Gunsmith Paladin's page

Otherwhere wrote:

@Malwing: I don't feel these posts are an exercise in insanity. They're an opportunity to: verify if I am understanding the rules correctly; and how to home-brew things that don't work for me and my table.

I disagree, mostly because that's not whats normally going on. Otherwise we'd be in the House Rules subforums. A number of us have done so. I have my own ongoing project. There are things like individual feats to and things like that where we can complain about and ask for change but we're on these threads going as far as wanting martials to get encounter bypassing abilities equal to flying and teleporting.

I can agree with this. I feel like some of the things that people want are leaving D&D, which is what Pathfinder is, behind. A lot of people want to bring martials up, and I can agree with that to an extent, but it seems like very few want to bring casters down.

I think that's where the problem lies. Magic has always been powerful at higher levels, but I can't remember it being anything like it is now. There were limits and checks. A lot of those are gone now. Each book causes more creep, both laterally and vertically.

I understand that this game is about wish fulfillment. We want to be badass and do amazing things, but that goal post keeps getting pushed further and further back.

I don't attempt anything like facing in combat. I love to tinker with Pathfinder rules, but I've never come up with anything resembling a reasonable facing rule for combat.

I love tinkering with the rules myself. As far as a decent facing rule goes, I have only ever seen one that I cared for, and it was in a video game. Final Fantasy Tactics on the PS1 to be specific. The only thing that those rules did was increase your odds for attacks and special abilities to hit when using them from the sides or behind.

As far as a subsystem that I hate goes I would have to say it's the maneuver system. I love the idea of maneuvers. They're this great tool-kit for, primarily, martial characters to use but they're locked behind this giant tree of feats.

I know they *can* be used without the feats, but I don't think I've ever seen anyone use one without having invested in it. If only because they don't want to eat an AoO. And even if you do invest in it you'll find yourself in a lot situations where it's not applicable and you suddenly have a ton of dead feats.

If anything I think they shouldn't provoke AoO baseline.

I won't mind have a Amor Piercing Ability in the game after all.

We've had that for a long time. Brilliant energy weapons.

Ah, but you see... It doesn't say mind affecting effects... It says mind control. If a spell with a Will save doesn't allow the caster to give orders to the target, Fighters get no bonus against it. These includes things like... Glitterdust, Slow, Bestow Curse, Plane Shift, Confusion, Insanity, Feeblemind Sleep and, according to a Paizo clarification on Protection From Evil... Even stuff like Sleep and Hold Person.

There are plenty of Will-save spells that can still screw the Fighter. :)

The mind control part could use some clarification then. I assumed you just meant mind affecting effects. Though I have to say that it doesn't feel very fighter like.

One of the most common fantasy tropes is the fighter types being, well, mind controlled. It's kind of their weakness. The reason why I mentioned the slippery mind like ability is because they also struggle against it and eventually overcome it. To give them high initial 'resistance' just seems, I don't know, not the best way to go about it.

I know we all want fighters to great, but sometimes we want them to do to much. Yeah, failing a save versus domination sucks, but someone has to do it.

There's quite a bit to comment on here. I'll start small though.

The new bravery seems like a bit much to honest. About the only thing it doesn't cover is illusions and at level 20 the bonus plus the base is +12. You might as well just give him good will saves and be done with it. That would give him 3 good saves, but as it stands he pretty much already does. Does he really need a good reflex, btw?

It does feel kind of odd that he's getting bonuses to mind affecting anyway. Why not come at it from a different angle and give him a slippery mind like ability to shake mind control effects. Make him struggle a little before he breaks it kind of like any hero in any movie/book/story/etc. ever. Everyone needs a weak point, but they also need a way to deal with it.

Also why does it say fear, possession, and mind affecting effects? Aren't the first two pretty much always the third?

The expanded skill list isn't bad, but the knowledge (nobility) and appraise feel out of place. 6 skill points per level is probably a bit much.

I don't get the immunity to bleeding effects. I can't think of a movie or book where the hero doesn't get at least a little bloody.

There's so much stuff here. It'll be hard to comment on all of it. You must have been working on this for a while. :P

I'd prefer it to be awesome with the weapons they use and excellent with any other weapons they Train in.

That's what Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization is for. Though to be honest, I think that those two feats should apply to weapon groups instead of a single weapon. They would specialize the fighter but not totally handcuff him. Plus, since they're feats, he can retrain them later if he wants.

