Flamephoenix182's page

Hi everyone,

I am prepping a session where the party is going to get shrunk down. I don't want to adjust size modifiers/size ability score bonuses, as I don't want to make the party recalculate a lot for one session. (enemieswise I'll use the "giant" versions as regular size so avoid changing stats). I'm trying to think of some interesting quick changes to make them "feel" smaller without changing a ton. my current thoughts are:

1) Reduce everyones die sizes by 1 step (I'll do the same with enemies)
2) Give everyone the ability to jump higher and lift more (relative to their size) than if they were full size.

Also if anyone has any ideas for interesting or fun encounters/puzzles being shrunk that would be great.

The current premise is one of the PC's is looking for their ancestral keep only to find it had been shrunken down by a vindictive/tricker fey. So they will get shrunk, go through the keep to break the curse. (I'm thinking the boss fight will be they fight the fey at full size while they remain shrunk)

SO I am running a campaign where the BBEG is going to be a an Angel (Short version: the angel views the whole world a sinful and must be cleansed). So I'm wanting to make a recurring lieutenant who is a Invigorator Paladin with Inspiring Sword.

The idea is the Paladin hands out DR and uses inspiring sword to buff the other enemies in the encounters if it comes to fighting. Then if the angel is involved (which will be more an end game fight which i'm planning on ending somewhere between 12-14) use shield other to soak damage for the main boss.

Since I want this guy to be a recurring character I want to flesh out his build.

The part I'm struggling with is what to do with the other hand since he is locked into a longsword (obviously as the GM I could change this but I like to make NPC builds within the rules if possible). The obvious thing is a shield but I'm curious if other people have some ideas as the shield is generic and I would like him to standout more in his fighting style and have some more interesting mechanics in the fight rather than just a higher AC.

I am looking to build a support/Buff character for a low magic campaign. While the GM hasn't outright banned casters but he has banned 9th level casters and the summoner (chained), Occult classes. So it is a safe bet that most characters will be Gishes or full martial.

In the spirit of the campaign I want to play a character with no spells at all, but I would like it to be a support character/secondary fighter.

The obvious choice is Cavalier, but I'm curious if anyone has any alternative classes/builds/archetypes they know of as I'm not sure I want to be bound by the order edict and the mounted theme

So we know Pathfinder is not a 100% balanced game and seem to assume some balancing required on the GMs part or players part. Leaving out the debate whether this is good or bad, It got me curious about what sort of balancing techniques other GMs use. I'll list a few I have have used below:

Nothing/Self Police: This is for my main group that I have been gaming with forever. Basically the maturity level is high, so I don't need to do anything, the players make sure not to overshadow each other and share the spotlight. I don't ban anything except potentially flavor choices based on the campaign if something doesn't exist in this particular world.

Pre approved characters: I have only really used this one when I gm in a shop as the players that show up vary wildly and have different goals/system mastery. So in this case I vet the characters sheets and ask the players to make adjustments. Generally I go by a majority rules sort of thing, so if one PC is severely under optimized compared to the rest of the party, I will help them to optimize their character concept. If the opposite is true, I will get the hyper optimized guy to "weaken" their character a bit.

Arms race: This is more of a monster vs pcs thing and pathfinder helped a lot in closing a lot of loopholes, but if there is a loophole in the rule or some weird combination that results in a really power effect, I won't straight out ban it, but if it is fair game for the PCs I make it fair game for the monsters. I don't have a specific pathfinder example but back in 3.5 days there was a spell called wraithstrike that was level 2 swift action that made all your attacks touch for a round. It was a crazy awesome spell for say dragons who had natural sorcerer levels and lots of attacks, but they would not use it as a tactic unless the PCs started abusing it.

I would do the same with instant death effects but I have not needed to in pathfinder since they reigned in those a lot.

So what sort of techniques do you use?

I was curious what are people's go to builds/classes for a shapeshifting character that is not nature themed (As most of the builds I find are very nature themed shifter, druid, ranger with archetypes etc..)

I'm not too picky with having a ton of forms I just would rather be turning into different forms than animals/elementals/plants

I know of the spheres of power shifter and would love to try it but this upcoming campaign is 1st party only.

