Grozug's page

Do you want a familiar? They're insanely useful but you can swap em out in order to snatch some Oracle powers if you want.

Do you want to :

Control (debuff/battlefield)
Kill (pure damage)
Support (buffs and heals

I am normally leery of taking a familiar because I'm afraid of it dying, but in this particular case I am much more open to it. In the interest of character theme, since the shaman would be from Shriikirri-quah (The Hawk Clan), they would get a Hawk spirit animal.

By Oracle powers, I bet you're referring to the Speaker for the Past archetype, which I have looked at before. I was initially leaning toward Speaker, back when I was planning to gain as many Int skills as I could, but I didn't pay as much attention to the mysteries as a result.

I want the shaman to have an equal ability to Control and Support, if possible. I know that they'll eventually take the Chant hex, partly because I'll fluff the actual chant as Alaskan Throat-Singing for funsies.

Shamans have a wide range of utility spells, which can be very useful out of combat. I like to leave one spell slot of each level open, to memorize something specific as needed.

Diplomacy is a class skill, so you can be decent, but not great at it, by maximizing your skill ranks.

Are there going to be any other party members with a good amount of healing magic? If not, Healing Hex would be a good pick early.

You know, I always forget about the slot left open trick, thanks for reminding me of that.

It's still early to say anything definite about party composition, but I think my shaman would likely be the only healer.

Obtaining a Wand of Cure Light Wounds might be possible with WBL, however.

Hello, esteemed Paizoites.

A few months ago I fielded a tedious series of questions about general player paranoia, but at the moment the original catalyst for my worries--a Curse of the Crimson Throne game--is finally inching toward reality.

Without spoiling anything campaign-sensitive for a player, how might a shaman be built to fit into the mechanics and theme a CotCT game? Party makeup is unknown at this time, except for the possibility that one other player may either make a kineticist, or a Small mounted character.

The only thing that is definite about my character so far is that they are a conditionally-exiled Shoanti and former apprentice to one of the tribes' mystics. (Essentially, they repeatedly voiced the highly unpopular opinion that they should foster more peaceful contact with the southerners in Varisia for their mutual benefit, and eventually someone significant enough within the tribe got annoyed enough to have them exiled, to return only on the condition that they forge exactly that sort of bond of alliance/goodwill on the tribe's behalf with someplace like Korvosa. Of course it was intended to be an impossible condition to fulfill, but the shaman hasn't given up yet.)

We are building characters at 2nd level using a modified 20 Point Buy, with no negative modifiers before racial adjustments and a free +2 to any ability score not already benefiting from a racial bonus.

At the moment my shaman's stats look like:

11 Str
16 (14+2) Dex
14 Con
10 Int
17 (15+2) Wis
12 Cha

Traits: Shoanti Steed (Racial), Outcast's Intuition (Magic)
Feats: Scribe Scroll, [Undecided]

Obviously those stats preclude being a frontline fighter, and I was always intending to go a casting route. But beyond that, I don't know what to do.

Standard buffing/debuffing in combat is probably simple to build for, but outside of combat I don't know what this fish out of water would be good for, other than grabbing some Int skills which can be keyed off of Wisdom with a Hex.
Is there a diplomancer shaman build hiding somewhere out there which I haven't found yet?

Item crafting will also be allowed in the game and I could take advantage of Scribe Scroll and the Fetish Hex to start making Wondrous Items early, but it'd be my first time making or budgeting to make magic items, and I don't know how often the Adventure Path's pace allows for one to sit down and work for a few days.

Finally, I've looked over the Slums spirit a few times, and while I love the theme, I don't think my Shoanti could plausibly possess it as anything less than a Wandering Spirit, since they'd only have just arrived in the city at the beginning of the game.

Any other ideas I haven't laid a wet blanket over would be greatly appreciated.

Hmm, that's a good point on the sling. He'll wear it as a belt until a very rainy day comes.

Escapism is a big part of liking the game for me, though that's a fairly standard point of enjoyment from what I understand of other players.

Role-playing is also significant, and while I can (and do) RP outside of games easily, the structure of an actual game system feels like it keeps the world or at least player actions more grounded than in a totally free-form thread or chat room. I mean, if you'll ignore for a moment high-level magic and all that.

