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Helluddar springs forward upon seeing the sea creature emerge from the pond. "Look out!" He rushes up to the giant bug and slashes at it with his long sword bringing his shield into position to ward off any attack...
Perhaps it was the pond unbalancing the warrior or perhaps the bug's carapace was to thick, but the young human knows he must do better if he is to help defeat the creature.
Helluddar thinks for a moment, the warrior's faculties being taxed to their limit. "My first thought was of the unnatural... the undead. However, it is quite possible that this teacher and her classroom of students is nothing more than an illusion conjured to give some emotional connection or closure to this tragedy," he whispers to the Pathfinders.
Helluddar nods as the note is read aloud. "I shall return," he says and bowing his head slightly to the group, he departs. When he returns sometime later, he is dressed in fully military regalia of the Andoran nobility. His masterwork breastplate, now fully visible, gleams brightly. Across his back is a emerald green cape with an image of a chimera embroidered with golden thread. White plumage is now set upon his helm that has been shined and buffed. Finally, a golden silk bandolier crosses his chest upon which are pinned a handful of military medals.
Hey. Sorry for the radio silence. My Daughter was delivered on Saturday, the 22nd, eight weeks early. She's in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unity for the next month or so. My wife had some complications but is doing better now. We think she will be able to go home this weekend. I've been staying at the hospital with her and my daughter and haven't had time to do much but take care of and sit with them. If you feel it would be better to replace me, I totally understand. Otherwise, I hope to be active on the boards again by next Monday. John aka Helluddar
I'm going to apologize for my slowness in advance. My wife is 31 weeks pregnant ans has been admitted to the hospital to monitor her vitals until the baby is born. She has chronic kidney disease and the one she has left is not doing great. Hopefully she'll stay in the hospital another 3-4 weeks before they deliver the baby as week 34 is a big milestone. Anyway, please forgive me if I'm slow in posting. I will be monitoring the thread at least daily and trying to post at least once.
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Hey guys, I was recently creating some characters for the ACG, and I noticed that along with all the usual class deck options that you can select (Wizard, Rogue, Monk, etc.), there's an option for a... Succubus? Now, I know that there is a Succubus you can play in the Wrath of the Righteous base game after you complete Set 3, but how on earth do you unlock that same character for ACG play? I swear, I looked through all the WotR scenario rewards, and I didn't see anything that mentioned a Succubus unlock. Did I just miss it, or is she a convention reward or something? All of this has made me incredibly curious, and I'd appreciate it if anyone could set me straight. Thanks in advance,
Hey guys! So okay, fair warning - but I'm long-winded. That typed, if you'd prefer to skip the context of this post and get straight to the point, please scroll to the bottom for the overarching question. I'd appreciate any recommendations you can give & thanks in advance! That typed however, (& for those of you that may be curious) recently my brother and I (who are both fairly hardcore PFS players) had a discussion with three of our board game buddies. I call them "board game buddies" because we normally only play board games and card games when we hang out with them - no RPGs and the like. That typed however, they've been expressing interest in starting up an RPG home game with us. Of the three, only one of them has any prior experience with Pathfinder (or RPGs in general), but they're all eager to get a game going. One of them (the guy with RPG experience) even wants to GM for the group - which is fine by me (I already GM a decent bit). So, we ended up discussing the details, and we're currently thinking that the best way to run the home game would be to do a co-GM style of play - one where we can swap out a GM/PC spot between him and myself whenever one of us needs to take a break and doesn't have time to prepare an adventure. Keeping that in mind, my brother and I thought that running a campaign based off PFS scenarios might be the best way to go about things. This way, since the PFS scenarios are mostly created to be episodic stand-alone adventures in their own right, both the other GM and myself could prepare scenarios in isolation, without spoiling future scenarios for the other when we're playing our own PCs. Also, considering that my brother and I haven't played many PFS scenarios from Season 0, and absolutely no scenarios from Season 1 or 2, we thought that we could try to organize a campaign around Season 0, 1, & 2 scenarios - capping things off with Eyes of the Ten. Now, whether you followed my long-winded explanation or not, the bottom line is this: -My friends and I are wanting to play a series of PFS scenarios that we can string together into a solid campaign. We're hoping to organize a logical progression (story-wise) of scenarios from PFS Seasons 0, 1, & 2 that ultimately culminate in The Eyes of the Ten retirement arch, and to aid that end - I'm asking for help from the forum community. So, if there's any advice, links to other forum threads, or general guidance you can give to help make this idea a reality in any way - my friends and I would greatly appreciate it. Once again, thanks in advance guys, and I look forward to hearing from you!