I'm at work so I can't give a real in depth analysis. However, I will say what I normally do when people post fighter fixes. Just get rid of that weapon group nonsense. Imagine, if you will, a world where fighters are simply better at wielding weapons than other people. A world where fighters equip that sweet new sword the boss dropped instead of selling it because he chose maces this time around. But yeah. Weapon groups are the devil. They limit you instead of helping.

There's a lot of interesting stuff here though. I'll try and do a better post about it later.

I made a class not too long ago called the gadgeteer. You can find it here. You might be able to pick a few ideas from it.

I tried several features out for the Fighter.

My favorite is one that allows the Fighter to get extra bonuses from mental skills, increasing their OOC versatility thanks to more stuff they are good at.

But to address your specific concern, here's another one I've tried.

Veteran's Prowess
At 2nd level, a Fighter can choose one of the following specializations. Each one represents a skill the Fighter has picked up from his combat experience.
- Gut Feeling: In combat, one learns the true nature of people. Your experience with battle has made you able to have accurate hunches. You gain 1/2 of your fighter levels as a bonus to Sense Motive and you may use Sense Motive to feint in combat.
- Spellhunter: Perhaps you don't know any magic tricks, but you know its crucial for a mundane warrior to be prepared. You gain 1/2 of your fighter levels as a bonus to Spellcraft. If you successfully identify a spell this way, you increase the difficulty of the concentration check required to cast that spell by 2 as long as you are threatening the caster.

I like these ideas and wish to throw my own spin on them.

These ideas do make a fighter more MAD, but I added the bonuses here and there to their combat abilities to offset that. I'm certain they need some better balancing and adjustments, but I do like the basic idea behind them. All the best 'fighter' types from stories and movies have quirks about them that they use to their advantage.

It kind of feels like you're re-inventing the Tome of Battle at some points, and at others it feels like you're just trying to create a base class based on leadership.

That just doesn't seem to feel like a fighter, but that's just me. We all have an idea of what a fighter is and what it could be.

I do like the idea of having combat feats do extra stuff for fighters. It's something I've been contemplating for a long time.

Okay, I've got another question. What happens when you fail to complete a scenario?

We got close a couple times, even getting down to the last blessing, but we haven't failed yet. The book says you just try again, but it doesn't seem to mention anything bad happening if you do fail. Do you get to keep the boons you've acquired or do you have to reset your deck to what it was before the attempt?

It is a rule that is printed on the Adventure Path card.

Ah. I see it now. Thanks much.

You do add all the cards with each new adventure. You're right that it reduces your chance of seeing the new stuff. As the game moves on you'll start culling the lower level stuff (Basic and Elite cards), but be prepared to see and re-see a lot of Long Swords. And yeah, if you want to start over from scratch you have to sift all the cards out.

Card Feats are the way you increase your deck size. You haven't seen any yet. You get your first one at the end of Burnt Offerings, and one after that for each adventure. You'll get your role card at the end of Hook Mountain.

Thanks for the answers. But I have a question about about the culling part. Is that a rule or just something that everyone does after a while? If it's just something everyone does about how many cards of each type should we keep each stack limited to? For example, should we keep the weapons stack trimmed down to like 30 cards max and cull the weaker stuff each we add a new adventure deck? What about banes? Should we just leave them pretty much untouched or cull the weaker stuff as we go on to keep the challenge up?

My friends and I just recently started playing and we're enjoying it quite a bit, but there are a few details we can't figure out.

My questions are multi-part so I'm going to tier them for ease of reading.

1a. We played through the base set adventure with the bandit guy, the Pillbug guy, and the dragon. No problems there really. Then we broke into the burnt offerings pack. Do we just mix all those cards in with the base set stuff or do we only use those cards for all the adventures in that adventure path?

1b. If so then what about future adventure deck add-ons? Wouldn't that make getting the new and better equipment/spells/allies/etc. really difficult?

1c. If so then does that mean we would have to go through and separate all the cards again if we want to start fresh?

2. We understand skill feats and power feats, but what kind of feat increases the card types that you can have in your deck? Is it some other reward we haven't seen yet or do you use a power/skill feat to increase them?

3. When do role cards come into play? I read the rule book and it mentions them but I'm not totally getting what it means. Do they come into play during Adventure Deck 3: Hook Mountain Massacre?

