Highglander's page

What is the general consensus on these two choices? Are either actually good at all?

Pseudodragon are generaly considered lackluster familiars, their redeeming point is their blindsense.

If you are into good familiars and if your options are not set on those 2, I suggest you take a look at the lyrakien and the silvanshee.
The cat is the second fastest familiar, a decent backup cleric and an universal translator (think C3PO in cat form).
The little tinkerbell is the best one around at UMD, a decent archer with a good bow, have some of the best detection abilities, a crazy mobility (fly speed and freedom), and you'll have your own personal pin-up :D.
Both have nice SLA and init to make things better.

Casting 9th level spells with scrolls is managable sure, but it has a cost, it is cumbersome without special items, uses your move action to get the scroll and your standard to cast the spell (without considering full round spells), you can't apply metamagic rods, you need to make a UMD check of 37, and will have a crappy save DC (may not be relevant).
I for one use many scrolls, but I choose them carefully for being either situational, not CL dependent, with an effect even when saved (or without save) and so on. The list grow really thin with all these.
I give most of my scrolls to my lyrakien familiar with a UMD skill of 32 (currently lvl 13). Mostly summons and backup plans, and I found that an arsenal of scrolls is quickly limited and/or inefficient.

That said, remember that OP stated he wants access to 9th lvl spells, and while a buffed juggernaut is something to consider, it doesn't fulfill this criteria, at least the way you did it. That is the main reason for all the flaming on this thread.
OP also said when fighting a wizard one have to assume a worst case scenario, and with access with 9th level spells this scenario is lose on first round. So you'll have to either be the one to make him lose first, or a way to prevent him from making you lose.

Also escape is not the only option to stay alive, a wizard has so many ways to prevent his death it makes GM cry :).

And sorry, Highglander, my sarcasm was meant more for Wassum than you.

No offense taken, I don't doubt your character has been successful in dealing with casters, but it won't be able to deal with someone who wants to stay alive. I had an encounter yesterday against a custom succubus, I didn't even manage to toss a dimensional anchor before she teleported away, and we're discussing high level wizards here, with divination spells and loads of items and contingency plans.

I stand corrected on the beads though, I tend to forget about some of the things UMD can do. However I think it is not really practical to have all these beads to maintain all these buffs.
Also, I never said the target would cast AMF on himself (which as you said is pure suicide for a straight caster), nor did I say that he would use gate to summon something. You can ask your familiar to cast AMF, use gate to bluff your pursuer to follow you and leave him there (and he will follow if he wants to kill you). These are just examples, you can find many threads on these boards discussing combo or creative uses of spells.
On a side note, greater magic dispel have an AOE function spell turning won't prevent.

Back on topic and to suggest more builds, I always wanted to try this, it would be a fun scry and die tactic. With a fire elemental familiar and loads of clones or simulacrum it can be doable :).

prayer beads
Thing is, you can't use it as an arcane spellcaster since you can't cast divine spells. Activating spell trigger or completion items with a divine spell on it doesn't count. Plus it would only gives you +4 caster level. good luck against this guy, which by the way, would be a terrific mage killer with a random man at arms cohort.

"Greater Spell Immunity Duration: 10 minutes/level, CL 24 (480 minutes with Extend Spell = 8 hours duration)It's worth noting that this makes you immune to Greater Dispel Magic, along with a variety of other effects."
It doesn't work on dispel magic, because dispel isn't affected by spell resistance.
spell immunity
=> The warded creature effectively has unbeatable spell resistance regarding the specified spell or spells. Naturally, that immunity doesn't protect a creature from spells for which spell resistance doesn't apply.

So your guy is just a random dude with a "dispel me" sign over his head. One disjunction and he's done. Plus all his buffing won't save him from AMF, gates, massive summoning, prismatic spheres and such, and these are spells discussed here (OP is insisting on ways to defeat 9 level spells).

ps : don't forget that a diviner will almost always go first, and is a possible target for the would be mage killer.

Teleport next to your target, make your familiar cast AMF and stick to your target.
Leave AMF and unleash your planar binded minions, golems or whatever you like while preventing a mundane escape (wall of stone and such).
If the target is able to fight decently without magic you may need to somewhat improve your familiar defences.

"Sorry, what is OP?"
OP means Original Poster, the creator of the Thread. In this one that would be you.

