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By the way, totemic skald is incredibly fun for healing if done right. Follow me here:

you gain fast healing equal to the Strength bonus your song provides

Basic, we get this

Your allies share in the fast healing granted by your Skald's Vigor

K, whole party gets it now

a totemic skald grants the animal focus abilities of his totem animal (as the hunter's animal focus ability) to all allies affected by his raging song.

Combined with

Bull: The creature gains a +2 enhancement bonus to Strength. This bonus increases to +4 at 8th level and +6 at 15th level.

Now you roughly double the amount of fast healing you can do, reaching fast healing 12 at 16th. I believe there are more things you can do

What if the Pit Fiend wishes that will succeed on the next ability check that it makes? Magic Circle, after all, does not prevent them from making an ability check to escape the trap.

If that were the case the player could have simply use wish to discover the truename of far higher level things by passing the check with a Wish.

Augmented calling feat allows you to call 20hd with greater binding, spell perfection gets you 22, and darkfire adept could add one to that.

I've been building a wizard for Way of the Wicked and I'm strongly considering the human feat chain for Defiant Luck to start things off. Of all the classes I think the wizard is least likely to screw something up by taking the wrong feats, so can you recommend some fun feats (or even whole builds) to take which are outside the box for a wizard? I really don't want to fill my first 10 levels with variations of spell focus and spell penetration.

You're gonna need to remove the Oracle. Just have your PC stand up and say he doesn't feel the oracle is pulling his weight, that it's threatening the lives of you and your fellow party members, and that until the oracle gives up his vow of combat celibacy you're not heading back to the dungeon. You're an adventuring party, it's like a business. Get a majority vote and fire him.

Just insist your character feels the Oracle is the biggest threat to the lives of the party members.

Optionally, just say that you've been inspired by the Oracle and you too will be joining him in his "do no harm" vow and ask the others to join you in it.

If the DM won't work with the Oracles desire to weaken the party, then you shouldn't either.

In every AP I've run in as a player the GM applies a minimum of the advanced template to all creatures and buffs up the big guys even more, he then removes loot from the APs to the point where we never make WBL and the adventures still become obscenely easy after a certain point. The system really loses its luster in later levels, but you can stall that breaking point a bit by not having as much loot to buy the OP items as quickly.

TWF is really horrible, you only get the benefit of this massive feat investment when you full attack. You won't be full attacking all the time, and maybe not even most of the time. Don't waste your time on that.

You can DPR calculate TWF any way you like it, but in a real AP where you have to move and attack all the time it's horrible, and even when you get to use it it's at a penalty.

On the other hand a thug/scout rogue with a big two hander, hurtful, cleave and surprise follow through has nicely invested his feats into places that compliment his abilities. Building for the worst case scenario of moving and then attacking, while still getting multiple attacks off is pretty awesome.

Fighter1 Power Attack, Cleave, Hurtful
Rogue1
Rogue2 Surprise Follow Through, weapon focus
Rogue3
Rogue4 Dazzling Display, minor magic
Rogue5
Rogue6 Cornugan smash, Offensive Defense, major magic
Rogue7
Rogue8 Shatter Defenses, Combat Trick: Lunge
Rogue9
Rogue10 Opportunist, Crippling Strike
Rogue11
Rogue12 Escape Route, Dispelling Strike, Familiar (Valet)

First attack of the round:
With a mighty cleaving weapon he can attack 4 times at full BAB, all with sneak attack, the cleave, mighty cleave and hurtful attacks can all be against the second target. That's (on average) better than pounce because there is no loss of BAB via iteratives, you just need the first two attacks to hit.

Even without cleaving he's got a good chance of attacking twice due to hurtful.

I would say cleave becomes his primary method of attack. In later levels, with Escape Route and a valet familiar he's getting no attacks of opportunity triggered by movement, which is of great benefit to him.

I think this is where having NPCs really helps, where you can sum up the situation the players face and give them their options without going outside of the game too much. As you help them along they'll begin to think more for themselves, but the story elements can be difficult to tie together for players sometimes.

One thing I've noticed is Liches have incredibly good information networks. Due to being such old prepared casters they can't help but research in advance to have the perfect spells selected. Certainly some divination is needed to supplement their spys, but in the end...

liches get snitches.

I'm looking to create an effective archer but I don't just want a boring combat character. I've just finished playing a paladin so please don't suggest one, I've looked into a fighter but he's just combat orientated and a little boring.

