Level 6: Monk 6
Here's where you really get the feel of being master of time. That Truestrike? Barkskin? +4 to any roll? +4 AC? +20 speed? You can grant those to any ally in 30 ft now. Feel the power! Feel it! You are a history monk who can slice time!

Level 7: Oracle 1 (Time Mystery, Dual Cursed) Use whatever you want for curses. I went with legalistic and clouded vision for flavor.
Revelation: Misfortune
Level 7 Feat: Extra Revelation (Temporal Celerity)

Ahhh misfortune. Add the monsters to the reroll pool, as you deja-fu them in the face.

Level 8: Cleric 1 (Devout Pilgrim)
Domains: Chaos/Luck

Ahhhh, rerolls galore. You have a dual wielding crit fisher? He'll love you, and spending your standard action giving him a free re-roll for every attack from anywhere on the table? You're the darling. Does your caster really want that monster to fail the save or suck spell AND botch every attack? Run up and deal out some rewinding of time with chaos. 10 times per day = win.

Level 9: Ninja 1
You had better have bought a ki ring by now!
Level 9 Feat: Fortunate 1
Boooooooooring Level. Another use of halfling luck so we can eventually get the juicy time edge that is adaptive fortune. This level is a set up for:

Level 10: Ninja 2
Ninja Trick: Forgotten Trick

The clincher level. Give you allies a combat feat, give them a style feat, give them invisibility, give them mirror image, give them extra attacks and a dozen other goodies. You are GOD to your allies at this level.

The rest of the levels are fairly self explanatory from the above. Get levels in monk till 20, grab restoration at 15 and battlemind link around 16 and link up two spell casters and two meleers and go to town with true strikes and touch of luck/chaos.

Let me know your thoughts!

If you want to play a neutral cleric who shepherds the dead to their final resting place, who views undead such as vampire and liches as "avoiding death and worthy of destruction", but simply views regular undead as bags of skin and bones held together by magic and a tool given to you by your deity, which god would you worship?

Pharasma is straight out. Charon maybe? Is he even valid in PFS?

I've put a similar character together for a campaign i'm in. I'm still playing on how he'll evolve, but I love the idea so much. I got my first playtest with him last week.

The DM threatened to ban it after the first combat.

AT LEVEL 1.

At level 1, I took:

Sensei, Ki mystic, and Qinggong Monk
Favored Class into Monk:Skills.

Feats: Combat Reflexes (bonus)
Bodyguard

Traits: Helpful
Fools for Friends

I dumped strength and charisma and pumped wisdom and dex since I don't care about damage, and at level 2 i'll get wisdom to hit.

The result. a 16 dex and an 18 wis.

The first fight went like this:
DM: I attack:
Me, I rolled AC 10, he gets +5 ac.
DM: I get an 18.
Player: I'm at 22 now.
DM: Fine, I attack someone else
Me: I roll AC 10 he gets +5 ac
DM: You can KEEP DOING THAT? HOLY HELL

...

Dm: Roll perception
Me: I take 10 for a 21
Dm: .....

...

DM: Roll to disable the trap
Rogue: I fail by 5
DM: AHA! The trap goes off!
Me: I aid for 5
DM: I swear to god I will ban that character.

At level 6, with sensei and ki mystic, and the plan to get swift aid and +1 benevolent items by that point, I will give allies:
One reroll on a save or attack a turn
+6 to AC as an Opportunity attack
+10 to AC as a full round action (+6 aid, +4 swift ki AC)
+20 to an attack as a standard action (true strike)
+6 to attack as a standard action
+3 to 4 AC as a swift action
+3 to the next attack as a swift action
+4 to ac as a swift action
+11 to pretty much every skill check as a full round action (take 1 rank in EVERYTHING!) (+5 aid, +4 ki, + 2 competence)
+3 to AC (barkskin)
+20 to movement as a swift action
+2 to Attack and Damage as a free action to all allies

And it only gets better, as I'll add blundering defense, and flag bearer, etc. I'm going to try to convince everyone to take the "use an adjacent ally's saving throw" teamwork feat to help with the desire to cluster around the halfling.

Also, since I'm a monk: stunning fist support!

It's so much fun. SOO much fun. I've never had so much fun as a first level character. the 2 handed power attacking fighter was literally in love with me. He could only miss on a 3 against most monsters.

By the way, since you're going the crane style route, you might want to check out the draconic defender. It's AMAZING when you pump your defensive fighting. The only reason I'm not using it is because: barkskin.

Some more cheese I considered. At level 3, a brood master summoner could take combat reflexes and bodyguard, and give his 2 summons the extra trait feats for: adopted: helpful, and fools for friends. Bam, 3 mobile aid another batteries, each giving +5s.