I probably have a couple more, but I can't think of them off the top of my head right now.

It just occurred to me. What about the Eldritch Knight prestige class? Start as a swashbuckler and start picking up some sorcerer levels (for the charisma overlap).

I can't remember. Does the early access trick into Eldritch Knight still work? As in being an Aasimar with daylight or a wizard with the scryer subschool?

Have you thought about just being the dervish dancer with max UMD and just buying a wand of fireballs?

You may have a good chance of meeting your concept as a Bloodrager.

I was thinking Bloodrager for him as well.

It's a spontaneous caster. It has offensive spells. It's got full BAB. It's casting is cha based.

The devilish rogue thing can be pulled off with role playing and such.

Been a long time since I played Tales of Symphonia. The character concept will be hard to pull off though. The dervish dancer is a good place to start though. Getting the offensive spells though is going to be a lot harder.

Bards get a spell called Sonic Thrust which is the same name as a spell he had. It's a 4th level spell though so you won't be able to get it till 10th level as a bard.

Fireball and Lightning are easy enough to replicate, but being able to cast them is a whole different story. In fact a lot of his spells, if not all, can be replicated or have decent enough alternatives. However, they all come from different spell lists.

This is a difficult character concept you want to achieve. Are there any concessions you'd be willing to make?

Swashbucklers can use Cha instead of Int to qualify for Combat Expertise.

On a different subject, another reason not to take Extra Panache is that Plumes of Panache are so damn cheap.

I knew I was missing something somewhere. But that brings up my thoughts on the 12 int again. Is it needed for something? An extra skill maybe?

Oh, and I didn't comment on the whole disarming thing. Keep in mind that CMB is based on str and not dex so your checks are going to be a little low. I think that there's a feat somewhere that lets you use your dex on combat maneuvers, but that's another feat burned on trying to disarm an opponent.

I might be missing something, but how are you taking combat expertise with only a 12 int?

I'd recommend getting slashing grace (scimitar) if you can and grab power attack after that. Why? Because slashing grace will add more damage than power attack will at the early levels (+3 damage versus +2). Plus it won't reduce your to hit.

Also, since you can't take combat expertise (unless I'm missing something) I'd recommend knocking your int down and bringing up your wisdom. Will saves should never be dumped. Failing will saves tends to kill your other party members not just you.

So basically get these feats in this order: Weapon Focus (Scimitar), Slashing Grace (Scimitar), Combat Reflexes, Power Attack.

What it means is that I disagree with the FAQ that spell-like abilities should qualify for spell requirements, since they're not spells. They're spell-like. The "philosophical" element is that I've always felt prestige classes should be, well, prestigious. They should be things you work your way into, and, for example, using an aasimar's daylight spell-like ability to qualify for a class at 1st level or whatever feels like cheating to me, and diminishes the prestige of the class.

(Whether or not a prestige class is a "trap" or not [I personally don't feel like they are] isn't something I'm really interested in arguing.)

That's all. I should have appended my standard, "Here's how I see it but you should play the game you want" disclaimer to my comment, I suppose.

I remember back in 3.5 my group and I would plan out our characters well in advance for what prestige classes we wanted to play. We put in quite a bit of effort and had fun when we finally qualified. We even talk and email each other about new builds or interesting combos.

Since we started play Pathfinder we haven't even so much as mentioned prestige classes in the last several years. I'm not certain if it stems from burnout on prestige classes or the fact that pathfinder classes are better designed than the 3.5 versions.

However, I do feel that the prestige classes of Pathfinder don't feel, well, prestigious. It's probably because the base classes are so much stronger now that thy take quite a bit of the wind out the sails of prestige classes. Though I will admit quite a few prestige classes do feel like they're just not strong enough to bother with.

This is just my two cents though and that's not worth much.

Skill Talents

I'd make the greater versions of swim and climb give a climb and swim speed equal to your land speed. It's level 15. Casters have access to 8th level spells. I sincerely doubt you'll hear the words, "A 30 foot climb speed?! That's straight broken!", at any table.

Hiker, Greater could probably allow them to take a 5 foot step in rough terrain without any real balance issues that I can think of.

I have been writing my own system for skills to grant abilities, though not as crazy as this. Just simple stuff like 10 ranks in climb granting you a climb speed at 1/4th your speed, and 15 ranks upgrading it to half your speed. Same with Swim. Acrobatics and Climb ranks together eventually start letting you ignore 5 feat of rough terrain.