Any suggestions gratefully appreciated

I would say the most effective overall archer is the 1 fighter/1wizard/10EK/XAA/Xwiz build. It gets you pretty much the most versatility of anyone combined with top notch damage. You don't feel excluded later in the campaign either.

Everyone is focusing on the zen archer here because it's really simple to build and play, but his damage falls off at higher levels a bit and ultimately he faces the same issues all of them do with windwall and magic effects.

Meanwhile, the EK is basically god, dropping anti magic shells with imbue arrow turning high level wizards into severely disgruntled commoners. The most effective archer isn't the most damage, it's the one who is able to do the most stuff.

Rules forum!

They would seem to make pretty ideal archers, able to combine some relatively nice self buffs with all the feats you would want (except early access to IPS) Using 9th level to grab both snapshot and improved snapshot is good economy.

Using "never heal in combat" is essentially a straw man, obviously, you do not want to lose a party member. People who want to emerge victorious from a one sided internet argument will hold it up as if that has been the discussion all along.

The reality is that hit points are a thing, and using almost all of them is the same as using none of them. There is no reason to heal up damage that won't kill someone.

Guns n' Roses released a two part guide in the 90's on how to use your illusion, by the way.

Due to the obvious choices for barbarians to pair with combat reflexes, I'd never play a barbarian with less than 14 dex.

Does this kill most cheese builds off?

-25 point build
-Core / APG only assumption (thus synthesist summoners, broodmasters, etc. are banned)
-Above also bans all Magus and Gunslinger builds
-Core races only. No ARG.
-Flat ban on all homebrew, psionics, 3PP, 3.5e etc.

You're chasing a utopia that doesn't exist. A party of characters all built by you, played exactly as you would play them. Someone is going to take things you don't expect, those players who take the time to choose and understand their stuff will be more powerful. You're not fixing the problem with this stuff.

Oh wow. Well, that sucks. I saw the mount abilities and assumed. It's probably not worth sinking in the extra couple of feats either when I could do the same for a Zen Archer. I'm honestly just really indecisive still. My biggest qualm with fighter is that it is consistent and effective, but that's all it has. Monks have other bells and whistles, as do Rangers. Monks seem focused on the self, with buffs and various SLAs, but Rangers have spells and a companion.

The most consistent and playable archer is (IMO) the mounted ranger. Plenty of feats, early access to IPS and instant enemy later on for the win. Every campaign eventually benefits from a ranger with tracking and outdoorsy skills. I wrote a guide on that actually, it's in the sticky under rangers.

The thing about mounted archery is that it takes exactly NO feats to perform, but you do need a dependable source for a mount. Paladins and Rangers get this in one form or another. Because you invest no feats into it you're not really suffering when you dismount to hit a dungeon.

If DPR is the only thing that matters, the only game you're playing is the DPR calculator. The fighter wins DPR, but any other archer is more fun to play than the fighter in my opinion.

You'll find that in any paizo AP the more versatile character is the best "power game" build because you can participate all the way through.

Also, be kind to each other. We're all here for fun to demonize people who don't play the game in ways we approve of :-)

FTFY!

Rynjin, why did barbarian not make your list as an archer?

I love the one I play in pfs, urban barbarian/invulnerable rager

Urban Barbarian is possibly the highest damage archer due to a few reasons

rage + a furious/courageous +2 spiked gauntlet or bow

reckless abandon working with ranged attacks

Come and get me synergizing with improved snapshot and your very high (raged up) dex.

You end up with improved snapshot 2 levels later due to feat starvation (Unless you dip fighter), but it just doesn't matter. Barbarians do archery well.

Running this build (again) for a new campaign this winter. I'll be going sable company marine and I'll update the animal companion section with my findings. Any thoughts on feats for optimizing the griffon?

First off, a ranger can select improved precise shot with his 6th level ranger feat. A +4 to hit will almost always work out to mean more damage than deadly aim, or any other feat you can stick in that 6th level slot.

Secondly, Deadly Aim is a great feat. Anyone nay-saying it either hasn't used the DPR calculator or plays in a homebrew campaign against a lot of high ACs. Remember that math wins on this discussion every time.

You should know when it's appropriate to use it though, so run some DPR calculations each level to figure out when it's OK to use it (typically anything with an extremely high AC it's better not to use it, find that number each level).

Here is a DPR calculator: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgTxYrw61edAdGNxbnNWSXJUWUlGOG E4N0JUSVVZeHc&hl=en#gid=4

Just use the file tab to save a new copy and you can keep all the formatting.

