Gerald Lee's page

Lieutenant Dan! (waves)

Thanks Rick for the great memories and laughing at my jokes. God bless.

Ask the GM to run In Service to Lore as your first scenario with your character. Play smart and if you get through that scenario we can make more recommendations after you earn some gold and pp.

It's the holidays and a lot of GM's & players are crunching for year end, work, personal, etc so there's been a few less games as of late.

Normally there is a PFS game every alternate Tuesday in NYC or Brooklyn, and Wednesday. Probably the games your buddy found.

Gnoams runs a game on Sunday afternoons, but you already ready that and his schedule.

There's also games almost every Sunday in a few locations in Long Island. Sometimes double headers at the same venue.

...and if you're feel like driving out, there's multiple games in NJ. Time to get there is about the same as driving to a LI game except there's some tolls but the guys in NJ are pretty cool.

The multiple meetup groups is the best place to start...and there's a convention coming up 1st weekend of Dec with a weekend of PFS along w/other gaming systems at Anonycon.

To go with the theme of the Spiritualist, some of the mechanics proposed, and expanding upon them...it would be great to expand the spell list.

Spells of note:
0th
- Disrupt Undead
-- the class eventually gains Detect Undead as a SLA, this would certainly go w/the theme of being able to have some other form of dealing with them once detected, also currently the spiritualist has no knacks that do any damage (i.e. acid orb, ray of frost, jolt, etc)

- Ghost sound
-- We have a phantom both incorporeal and ectoplasmic that can phase through walls and even leaves a slimy residue. The RP elements from this are vast.

- Touch of Fatigue
-- again, there's a deliver touch attack mechanic w/the phantom but currently limited touch attack based spells...and with the spells known mechanic, it is unlikely a spiritualist will learn inflict wound spells over protection spells to help support the phantom itself. In fact I don't really see many touch attack based spells at all. While the addition of this will not be game breaking, it's nice to have more tools at lower level.

1st
- Abundant Ammunition
-- the investment of Dex partly due to only light armor and no shield prof. seems to be encouraging more spiritualists to take up the ranged combat option. This spell would obviously aid in that dept.

- Chill Touch
-- likely mentioned earlier. (noticed I didn't say shocking grasp)

2nd
- All the spells that boost an ability stat by +4 (bull's str, etc)
-- mainly to help support the phantom and going with the theme of unlocking, harnessing the powers of life & death, thought, and nightmare, shadow and pursuit.

That's all for now.

At Merlino - well I stand corrected, thanks for pointing that out. Not sure how I missed that...I think I got ego whipped trying to absorb all the new info :)

Short answer re: Augment summon and Phantom - No

Flavored answer: see below

It's funny...they mention the Phantom manifests itself over and over again, never does it say the Spiritualist summons it as the ability or spell. The question re: augment summoning and Phantoms has come up and so far from what I've read it's all be no it doesn't work.

While the phantom may be perceived it's being summoned or conjured, it doesn't say anywhere or clearly enough that it is in fact being summoned or conjured. Flavor text suggests that the spiritualist is almost allowing the phantom to appear.

Manifesting a phantom into existence currently isn't a spell or spell like affect. In fact there's no label for it so I can only assume it's (Su) along with the majority of all the other Spiritualist's class abilities.

-

I was actually think that's a great point re: the sicked phantom. Perhaps the phantom can have the same or similar immunity as an undead thing but any debilitating effects, affecting the spiritualist also affects the phantom.

Consider how far you intend to take the character as well. If one of the phantom abilities is awesome at 12th lvl but weak sauce or not fitting with your RP flavor at low levels, is it really worth playing?

I'm having a blast but also it helps to have party members that are pretty open minded and cohesive, so the phantom more so than the spiritualist is providing a 4th dimension about solving problems in the low tier scenarios currently.

So for combat, my vote is anger, hatred, and fear. For everything else, all the other focuses.

For your concept, I'd take fear. His wife is constantly afraid her husband will get hurt or worse, always worrying...being over protective. You don't have the take the literal aspect of fear, it could be a single phobia or concern. I think the flavor text says experience an extreme emotion before the phantom pulled itself from the ether.

I had a chance to look and compare somewhat the other occult play test classes and thought why didn't the spiritualist have its own form of Burn?

