HorrorshowJack's page

So we converted from D20 modern to Modern Path, and my character changed from a Mage to a Mystic. Which I'm liking. Can't wrap my head around using the Oracle spell list for a Demon tainted arcanist, and Witch is just wrong. Why would a New England blue blood with an Ivy League education use a spell list that revolves round swamps, rustic living, and hags?

My DM seems amenable to me creating a custom spell list roughly similar in power to the witch list, so no general purpose area-effect destruction, or not so good ones at any rate. He might decide I need to pick either Oracle or Witch though.

Overall, any advice on how to choose wisely? Or how would you choose? Bearing in mind:

By world law summoning & planar allies are invocation only, so that's out.

How many magic weapons/wands/rods did you find on your last trip to K-Mart? Yeah, me too. They're freakishly rare, but 1911A1s are available in a wide variety of finishes. They're a simple weapon also, so my character can use one. (Debating between Nambu Model 60 and a Walther PPK for general usage.)

Modern transportation, computers, the interwebs, etc all exist, and make a lot of PF cool spells kind of pointless.

Also, this character has access to low level divination stuff as spell-like abilities via feats.

Campaign is occult detective based, with major combats relatively rare.

Add in Headband of Vast Intelligence +6.

Find some way to gain an inherent bonus to intelligence. Both methods that I can think of involve 3rd party products:

1) Take the Eldritch Heritage line of feats to acquire the Aboleth sorcerer bloodline from Kobold Press. This will give you +2 at 11th level, +4 at 15th level, and +6 at 19th level if you have a charisma of 13+, at a cost of three feats. If you have a charisma of 15+, you can get that last boost at 17th level instead of 19th.

2) Become an Oracle with either the Lore mystery or the Enlightened Philosopher archetype so that you can select the Mental Acuity revelation at 7th level -- this gives you +1 to intelligence at that level and every 3 levels thereafter. Of course, since the Oracle is a charisma based caster, this approach is impractical without the 3rd party feat Spell Finesse (which lets you change your spellcasting stat).

Alternatively, if you want to have really high Knowledge bonuses, you could become a Bard (either standard or VMC) to add half your level to all your checks as well as select feats that boost Knowledge. Various feats such as Breadth of Experience (practical only for an Elf) can also help here. This approach will help with "knowing everything" even without a lot of skill points -- a single point in each skill and making all knowledge skills while focusing on intelligence can give you some really nice Knowledge skill bonuses.

3rd party but the Riddle mystery offers Inspired Mind which is almost identical to Mental Accuity, but has an untyped bonus. So they should stack.

I used it to send Nitroglycerin into a Ship's powder room once. So glad that character had evasion.

in the old 2nd Ed days, Dragon Magazine had an optional Comeliness stat for beauty, and added 3d6 or 4d6(take best 3) roll after the base 6 stats were set, adjusted by Cha mod. An optional rule but found use from time to time.

Played in a campaign using that rule. Wound up as the world's sexiest mongrelfolk.

Prehensile hair can manipulate objects as dexterously as hands. So that means it can deliver touch spells, and fulfill the somatic component of spellcasting right?

We have a couple players who make charts for all their possible attacks. They roll their die, add their situational modifiers, check the chart, and done. Makes it so fast. We can do a decent combat with a half dozen enemies in like 20 minutes.

We have another guy who did the color coded multiple dice thing. Speeds things up well.

I've been doing the color coded multiple dice thing for years and love it. Speeds up combat and multiple knowledge checks nicely. Finally have some of my players doing it too.

Charts or a cheat sheet are nice, even for people who are good at math. Saves you the time required to look stuff up.

Solar powered calculator is also a good thing to have.

Thanks everyone. Makes sense now.

Wondering if they can choose not to have it active, or is it something they have no control over? Seems like they should be able to turn it off, otherwise it doesn't make much sense that they're the go to evil wizard squeeze.