Elocater
I always loved this prestige class in theory and fluff but I never was quite sure how to build one, or what class to start in or how it actually plays in game (the one game where I was working towards it sadly ended up ending early so I never made it into the prstige class)

Has anyone ever played one? and has any insight to share?

My google fu is failing me I'm wondering if there was any announcement that pathfinder is moving away from the OGL model?

I noticed Ultimate Wilderness is not flagged as an OGL and that there doesn't seem to have been an open playtest like the other books? (I hadn't really been following new books for a while so if this is answered I apologize)

HI all,

For a campaign I'm about to be running I'm going to be giving the PC's each powers based on one of the core elements (Earth, Air, Water, Fire)
I want to give them new powers up until Level 9 on the same odd levels (after which for story reasons the powers will be gone).

So I'm hoping to crowd source some help for ideas and balancing.
My goals:
1) I want the powers to be at will if possible, so the cost will be in action economy, or have long channel times if I don't want them to use it in combat.
2) I don't want the powers to replace their class abilities in combat, so I'm going to try and avoid damage style things. More to open up new options.
3) I want them to be mostly balanced so one element is not more desirable than another.
4) The save DC's will be 10+1/2 their character level + 4 (basically assuming an 18 ability, I don't want to tie it to a stat so I don't penalize people who don't need that stat)

Level 1)
Air, Earth, Fire, Water: Get the basic "Kinesis" from the kineticist wild talent.

I want to keep this level simple as they are "discovering" their powers.

Level 3)
Air: Gust of Wind (as per spell except the duration is: Concentration)
Earth: Earthen strike: Can attack with their fists as if they had Improved Unarmed strike (so they don't have it for qualification purposes), In addition when the damage an opponent with the unarmed strike they may attempt a free bullrush without incurring attacks of opportunity. When Damaging Objects with their unarmed strike they may subtract 5 from the hardness.
Fire: Smoke Cloud: Standard action, Creates a 5 ft cloud of smoke that lasts 1 round. Grants Concealment if you are attacking into or out of it. Anyone who enters the cloud or is in it when it starts takes a -2 to attack rolls and spell casters must succeed as per casting defensively.
Water: Deceiving Mists: Silent Image or Disguise self at will, only one illusion at a time (so they can be disguise or making a silent image not both)

Level 5)
Air:
Earth
Fire
Water:

Level 7)
Air:
Earth
Fire
Water:

Level 9)
Air:
Earth
Fire
Water:

I only have 1 and 3 done right now, but I'm open to any suggestions for any of the levels or for modifying other powers. I'm going to need to be extra creative with fire since I'm trying to avoid damaging effects

Hey everyone,

I was wondering if people could weigh in on the balance issue of kinetic invocation. I don't see why you need to use a feat and a wild talent slot to get these options. Would it really be too powerful if these options were just normal wild talent options? Especially since there are not very much variety of talents in each element right now anyways.

Am I missing something?

Hi all,

I was wondering if the Raise Water section of the spell creates water? So could you turn a small puddle into a larger body of water?

I found this thread

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2p9ht?Does-Control-Water-create-water

but it is 5 years old and they never seemed to agree on an answer. Has this issue been solved?

Hi All,

I am looking to use the smoke environmental rules and I'm a little confused with the bold section.

Is this just flavor or do the PC's lose a round of actions if they fail? My google fu has failed me

Smoke
A character who breathes heavy smoke must make a Fortitude save each round (DC 15, +1 per previous check) or spend that round choking and coughing. A character who chokes for 2 consecutive rounds takes 1d6 points of nonlethal damage. Smoke obscures vision, giving concealment (20% miss chance) to characters within it.

So I had not looked at the anti paladin in a while but I thought I would try one out for an undead campaign I will be playing in. I see there are way more archetypes than just the knight of the sepulcher now. Has anyone played with any of these archetypes? Which ones are your favourites?

Hi All,

I know a non druid shapeshifter class is a bit of a hole in pathfinder's options. Does anyone know of a class other than druids that can heavily or is heavily focused on shapeshifting? It can be first party or third party... Basically I want to play a combat heavy spell light shapeshifter who doesn't just focus on nature forms. Similar to the Master of Many Forms in 3.5

Hi all,

I'm curious if it is ever defined anywhere what a "complex" object is for these spells for the crafting check required.

The only thing I can find is in crafting it defines as complex or superior item at DC 20.

