Firesnout's page

Firesnout wrote:

Remember that you can worship multiple deities if you're conflicted over which to choose, provided you aren't a cleric (who require a degree more devotion):

I don't think so. Throughout the CRB every mention of dieties in regards to PCs is singular (e.g. "When a living creature dies, its soul departs its body, leaves the Material Plane, travels through the Astral Plane, and goes to abide on the plane where the creature’s deity resides." pg. 208). On the character sheet, there's a line for "deity", not "deities".

Additionally, being allowed to worship multiple deities completely negates the purpose of deity-specific abilities. Why do these "must worship X" prereqs and stuff even exist if you can just say your character worships every existing deitiy at the same time?

James jacobs has already addressed that polytheists and those that worship multiple deities get sent to the deity whose soul best fits when they're judged. I found that when looking for the quotes i posted, but im sure you can google the quotes up too.

He also said that you can only have multiple deities if they're deities that get along / dont object to your other choices in deities, because (subject to GM discretion) most good deities would not be best pleased if you tried to worship a demon or those with opposite portfolios, and some are just too prideful/egotistical to share worship. Again, stumbled on that one too.

Again, it may be how he runs games (and outside of pfs you're free to do the same) but if you want to restrict to only one deity you're just as free to do so.

I just found the quote you are referencing, Firesnout. It's a little hard to parse but James is most definitely NOT saying that he would allow a PC to simultaneously be a Paladin of Iomedae, an Inquisitor of Erastil, etc. and choose options (like a Combat Style) from each of them.

It looks like James is saying that he would allow a multiclass paladin/inquisitor/mystery cultist but not give them access to any abilities that were granted by a specific deity (like a domain).

Im not sure where you're getting that interpretation from, ignoring paladin (who can have many options like deity unique bonus spells etc), inquisitors specifically get inquisitions/domains that are mechanically tied to a deity in the same way cleric domains are and mystery cultist boons are always mechanically tied to deity. So it seems unlikely he'd respond to a question about being "a Paladin of Iomedae, an Inquisitor of Erastil, a Cleric of Abadar and a Mystery Cultist of Ragathiel" by saying you could be the paladin, inquisitor AND the mystery cultist if you couldn't. He only takes issue with the cleric, specifically, (which there would be no reason to do if he was assuming the character was taking "spiritual inclination" options for all the classes instead of following a deity like the question asked.)

Superkey phrase? "Depends on your GM."

Obviously! This is a home game we're talking about. Everything depends on GM and some might want to limit things more. Paizo has been vocal about less lines being drawn in non-pfs stuff.

Restriction to one deity is done in PFS to keep things simple and when questions are discussed in the rules forum its largely based on being restrictive for pfs and pfs-like games. AFAIK there's nothing to be found in rules books limiting to only one deity, ergo, if this is a home game ask your GM, they'll probably be fine with it unless they're running pfs-style rules.

James Jacobs opinion may not be a hard ruling, (despite his quotes being used constantly to back up rules arguments over in the rules forums), but as i said before, if its good enough for paizo's creative director its good enough for my games. (But your games may choose to be different)

As this is the advice forum, my advice is to ask your GM if they're wanting to restrict you to one deity. If not, go ahead, have fun. It is a game after all.

Yep, that's the one. I've not done any PFS stuff.

For home games though, james jacobs has been clear a few times in a few different threads that multiple deity worship is fine. That first quote I posted was in response to someone asking "can a LG character be simultaneously a Paladin of Iomedae, an Inquisitor of Erastil, a Cleric of Abadar and a Mystery Cultist of Ragathiel ?" The only one James Jacobs ruled would be an issue is the cleric.

If that ruling is good enough for paizo creative director its good enough for my games!

Remember that you can worship multiple deities if you're conflicted over which to choose, provided you aren't a cleric (who require a degree more devotion):

If you want to worship, say, Erastil, Abadar, Iomedae, and Ragathiel, that's fine... but you have to worship them all more or less equally. That means you could be a paladin and inquisitor and even a mystery cultist... but you could not be a cleric.

Mattastrophic wrote:

Are people in Golarion able to seriously worship multiple deities? Or are they confined to only one?