Hey guys, I'm currently in the process of building a Spiritualist to play later this week, and I was wondering what everyone thought about the different Phantom options that are out currently. I realize that the playtest options are only the tip of the iceberg, and it's already been noted that there will be more Phantom emotions coming out down the pipeline. Still though, I'm curious what are everyone's current thoughts. So, keeping that in mind - which Phantoms do you guys think are the strongest? Which Phantoms do you think are the weakest? Why? Personally, having only looked over them all on paper, I feel like the one that gets Power Attack as a bonus feat will probably be the strongest (it has a nice aura effect too) - but then the Fear Phantom also looks like a lot of fun (causing everything to be shaken and feared with its slams and aura). The Devotion/Zeal Phantom (I forget what it's actual name is) looks to be the weakest to me, as it's aura isn't all that great, and personally, the only ability that it gets that I really like is the one where it can stay out even when it's Spiritualist is asleep. That's pretty nifty - but I still don't feel like it's enough to make that Phantom emotion on-par with the others.
I thought I'd join the bandwagon and get in all my thoughts of the Kineticist, at least as I see them now (having not yet played a game with one, though I intend to play a 1-2 PFS adventure this weekend with a Pyro or Aether). The Concept First off, I want to say that I love this concept. I went into the Occult Playtest rules not very excited about the theme at all, but Kineticists were the first thing that caught my eye and changed my mind. I really do like the mental image of hurling limitless energy balls, summoning energy blades, turning into a force of nature and streaking across the field. I also like the idea of having Con as your scaling class stat, sacking HP to get more powerful abilities, and having a living-on-the-edge type of playstyle. That sounds cool and exciting. The Burn Mechanic Of course, like many other players that I've seen in this forum, I have issues with the way the concept has currently been put into practice. The current burn mechanic in-particular does seem too harsh to me. Sure. You're suffering nonlethal damage, but that non-lethal damage looks like it can really add up fast. I feel that suffering 1 nonlethal damage per Hit Dice is a mistake. When I was originally looking at the Kineticist class, I was thinking that the burn just meant that you suffered that much damage total per attack – so 1 burn = 1 nonlethal. I thought the Kineticist was okay if that were the case, but one nonlethal per HD? That means that even at levels where you’re damage output doesn’t increase, you’re still taking more damage from the scaling burn. This means that at lower levels you’re able to manage alright (2 pts of nonlethal here… 3 pts of nonlethal there… It’s about the equivalent of Vicious Weapon Damage) but at higher levels, 1 burn could deal more damage than I feel it should. I could only imagine dealing 20 damage to myself at Level 20 – or 40, 60, etc. And sure, the Infusion Specializations should be able to help mitigate that, but still – that’s a lot of damage to deal to yourself, nonlethal or otherwise. If burn has to scale at all, I don’t think it should scale off of HD. I’d much rather see it scale off of Simple Blast Damage (+1 nonlethal every odd lvl), or even off of Wild Talent Progression (so every time you gain a new Wild Talent, burn costs you a cumulative +1 nonlethal). Burn damage progression could be documented on the Kineticist table to keep things more simplified too. On a side note, another way to balance the burn damage could be to make the Move Action Option for -1 Burn become a Swift or Free Action at higher levels. This in-particular is something I would really like to see (that's why I've got it highlighted & italicized for emphasis.) It would make the ability work similarly to the Slayer's studied target ability. Class Stats I want to make a particular note of the class statistics here, as one other possible solutions to the burn mechanic would be to simply give the Kineticist a better HD. More health would mean a better ability to soak up all the damage that you deal to yourself, and I could see a D10 or D12 HD being completely justified for this class. Not only would the HD seem to fit the playstyle of this class (reckless, all-out damage-dealing energy user; much like a barbarian - minus the energy part), but a lot of PF books seem to have at least one martial class-type of character (which the occult book is currently lacking). The Kineticist could be the Paladin/Barbarian/Bloodrager equivalent for the Occult Book. As I posted in another thread, I’m also totally up for giving the Kineticist full BAB too and/or 4 skill points per level – though, if the Kineticist could get one thing, I would say get them the better HD (especially if they’re going to use touch-attack simple blasts – which seem to be the best option currently). Simple Blasts
I also feel that if the touch and ranged attacks are going to be balanced, then the ranged attacks need to have more incentive to be used. The ranged attacks need to do more than 1 extra point of damage per level and full Con damage. Maybe the Con could be 1.5x damage, or extra damage every odd level could be increased? Elemental Defense
Whatever the case, I feel that both Aether and Water got the shaft here. Both the Temp HP and AC bonuses don’t scale very well. Maybe the Temp HP could be upped to 2 HD or more, and/or the burn option could scale faster? Same goes with the water. I feel that it could probably scale faster too. Otherwise, why not just buy a magical buckler? Sure it would cost a decent bit more, but then you could be an Earth Kineticist and get the much more useful DR instead. Wild Talents
I'm not sure how I feel about Kinetic Fist, as it seems like it scales very, very slowly (though it would be an excellent 1 Lvl class dip). Also, Burning Infusion doesn't scale at all & I'd love to see it scale one way or another (though that might not be a major issue - an extra D6 damage is still nice, no matter what level you are). I haven’t looked through all the Wild Talents so I’m not going to pretend to know which of the other options are weak or powerful. I feel that some of them could potentially just be turned into automatic class abilities though (kind of like how the gunslinger gets a small selection of grit abilities to begin with). A lot of the universal Wild Talents could be talents that the Kineticists simply get for free once they reach the required level (Kinetic Blade & Extended Range for instance both feel like abilities that all Kineticists could be able to access). That would give players access to more of the more flavorful Wild Talents, while still having access to the basic necessities of the class for combat and such. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------- In sum, these are all my initial thoughts of the class. I feel Kineticists are an awesome idea. I just feel that they haven’t reached their sweet spot yet, and still need some work.