Surely it could be used to augment the abilities of the phantom manifest in any of its three forms. However that may be impelemented it could certainly boost all aspects of the class and certainly address the duration issues that a lot of us are seeing with the class abilities.

Today I was able to have the phantom peek into multiple locked chests, identity the contents and aid in by passing the locking mechanisms. then later, while an Npc In an encounter was firing down at the group of us from a tower, the phantom slimed its way up, lurched into the room with the unaware crossbowmen and slammed the poor fellow into mush...this repeated three times. Half movement didn't seem to do much to slow down the phantom once it lurched through the wall...it just climbed the steps after wards. Due to the low damage output for the phantom I don't see is stately being as affective as the levels start to rise. Maybe the phantom's slam damage could scale at a slightly slower monks unarmed attack rate.

...actually I enjoyed how that encounter played out.

Is there a chance that the spiritualist could have a similiar power to the kinectsist? Except it being an energized touch Attack that scales with its class level? It could be some untyped energy Attack that can affect incorporeal and corporeal targets as well as be channeled through the phantom. Stretching further, it could comparatively be similar to the dread necromancer from that other game. (Coughs)

More later.

Re: Bonded Manifestation (Su): At 3rd lvl as a standard action...the spiritualist can create an ectoplasmic shield that grants a +4 shield bonus to AC. This lasts a number of rounds equal to her spiritualist level each day, etc etc and can be dismissed as a free action. The phantom must be still mount to her consciousness.

This ability doesn't improve currently (without feat support), the ecto shield doesn't provide any additional benefits at least not stated, and as a standard action, the spiritualist could just cast "shield" the spell with a much longer duration and the rider effect of negating magic missiles and not be restricted to having to have the phantom still in her head. It also doesn't state if the shield hovers around, or can be wielded, only that it doesn't restrict the spiritualist in any way.

I would suggest making this ability an immediate action that lasts up to 1 round per class level, that can be dismissed as a free action...or X + wisdom modifier, or modifying the power further to emulate the wave shield, except it grants DR X/slashing exactly like the phantom's ecto form.

It's made of ectoplasm, it's manfiest, it's limited in it's duration, yet it provides only a +4 shield bonus. Why not ecto armor, or ecto shield that stacks w/the shield spell or a shield bonus, or go more green lantern with the abilities and let them make all sorts of ecto equipment with a longer duration and functionality.

...so much flavor this class has.

I'd have to agree w/ShakaUVM re: no "Spiritualizing" for the spiritualist (at early levels at least).

In the last encounters both social and combative, I had thought perhaps one feature could be the Spiritualist going into a trance or meditative state similar to Magic Jar...this would be to further augment the manifested Phantom's ectoplasmic form.

The trance would leave the Spiritualist unaware of their surroundings to some degree or completely making them helpless but boost the abilities of the phantom considerably (like a mental rage). This could be only done for a limited amount of time and/or per day but if this class needed to go in the direction of more combative or versatility this could certainly be a direction to explore. If the phantom can manifest the mind of the spiritualist and grant them bonuses, going with that theme the spiritualist can manifest the phantom and grant it bonuses as well.

I had also thought each emotional focus could be expanded on so there was an option to focus more on the incorporeal form or the ectoplasmic form...and the more choices you make towards one form makes it stronger/durable/better etc at the cost of limiting and eventually giving up the ability to use the other form.

Mid to higher levels, I'd much rather have a wraith like phantom that passes through enemy lines and wreaks havoc with it's spirit claws...or an ectoplasmic brute that swing a large ghostly blade cleaving the enemy...vs having 2 mediocre phantoms that are really good at scouting and helping me with skill checks, or being a beefed up unseen servant.

My initial thoughts are:

-Why was he out hunting before the wedding? He should have saved his strength for the honeymoon.

-He was looking forward to his honeymoon, instead he got a FULL MOON. (Puts on sunglasses)

-How can a spirit carry a lycanthropic curse?

- bachelor party activity or his wife to be asked him to go out and bring back some (wild animal to eat) for the wedding feast.

- no comment.

- likely not, I think the phantom just manifests visually as a werewolf for RP purposes.

Phantom Menace (I couldn't resist)

I have to agree the phantom's ability to roam around even within a limited distance through walls and other obstacles is a bit powerful, especially at the start of a Spiritualist's career.