Similarly, can medusas choose not to have their gaze attack active, or is that only if you're using the In The Company of Medusas third party thing?

Should result in squeezing penalty, unless the Pack Flanking write-up specifically negates it.

Brother Fen wrote:

Try tackling an undead filled dungeon without a cleric or paladin and see how you feel about it afterward.

Undead have no special resistance to Wizards, etc.

Brother Fen wrote:

How many locked doors and boxes have to turn you away before you realize someone has to not min-max and actually play a skill based character that can open locks.

I have never seen this be a serious problem. Most locks can be dealt with by bashing or magic.

Brother Fen wrote:

Not having a mage becomes an evident weakness when encountering swarms or something swooping overhead out of reach.

The latter can be dealt with by missile weapons.

Brother Fen wrote:

Try putting the wizard or rogue up front to great the onrushing throng of orcs while the fighter in plate mail brings up the rear. It just doesn't make sense.

You put the wizard up front because he's got Mirror Image and other protection spells. You put the rogue up front either because he's got super high dexterity-based AC or because he's a disappointing character and you want him to die. You put the fighter at the back because he's an optimized archer.

Brother Fen wrote:

And of course someone will gainsay every example anyone uses because - that's the internet for you.

Glad I could help.

Yeah I went through several levels as both my party's lock/trap guy and healer while playing a [ToS] warlock. Spent a trait to get perception in class with a +1 bonus, took Summon Monster II as a school ability, and I had Detect Magic which covered most of the thieving stuff. I also had SF: UMD and maxed ranks which had me auto success on wands by 8th level.

Warlock Lock Picking: throw acid at it until it breaks.
Warlock Trap Detection: my earth elemental triggered it.
Warlock Stealth: corpses don't get perception checks.
Warlock Healing: Wands of CLW, Lesser Restoration, Remove Curse, Remove Disease. Or potions if you can get away with it.

66. A copy of this month's Wands & Manna bulletin. The aasimar pictured midway has no idea how to use a wand properly.

67. A bag of gourmet coffee. The beans were hand selected from Unicorn poo, which greatly affects the flavor and restorative properties.

68. A fully-functional, anatomically-correct flesh golem.

69. A small greenhouse for pipeweed.

70. A preserved fetal aboleth.

71. Jimmy Hoffa.

72. A butterfly collection. And by butterfly I mean tiny/diminutive fey.

73. An erotic sketch of a Night Hag. There's a note written in Infernal in the bottom corner next to a lipstick print. "That was entertaining. Same time next year?

74. Moldy dishes and broken laboratory glass.

75. Dragon Eggs. Most are broken, and some show chemical burns.

76. Pottery shards.

77. A collection of skulls most of which radiate necromancy under detect magic.

78. A library. Several of the books are bound in the skin of humanoids and make odd noises when opened.

Knowledge Psionics? That way if you're using monstrous creatures as opponents you can slide them from Arcane to Psionics.

Use Psionic Device if such things exist in your world.

The M&M/D20 Modern & Future skill lists might work well for your setting.

Arachnofiend wrote:

HorrorshowJack wrote:

I almost always ban Paladin as a GM. My experience with them as a player has been overwhelmingly negative, and I've never seen a group have more fun because one was present. They tend to cause as many problems as most CE thieves imo.

This post makes my current Paladin sad. ;n;

I've seen enough horror stories to understand the frustration with the class, but I really don't think there's anything innately wrong with it and the problem is with the players.

Indeed, I've probably played paladin more often in the last several years than any other class, and I've always enjoyed the challenge of playing one. I have never encountered the horror stories I see online concerning paladins, so it must be a player problem.

I admit I like the mechanics of the paladin. I know it's a player problem caused by the code restrictions and flavor text. However, I started playing in the 80s and there are a lot of players and groups in my past. If basically every group with a paladin in it has turned painful, then I really have to conclude that the class is a problem.