Hi guys, First off, I feel I should note - this is my first time posting on these forums, and only my fourth month playing Pathfinder in general. I've got a decent amount of experience with RPGs, but I still find the sheer number of options in Pathfinder a bit overwhelming at times. That typed, recently I signed on for a PF home game with some friends my brother and I met during PFS organized play. We had a party vote, and decided to do a run through the Skull & Shackles Adventure Path. Now, since this isn't going to be "official" PFS play, the GM is letting us use some of the more exotic races, and I'm dead set on playing a Kitsune. I chose Kitsune in particular because I think the race sounds cool, and they have a pretty nifty racial rogue archetype - the Kitsune Trickster - which I want to utlize for it's awesome party face potential (you get to add your Intelligence score in ADDITION to your base stat scores on Diplomacy, Bluff, Sense Motive, and Disguise checks!). Now, I also realize that Rogues aren't exactly a "strong" class option in PF. Luckily our GM realizes this too. He's house ruled the following changes: • In addition to the standard levels, rogues gain rogue talents at 5th, 7th, 11th, 13th, 14th, 16th, 17th, and 19th. This may mean they gain two rogue talents in a level.
------------------------------------------------ Factoring that into the basic level progression of a Kitsune Trickster, the level breakdown looks something like this (my apologies for any formatting issues): 1st: Sneak attack +1d6, Kitsune’s Guile
With all that taken into consideration, I'm trying to make a Kitsune Trickster with a pirate theme (because, c'mon - you can't play Skull & Shackles and not be a pirate!). I want him to be a party face (because I love being a diplomancer), a skill monkey (to help fill any gaps in the party's skill spreads), but I'd also like him to be useful in combat (at least to some extent - after all, I realize I might not be as good as a Barbarian for instance, but I still want to feel like I'm contributing in the fights). -------------------------------------------------------------- That's why I was hoping I could pick the brains of some of the more experienced players on the boards. My main question is this - how can I optimize this character? Which rogue talents are best (and should I take any ninja talents)? Which feats are best (for combat, as well as role-playing encounters)? Are the Kitsune-specific feats any good (like the tail thing)? Should I take the Scout Archetype, or keep my Uncanny Dodge? Any advice on class dips (for instance, I'm highly considering taking a point in Mysterious Stranger, as MS is Charisma-based and Focused Aim seems like a nice lvl 1 Deed)? I'd also like this character to have a pet parrot of some kind - though whether the parrot will be mundane, an animal companion, or a familiar is still up in the air... Any ideas of what my best options would be for making my parrot dreams a reality? Finally (and possibly most importantly), we'll be using a 20 point-buy system in S&S - but I'm finding it hard to decide on the best stat spread, as pretty much every stat is useful to some extent for a social rogue. Any advice on what the best stat spread would be for this character? I'm currently leaning towards the following: STR: 10 DEX: 16 CON: 10 INT: 16 WIS: 8 CHA: 16 This would give me +3 on Dex, Int, and Cha (+6 base on my Diplomacy, Bluff, and Disguise), but it also means I'm going to be squishy, and my Wis will also suffer a bit (though I'll still have a +2 base on Sense Motive - which is respectable). I'm still not sure about this spread though. Any thoughts? -------------------------------------------------------------------- Overall, I know I might have given you guys a little too much information here, but I'm just looking for any helpful advice in general. I'm really excited to play this character, but I know that rogues tend to be on the weaker side in terms of class power - so I'm hoping you guys can help me find a way to make him work well (in combat, as well as in RP encounters). Thanks for your time guys, and this should go without saying, but while giving advice, please don't give away any spoilers about the Skull & Shackles adventure if you can help it. Thanks again! (: |