Here is what I have so far. Maybe it can help Martials a little?
• Fast Climber: A character with 10 ranks in Climb gains a Climb speed equal to 1/4th of their land speed. This climb speed does not grant the usual +8 bonus to Climb checks, but a +4 bonus instead.
• Fast Climber, Greater: When the character reaches 15 ranks of the Climb skill, his climb speed increases to ½ of the character’s land speed and their +4 bonus to Climb checks increases to +8.
• Fast Swimmer: A character with 10 ranks in Swim gains a swim speed equal to 1/4th of their land speed. This swim speed does not grant the usual +8 bonus to Swim checks, but a +4 bonus instead.
• Fast Swimmer, Greater: When the character reaches 15 ranks of the Swim skill, his swim speed increases to ½ of the character’s land speed and their +4 bonus to Swim checks increases to +8.
• Giant Dodger: A Character...

I actually really like a lot of this. I think it's on the right track. Though perhaps some of the bonuses could be a little lower in level such as the climb and swim stuff. Them having a minor swim or climb speed at level 5 wouldn't exactly break the game considering the party wizard can hold his fist up in the air and take off like Superman at that level.

Treat a natural 1 as a natural 20? Any character I'd play would be unstoppable. I roll a natural 1 so much that other people I play take notice. Give me a vorpal weapon and I'm all set.

I do like what you've written here though. It honestly feels very rogue-ish which is a damn sight better than the standard rogue.

I think you'd need to better define what arcane magic is. It's vague enough in Pathfinder that it essentially covers everything that isn't granted by a deity. You'd have to crop out some of the arcane list to make another group of spells that's unique.

I suppose that is the core of the problem. With such a huge scope assigned to arcane, and divine, there's just not a lot of room for anything else.

Take divine magic for instance. I think that there should have been a split between divine and 'nature' magic. It would have really helped separate druids and clerics.

Arcane magic is a different story though. It's hard to define and thus hard to filter out what could be arcane and what isn't.

Emotion based magic sounds like what the Bard would use if it was an option over arcane.

Indeed it does. It seems like arcane magic covers emotions as well. The bard spell list is full of emotion based spells now that I look at it.

"Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

A character with access to some technology from an extremely advanced culture, beyond anything their own culture can replicate, would have potential to work as an alternate magic source within a fantasy setting. Channeling from an ancient and/or alien source as if by magic. You could easily design a class around that concept that fits the role of a pure caster, prepared or spontaneous could both work.

There is also the steampunk type technology, such as the Alchemist and Gunslinger, but that's slightly different. In that situation someone is cobbling together gadgetry to fill the role of magic. There is plenty of room to come up with some sort of Tinker type class that works mechanically differently from the Alchemist yet is still drawing from a similar source (steampunk level technology).

I actually designed a class that uses magic powered tech (found here). But I used the basic assumption it was working off an arcane power source. Indeed that's the hard part to separate. There's a lot of devices that are powered by arcane magic. Why wouldn't steampunk type technology be as well? If not then what's powering them?

Pain magic. You call forth effects from the blistering trauma of the universe. Not the poultry tool of demons or devils. Pain spells are evoked from the endless cycles of suffering enduring sense before the invention of such base creatures.

sometimes suffering is so great the universe spasms in somewhat controllable ways to ease the suffering. Some unenlightened people call this magic but those that practice the pain arts know its much deeper and darker.

anyway whatever effects pain magic can do is up to you its just what came to mind.

This is not a terrible idea. Why not take it a step further and just do something along the lines of emotion based magic?

But what would be its area of expertise?

Eh. Martial, Arcane, Psionic, and I'm happy.

What? No divine?

I kind of like that there's only two (three if you count psionics). It keeps things simple and elegant. Besides, the differences between divine and arcane are already too nebulous for my tastes. I would have liked the type of magic have a greater impact on the spells themselves. At the very least, have a "divine" and an "arcane" spell list that all related classes draw from rather than make a whole new spell list for each class.

But if I had to make a new source, I would say "primal" or "nature." Life itself functions as a source of magic. Instead of drawing power from a god or from the fabric of reality, primal magic uses the collective network of living organisms, following concepts of animism. Yes, one could consider this a subset of divine magic, but there exists a noticeable difference between the druid/ranger and cleric/oracle/paladin.