-Matt

They do it all the time. Oracles are more or less built to do this. When you worship multiple deities, your faith is NOT all about singling one deity out, and the alignment restrictions become less and less significant.

If its a PFS legal build though, I believe theres a restriction on only mechanically benefitting from one deity. Im not 100% on the PFS side of things though.

If teamwork feats are what you're wanting to give out then the dwarven scholar is trading out a bards best abilities for something that has a shorter duration and that grants fewer feats to allies than the level 2 bard spell "Shared Training".

So for a single level 2 spell slot a default bard can do the same thing, granting the same broken wing feats you mentioned (plus two more at higher levels), while also maintaining inspire courage to give themselves and allies sizable bonuses to attack and damage. Im not seeing how dwarven scholar is an upgrade to that. It is a neat little archetype for flavor and being wisdom based, especially you're making a combat feat intensive bard build, but if you're investing that heavily in being martial you'd probably regret not having the attack and damage from inspire courage. It has a small niche if you're low level and have a large enough number of allies all building their own characters around you, but only because the shared training spell cant target larger groups all at once at low levels. At caster level 6-9 all the allies that could meaningfully benefit from your teamwork feats can be targeted by shared training. Unless you have a party of summoners or a lot of animal companions and similar perhaps? But even then, those summons and companions are going to need the higher hit and damage bonuses from inspire courage more.

Anyway, yes I think its power is highly situational/reliant on build, just like the other archetypes and not at all better than default bard, so I guess we will have to agree to disagree. And thanks again for the link and the advice on casting archetypes.

@avr Thats the point, unless you're controlling how others build their characters you wont be able to pick "the perfect" two combat feats to grant every party member. What's good for a greataxe barbarian isnt always good for a archery rogue or a two weapon fighting cavalier or a cleric with a crossbow. Inspire courage is good for all of them, all the time.

Even if you did somehow find the perfect two feats that always applied to all of the above cases in every type of combat encounter in the same way inspire courage does (which to my knowledge such two feats dont exist) would the two feats really come close to a +5 bonus to all attack and damage rolls? (Assuming sikke)

Marking down sandman for being too situational/specialized then marking up dwarven scholar despite you needing to control the builds of other players and to have picked "the perfect" feats for every pc in every combat situation you come across is contradictory. Especially when there's a high chance inspire courage will be more beneficial anyway without designing your build and every other player's build around it.

Dwarven Scholar a cool archetype, but i dont think its consistently better or more powerful than the default bard.

Pei Zin Practitioner Ascetic Oracle that looks like one of the pirates from the 3rd pirates of the Carribbean movie?

Reference Link

Nice amount of healing from that archetype. Big swift action heals on yourself means you need not worry too much about being hit. You can just laugh at them in a mocking piratey way as their attacks are undone before their eyes.

If you can grab the fey foundling feat the heals get even bigger.

Maybe your herbalist style lay on hands can be done by chewing the herbs up like chewing tobacco, giving your teeth a blackened piratey look and allowing you to spit on your friends to heal them, like the deplorable pirate you are.

Yes an ascetic oracle can do ok in melee due to a combination of their monk damage and spellstrike. That and the crazy good self healing.

At low levels warpriest self buffing is very nice to have, but higher casting is nice to have too, especially so you get quicker access to restoration and heal.

Thanks for the explanation. I guess that the sandman takes a while to get all its stuff and inspire courage is probably better in most cases as it has the potential to benefit allies more, but choosing to focus on level 5 as an example seems a bit unfair. We could equally choose level 10, where sandman gets:
+2 to spell DCs
+2 spell penetration
+7 average Sneak Attack Damage (and opens up accomplished sneak attacker as an obvious feat to make this +10.5 damage)

Compared to the regular bards +2 attack and damage.

Now I'll admit that's when the builds have their biggest gap and its looking at just the bard in a vacuum. I 100% concede that if you have a big party of pcs that can make use of inspire courage then sandman falls laughably short.

