Guacenspiel's page

This is in reference to the Scarred Witch Doctor's "familiar", the fetish mask. Once you hit level 5, you can upgarde it as if you had the craft wonderous item. So, what have you done to your mask? Just curious to hear what others have done!

Probably blasting. It would be nice to have some buffing ability, but I fear that would be spreading myself too thin.

Right, I see that I would have to drop Orc for Draconic. They both seem appealing, but change the way in how the sorcerer might be played somewhat. Whew, so many options!

Ah, thank you all for the clarification on spell casting for a Sorcerer! I re-read that section in the rulebook a few times but I guess it didn't really stick with me. I'm liking that a sorcerer is so limited in this way as it forces me to really carefully think and choose the most optimal spells depending on the type of character I want to create and play.

In response to WerePox47, yes I'm wanting to play as a blaster. My alignment would probably be True Neutral or Good Neutral. As for schools of magic, I see my character primarily focusing on Evocation... that seems to be the ideal choice if I'm looking to hit with firepower.

WerePox, you also mention that I could take dragon disciple and dip into barbarian (or Paladin)... When would I do those if I chose to go that path? If I were to dip into something like Dragon Disciple, it looks like the earliest I could probably take it is at level 5, as I would need 5 ranks of Knowledge arcana (the other requirements I could probably pick up on my way to reaching level 5). Would I take Barbarian at level 1 and then take up Sorcerer or would I pick Barbarian up at a later level? I'm assuming there are some feats or skills (Rage?) in Barbarian that I would like to have.

Also, as far as Varisian Tattoo... That sounds pretty cool to be honest.

Am I correct in that I can opt for both the Tattooed Sorcerer archetype and the Dragon Disciple? As far as I'm able to tell, I can do the following:

Level 1 - 5 = Half-Orc Tattooed Sorcerer (Picking up Spell Focus as my level 1 feat and dropping the Ironhide feat I initially picked). I lose my 9th level bloodline (Breathe Weapon) since I would choose the bloodline Draconic to qualify for Dragon disciple, and would instead gain Enhanced Varisian Tattoo at level 9.

Level 5+ = Assuming I meet the prereq., I can opt for the Dragon Disciple Prestige class.

It was mentioned that I could possibly dip into Barbarian or Paladin, but I'm uncertain as to when (or why) that should be done.

Thanks again for all of the help so far.

First off, I'm pretty new to Pathfinder and Role-playing in general so reading the Core Rulebook was slow (but fun!). I've played as a Rogue in a session, but I'm really interested in creating a Sorcerer. I like the idea of rolling up an Half-Orc Sorcerer and think there's a lot of potential for fun from 1 to 20.

My issue is that I'm not really sure where to start. I've thrown together a character that's probably playable, but I'm not sure just 'how playable' (I've mostly played pre-gens up to this point). Below is a summary of most of the important suff.... My stats were created with the old fashioned 4d6 and drop the lowest method and I feel I got pretty lucky rolling them.

STR: 15
DEX: 17
CON: 15
INT: 12
WIS: 14
CHA: 19 (includes the +2 racial bonus)

Favored Class: Sorcerer
Bloodline: Orc

AC: 14
INIT: 3
FORT: 3
REFLEX: 4
WILL: 5

BAB: 0

CMB: 2
CMD: 14

Skills: Intimidate (10), Spellcraft (5), UMD (8)

Feats at level 1: Eschew Materials (freebie)
Ironhide (+1 Nat. Armor)

Special Abilities:
Darkvision (up to 90 ft.) - 90 feet due to bloodline arcana.
Sacred Tattoo (alternative racial ability I think) - +1 luck bonus to all Saving Throws
Proficient with Falchion/GreatAxe
Touch of Rage at 1st
Fearless at 3rd
Strength of the Beast at 9th
Power of Giants at 15th
Warlord Reborn at 20th

Spells: 4 0-level: Detect Magic
Read Magic
Ray of Frost
Daze

2 1-level: Mage Armor
Touch of Rage

For first level, I can cast 3 (+1 Int Bonus) spells a day, but can only know 2, so I assume that means I can "learn" the 4, but I can only cast 2 of the four a day, correct?

Are there any suggestions that can be made to tweak him and the character more.... viable, threatening? I'm a bit at a loss on what feats I should take and need a lot of help there.

I'm open to making changes to just about anything with the exception of race and the fact that I want some sort of mix of spell casting and melee ability (ranged physical damage I don't care so much about for this character).

If I get any feedback at all, I will be very grateful.

Thanks!

Just a guy and his girlfriend looking for friendly folks in the Columbia, MO area to play Pathfinder. We are aware of the local Society meetups, but would like something that's much more casual and that can be done on a bi-weekly basis at the least (weekends preferred). Individuals that love board games as well are strongly encouraged to contact me!