On topic when you polymorph you should know what you expect of the form you'll assume.
You also have to know which book you can choose from. For exemple, catoblepas is from bestiary2, I for one can't use that form.

Also 11th level, you can use form of the dragon, wich is far superior to beast shape since you can still cast spells (provided you have the component).

You can also magic jar (or use a beast bonded witch) an arbiter familiar.

Make a Theologian cleric with the death domain (undead is good, gives enervation), lvl6 you will heal yourself while damaging your foes. Have a few zombies to cover your flanks and back and you'll heal them as well.

As for guides, There is Abraham Spalding's Guide to the Holy Vindicator (or more specifically channeling). It covers channeling.

If you want to do damage with your channeling I strongly suggest not to take a variant channel, it would be like giving a free save on your fireball as a blaster.

For skills and saves, you take the familiar's base as stated in the bestiary, or the master's base, wichever is higher. The familiar uses his own abilities for modifiers. However you can't have a lyrakien with a 6th lvl wizard unless you have some bonus, you need caster level 7.

Ray shield is 5 feat dip

Only 3 you don't already have by my count.

I'd rather, buy a Ring of Evasion as there is no ring of DR 5/-, that said it might be worth it, but I'm not all that worried about blasts.

A level of monk would give evasion, and would only delay armor/weapon training. You don't lose BAB or any bonus feat (you can even get crane wing earlier). Plus you already have your ring slots assigned, with freedom of movement being kind of mandatory you would lose 5 AC.

I fail to see the point of damage reduction a ring of DR would give you when the point of the build is to avoid damage altogether.

You should take a second level of monk to get evasion, without it you'll get hit by AOE spells.
Also consider going for ray shield, 27 touch AC is too easy to hit.

Can't take 10 on saves...1 is always a failure.

You sleep with a guy who stinks, you eat breakfast with him, you travel with him, you can safely assume you'll end accustomed to his scent. Hence the "take 10".

Theres only one infinite that I know of and thats the universe.

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

On a side note, pathfinder comes from d&d, wich himself is an evolution of wargames. I for one still consider a player someone who enjoys rolling dices more than giving life to his character.

Bigger issue however is that when you cast shadow projection on your Familiar it loses all spell-like and supernatural abilities

Is it stated somewhere that he loses them, or just the fact that it is not stated that he keeps them ?

About the points, I think "comatose" is just a description of the lifeless body, it is not a condition like say paralysed or unconscious. So if I hop into said body I should be able to put it in motion as my own.
The issue would be the same if I make the familiar cast magic jar, and take his body casting familiar melding myself. Magic jar does not say "comatose", but "dead as near as anyone can tell", and these are not defined in the game (the latter is not defined at all).

For the 6th point, familiar melding says I take over the body but leave the familiar's consciousness intact, so I was thinking about sending his consciousness into the shadow. The point was more to define the familiar "entity". As it does not cease to exist when I take over the body, so does the link between us.

I thought of this spell combo but I have things that trouble me.
Situation :
- I have an inevitable arbiter as a familiar.
- I have the Improved Share Spells feat
- I cast Shadow projection on him with share spells
- I cast familiar melding

I can't find something making this illegal, if there is please point it out :)

So now I have this situation (I think):
- my body is inanimate
- I occupy my familiar's body*
- The body I occupy has no shadow*
- my familiar is a shadow

*Do I share the shadow with the familiar ? The spell says I take over his body

Assuming I am in my familiar's body:
1 - what happens if I cast a touch spell and make my familiar deliver it
2 - what happens if I cast a personal spell via share spells
3 - what happens if I cast something with improved share spells
4 - what happens if my familiar's shadow is slain
5 - what are my familiar's shadow hit point ?
6 - If I cast familiar melding first, can I cast shadow projection through share spells ?

I was wondering if I could possess the familiar's inanimate body with magic jar, but since it is a soulless body similar to an undead like a zombi or skeleton, I think I can't.

Weapon Specialization on cure spells

I think there's already something about weapon spec only applying on hit point damage, so this would only work on undead.

You must use an attack action wich is a standard action. Charge is a full round action. You can't do both in a given round.