Especialy if your GM says NO to the Arcane Mark Trick (I would)

If by trick, you mean RAW.

"Touch Spells in Combat

Many spells have a range of touch. To use these spells, you cast the spell and then touch the subject. In the same round that you cast the spell, you may also touch (or attempt to touch) as a free action."

Pretty cut and dried, it is not a trick, it's nothing out of the ordinary or exceptional at all.

Instant enemy and bane weapons keyed on his highest FE bonus. Instant enemy without a bane weapon is like eating just half a sandwich.

I'd go for pearls of power 3rd level vs the wand though, the wand would cost about 15k, but the pearls would be only 4500 per. I think three extra castings a day is probably fine vs the wand which would consume a lot of action economy to use.

A monk in one of my campaigns is a trip build (flowing monk?) and gets an additional dodge bonus to his AC equal to the number of opponents adjacent to him, who are almost always all on their backs. His AC is quite impressive.

the only monk cranking out high damage is the Zen Archer (possibly sohei too), and by level 8 he is falling behind most of the other archers.

The monk isn't a damage machine, but he does dominate a campaign for some time if you play to his strengths. We have a flowing monk with improved trip, combat reflexes and vicious stomp in our campaign and through level 2 he has pretty much been the star of the show. He pretty much dominates all the combat and is able to keep his DPR very high through use of trip/vicious stop/his replacement ability for stunning fist which lets him trip as a response to an attack.

Actually I get what he means now, James Jacobs addressed it as okay:

Use Spell Combat, cast Blade Dance (resolve your attacks with that)
Resolve your full attack action with spell combat
Full attack can trigger Dimension door with Dimensional Dervish

All in all that's some blend between the flash and nightcrawler in the oval office scene.

EDIT: James lays it out here: http://paizo.com/forums/dmtz2u4o&page=411?Ask-James-Jacobs-ALL-your-Que stions-Here#20523

He suggests you resolve all attacks at the same time though, which is a bit confusing.

If optimizing for survival is a sign of cowardice then is making your character purposely easily killable a good thing? A sign of bravery?

If you enjoy the game, you want to stick around to enjoy it. It's stupid for anyone to suggest survivability is cowardice.

So I've found that when I am playing my captain, I pretty much talk in the style of Captain Barbossa. It just kinda happened ;-) Does anyone else have this style of voice (or other recognizable styles)?

My Ulfen Barbarian is basically Brock Sampson from Venture Brothers, and I do the voice surprisingly well.

We've not even begun our campaign, but I think my Ulfen Barbarian will end up Captain, and if the rest of the party can't come up with something they like better then I'll name her The Looter Scooter

I'm also partial to: Besmaras 'Cold Sore'
Also:
The Pride of No One

This move would tell me to never play a divine caster while you DM because I would be afraid you'd try to grasp for ways to undermine my character.

I think I am running an ulfen viking type (you know, the original pirates), I'll probably even take the sea reaver archtype.

Show up with no healer, just the character you want to play. He has basically assured you that someone will be unhappy with the character layout. Make sure it's him. I used to be that player who demanded a healer, I used to be that DM, but now I'm really reformed and it took some force to get me here. Smart players are at least twice as good as a player forced to play a healer.

He's secretly adopted, his parents never told him. He's actually the last of a line of powerful warriors who were nearly wiped out in the last war. The last two of these warriors turned evil and wiped out all of the other warriors except for this barbarian and this pretty hot girl he meets, briefly has an interlude with but later finds her to be his sister and also a warrior.

Barb' Wars.

A charismatic religious leader with bare minimum intelligence? Yeah tough to find examples of that.

In the immortal words of Scorpious: "Kill them all John! Then we'll go out for Margarita shooters!"

Cleric, then just don't call the companion until 5th.

Seriously, the best thing you can add to a third level of cleric if you're concerned about support is another level of cleric.

Obviously you're reading what I wrote, but we're talking about two different kids of cover here:

Normal: PC begins shooting into a small camp of goblins, goblins might then advance on the party from the safest approach or indeed dive behind trees and whatnot.

DM Hatred Mode: The Goblins now have numerous trenches between the PCs and themselves, they are all firing from behind fixed large tower shields with arrow slits in them (+8 or higher AC mod). All the goblins have the same exact feats/progression the archer does. The Goblins got surprise. The Goblins also now have potions of windwall which they consume when they need to come out from behind the fortified cover.

That's the sort of thing that's all relatively above and beyond the appropriate response for this. Cover is fine if the badguys would take it, but engineering every encounter to be a way to counter the archer is going to get boring or even upsetting.

