JBGamer2300's page

Greetings Paizozanos,

I am writing this post to seek clarification on and/or vent about a situation in Pathfinder that I really wish would not be so. Essentially, my subject line states that situation: In all guides I have read on this site, damage dealing builds and high, or even reasonable Int and Wis scores seem to be totally mutually exclusive. There are probably a few exceptions, (for example Ranger builds seem to have reasonable mental scores) but what I really want to do in this game is essentially use my character's intellect not merely to outwit my opposition, but to actually tangibly rain down painful death on them with it without having to resort to such vulgarities as physically swinging a big sharp metal stick at them. I have yet to come across any class in Pathfinder that allows me to do this, or rather, a character class who's accepted role is to do this. My foremost thought was a wizard, but I learned that they are more typically and effectively used for such subtleties as battlefield control, buffing, and debuffing, which is still not my preferred style. Even worse, the very idea of a blaster wizard seems to be the target of significant scorn by those writing guides for wizards--clearly wizard is not the way to go for me.

Now, I fully realize I am almost definitely missing something here, and it is very true that I have not looked through all the guides posted for all the classes on that thread stickied on the advice section of the forum. So, with the idea of what I want out of a tabletop RPG character clearly spelled out for you all, could someone be so kind as to point me in the right direction?

Greetings Paizoites, I apologize in advance if this is somehow a stupid question, or if it has been answered elsewhere and I just didn't find it.

Essentially my problem is this: I want to buy a masterwork heavy wooden darkwood shield, but I find the exact wording about the cost of darkwood in my corebook pretty ambiguous. It's only 3rd printing so if they changed the wording please let me know. The bit that has me confused is this:

"To determine the price of a darkwood item, use the original weight but add 10 gp per pound to the price of a masterwork version of that item."

This suggests to me that darkwood items cost the same as a non-darkwood masterwork item with the addition of the 10gp per pound. However, the way this is phrased does not seem to explicitly say that darkwood items are automatically masterwork items. Therefore, my conclusion is that in order to make a masterwork version of a darkwood item, I will essentially have to pay the masterwork cost twice. Meaning the actual cost for, say, a masterwork darkwood heavy wooden shield would be 150gp (masterwork cost) + 150gp (darkwood cost) + 100gp (weight cost) +7gp (basic item cost) for a grand total of 407gp.

Am I totally out of my mind here and about to stiff myself 150gp, or is this actually how it works?