Outside of scouting an entire dungeon simply for the floor plan and other potential threats combined with it's starting 7 INT, the Link ability, and it's own skills perception and stealth being 2 of them made encounters much easier even given the Phantom's comparatively lesser combat abilities (to an eidolon or companion). Like having fog of war turned off.

On the other hand what I wanted to address more was it's ability to bypass most locked doors and/or through some GM convincing, able to describe the locking or trap mechanism while it peeked through and gave feedback to the party. No magical traps were encountered as of yet. I'm sure as the spiritualist's levels increase being able to use Bonded Senses longer, will just make most trap and locked doors easier to bypass. If this is part of the function of the phantom, then it's doing it really well.

I think this class could have additional abilities, defenses, etc when encountering haunts specifically and not just the additional bonuses to saving throws or rerolls. Maybe that's a very specialized archetype.

I'd like to see (unless I missed it somewhere) a more expanded Bonded Manifestation. Perhaps the ability to utilize some of the Phantom's feats and/or their emotional focus abilities. I'm hoping there will be spiritualist feat supports that increase the duration of all the 1 round per level abilities as well.

Another thought was having the Phantom manifest in another person's mind granting the spiritualist a wider array of skills, some of which s/he might not already have...along with potentially other abilities, like borrowing feats, or giving the ability to grant the new host mind their own skill(s) or feats, or saving throws.

...and, possibly everything the spiritualist is targeted by a mind affecting spell or effect from an enemy up to 1 + wisdom modifier or 3 + Cha or some balanced formula per day, and makes the saving throw...can store away that negative affect and release it as an area affect later on. Similar to a physic blast or mental breath weapon/AoE. It only works if you're targeted by a mind affecting spell or effect when your phantom is residing in your head.

That's all for now.

- PS playing the part of the phantom w/my best impersonation of Darth Vader into a soup container is a lot of fun.

As you mentioned the piercing judgement helping to get past SR, likely if you need to punch through SR the arsenal the inquisitor has for offensive spells seems rather lacking.

I could see a caster focused inquisitor to do some buffing/debuffing, but the class itself seems to be designed more towards melee first, then ranged, with casting to round out your decisions.

I guess my next question would be which spells do you like which wanted you to try and focus on being more of a caster first? As well as, what class features does the inquisitor have that wants you to play one over say a cleric or oracle as mentioned earlier (both of which can possess comparable melee/ranged abilities but with far more variety and access to spellcasting).

Hopefully there's enough between those questions to possibly find other options as an inquisitor or even another class/archetype and satisfying the same needs.

So the only regular potential games in Manhattan and a game possibly in Brooklyn right over the bridge I can see that are posted in the events section might be:

July 8th (Tue)- 6:30/7:00pm
July 9th (Wed)- 6:30/7:00pm
July 13th (Sun) - 12noon+

Have fun at Paizo Con.

Matthew - go to the events page and punch in the LES zipcode 10002, a bunch of the games being held in the coming weeks all have emails listed of the organizer. I would suggest you give them a pm or better an email and see if there's anything scheduled during your stay.

I know regular games at a few spots occur every other week or so at Citigroup & Cranberry Cafe on alternating Sundays & Wednesdays. If you're willing to trek over to Brooklyn which actually isn't very far considering you'll be in the LES (just over the bridge or a few stops from the F train), there's a regular game held on alternating Tuesdays at the Brooklyn Strat run by our VL.

...if you can visit NYC a week earlier you could attend Dexcon in NJ, plenty of PFS going on there from July 2nd - 6th.

Hope that helps.

\o/ Rick, hey now...you're an all*star!

Brooklyn in the house...that said, David Santana has started what seems to be a bi-monthly game at Brooklyn Strategist. Check out the Meetup groups in NYC/NJ/LI. "The" quickest way to find a game is simply post you're going to GM, set the time, date, and poof. Table filled.

Also as June mentioned check out the yahoo & google groups, a few of those games are always listed in the event finder. Just punch in the zip code and hit enter. Those games iirc happen on alternate Sundays, Tuesdays, and Wednesday usually in NYC.

Along with that, there are a bunch of less advertised PFS happening all around the city and Brooklyn...and if you're feeling a bit more adventureous and have the means, there's a couple of games happening about an hour from Manhattan in NJ. Also posted on the sources listed above.

Feel free to PM me and I'll give you some more info on Brooklyn PFS if you're interested in starting/finding.

Cheers

hey now, look at the snazzy cover art!