Don't be in DM hatred mode.

EDIT: Only now did I realize it's actually being a player hater, and that's priceless to me. Also "don't hate the player, hate the game (mechanics)" would work.

Here's how it looks for the player:

As a player, suddenly every heavy has deflect arrows, thus negating manyshot completely. Every enemy has cover, or serious concealment. Suddenly all the enemies are dropping prone behind cover and waiting for the party to advance into an up close fight.

Basically you can see that every single combat has been metagamed to screw you somehow, and you realize you're not helping the party anymore, you're just making it worse for everyone else. You're a hindrance to your party because you were successful, and now what do you do? Quit? Reroll? Should you let someone else roll your character for you next time so you don't incur the "too successful" encounter penalties again?

Take cover & concealment into consideration, don't adjust the monster behavior in a way inconsistent with what they would do given what they know of the party. Don't penalize success.

I just made my zen archer, and numbers-wise he is directly comparable to my archer ranger, who I've enjoyed a lot.

Read this: http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=2858.0

Then this: http://www.enworld.org/forum/pathfinder-rpg-discussion/308138-guide-qinggon g-monk-ultimate-magic-2.html

DO NOT take two levels of fighter, you'd need to be really uneducated on the class to think it's a good idea. DO NOT take a human. The guy way up in this thread took a human and blew the feat he got on toughness. Toughness? How about +2 CON?

I went as follows:

Str 12
Dex 14
Con 10 (12)
int 10
Wis 18 (20)
Cha 7 (5)

I took Wisdom of the Flesh (Disable Device) to get it as a wisdom based class skill for me, I can't count on the party having a rogue. I also took Glory of Old (+1 to all saves vs spells, spell like abilities and Poison). If I hadn't taken Wisdom of the Flesh I'd have probably just snagged +2 initiative, since this build is lacking there. There is a better choice, some non core obscure trait gives +2 to damage when you wield a strength bow, but I can't remember its name off the top of my head.

Feats as follows
1) Steel Soul, Precise Shot (Monk)
2) Point Blank Shot (Monk)
3) Deadly Aim
5) Monkey Style (Wis to acrobatics, stand without AOO, swift stand is a DC20 acrobatics check).

The rest is gravy, the monk gives you EVERY SINGLE OTHER THING you need. Weapon Focus/Spec, Improved Precise Shot, cool abilities, a buff exposed chest to tattoo up. You could probably take Improved Initiative at 7 if it's bothering you. If you're playing pathfinder campaigns they only go to 12, you can stop advancing monk after level 8, the next good stuff you would get is at 12, but I just can't see anything else being all that great. MAYBE one level of sorcerer with the wisdom casting stat template and the rest in ranger so you can use a bunch of nice wands.

Wisdom and class bonuses are fine
Skill focus is a feat and grants an untyped bonus, stacks
Conspiracy hunter is a trait bonus, first one, stacks
Keen senses is a racial bonus, first one, stacks

It's all fine, look it up.

Also: What's the point of putting any effort into a character at all if the DM is just going to invent as many penalties as he can to make you average again? You're teaching him that the harder he tries the worse you're going to make it on him. Why not let him be really good at it and get some respect from the other players? The alternative is they begin seeing your new negatives and understand their mediocre perception checks are totally worthless, and now the high perception guy has suddenly made everything worse for everyone?

Let the players be good at stuff.

The thing is I don't know what I want to do! I started with the Rogue in mind, but it's mostly disappointing. Bard is an option. Cleric (or Oracle of Life, still not sure what's the "best") is an option as well.

There are so many choices, and it's intimidating.

Anything can be optimized, even rogues. Play what you want and keep an open mind.

If you want to see a cool rogue, try running a half orc fighter/rogue with an orc double axe. Take the tusked trait, racial or regular, I also take Tattooed. Go for high dex/high strength, 12 con minimum, tank the rest. Tusked gives you a natural attack bite. Your first three levels are fighter as follows:

Fighter1 TWF/ Power Attack

At first level you're getting primary and offhand attacks as well as a bite. Hitting will be hard, but hopefully you have enough strength to make up for it.

Fighter2 Cleave
Fighter3 Cleaving Finish

At this point get a sash of the champion, you can now wear plate unhindered and have all (or at least most of) your dex apply to your AC. If you can get it, stick mighty cleaving on one end of your weapon. Now when you have to move and attack you're able to score possibly three hits (the last two against the same guy if the first one hits). I like this weapon/feat combo because it allows you to either get your max amount of hits out there when you later get your sneak attack, or it allows you to two hand it if you're just going to charge/cleave/mighty cleave.