Hi all,

I'm wondering if anyone knows of a way to reduce the cost of animate dead? I can't seem to find anything. I would like to use it more in game but we are fairly limited on wealth in the game i am in, and it seems like it would add up pretty quickly since the minions will be disposed of pretty quickly

So I'm building an Occultist in a game with some newer players. So I want to focus on a support role so I can do more battlefield control, buffing etc... so the other players can have the fun of damaging and stuff.
I've read a couple guides but I'm not sure how to go about building one. Has anyone else played a support focused occultist?
What implements did you use? Did you find you ran out of focus/spells a lot?
feats are another I'm not sure about. I'm thinking I might just put feats towards the archery chain as backup and rely on my implements for buffing.

I wouldn't mind having a minion to flank for guys but I dont want to summon too much as to slow down the game.

I'm curious to hear other peoples play experience about distributing mental focus. The better Resonance powers require a lot of Focus to scale to your max potential, but you dont have enough to power all of them.

So I'm curious what people do?

1) Try to scout out as much info as possible as to what powers will be most useful and focus for the session. So maybe putting a lot into 1 or 2 implements then just leaving the ones you don't think you will use empty?

2) Adopt a more generalist approach across all your implements, so you have the most variety of answers in case of the unexpected, and just accept that your passive bonuses from the resonance wont be very high?

3) Some third option?

So going to be playing an Occultist for the first time and I'm not sure how the Aegis special ability interacts with enhancements that have a gold value instead of a +2 value

"Aegis (Su)

As a standard action, you can expend 1 point of mental focus and touch a suit of armor or a shield to grant it an enhancement bonus. The bonus is equal to 1 + 1 for every 6 occultist levels you possess (to a maximum bonus of +4 at 18th level). Enhancement bonuses gained via this ability stack with those of the armor or shield, to a maximum total enhancement bonus of +5. You can also imbue the armor or shield with any one armor or shield special ability that has an equivalent enhancement bonus less than or equal to your maximum bonus granted by this ability by reducing the granted enhancement bonus by the appropriate amount.

The item must have an enhancement bonus of at least +1 (from the item itself or from aegis) to gain an armor or shield special ability. In either case, these bonuses last for 1 minute."

So for example on the srd Shadow is listed under the +2 bonus chart, but it's base price is +3750. Is this a valid choice for Aegis? or can I only choose ones that has a "+X" base price cost.
I'm just curious because for the enhancement +2 enhancement slot it means the only special ability option for the Aegis ability is SR (13)?

Hi all,

I'm about to play an occultist for the first time and I picked up Aegis and Legacy weapon so I'm curious what people have found are good on the fly buffs (trying to compile a short list so I dont slow down combat looking for things) we are level 6 so its only up to +2 right now but I'm curious at any level.

The obvious ones are Bane and Defiant (especially in encounters with only single creature types or that has one drastically stronger one).

Keen is always useful until I can afford to put it on permanently (I'm using a nodachi)

The burst range of weapons could be useful as well, as we have a Kukri crit build in the party.

Background: I have been Gming for a group a little over a year now, and I'm starting to be ready to play again. The issue is that 2 of the 4 players are gming other games outside of this and the other 2 are pretty new (interested in Gming but nervous about it). So I was thinking of suggesting a rotating dm system.

Something like a merc company or adventurers guild (fairly generic) where each person Gms for a month-ish in one self contained episodic story arc. Everyone uses build some character and when they are Gming their character is absent on another adventure or contract?

I was thinking that way everyone gets to play in a game with everyone else and everyone has a turn a Gming and it's only a couple months a year of Gming per person so not too overwhelming?

Has anyone tried this?

What are the pitfalls and challenges you have found?

Anything we need to decide on before we start? (The obvious ones I thought of are Loot rules and character creation rules)

Hi all,

Returning to pathfinder after a hiatus. I'm making a reincarnated druid for a Northern Artic themed campaign. Basically the fluff is my guy is a "spirit of the North" who watches over the tribe in the shaman role (in different bodies).