Another idea is planar magic. Again, one could consider this a subset of arcane. But it's an interesting idea where the plane you draw power from has a major impact on how your magic functions.

This is one of the points I brought up. The basic sources are extremely broad. They cover pretty much anything we could think up. We would have to narrow their definition to open up new ideas. And if we did so how would make the new power sources different?

But the other side of what I'm talking about is kind of high concept. A new power source different from anything we currently know about. Something we just haven't thought of yet. This is where my brain stalls out. What hasn't been touched upon? Is this something that has to be completely made up or is there something that hasn't occurred to me yet?

If nothing else I just wanted to talk about something that isn't "Let's fix the fighter/monk/rogue.", "How can we make casters and martials equal?", or "Look at how broken this feat is if we don't use common sense and take advantage of poor wording!"

This is something I've been thinking about for a long time. We have arcane, divine, and psionic as sources for magic. What could be a new source of power that is unique and different from those 3? I'm not talking stuff like 'shadow magic' or 'elemental magic'. That could be easily described as arcane with a twist. Nor am I talking about drawing power from demons or souls or dragons or anything like that as any of those could be described as arcane or divine. I'm talking about something entirely new. Something to make a 9th level caster who isn't like a wizard, cleric, or psion.

The problem is that I'm coming up blank. Anything I do think up can easily fit under one of the other categories as simply a different spin or flavor. I'm not certain if I'm simply not creative enough or if there really isn't anything that can't be defined by the sources we have now. Maybe the categories are so broadly defined they can act as a catch-all.

I feel like there's something there sometimes. Like a moment of clarity but I fall just short and can't wrap my mind around it.

In the end I decided to post here and see what anyone else has come up with. Honestly I just hope I'm conveying what I'm talking about well enough for everyone to understand.

@gunsmith paladin-- yes, its very off topic. Regardless, I refuse to accept that any race of sentient creatures would act willfully and conspicuously against survival. I simply cannot abide by running goblins or kobolds or any race like they are video game monsters incapable of thought as a race.

I don't play a lot in published campaign settings, admittedly, but I think that if the goblins in them are truly as ill equipped for survival in these campaign settings, then I would suspect they would all be like the Dark Sun goblins by this point.

** spoiler omitted **

If I remember right in some of the monster manuals for older editions they basically stated that the only reason goblins haven't been wiped out is the fact that they breed like cockroaches and mature quickly.

Also, how is standing side by side acting willfully and conspicuously against survival? Hell, it's downright beneficial from time to time. How else are you going to use aid another?

This reminds me of my first DM from all those years ago. Everyone you ran into was the same guy. Sure they looked different, but they all had that same jerk personality. And it didn't matter if they were a farmer in a field, or a merchant on the street, if you got into a fight with them suddenly they were master swordsmen and genius tacticians.

Years later I know better. Sometimes a farmer standing in a field is just that. A farmer in his field. He doesn't know how to fight. He doesn't understand complicated battle plans. He only really knows how to tend his farm.

My point being is that not everything or everyone in the world is combat trained. They might know how to stab someone with a sharp stick, but so does a 5-year-old.

Is it time for this thread again?

It would have been nice if the original text were written correctly, but there's little point in fixing it at this point.

This is the only point I'm going to disagree with blahpers on. It's never too late to fix something.

I do agree with everything else they've said though. In fact, I didn't even consider the idea that this feat removed anything other than the TWF penalties before I saw someone claiming it did in one of these threads.

Arcane Strike actually can work off arcane spell like abilities, which is why you sometimes see rogues taking minor/major magic or a random aasimar build with it. The CL for the arcane strike is based off the caster level of your arcane SLAs which is what your class abilities are.

Regardless of that it's still not usable by a quite a few races until level 4. Just feels odd.

Have you thought about using a fighter? It deals anywhere from 1d3 to 2d6 damage. It can used to trip, disarm, grapple, or any maneuver really. It can even come with reach. And the best part is that you don't even have to wield it. Just point at something and it'll do all the dirty work.

On a more serious note have you considered using a net? Even without proficiency it's a ranged touch attack and can really hamper a lot of opponents. I figured I'd suggest something a little different since everyone else got the basics.

Oh, and don't forget summon spells. All kinds of good stuff there to smack enemies with.