DMs are also part of my issues admittedly. I've seen a few groups forcibly turn into the paladin and his merry band of sidekicks. I've played sidekick or support characters before, but it's only when there's a paladin involved that they get treated like NPCs and I don't have a choice in the matter.

In previous campaigns I've let the various religious champion prestige classes assume the role and name. Seems to work out better for the group.

I almost always ban Paladin as a GM. My experience with them as a player has been overwhelmingly negative, and I've never seen a group have more fun because one was present. They tend to cause as many problems as most CE thieves imo.

Beyond that I tend to adjust classes based on whatever game world I'm using. My current campaign is Non-Tolkien and we're mostly using the Tome of Secrets, and Mosaic Mage is the only full-progression arcanist.

The World's Sexiest Mongrelman wrote poetry for hire and tried to evangelize.

Valrethis (formerly Tim) the warlock studied new languages and tried finding practice partners for all 24 that he spoke. He even taught himself the dead language of the High Mages and wrote graffti in it. (He frequently claimed that if you had real magic you wouldn't need to study wizardry, and generally referred to them as toymakers.)

Onesimus, an aspiring Mage in d20 modern, is a playwright and trust fund baby.

Xanatia was a diplomat and courtesan. She slept around and caused trouble more than she adventured.

Ulfgar the Dwarven jeweller and follower of Ellistrae: slept with Elves, tried making friends with hellhounds (successfully), avoided charitable quests like the plague, and caused DM angst by trying to get NPC pay rates for skill uses. Seriously the DMGII rules for making money were bad.

Skratsik (formerly human sorcerer turned dragon) was busy handling the administration and operations of a privateer company.

Faerie Dragon.

Would you rather be a tiefling inquisitor in a party of paladins, or an aasimar warlock in a party of tieflings?

Vamps, ghosts, and magic wielding nobles are the traditional ones. Werewolves also show up some.

Rakshasas would be a great one. The shape shifting thing, and taste for the high life would work perfectly.

Stock a convent with succubae.
Incubi show up in quite a few. At least among the more modern ones.

Allips
Banshees
Barghests

JamesCooke is right about how to get the horror going though. It's largely in what you reveal --or don't-- and how.

Ask questions about small, usually insignificant, thing about the players' actions. Opening a door-- which hand? If you do it a bit, it will nudge players to pay more attention to the little things.

Throw in the occasional phantom saving throw. Then look concerned and say you'll tell them later.

Remember to keep your Animal Husbandry skill maxed out.

Short Story for an official collection.

Grapple a succubus or kiss a flumph?

Ignoring the fact that handedness isn't a rule, I'd go with treating her attacks as off-handed, but only a -4 penalty to skill checks normally performed with two hands. If this status persists, consider reducing penalties by 1 every level.

Decided to go with this. Thanks.

Assuming she doesn't do anything else ridiculous that's (bwaahahahahahaa) she should be able to get her hand regenned when they leave the dungeon.

So the party's rogue recently fed her hand to a basilisk by being a rogue. She lost her dominant hand to boot. Not sure there are any rules covering this. Two questions:

1. I'm thinking -2 penalty for attacks due to being off-handed, with the possibility of training it out. Does this seem reasonable?

2. How do you make Disable Device checks one handed? I'm thinking if you hold a tool in your mouth maybe, but using a -10 penalty. Again to much, or is there an actual rule about this somewhere?

Thanks guys. =)

HorrorshowJack wrote:

Bandw2 wrote:

can you use enhance water on your own "waste" to significantly lower the amount of water one needs to carry with you?

i swear my player's sometimes, but can it be done?

Urine is basically just contaminated water, so it would work for the spell. People actually drink it on a daily basis as a homeopathic medicine thing already. Might be a pretty dark ale though.

It should also work on sweat and drool if you collect enough.

However, since the spell turns it into alcohol you'd actually get more dehydrated by drinking the result than the original urine. Purify water would work for the purpose, but I don't know how much of a reduction you'd get in carrying requirements.

the dehydration thing is actually false or at least the mainstay of most pre-modern civilizations was some alcoholic beverage since it was more sanitary than normal water usually. alcohol doesn't just zap you of water and is actually mostly water anyway.

