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Hey, sorry if the title is a bit confusing, but a player of mine recently gained a custom mimic as a pet and I'm looking for some advice on how to design it so it can be a somewhat balanced aid in combat.

A bit of backstory before I start, the player who acquired it is on the low end of power level in the group (He's playing a non-optimized bad touch cleric in a group that has some other rather optimized characters) so I'd like it to be pretty strong, though not into the overpowered range.

Here's what I've established so far:

The mimic is not an actual mimic, but an enhanced version that has many capabilities that normal ones do not.

The mimic is capable of taking of the form of living beings, but has very low intelligence doing so, and can only mimic actions and voices that it sees the creature doing.

When taking the form of an intelligent being, it's movements are erratic and clumsy, as it doesn't know how to function as that being.

Here's where the combat stuff starts to come into play. The mimic can take the form of magic items, and function as that item.

The mimic can take the form of wands, and cast the spell as the wand does.

I have added a balancing mechanic, one that I think might work pretty well. The mimic requires water to function, specifically conjured water (It eats the magic in it or something similar.) If it's used as a magic item, after a certain period of time it'll require a good deal of water to continue functioning, or get burned out or something similar. If it's used as a wand, it'd require a certain amount of water to function again.

I think this mechanic is good for a few reasons. One, it's something that'd eat into action economy (Using standards to cast create water so you can get another use of your mimic friend). Two, the amount that water the create water cantrip creates scales with level, so it'll help the mimic not grow obsolete as the campaign goes on. Three, the players can try and find inventive solutions around that, which I love to watch and might have some fun messing with.

Now, the real problem I'm having is the specific implementation. I'm not that experienced of a GM, this is the first long-term campaign I've run. Balancing encounters is still a bit of an issue with me, and I'm not completely sure on my ability to make the mimic strong without being overpowered, and also have the way it works clear so the player can understand it.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to need two different systems, one for items that cast spells like wands and one for magic items. I'm also thinking of adding a mechanic where the mimic gets tired after a while and can't be used until it has a full days rest, to prevent infinite casting.

The basic idea I have for wands and similar is that the mimic will require 10 gallons of water for each spell level of the wand it casts the spell as. For example, a single cast of a level 1 wand would be 10 gallons, a level 2 would be 20, and so on.

For magic items I'm less sure on the duration and effect. I was thinking of going off the caster level of the item and using that to determine how long it can be in the form before recharging, but I'm really not sure on the equation I'd use.

Do you guys have any thoughts or suggestions? Any feedback is appreciated, I'm really hoping that I'll be able to make a fun and functional system out of this.

Thanks for reading!

Hey, sorry if the title is a bit confusing, but a player of mine recently gained a custom mimic as a pet and I'm looking for some advice on how to design it so it can be a somewhat balanced aid in combat.

A bit of backstory before I start, the player who acquired it is on the low end of power level in the group (He's playing a non-optimized bad touch cleric in a group that has some other rather optimized characters) so I'd like it to be pretty strong, though not into the overpowered range.

Here's what I've established so far:

The mimic is not an actual mimic, but an enhanced version that has many capabilities that normal ones do not.

The mimic is capable of taking of the form of living beings, but has very low intelligence doing so, and can only mimic actions and voices that it sees the creature doing.

When taking the form of an intelligent being, it's movements are erratic and clumsy, as it doesn't know how to function as that being.

Here's where the combat stuff starts to come into play. The mimic can take the form of magic items, and function as that item.

The mimic can take the form of wands, and cast the spell as the wand does.

I have added a balancing mechanic, one that I think might work pretty well. The mimic requires water to function, specifically conjured water (It eats the magic in it or something similar.) If it's used as a magic item, after a certain period of time it'll require a good deal of water to continue functioning, or get burned out or something similar. If it's used as a wand, it'd require a certain amount of water to function again.

I think this mechanic is good for a few reasons. One, it's something that'd eat into action economy (Using standards to cast create water so you can get another use of your mimic friend). Two, the amount that water the create water cantrip creates scales with level, so it'll help the mimic not grow obsolete as the campaign goes on. Three, the players can try and find inventive solutions around that, which I love to watch and might have some fun messing with.

Now, the real problem I'm having is the specific implementation. I'm not that experienced of a GM, this is the first long-term campaign I've run. Balancing encounters is still a bit of an issue with me, and I'm not completely sure on my ability to make the mimic strong without being overpowered, and also have the way it works clear so the player can understand it.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to need two different systems, one for items that cast spells like wands and one for magic items. I'm also thinking of adding a mechanic where the mimic gets tired after a while and can't be used until it has a full days rest, to prevent infinite casting.

The basic idea I have for wands and similar is that the mimic will require 10 gallons of water for each spell level of the wand it casts the spell as. For example, a single cast of a level 1 wand would be 10 gallons, a level 2 would be 20, and so on.

For magic items I'm less sure on the duration and effect. I was thinking of going off the caster level of the item and using that to determine how long it can be in the form before recharging, but I'm really not sure on the equation I'd use.

Do you guys have any thoughts or suggestions? Any feedback is appreciated, I'm really hoping that I'll be able to make a fun and functional system out of this.

Thanks for reading!

Do you guys have any suggestions on how a sorcerer could deal with a creature that generated a constant anti magic field around its body?

Any suggestions on a way to transport things like gold or items a long distance? Courier services might work, but with large amounts of valuables they might not be trustable.