True strike + hydraulic push

Also, go all the way to 30 in UMD and give him scrolls of anti-magic field. Casting AMF through share spells is debatable, the familiar doing it himself is not :)

Highglander: I understand your point of view and see why you are saying what you are saying. I understand the other points of view too and they just make more sense to me. *shrug*

Ultimately the GM has the final say, but "fire the arrow as part of the casting" isn't the same as getting a free attack action

Vital strike requires an attack action, which is a standard action.
Imbue arrow requires to cast a spell, which action it is depends on the spell.
If the spells requires a standard action, you can't use vital strike in the same round you cast the spell since it would require 2 standard actions and you only have one.
If the spell requires a swift action (quicken spell), then you can imbue the arrow and not fire it, then fire the arrow with an attack action using vital strike.

ps: "Highglander rather than Highlander."
I happen to be french, this name has its meaning :)

What kind of action does it take to "fire the arrow"?

you quoted it yourself : "...can fire the arrow as part of the casting"

So it depends on the action required to cast the spell.
And Cheapy already said it, if you want to imbue the arrow and use vital strike in the same round you'll have to quicken the spell.

Ps : hitted faq anyway

You are indeed cherrypicking Rasmus, you are choosing monsters with higher than average damage output but lower than average saves. In such cases healing is one of the worst choice.
Plus I was refering to the monsters guidelines, not encounter ones.

To get back on topic, I support Jodokai experience, but standard action healing should emergency only. To add water to the mill, it is also good to have a reliable mean to top off party HP, CLW wand is good at lower levels, but will seriously cripple the party wealth later. Channel is really good for it, healing skill helps a lot as well, optimising self healing can be good too.

The feat evolved familiar can boost the familiar.
As for some flavorful reason, just pretend your imp was cursed to stay in the raven shape and lose his powers, and you made a deal with him to remove the curse as soon as you are able to (remove curse is a 4th level spell)

I merely said an oracle can, I didn't say she should.

According to the monster building guidelines, a healing action giving more than 16 HP is not a waste @lvl4, the monster is not supposed to deal more on a given round.
A life oracle can do it.

To see a damage output close to 100 you'll have to wait until level 15+

To sum it up :

- eidolon : has human level intelligence (a PC can lower int to 7), so you can talk to him and give him orders as you would the next commoner, just don't try to debate philosophy with him.

- monster summoned : most of them speak a language, if you know that language as well you can order them what to do. If the monster is an animal with the celestial or fiendish template, and has 1-2 int, it has animal level instinct and can be directed with handle animal checks. Otherwise, it just attacks your nearest ennemy.

PRD states : "Creatures of animal-level instinct have Intelligence scores of 1 or 2. Any creature capable of understanding speech has a score of at least 3."
So I assume that an animal with an intelligence of more than 3 can be taught a language, especialy considering that a druid can have a animal companion with int 3 and give him a rank in linguistics.

Thing is, I can't find a creature with 3 or more int that doesn't understand a language. Even big T knows Aklo.

After a quick search I found this have already been debated for animal companions

Default behavior as stated in the spell summon monsters (insert lvl here) is to attack :"It attacks your opponents to the best of its ability".

Then it states : "If you can communicate with the creature, you can direct it not to attack, to attack particular enemies, or to perform other actions."

So to the question "does it require a Handle Animal check to send it into combat?", the answer is no, as the summoned creature does so by default.
However if you want a better control over the creature actions or tell it not to attack, you need to be able to make it understand you.
For outsiders, elementals and some magical beasts, you have to speak a common language, for animals (celestial and fiendish ones) a handle animal check is required.
DC 10 for simple tasks that it knows ("do nothing" is one), DC 25 for tricks it doesn't know.

These are required for creatures with animal intelligence (1 or 2). 3+ int the creature can understand a language.
Eidolons have enough intelligence to understand direct commands, so you don't have to use handle animal or teach them tricks.

If I may :
What happens if I wear a ring of counterspelling (say enervation) and cast enervation on a target with spell turning ?

Not that much of an immunity, but an 8th lvl admixture wizard can change any type of damage to another one over 30 feet.

Change electricity to fire, cast fire shield to halve fire based effects (save for no damage if allowed). Add in some protection and you should be good to go.

The only way I know of is synthesist summoners with the immunity evolution (or the surge to get it).

Another way is to use a construct as an armor (flesh golems heal with lightning damage IIRC)

You may want to look at this guide
If you take the militia feat, you don't need to take a level of another class to get all martial weapons proficiency to get into eldritch knight, wich is what you seem to want.