I guess small losses worry me because they add up to big losses eventually. I've never experienced character death, since all of the games I've played tend to peter out before anyone dies. It's the nagging inevitability of that event that scares me, I guess.

Character death (or at least a big enough, permanent failure) can definitely be role-played well, but my lizard-brain still really doesn't want the character to end.

Thank you, everyone, for your advice. It's put things in perspective for me somewhat. I think I have fun when things are going well during play, but I do feel bogged down when I let the minutiae get to me in between game posts.

I ended up dropping Strength to 11 while downsizing my equipment with in-character justifications. This character isn't intending to get embroiled in a full adventure, and whatever's about to happen in the city of Korvosa during his cultural exchange visit will take him by surprise.

His tentative stats are 11/16/14/10/17/12 (20 point-buy plus a house rule floating +2, since this isn't actually a PFS game- just an adventure path PbP among friends). Feats are Great Fortitude, and Scribe Scroll. With +Wis to all Int skills from a Hex, I'm hoping he can be a crafter and/or smart-guy as well as a support specialist and emergency healer.

I'm also spending almost all of my WBL for being 2nd-level (which I wasn't aware I had at first) on a Minor Bag of Holding. At the same time, I liberated my shaman from the sling I was insisting he'd use, reasoning that a Shoanti could have encountered and picked up a light crossbow for hunting at some point in his travels. Curse shortbows not being simple like D&D5E did...

I'm still unwilling to put him in medium armor, but I know the trade-off/sacrifice I'm making with that. In a few levels, darkleaf or mithral something-or-other will be in order. Until then, I'll just live like a squishy, fearful wizard.

Assuming the game happens, that is. I haven't actually heard anything definitive from the rest of the likely players yet.

Swarms have been duly noted... yikes.

And I think I'm slowly making peace with the risks of horses finally- especially if one is war-trained and given freely by a recently-discovered racial trait!

Now to balance its inventory next...

Dump stats are fun. Working past challenges is fun. Playing a perfect character is boring. If your GM exploits it to the point where it isn't fun, talk to them like an adult. If they won't listen, the usual advice of leaving the group applies.

If you coordinate skills with your party, you can cover the bases. You really just need perception, spellcraft, and a few knowledges. Climb, swim, and acrobatics are all helpful, but if one person has them and a length of rope you're good in most situations. In general, just make sure the only overlap you have is perception. Shouldn't be that bad unless you're all non skill optimized fighters.

Is that why you have heavy load problems? Carrying lots of gear is fine. As long as you spend enough on essentials (weapons, armour, food, etc), you're good. Don't overweight yourself and everything is great. Not a problem here.

I guess I might have a different mental starting-point with dump stats. Role-playing a character with one or two significant handicaps can absolutely be fun, but if I've created them as a relatively well-rounded and well-adjusted individual (outside of the necessary insanity of going adventuring), I expect them to have equally mundane (+0) secondary stats.

As for weight, yeah, I'd say my characters try to carry enough to be self-sufficient without regards for what the hypothetical party is already carrying. Their own food, water, rope, healing kit, map/writing materials, cooking tools (sans that big clunky pot), pouches of smaller things, personal effects, etc.

My current caster shaman idea has it worse, possessing only an effective strength rating of 12 with MW backpack included- after light armor, a buckler, clothing, a few pieces of sling ammo, and empty bags, they're already at 42/43 for a light load. No other essentials included yet. If I drop their wisdom they can have maybe a 13 or 14 in strength, so that they'll only get encumbered after picking up ~10 pounds of stuff outside of themselves.

I'll probably do that. 16 Wis is still enough to start with and cast max-level spells with by end-game, in case a headband gets sundered or stolen in a midnight teleport ambush.

Maybe my problem in these respects is that I don't think of it as a "party" game when I'm building the character? Not in terms of being a team player- I like being helpful. I just assume my characters have been wilderness loners up to the point of meeting the party, and should expect and be prepared to operate like that again on short notice.

Hello, all. Apologies if I missed a recent and similar thread.

I've been tinkering with a character idea (this one is a Speaker for the Past and/or Ancestors shaman, but I'm usually building at least one or two characters as a mild compulsion most days) for a possible Adventure Path game.