Yeah I don't think that it zaps water from the body. However, drinking a lot of yummy intoxicants will lead to a hangover. Which is basically just dehydration.

Russians still drink kvass all day, which also has alcohol. However, it's less than 1% alcohol. The types pre-modern civs used for continual consumption were usually, to the best of my knowledge very low alcohol content. I agree they were less unsanitary than drinking water in many places.

The two types mentioned in the spell are much higher alcohol contents. Unless they're talking about small beer, ale is normally 4-7%. Wine varies a lot, but I think it's rarely lower than that. They could be talking about the low alcohol sanitary type, but the spell doesn't explicitly say that. It seems counterintuitive since there is already nearly unlimited magic to purify water in the first place.

HorrorshowJack wrote:

I think you're wrong. Bob can't cast third level spells, or any spells at all, so he doesn't qualify for Eldritch Knight. However, he would satisfy a prerequisite that specifically required casting Daylight.

3.5 went into great lengths on this after Warlocks and DFAs came out, my reading of the Core faq is that it's intended to work the same way.

Since casting arcane spells dne having spell-like abilities, I'd say the penalty shouldn't apply.

You are incorrect. I assume you are reading from this:

Spell-Like Abilities, Casting, and Prerequisites: Does a creature with a spell-like ability count as being able to cast that spell for the purpose of prerequisites or requirements?

Yes.
For example, the Dimensional Agility feat (Ultimate Combat) has "ability to use the abundant step class feature or cast dimension door" as a prerequisite; a barghest has dimension door as a spell-like ability, so the barghest meets the "able to cast dimension door prerequisite for that feat.

Edit 7/12/13: The design team is aware that the above answer means that certain races can gain access to some spellcaster prestige classes earlier than the default minimum (character level 6).

Without reading this:

Prestige Class Requirements: If a prestige class requires 5 ranks in a skill and I have 6 ranks in that skill, do I still meet the requirements?

Yes, because skill ranks are inclusive: if you have 6 ranks in a skill, then you have 5 ranks in that skill, and therefore meet the "have 5 ranks in [this] skill" requirement.

In the same way, if you have a BAB of +6, then you have a BAB of +5, and therefore meet the "have BAB +5" requirement.

In the same way, if you have Str 15, then you have Str 13, and therefore meet the "Str 13" feat prerequisite for Power Attack.

However, spellcasting ability is not inclusive: it is possible (mainly through the use of spell-like abilities) to be able to cast 3rd-level spells but...

Yeah I haven't seen that second part before. Don't think it makes a lot of sense either.

Need to make sure I'm doing them right for a high level npc.

AC
Starting with a race that has +1 Natural Armor, and base Dex 10, Cha 14. They're a dragonish equivalent to tieflings and aasimar.

Has or could have the following:
Improved Natural Armor (feat) Improves Nat Armor by 1.
Nature’s Whispers (Oracle Nature mys) use Cha for AC and CMD instead of dex.
Half Dragon (via 10 level prestige class) +4 NA, +2 Cha
Metal-Clad [Mythral] +5 CR +8 NA, +0 Dex, +2 Cha
Via Barbarian +1 NA
He's also been embiggened and has a -2 dex, -1 size ac bonus.

Okay. I don't think the Barbarian would work since it doesn't specifically say it increases natural armor. It would give you a base NA of +1, so there's no benefit. Templates change the original creature and are applied sequentially, so both would apply.

So naked he has: AC 27 (10 +4 Cha + 14 NA + -1 size) Touch 13 Flatfooted 23. Right?

TREASURE
He's supposed to be a challenge rating 20. Since he has 15 levels and a cr5 template I'm a little uncertain which value to use and why: level 15 PC or Level 20 PC.