Bumping

Nothing on the final revision?

Why do they get arcane strike at first level? They can't use it. They can't cast arcane spells until level 4.

The wording on Versatile Enforcement is still clumsy.

Critical Enforcement is really strong especially since it doesn't have a cost. You either need to really jack up the required level or add a cost to it.

I still think it's silly that bane weapon has a required level higher than the aligned weapon.

Dispelling Disruption is out of whack too. You can do a targeted greater dispel 3 levels earlier than anyone else can cast it. Knock it down to just regular dispel. Maybe add a second rank (at ~12ish) for the greater version.

That's just the stuff I see from a quick glance.

Grenades have existed for thousands of years? Maybe 1200-1300 or so, if you count Greek Fire grenades. And how long exactly has magic existed on Golarion (or most other campaign worlds)? Hint: It's usually measured in MULTIPLE thousands of years, if not more. I'd wager that goblins on Golarion have been dealing with mages throwing blast spells at them for far FAR longer than humans have been dealing with grenades.

I was actually talking about how tactics themselves evolve not just that one specific tactic. It strikes me as odd that goblins would have the discipline to create such tactics over any stretch of time.

Which brings me to the question: What kind of campaigns do you all play where goblins are such pinnacles of success? They have training, tactics, and enough advanced knowledge of arcane magic to identify it on sight (or even before it's cast). I only know of one official campaign setting where goblins and their ilk were more than simple savages and that was Eberron (and that was thousands of years into Eberron's past). Everywhere else, that I've seen at least, they are sniveling, craven, superstitious, lazy, and primitive.

However, I feel that we're really getting off topic on this. We're literally arguing over the might of goblins.

1st level Wizard isn't more powerful than 1st level Barbarian or Ranger or Fighter by any stretch of the imagination, so assertions that "at 1st level Wizard is the MVP" are really off base and stretch the credulity of the source.

It seems to me that you equate party MVP with the guy who's dealing the most damage or taking the most hits. It's much more complicated than that. A well placed spell can turn the tide.

You also seem to meta game really, really hard. You also sandbox everything. You have low level, and notably dumb I might add, creatures use advanced tactics. Your argument that those are 'basic' military tactics is a bit of misnomer. Those tactics are trained skills and that training has evolved over tens, hundreds or even thousands of years. So I assume goblins in your campaigns do military drills every day? In between trying to build houses out of mud and trying to catch and eat rats I assume.

Stuff

I'm really unsure about that interpretation. I don't know of anything else that you suddenly gain benefits in the middle of an action. Got an FAQ or any evidence at all that this is the case? Other than just how random people on the forums rule it? Because it just seems to me that the whole point of Gorgon's Fist (the prereq) is for you to set up Wrath for yourself next round.

Medusa's Wrath is still worthless on your build. The stun from Stunning Strike wears off before your turn comes around again. Unless someone in your party is applying one of the necessary debuffs to cause Wrath to kick in then you've been incorrectly using the feat.

Unless you really feel that you need an extra skill point then Fast Learner is still not needed.

I'm also going to recommend dropping the Bullet Protection for an Amulet of Mighty Fists.

You can keep the wand of mage armor, and pick up some potions of shield. You can activate both in the same round if you have them both handy.

You could probably stand to swap some of your gear around and try to pick up a +dex item. It'll add to your touch AC and overall AC. Maybe try to grab a +str item as well. There's a belt that combines them together.

Why not just drop weapon groups completely? I've been preaching this for a while but it tends to fall on deaf ears. Just let fighters gain that bonus when they attack. Would it truly be so bad?

Monk wouldn't be my first choice to add "power" to a campaign. From the group you've shown you shouldn't really need any power. Those are all high tier classes. Is your group just not optimized or what? I ask because it gives a good starting point for suggestions.

You seem to be really worried about those gunslingers. Your wizard should be more than able to slow them down. The sheer number of spells that screw with ranged attackers is astounding.

If your dead set on a monk though then I'd recommend changed up your feats at least.

How is combat reflexes making them flatfooted?

Snapping Turtle Style is probably not worth it. 3 feats for +2 to AC? I know you want it for the touch ac but meh.

Medusa's Wrath is worthless unless someone is going to be applying the status effect for you.

Improved Disarm is fine but Improved Grapple is not. If anything Improved Grapple seems to go against what you're wanting to do. It might lock one target down, but it locks you down against one target.