I have GM'd with the Beginner Box a few times, but would like to get some playing as a character in as well... That isn't to say that I would be willing to GM from time to time, as I find that aspect of Pathfinder pretty fun as well. Just a word of caution though, we're both pretty new to traditional pnp RPG's, so patient and/or new members are encouraged.

Thanks!

Whew,I feel like I sometimes make the gaming process harder than it needs to be. Anyway, thanks for the clarification folks!

I've been playing around with the Beginner Box for about a week now and I'm really enjoying the experience, although I've yet to play with a group that consists of more than myself and my girlfriend. Handling the GM side of things, as well as typically rolling for one of the pre-gen's that often act as hired help for my pc, I often run across things that I'm not comfortable doing yet, or don't really know how to handle. Which is fine!

Anyway, my concern this time (no pun intended) around is concerning time and how it's used in Pathfinder. I guess my uncertainty lies in knowing how closely to keep track of time. I mean, do other GM's actually 'time' things, like if the pc's decide to sleep for 8 hours, do they convert that to a certain amount in 'real' time and then time it, or is it something along the lines of "you rest for 8 hours, and you find yourself in this room, leading to x, what do you want to do?" (Questioning like that is too open-ended I feel, but that's another confusion that I'm working on figuring out.) I guess I basically don't really know how time works in the game in relationship to how it affects real-life time. Spells for example, some last 1 round, well that's about a minute (I think, I need to recheck the Handbook), so when someone's spell goes off, do some of you sit there with a stopwatch and time that round? Is it mostly just guesswork and approximations? I don't plan to worry too much about it at this point. But I do want to feel more comfortable with the rules provided by the Beginner's Box before I begin easing into the Core Rules book.

It might help if I had an example I could refer to, so can anyone direct me to a good, solid, video or podcast of a session that might showcase 'good' GM'ing?

Thanks for the help so far!

Thanks for the replies and the good suggestions! I think I need to listen to a few podcasts or sit on a few sessions to get a real impression of what Gm'ing is all about. It sounds like I did pretty good for a first time, so I'm happy and will keep fleshing things out as the adventure unfolds.

I'd like to run the other Beginner Box stuff that Paizo has as a free download and then start delving into some of the other adventures that are low level. I plan to hold out on the core rule book set until we've advanced a few levels and have run through a few scenarios.

Thanks again for the input.

So like a great many other users in this thread, I have recently acquired the Beginner Box. I'm pretty excited as I have zero experience in a traditional pnp RPG and I felt that the time was right to delve into something that I've wanted to be involved in for many, many years.

Anyway, I read through the HH and the GM's book, did the solo adventure and even 'played' as a rudimentary GM for my girlfriend, and did the solo adventure (not the Black Fang's adventure) for her as well, reading out the parts and playing the part of the Goblin, boy, etc. So now, we've rolled up some characters as we wanted to try that out (and I think we've done everything correctly, although we will likely re-roll at some point, rather than take the pre-determined suggestions as outlined in the HH), just for the heck of it, but that will come at a later time.

Earlier tonight, we began the Black Fang adventure, myself as GM and my girlfriend as an Elf Cleric. I realized that this adventure would be pretty difficult with just her, so I have rolled a dwarf fighter and act as her 'mute' companion. We'll possibly have a group of 3 or 4 this weekend, so we may re-run the adventure then for the full effect :D

Since I'm a true pnp rpg virgin, being a GM was confusing, exciting and hugely entertaining. I forgot a lot of small rules, but at this stage I was simply excited to let it bother us too much. However, and this may be a question that I can easily answer myself, but I just wanted feedback, I did have a recurring thought come up and I wanted to seek clarification from you guys...

The PC was told early game that she is free to make an attempt to do anything that she would like to do. We discussed beforehand the importance of skill checks and she really took it to heart. So for every room that we entered (we only got up to the Spider before having to quit for the day) the Cleric would ask if she could perform a perception skill check upon entering. In some areas, I wasn't sure how to handle this. I understand the concept of checking the skill against something (DC) but there were times where I didn't have anything to check against so when she claimed that she wanted to perform a perception check, I didn't really know how to respond other than to let her roll (that may have been silly) and then to come up with some sort of dialogue like, "You peer into the gloom but you are unable to determine anything other than the rough walls and slick stone floor of the room". I'm cool taking some creative license but I don't really know if she's applying the skill check wrong, does she need to use it on a particular aspect or can she treat like a 'scan the environment' type of behavior? If this doesn't make any sense, I'll try to rephrase the question!

Anyway, this forum has been great. I've read a bunch of the threads and have had some other questions answered, predominantly confusion over movement (I wasn't sure if a PC's speed was something that had to be applied at all times or if it was something that only came into effect during combat/important scene stuff).

Glad to meet you all, and thanks to Paizo for creating a great Gateway produce that is more accessible to us RPG virgins!