NPC treasure on a class based character generally drops the cr by one, so I know level 15 npc is out. Level 20 heroic npc is lower than level 15 pc so I can eliminate that as a choice also. Should treasure increase to reflect the template or not?

According to the Core Rulebook FAQ, spell-like abilities satisfy prerequisites for item crafting feats, item creation and prestige class requirements. An SLA does not, however, count as having the spell on a class list for the purpose of activating spell completion and spell trigger items.

Example: A 6th. level Aasimar fighter, named Bob, has a Daylight 1/day SLA. Bob could have taken craft arms and armor at 5th. level. Bob can use his SLA to craft Radiant armor. Bob can qualify for Eldritch Knight because he is "able to cast 3rd.-level arcane spells." Bob cannot, however, activate a wand of Daylight (without use magic device).

I believe that Bob counts as "a creature that can cast arcane spells" and would receive a -4 penalty to his Will save vs. feeblemind. Is that correct?

Thanks!

I think you're wrong. Bob can't cast third level spells, or any spells at all, so he doesn't qualify for Eldritch Knight. However, he would satisfy a prerequisite that specifically required casting Daylight.

3.5 went into great lengths on this after Warlocks and DFAs came out, my reading of the Core faq is that it's intended to work the same way.

Since casting arcane spells dne having spell-like abilities, I'd say the penalty shouldn't apply.

Bandw2 wrote:

can you use enhance water on your own "waste" to significantly lower the amount of water one needs to carry with you?

i swear my player's sometimes, but can it be done?

Urine is basically just contaminated water, so it would work for the spell. People actually drink it on a daily basis as a homeopathic medicine thing already. Might be a pretty dark ale though.

It should also work on sweat and drool if you collect enough.

However, since the spell turns it into alcohol you'd actually get more dehydrated by drinking the result than the original urine. Purify water would work for the purpose, but I don't know how much of a reduction you'd get in carrying requirements.

Purify Food & Drink I mean.

can you use enhance water on your own "waste" to significantly lower the amount of water one needs to carry with you?

i swear my player's sometimes, but can it be done?

Urine is basically just contaminated water, so it would work for the spell. People actually drink it on a daily basis as a homeopathic medicine thing already. Might be a pretty dark ale though.

It should also work on sweat and drool if you collect enough.

However, since the spell turns it into alcohol you'd actually get more dehydrated by drinking the result than the original urine. Purify water would work for the purpose, but I don't know how much of a reduction you'd get in carrying requirements.

Only if the enemy is denied their dex bonus for some reason.
So the two main times are:
If they haven't acted on a surprise round and don't have uncanny dodge.

If you're invisible or the opponent is blind.

I think you can also get it if you're attacking from stealth and the opponent isn't aware of you, but I'm not sure. Seems like it should be since you are effectively invisible if you make your stealth check.

I've both played and currently allow the class as a GM. I'm fond of the class, but it has some screwups due to being released the same day as Pathfinder.

My takes:
School abilities take a standard action or listed action, whichever is less.

For DR pick Cold Iron, Silver or Magic as your vulnerability. You can't get rid of it, but it scales as listed.

Give option of bonus feats instead of med/heavy armor mastery. They don't get proficiency with the heavier armors and their school abilities are supernaturals so it's kind of a moot point. Seriously who cares about losing a cantrip?

Fill in the blank levels with two additional cantrips. 2 for 1 should also be the exchange rate for school abilities. Nobody would ever take just a cantrip instead.

Change arcane burst etc to a reflex save instead of a touch attack. It makes no sense that you can miss a blurred opponent who is still in the blast radius.

@ghostwheelx Nope. School abilities are supernatural so you can use them while grappled etc, and they don't provoke attacks of opportunity. Also ignores spell resistance. Downside is you can't crit them.

@Yuenglingdragon Into the breach's version is the only thing in pathfinder with unlimited healing capabilities. Additionally there aren't enough useful revelations to fill in the class unless your gm is allowing all the 3rd party ones.