Backstory is that I have a character whose reason for adventuring is to provide gold for his family. He will be traveling long distances (Hundreds of miles) away from home and wants a reliable way to get the gold back.

Any help is appreciated, thanks

The studied expertise feat says that "You can spend one use of inspiration as a swift action to grant allies within 30 feet that can hear you a +4 insight bonus on attack rolls against one type of monster for 1 round, provided you succeeded at a Knowledge check to identify that type of monster’s special powers".

Would a human count as a type of monster for this kind of feat?

Hey, I have an idea for a build that's a bard who runs a dojo, claiming to be a master of karate and making money by training disciples who pay him. In reality he just has a really high score in Perform (Karate) (Custom perform that acts as Perform Dance) and Bluff.

Problem is I have never built a bard before, and I'm not really sure how to go about this. I read some guides on the class, but I'm still not too sure which way to go with it. Any suggestions are welcome.

Would Brawler's Flurry and Flurry of Maneuvers work together?

Flurry of Maneuvers reads

At 1st level, as part of a full-attack action, a maneuver master can make one additional combat maneuver, regardless of whether the maneuver normally replaces a melee attack or requires a standard action. The maneuver master uses his monk level in place of his base attack bonus to determine his CMB for the bonus maneuvers, though all combat maneuver checks suffer a –2 penalty when using a flurry.

And Brawler's Flurry says

Starting at 2nd level, a brawler can make a brawler's flurry as a full-attack action. When doing so, a brawler has the Two-Weapon Fighting feat when attacking with any combination of unarmed strikes, weapons from the close fighter weapon group, or weapons with the "monk" special feature. She does not need to use two different weapons to use this ability.

Since Flurry of Maneuvers says that it's as part of a full attack action, and Brawler's Flurry is a full attack action, would they work together?

Would Brawler's Flurry and Flurry of Maneuvers work together?

Flurry of Maneuvers reads

At 1st level, as part of a full-attack action, a maneuver master can make one additional combat maneuver, regardless of whether the maneuver normally replaces a melee attack or requires a standard action. The maneuver master uses his monk level in place of his base attack bonus to determine his CMB for the bonus maneuvers, though all combat maneuver checks suffer a –2 penalty when using a flurry.

And Brawler's Flurry says

Starting at 2nd level, a brawler can make a brawler's flurry as a full-attack action. When doing so, a brawler has the Two-Weapon Fighting feat when attacking with any combination of unarmed strikes, weapons from the close fighter weapon group, or weapons with the "monk" special feature. She does not need to use two different weapons to use this ability.

Since Flurry of Maneuvers says that it's as part of a full attack action, and Brawler's Flurry is a full attack action, would they work together?

You are better off probably diverting a local stream/river via irrigation.

Or have a higher level spellcaster use weather control spells.

The setting has no streams/ponds/lakes due to a curse by a god, which is why the government is resorting to this.

Yeah, boiling it seems like the best option so far. I've been trying to look for a monster that might fit the definition of consuming it, but haven't found anything yet.

A decanter doesn't really produce the flow I need. I'm looking for enough water to keep a large kingdom running, which by my calculations would be around 76 million gallons per day. A decanter costs 4.5k gold to be crafted, and would produce about 2.5 million gallons per day, so you'd need 31 of them, which would come up to 139k gold. A first level caster kept as a slave could produce 115,000 gallons per day, which means you would need about 22 caster slaves to produce that. Assuming that spaces have no upkeep cost since they can expend a level one spell slot to be fully fed, that means it'd have to cost over 220ish gold to capture a caster for it to be less price effective then a decanter. In the setting I have in mind a 100 gold bounty would probably be enough to capture a Druid, even less if you hire a squad to do it.

Overall you'd need 661ish caster to fuel the nation, which would be 66,100 gold, less then half the price.

Plus it's a good evil kingdom plot hook.

I understand it's intentional, but RAW can be worked around. Also, this isn't the players doing it, it's me using it as a plot point (So I basically have free reign to do anything, even if it's cheesy)

As for siccatite, that's an interesting idea. After reading it, it might even be better to go for the hot version and evaporate it. It'd be a bit of a stretch, but plausible.

One of the main ideas of this is to RAW create huge volumes of water cheaply, by spamming a cantrip. Sadly using a spell slot would mean no spamming.

Yeah, I had the idea of something like that, but it wouldn't work for the high volumes I'd be covering.

I don't think this is a rules question, but it might be. If so, sorry.

Create water has the caveat This water disappears after 1 day if not consumed.

What would your creative solution to getting around that be? I'm GMing a game that has a lot of people using that to create high volumes of water, but that part of the spell sort of puts a damper on those plans.

I could just house rule it, or make a custom magic item, but I'd prefer to find some way within the mechanics of the game that'd work.

It'd have to deal with huge amounts of water at a time, and being cheap would be a plus side. Creative interpretations of 'consumed' are welcome and probably necessary.

I'd love to hear your ideas!

The khaei, from Inner Sea Bestiary, have a touch attack that ages a creature by 1d10 years.

There's also the cursed unguent of aging, which ages a creature by 30 years. (I had a villain - a souldrinker of Charon - that was going to use that stuff on a PC.)

The Khaei is great, just what I was looking for! Thank you!

Is there any way in pathfinder to cause permanent aging? I've been looking for a while and all I can find is a ghost's corrupted touch ability, which seems to only cause the damage of aging, and changing the timescale on a demiplane. Are there any other options?