Fast Learner is pointless. You don't need the skill points. In fact I think you're wasting build points on int. It could easily be lower.

Speaking of stats, are the stats you listed rolled or point buy? If it's a point buy then they're off for what you want for a monk. If it's rolled then you really need to swap Int and Wis.

Need to work on some of your wording for various things in all the sections.

In the racial feats section. Glorious Battlecry seems to be a bit much. It has no save, no roll, and gives a -2 penalty on top of the shaken condition. Allies gain a +2 circumstance penalty? You also don't list what kind of action it takes to perform it nor do you give an area of effect for the ability. Why 10 rounds on top of everything? This feat needs to go back to the drawing board for proofreading and balancing.

I'm guessing your other players are not optimized in the least. Monks are amongst the weakest of classes. Especially in a 15 point buy simply because of how MAD they are. I'm also left to wonder why you've posted in the suggestions/house rules/homebrew forum.

Lord Fyre wrote:

SteelDraco wrote:

I think Monstrous Humanoid (Dragonblooded) might be better than the Dragon type. I'm not sure why it's 10 points - by the point breakdown, that suggests that immunity to sleep and paralysis is 7 points by itself, which I would disagree with. Elven Immunity includes sleep immunity and a blanket +2 vs Enchantment spells, and that's only 2 RP, suggesting that immunity to Paralysis is worth 5-6 RP by itself, which I don't think it is.

In fairness, the Dragon type should be about 7 points.

Darkvision - 2

Low Light Vision - 1

Sleep Immunity - 1

Paralysis Immunity - 2

Immunity to "Person" spells - 1

I don't know why Paizo pasted on the extra 3 RP, but maybe it's because they want to discourage dragon-like races running around in our worlds. I don't know.

It being 7 points feels about right.

Why did you drop the choice of picking a bite attack? Them having a bite attacks feels a lot better than claws really since they have that huge mouth filled with teeth.

Just a small note on the Tooth and Claw alternate racial. I would suggest calling it Tooth or Claw as Tooth and Claw implies that you would get both. Unless that's what you were going for and then the ability isn't balanced. Not that trading a 1 RP ability (skill training) for a 2 RP ability (claws) is balanced anyway, but trading in 1 for 3 is too good.

I would recommend dropping 1 more racial point into it. It's currently at 14 points. Aasimar and Tieflings are at 15. Perhaps picking up the the Improved Natural Armor trait (1 RP) for a total of +2 natural armor?

Also, I agree about the cost of dragon typing. It's overpriced, but not crazily so. You do get two very strong immunities, low light vision, darkvision, and the fact that a lot of spells work differently when cast upon you or cast by you.

Stamina Push is a really strong. I'd suggest putting it as a third level spell. That would put it at 10th level. That's the same time other classes start to pounce and other such things. However, it allows half the movement someone would get from pounce, but someone using this spell can move as they see fit instead of a straight line.

what are the specific things a caster can do that a martial cannot replicate in any way shape or form

Cast spells that reshape reality to their whim.

You might need that hand for something else--a metamagic rod, another wand, a scroll, a pearl of power, etc. More often than not, a hand is worth more than a slot.

I, er, what? Is your argument that you might need a different wand than the one your using? Or a different magic item altogether? In that case why not argue that you could be a different class? You could be an alchemist and gain an extra hand to solve this issue of not enough hands.

I just feel like that's a cop out statement because the same could be said of any item slot. What if I need this pair of boots or that cloak or this other pair of gloves? The 'hand' magic slot isn't any more important than any other in the grand scheme of things. Wizards can function just fine without ever holding anything. Sure there are things that they can hold that will make them stronger, but a headband will probably serve them even better. Hell, a fighter doesn't even need to use his 'hand' slot if he doesn't want to. He can take unarmed strike and get an amulet of might fists. It's a strawman argument.

However we're getting off topic here. The topic at hand is the price of an item. For something that's running on charges and will eventually turn to crap everyone is wanting to slap a big price tag on it. No one would buy such a thing. At least no one in their right mind. The guidelines for this have to be taken with a grain of salt. Let's ask ourselves, "Would I buy this?"

The character who wanted this item was a Dervish Dancer, meaning the player wanted to gain the benefits of a shield's AC while not wielding one.

True. As with the case of many forums posts it got off point to argue another.