I should remember to double check the general rules of each school
Thanks for that one :)

My precedent post goal was to point that falling is not lethal by itself, it is the impact with the ground that is.
Thus where do you put the limit ?
In real world
Jumping from 10 feet above the ground won't kill you (you may end crippled). Add in some meatbag on the ground and it may even mitigate the wounds.
20 feet is most likely lethal, but the subject has a chance to survive, and moreover if above water.

Now in pathfinder terms :
I summon a bison 30 feet above a troll. The troll is hit by the bison (reflex for half, I didn't throw the bison).
Large not dense object falling from 30 feet high deals 2d6 damage (7 average, max 12, reflex for half).
Falling from 30 feet high deals 3d6 damage (10-11 average, max 18).
The bison takes a maximum of 18 damage off a total of 42 HP, is still alive, and can go on with his life for the remaining duration of the spell.
Heck, summoning a bison in a catapult is as deadly for it as summoning it 30 feet high.
I can even summon a bison mid-air in a reverse gravity area, it is no different.

PS : Notice how falling in pathfinder is as deadly as standing in a fire :)

As soon as they arrive they fall

This by itself won't kill the bison. You can cast feather fall on it the round it appears.

Summoning a bison on top of a cliff or few yards away where the beast will fall is no different when it comes to "an environment that support them". Thing is, summoning a creature in a position that will ultimately kill it can be considered sadist and may affect alignment :)

Also these might be the threads you where refering to :
- first
- second

Ray of enfeeblement (x2 if need be) + rime burning ray(cold).
If the guy doesn't have more than 10 dex he is paralysed, if he does add grease and staggering fall, then make the rogue fly :D

"The frost of your cold spell clings to the target, impeding it for a short time. A rime spell causes creatures that takes cold damage from the spell to become entangled for a number of rounds equal to the original level of the spell."

Seems to be every time the spell deals damage.

In this regard an elemental blooded sorcerer is much more simpler :).
Might be GM fiat here but I would see this with a rime flaming sphere prepared (3rd lvl spell):
- cast as cold, it is a rime cold sphere
- cast as fire, it is a normal flaming sphere (same with acid/lightning)

"Versatile Evocation (Su): When you cast an evocation spell that does acid, cold, electricity, or fire damage, you may change the damage dealt to one of the other four energy types. This changes the descriptor of the spell to match the new energy type. ..."

As it changes the descriptor you can apply it.
I think you'll have to choose when preparing your spells that it is a cold sphere if you want to apply rime spell.

There are traits that modifies metamagic spells, namely magical lineage and wayang spell hunter.
Vampiric touch is a great spell for tank arcane spellcasters with spell perfection. Good damage dealing and reliable self healing.

If you're a wizard trying to cast vampiric touch on a dragon, something's already gone horribly wrong! :)

If I'm a touch spec tank sorcerer I can use the free additional x1.5 damage that convert into temporary HP.

Fire vampiric touch on a white dragon ?

He even pretty much said it :)

if this unholy build

Fire mephit for some tsar bomba
1- have a fire mephit
2- make a lesser simulacrum of said mephit
3- possess simulacrum
4- BOOOOM

Actually finding a story for a razmiran priest is rather easy, even if limited to quite a few alignement (not so much considering a paladin).
Imagine a missionary (more like a fanatic) that go from country to country to preach and convert new followers. Bad luck, he is sucked into some big plot and is forced to work with some other people (his fellow PCs) to survive and continue his sacred mission.
Now along their path, the razmiran priest will try to convert his companions and will either succeed or be submerged with doubts on his beliefs.

Just a thought

can I be CG? Possibly.

Razmir is your god, and while many of razmiran inhabitants want to be part of his clergy as it seams the easiest way to wealth, they are first led to the heart of the exalted woods to be indoctrinated.

Shinigami
It think so :)

You're thinking "shinigami", which are gods of death. Shikigami are spirits summons by occult adepts, much like familiar really.

Nope, SR doesn't scale, and it is not even debatable like the silvanshee lay on hands.
Thing I found is that as construct have HP bonus based on size, polymorph into huge should give him decent HP.

Arbiters are not very impressive on their own, but as familiars they have all the best buff spells in the game available, and doesn't even have to take a round to cast them. An arbiter polymorphed into a dragon with transformation (check with GM for CL->HD), mirror image and such can pretty much kill anything.