It occurred to me while building this character that I assume that certain bad things are going to inevitably happen in the game that are completely unavoidable, and I often get snagged in character creation wasting resources and trying to prep for them. It gets kind of unfun after a while. I was wondering if these are realistic fears in general, or if it would take a special kind of sadistic DM to do most of them. I've never actually faced a DM who was less than fair and friendly, but these thoughts still gnaw at me in Pathfinder.

Also note that these are all early game (levels 1-4) fears for me. I've never seen a higher level than that.

Fears such as:

Having a pack animal which is not an animal companion: I expect that a mundane light horse or a mule with no bonus hit dice or other abilities which is used to carry equipment and/or treasure is going to be eaten by wolves or killed in a landslide at the first, most inconvenient opportunity possible, as will the mounts of any party members.

Having a familiar: For pretty much the same reasons as having pack animals/mounts, except predators and the elements get replaced by lucky arrows or a ray spell.

Trying to anticipate useful utility spells for the day: Any seemingly good or versatile choice can and will become an emphatically bad waste.

Wearing anything heavier than light armor or not keeping a very light load: Like being stuck with 20 or less movement speed or worse than -2 ACP is a signed death warrant, even in a party that already contains dwarves or other slower types.

Dumping any stat at all: As if the world can smell a sub-10 ability score on me and will assuredly find a way to punish it severely in some way, regardless of party composition and specializations.

Not having at least 1 rank in every single class skill, and several outside skills: In a similar vein as the above, fearing my fighter will have to act as the party academic, or that the wizard will have to complete an entire obstacle course while silenced.

Leaving home without a sawback dagger and a bar of soap: What am I, some kind of savage?

I guess the actual advice portion of this is to ask if these are reasonable fears or not (maybe using the whole of PFS organized play as a standard for comparison?), and to ask if there are any tricks to overcome these difficulties before WBL catches up and allows one all of the magic utility items they need.

Cheers and much obliged, I know this is kind of rambling and subjective.

Sorry for the weak attempt at a veiled vampire movie pun; my question is entirely unrelated.

I recently toyed around with the demo to the game From Dust by Ubisoft (and then failed to be able to play the Google app of it on my computer, unfortunately). For those of you unfamiliar with it, it is a 'god game' in which you are the essence of a deity caring for your human followers. I am told that it is a bit like Black & White by Lionhead.

More to-the-point, I am trying to build a character that thematically matches one of the villagers in the game. They are a tribe of masked islanders that are able to control the elements of their environment to a limited extent through their magic music. The game took a lot of influences from Aboriginal Australian cultures and mythology like the Dreamtime, and I believe I've taken an interest as well.

http://www.xboxwallpapers.net/1280x800/from-dust-02.jpg is a good visual for the entire concept.

Human bard with a combat didgeridoo was what jumped out at me immediately, but their attachment to nature and the elements also brings to mind oracle or some kind of druid-lite.

So is there a musical oracle archetype I've missed, or a more casting-focused bard variant? Or perhaps a prestige class that combines the above-mentioned classes like the Fochlucan Lyrist of old?

I'll take any and all ideas.

Well my post was delayed. Yes, I understand the limitations of the build for the most part. It will be a mellow campaign for something like that being that it will primarily be a solo game. And hopefully it would be taking place at a slightly higher starting level, or even in the time period where firearms are common enough that they cost a lower percent of what is given in the text.

Sword and Pistol (Combat)! How did I miss something like that right in the Core?! XD

Thank you, at any rate! Very much. And I shall check the Buccaneer out as well, thank you both.

Hello, all. Painfully obvious first-time user here on the website. I did a bit of searching and did not find an existing thread similar to what I was contemplating, so hopefully this is the correct message board section.

Basically, I have a character concept swirling around in my head based off of the iconic image of an archaic military captain wielding a firearm in one hand and a saber in the other while his men would use typical rifles.

I get the idea it would be audacious to ask for an entire build from you folks, so I will simply ask about such a thing even being possible or not. I'm not of course expecting power on top of my flavor.

Would it just be a matter of discussing TWF specifics with the DM and picking up one or two feats, or would it require some very specific combinations of feats and levels in fighter and gunslinger or even cavalier?

Thanks in advance.