Hacklemonster's page

So from this, I can infer that:
the time I spend as a GM at monthly games (which is bringing in a ton of new players), plus the cost of things like maps and pawns (which is bringing revenue), plus the 3 to 4 hour prep time for me (which is time out of my life), is worth less reward than someone who shows up and plays?
And I cannot do conventions do to cost and time constraints, so the multiple Starfinder games I have already run are worth less than someone who can put down a ton of money to go to DragonCon or similar conventions?
This boon needs to be equal for players and GMs.
And online has to be given equal footing to physical.

Seems to still be ongoing?

If its a typo, then it is the only discipline I have seen that requires all three mental ability scores to have a +1 or better modifier.

Every build I can work out for this discipline that has a +4 or better Int (which statistically you need for a decent casting save), and +1 or better Wisdom and Charisma, is easy to hit and kill, with very poor physical ability scores. Its horrid on a 15 point build, and only slightly better on a 20 point.

IMO it needs to be charisma, or at least have a 'minimum 1 time" at the end if its wisdom based.

That's not a typo.

Painful Reminder starts doing 1d6 damage. At 8th level it increases to 2d6, and finally to 3d6 at 15th level.

Power from Pain requires your Painful Reminder to do at least 5 points of damage. That'll only occur 1/3 of the time to start with, though it'll slowly get more likely as you level. (At 8th level, it'll occur 5/6 of the time. By 15th level, it's essentially guaranteed at 53/54 of the time.)

So, while the number of points you can gain is limited by your Wisdom modifier, you need to be able to use Painful Reminder more than that to make it reasonable to actually gain the maximum number of points.

It's slightly awkward and does seem weird at first glance, but it works.

Problem with the Nature spirit
Friend to Animals (Su): The shaman adds all of the
summon nature’s ally spells to her spell list. She must still
prepare these spells. All animals within 30 feet of the
shaman receive a bonus on all saving throws equal to her
Charisma modifier.

Druid already gives summon natures ally - so this 'hex' is basically just a save bonus for summoned creatures. So this basically seems like a useless hex as its written. maybe this could be the rewrite (or something like it) since its a very druid heavy already.

Friend to Animals (Su): Much like a druid, a Shaman with this hex can channel stored spell energy into summoning spells that she hasn't prepared ahead of time. She can “lose” a prepared spell in order to cast any summon nature's ally spell of the same level or lower. In addition, all animals within 30 feet of the shaman receive a bonus on all saving throws equal to her Charisma modifier.

The specific rules in Ultimate campaign do not seem to list character traits as retrainable. Is there something I am missing, is there an addition that allows it, or are you just stuck with traits?

It interesting to note the alchemist, like all the spellcasting classes presented from the advanced players guide except the oracle. use a bardlike spellcasting progression - more spells known, fewer times per day, and a lower maximum spell level (with a number of spells having a lower effective level for the new class) as compared to the core classes. is this a pattern that the developers are moving towards?

To specific points, the alchemist has some strengths (I like the bombs) and weaknesses (infusion being almost required as a discovery, and the slow progression of the discoveries).

I tend to agree with kerian that discoveries should be faster paces in acquisition. Either that or you make some discoveries into feats that the player can take to augment discoveries they have already taken. That would be more balanced to what I see, allowing a player to just make discoveries and have X level of power, or augment discoveries with feats to have X+ level of power.

One thing i do like is that the Alchemist has, to me, some core similarities to the Artificer class from 3.5 Eberron. or, at least, it can. The class can take on that role if you are trying to modify pathfinder classes for Eberron use (which I may be) as the 'item maker'. Maybe some alteration to the class could be made to allow for 'off camera' potion making thats easier for this class, to offset some of the slower discovery rates? (unless I missed something in the class itself that already accounts for this)

I picked up the book last week, as i was impressed by how good the beta was and the final copy was well worth it (even after free beta copies). One of my DnD groups is discussing converting our 3.5 game to the pathfinder rules set.

The game fixes one of my core issues with 3.0/3.5 - its now worthwhile to take a base class all the way to 20th level, and you aren't underpowered if you don't take a prestige class. A wizard 20 and a wizard 10/loremaster 10 don't have drastically different power levels now. Even something like going the eldritch knight route, you are still balanced against a base class in what you gain vs what you give up. Kudos for making that change.

That all being said (and my apologies if I missed a previous example of this question somewhere in the thread or if this is not the forum for it), I had some questions on skills, as some things in the text were unclear to me. Skills no longer use terms like class and cross class. The terms are now class and non-class skills. Can you purchase non-class skills with class skill points, and is at a higher rate? is there a different maximum rank for class skills vs non-class skills? I get that once something is considered a class skill, once you take a rank in it, you get a +3 to use that skill. If you pick up a skill later, using skill points from another class (if possible), do you still get that +3 bonus?