That being said, the dwarven scholar archetype still doesn't seem that great. Two probably not greatly beneficial combat feats for half the number of rounds as inspire courage are a poor substitute for the bonuses granted by inspire courage for most allies (before factoring in items to boost inspire courage), and the bonus combat feats the bard gets probably wont add up to much more than what inspire courage can give in most cases either. Which I'd say means the "power" of the dwarven scholar is (in my opinion) almost as situational and build dependant as sandman.

Overall i dont think the assessment of sandman is inaccurate at -1 (based on it not benefitting allies as much), but +1 for dwarven scholar seems generous. I'd say they're +0 at best. If bards had poor will saves and needed wisdom they'd maybe be halfway to +1, but as it stands i'd say they just fall short of default bards. Dwarven scholars, like the sandman, can be better if you have a specific type of party and party members that appreciate what you can give them, though in the majority of cases inspire courage is probably better as most martial characters will already have the combat feats they need and that benefit their builds the most.

Avr, why is the sandman bard a -1 in power on that link you posted?

I mean, they get 4d6 sneak attack, +3 to DCs and +4 to spell penetration and as far as i see, in terms of real combat power they only lose inspire courage? Is inspire courage worth that much or did I skip over something?

Seems like other archetypes give a lot less for trading out inspire courage yet have a much better rating, like dwarven scholar (which is rated as +1) who'd really struggle to get anything as good as 4d6SA, +3DC and Greater Spell Penetration with the few extra combat feats it grants, especially as the bard has plenty of feats to grab the most meaningful combat feats already. (And the ability to grant a couple of combat feats to allies doesn't add up to much for most allies that probably arent built around those feats.) Not that im bashing the dwarven scholar specifically, im sure there are a lot of archetypes worse on that than it. Im just surprised there are so many archetypes on the list with such generous ratings compared to the sandman which honestly seems stronger than a -1 power rating.

If its just a case of different people having greatly different standards then so be it, I just want to know if I'm wrong in my opinions on what's strong.

Can a bard use versatile performance (act, comedy, sing or string) as a substitute for bluff in the bardic masterpiece Pageant of the Peacock?

Thanks for the link! I'll look into those archetypes. I never looked much into sandman so I'll seriously consider it.

I am tempted to look more into psychic spells because the more about them i see the more i like them.

I was worried without the full mesmerist toolkit the Speaker of the Palatine Eye wouldn't be able to make effective use of the list.

The Stonesinger reducing ac seemed tempting to make me more useful in combat, so my allies could hit more and damage more, making up for my lack of damage, but i didnt know if it did enough to make it worthwhile compared to the other two archetypes.

The Studious Librarian offers me use of wizard and witch spells but i dont know if it adds enough to be a meaningful difference.

I could also combine the first two with Sound Striker, but again i dont know if it's good enough to rely on.

Any thoughts on which archetype is the most useful considering i'll be putting everything into charisma and i wont have much weapon damage to fall back on in combat? (I dont plan on worshipping desna)

Normally i'd have a search and read through guides but the ones I'm finding aren't at all up to date and dont have all the archetypes.

I was looking at the Speaker of the Palatine Eye archetype for the Bard. It offers you mesermist spells in place of bard, and psychic in place of arcane.

Is it worth it? What would it be good at compared to an ordinary bard? What would you miss if you traded in your bard spells?

If i dont go Speaker of the Palatine Eye, are the Stonesinger or Studious Librarian archetypes any good for a casting focused bard?

Im planning on high charisma as my main stat and relying on spells a lot, so id like to know ive made a good choice.

When using the Usurp Spell ability of the haunted spiritualist to drain the spell energy of the "transformation" spell:

How do material components work? Does Usurp spell need components and if so does the phantom need to have the components?

Is the character level refering to the phantoms level as it matches with the spiritualist level on the phantom progression table, the spiritualist's character level, the spiritualist's caster level or the phantom's hit die when determining the BAB granted by the spell?

I missed that. Thanks

How can I avoid suffering from nauseated when using Usurp Manifestation?

I dont want to multiclass, which rules out barbarian and their rage power that makes the character immune to nauseated. The best I can find is the pestilence bloodline from a very early pathfinder product (gained through eldritch heritage) but that seems like a big investment too.

Is there anything you can come up with to avoid having the spiritualist being useless during Usurp Manifestation?