After this it's all rogue. I like dodge and mobility because as the rogue you're often on the hook for getting into position for sneak attack:

Rogue1
Rogue2 Minor Magic - Detect Magic/ Dodge
Rogue3
Rogue4 Combat Trick: ITWF/ Mobility
Rogue5
Rogue6 Major Magic - Vanish or Shield/ Iron Will

I love the magic tricks because I love dispelling strike, you might not like it so swap those two out for whatever you want.

Just know your character build ahead of time. Don't take anything unless you know it's part of your build.

Also, one thing I would recommend is a familiar with improved familiar instead of improved initiative at 7th, I like faerie dragon. Give the little guy a wand of shield or vanish to keep using on your first round of combat.

There is absolutely no reason to take power attack. If you take it realize it's just for flavor because I assure you it's adding nothing. God help them if they sunder your bow and you're forced to bring your casting abilities to bear on them.

Would you rather have a feat, or +2 to a stat that is usually not an essential stat to your class? Humans are far and away that much better. I've never been able to play a non human because the characters I play always end up needing more feats, sooner.

Half elves are possibly okay if you need either exotic weapon proficiency or skill focus, but how often do you really *need* those?

I've done some thinking on this for a while and I really think the fighter is better than the ranger for this build because the net gain of getting Shield Master at level 6 is pretty slim vs the overwhelming advantages of the figher.

Part of the problem with shield/sword is you lose your weapon training to one of your weapons unless you take one of the close weapon group weapons. You really need a light high crit weapon like a kukri and a large shield as your main weapon. A bashing large spiked shield is 2d6 and cheap to enchant, this is far better than anything else you'll be able to get as a main weapon. Critting with your offhand will eventually be giving you free bigtime damage with your shield with the punting ability of bull rush.

If you take mobile fighter you can almost always take a 5' step to get your weapon training bonus to both weapons AND it synergies with your free bull rush from Shield Slam. You could always be moving with this build, and at level 10 you get the nearly full attack after a single move.

I went human:

Fighter1 Power Attack, Improved Shield bash, TWF
Fighter2 Cleave
Fighter3 Double Slice
Fighter4 Cleaving Finish
Fighter5 Improved Bull Rush
Fighter6 ITWF
Fighter7 Shield Slam
Fighter8 Lunge
Fighter9 Critical Focus
Fighter10 Greater Bull Rush
Fighter11 Shield Master
Fighter12 Bashing Finish
Fighter13 Staggering Critical

I briefly considered taking a level of Barbarian for the additional movement speed, and also to sync up two feats at 11 when I am able to take Shield Master and Bashing Finish. Cleave and Cleaving finish are taken with fighter feats so you can respec those later on if you just don't feel you're using them once you get your pounce-like ability from mobile fighter, though cleaving finish is extremely nice if you're the guy landing the killing blows, especially with Lunge.

Double Slice isn't that great, the more I think about it the more I think I'd probably go with Combat Reflexes or Iron Will, or even better a teamwork feat with another player in the party.

Jak the Looney Alchemist wrote:

James, which is just as silly as dual wielding heavy shields? No offense intended.

Andostre do you consider a spiked shield to be a weapon or a shield or can it not be both?

According to the base rules the shield is a shield and is enhanced as one. The spikes are the weapon and are enhanced as such separately. You can only apply the enhancements from the weapon chart to the spikes. They have separate bonus calculations. The +1/+10 of the spikes attack do nothing for the AC bonus provided to the PC just as the +1/+10 of the shield defense do nothing for the attack of the PC.

BEHOLD

I've seen some specialized dual shield bash builds. I dunno why people want to do them, but there must be some exploit they've managed to take advantage of.

Yes, no TWF penalties, hence you can wield two large shields doing 2d6 each with no penalties whatsoever. Why does that need to be an exploit though? It seems to be RAW.

Hey all, I just noticed my little guide was taking up some discussion space from Treantmonks ranger guide. I don't want that to happen to his thread so I'd like to present you with a guide I've written after running a similar character in several campaigns.

It is my opinion that you don't need to switch hit or worry about melee if you do archery right, and this is my guide with that concept in mind:

Lastoths Guide to Archery Rangers

I look forward to your feedback.

I think dumping int is a prerq for being religious :).

OMG. I've never wanted to play a stereotype so bad now. Thanks.