So my GM has given me the go ahead to create a more Northern/Artic themed reincarnate table. I thought it would be fun to work through this on the forums

So the original table is:

01 Bugbear
02-13 Dwarf
14-25 Elf
26 Gnoll
27-38 Gnome
39-42 Goblin (Advanced Race Guide Goblin)
43-52 Half-elf
53-62 Half-orc
63-74 Halfling
75-89 Human
90-93 Kobold
94 Lizardfolk
95-98 Orc (Advanced Race Guide Orc)
99 Troglodyte
100 Other (GM's choice)

Anythoughts? I'm thinking Artic elf, Udine and Half Giant (Since the rest of the PC's are half frost giants in the tribe), but I'm having trouble filling out the rest (i'll update as I find more)

Hi all,

has anyone ever made use of the ultimate magic, Spell like evolution (minor magic, major magic etc..) I like the idea of having an eidolon with spell-likes, especially for when your trying to make an eidolon who isn't just about natural attacking. However then seem quite weak for the evolution point costs, has anyone had any success with these?

Hi all,

I'm currently trying to make a mobile ranged character who effectively kites enemies. The campaign is at level 6. The party is not hugely optimized so I'm not worried too much about not doing the "turret archer" to keep up.

Anyone have any experience building something like this? I'm not really sure how to do it. outside of maybe just doing the vital strike chain than using my move to keep moving around the battlefield and staying away from enemies. I'm not even sure what class would be best for this

My google fu is failing me. I seem to recall their being a ranking for 3.5 of game type by character level (ie 1-6 is gritty fantasy, 6-10 is heoroic or something like that). Does anyone have a link to this?

or a pathfinder equivalent?

Hi all,

As they title says how balanced would this be? I want the fiendish boon for flavour purposes (evil campaign) is this somewhat balanced with each other? it seems like the animal companions would end up being better in combat, but the fiendish boon choices tend to have more versitility

Hi all,

I'm going to playing in a campaign soon as an undead anti paladin. (the whole party is undead). The short version of the backstory is i'm undead with my soul tethered to my body as my shadow. With the soul being my fiendish companion. No the shadow demon fits great into this flavour (we are 12th level) but next level I swap for a new one next level.

Now here is where the issue comes up. My only Bebelith or a vrock which really doesn't fit. So I'm wondering if advancing the shadow demon is a possibility? or if anyone has tried that for the companion (advance it to cr9 or 10 where the next summon monsters sit). My only issue is the rules for advancing HD seem boring (always has the same abilities) but the rules for adding class levels seem really powerful... ( http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/rules-for-monsters/monster-advancement) with the stat buffs and all. and With the monsters that like the shadow demon that has higher CL for spell likes than HD I'm not sure how to advance that.

My GM and I are trying to figure something out but I would love to hear some opinions or experiences with someone who has tried this?

So I have been running an experimental sandbox campaign for the first time. Basically, I've just been populating a map with various adventures,curiosities, cities etc... I gave the PC's a map and then they were off exploring doing whatever.

The issue I'm having is without a direct story to motivate them they seem to discover something try for a couple minutes then if they don't immediately solve it, move onto something else.

Does anyone have any experience running this type of campaign? particularly in motivating the PC's to stick through something? We are only a couple sessions in so maybe they will come back to things or I just haven't found anything that has peaked their interest enough but I'm curious to hear other peoples experiences with this

I've been wondering this for a while not sure if its possible. I dont have much experience with fighters because I generally hate having to specialize in 1 thing (two weapon fighting/archer/Two handed).

This got me thinking has anyone built a fighter who is say a two handed fighter and an archer?

Is it possible within wealth and stats?

My initial thought is the two handed fighter only really needs power attack. So use that then choose weapon training on bows to make up for my lower dex and put bonus feats towards the archery chain (Point blank, precise, rapid shot, etc..)

Has anyone tried this before with some success?

How about some other combinations?

as an addendum is it possible to sneak in some skill feats as well so the fighter can be more outside of combat?

Will all of this stretch the fighter too much so as to be useless in lets say a mildly optimized group?

So Efreeti touch says: Creatures caught in the cone take your unarmed strike damage plus the fire damage from your Elemental Fist and catch on fire.

As all of these elemental style feats (unarmed damage + Elemental + effect)

What I'm unclear on is the unarmed damage part. If it the unarmed damage die. or the unarmed damage as if I hit them (so modifiers, weapon effects etc..)

Its strike me as really bad feats if its only the die but I figured I would ask